Man-Kzin Wars XII

by Larry Niven

  The aft part of the ship contained several cargo holds, whose partitioning could be altered. Richard wondered briefly if it might have been a slave transport; it was just barely old enough. There was a control center well forward. The engineers had sleeping cabins near the engine spaces, the rest of the personnel about the control center. There were many empty cabins and other spaces, some of these suggestive to a trained eye. As Charrgh-Captain had said, there was plenty of room.

  Sometimes in the wars, humans, who, one way or another, found themselves sharing ships with kzinti, had managed to elude or ambush those kzinti by climbing through ducting too narrow for the great felinoids to enter. Richard noticed, not without wry amusement, that Cunning Stalker appeared to have been refitted with memories of this in mind. Any ducting too small to admit a kzin was either also too small to admit a human, or else covered with very tough gratings.

  Overall, it contained few surprises for the humans, though much of the machinery and instrumentation was quite alien to them. Both Richard and Gay had long ago absorbed the standard layout of various classes of kzinti ships through imprinting, as part of their reserve officer training, but those designs were from the Red Age, pre-hyperdrive, when transit times were measured in decades; back then, any innovation meant newly arrived personnel would require complete retraining. Nowadays changes could be implemented Empire-wide in months, with the result that the Guthlacs found the latest kzinti designs just short of baffling. The control center was downright intimidating, with three kzinti busy at instrument consoles whose combined complexity was worthy of a hospital doc. The ports had not yet been opaqued for the transition to hyperspace, and Kzinhome's primary was a vast red ball filling the sky to one side as they skimmed it. (Slingshot maneuvers were thrifty if there was no hurry, and of course kzinti were up on all the gravity business.)

  There too was Telepath, smaller, bowed, skittering nervously about, not daring yet to sleep. Beside the tigerish magnificence of Charrgh-Captain, and after the tall, strong, normal-looking Wunderkzin telepaths Richard and Gay knew at home on Wunderland, the twitchy, doomed, neurotic creature was an awful sight. Looking at him, they understood afresh why so many telepath POWs had aided humanity; and why so many other telepaths, stranded in the Centauri System after its liberation in the first great war, had been so eager to throw in their lot with humanity, with its milder, less-destructive drugs, and to take human names and loyalties.

  Richard and Gay were used to non-humans, particularly kzinti—on Wunderland there were Wunderkzin they thought of as companions and friends. But these were not Wunderkzin. The Guthlacs' nerves were on edge in the ruddy orange light, hulking tigerish forms around them.

  The last time they had flown with Charrgh-Captain, he had been the attached observer, and their crew had been two other humans and a Wunderkzin. Now they felt their minority status with painful nervous tension. It was not improved by the knowledge that even nontelepathic kzinti could sense emotions, so that their companions were certainly aware of how the humans felt. Even Earth canines could smell fear, and to kzinti it could be an intoxicant. It was a relief to thank Charrgh-Captain for the tour and close their cabin door behind them.

  "This bed is something!" Gay commented, bouncing on it. "And the covers are real fabric! I was half-afraid they'd be human skin or something."

  Richard bounced onto the bed beside her. Was the gravity here less? It was something the kzinti could arrange easily enough, but he had not anticipated such thoughtfulness. Gay grabbed him and wound her arms around him.

  "I do feel a bit nervous here," she said, "and I think I need some comforting."

  "You want to make love now?"

  "Yes. Don't you? I think we'd better give this bed a test flight." She grabbed him and pulled him down.

  I feel sorry for those who need new partners all the time, Richard thought afterward as they lay in each other's arms, dreamy and contented, thoughts drifting. They had been married nearly twenty years, and the more they knew one another's bodies the better they became, even as—something they had once thought impossible—their love for one another seemed to continue to deepen. This is perfection, he thought, kissing his wife's skin. Most twenty-ninth-century human bodies were perfect, but beyond that their minds, spirits, and desires were in a radiant union. Lying together there, his arms about her, it was as if each basked in an aura of the other's comfort, happiness, and contentment. He murmured something below speech, running his knuckles along her spine.

  She turned away from him, her curves of shoulder and back and buttocks making her seem rather more surrendered and giving than when she faced him.

  "You know, eighty days of this each way shouldn't be too hard to bear," Richard mused.

  "And we're getting paid to do it!"

  "Hah! True. Not sure how I'd phrase it on a resumé, though. Of course the kzinti aren't what they were, not quite. Even with a full shipyard doing nothing else it would take several hours, at least, to convert this ship back for Navy use in another war. . . . I'm still digesting the idea of kzinti Rotarians."

  "I remember hearing somewhere there's been attempts to set up kzinti Lions Clubs. The fines officer's known as the Tail-Twister, you know! The mind boggles."

  They both laughed, rather nervously, and Richard reached for her again.

  The door beeped. Someone desired entrance. Gay kicked herself over and pulled the cover up to her chin, then let it fall. "What the hell, kzinti aren't going to be shocked by monkeys."

  "Shall we let them in?"

  "Why not?"

  "Admit," said Richard. Unless specially locked, the door was voice-keyed.

  "May I join you?" It was Telepath. Like Charrgh-Captain, he spoke Interworld, the largely Jinxian-based common human tongue which, despite its name, was difficult for nonhumans to pronounce.

  "We speak some kzinti tongues," said Richard, experimentally. Even on Wunderland, some kzinti strongly disliked simians "defiling" the Heroes' Tongue—and this, as he was all too well aware, was not Wunderland. Still, his accent was good; and a certain amount of the hostility was due to frequent mangled pronunciation.

  "I would be grateful," said the telepath, "if I could spend some time here with you. The minds of the Heroes leak at me endlessly. I can shield, but it is not enough. Humans are so different that when I am not drugged I need to concentrate to understand you at all. The noise drowns out the others. This cabin, your minds, give me a refuge."

  Richard felt uncomfortable. Telepath was obviously trying to control his neurotic behavior. Good manners toward the humans were clamped about him like a coat of mail. Yet this timid, wistful, depressed, and undersized kzin was so hideously unnatural. It's just the instinctive revulsion one feels towards a sick animal, he thought. Don't let him sense it! How do I stop him sensing it? No headaches yet. He's not trying to read my mind. But I'll bet he gets the vibes.

  Gay nodded. "Stay awhile," she said, sitting up. "We can offer you bourbon if you like."

  "A small one, thank you. So that is what you really look like, without your clothing."

  They had forgotten for a moment that they were naked. Richard and Gay came from a culture where nudity, if not everyday, was less uncommon for everyone than it had been in the past—after the wars, Wunderland had needed a lot of work to clean up its climate, and there had been no reason to stop short of comfort. In any case Telepath himself, like most kzinti, wore very minimal garments consisting chiefly of utility belts and pouches for tools (including, they presumed, his drugs). "What you see is what you get," said Richard, a laugh covering a momentary stab of embarrassment. He swung his feet to the deck and crossed to the drinks cabinet.

  "It is fascinating," said Telepath, looking them both up and down. "I knew you were tailless, but I have never actually seen tailless beings like you before. How do you balance? And would you not need them when you are swinging through trees?"

  "We don't actually swing through trees very much," Richard said. "Not now."

  "An
d only two teats. You must have small litters."

  "Yes, usually one, sometimes two. More are rare."

  "A lot of your cubs must survive, then. This is the first time I have left Kzin-aga. You are the first aliens I have met. Such spindly limbs, no muscles at all." He reached out and touched. "Such soft skins. Yet you have fought Heroes. And won. I am glad you are not like Heroes."

  His voice changed.

  "But so many similarities," he said. "Spinal column, skull, ribs, two forelimbs, two hindlimbs. Same number of eyes and ears, similar mouth, same arrangement of alimentary canal, same division of functions by organ. Both mammalian. It is extraordinary."

  "Well, it's a good design," said Richard. "Crops up all over. The ancestors of humans evolved on a world in the Galactic Core, while I understand that kzinti evolution can be traced back in a nearly unbroken chain to an incredible distance."

  "I hadn't known that myself," Telepath said.

  "It was in an article in Jinx Goshographic," Richard said. "Something about geological stability—or, no, continuity of processes," he said, trying to remember. "What's the word—gradualism! Changes were very standard, and laid down fossils pretty reliably up to two or three million years ago."

  "What happened then?" Telepath wondered.

  "Asteroid impact. After that the geology wasn't as stable. Anyway, it's not that big a coincidence."

  "But our brains have functional similarities, too, I think. I have read minds of Pierin, of Jotoki. More strange. They don't understand about the need to fight." Telepath's voice was becoming slurred. His eyelids were beginning to droop. "I think I am going to sleep now," he said. "Let me sleep here. They will not come and kick me here." He curled on the deck like a house cat after a large meal. After a minute he began to purr faintly, his claws extending and retracting rhythmically, though irregular twitches also ran over his muscles. He was runtish for a kzin, under eight feet tall, but it was still fortunate that their cabin was roomy. I think the poor creature is actually happy at this moment, Richard realized with a shock. With some memory of their own old cat in mind, he moved to scratch him under the chin, a gesture which with old Shebee had never failed to produce an ecstatic purring. Gay reached out quickly to halt him, and he stopped, shaking his head at himself. Telepath was, after all, still a kzin, small and weak by kzinti standards, but still with teeth and claws and speed capable of dismembering a buffalo. The rules for a human touching kzinti were very strict, and the rule for touching a sleeping one was NEVER.

  It was a long time later that Telepath awoke.

  "I have never slept so well that I remember," he said. "But I should not have trespassed on you."

  "Perhaps you will come and talk with us again," said Gay.

  "We don't want him as a permanent guest!" said Richard after Telepath left.

  "I think he knows that. Well, he would, wouldn't he? But I'm sorry for him."

  "I'd rather have him for a friend than an enemy," said Richard. "I hate to think what a telepath enemy might do! But you're right as usual. And I guess I'm sorry for him, too."

  "I know you are. I've known you a long time, remember?"

  The voyage proceeded. Neither Richard nor Gay could feel very comfortable in the main body of the ship, with its dim light, lower temperatures, and the hulking kzinti here and there—not all of them, they suspected, as sophisticated as Charrgh-Captain about the company of humans, or with the pathetic friendliness of Telepath. Their orange fur, camouflage in this light, and their capacity for perfect stillness, often made them hard to see, for all their size, until the humans came startlingly close. Their eyes, glowing in the dimness, were not friendly, and both Richard and Gay knew enough of kzinti body language to be under no illusions about that.

  Things were peaceful enough—the kzinti had a gym to work off their energy and aggression, Charrgh-Captain forbade death duels among the relatively small crew, and foodmakers in private quarters avoided the most common source of fights—but it was still like walking through a cage of tigers.

  They spent some time with Charrgh-Captain on the bridge, familiarizing themselves further with the ship—it was the instinct of any spacer to do that, though they couldn't really hope to know more than the rudiments of the systems. Especially since they were wary of touching meters or control panels or interrupting kzinti watchstanders. Both made as sure as they could that the other kzinti were reminded as often as possible, by the sight of the three of them together, that they were under Charrgh-Captain's protection—the Patriarch's protection, if it came to that.

  Sometimes—not very often—Charrgh-Captain was in the mood to talk; sometimes, when he wished to relax, even to joke and share a drink and reminiscences, or game with them in his suite; but the other kzinti were not companions from a past adventure, and it soon became abundantly clear that, for some reason, they had no particular inclination to socialize with representatives of the most terrible enemy their race had ever known.

  As far as Richard could tell, none of the other kzinti spoke Interworld. He thought it unwise to try to press conversation upon them in either his insulting, monkey-mangled attempt at the Heroes' Tongue, or in what was still known in the Patriarchy (of which this ship was a part) as the slaves' patois. The windows were opaqued and there was nothing to be gained by looking through them anyway, except possibly madness—the blind-spot effect of looking upon hyperspace affected kzinti every bit as badly as it did humans. In their cabin there were entertainments.

  Telepath, however, visited them; as often, they surmised, as he thought they could tolerate him. They played chess and card games with him sometimes, never developing the violent headache which would have warned them he was cheating. He won routinely at chess, but card games that involved bluffing were something of a kzinti handicap. He could easily sense their emotions when one of them had a good hand; it was the idea of folding—surrendering—that so often threw him.

  They had brought some old-fashioned jigsaw puzzles. He enjoyed them hugely, and could assemble them with blur-quick movements—except for the one that was all-white. That kept him poring over the pieces for hours at a time. They gathered he had no possessions or pastimes of his own. Anything a telepath had that another kzin fancied, the other kzin would take as a matter of course. Once he surprised them by bringing them a model of a kitten he had carved from some kind of wood—surprised them doubly, as they hadn't realized that sculpture was so strongly nonvisual. (Kzinti paintings could be incomprehensible to human perceptions.) Sometimes he told them about his life, including the fact, which also surprised them, that he had kits. Both Richard and Gay, as reserve officers, filed his information away, though they felt slightly uncomfortable about doing so. Mostly he took their company, games, and talk as a preliminary and aid to relaxation and sleep, and their cabin as a refuge from the other kzinti.

  There came the indescribable moment, the discontinuity as the ship dropped out of hyperspace. The ports became transparent again, and stars reappeared. Strange stars. Then there were planets. They swung past two ringed gas giants, with the families of moons and Trojan-point asteroids that had first attracted kzinti miners to this system. They fell toward the system's heart, and toward a small inner planet.

  It was not unlike Mars. A red surface suggested oxygen locked in iron. There were eroded stumps of mountains and what might have been seas a billion years previously. There was a tenuous atmosphere, mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which for breathing purposes might as well have been a vacuum, but which sufficed to stir winds and dust clouds, and slowly traveling processions of crescent dunes. Kzinti instruments had detected no life but microbes. There were small icecaps. A small but bright sun gave good light.

  With hyperdrive, this was not far beyond the existing borders of kzin-settled space. If the kzinti ran out of better planets, and humans let them, they could probably kzinform it one day. Despite the broad streaks of anarchy in their government, and a bureaucracy which depended largely on inefficient and unreliable slave
s, they were capable of great constructive feats when they put their minds to it.

  At present they had an application before the human worlds to mine the gas giants' moons: on probation after four major and several minor wars launched against humans, the Patriarchy was now under close observation in any effort to expand its territories. The kzinti had lost all the wars, of course. If they had won one, there would have been no more after it.

  The stasis box, its general position already known, was easy to locate with deep-radar, and easy to uncover. Cunning Stalker simply hovered over it, holding position with a gravity generator, and ran its reaction drive on very low power so as to blow the dust away.

  The mirror surface of the stasis box was revealed about fifty feet down. Magnification brought the image of the exposed section into the control center. Whether it had been deliberately buried there, or it and the planet had collided in the remote past, or it had once been housed in some installation whose metal was now coloring the sand, there was no way of telling. There were curves of vitrified rock that might be the last traces of the rimwall of an ancient impact crater—not necessarily related. Anyway, unanswerable speculations as to how it got there were of no importance at all, beside the question of what it might contain.

  Deep-radar showed it was spherical—unusual—and about twenty feet in diameter. Far smaller than the last one, but still huge for a stasis box. All aboard Cunning Stalker knew it was quite big enough to contain live Slavers.