Man-Kzin Wars 9

by Larry Niven

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “There has to be a way to close that window strip. A Kzinti crew couldn’t hide out in here! They’d tear each other to pieces!”

  “I knew that. It’s too small,” Fly-By-Night said. “I just didn’t want to go out there. Must we?”

  We three crawled out with the shower blanket over us, Paradoxical riding the Kzin’s shoulders. We stayed under the blanket while we worked the controls. I felt like a child working my flatscreen under the covers after being sent to bed.

  There was a physical switch under a little cage with a code lock. None of us had the code. The switch wasn’t a self-destruct. We knew where that was. When we ran out of options I sliced the cage away with the w’tsai, and flipped the switch.

  From under the blanket we saw the shadows changing. I peeked out. Lost my vision, lost even my memory of vision…saw the edge of a shield crawling across the last edge of window.

  If Meebrlee-Riit had called earlier, he would have seen us flying hyperspace with windows open. Some mistakes you don’t pay for.

  “I think you’d better spend a lot of time in disguise and out here,” I told Fly-By-Night. I saw his look: better not push that. “The next few days should be safe, but we should practice getting a disguise on you. Meebrlee-Riit will call when he drops us out, and he will expect an answer, and he will not expect you to be still covered with blood and half hidden in ripped-up armor. Home is an eighteen- to twenty-day trip, they said. Ten to go, call it three in hyperspace.”

  The Kzin was tearing into a joint of something big. “Keep talking.”

  “We need to paint you. Envoy had a smooth face, no markings except for what looked like black eyebrows swept way up.”

  “What would you use for paint?”

  “The kitchens on some of the Nakamura Lines ships offered dyes for Easter eggs. Then again, they went bankrupt. What have we got? Let’s check out the kitchen wall.”

  Choices aboard Sraff-Zisht’s boat were sparse. One variety of handmeal. Paradoxical’s green sludge. Twenty settings for meat…“Fly-By-Night, what are these?”

  “Ersatz prey from Kzin, I expect. Not bad, just strange.”

  They weren’t all meat. We had two flavors of blood, and a milky fluid. “Artificial milk with diet supplements,” Fly-By-Night told us, “to treat injuries and disease. Adults wouldn’t normally use it.”

  Three kinds of fluids. Hot blood—“Is one of these human?”

  “I wouldn’t know, and that’s one damn rude question to ask someone you have to live with—”

  “I’m sorry. What I—”

  “—for the next nine to ten days. If I get through this they’ll have to give me a name.”

  “I just want to know if it coagulates.”

  Silence. Then, “Intelligent question. I’ve been on edge, Mart.”

  I didn’t say that Kzinti are born that way. “Ease up on the cappuccino.”

  “We should thicken this. Mix it with something floury. Mush up a handmeal?”

  The handmeals would pull apart. We worked with the layers: a meatlike pâté, a vegetable pâté, something cheesy, shells of hard bread. The bread stayed too lumpy: no good. Cheese thickened the blood. One kind of blood did coagulate. We got a thick fluid that could be spread into a Kzin’s fur, then would get thicker. Milk lightened it enough, but then it stayed too liquid. More cheese?

  We covered Fly-By-Night in patches everywhere, except his face, which we didn’t want to mess up yet. This latest batch looked good where we’d spread it on his belly. I gave him a crossed fingers sign and worked it into his face.

  Not bad.

  We tried undiluted blood for the eyebrows. Too pale. Work on that later. I stood back and asked, “Paradoxical?”

  “The marks weren’t symmetrical,” Paradoxical said. “You tend to want him to look too human. They’re not eyebrows. Trail that right one almost straight up—”

  “You’d better do it.”

  He worked. Presently he asked, “Mart?”

  “Good!”

  That was all Fly-By-Night needed. He set us spinning as he jumped for the waterfall room. We gave him an hour to dry off, because the shower blanket didn’t suck up all the water, and another to calm down. Then we started over.

  We couldn’t get the eyebrows dark enough.

  Finally we opened up a heating element in the kitchen wall, hoping we wouldn’t ruin anything, and used it to char one of Envoy’s ears. We used the carbon black to darken Fly-By-Night’s “eyebrows.” We bandaged one ear (“exploded by vacuum.”)

  Then we made him wait, and talk.

  “Sraff-Zisht drops back into Einstein space. There’s an alarm. Do we get a few minutes? Does Meebrlee-Riit clean himself up before he shows himself? Does he want a nap?”

  “I was not raised among the children of the Patriarch.”

  “He’s dropped us out in the inner comets. That’s a huge volume. He’s not worried about any stray ship that happens along, but he might want to check on us. He still has to worry that the big bad telepath has murdered his crew. Fly-By-Night? Massacres are routine?”

  “Duels, I think, and riots. Mart, the cleanup routines are very simple. Any surviving crew with a surviving fingertip could set them going.”

  “Meebrlee-Riit calls. Right away?”

  “He will set a course into Home system. Then he will make himself gorgeous. Let the lesser Kzinti wait. Count on forty minutes after we enter Einstein space.”

  “Stet. He calls. Envoy’s all cleaned up. Big bandage on his ear. What is Envoy’s attitude?”

  Fly-By-Night let his claws show. Kzinti do sweat, but we’d cooled the cabin. His makeup was holding. “Half mad from sensory deprivation, still he must cringe before his alpha officer. Repress rage. Meebrlee-Riit might enjoy that. Change orders just to shake up Envoy.”

  “Cringe,” I said.

  Fly-By-Night pulled himself lower in his chair. His ear flattened, his lips were tight together.

  “Good. Envoy wouldn’t eat in front of Meebrlee-Riit—?”

  “No!”

  “Our makeup wouldn’t stand up to that.”

  “No, and I promise not to eat the makeup!”

  We kept him talking. I wanted to see how long the makeup would last. I wanted to see if he’d go berserk. A little berserk wouldn’t hurt, in a Kzin who had been trapped in sensory deprivation for many days, but he had to remember his lines.

  Three hours later…he didn’t crack, but the makeup started to. We sent him off to get clean.

  Morning of the ninth day. I couldn’t stop chattering.

  “We’ll drop out of hyperspace at the edge of Home system. We almost know when. There is only one speed in hyperdrive—” though Quantum Two hyperdrive is hugely faster and belongs to another species. “If Sraff-Zisht has been traveling straight toward Home at three days to the light-year, we’ll drop out in…”

  “Four hours and ten minutes,” Paradoxical said.

  “The jigger factor is, where does Meebrlee-Riit drop us out? Hyperdrive takes ‘flat’ space. If there are masses around to distort space, the ship’s gone. Pilots are very careful not to get too close to their target sun. Really cautious types aim past a target system. Just what kind of pilot is Meebrlee-Riit?”

  “Your pronunciation is terrible,” said Fly-By-Night.

  “Yah?”

  “Crazy Kzin. Dive straight in. Cut the hyperdrive ten ce’meters short of death. Let our intrinsic velocity carry us straight into the system. Mart, that is the only decent bet.”

  “Where is Packer? Still in the waterfall?”

  “I will think of something.”

  “I want you in makeup two hours early.”

  “No.”

  “H—”

  “Yes, he might drop out short! But he might circle! He might enter Home system at an angle. Our window of opportunity has to slop over on either side.” Fly-By-Night’s speech was turning mushy again, lips pulling far back, lots of gleaming white teeth. Even E
nvoy didn’t look like that. Sheathclaws must have good dental hygiene.

  “We know that he will not show himself to Envoy and Packer after nine days of letting the Blind Spot drive him crazy and ruin his hairdo. You’ll have forty minutes to make me beautiful.”

  “Stet. What next? Decelerate for a week. Drop the boat somewhere, maybe in the asteroids, without changing course. The Home asteroid belt is fairly narrow. Still plenty of room to hide.

  “They’ll bring you aboard ship just before they drop the boat. Because you’re dangerous. Thanks.” He’d dialed me up a handmeal. “You’re dangerous, so they’ll keep you in free fall until the last minute. If we’re wrong about that, we could get caught by surprise.”

  “Bring me aboard? How does that work? Order Envoy and Packer to stun me and pull me through the small lock? We can’t do that. They’re dead!”

  “Lure the technology officer in here.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know. Make up a story. Let’s just get through dropout without getting caught.”

  A recording spoke. A computer whined, “Dominant Ones, we have returned to the universe. Be patient for star positions.”

  Paradoxical started the curtain retracting. Stars emerged. I went to the kitchen wall and dialed up what we needed.

  The recording reeled off a location based on some easy-to-find stars and clusters. Paradoxical listened intently. “Home system,” he said. “We will use the telescope to find better data. Can you do that alone?”

  “Yah.” We’d practiced. In free fall we were still a bit awkward, but I mixed the basic makeup, then added char to a smaller batch. A bit more? All? Ready. “You do the eyebrows, Doc.”

  “First I will finish this task.”

  Fly-By-Night held still while I rubbed the food mixture into his facial fur. Paradoxical said, “Graviton wake indicates a second ship.”

  “Damn!” Fly-By-Night snarled. I flung myself backward; my seat web caught me.

  Paradoxical said, “We find nothing in visible light.”

  “Don’t move your mouth. Aw, Fly-By-Night!” He was in an all-out snarl, trying to talk and failing. Drool made a darker runnel. “If Meebrlee-Riit saw that he wouldn’t care who you are. Lose the teeth!”

  Fly-By-Night relaxed his mouth. “Your extra week is down the toilet, Mart. They’re making pickup here and now.”

  The makeup had stayed liquid. “Paradoxical, give him eyebrows.” I brushed out the drool, then settled myself out of camera range. They’d given me the flight controls. Paradoxical on astrogation, Fly-By-Night on weapons.

  Paradoxical finished his makeup work and moved out of camera range, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I asked, “Shall we talk? Is this second ship just an escort?”

  “No. Why make Sraff-Zisht conspicuous? Transfer the telepath, then move on to Home. This new ship runs to some outer world, or to Kzin itself—”

  Meebrlee-Riit popped up bigger than life and fourteen minutes early. He demanded, “Envoy, is the telepath well?”

  Fly-By-Night flinched, then cringed. “The telepath is healthy, Dominant One. I judge that he is not in his right mind.”

  “The Jotok? Yourself? Where is Packer?”

  “The Jotok amuses themself with a computer. I will welcome medical attention. Packer…Dominant One…Packer looked on hyperspace.”

  “He knew better!”

  “Envoy” recoiled, then visibly pulled himself together. “Soon or late, Dominant One, every Hero looks. Wealth and a name and the infinite future, if he has sisters and daughters, if he can stay sane. Packer did not. He hides in the waterfall when I let him. Set him in a hunting park soon or he will die.”

  “That will not be our task. Leap For Life will be here soon. Transfer the boat to Leap For Life. Haste! No need to take Telepath out of his vacuum refuge. You will be relieved aboard Leap For Life.”

  “Yes, Dominant One!”

  “Packer must guard the telepath. The telepath will attack now if ever.”

  “Yes—”

  Meebrlee-Riit was gone.

  “We have it!” Paradoxical projected what he was seeing against the cannon casing.

  Still distant, backlit by Apollo, Home’s sun, a sphere nestled in a glowing arc of gamma ray shield, its black skin broken by holes and projections and tiny windows. Dots-and-commas script glowed brilliant orange. “We find heavy graviton wake. That ship is decelerating hard.”

  “Built in this century,” Fly-By-Night said.

  Sraff-Zisht dropped us free.

  This was not much of a puzzle. I spun the boat, aimed at Leap For Life and said, “Shoot.”

  My hair stirred. Fly-By-Night’s fur stood up and rippled. He said, “Done. Doc?”

  “The graviton wake is gone. You burned out its thrusters.”

  I boosted us to put Sraff-Zisht between us and Leap For Life. Leap For Life had the weapons, after all. I set our gun on Sraff-Zisht and said, “Again.”

  “Done. I burned out something.”

  “Graviton flare,” Paradoxical said, just as Sraff-Zisht vanished.

  “Meebrlee-Riit must have tried to return to hyperspace,” Fly-By-Night said. “We burned out the hyperdrive. But he still has thrusters!”

  I rotated the boat to focus the gun on the immobilized Leap For Life. “Projectiles. Shoot it to bits.”

  Fly-By-Night punched something. We heard the weapon adjusting, but he didn’t shoot. “Why?”

  I screamed, “They’ve got all the weapons, our shield has flown away—”

  “Stet.” The boat’s lone weapon roared. It was right in the middle of the cabin/cargo hold. The noise was amazing. The boat recoiled: cabin gravity lurched to compensate. Leap For Life jittered and came apart in shreds.

  “—And they don’t have the hostages! And now it’s one less tanj thing to worry about.”

  “Stet, stet, I understand!”

  Paradoxical said, “We win.”

  We looked at the Jotok. He said, “We may report all that has happened, now, via laser broadcast to Home. We fly the boat to Home with our proofs. The law of Home can arrange to retrieve Odysseus. With his hyperdrive burned out, Meebrlee-Riit is trapped in Home system. In the full glare of publicity he must follow the Covenants. He may trade his hostages for some other consideration such as amnesty, but they must be returned. Stet?”

  “He’s still got my family! But I think we can turn on the cabin futzy gravity now, if you don’t mind—” I stopped because Meebrlee-Riit, greatly magnified, was facing Fly-By-Night.

  “Some such consideration,” he mimicked us. “You look stupid, Telepath, covered with food. Only one consideration can capture my interest! Read my mind if you doubt me. Release my entourage and surrender! The hostages for yourself!”

  Fly-By-Night’s claw moved. No result showed except for Meebrlee-Riit’s widening eyes, but Fly-By-Night had given him a contracted view. He was seeing all of us.

  “Lies! You killed my Heroes? Eeeeerg!” A hair-lifting snarl as Fly-By-Night lifted Packer’s ear into view.

  It seemed the right moment. I showed Envoy’s surviving ear. “We had to use the other.”

  “Martin Wallace Graynor, you may buy back your hostages and your life by putting the telepath into my hands!”

  It began to seem that Meebrlee-Riit was mad. I asked, “Must I subdue him first?”

  A killing gape was my answer. I asked, “And where would you take him then, with no hyperdrive?”

  “Not your concern.”

  “We’re going to call for help now. Over the next few hours all of Home system is going to know you’re here. A civilized solar system seethes with telescopes. If you have allies in the asteroids, you can’t go to them. You’d only point them out to the Home Rule.”

  “What if you never make that broadcast, LE Graynor? And I can…thaw…sss.” He’d had a notion. He stepped out of range. Ducked back and fisheyed the view to show his whole cabin. The other Kzin, Tech, was at his workstation, watching.

  A w
all slid away. Through an aperture ten yards wide I could see a much bigger cargo hold and all of Odysseus’ cargo modules. Meebrlee-Riit moved to one of them, opened a small panel and worked.

  Back he came. “I can reset the temperature on these machines. I thought you might wonder, but soon I will show you thawed fish. You cannot do to me what you did to Leap For Life without killing my hostages too. If you broadcast any message at all, I will set the third module thawing, and then I will show you thawed dead hostages.”

  I was sweating.

  The Kzin aristocrat said, “Telepath…Fly-By-Night. I will give you a better name. Your prowess has earned a name even as an enemy. What is it we ask of you? Take a harem. Raise your sons. See your daughters grow up in the Patriarch’s household. A life in luxury buys survival for sixty-four Human citizens.

  “Think, then. I can wait. A boat’s life support is not the match for an interstellar spacecraft. Or else—”

  The mass of an interstellar spacecraft jumped into our faces. Meebrlee-Riit was tiny in its window, huge in the hologram stage. He threw his head back, a prolonged screech, mouth gaping as wide as my head. Forced his mouth to close so he could ask, “Graynor, have you ever flown a spacecraft? Do you think you have the skill to keep me from ramming you?”

  I said, “Yes. Space is roomy, and the telepath is our hostage. Doc, can you give me a deep-radar view of yon privateer?”

  Paradoxical guessed what I meant. The mass outside our dome went transparent.

  I looked it over. Fuel…more fuel…a bulky hyperdrive design from the last century. Gravity and reaction motors were also big and bulky. Skimpy cargo space, smaller cabin, and that tiny box shape must be a waterfall room just like ours.

  I spun the boat. “You say I can’t shoot?”

  Meebrlee-Riit looked up. He must have been looking right into our gun. “Pitiful! Are all Humans natural liars?”

  Fine-tuning my aim, I said, “There is a thing you should know about us. If you eat prey that is infested…whasht-meery…you may be very sick, but it doesn’t kill off your whole blood line. Shoot,” I said to Fly-By-Night.

  The gun roared. Meebrlee-Riit’s image whirled around. The boat recoiled: gravity imbalances swirled through my belly. In our deep-radar view the waterfall room became a smudge.