The Man-Kzin Wars 01

by Larry Niven

  He sat straight to look at her. In the level red light, her face was palely rosy, her eyes afire. “Why, how could you have foreseen, lass?" he answered. “I'd hate to tell you how often something in space has taken me by surprise, and that was in familiar parts. You did realize what the problem was, and figured out a solution. We needn't worry about your breaking orders. if you'd failed, you'd have been insubordinate; but you succeeded, so by definition you showed initiative.”

  “Thank you." Eagerness blazed. “And listen, I've had another idea-"

  He lifted a palm. “Whoa! Look, in a couple of minutes we'd better hike back to Shep, you take your station again, I get a drive unit and fly across to Rover. But first will you please, please tell me what the mess was that I got myself into?"

  “Buckyballs, she said. “Or, formally, Buckminster fullerene. I didn't think the pitful of it that you'd slid down into could be very deep or the bottom very large. Its walls would surely slope inward. It's really just a... pothole, though surely the formation process was different, possibly it's a small astroblem-" She giggled. “My, the academic in me is really taking over, isn't it? Well, essentially, the material is frictionless. It will puddle in any hole, no matter how tiny, and it has just enough cohesion that a number of such puddles close together will form a film over the entire surface. But that film is only a few molecules thick, and you can't walk on it or anything. In this slight gravity, though-and the metal poor rock is friable-I could strike the sharp end of a hammerhead in with a single blow to act as a kind of... piton, is that the word?”

  “Okay. Splendid. Dorcas had better look to her standing as the most formidable woman in known space. Now tell me what the-the hell buckyballs; are.

  “They're produced in the vicinity of supernovae. Carbon atoms link together and form a faceted spherical molecule around a single metal atom. Sixty carbons around one lanthanum is common, galactically speaking, but there are other forms, too. And with the molecule closed in on itself the way it is, it acts in the aggregate like a fluid. In fact, it's virtually a perfect lubricant, and if we didn't have things easier to use you'd see synthetic buckyballs on sale everywhere." A vision rose in those ruby eyes. “It's thought they may have a basic role in the origin of life on planets-"

  “Damn near did the opposite number today," Saxtorph said. “But you saved my ass, and the rest of me as well. I don't suppose I can ever repay you.”

  She got to her knees before him and seized his hands. “You can, Robert. You can fetch me back my man.

  Ponderously, Rover closed velocities with the iron asteroid. She couldn't quite match, because it was under boost, but thus far the acceleration was low.

  Ominously aglow, the molten mass dwarfed the spacecraft that toiled meters ahead of it; yet Sun Defier, harnessed by her own forcefield, was a plowhorse dragging it bit by bit from its former path; and the dwarf sun was at work, and Secunda's gravity was beginning to have a real effect....

  Arrived a little before the ship, the boat drifted at some distance, a needle in a haystack of stars. Laurinda, was still aboard. The tug had no place to receive Shep, nor had the girl the skill to cross safely by herself in a spacesuit even though relative speeds were small. The autopilot kept her accompanying the others.

  In Rovers command center, Saxtorph asked the image of Dorcas, more shakily than he had expected to, “How are you? How's everything?" She was haggard with weariness, but triumph rang: “Kam's got our gear packed to transfer over to you, and I-I've worked the bugs out of the program. Compatibility with kzin hardware was a stumbling block, but-well, it's been operating smoothly for the past several hours, and I've no reason to doubt it will continue doing what it's supposed to."

  He whistled. “Hey, quite a feat, lady! I really didn't think it would be possible, at least in the time available, when I put you up to trying it. What're you going to do next-square the circle, invent the perpetual motion machine, reform the tax laws, or what?”

  Her voice grew steely. “I was motivated." She regarded his face in her own screen. “How are you? Laurinda said something about your running into danger on the moon. Were you hurt?”

  “Only in my pride. She can tell you all about it later. Right now we're in a hurry." Saxtorph became intent. “Listen, there's been a change of plan. You and Kam both flit over to Shep. But don't you bring her in; lay her alongside. Kam can help Laurinda aboard Rover before he moves your stuff. I'd like you to join me in a job around Shep. Simple thing and shouldn't take but a couple hours, given the two of us working together. Though I'll bet even money you'll have a useful suggestion or three. Then you can line out for deep space.”

  She sat a moment silent, her expression bleakened, before she said, “You're taking the boat to Prima while the rest of us ferry Rover away."

  “You catch on quick, sweetheart.”

  “To rescue Juan and Carita.”

  "what else? Laurinda's hatched a scheme I think could do the trick. Naturally, we'll agree in advance where you'll wait, and Shep will come join you there. If we don't dawdle, the odds are pretty good that the kzinti won't locate you first and force you to go hyperspatial. “What about them locating you?”

  “Why should they expect anybody to go to Prima? They'll buzz around Secunda like angry hornets. They may well be engaged for a while in evacuating survivors from the warship; I suspect the shuttles aren't terribly efficient at that sort of thing. Afterward they'll have to work out a search doctrine, when Rover can have skitted in any old direction. And sometime along about then, they should have their minds taken off us. The kzinti will notice a nice big surprise bound their way, about which it is then too late to do anything whatsoever.”

  “But you- How plausible is this idea of yours?”

  “Plausible enough. Look, don't sit like that. Get cracking. I'll explain when we meet.”

  “I can take Shep. I'm as good a pilot as you are.”

  Saxtorph shook his head. “Sorry, no. One of us has to be in charge of Rover, of course. I hereby pull rank and appoint you. I am the captain."

  The asteroid concealed the ship's initial boost from any possible observers around Secunda. She applied her mightiest vector to give southward motion, out of the ecliptic plane; but the thrust had an extra component, randomly chosen, to baffle hunter analysts who would fain reduce the volume of space wherein she might reasonably be sought. That volume would grow fast, become literally astronomical, as she flew free, generator cold, batteries maintaining life support on a minimum energy level. Having thus cometed for a time, she could with fair safety apply power again to bring herself to her destination.

  Saxtorph let her make ample distance before he accelerated Shep, also using the iron to conceal his start. However, he ran at top drive the whole way. It wasn't likely that a detector would pick his little craft up. As he told Dorcas, the kzinti wouldn't suppose a human would make for Prima. It hurt them less, losing friends, provided the friends died bravely; and few of them had mastered the art of putting oneself in the head of an enemy.

  Mainly, though, Carita and Juan didn't have much time left them. Ever circling, the planets had changed configuration since Rover arrived. The navigation system allowed for that, but could do nothing to shorten a run of 30-odd hours. Saxtorph tried to compose his soul in peace. He played a lot of solitaire after he found he was losing most of the computer games, and smoked a lot of pipes. Books and shows were poor distraction, but music helped him relax and enjoy his memories. Whatever happened next, he'd have had a better life than 90 percent of his species-99 percent if you counted in everybody who lived and died before humankind went spacefaring.

  Prima swelled in his view, sallow and faceless. The recorded broadcast came through clear from the night side, over and over. Saxtorph got his fix. Fido wasn't too far from the lethal dawn. He established a three hour orbit and put a curt message of his own on the player. It ended with “Acknowledge.”

  Time passed. Heaviness grew within him. Were they dead? He rounded dayside an
d came back across darkness.

  The voice leaped at him: “Bob, is that you? Juan here. We'd abandoned hope, we were asleep. Standing by now. Bob, is that you? Juan here–!' joy surged. “Who else but me?" Saxtorph said. “How're you doing, you two?"

  “Hanging on. Living in our spacesuits this past-I don't know how long. The boat's a rotted, crumbling shell. But we're hanging on.”

  “Good. Your drive units in working order?"

  “Yes. But we haven't the lift to get onto a trajectory which you can match long enough for us to come aboard." Unspoken: It would be easy in atmosphere, or in free space, given a pilot like you. But what a vessel can do above an airless planet, at suborbital speed, without coming to grief, is sharply limited.

  “That's all right," Saxtorph said, "as long as you can go outside, sit in a lock chamber or on top of the wreck, and keep watch, without danger of slipping off into the muck. You can?... Okay, prepare yourselves. I'll land in view of you and open the main personnel lock.”

  “Hadn't we better all find an area free of the material?”

  “I'm not sure any exists big enough and flat enough for me. Anyhow, looking for one would take more time than we can afford. No, I'm coming straight down. “

  Carita cut in. She sounded wrung out, Saxtorph suspected her physical strength was what had preserved both. He imagined her manhandling pieces of metal and plastic, often wrenched from the weakened structure, to improvise braces, platforms, whatever would give some added hours of refuge. “Bob, is this wise?" she asked. “Do you know what you're getting into? The molecule might bind you fast immediately, even if you avoid shining light on it. The decay here is going quicker all the while. I think the molecule is... learning. Don't risk your life.”

  “Don't you give your captain orders Saxtorph replied. “I'll be down in, M-M, about an hour. Then get to me as fast as you prudently can. Every minute we spend on the surface does add to the danger. But I've put bandits on the jacks.”

  “What?"

  “Footpads," he laughed childishly. “Okay, no more conversation till we're back in space. I've got my reconnoitering to do.”

  Starlight was brilliant but didn't illuminate an unknown terrain very well. His landing field would be minute and hemmed in. For help he had optical amplifiers, radar, data-analysis programs which projected visuals as well as numbers. He had his skill. Fear shunted from his mind, he became one with the boat.

  Location identification... positioning; you don't float around in airlessness the way you can in atmosphere... site picked, much closer to Fido than he liked but he could manage... coordinates established... down, down, nurse her down to touchdown ....

  It was as soft a landing as he had ever achieved. It needed to be. For a pulsebeat he stared across the hollow at the other boat. She was a ghastly sight indeed, a half hull pocked, ragged, riddled, the pale devourer well up the side of what was left. Good thing he was insured; though multi-billionaire Stefan Brozik would be grateful, and presumably human governments Saxtorph grinned at his own inanity and hastened to go operate the airlock. Or was it stupid to think about money at an hour like this? To hell with heroics. He and Dorcas had their living to make.

  Descent with the outer valve already open would have given him an imbalance: slight, but he had plenty else to contend with. He cracked it now without stopping to evacuate the chamber. Time was more precious than a few cubic meters of air. A light flashed green. His crewfolk were in. He closed the valve at once. A measure of pressure equalization was required before he admitted them into the hull proper. He did so the instant it was possible. A wind gusted by. His ears popped. Juan and Carita stumbled through. Frost formed on their spacesuits.

  He hand-signaled: Grab hold. We're boosting right away.

  He could be gentle about that, as well as quick.

  Or need he have hastened? Afterward he inspected things at length and found Laurinda's idea had worked as well as could have been hoped, or maybe a little better.

  Buckyballs scooped from that sink on the moon. (An open container at the end of a line; he could throw it far in the low gravity.) Bags fashioned out of thick plastic, heat-sealed together, filled with buckyballs, placed around the bottom of each landing jack, superglued fast at the necks. That was all.

  The molecule had only eaten through one of them while Shep stood on Prima. Perhaps the other jacks rested on sections where most of the chemical bonds were saturated, less readily catalyzed. it didn't matter, except scientifically, because after the single bag gave way, the wonderful stuff had done its job. A layer of it was beneath the metal, a heap of it around. The devourer could not quickly incorporate atoms so strongly interlinked. As it did, more flowed in to fill the gaps. Shep could have stayed for hours.

  But she had no call to. Lifting, the tension abruptly off him, Saxtorph exploded into tuneless song. It wasn't a hymn or anthem, though it was traditional: “The Bastard King of England." Somehow it felt right.

  Rover drove though hyperspace, homeward bound. Man and wife sat together in their cabin, easing Off. They were flesh, they would need days to get back the strength they had spent. The ship throbbed and whispered. A screen gave views of Hawaii, heights, greennesses, incredible colors on the sea. Beethoven's Fifth lilted in the background. He had a mug of beer, she a glass of white wine.

  “Honeymoon cruise," she said with a wry smile. “Laurinda and Juan. Carita and Kam."

  “You and me, for that matter," he replied drowsily.

  “But when will we get any proper work done? The interior is a mess." “Oh, we've time aplenty before we reach port. And if we aren't quite holystoned-perfect, who's going to care?”

  “Yes, we'll be the sensation of the day." She grew somber. “How many will remember Arthur Tregennis?”

  Saxtorph roused. “Our kind of people will. He was... a Moses. He brought us to a scientific Promised Land, and... I think there'll be more explorations into the far deeps from now on.”

  “Yes. Markham's out of the way." Dorcas sighed. “His poor family." The tug, rushing off too fast for recovery after it released the asteroid to hurtle toward Secunda-if all went as planned, straight at the base Horror, a scramble to flee, desperate courage, and then the apparition in heaven, the flaming trail, Thor's hammer smites, the cloud of destruction engulfs everything and rises on high and spreads to darken the planet, nothing remains but a doubled crater plated with iron. It was unlikely that any kzinti who escaped would still be alive when their next starship came.

  At the end, did Markham cry for his mother?

  “And of course humans will be alerted to the situation," Saxtorph observed superfluously.

  It was, in fact, unlikely that there would be more kzin ships to the red sun. Nothing was left for them, and they would get no chance to rebuild. Earth would have sent an armed fleet for a look-around. Maybe it would come soon enough to save what beings were left.

  Dorcas frowned. “What will they do about it?”

  “Why, uh, rebuild our navies. Defense has been grossly neglected." “Well, we can hope for that much. We're certainly doing a service, bringing in the news that the kzinti have the hyperdrive." Dorcas shook her head. “But everybody knew they would, sooner or later. And this whole episode, it's no casus belli. No law forbade them to establish themselves in an unclaimed system. We should be legally safe, ourselves-self-defense-but the peace groups will say the kzinti were only being defensive, after Earth's planet grab following the war, and in fact this crew provoked them into overreacting. There may be talk of reparations due the pathetic put-upon kzinti.”

  “Yah, you're probably right. I share your faith in the infinite capacity of our species for wishful thinking." Saxtorph shrugged. “But we also have a capacity for muddling through. And you and I, sweetheart, have some mighty good years ahead of us. Let's talk about what to do with them.”

  Her mood eased. She snuggled close. The ship fared onward.

  CATHOUSE

  Dean Ing

  Copyright C 198
8 by Dean Ing

  Sampling war's minor ironies: Locklear knew so little about the Weasel or wartime alarms, he thought the klaxon was hooting for planetfall. That is why, when the Weasel winked into normal space near that lurking kzin warship, little Locklear would soon be her only survivor. The second irony was that, while the Interworld Commission's last bulletin had announced sporadic new outbursts of kzin hostility, Locklear was the only civilian on the Weasel who had never thought of himself as a warrior and did not intend to become one.

  Moments after the Weasel's intercom announced completion of their jump, Locklear was steadying himself next to his berth, waiting for the ship's gravity polarizer to kick in and swallowing hard because, like ancient French wines, he traveled poorly. He watched with envy as Herrera, the hairless, whipcord-muscled Belter in the other bunk, swung out with one foot planted on the deck and the other against the wall. Like a cat," Locklear said admiringly.

  “That's no compliment anymore, flatlander," Herrera said. “It looks like the goddamn tabbies want a fourth war. You'd think they'd learn," he added with a grim headshake.

  Locklear sighed. As a student of animal psychology in general, he'd known a few kzinti well enough to admire the way they learned. He also knew Herrera was on his way to enlist if, as seemed likely, the kzinti were spoiling for another war. And in that case, Locklear's career was about to be turned upside down. Instead of a scholarly life puzzling out the meanings of Grog forepaw gestures and kzin ear-twitches, he would probably be conscripted into some warren full of psych warfare pundits, for the duration. These days, an ethologist had to be part historian, too-Locklear remembered more than he liked about the three previous man-kzin wars.

  And Herrera was ready to fight the kzinti already, and Locklear had called him a cat. Locklear opened his mouth to apologize but the klaxon drowned him out. Herrera slammed the door open, vaulted into the passageway reaching for handholds.