Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - X

by Hal Colebatch

  “And I discovered that even some Heroes were being drawn into it: some unknowingly, some merely unknowingly at first. Yes, Arrum and what is behind Arrum has its plans for the human species—and now I find it has plans for the kzinti species too!

  “Sol humans have defeated our fleets. I intend to overwhelm them, with the Fifth Fleet or if need be the Sixth. I regret that much of Earth may have to be destroyed. I will try to keep Africa, Yucatán where the Jaguar-gods dwell, the Rocky Mountains and the Russian steppes for the hunting. An easy victory would have been better for both humans and kzinti, though I cannot blame humans for their stubbornness. After many easy conquests we wanted to find enemies in space who would test our fighting skills and courage, and then the Fanged God in His great bounty granted our wish.

  “And yet, I think the Konspirrissy may strike back at me, yes, even here in the Governor’s Palace on Ka’ashi. Humans adapt with great speed. That is both their strength and their weakness. You have a legend, The Jungle Book, of a human cub raised by pack-raiding beasts who yet became a leader of a whole ecosystem, enemy of one of the great kattz I look to meet on Earth, friend to another of the dark pelt! How amazed I was, each time I reread that legend, that such a thing could have happened! On Kzin it would have been not possible. Kzinti are hard as iron and stone, and do not change or adapt. That is our strength and our weakness. If the pride of that great kat Bagheera still live, I will speak with them when I conquer Earth.”

  Something changed in the great face. Its regal impassivity wavered.

  “I say that if you see this message I shall be dead. I believed that, with culling, over a few generations humans would become the most useful species the Patriarchy has ever acquired. Now I wonder if the Konspirritorrs do not see the Kzin in the same light! Or if they see Kzin and Human together as but malleable material for some other end.

  “Henrietta, I have a foreboding that these Konspirritorrs may destroy me. I think they are a greater threat than Ktrodni-Stkaa and his pride. These Konspirritorrs threaten both our kinds.

  “If I am dead, Traat-Admiral is my chosen successor. I think he will assert his dominance successfully, though he is but the Son of Third Gunner. I think he will see my youngest kits through the nursery. The elder will find their own way. I have told him you are decorous and he will listen to your advice as I have. I sometimes almost envy your kind their intelligent females, for I have no one but Conserver and you to whom I may open my mind.

  “You, my most trusted slave, must guide Traat-Admiral in his dealings with humans as I know you have guided me. Prepare the path so that Traat also discovers what I have discovered. He is the cleverest of my pride, but he must make discoveries for himself and learn to think as I do, but without me.

  “Do not mourn for me overmuch. I shall be with the Fanged God. Traat is brave and loyal, but he may fail. If he does, the task may devolve upon you. Destroy the Konspirritorrs that threaten both our kinds.

  “My sons are clever. Do not forget them. Guide them too if you can. You have served me well and faithfully. Your presence has brought me pleasure, and because of you I was able to be a better master to the humans of Ka’ashi.

  “I hope that you may prosper and have many cubs.”

  The holo vanished. Henrietta bowed her head to the place where it had been.

  “That, Noble Prince, was your Sire. That, Noble Hero, was the Kin of the Patriarch.”

  Raargh growled in his throat. He had seen the living Chuut-Riit, had been lectured by him as an NCO, and indeed had been presented to him and marked by a few drops of his honored urine after he had received his Name. The holo brought back many memories. As the odors were also meant to, he thought.

  He said nothing yet. He and Vaemar had given their Words not to attack their human captors that day. Those Words held them. Even if they did not, he had seen the snouts of automatic guns in various corners. Henrietta had spoken of “Ensign and other Heroes.” He had seen a few in these chambers, more near the entrances when, paralyzed and half-unconscious, he and Vaemar had been brought here. He had disciplined his mind to try to count them and take note of the defensive works, but there must be others he had not seen. At one point he had smelled Kzinrretti. Anyway, there were too many to fight.

  His ziirgah sense made it plain that they were being watched, though it also hinted—it could hardly do more than that and he was using it to its limit—that the gestalt of interest in him was fluctuating, and tending to drop as he continued to remain calm and made no furious or rampant movements. The kzinti here were presumably used to regarding all kzin as allies, and the field-grown ones would know nothing different. Who knows how many this place holds? He thought. And I must find out more. Then: I must think very carefully. A ghostly hologram could lay no charge on him; he knew it was but a collection of electronic impulses, perhaps even faked. Yet the testament of Chuut-Riit was not something to be set aside lightly.

  Raargh and Vaemar had passed this way. On Earth the orange fur of a kzin would have blazed out, but on this part of Wunderland the vegetation was still largely native, reddish, and better camouflage for them. Infrared surveys, difficult enough in daylight, showed body-heat patterns of what could be several large animals, but not, disturbingly, the almost unmistakable signatures of kzinti.

  Still, it was limestone country. The great caves of the Hohe Kalkstein were only a couple of score miles to the south. Raargh and Vaemar might well have found some deep hole to rest in or explore. He climbed to two thousand meters, then higher, and surveyed the country visually. A pattern of southward flowing streams, appearing and disappearing, the sudden sharp hollows of roof collapses, and other indications of cave country became obvious. There was also another pattern—a regularity of disturbance in the ground that did not look natural. He tried deep radar. His car’s set was not powerful but it showed a jumble underground of passages, streams, hollows, and again, sharp-edged regularities. The UNSN had learned that the Kzin, when they condescended to put their minds to it, could be masters of camouflage, and some of this had a kzinti military look to it, though it was on a far larger scale than the ambushes the UNSN had experienced. But if large-scale excavations had been going on here, where was the spoil? The forest and woodland were old Wunderland growth.

  The telltale indicated Raargh and Vaemar were in the vicinity but not close. Cumpston landed the car. He was in a shallow gully, filled with vegetation. Brown and pale-gray limestone outcrops rose about, and even sitting in the car’s cockpit he could see the dark apertures of three or four caves, partly screened by tall trees.

  He tasted the air as he could, trying for a gestalt feeling of the place. A native Wunderlander would be better at this, he thought. The clouds of flutterbys created an impression of tranquility that was not necessarily reliable. But there was a small stream flowing with a good population of amphibians, froggolinas and the even odder kermitoids that were looking at him curiously and making no effort to hide. There were other animals in the vegetation. If anything violent had happened recently, or if the kzin were hunting, the local wildlife would, he was sure, be silent and invisible. A small mechanical sniffer confirmed his own suspicion of kzin pheromones, but in the breezy glade they were much dispersed.

  A more sophisticated sniffer would have been useful, he thought, pinching his lip. Or a dog. Dogs’ reaction to the faintest smell of kzin was unmistakable, but there were few dogs on Wunderland now. Kzinti had not liked them. Well, Early had mechanical sniffers and a great many other things. Was it time to call Early? Cumpston had lights and weapons, not all of the latter obvious. He decided to check the nearest caves first.

  The first he looked at was plainly undisturbed. Not far within, delicate straw stalactites hung unbroken from the roof almost to the ground. Another time he would have enjoyed exploring this cave for its own sake, but it was obvious that nothing the bulk of a Kzin had passed this way. The next cave showed some disturbances in the mud at its entrance. Looking closely, he was not surprised to make
out the print of a kzin foot, though even in Wunderland gravity it seemed curiously light for such heavy creatures. In the still air a molecular analysis confirmed the presence of kzin breath-particles as well as pheromones. He identified the signatures of Raargh and Vaemar, but also others. There were human breath-particles, too. He started into the cave, then hesitated.

  Dangerous? Going alone into a cave on an alien world seeking a pair of large carnivores, evidently with unknown companions, was not an entirely safe thing to do, even if the carnivores in question were his chess partners. But in the event of trouble his failure to report would trigger an alarm at Early’s headquarters. Normally, the failsafe would trigger every five days, and at present it had four days to run. That was much too long an interval for safety in these circumstances, he thought. He would readjust the car’s brain to send a signal after two hours. That was, he thought, the best compromise he could make between recklessness and an excessive caution that would accomplish nothing. A movement caught his attention and there was a peculiar droning sound as he turned back to the car. He never reached it.

  “We’ll have some lunch here and then have a look around the science department and laboratories,” Professor Meinertzhagen said. The party had left their cars and were walking through one of the pleasanter parts of the campus. The steel spire of St. Joachim’s glittered in the distance.

  “This is the Cafe Lindenbaum, quite a historic place. One of the first sidewalk cafés in Munchen. Some say the day it opened we stopped being a village. Mark you, it’s famous among the more cynical on the staff as the ‘Failure Factory.’ Students drinking coffee, chattering and flirting on sunny days when they should be bent over their screens.”

  “I suppose students are students everywhere,” said one of the Crashlanders.

  “The Chess Club’s always met here, too. You know we’re organizing an Interstellar Tournament—the ICF has approved a new title of Interstellar Master, now that we don’t have to wait years between reports of each move! The restaurant section we’re eating in is too expensive for most students, though. It’s always had human service. It was a gimmick before the Invasion. Later,” he went on, “human service in restaurants—or anywhere else—was no novelty. As the economy collapsed machines broke down. More significantly, humans would work for less—do things for a crust or a pittance that machines had always done—do anything not to starve. Now, I’m pleased to say, human service is becoming a rare and fancy gimmick again. We might have a look at Harold’s Terran Bar this evening. There’s a lot of history there, too.”

  “But there’s still human service here, I see,” said Patrick, as they settled themselves around a couple of sidewalk tables. Several of the Crashlanders were fascinated by the flutterbys.

  “Oh yes, Old Stanley. But he’s the proprietor nowadays. Very grand!” Professor Meinertzhagen waved to the aproned old man.

  He shuffled over, clutching an antique paper notepad and tray. The tray fell from his hands, clattered and rolled away.

  “Professor Carmody!” he cried.

  “No!” Paddy Quickenden jumped to his feet.

  “I think it’s too late,” she said. “How do you know me?”

  “But…you used to come here with Professor Rykermann in the old days…before the Invasion.”

  “That’s a long time ago.”

  “How could I forget? The last time I saw you there was rioting over the new defense taxes and conscription orders. There had been reports of trouble in space. Old Otto had told me to pile sandbags round the walls, and that’s what I was doing. You and Professor Rykermann left together. Then, a few nights later, the bombardment started…But…you look the same!”

  “That’s all right!” Meinertzhagen said sharply and loudly. To look far younger than one’s years on Wunderland implied access to geriatric treatments during the Occupation. With relatively few exceptions, that implied a Government position or at least a prosperous and politically acceptable life during the Occupation. It was not a passport to approval on post-Liberation Wunderland. “This lady came from We Made It today in one of the new hyperdrive ships. You must be mistaken. Now we are attempting to offer her and her distinguished colleagues some hospitality!”

  “Oh! No, no of course, it couldn’t be, could it?…but…well, everything is on the House for any Crashlander! We haven’t forgotten what we owe them. I’m sorry, I’m getting old…I’m getting very old. I survived, you know…So many didn’t.”

  “This is an official party. Gratuitous service won’t be necessary,” Patrick Quickenden interjected. “We would simply like to give our orders now!”

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “Well,” said Dimity, as the old man shuffled off mumbling, “It seems the secret’s out, such as it is. We can’t silence him…But this is all so…I’ve been feeling strange ever since I came here.”

  “We can silence him, actually!” Patrick Quickenden said. She shook her head. “I appear to be remembered. Well, it was partly to find my past that I wanted to come back. Paddy…look!”

  “That’s the annex to the new physics block,” said Meinertzhagen, following her pointing finger to the building across the street.

  With .61 Earth gravity Wunderland buildings tend to be tall. Many, of course, had been leveled in the war. This one was large and new. High on its portico was the legend:

  THIS CENTER IS DEDICATED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  DIMITY CARMODY,

  DISCOVERER OF CARMODY’S TRANSFORM.

  DAUGHTER OF

  PROFESSORS LARRY AND MOIRA CARMODY,

  BORN: 2344

  FIRST PAPER PUBLISHED: 2354

  SPECIAL PROFESSOR OF

  MATHEMATICS AND ASTROMETAPHYSICS: 2360

  MURDERED BY THE KZIN: 2367

  “I knew I’d been a professor,” said Dimity. “That is one thing I did remember. I even remembered the title of the chair. They said I looked too young, but somehow I was sure of it.”

  “Too young!” Patrick was still gazing at the dates on the inscription. “This explains the strength of your alpha-wave when we found you. It also explains…begins to explain, rather, how you did what you did.”

  He crossed the street to read the inscription more closely. In smaller letters below the main wording was a rhymed couplet. It was an adaptation from a limerick once quoted to Nils Rykermann in the Cafe Lindenbaum.

  There was a young mind blazed so bright,

  Dreamed of traveling faster than light…

  —N.R., 2423

  “Does the expression ‘can of worms’ mean anything to you?” asked Patrick as he returned to the group. “I think we may have just opened one.”

  “I think,” said Meinertzhagen, “we had better enjoy our meal. I hope you like Wunderland cuisine. It’s got a strong North European background, of course, but many of the dishes are local. There are some intriguing blends.”

  “Like the vegetation,” said Patrick. “Look at those colors! Where else, on any world, could you see a blend like that! And under such a sky!” He had conquered his agoraphobia and was feeling rather pleased with the fact.

  The university gardens were well tended and a thing of pride and prestige. There were a variety of green, red and orange plants, blended and landscaped into a contrast of hot and cold colors. For the Crashlanders it was a Wonderland indeed.

  “Yes, they make quite a pleasing mixture, don’t they?” said Meinertzhagen. “The green plants are from Earth, of course, and the red are native. Poems have been written about how well they go together. There’s a lot of symbolism there.”

  “The orange plants too,” said Dimity. “It’s almost like a spectrum. I seem to know the others, but I don’t remember them. Are they Wunderland too?”

  “I think,” said Meinertzhagen, not knowing fully what she meant, “that the orange plants may have come originally from the sixth planet of 61 Ursa Majoris…also known as Kzin. It’s had a lot of effects here.”

  Chapter 6

  A
ndre brought Colonel Cumpston into the chamber at the point of a nerve disrupter and secured him with a police web. He had, he explained, found him at one of the disguised entrances to the fortress. He had evidently been following the kzinti. Raargh affected complete indifference and signaled to Vaemar to do the same. Cumpston had been searched and X-rayed and had a number of small weapons removed.

  “I’ll leave you,” said Andre, “with these two. Perhaps you had better hope they don’t get hungry.”

  Obviously there would be listening devices and spy cameras in the room where they were kept. In any case, humans and Kzin were coming and going. Still, it was impossible not to talk. They had no writing materials.

  “How find us?” Raargh asked.

  “I put a tracking device in Vaemar’s chessboard. I knew he seldom traveled without it. Forgive me for this discourtesy. It was useful in the event.” Cumpston replied in his careful human approximation of the Heroes’ Tongue. He did not think it tactful to tell the kzin that some of the game they had eaten had contained both chemicals and micro-robots that had made tracking them a great deal more certain than that.

  “There is much discourtesy,” growled Raargh. “And it does not seem very useful.” Still, the bond between them held. Raargh had not forgotten how Cumpston had helped him—and Vaemar—to life and freedom on the terrible God-forsaken day of Surrrendir, and the three of them had shared things since.

  I can’t tell him help will be on the way, thought Cumpston. Though friend and foe both should be able to work that out. Help will take a long time to get here, though. If I’d had a few more minutes it would have been a different story. The entrance to the subterranean fortress—if it was the main entrance he had been brought through—as well disguised. Obviously, if it’s not been picked up by satellites over the last five years. It had taken him a long time to be brought this far, past guarded doors and weapons positions. He had seen only a few kzin, but they were well dug in and protected, and there were heavy weapons. The place was like a maze on several levels, a labyrinth. Any attacking force would face heavy fighting and innumerable delays.