Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - X

by Hal Colebatch

  “Not for long. Only to Ka’ashi to join the expedition. The humans report the box was found floating in distant space. It is apparently larger than usual, and they have not tried to move it. All stasis boxes may be important, as the Beta Lyrae incident showed, and the stasis box there was small. This one may contain nothing useful. But sense suggests a large stasis box may be especially important. Perhaps especially dangerous.”

  “Sire, you know my liver burns to serve the Patriarch wherever I am sent, but duty impels me to express surprise that this task is not given to a Speaker-to-Anim…to a diplomat.”

  “You will be given diplomatic credentials. You have traveled and mixed with lesser species before without trouble: Plainly you have self-control. You have also shown yourself resolute, Heroic and able to make quick decisions. Names are given too easily nowadays, but you have earned yours. You speak Interworld and have studied human history. More to the point, you are an experienced military officer and pilot. Should the stasis box contain live Slavers, you will need to destroy them, irrespective of the humans’ policies. Indeed, I gather the humans, weak creatures as they are, would be glad of a Hero’s prowess in the event of such mutual danger.

  “Should this stasis box contain a weapon, a war-winning weapon,” the Fleet Admiral went on, “you may need to act at…discretion. The Alien Authority Lords did wish that a professional Speaker-to-Animals be sent, but authority above me held a professional fighter was necessary.

  “You referred a few moments ago, Charrgh-Captain, to humans’ cowardice. I have at times spoken similarly. Such is, of course, the tone of the studies you have diligently undertaken, and the way in which we have long spoken. It is also an objective fact that no aliens approach the courage of the Heroes’ Race. Humans indeed may be rattle-brained often enough. Daffy monkeys. But all humans cowards? You know better. So, now, do we all. Be wary.”

  There were at least three points for Charrgh-Captain to ponder: first, for the Fleet Admiral to refer to a “truce” rather than a “treaty,” to use the old and insulting job-title “Speaker-to-Animals” instead of the more modern “diplomat,” and the old name Ka’ashi instead of the human Wunderland for the long-lost colony-world, told its own story; second, all kzintosh of the Patriarchy, military and civil, including diplomats and other specialists, had a high degree of military training, so this might be a task where extra-special abilities in that direction would be required; and third, in matters of this nature the only authorities above Fleet Admiral Zzarrk-Skrull were the Supreme Council of Lords and the Patriarch himself. I am climbing into high trees, he thought.

  “I have spoken of the meat,” said Zzarrk-Skrull. “I now speak of the offal. Obviously you will travel in a confining ship with humans.”

  “I believe I can endure it, Sire. I have traveled in human ships before.”

  “Allow me to finish. Urrr. There will not only be humans in this ship, but an…abomination.”

  “Sire?” If it was a human ship from Wunderland, he thought he could guess what the abomination was. Neither kzintosh wished to speak of such things.

  Zzarrk-Skrull’s face and ears wrinkled up as though he were tasting rancid sthondat-flesh. “There is a certain logic in it. When investigating the Slavers, thoughts may need to be read. Or we could take it as a deliberate insult. However, the Patriarchy and the Supreme Council have resolved to accept it. We have little choice. They have beaten us in six wars…but who knows? Perhaps the contents of this box will ensure that they will not beat us again. It is worth eating a little kasht.”

  “Is there hope of another war, Sire?”

  “A Hero who delivered to the Patriarchy a war-winning weapon would find Glory,” said the Fleet Admiral. “A Full Name would be certain…There have been instances in our history, though none of late, where that Full Name has been completed by the suffix ‘Riit.’ You speak of hope? My own Sires would have hoped for nothing else…”

  A fourth point to ponder there, certainly; I bring home the weapon that smashes the human empire and I will be promoted to Royalty. And a fifth point, too: Our ancestors hoped for nothing but another war. Do we?

  The representative of the Institute of Knowledge on Wunderland was of course a Jinxian. To other humans he looked almost cubical. As he spoke to Richard and Gay Guthlac he also looked benign, like a huge garden ornament cast rather crudely in concrete. His apparent good temper was easy to understand. In Wunderland’s gravity he had the strength of a superman and did not need a heart-booster.

  “As you’ve probably guessed,” he said, “this expedition’s budget comes from a grant to the Institute by the General Products Foundation. The Puppeteers—whatever rump of an organization they’ve left in Known Space—don’t like undertaking such ventures themselves. They want us to do it.”

  “How did the Puppeteers find it?”

  “I don’t know. They have activities they’re discreet about, even now. Also they’ve had more dealings with the Outsiders than we. Perhaps the Outsiders told them.”

  “There’s also, of course, a military aspect. A human military aspect. With the approval of the UNSN the Foundation has given us weaponry that should be enough to handle any trouble—and you both hold UNSN Reserve commissions, as do Melody and Peter Robinson, and as do I, for that matter. If it comes to a military situation, you’ll be wearing those hats. As captain of the ship, Richard will of course command in that situation as well.”

  “Why not a bigger crew?” asked Richard Guthlac.

  “Money, as usual. The General Products Foundation has had little income since most of the Puppeteers quit Known Space. The few that remain have, as far as we know, been more concerned with winding up existing enterprises than with starting new trade or supporting abstract knowledge.

  “But they evidently think a new stasis box is worth having someone investigate. It reinforces my suspicions, for what they’re worth, that, wherever the Puppeteers have gone, they’ve not gone as far or as fast as we thought. If their fleet had been travelling FTL for more than two hundred years, why should they bother with something so far behind them?

  “And you should have enough talents between you to cover all emergencies,” he went on. “You know the drill with the contents of stasis boxes: If they are safe, bring them home, if they are dangerous, destroy them.”

  He paused. Richard was suddenly struck by the thought that his benign expression had more to do with his extraordinary musculature than any internal contentment. His eyes were those of a worried man.

  “To persevere in opening stasis boxes at all has always been a difficult policy decision, with many opposed to it. However the majority view at the Institute—and…er…other authorities…is that if we’d let the danger prevent us opening any stasis boxes, ever, we’d have passed up a great deal of priceless knowledge. So far, our procedures have worked. You yourselves have retrieved and opened three without trouble, so you’re the obvious choice for this job.”

  “Perhaps we were just lucky. We found no live Slavers.”

  “Perhaps. But in any event the danger wouldn’t deter our furry friends: whatever their paranoia they are brave. For many reasons—and the Puppeteers concur with this quite definitely—we can’t let our fears give them a monopoly of stasis-box discoveries.

  “Of course, it’s not their own necks the Puppeteers risk—did you know that when they first revealed themselves to Pierson, we actually named them after their appearance rather than their preferred mode of operation? Anyway, it’s you who’ll be at the sharp end.

  “You may have to make a quick judgment, and in the event of encountering live Slavers, a small crew like yours is as good as an army. We are sure Slavers coming out of stasis will need some time to orient themselves. We hope Peter Robinson will give us an edge there: He can tell us instantly of any active Slaver minds. Don’t use that time to speculate or anything else, just launch your missiles and never mind the knowledge that may be lost. That is, of course, a direct order given from under my military
hat.”

  He paused for a moment to let that one sink in.

  “Your observer from the Patriarchy is one Charrgh-Captain, a naval officer who has had off-world postings as an attaché. I met him when he was here previously. I think he’s a fairly typical kzin of the officer class. ‘Captain’ is our translation of a term whose significance varies, but in his case he’s in a senior grade—about the equivalent of a colonel as far as there’s an equivalent. I expect he’ll support a strike on the box if the situation calls for it, but he’s an observer only, with no power except to make recommendations. He’s under your orders in any emergency…

  “Just make sure, if it’s something the kzinti would regard as, er, useful—I think you know what I mean—that he doesn’t…step beyond the protocols. Kill him without hesitation, if necessary, and we’ll cook up some cover story. Plausible accidents can always happen in space.” Killing any adult male kzin is not exactly easy, Richard thought. Oh, and to make it a little more challenging, this one just happens to be a professional military officer as well. I suppose this Jinxian has had kamikaze combat training and wears a Hellflare tattoo, though discreetly out of sight in these peaceful days. When, incidentally, killing a kzin would be treated as murder, and killing a kzin colonel, if it got back to the Patriarchy, would be a good deal worse. It might even mean extradition for us if the Kzin insisted. And they would. I had forgotten how many Jinxians have chips on those vast shoulders of theirs and enjoy putting us beanpole-men and our willowy women on the spot.

  “And Peter Robinson?” said Gay. “How is Charrgh-Captain going to like him?”

  “He isn’t. But he’s got no choice. Don’t worry, kzinti can be more adaptable than you might think. They’re cats, after all. They’ll growl and snarl, but they’ll accept a situation they can’t change, provided you leave them a way to do it that doesn’t compromise their dignity or honor.”

  “We know.”

  “It’s when they get really adaptable, of course, that they get dangerous. Some geneticists say the wars have changed the kzinti gene pool to produce less aggressive, less ferocious kzin. I wonder if they’ve rather produced more cunning kzin, capable of biding their time, and this time not attacking till they’re good and ready…

  “Speaking of adaptability,” he went on, “even with hyperdrive the trip will take several months. That’s another reason the crew is small: Your salaries will be loaded to compensate for the time out of your lives and general inconvenience. You’ll have to spend time in hibernation or standing watch alone, almost as in the STL days.”

  “Just how much will our salaries be loaded?” asked Richard.

  “Adequately. I have the contracts here. A bigger crew would mean more divisions of a limited cake. Don’t forget, the stock market has had some rocky times since the Puppeteer pull-out. We’re reconstructing our economies successfully, but a new golden age isn’t going to come overnight. In fact, we are lucky to have an expedition even of this size. At least”—this time he really did laugh—“even if your crew is small, you have all the talents.”

  Whomping Wallaby was a General Products #3 hull. Puppeteer-produced, it was spacious for the six crew, though its life-system, with kzin as well as human requirements to cater for, was relatively complex, and kzinti liked lots of elbow-room. The hull was thought to be indestructible and impenetrable to anything but visible light, which interior paint kept out. It was well-fitted with computers and a laboratory, boats, ground craft and an outfit of heavy weapons, including a laser cannon and bomb-missiles. It was standard in well-armed research ships (and all research ships were well-armed) to fit discreet precautions against their being misappropriated, but it was also considered bad form to discuss these. It was a legend that all such expeditions still carried at least one covert ARM agent, though ARM’s unseen grip on human society was reputed to have been weakening for some time. It was also now standard for ships fitted out for possible dealing with Slaver stasis boxes to carry self-destructs. General Products had provided all the nonpersonal equipment, including the boats and weapons. Puppeteers were pacifists themselves except in direst need, but that did not prevent them making effective weaponry. There was human and kzin medical equipment, including a kzin military autodoc.

  Melody Fay, the representative of the Institute of Knowledge on the expedition as well as weapons and security officer, was another blocklike Jinxian with a penetrating voice. Probably, Richard thought, she also wore the Hellflare tattoo. I hope it stays out of sight, he thought, and for more, he reflected a little uncharitably, than diplomatic reasons: The idea of seeing her naked was frankly unappealing. She was Jinxian in manner as well as appearance, given to striking her chest boomingly for emphasis. Jinxian females in lower-gravity societies, perhaps even more than their male counterparts, tended to have a mental armor of defensiveness and aggression.

  Gatley Ivor was a tall, thin Wunderlander and specialist in the study of Slaver Empire relics. He still wore the asymmetrical beard that had been a status mark for aristocratic Wunderlanders of past generations. Although with modern medicines the physical age of human adults was hard to tell, his speech and mannerisms were those of a very old man in whose body those medicines were not working perfectly.

  All the talents! Richard thought, recalling the Jinxian’s words as they stowed their gear. This is a crew about as ill-assorted as it is possible to get, even before our other members join.

  “My cabin will be completely secure?” Peter Robinson, junior partner of Robinson and Son, Mental Investigations, seconded to the Institute-Guthlac Expedition, asked for the third time. He pitched his hat into one corner of the cabin, took off his sunglasses, and wiped them with a nervous gesture.

  “Yes. Completely. Remember this is a Puppeteer-built ship.”

  “I don’t know if you understand how fearf—how difficult it is for me to be sharing a ship with a specimen of Pseudofelis sapiens ferox…with a kzintosh of the Patriarchy.”

  “You won’t have to mix until we get there. And he is a diplomat, bound by protocols,” Gay assured him again.

  “I will have to use my will to assert dominance,” said Peter Robinson. “And not just once as in normal civilized society of our kind, but continually. This will be an ordeal. He will try to destroy me, either by crushing me psychologically, or physically. I will not let him. But I wish there was a human telepath good enough to do this job. I have a nice business and plenty of work here on Wunderland.”

  “There isn’t,” said Richard. “But,” he added awkwardly after a pause, “this kzintosh is a representative of the Patriarch, no less, and bears the Patriarch’s sigil. It embarrasses me but must ask you: Are you sure you will feel no conflict of loyalty?”

  “I once saw a real kzinti telepath,” said Peter Robinson. “A dribbling, vomiting, twitching freak, despised by all and doomed to die a terrible death after a short life of misery and degradation.

  “In thousands of years the laboratories and science of the Patriarchy never tried to find a drug that would allow us to function without destroying us. Research along those lines was even deliberately forbidden: The Patriarchy did not want strong or sane telepaths. The human laboratories on Wunderland found such a drug only a few years after the Liberation, and since then we Wunderkzin telepaths can live almost normal lives. Liberation! Can you have any doubt where my loyalties lie?”

  He paused, and stared into Richard’s eyes.

  “I will not deny that there are times I look in a mirror and ask: ‘What am I? What are my kind? Where do we go?’ I am not free of everything…But I saw a kzinti telepath once.”

  Most kzin, even if they had a perfect academic grasp of human languages, spoke them with a harsh, grating tone. Peter Robinson’s vocal chords had been altered by microsurgery when he was young. It was strange to hear the perfect, almost accentless Interworld, with only traces of the now-dead language and accent of Wunderlander, from the fanged jaws of Man’s ancient enemy.

  “You did say my cabin wi
ll be secure?”

  Charrgh-Captain arrived from Kzin by a regular flight. His Interworld was fluent, but his voice could never be taken for human. He handed over his credentials, retaining a bag with diplomatic markings for himself, and briefly acknowledged the human members of the crew. At the sight of Peter Robinson he curled his lip and said nothing. He thought something, though, and Richard and Gay saw Peter Robinson flinch. He shuffled backward into his cabin, looking more like a telepath of the Patriarchy than they had ever seen him look. Then suddenly he came out again and returned Charrgh-Captain’s stare. Then he burst forth:

  “I am a Wunderkzin and my destiny is my own. Regarding low Kdaptists I have nothing to say. Neither I nor my ancestors have committed any crime against the Patriarchy save to assert our freedom after you lost a war. You have no legal rights over our kind and no claims against us. The Patriarchy conceded that in the MacDonald-Rshshi Treaty and the protocols.

  “Further, Wunderland jurisprudence is still derived from the old Law and our independence is established by legal precedent. I refer you to Sraakra-Rykermann v. Representatives of the Patriarchy, cited in the 154th Edition of Nichols on Police Offenses.”

  Charrgh-Captain was moved to snarl back, but in Interworld rather than the Heroes’ Tongue.

  “I have no interest. We signed those truces when we were defeated and had no choice! Do not speak of them!”

  “But sign them you did. Have your kind not voiced contempt for the humans who say a promise made under duress does not bind? And as for being defeated, would you hazard another war now?”

  “We rebuild our Empire with the hyperdrive, smug freak. But fear not this day. My diplomatic status protects you.”

  Peter Robinson closed the door again. This time he locked it.