by Larry Niven
Sraff-Tracker just snarled, and leapt back to his tsvasztet. He climbed from the pad to the platform and snarled something at C’mell, who pulled the harness bar and smoothly guided her tuskvor away. V’rli let her eyes slide shut and went back to sleep.
Ayla spent some more time practicing with the harness bar. Their tuskvor seemed to be in a particularly uncooperative mood, and she privately named it “Camel.” While she grunted and strained to get the recalcitrant animal to go where she wanted it, she thought about Sraff-Tracker’s visit. He represents a danger. Why does he see Pouncer as a threat? Is it C’mell? She knew little of kzinti mating habits, and she suspected that the rules were very different in a social structure where the kzinretti were more than simple property. She didn’t like Sraff-Tracker, hadn’t liked him since the day they’d met Tzaatz Pride and he’d decided he’d like to eat her. So do I warn Pouncer? It should fall to V’rli, but what if she doesn’t tell him? She spent some time mulling that question. She didn’t want to get involved in the pride’s internal dynamics. But Pouncer is my ally, and my friend. She would tell him if V’rli did not.
V’rli made it easy for her. She just told Pouncer, “Sraff-Tracker wants you to leave the Pride.”
“Will you support him in this?”
“No.”
“Then I will stay, Honored Mother, as long as I and the Cherenkova-Captain are welcome.”
V’rli turned a paw over. “You have spilled blood for us, First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit, and so I stretched the tradition to take you on the migration. You would not have made it to Mrrsel Pride before they had left on their own journey. If you are to stay with Ztrak Pride you will need to complete a namequest.”
“I have already decided on my quest, Honored Mother.”
“What will you do?”
“I will reclaim the Patriarchy from my traitorous brother and the Tzaatz who stole it for him. I will take back my inheritance.”
“You said as much when you first came to us. I thought you might have tempered your desire.”
“I am resolved.”
V’rli fanned her ears up. “No one here doubts your courage, Pouncer. Do not bring us to doubt your wisdom. Choose another quest, one you can hope to complete.”
“I did not choose this quest; Kchula-Tzaatz chose it for me. Honor allows me no other course.”
“It is too soon for vengeance. A namequest must be completed alone, and what you speak of requires a campaign.”
“And if I alone lead this campaign?”
“You are no longer a kitten, but you are not yet a warrior. Who will follow you?”
“You will, I hope, and where you lead, Ztrak Pride will follow. Perhaps my mother’s pride will follow me as well, and where two prides of czrav lead perhaps the others will come too. The Tzaatz will have weaknesses, and we will find them and exploit them.”
V’rli looked at him for a long time. “Do you know the story of the krwisatz?”
“The-pebble-that-trips-pouncer-or-prey. I know it.”
“I think you may indeed be krwisatz, Pouncer, for Ztrak Pride, for the czrav, perhaps for all kzinti, and most of all for yourself.” She paused, looking into the bloodred sunset. “Be sure you trip the prey, and not the Pouncer.”
It was the first time V’rli had used his familiar name. There was weight in the moment, acceptance with the warning. Even Cherenkova understood the significance there. Pouncer made the gesture-of-obeisance-to-wisdom. “I will heed your advice, Honored Mother.”
A tuskvor came alongside theirs and a dark shape leapt onto their journeypad—Quicktail. V’rli raised her tail as he clambered onto the platform. “And now my favorite storyteller”—she fanned her ears up—“Tell us a tale, Quicktail. Give us the scent of something worth tracking.” She wrapped her tail around her feet.
“This is the story of wise K’ailng…” Quicktail began, settling down in the center of the platform. “Who had traveled far from his homeland, and one day…”
The kzinti leaned forward on their prrstet as the youngster wove his words into a story. Cherenkova listened too, lying next to Pouncer for warmth against the gathering chill of the desert night. She idly rubbed the fur on his neck, provoking a muted rumble of a purr. It was a comforting action, almost intimate, that the kzin half tolerated and half enjoyed. Who is the pet here? She smiled at that thought. Ztrak Pride was becoming his pride, and it was becoming Cherenkova’s pride too. V’rli was solidly on their side. In the background the creak of the tsvasztet and the occasional grunt of the tuskvor were overlaid on the vast rumble of the migration’s steady pace, constant, reassuring sounds like the throbbing engines of a ship at sea. Quicktail’s story was compelling, but she found herself unable to shake a vague unease. Sraff-Tracker is dangerous. He doesn’t want us in his pride. We’re a problem for him, and he isn’t going to leave it alone.
Through birth and death, the Pride lives on.
—Wisdom of the Conservers
The Circle of Conservers was an ancient fortification, built high on a mountain crag jutting vertically up from the warm waters of the Southern Sea. Unlike those of the Citadel of the Patriarch its defenses hadn’t been modernized, or even maintained, in the eons since vertical cliffs and deep water were considered strong protections against any foe. The massive walls were still there, and the towers, but the network of defensive tunnels beneath it was long collapsed. The walls had lost their crenellations, the towers’ arrow slits had been widened into windows, or filled in entirely. In the courtyard, well tended grasses grew where mighty siege engines had once stood ready to sink the ships of an invader. The massive gates were long gone, leaving only an empty archway, and the untended gatehouses had long since crumbled. The only thing to stop an intruder was the steep, winding trail from sea level to the mountaintop.
Rrit-Conserver paused by the gates, breathing deeply, his limbs sore from a Hunter’s Moon of walking, finished by the final climb. The arduous path was obstacle enough, but the real reason for the fortress’s decayed defenses was that it had been protected from time immemorial by something much more powerful, tradition. The Conservers maintained the traditions in the Patriarchy, and one of the strongest was that only a Conserver could enter the bastion of their calling. Not even Patriarchs were permitted to violate its sanctity, and with good reason. Only by preserving impartiality could the Conservers be trusted to judge for the benefit of the race. Even the perception of bias would destroy that trust.
Fifth Custodian greeted him at the gate and showed him to his usual quarters, an austere room in what had once been the main keep. He stayed only long enough to drop his scant belongings and groom himself, then hurried to the central tower. A winding staircase led to a heavy stonewood door bound in iron, behind it a room full of the quiet whir of medical machinery, much of it attached to a wizened figure lying on an instrumented prrstet: Kzin-Conserver.
The old kzin looked up as Rrit-Conserver came in, his ears furling up in surprise. “My old friend, what are you doing here?”
Rrit-Conserver made the half-abasement. “I have come to see you, sire. I was worried.”
“You should be in the Citadel. These are critical times for the Patriarchy.”
“Scrral-Rrit has dishonored himself. I am free of my oath of fealty.”
“What did he do?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. Nor am I surprised.” Kzin-Conserver’s ears relaxed. “You might have advised Kchula-Tzaatz instead.”
“Kchula-Tzaatz is as dishonored as Scrral-Rrit, he just hides too well for ztrarr. And he will not take my advice.”
“Hrrr. I had to force him to put you into their councils. I’d hoped you might provide some balance.” The old kzin reclined again, suddenly tired.
“Sire.” Rrit-Conserver stepped to the prrstet, put a paw on his mentor’s shoulder. “How are you?”
“I am dying.” Kzin-Conserver struggled to raise his head again. “Which is a welcome thought, when I live like this.”
&nbs
p; “There are treatments…” Rrit-Conserver waved a paw to the medical equipment surrounding them.
“To what end? That I may lie gasping on this prrstet and fantasize that I guide that Patriarchy? My life is over. I don’t need it anymore.”
“You have lived your life well, sire.”
“Perhaps. I have abandoned the traditions to hold the Patriarchy together. I am ashamed of that, and also afraid I was still too inflexible.”
“You did what you had to for the species. Your decision was balanced.”
“In the end it will make little difference. The Patriarchy is dying too.”
“No, there is hope yet.”
“Hope?” Some of the old fire came back to Kzin-Conserver’s voice. “The kz’zeerkti are coming, mark my words. Scrral-Rrit is nothing, though we all pretend he is Patriarch to avoid the consequences if he were not. As for Kchula-Tzaatz, the Great Prides will call him leader while they storm to conquest, but when we face the full might of the monkeys they will abandon him. A Traveler’s Moon later they’ll be at each other’s throats.” Kzin-Conserver coughed painfully. “We have been a proud race for a long time. I’m glad I won’t live to see the end of that.”
“We are still a proud race, sire, and First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit is alive.”
“He escaped!” Kzin-Conserver sat upright, reenergized. “I knew that sthondat Tzaatz was hiding something. Have you zatrarr?”
“No, I knew before that the Tzaatz had not killed him. Now I have the word of a kzintzag warrior who helped him escape. He fights the Tzaatz and leads others, and he got a message to me through a slave. His name is Far Hunter.”
“Far Hunter. A promising name.” Kzin-Conserver relaxed back onto the prrstet, breathing heavily after his exertion. “Perhaps there is hope yet.” He closed his eyes, speaking slowly. “You will be Kzin-Conserver after me. I have told Senior Custodian.”
“I am honored, sire.” It was an honor Rrit-Conserver would rather not have had to accept.
“It is a poor gift, in these times. Do your best with it.” Kzin-Conserver waved a paw. “Let me rest now. Come back tomorrow.” The old kzin’s eyes slid closed.
“As you wish.” But Rrit-Conserver knew there would be no chance to come back tomorrow and so stayed in silence, his paw on his mentor’s shoulder providing what comfort could be given until the end.
They think we don’t have weapons? Today we’ll show them what a mass driver can do.
—Captain Sael Pollonia at the defense of Luna City (First Man-Kzin War)
Oorwinnig had conducted her test run at the system’s edge to hide her capabilities from enemy eyes. Alpha Centauri had lots of kzinti, a decent number of other aliens and more than its fair share of human pirates, freerunners and outlaws who would quite happily sell their species out, so long as the profit margins were high enough. Her tests completed, she plunged back toward the central star. Tskombe did not see Captain Voortman again, and spent the remainder of the voyage with Trina and Curvy. Alpha Cen A itself grew from a dim fourth magnitude star to a burning disk, still small enough to look at directly with the naked eye but putting out as much light as the full moon on Earth. They docked at Tiamat, the largest asteroid of the Serpent Swarm. Tiamat was a potato-shaped mixture of rock and nickel-iron, fifty kilometers by twenty, spun on its long access to generate artificial gravity in the time before humanity gained the grav polarizer. It housed five million humans in its vast warrens, a hundred thousand kzinti, half that many Kdatlyno and Jotok, and a handful of other aliens, all of them the detritus of generations of war. It was the Free Wunderland Navy’s major military base, and the economic powerhouse that made the economy of the Centaurus system the showpiece of the UN colonization effort.
Khalsa had planned to land Valiant on wide-open Wunderland. Tiamat presented a problem; the sealed world was under even tighter surveillance than Earth. Tskombe was worried about clearing customs, not for himself but for Trina. The UN had a lot of unofficial clout on Tiamat, but they operated in Centaurus System purely as invited guests with no administrative or governmental power, a compromise arrangement arrived at after a long and frequently bloody struggle with the Isolationists and their political arm, the Free Wunderland Party. Even if the ARM on Earth had hyperwaved Tskombe’s ident to the Goldskin cops, the Goldskins wouldn’t tag it until the UN had cut their way through the jungle of red tape required to get an Earth warrant recognized in the system. Trina’s total lack of an ident was a different matter, but as it turned out he needn’t have worried about that either. Curvy spoke to the Goldskin running the customs checkpoint, and shortly thereafter an ARM showed up to usher them through the formalities. The UN’s left hand didn’t know what the right was doing, not yet anyway. They were given senior quarters in the UN section on the one-gee level. The accommodation people shut down the section’s swimming pool for Curvy and arranged fresh fish from Tiamat’s aquaculture farms. Another ARM, an attractive blonde woman, took Trina to shop for clothes. Tskombe took the opportunity to go for a swim himself, a rare luxury, and he paddled steadily back and forth while Curvy leapt and played amid the darting trout, getting the exercise that she’d been denied in transit and snapping down fresh fish. Eventually they both tired, and Tskombe climbed out of the water to towel himself off.
“I thought we’d be in trouble without Khalsa to grease the wheels.”
Curvy came over and nosed herself deftly into her hand-suit. “Khalsa worked on my authority. I have sufficient rank within the UN to command resources as required.”
“You do?”
“Yes, of course. I am the UN’s senior matrix strategist. My talents are unique, and so they were anxious to secure my services. I am not part of the human hierarchy so they must convince me to work for them. My price, part of my price, has been freedom of movement within human space, facilitated by the UN. Ravalla will want us captured, but his organization is facing many challenges in consolidating power. We are a small detail, and now outside his sphere of direct influence. It will take the bureaucracy a long time to catch up with us here.”
Tskombe shook his head. I knew that, why didn’t I make the connection? “If you have this much influence, why didn’t you just request me through normal channels back on earth?”
“We were working to that end through General Tobin. However, it was a sensitive situation. If WarSec were caught intervening in political affairs it would generate bad matrix outcomes. In general, we therefore avoid it. Still, matrix analysis has indicated that the elevation of Secretary Ravalla to Secretary General will almost certainly lead to war, and perhaps to the revocation of democratic principles on Earth, and ultimately throughout human space. Ravalla’s personality profile is dangerous, even for a politician.”
“Do you actually believe you can make predictions in that detail?”
“Predictions can be made to an arbitrarily high level of detail, with the probability of correctness falling as an exponential function of specificity.” Curvy whistled something that her translator did not translate. “You seek to understand the functional limits within which we can expect to be accurate. We successfully predicted the nature and outcome of the power play that lead to Ravalla’s election, within the constraints of our error bars. Admittedly he moved at the earliest possible time. Unfortunately our freedom of action was too limited to allow us to stop it, given the limited amount of warning that our model gave. Launching you to Kzinhome was our best available strategy to prevent war. I have since updated the matrix. The probability lapsed chance of your success is one point four percent.”
Tskombe kicked himself to the side of the pool and levered himself out of the water. “That hardly seems worth the effort.”
“You do not understand, Colonel Tskombe. To have a one percent influence on the course of history is tremendous power. Most individuals have so little influence as to be irrelevant. You are in a privileged position.”
“Privileged with one point four percent.” Tskombe thought about that. “And what abo
ut the other ninety-eight point six percent?”
“There are a variety of potential outcomes. The most probable is your death on Kzinhome at seventy-six point one percent, followed by your death on approach to Kzinhome, at twelve point nine percent, followed by a variety of outcomes in which you survive but are unable to prevent the war.”
Tskombe smirked humorlessly. “At least I’ve got a better than one point eight chance of living.”
“No.” Curvy missed the humor. “In a scenario where you survive to see the war start your chances of surviving the conflict are in line with those of all sentients in human or kzinti space, which is to say close to zero. In addition, there are several sub-scenarios in which you are likely to prevent war but are unlikely to survive personally.”
Not encouraging. “And what is the chance I’ll find Ayla on Kzinhome?”
“Unknown. She was removed from the strategic matrix when you returned from your mission. Probability assessment indicates she is almost certainly dead. If not, her circumstances are so extreme that her role is not quantifiable. Hence we cannot compute outcomes in which she plays a part.”
Tskombe fell quiet. Having it put in those stark terms made it clear just how daunting a task he was undertaking. Better, perhaps, to cut his losses while he could. Except, as Curvy had pointed out, if he didn’t succeed he was likely to die in a war of mutual annihilation along with almost everyone else. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Curvy swam away to catch another trout. When she came back, she stuck her head out of the water and whistled again. “Colonel Tskombe, we must discuss Trina and her psi talent.”
“Okay.”
“You speculated that she was preternaturally lucky.”
“Only a theory, with virtually no support.”
“I have thought about this in some detail. It is a theory which fits my own experience playing chess with her. In speed chess an amateur has the opportunity to make lucky moves and so win against an expert, because the expert cannot play a deep game. In a standard game the most phenomenal luck will not suffice for victory.”
