Choosing Names: Man-Kzin Wars VIII

by Larry Niven

  The suit was designed to fit a wide range of individuals and provide minimum level of life support and mobility, not comfort. Tom spoke as I helped him get into the suit and adjust it. “Speaking of Argus. Why haven’t we felt his presence?” Tom grimaced as he wiggled into the emergency suit.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “He doesn’t seem able to read my mind for more than a few hours at a stretch and then he can’t read it, or least he never has, till the next day. Maybe it has something to do with that drug he takes. Maybe he’s in no shape to read our minds right now.”

  Tom nodded, “He might be able to use an extra dosage of his drug to shorten his down time. Maybe he only reads you once a day to avoid overtaxing himself. Don’t bet on his not being able to read you now.” I nodded back to him as I grabbed the integrated helmet/biopack and slipped it over his shoulders and dogged the vacuum seals.

  “Don’t worry. I’m counting on it.” Tom looked perplexed as I pushed him into the airlock but if he said any more I couldn’t hear him through the glassine shell of his suit helmet. I watched as the lights showed he was depressurizing the airlock and opening the outer door. Then I pushed off from the wall and went rushing away from the airlock.

  The Telepresence Operations Center where I’d spent most of the last week was just a short distance down a cross corridor. As I went sailing through the corridor my whole body was tingling with nervous anticipation. At any moment I expected a huge wall of orange fur to explode in front of me filled with angry claws and teeth. Each time I came to an intersection of corridors I expected to find Slave Master coming at me from the other direction. I had lost track of where he was once we had left the Command Deck and now I imagined him everywhere. I wondered how much longer I’d have before Fritz would be invading my head, finding out where I was and signing my death warrant. Only in the case of the kzinti, I was most likely to end up inside a kzinti and not inside an organ bank.

  I sailed into the ready room outside the cargo lock. There was the familiar wall of racked telepresence ’bots. Floating past them I slowed to hit their emergency activation buttons, watching as the wall of ’bots came alive with blinking status lights and legs and manipulators moving in short test sequences. I grabbed one of the ’bots and carried it over to the VR workstation while it activated itself. I jury-rigged an attachment for it, making sure its eyes were where my head would normally be. Silver tape and some ingenuity quickly had the ’bot attached to the workstation with its legs and manipulators restrained and out of sight.

  I was almost done but I forced myself to move faster. If Fritz invaded my mind now my actions would all be for nothing. I had to finish my preparations quickly. I picked up a pair of ’bots and floated them over to near the door and pressed them against the wall, letting their magnetic feet hold them in place. I grabbed two more ’bots, turned them upside down and gently pushed them toward the ceiling. They hit the ceiling and their magnetic grapples held them in place. The other ’bots would have to wait. I grabbed two more ’bots and hurried out the door with them. I almost forgot the VR console but I ducked back inside to grab one of the portable units that was sitting loosely on an air suction workbench. That done I went back to my two ’bots and dove down the corridor clutching them in my hands. If Fritz would just stay out of my mind for a few more minutes. If Slave Master would not show up too soon. If . . . If . . . If . . .

  * * *

  I opened my eyes and looked around the Cargo Lock Ready Room and could not believe my good fortune. I had managed to complete all my preparations without Fritz getting into my head. The chrono on the wall showed that less than fifteen minutes had passed since I had stopped the rotation of the crew section, plunging everything into freefall, and clearly announcing that I was free and coming after the kzinti.

  Obler’s Paradox was a large ship and we had hidden in a part that was not familiar to the kzinti, but how much longer did they need to find us? How much longer before Fritz could take his drug and read my mind and see with my eyes and figure out where I was hiding? Hopefully soon. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I wanted this confrontation to be over. One way or the other. A shiver ran up my back and I told myself it was from anticipation, not chilly temperatures.

  I brought up a display window showing me the outputs from the autocams. If they couldn’t find me maybe I’d give them some help. The computer quickly found Slave Master and Fritz in the Command Deck. The large kzinti looked angry, which for him was normal, but Fritz . . . He looked miserable. Normally he was disheveled but now he looked like death warmed over. No, I take that back. I’d seem corpses pulled out of vacuum that looked better than he did.

  Fritz’s fur was matted and stuck out at strange angles, his eyes had purple tinged circles around them and his limp body floated listlessly. He looked like he was going to die, or at least fall asleep, at any moment.

  The two kzinti were trying to make sense out of our ship’s displays and the silence from their ship. Maybe they needed some help. I selected an option from a virtual display and brought the intercom on-line with it set up so my voice would come out of every speaker on the ship.

  “What’s the matter, Slave Master? Can’t figure out what happened?” My words echoed through the ship, even down here. It sounded like an angry god was everywhere. It was disconcerting. It was exactly what I wanted. “They’re dead. I killed them all. Just like I’m going to kill you.”

  Slave Master let out a terrifying growl and his arms swung round in angry defiance of me. Fritz was cowering in a corner, trying to get away from his angry superior and from my voice. Slave Master ripped a display unit off its stand and threw it against the wall. It didn’t change anything.

  “Slave of Humans. That’s what they’ll call you now. All of you kzinti together couldn’t beat two humans, and one of them was a cripple. How’s it feel to be defeated by a crippled eater of fruits and vegetables?”

  Slave Master raged around the Command Deck. His anger didn’t make him any more adept at getting around in freefall. He turned to Fritz and growled something. Fritz whimpered something back and Slave Master hit him backhanded sending him tumbling across the room. “Soon, Human,” Slave Master roared. “Soon you shall die. I will let you watch as I kill everyone on this ship and then you shall watch as I consume you, one limb at a time until you are dead.”

  “Fat chance, coward. The only thing you’ll get to eat will be my shit. You’ll like it. It’s made from roots and vegetables.”

  Slave Master roared in frustration and anger as he grabbed anything he could tear free and hurled it against the walls. Several times Fritz had to duck to avoid getting struck by flying equipment. Slave Master turned back to Fritz and growled at him, Fritz whimpered something but when Slave Master made a move toward him Fritz dug into his pouch and pulled out his syringe. He plunged it into his arm. His body language showed he was afraid of what it would do, but it was clear he was more afraid of what Slave Master would do if he didn’t use his drug. I watched in anticipation of the headache that would announce Fritz’s presence in my head. But nothing happened.

  “Slave of Humans. I grow tired waiting for you. Why not kill your telepath? He can’t read my mind. Must I tell you where to find me?”

  Slave Master glared at Fritz who was shaking and shivering as he made erratic spitting sounds. I heard loud growls from Slave Master and could read the anger in his body language. Fritz hesitated. Slave Master rushed over to him and reached into his pouch and pulled out another syringe. Fritz was writhing beneath Slave Master, who forced another dose of the drug into Fritz.

  And then there it was. The pain was diffuse and not as great as before, but I could feel it. Fritz was getting into my mind. Great. Now for the last part of the plan. I shut down all the virtual displays except one that showed me what the two kzinti were doing and concentrated on staring out at the ready room of the cargo lock and the Telepresence Operations Center. I made sure I looked at equipment and hardware we had been working with all week
. Familiar items.

  Things that would tell Fritz exactly where I was.

  “Slave of Humans. You justly fear for your life. I will kill you and use your skin as a rug to warm my feet.” I wanted to have him irrationally angry. I wanted him to be in a rush to attack me. I wanted to drive him over the edge. It wasn’t a long trip.

  Slave Master growled at Fritz who hissed something back to him. Slave Master pulled back his head and roared. He grabbed Fritz and pulled him out of the room. He knew where I was. He was coming to get me.

  Good.

  I watched in eager anticipation as the autocams tracked Slave Master and Fritz in their freefall rush through the ship. They gracelessly bounced off walls and ceilings as they made their way down the weightless corridors to the closest tubeway. They fumbled their way up the ladder, bumping into each other and knocking themselves away from the handholds. But graceless or not, clumsy or otherwise, you had to give them credit. They were on their way. Slave Master pulled ahead of Fritz and dove for the ready room of the cargo lock. I was waiting for him.

  The large kzinti came into the room, roaring a challenge that I’d never understand, with his long knife drawn. Why he didn’t have his gun out I’ll never know.

  Maybe it had something to do with honor, or maybe he just got excited and forgot. He flew toward the VR workstation with his eyes wide and mouth pulled open showing his long teeth.

  I watched the expression on his face change from challenging anger to what I thought must have been confusion because he wasn’t seeing me as he rushed toward the VR workstation. In my place was an EVA ’bot, strapped to the supports of the workstation.

  Fritz might have known what I was seeing, but he didn’t know where I was.

  Slave Master collided with the workstation and ripped it apart. The display turned to static as he destroyed the ’bot. I toggled the display to another ’bot.

  The room turned upside down. I checked to see which ’bot I had activated. It was one of the heavy duty EVA maintenance ’bots that I had planted on the ceiling. I scanned the room. There was Fritz cowering near the doorway directly above the ’bot I was controlling with Slave Master angrily sniffing the room in a fruitless search for me. He’d get his turn soon.

  I moved my legs and the ’bot exploded from the ceiling hurtling upward toward Fritz and landed on his back. I used a couple of manipulators to grab big chunks of Fritz’s fur. The telepath tried to shake me off, twisting and turning as he tried to dislodge me. But all he really succeeded in doing was getting himself separated from the floor and anything he could react against. He became a tumbling ball of matted orange fur floating in the middle of the room, screaming in pain or fear or both. And all the while my ’bot was latched firmly to his back.

  Slave Master saw this and rushed over, but he wasn’t fast enough. The ’bot extended its laser cutting torch. I sighted on the back of Fritz’s head and set the torch at its highest continuous power setting. One which could have cut through aluminum like a flame goes through dry ice. I pulled the trigger. Fritz didn’t have a chance.

  The laser was aimed at the base of his skull pointing up toward his brain. A pencil width tunnel opened up in Fritz’s head with the light from the laser shining incongruously through a hole in his forehead. The heat from the laser cauterized the wound so there was little blood to show for all the damage that was being done. In an instant the headache that had bedeviled me all week was gone, replaced by an unexpectedly sad emptiness.

  And then Slave Master reached what was left of Fritz and ripped the ’bot off his back and dashed it against the wall. The display filled with static. Scratch one more ’bot. I had plenty of ’bots.

  I pulled up an option window and selected another ’bot that I’d planted on the wall next to the door. I flipped off the intercom and routed my voice feed to the speakers on the ’bot. “Hey, Slave of Humans. Here I am.” My voice echoed in the ready room. Slave Master jerked around at the sound and for a moment was confused.

  I pushed off with my legs and the ’bot went flying toward Slave Master, who grabbed a workbench and pulled himself out of the way of the ’bot. I had to give him credit. He was learning quickly how to fight in freefall.

  I jumped my presence to another ’bot, activated its magnetic grapples and sent it walking across the floor toward Slave Master using its autonomous navigation capabilities. Again I routed my voice feed to this new ’bot. “Here I am. Over here.”

  I jumped my presence to another ’bot. This one a small IVA model, used for doing repairs in out of the way places inside the ship, that was still racked in its storage cell on the wall. “Not there, here!” As Slave Master turned toward this new source for my voice I activated the ’bot’s travel fans and made it zoom across the room toward him.

  I jumped my presence back to the ’bot that was walking toward Slave Master. “Here I am. Catch me if you can, you vegetable-eating coward.” Slave Master turned and roared at this insult, just as the IVA ’bot collided with his back. I jumped my presence back to that ’bot and grabbed onto his fur with its tiny manipulators. I increased the power to the ’bot’s travel fans and pushed it hard against him so that his fur twisted into the fans. He shrieked as he twisted and turned, trying fruitlessly to reach around to his back to remove this aggravating attacker.

  While he was distracted I jumped to a couple of more ’bots in turn and had them activate their magnetic grapples and self-navigate toward the roaring mountain of orange fur in the center of the room. I jumped to a third ’bot, another heavy duty EVA model like the one that had gotten Fritz. I activated its magnetic grapples and started it walking across the ceiling toward Slave Master.

  I jumped to the light duty EVA ’bot that was closest to Slave Master. “Here I am, Slave of Humans.” He turned to face the new attacker.

  I jumped to a ’bot on the other side of him. “No! Here I am.”

  Jump again. “No, over here.”

  Slave Master was a whirling mass of confusion. He kept turning to face my voice, but whenever he did, I changed positions. And all the while, the crowd of ’bots was walking toward him on the floor and on the ceiling.

  I jumped to the closest one, deactivated its magnetic grapples and with a twitch of my legs jumped the ’bot directly onto Slave Master’s chest. I grabbed hold of his thick fur with the ’bot’s manipulators.

  I jumped over to the IVA ’bot that was riding his back. I selected a drilling tool and howled my blood lust as I pressed the spinning drill against Slave Master.

  He screamed in pain as it penetrated his skin. The agonized sound was surprisingly human and sent shock waves through my mind.

  My actions horrified me. What kind of monster had I become? Then my mind flashed a memory of the sounds the Command Deck crew had made when they died and my doubts and fears became unimportant. I thought of all the people the kzinti had killed and would kill if they got the chance. I knew that I had to do for them what they could not do for themselves. I knew my actions would be as horrifying to my friends as anything the kzinti had done, but I forced that thought from my head as I did what I had to do.

  By now Slave Master was a mass of bloody fur. Balls of his purple-red blood were drifting around the ready room looking like small purple planets. When those quivering spheres hit the walls they spread out like crimson amoebas. A thin film of kzinti blood that looked almost orange covered the walls of the ready room.

  Slave Master twisted and squirmed as he fought his attackers but for every ’bot he removed from his body I got another one attached to him. I would have felt sorry for him, but I remembered Sara and Jennifer and Nathan and Joel and all the others. Pity was something that didn’t apply to the kzinti. I activated more ’bots.

  He never knew which ’bots were running autonomously and which ones were under my direction. He could kill individual ’bots but there were always more and he couldn’t get to me. He screamed in anger or frustration or maybe pain. I know it wasn’t fear. You had to give him credit
for that.

  The heavy duty ’bot had finished its trek across the ceiling and was standing directly above Slave Master. I jumped to this new ’bot and routed my voice feed to it. I activated its cutting laser, which could only be focused on objects a few meters in front of it. Any farther and the beam was automatically defocused.

  Slave Master was a bit farther away than desirable, but close enough for what needed to be done. I centered the laser’s aiming reticule on his forehead. Give it a second or two for the pattern recognition circuits to cut in and the laser would automatically stay focused on him as long as he stayed in range.

  “Slave Master,” my voice echoed from above him with what I realized was a parting gift for his dignity. He looked up. “This is for Sara and everyone else.”

  I fired the laser. A hole opened in his forehead and the light from the cutting laser passed through him, burning a smoldering hole in the floor. His body jerked and began a slow rigid tumble through the air of the Cargo Lock Ready Room, now nothing more than a lifeless relic from mankind’s first contact with outsiders.

  * * *

  I floated in an empty coffin in the chill air of the coldsleep chamber with wires and cables for my VR equipment running out through the partially closed hatch of the coffin. I wondered if Sara would appreciate the gesture.

  Soon it would be time to recover Tom from the airlock. To let him know that the danger was gone and that he was safe. (But would he ever feel really safe having me around, knowing what he had turned me into?) And then it would be time to thaw the remaining people from coldsleep so we could make our way into a different future than the one we had been expecting.

  But before I could feel safe I had to have another look at the kzinti warship. To make sure that it was really dead. I selected an exterior VR view and zoomed my perspective over to the kzinti ship. It was lifeless and dark I knew that nothing alive could be found there anymore. Yes, the fight was really over and mankind had won this round.