Man-Kzin Wars IX (Man-Kzin Wars Series Book 9)

by Larry Niven

  My shivering became a violent shudder. Fly-By-Night looked at me in consternation. "LE Mart? What's wrong?"

  "Too much killing."

  "Two enemies is too much? Get out of camera view, then. Are we ready?"

  "Go."

  Meebrlee-Ritt snarled, "Envoy, this had best be of great interest. We prepare for hyperdrive."

  "Dominant One, the timing was not of my choosing," Fly-By-Night bellowed into the oversized face. "The human attacked while Packer was visiting the waterfall. I have killed the telepath's slave—"

  "The Jotok is dead?"

  Fly-By-Night cringed. "No, Dominant One, no! Only the man. The Jotok lives. Telepath lives."

  "The man is nothing. Telepath did not purchase the man! Is Packer functional, and are you?"

  "Packer is well. I have nosebleeds, lost lung function, lost hearing. The man had a projectile weapon, a toy, but he damaged my helmet. I managed to put the cabin under pressure. Packer keeps watch on Telepath. Shall I return the cabin to vacuum? One of us would have to remain in the waterfall."

  "Set Packer at the controls. What can he ruin while there is nothing to fly? Maintain free fall. You and Packer trained for free fall, our prisoner did not. You, Envoy, talk to Telepath. Learn what he desires, what he fears."

  Cringe. "Dominant One, I shall."

  Again we faced an electromagnetic cannon. I said, "Good. Really good."

  Space around me winked like an eye. I caught it happening and looked at the floor. Fly-By-Night looked up, and blinked at the distortion. "Mart, I don't think . . . Mart? I'm blind."

  Paradoxical was in a knot, his arms covering all of his eyes. I said, "Maybe you'd better take Paradoxical into the waterfall and stay there."

  "Lost! Confused! Blind! How do you survive this?" the Jotok demanded. "How does any LE?"

  "They'll close off the windows on Stealthy-Mating. I don't see how to do that in here. I guess they leave the boat empty if they can. Fly-By-Night, lower your head. Look at the floor. See the floor? Hold that pose."

  "Stet."

  I got under Paradoxical and he wrapped himself around me, sixty pounds of dry-skinned octopus. I eased him onto Fly-By-Night's shoulders until he clung. "Gravity's on, right? Just crawl on around to the waterfall. Don't look up."

  In hyperdrive something unmeasurable happens to electromagnetic phenomena, or else to organs that perceive them: eyes, optic nerves, brains. A view of hyperspace is like being born sightless. The Blind Spot, we call it.

  In the waterfall room we straightened up and stretched. Fly-By-Night said, "None of us can fly—"

  "No. We're passengers. Stowaways. Relax and let them do the flying."

  Paradoxical asked, "How can any mind guide a ship through this?"

  I said, "There are species that can't tolerate it. Jotoki can't. Maybe puppeteers can't; most of them never leave their home system. Humans can use a mass pointer, a psionics device to find our way through hyperspace, as long as we don't look into the Blind Spot directly. But that's . . . well, part of a psionics device is the operator's mind. Computers don't see anything. Kzinti don't either. There are just a few freaky Kzinti who can steer through the Blind Spot directly."

  "It is the Patriarch's blood line," Paradoxical said. "After the first War with Men, when Kzinti acquired hyperdrive, they learned that most cannot astrogate through hyperspace. Some few can. The Patriarch paid with names and worlds to add their sisters and daughters to his harem. Today the -Ritts can fly hyperspace."

  Fly-By-Night said, "Really?"

  "It happened long after your folk were cut off. LE Graynor, I did research on more than just you. Of course you see the implications? Meebrlee-Ritt must fly Stealthy-Mating. He will be under some strain, possibly at the edge of his sanity. Tech must see him in that embarrassing state. Envoy and Packer need not, and no prisoner should."

  "He won't call?" I made it a question.

  "He would not expect answer. Packer and Envoy would be hiding in the Waterfall," Paradoxical said.

  That satisfied us. We were tired.

  For three days we lived in the waterfall room.

  One Kzin would have crowded the waterfall. With a man and a Jotok it was just that much more crowded. The smell of an angry Kzin made me jumpy. I couldn't sleep that way, so a high wind was kept blowing at all times.

  We used the sandpatch in full view of each other. There were ribald comments. The Jotok was very neat. Fly-By-Night covered his dung using gloved feet and expected me to do the same, but it wasn't needed. The magnetized "sand" churned and swallowed it to the recycler.

  Somebody had to come out for food. It developed that nobody could do that but me.

  Our talk ranged widely.

  Fly-By-Night never told us how he had reached Fafnir, nor even how he had passed through Customs. He did tell us something about the two who had come with him on their name quests. "I left Nazi Killer still collecting computer games and I set out to buy a Jotok—"

  "What kind of name is 'Nazi Killer'?"

  "It's an illicit game. Our First Sires' children found it among exercise programs in Angel's Pencil. Nazi Killer is very good at it. On Shasht he bought improved games and modern computers and waldo gloves for Kzinti hands, thinking these would earn his name."

  "Go on."

  "Maybe he's already home. Maybe the Longest War caught him. He would not have survived that. As for me, I wasted time searching out medical techniques to heal my broken bones. Such practice has only evolved for Humans! Kzinti still keep their scars. Customs differ.

  "But Grass Burner got what he wanted. Kittens!"

  "Kittens?"

  "Yes, six unrelated, a breeding set. On Sheathclaws there are only photos and holos of cats, and a library of tales of fantasy cats, and children who offer a Kzin kit a ball of yarn just because it makes their parents angry, nobody remembers why. Cats will get Grass Burner his name. But we remember Jotoks too. Paradoxical, if two species are smarter than one, three should be smarter yet. You will earn my name, if we can reach Sheathclaws."

  I snapped out of a nightmare calling, "What was its name? Stealthy-Mating?"

  "We were asleep," Paradoxical complained. "We love sleeping in free fall. Back in the lake. But we wake and are still a self."

  "Sorry." I almost remembered the dream. A lake of boiling blood, Kzinti patrolling the shores, wonderfully desirable human women in the shadows beyond. I was trying to swim. The pain was stunning, but I was afraid to come out.

  Broken blood vessels were everywhere on my body. It hurt enough to ruin my sleep.

  It was our fourth morning in hyperdrive.

  "Sraff-zisht," said Paradoxical.

  "Pleasemadam, seek interstellar spacecraft local to Fafnir, Kzinti crew, Heroes' Tongue name Sraff-zisht. Run it."

  Fly-By-Night woke. He said, "Make a meat run, Mart."

  When I went out for food, we detached the shower blanket so I could use it as a shield. Meebrlee-Ritt had ordered us to keep the boat in free fall. No way could we be really sure he wouldn't call. I had to use handholds. I'd made a net for the food.

  My computer dinged while we were eating. We listened:

  Sraff-zisht was known to the Shasht markets, and to Wunderland too. The ship carried red meat to Fafnir and lifted seafood. At Wunderland, the reverse. Crew turnover was high. They usually stayed awhile. This trip they'd lifted light and early.

  "Sraff-zisht is not armed," I said. I'd hoped it was true, but now I knew it. "Wunderland customs is careful. If they never found weapons or mounts for weapons, they're not there. We have the only gun!"

  "Yes!" Fly-By-Night's fully extended claws could stop a man's heart without touching him.

  "I've been thinking," I said. "There has to be a way to close that window strip. A Kzinti crew couldn't hide out in here! They'd tear each other to pieces!"

  "I knew that. It's too small," Fly-By-Night said. "I just didn't want to go out there. Must we?"

  We three crawled out with the shower blanket over us,
Paradoxical riding the Kzin's shoulders. We stayed under the blanket while we worked the controls. I felt like a child working my flatscreen under the covers after being sent to bed.

  There was a physical switch under a little cage with a code lock. None of us had the code. The switch wasn't a self-destruct. We knew where that was. When we ran out of options I sliced the cage away with the w'tsai, and flipped the switch.

  From under the blanket we saw the shadows changing. I peeked out. Lost my vision, lost even my memory of vision . . . saw the edge of a shield crawling across the last edge of window.

  If Meebrlee-Ritt had called earlier, he would have seen us flying hyperspace with windows open. Some mistakes you don't pay for.

  "I think you'd better spend a lot of time in disguise and out here," I told Fly-By-Night. I saw his look: better not push that. "The next few days should be safe, but we should practice getting a disguise on you. Meebrlee-Ritt will call when he drops us out, and he will expect an answer, and he will not expect you to be still covered with blood and half hidden in ripped-up armor. Home is an eighteen- to twenty-day trip, they said. Ten to go, call it three in hyperspace."

  The Kzin was tearing into a joint of something big. "Keep talking."

  "We need to paint you. Envoy had a smooth face, no markings except for what looked like black eyebrows swept way up."

  "What would you use for paint?"

  "The kitchens on some of the Nakamura Lines ships offered dyes for Easter eggs. Then again, they went bankrupt. What have we got? Let's check out the kitchen wall."

  Choices aboard Sraff-Zisht's boat were sparse. One variety of handmeal. Paradoxical's green sludge. Twenty settings for meat . . . "Fly-By-Night, what are these?"

  "Ersatz prey from Kzin, I expect. Not bad, just strange."

  They weren't all meat. We had two flavors of blood, and a milky fluid. "Artificial milk with diet supplements," Fly-By-Night told us, "to treat injuries and disease. Adults wouldn't normally use it."

  Three kinds of fluids. Hot blood— "Is one of these human?"

  "I wouldn't know, and that's one damn rude question to ask someone you have to live with—"

  "I'm sorry. What I—"

  "—for the next nine to ten days. If I get through this they'll have to give me a name."

  "I just want to know if it coagulates."

  Silence. Then, "Intelligent question. I've been on edge, Mart."

  I didn't say that Kzinti are born that way. "Ease up on the cappuccino."

  "We should thicken this. Mix it with something floury. Mush up a handmeal?"

  The handmeals would pull apart. We worked with the layers: a meatlike pâté, a vegetable pâté, something cheesy, shells of hard bread. The bread stayed too lumpy: no good. Cheese thickened the blood. One kind of blood did coagulate. We got a thick fluid that could be spread into a Kzin's fur, then would get thicker. Milk lightened it enough, but then it stayed too liquid. More cheese?

  We covered Fly-By-Night in patches everywhere, except his face, which we didn't want to mess up yet. This latest batch looked good where we'd spread it on his belly. I gave him a crossed fingers sign and worked it into his face.

  Not bad.

  We tried undiluted blood for the eyebrows. Too pale. Work on that later. I stood back and asked, "Paradoxical?"

  "The marks weren't symmetrical," Paradoxical said. "You tend to want him to look too human. They're not eyebrows. Trail that right one almost straight up—"

  "You'd better do it."

  He worked. Presently he asked, "Mart?"

  "Good!"

  That was all Fly-By-Night needed. He set us spinning as he jumped for the waterfall room. We gave him an hour to dry off, because the shower blanket didn't suck up all the water, and another to calm down. Then we started over.

  We couldn't get the eyebrows dark enough.

  Finally we opened up a heating element in the kitchen wall, hoping we wouldn't ruin anything, and used it to char one of Envoy's ears. We used the carbon black to darken Fly-By-Night's "eyebrows." We bandaged one ear ("exploded by vacuum.")

  Then we made him wait, and talk.

  "Sraff-Zisht drops back into Einstein space. There's an alarm. Do we get a few minutes? Does Meebrlee-Ritt clean himself up before he shows himself? Does he want a nap?"

  "I was not raised among the children of the Patriarch."

  "He's dropped us out in the inner comets. That's a huge volume. He's not worried about any stray ship that happens along, but he might want to check on us. He still has to worry that the big bad telepath has murdered his crew. Fly-By-Night? Massacres are routine?"

  "Duels, I think, and riots. Mart, the cleanup routines are very simple. Any surviving crew with a surviving fingertip could set them going."

  "Meebrlee-Ritt calls. Right away?"

  "He will set a course into Home system. Then he will make himself gorgeous. Let the lesser Kzinti wait. Count on forty minutes after we enter Einstein space."

  "Stet. He calls. Envoy's all cleaned up. Big bandage on his ear. What is Envoy's attitude?"

  Fly-By-Night let his claws show. Kzinti do sweat, but we'd cooled the cabin. His makeup was holding. "Half mad from sensory deprivation, still he must cringe before his alpha officer. Repress rage. Meebrlee-Ritt might enjoy that. Change orders just to shake up Envoy."

  "Cringe," I said.

  Fly-By-Night pulled himself lower in his chair. His ear flattened, his lips were tight together.

  "Good. Envoy wouldn't eat in front of Meebrlee-Ritt—?"

  "No!"

  "Our makeup wouldn't stand up to that."

  "No, and I promise not to eat the makeup!"

  We kept him talking. I wanted to see how long the makeup would last. I wanted to see if he'd go berserk. A little berserk wouldn't hurt, in a Kzin who had been trapped in sensory deprivation for many days, but he had to remember his lines.

  Three hours later . . . he didn't crack, but the makeup started to. We sent him off to get clean.

  Morning of the ninth day. I couldn't stop chattering.

  "We'll drop out of hyperspace at the edge of Home system. We almost know when. There is only one speed in hyperdrive—" though Quantum Two hyperdrive is hugely faster and belongs to another species. "If Sraff-Zisht has been traveling straight toward Home at three days to the light-year, we'll drop out in . . ."

  "Four hours and ten minutes," Paradoxical said.

  "The jigger factor is, where does Meebrlee-Ritt drop us out? Hyperdrive takes "flat" space. If there are masses around to distort space, the ship's gone. Pilots are very careful not to get too close to their target sun. Really cautious types aim past a target system. Just what kind of pilot is Meebrlee-Ritt?"

  "Your pronunciation is terrible," said Fly-By-Night.

  "Yah?"

  "Crazy Kzin. Dive straight in. Cut the hyperdrive ten ce'meters short of death. Let our intrinsic velocity carry us straight into the system. Mart, that is the only decent bet."

  "Where is Packer? Still in the waterfall?"

  "I will think of something."

  "I want you in makeup two hours early."

  "No."

  "H—"

  "Yes, he might drop out short! But he might circle! He might enter Home system at an angle. Our window of opportunity has to slop over on either side." Fly-By-Night's speech was turning mushy again, lips pulling far back, lots of gleaming white teeth. Even Envoy didn't look like that. Sheathclaws must have good dental hygiene.

  "We know that he will not show himself to Envoy and Packer after nine days of letting the Blind Spot drive him crazy and ruin his hairdo. You'll have forty minutes to make me beautiful."

  "Stet. What next? Decelerate for a week. Drop the boat somewhere, maybe in the asteroids, without changing course. The Home asteroid belt is fairly narrow. Still plenty of room to hide.

  "They'll bring you aboard ship just before they drop the boat. Because you're dangerous. Thanks." He'd dialed me up a handmeal. "You're dangerous, so they'll keep you in free fa
ll until the last minute. If we're wrong about that, we could get caught by surprise."

  "Bring me aboard? How does that work? Order Envoy and Packer to stun me and pull me through the small lock? We can't do that. They're dead!"

  "Lure the technology officer in here."

  "How?"

  "Don't know. Make up a story. Let's just get through dropout without getting caught."

  * * *

  A recording spoke. A computer whined, "Dominant Ones, we have returned to the universe. Be patient for star positions."

  Paradoxical started the curtain retracting. Stars emerged. I went to the kitchen wall and dialed up what we needed.

  The recording reeled off a location based on some easy-to-find stars and clusters. Paradoxical listened intently. "Home system," he said. "We will use the telescope to find better data. Can you do that alone?"

  "Yah." We'd practiced. In free fall we were still a bit awkward, but I mixed the basic makeup, then added char to a smaller batch. A bit more? All? Ready. "You do the eyebrows, Doc."

  "First I will finish this task."

  Fly-By-Night held still while I rubbed the food mixture into his facial fur.

  Paradoxical said, "Graviton wake indicates a second ship."

  "Damn!" Fly-By-Night snarled. I flung myself backward; my seat web caught me.

  Paradoxical said, "We find nothing in visible light."

  "Don't move your mouth. Aw, Fly-By-Night!" He was in an all-out snarl, trying to talk and failing. Drool made a darker runnel. "If Meebrlee-Ritt saw that he wouldn't care who you are. Lose the teeth!"

  Fly-By-Night relaxed his mouth. "Your extra week is down the toilet, Mart. They're making pickup here and now."

  The makeup had stayed liquid. "Paradoxical, give him eyebrows." I brushed out the drool, then settled myself out of camera range. They'd given me the flight controls. Paradoxical on astrogation, Fly-By-Night on weapons.

  Paradoxical finished his makeup work and moved out of camera range, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I asked, "Shall we talk? Is this second ship just an escort?"