Man-Kzin Wars 25th Anniversary Edition

by Larry Niven

Ryan and Tregennis peered. They recognized frame and straps, pincers and electrodes; certain items were less identifiable. The telepath slumped at the feet of the torturer.

  “Hastily improvised,” Markham said, “but the database has a full account of human physiology, and I made some suggestions as well. The subject will not die under interrogation as often happened in the past.”

  Ryans chest heaved. “If that thing can read my mind, he knows—”

  Markham sighed. “We had better get to work.” He glanced at the kzin officers. They both made a gesture. The guard sprang to seize Ryan from behind. The Hawaiian yelled and struggled, but that grip was unbreakable by a human.

  The torturer advanced. He laid hands on Tregennis.

  “Watch, Ryan,” Markham said raggedly. “Let us know when you have had enough.”

  The torturer half dragged, half marched Tregennis across the room, held him against the wall, and, claws out on the free hand, ripped the clothes from his scrawniness.

  “That’s your idea, Markham!” Ryan bellowed. “You unspeakable—”

  “Hold fast, Kamehameha,” Tregennis called in his thin voice. “Don’t yield.”

  “Art, oh, Art—”

  The kzin secured the man to the frame. He picked up the electrodes and applied them. Tregennis screamed. Yet he modulated it: “Pain has a saturation point, Kamehameha. Hold fast!”

  The business proceeded.

  “You win, you Judas, okay, you win,” Ryan wept.

  Tregennis could no longer make words, merely noises.

  Markham inquired of the officers before he told Ryan, “This will continue a few minutes more, to drive the lesson home. Given proper care and precautions, he should still be alive to accompany the search party.” Markham breathed hard. “To make sure of your cooperation, do you hear? This is your fault!” he shrieked.

  18

  “No,” Saxtorph had said. “I think we’d better stay put for the time being.”

  Dorcas had looked at him across the shoulder of Laurinda, whom she held close, Laurinda who had just heard her man say farewell. The cramped command section was full of the girl’s struggles not to cry. “If they thought to check Prima immediately, they will be at Tertia before long,” the captain’s wife had stated.

  Saxtorph had nodded. “Yah, sure. But they’ll have a lot more trouble finding us where we are than if we were in space, even free-falling with a cold generator. We could only boost a short ways, you see, else they’d acquire our drive-spoor if they’ve gotten anywhere near. They’d have a fairly small volume for their radars to sweep.”

  “But to sit passive! What use?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Thought you knew me better. Got an idea I suspect you can improve on.”

  Laurinda had lifted her head and sobbed, “Couldn’t we . . . m-make terms? If we surrender to them . . . they rescue Juan and, and Carita?”

  “ ‘Fraid not, honey,” Saxtorph had rumbled. Anguish plowed furrows down his face. “Once we call ‘em, they’ll have a fix on us, and what’s left to dicker with? Either we give in real nice or they lob a shell. They’d doubtless like to have us for purposes of faking a story, but we aren’t essential—they hold three as is—and they’ve written Fido’s people off. I’m sorry.”

  Laurinda had freed herself from the mate’s embrace, stood straight, swallowed hard. “You must be right,” she had said in a voice taking on an edge. “What can we do? Thank you, Dorcas, dear, but I, I’m ready now . . . for whatever you need.”

  “Good lass.” The older woman had squeezed her hand before asking the captain: “If we don’t want to be found, shouldn’t we fetch back the relay from above?”

  Saxtorph had considered. The same sensitivity which had received, reconstructed, and given to the boat a radio whisper from across more than two hundred million kilometers, could betray his folk. After a moment: “No, leave it. A small object, after all, which we’ve camouflaged pretty well, and its emission blends into the sun’s radio background. If the kzinti get close enough to detect it, they’ll be onto us anyway.”

  “You don’t imagine we can hide here forever.”

  “Certainly not. They can locate us in two, three weeks at most if they work hard. However, meanwhile they won’t know for sure we are on Tertia. They’ll spread themselves thin looking elsewhere, too, or they’ll worry. Never give the enemy a free ride.”

  “But you say you have something better in mind than simply distracting them for a while.”

  “Well, I have a sort of a notion. It’s loony as it stands, but maybe you can help me refine it. At best, we’ll probably get ourselves killed, but plain to see, Markham’s effort to cut a deal has not worked out, and—we can hope for some revenge.”

  Laurinda’s albino eyes had flared.

  —”Aloha, hoapilina.—”

  Crouched over the communicator, Saxtorph heard the Hawaiian through. English followed, the dragging tone of a broken man:

  “Well, that was to show you this is honest, Bob, if you’re listening. The kzinti don’t have a telepath along, because they know they don’t need the poor creature. They do require me to go on in a language their translator can handle. Anyway, I don’t suppose you remember much Polynesian.

  “We’re orbiting Tertia in a boat from the Prowling Hunter warship. ‘We’ are her crew, plus a couple of marines, plus Arthur Tregennis and myself. Markham stayed on Secunda. He’s a kzin agent. Maybe you’ve gotten the message from Fido. I’m afraid the game’s played out, Bob. I tried to resist, but they tortured not me—poor Art. I soon couldn’t take it. He’s alive, sort of. They give you three hours to call them. That’s in case you’ve scrammed to the far ends of the system and may not be tuned in right now. You’ll’ve noticed this is a powerful planar ‘cast. They think they’re being generous. If they haven’t heard in three hours, they’ll torture Art some more. Please don’t let that happen!” Ryan howled through the wail that Laurinda tried to stifle. “Please call back!”

  Saxtorph waited a while, but there was nothing further, only the hiss of the red sun. He took his finger from the transmission key, which he had not pressed, and twisted about to look at his companions. Light streaming wanly through the westside port found Dorcas’ features frozen. Laurinda’s writhed; her mouth was stretched out of shape.

  “So,” he said. “Three hours. Dark by then, as it happens.”

  “They hurt him,” Laurinda gasped. “That good old man, they took him and hurt him.”

  Dorcas peeled lips back from teeth. “Shrewd,” she said. “Markham in kzin pay? I’m not totally surprised. I don’t know how it was arranged, but I’m not too surprised. He suggested this, I think. The kzinti probably don’t understand us that well.”

  “We can’t let them go on . . . with the professor,” Laurinda shrilled. “We can’t, no matter what.”

  “He’s been like a second father to you, hasn’t he?” Dorcas asked almost absently. Unspoken: But your young man is down on Prima, and the enemy will let him die there.

  “No argument,” Saxtorph said. “We won’t. We’ve got a few choices, though. Kzinti aren’t sadistic. Merciless, but not sadistic the way too many humans are. They don’t torture for fun, or even spite. They won’t if we surrender. Or if we die. No point in it then.”

  Dorcas grinned in a rather horrible fashion. “The chances are we’ll die if we do surrender,” she responded. “Not immediately, I suppose. Not till they need our corpses, or till they see no reason to keep us alive. Again, quite impersonal.”

  “I don’t feel impersonal,” Saxtorph grunted.

  Laurinda lifted her hands. The fingers were crooked like talons. “We made other preparations against them. Let’s do what we planned.”

  Dorcas nodded. “Aye.”

  “That makes it unanimous,” Saxtorph said. “Go for broke. Now, look at the sun. Within three hours, nightfall. The kzinti could land in the dark, but if I were their captain I’d wait for morning. He won’t be in such a hurry he’ll care to
take the extra risk. Meanwhile we sit cooped for 20-odd hours losing our nerve. Let’s not. Let’s begin right away.”

  Willingness blazed from the women.

  Saxtorph hauled his bulk from the chair. “Okay, we are on a war footing and I am in command,” he said. “First Dorcas and I suit up.”

  “Are you sure I can’t join you?” Laurinda well-nigh beseeched.

  Saxtorph shook his head. “Sorry. You aren’t trained for that kind of thing. And the gravity weighs you down still worse than it does Dorcas, even if she is a Belter. Besides, we want you to free us from having to think about communications. You stay inboard and handle the hardest part.” He chucked her under the chin. “If we fail, which we well may, you’ll get your chance to die like a soldier.” He stooped, kissed her hand, and went out.

  Returning equipped, he said into the transmitter: “Shep here. Spaceboat Shep calling kzin vessel. Hello, Kam. Don’t blame yourself. They’ve got us. We’ll leave this message replaying in case you’re on the far side, and so you can zero in on us. Because you will have to. Listen, Kam. Tell that gonococcus of a captain that we can’t lift. We came down on talus that slid beneath us and damaged a landing jack. We’d hit the side of the canyon where we are—it’s narrow—if we tried to take off before the hydraulics have been repaired; and Dorcas and I can’t finish that job for another several Earth-days, the two of us with what tools we’ve got aboard. The ground immediately downslope of us is safe. Or, if your captain is worried about his fat ass, he can wait till we’re ready to come meet him. Please inform us. Give Art our love; and take it yourself, Kam.”

  The kzin skipper would want a direct machine translation of those words. They were calculated not to lash him into fury—he couldn’t be such a fool—but to pique his honor. Moreover, the top brass back on Secunda must be almighty impatient. Kzinti weren’t much good at biding their time.

  Before they closed their faceplates at the airlock, Saxtorph kissed his wife on the lips.

  —Shadows welled in the coulee and its ravines as the sun sank toward rimrock. Interplay of light and dark was shifty behind the boat, where rubble now decked the floor. The humans had arranged that by radio detonation of two of the blasting sticks Dorcas smuggled along. It looked like more debris than it was, made the story of the accident plausible, and guaranteed that the kzinti would land in the short stretch between Shep and glacier.

  Man and woman regarded each other. Their spacesuits were behung with armament. She had the rifle and snub-nosed automatic, he the machine pistol; both carried potentially lethal prospector’s gear. Wind skirled. The heights glowed under a sky deepening from royal purple to black, where early stars quivered forth.

  “Well,” he said inanely into his throat mike, “we know our stations. Good hunting, kid.”

  “And to you, hotpants,” she answered. “See you on the far side of the monobloc.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you right back.” She whirled and hastened off. Under the conditions expected, drive units would have been a bad mistake, and she was hampered by a weight she was never bred to. Nonetheless she moved with a hint of her wonted gracefulness. Both their suits were first-chop, never mind what the cost had added to the mortgage under which Saxtorph Ventures labored. Full air and water recycle, telescopic option, power joints even in the gloves, self-seal throughout. . . . She rated no less, he believed, and she’d tossed the same remark at him. Thus they had a broad range of capabilities.

  He climbed to his chosen niche, on the side of the canyon opposite hers, and settled in. It was up a boulderful gulch, plenty of cover, with a clear view downward. The ice cliff glimmered. He hoped that what was going to happen wouldn’t cause damage yonder. That would be a scientific atrocity.

  But those beings had had their day. This was humankind’s, unless it turned out to be kzinkind’s. Or somebody else’s? Who knew how many creatures of what sorts were prowling around the galaxy? Saxtorph hunkered into a different position. He missed his pipe. His heart slugged harder than it ought and he could smell himself in spite of the purifier. Better do a bit of meditation. Nervousness would worsen his chances.

  His watch told him an hour had passed when the kzin boat arrived. The boat! Good. They might have kept her safe aloft and dispatched a squad on drive. But that would have been slow and tricky; as they descended, the members could have been picked off, assuming the humans had firearms—which a kzin would assume; they’d have had no backup.

  The sun had trudged farther down, but Shep’s nose still sheened above the blue dusk in the canyon, and the oncoming craft flared metallic red. He knew her type from his war years. Kam, stout kanaka, had passed on more information than the kzinti probably realized. A boat belonging to a Prowling Hunter normally carried six—captain, pilot, engineer, computerman, two fire-control officers; they shared various other duties, and could swap the main ones in an emergency. They weren’t trained for groundside combat, but of course any kzin was pretty fair at that. Kam had mentioned two marines who did have the training. Then there were the humans. No wonder the complement did not include a telepath. He’d have been considered superfluous anyway, worth much more at the base. This mission was simply to collar three fugitives.

  Sonic thunders rolled, gave way to whirring, and the lean shape neared. It put down with a care that Saxtorph admired, came to rest, instantly swiveled a gun at the human boat 50 meters up the canyon. Saxtorph’s pulse leaped. The enemy had landed exactly where he hoped. Not that he’d counted on that, or on anything else.

  His earphones received bland translator English; he could imagine the snarl behind. “Are you prepared to yield?”

  How steady Laurinda’s response was. “We yield on condition that our comrades are alive, safe. Bring them to us.” Quite a girl, Saxtorph thought. The kzinti wouldn’t wonder about her; their females not being sapient, any active intelligence was, in their minds, male.

  “Do you dare this insolence? Your landing gear does not seem damaged as you claimed. Lift, and we fire.”

  “We have no intention of lifting, supposing we could. Bring us our comrades, or come pry us out.”

  Saxtorph tautened. No telling how the kzin commander would react. Except that he’d not willingly blast Shep on the ground. Concussion, in this thick atmosphere, and radiation would endanger his own craft. He might decide to produce Art and Kam—

  Hope died. Battle plans never quite work. The main airlock opened; a downramp extruded; two kzinti in armor and three in regular spacesuits, equipped with rifles and cutting torches, came forth. The smooth computer voice said, “You will admit this party. If you resist, you die.”

  Laurinda kept silence. The kzinti started toward her.

  Saxtorph thumbed his detonator.

  In a well-chosen set of places under a bluff above a slope on his side, the remaining sticks blew. Dust and flinders heaved aloft. An instant later he heard the grumble of explosion and breaking. Under one-point-three-five Earth gravities, rocks hurtled, slid, tumbled to the bottom and across it.

  He couldn’t foresee what would happen next, but had been sure it would be fancy. The kzinti were farther along than he preferred. They dodged leaping masses, escaped the landslide. But it crashed around their boat. She swayed, toppled, fell onto the pile of stone, which grew until it half buried her. The gun pointed helplessly at heaven. Dust swirled about before it settled.

  Dorcas was already shooting. She was a crack marksman. A kzin threw up his arms and flopped, another, another. The rest scattered. They hadn’t thought to bring drive units. If they had, she could have bagged them all as they rose. Saxtorph bounded out and downslope, over the boulders. His machine pistol had less range than her rifle. It chattered in his hands. He zigzagged, bent low, squandering ammo, while she kept the opposition prone.

  Out of nowhere, a marine grabbed him by the ankle. He fell, rolled over, had the kzin on top of him. Fingers clamped on the wrist of the arm holding his weapon. The kzin fumbled after a pistol of his own.
Saxtorph’s free hand pulled a crowbar from its sling. He got it behind the kzin’s back, under the aircycler tank, and pried. Vapor gushed forth. His foe choked, went bug-eyed, scrabbled, and slumped. Saxtorph crawled from beneath.

  Dorcas covered his back, disposed of the last bandit, as he pounded toward the boat. The outer valve of the airlock gaped wide. Piece of luck, that, though he and she could have gotten through both with a certain amount of effort. He wedged a rock in place to make sure the survivors wouldn’t shut it.

  She made her way to him. He helped her scramble across the slide and over the curve of hull above, to the chamber. She spent her explosive rifle shells breaking down the inner valve. As it sagged, she let him by.

  He stormed in. They had agreed to that, as part of what they had hammered out during hour after hour after hour of waiting. He had the more mass and muscle; and spraying bullets around in a confined space would likely kill their friends.

  An emergency airseal curtain brushed him and closed again. Breathable atmosphere leaked past it, a white smoke, but slowly. The last kzinti attacked. They didn’t want ricochets either. Two had claws out-one set dripped red—and the third carried a power drill, whirling to pierce his suit and the flesh behind.

  Saxtorph went for him first. His geologist’s hammer knocked the drill aside. From the left, his knife stabbed into the throat, and slashed. Clad as he was, what followed became butchery. He split a skull and opened a belly. Blood, brains, guts were everywhere. Two kzinti struggled and ululated in agony. Dorcas came into the tumult. Safely point-blank, her pistol administered mercy shots.

  Saxtorph leaned against a bulkhead. He began to shake.

  Dimly, he was aware of Kam Ryan stumbling forth. He opened his faceplate—oxygen inboard would stay adequate for maybe half an hour, though God, the stink of death!—and heard:

  “I don’t believe, I can’t believe, but you did it, you’re here, you’ve won, only first a ratcat, must’ve lost his temper, he ripped Art, Art’s dead, well, he was hurting so, a release, I scuttled aft, but Art’s dead, don’t let Laurinda see, clean up first, please, I’ll do it, we can take time to bury him, can’t we, this is where his dreams were—” The man knelt, embraced Dorcas’ legs regardless of the chill on them, and wept.