Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - XI Read online

  “Hroarh-Officer! My Honored Step-Sire Raargh’s old commander! I have met him.”

  “He lives?”

  “Yes.”

  Her ears moved in a strange expression. “When my legs were mended, he was gracious enough to take me into his household, and then into his harem.”

  “He has no use for a harem now,” said Vaemar.

  “That I know. I was with him while he lay shattered. I stanched the bleeding though he screamed at me to let him die. I told him it was his duty to live, his duty to our kind. I had never spoken to him in the Heroes’ Tongue before, let alone given him commands…

  “It was a strange time. We lay together in the wreckage and I comforted him and talked with him. It was not humans that had maimed him so, you know. It was in the fighting between the followers of Traat-Admiral and Ktrodni-Stkaa, before the humans landed. And I revealed to him the secret that I was tired of keeping. That some on this world knew already. That I was one of the Secret Others…the females whose brains were not killed.”

  “I knew nothing of this,” said Vaemar.

  “No, Riit. And perhaps I should kill you now to keep that secret. But this is no longer a kzinti world. And I am hungry to speak.”

  Vaemar called to the others, “Any movement?” There seemed to be nothing. All were alert. The sighting dots of the weapons moved back and forth in the darkness of the corridors, running over mold, dark metal, and, farther down some passages, rippling water that might conceal an armed, approaching enemy. Swirl-Stripes fired the beam rifle at this, flashing it into steam, but it was a precaution only and he could not keep the trigger depressed for more than an instant. Vaemar told him to cease. More, or closer, live steam would broil them, and as it was the clouds from these momentary bursts were highly inconvenient, especially when they were striving to see. This closes about me, thought Vaemar. And then again: What would honored Sire, and Honored Step-Sire do? And then: Seek knowledge. Seek more knowledge. He waited for the air to clear and returned to the kzinrret.

  “Tell me more.”

  “I kept Hroarh-Officer alive, and stopped him killing himself until aid arrived. The other kzinrretti had yammered and fled when the fighting started. I stayed with him while they gave him some sort of field-surgery. It gave him help, I think, to hold my fingers then. We talked long in that time. He became the first kzintosh I did not hate.

  “And later I stayed to make sure he did not die. Then there were the human landings, and he commanded his troops from a cart in the battles that followed until few were left alive. Wounded and maimed, nearly all, kept for garrison duties, though there were fewer garrisons each hour. He even taught me a little skill with weapons then, for we did not know what the days might bring, and he had accepted what I was. Finally he told me: ‘Go, Karan, I know now my duty is to live. Let me be an example: if I can live, so can Raargh-Sergeant with his one arm and eye and these other half-Heroes of mine. But we must let the monkeys give us every chance to die in battle first, taking as many of them as we may with us to present to the Fanged God. You must hide yourself and survive. I will keep your secret. You are free,’ he said, ‘No longer the property of this useless half-kzintosh. But remember the Hero I once was.’”

  “You were loyal to your Hero,” said Vaemar. Strange linkings of fate. If she saved Hroarh-Officer and he in turn did not let Raargh Hero die, then I owe this strange kzinrret Raargh Hero’s life. Which means I owe her my own life too. Well, let us see how long we shall keep our lives.

  “I hardly know what I was loyal to,” she told him. “Many memories. Warring drives. Why should I love the patriarchy that enslaved all females and blanked the minds of nearly all? Robbed them of more than life? Oh, we of the Secret Others know how it was done, more or less. The stories have been handed down. There were humans I had met—the Leonie Manrret in the caves was one—who were more kind to me than my own kind. Yet Hroarh-Officer was truly my Hero, and I am kzinti too. He lives, you say?”

  “Yes, and he is honored.”

  “I am glad. But I do not think he would wish to see me again as he is now…Anyway, I left Hroarh-Officer at his command. I evaded the fighting and the hunting humans, and made my way at last to the swamp. I learnt to swim and to catch fish and other prey. There is hunting in plenty at the edges of the swamp.

  “One day, I saw other kzinti in a boat. I was tired of living alone and I went to them. They took me to their island. I helped with the fishing there, and watched and thought. I was but a kzinrret again, a brainless worker and breeder, but things were not quite the same. I showed initiative. I spoke, a little, in the Heroes’ Tongue. I gave directions to the other females, and, if I did not do or dare too much, I found that in time this was accepted by the kzintoshi. You know it would not have been before…”

  I can see the kzintoshi would have accepted you, Vaemar thought. If you were well fed you would be rather a beauty. One part of his mind felt he was wasting time, but still he returned his attention to what she was saying. Until he knew more there was nothing he could do to give targets to the wandering sighting dots of their weapons.

  “I saw that something was happening to our kind on this planet under human rule. Something too big for me to understand. There was opportunity here, but also the chance of disaster. What would we become? Have you ever asked yourself that question?”

  “There have been a few occasions, sometimes as long as whole minutes together, when I have thought of other things,” said Vaemar.

  “I wished to think,” she went on, ears twitching in appreciation of the sarcasm. “Alone. I took to solitary hunts. I swam in the clear water. Sometimes at night, when the others slept, I watched the internet, the human sites as well as the kzin ones at Arhus and Tiamat. I saw humans and kzinti beginning to work together here, even as I saw the great battles between them in space.”

  Vaemar tried to imagine a kzinrret following space-battles. He could not. The notion was simply too alien. Think of her as a human in a fur-coat and it might be easier, he thought. The way humans are warned not to think about us. No. Those great eyes were not human, however weird and disturbing the light of intelligence in them was.

  “And what did you conclude?”

  “Both kinds are incomplete. But the strengths of the humans and the kzinti may complement one another one day. I think no kzintosh of the Patriarchy could understand that. They could not conceive of hairless monkeys on equal terms. But I, a female raised to be a slave and grown as a kitten among both kinds, can see it.”

  “I have human companions,” said Vaemar. “These with me here, and others.”

  “In the depths of your liver, can you truly say before the Fanged God that they are partners, you who bear the ear-tattoos of the Riit? You cannot answer.”

  “No, I cannot answer that,” said Vaemar after a moment. “I have tried…”

  “Even as you could not truly think of me as the equal of a kzintosh, of your companion there?”

  “Enough!”

  “That is your answer? To use the Ultimate Imperative Tense? You would have been a kit when royalty on this planet ended.”

  “Chuut-Riit was my Sire!”

  “As he was of an eight-cubed or so of other kittens. But we waste time. The Jotok attacked the camp while I was hunting alone. I returned and saw it from a distance. They evaded the defenses—there are old Jotok among them who know kzin technology well in their way—surprised and killed the kzinti and bore their bodies away. I followed them. They led me here. They came originally from this ship and it is still their headquarters and nursery.”

  “Why did you not take down the bodies of the dead kzinti and kzinrretti?”

  “I hoped the Jotok—the adult Jotok—would return if I left them undisturbed, thinking I had gone, and that I might take them by surprise. But I think they know I wait.”

  Still nothing in the corridors. None of the others, when he asked them, knew even as much of Jotok as he. Swirl-Stripes had vague memories of Jotok slaves and be
ing taken as a kitten on a Jotok-hunt with his Sire. He had been given a Jotok arm to eat at the end of it. No memories or knowledge tactically useful.

  “Why do you stay?” he asked Karan.

  “I survived to get here by luck and by surprising them. I was able to swim here, even through the wide channels, when they did not know of me. But I trapped myself. I could not survive if I tried to swim back with them in pursuit. And they have watchers here. Old Jotok who know kzinti weapons. Such a one fired at you and wounded the male human just now. Even with your boat we will be hard put to escape.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Eights-cubed now. Mostly young and completely feral but, as I say, with a few oldsters. They have been breeding unchecked for eight plus two years. Unchecked and unsupervised. How many there are in this ship now I do not know. I venture along the ducts and corridors to hunt and kill as I may. The smallest ducts that I can enter are too small for at least the biggest Jotok to traverse easily.”

  “Why do they not hunt you down? They must know of you.”

  “I keep moving. I survive because they do not know the codes I use to set the door-locks. I stay away from large openings. I have slept briefly, and in a different place each time lest they decode my settings or activate some tool to break the locks. Also do not forget I am kzin and my claws are sharp. Sometimes at night I scream and yammer. That seems to make the old ones fear. Fortunately, before the kzinti abandoned the ship they destroyed nearly all of the weapons and tools that they could not carry away. After eight plus two years in the water and damp most weapons that are left no longer live.”

  “The Jotok did not maintain them?”

  “Many of the Jotok, including their maintainers-of-weapons, had died in the fighting. The survivors were a group chosen randomly by Fate. I think that most of those that remained had almost no habit of doing such things without the orders of kzinti. As for the few that did, they had no structure of obedience by which they could enforce discipline on the rest. But I think that is starting to change. They are beginning to accomplish new things. I had seen Jotok slaves in the harem and thought I knew something of their ways. Even then they could surprise sometimes. Like humans. Like some kzinrretti, also, Riit! Be thankful they have neither beam-weapons nor plasma-weapons. The solid-bullet rifles were the simplest and they are the last. The doors and walls of this ship can withstand those. When they over-ran the kzinti on the island they used rifles, but mainly they used stealth and numbers. They carried their dead away, as they carried away the dead kzinti. Their dead were many, for the kzinti fought as Heroes. The kzinrretti too.”

  “But you did not?”

  “One kzinrret wade into a fight against eights-squared of enemy—a fight already lost? What intelligence is that?”

  Strange, thought Vaemar. That question she asks shows the cusp we are on. I take it for granted our kind would fight so. Such is all our history. Yet I would not, as she did not. Nor would the best fighters I know. What are we becoming? And then: Fool! Discipline your mind! What of nerve-gas? No, even if they have any, they could not use it here without destroying themselves.

  “The fact the open water about here is still so lifeless should have warned us of something,” said Vaemar aloud. “The kzin heat-induction ray may have killed everything but after eight plus four years large aquatic life-forms should have reestablished themselves more abundantly—how long does it take a fish to swim up a channel? They have even cleared out the crocodilians, and in the water those are not easy meat.”

  “Yes. But you had as well bend your mind to getting us out of this place, Hero. They have used it as a trap before: large animals and humans have come in through that opening previously, the opening you used. They have not gone out again. There are Jotoki there now, watching and waiting for us, Jotoki with guns. When the sun begins to descend in the sky, well before nightfall, the hunting Jotok will return in eights-cubed.”

  “You have evaded them. So will we.”

  “I was not a great threat to the big sentient adults. They tend to stay in groups and narrow passages that protect me from them also protect them from me. And they know I cannot escape. Some time soon my fortune will desert me and they will overwhelm me or I will grow weak and starve here. So, I think, they have reasoned, as far as I can understand the way their brains work. They will hunt you with more determination. But more importantly, they will destroy your boat. Without that we are all trapped here. I do not think you or the humans can swim all the way out of this swamp to the land, least of all with the Jotok in pursuit. I know that I cannot.”

  “They are no threat against modern weapons,” Vaemar began to say. But the words died in his throat. In these corridors and compartments, firing a strakkaker would probably be as lethal to everyone around as it would be to the target: its blizzard of Teflon-glass needles would ricochet off the walls. They had no battle-armor.

  They had already seen that the heat-effect of the remaining beam rifle in such confined spaces would probably be even more dangerous to its users if it was fired for more than an instant. This was a warship, built to reflect beams fired from great laser-cannon in space: under the skin of the walls there would be mirror-layers. With care they might get off a few aimed shots, but their weapons were by no means the decisive edge they might at first seem.

  “What other machinery is working?” he asked.

  “How should I know? The machinery of a spaceship was not part of a kzinrret’s education, even in the harem of Hroarh-Officer.”

  “Can we get to the command bridge?”

  “What is that?”

  “The place from which the ship was flown and fought.”

  “I do not know…What does it look like?”

  “It probably has many lights and screens. Globes in which there may still be pictures. And semicircles of screens surrounding seats. A fooch for the captain.”

  “There are several places like that.”

  Inspiration. “There should be a battle-drum. A great drum of sthondat hide. Or probably human hide.”

  “Yes, I know of such a place. But the drum is rotted.”

  “That does not matter.”

  “There are also often many Jotok there.”

  There would be, he thought. Commanders in action often kept a few Jotok to hand on the bridge in case a damage-control party had to be dispatched quickly. Trained Jotok, fiercely loyal to their trainer alone…Jotok were creatures of habit and would probably seek the same habitats for generations. Why had the kzinti not triggered the ship’s self-destruct when they abandoned it? Presumably because they wanted to live to fight another day. The self-destruct of a kzin space-cruiser would be in the multi-megaton range. In space it might just be possible to get away in boats before it blew, but not splashing through a swamp on the ground.

  “Vaemar! Swirl-Stripes!” Anne called. “There is some sort of movement in the corridor.”

  They dashed back to her. The Jotok moved fast. They had an impression of writhing limbs. She fired the strakkaker straight down the hatch. Then they were gone.

  They stared down. Toby’s dead body lay at the bottom of the ladder. It was identifiable by some of the clothing. The Jotok had thrown it up into the strakkaker blast.

  “Why did they do that?”

  “Psychwar. Just because they look strange, they are not stupid,” said Vaemar. “They seek to terrify us. I mourn for our dead companion. But now we need not embark on a hopeless quest to find him. He will be avenged.”

  “Urrr.” It was a kzin expression of many things, including agreement, which had entered the human tongue on Wunderland. Vaemar peered down at what was left of the body. There was a volley of rifle fire and he jumped back from the aperture. The Jotok were there in some force, and well armed. But something black with winking lights lay in the water below among the shreds and glistening bone. A telephone. The mangled thing it rested in was sinking. What would Honored Sire Chuut-Riit and Honored Step-Sire Raargh-Hero do? They wou
ld not, he thought, attack with such a small force against such difficult odds, unless there was no other way to win through, however much his instinct shrieked “Attack!” Himself, Swirl-Stripes, a kzinrret, an injured human male, two human females. Not much of an army. It would not be shameful to summon help. All, human and kzinti, except Karan, had small locator implants under their skins, but these would tell no more than their position. The telephone was now a prime objective.

  Vaemar turned to Hugo.

  “You can descend the ladder? You may need your hand to fire your weapon.”

  “I can jump. But aiming will be difficult, I think.”

  “Anne?”

  “I can try.”

  “I go,” said Swirl-Stripes. Hefting the undamaged beam rifle, he leapt through the hatchway, firing as he leapt. The sill at the companion door gave him a moment’s protection as he grabbed the telephone and flung it up to Vaemar, then leapt back through a hail of bullets from the Jotok. Vaemar saw him lurch convulsively in mid-air as bullets hit, though the momentum of his leap carried him back up the hatchway. He fell and lay flat. From the time he had spoken only seconds had elapsed.

  Vaemar thought for a moment that Swirl-Stripes was dead, but then he gave a scream, the kzin scream of agony that few humans had ever heard and none ever forgot. Vaemar held his threshing claws still while Anne and Karan, coming together without words, examined him. The examination was not lengthy. The slow heavy slug of the Jotok hunting rifle had smashed a hole the size of a man’s hand in his back. They sprayed it with broad-spectrum disinfectant, coagulants, and anaesthetic agents and stuffed expanding bandages into the wound to stop the broad flow of purple and orange blood. The lower part of his body and his hind legs were paralyzed. With modern medical procedures the shattered nerves, bones and muscles could be regrown, if Swirl-Stripes could be got to a modern hospital. If he could not be got to a modern hospital fast he would be dead anyway and paralysis would not be a problem for him.

  The telephone’s main battery was damaged, but a small back-up battery seemed to be working. Vaemar passed it to Anne, hoping it was not keyed to Toby’s voice alone.