by Larry Niven
Ingrid buffed her fingernails. “While you were briefing up on Wunderland and the Swarm…I was helping the team that programmed our tin friend.”
✩ ✩ ✩
“Are you sure?”
The radar operator held her temper in check with an effort. She had not been part of the Nietzsche’s crew long, but more than long enough to learn that you did not back-talk Herrenmann Ulf Reichstein-Markham. Bastard’s as arrogant as a kzin himself, she thought resentfully.
“Yes, sir. It’s definitely heading our way since that microburn. Overpowered thruster, unusual spectrum, and unless it’s unmanned they have a gravity polarizer. Two hundred G’s, they pulled.”
The guerrilla commander nodded thoughtfully. “Then it is either kzin, which is unlikely in the extreme since they do not use reaction drives on any of their standard vessels, or…”
“And, sir, it’s cool. Hardly radiating at all, when the fusion plant’s off. If we weren’t close and didn’t know where to look…granted, this isn’t a military sensor, but I doubt the ratcats have seen him.”
Markham’s long face drew into an expression of disapproval. “They are called kzin, soldier. I will tolerate no vulgarities in my command.”
Bastard. “Yessir.”
The man was tugging at his asymmetric beard. “Evacuate the asteroid. It will be interesting to see how they decelerate, perhaps some gravitic effect…and even more interesting to find out what those fat cowards in the Sol system think they are doing.”
✩ ✩ ✩
“Prepare for stasis,” the computer said.
“How?” Ingrid and Jonah asked in unison. The rock came closer, tumbling, half a kilometer on a side, falling forever in a slow silent spiral. Closer…
“Interesting,” the computer said. “There is a ship adjacent.”
“What?” Jonah said. His fingers slid into the control gloves like snakes fleeing a mongoose, then froze. It was too late, and they were committed.
“Very well stealthed.” A pause, and the asteroid grew in the wall before them, filling it from end to end.
Tin-brained idiot’s a sadist, Jonah thought.
“And the asteroid is an artifact. Well hidden as well, but at this range my semi-passive systems can pick up a tunnel complex and shut-down power system. Life support on maintenance. Twelve seconds to impact.”
“Is anybody there?” Jonah barked.
“Negative, Jonah. The ship is occupied; I scan twinned fusion drives, and hull-mounted weaponry, concealed as part of the grappling apparatus. X-ray lasers, possible rail-guns. Two of the cargo bays have dropslots that would be of appropriate size for kzin light-seeker missiles. Eight seconds to impact.”
“Put us into combat mode,” the Sol-Belter snapped. “Prepare for emergency stabilization as soon as the stasis field is off. Warm for boost. Ingrid, if we’re going to talk you’ll probably be better able to convince them of our—”
—discontinuity—
“—bona fides.”
The ripping-cloth sound of the gravity polarizer hummed louder and louder, and there was a wobble felt more as a subliminal tugging at the inner ear, as the system strained to stop a spin as rapid as a gyroscope’s. The asteroid was fragments glowing a dull orange-red streaked with dark slag, receding; the Catskinner was moving backward under twenty G’s, her laser-pods star-fishing out and railguns humming with maximum charge.
“Alive again,” Jonah breathed, feeling the response under his fingertips. The wall ahead had divided into a dozen panels, schematics of information, stresses, possibilities; the central was the exterior view. “Tightbeam signal, identify yourselves.”
“Sent. Receiving signal also tightbeam.” A pause. “Obsolete hailing pattern. Requesting identification.”
“Request video, same pattern.”
The screen flickered twice, and an off-right panel lit with a furious bearded face, tightly contained fury, in a face no older than his own, less than thirty; beard close-shaven on one side, pointed on the right, yellow-blond and wiry, like the close-cropped mat on the narrow skull; pale narrow eyes, mobile ears, long-nosed with a prominent bony chin beneath the carefully cultivated goatee. Behind him a control-chamber that was like the one in the Belter museum back at Ceres, an early-model independent miner—but modified, crammed with jury-rigged systems of which many were marked in the squiggles-and-angles kzin script; crammed with people as well, some of them in armored spacesuits. An improvised warship, then. Most of the crew were in neatly tailored gray skinsuits, with a design of a phoenix on their chests.
“Explain yourzelfs,” the man said, with a slight guttural overtone to his Belter English, enough to mark him as one born speaking Wunderlander.
“UNSN Catskinner, Captain Jonah Matthieson commanding, Lieutenant Raines as second. Presently,” he added dryly, “on detached duty. As representative of the human armed forces, I require your cooperation.”
“Cooperation!” That was one of the spacesuited figures behind the Wunderlander, a tall man with hair cut in the Belter crest, and adorned with small silver bells. “You fucker, you just missiled my bloody base and a year’s takings!”
“We didn’t missile it, we just rammed into it,” Jonah said. “Takings? What are these people, pirates?”
“Calm yourzelf, McAllistaire,” the Wunderlander said. His eyes had narrowed slightly at the Sol-Belter’s words, and his ears cocked forward. “Permit self-introduction, Hauptmann Matthieson. Commandant Ulf Reichstein-Markham, at your zerfice. Commandant in the Free Wunderland navy, zat is. My, ahh, coworker here is an independent entrepreneur who iss pleazed to cooperate wit’ the naval forces.”
“Goddam you, Markham, that was a year’s profits yours and mine both. Shop the bastard to the ratcats, now. We could get a pardon out of it, easy. Hell, you could get that piece of dirt back on Wunderland you’re always on about.”
The self-proclaimed Commandant held up a hand palm-forward to Jonah and turned to speak to the owner of the ex-asteroid. “You try my patience, McAllistaire. Zilence.”
“Silence yourself, dirtsider. I—”
“—am now dispensable.” Markham’s finger tapped the console. Stunners hummed in the guerrilla ship, and the figures not in gray crumpled.
The Commandant turned to a figure offscreen. “Strip zem of all useful equipment and space zem,” he said casually. Turning to the screen again, with a slight smile. “It is true, you haff cost us valuable matériel…You will understant, a clandestine war requires unort’odox measures, Captain. Ve are forced sometimes to requisition goods, as the Free Wunderland government cannot levy ordinary taxes, and it iss necessary to exchange these for vital supplies vit t’ose not of our cause.” A more genuine smile. “As an officer ant a chentelman, you vill appreciate the relief of no lonker having to deal vit this schweinerie.”
Ingrid spoke softly to the computer, and another portion of the screen switched to an exterior view of the Free Wunderland ship. An airlock door swung open, and figures spewed out into vacuum with a puff of vapor; some struggled and thrashed for nearly a minute. Another murmur, and a green line drew itself around the figure of Markham. Stress-reading, Jonah reminded himself. Pupil-dilation monitoring. I should have thought of that. Interesting: he thinks he’s telling the truth.
One of the gray-clad figures gave a dry retch at her console. “Control yourzelf, soldier,” Markham snapped. To the screen: “Wit’ all the troubles, the kzin are unlikely to have noticed your, ah, sudden deceleration.” The green line remained. “Still, ve should establish vectors to a less conspicuous spot. Then I can offer you the hozpitality of the Nietzsche, and we can discuss your mission and how I may assist you at leisure.” The green line flickered, shaded to green-blue. Mental reservations.
Not on board your ship, that’s for sure, Jonah thought, smiling into the steely fanatic’s gaze in the screen. “By all means,” he murmured.
✩ ✩ ✩
“…zo, as you can imagine, we are anxious to take advantage of you
r actions,” Markham was saying. The control chamber of the Catskinner was crowded with him and the three “advisors” he had insisted on; all three looked wirecord-tough, and all had stripped to usefully lumpy coveralls. And they all had something of the outer-orbit chill of Markham’s expression.
“To raid kzin outposts while they’re off-balance?” Ingrid said. Markham gave her a quick glance down the eagle sweep of his nose.
“You vill understand, wit’ improvised equipment it is not always pozzible to attack the kzin directly,” he said to Jonah, pointedly ignoring the junior officer. “As the great military t’inker Clausewitz said, the role of a guerrilla is to avoid strength and attack weakness. Ve undertake to sabotage their operations by dizrupting commerce, and to aid ze groundside partisans wit’ intelligence and supplies as often as pozzible.”
Translated, you hijack ships and bung the crews out the airlock when it isn’t an unmanned cargo pod, all for the Greater Good. Finagle’s ghost, this is one scary bastard. Luckily, I know some things he doesn’t.
“And the late unlamented McAllistaire?”
A frown. “Vell, unfortunately, not all are as devoted to the Cause as might be hoped. In terms of realpolitik, it iss to be eggspected, particularly of the common folk when so many of deir superiors haff decided that collaboration wit’ the kzin is an unavoidable necessity.” The faded blue eyes blinked at him. “Not an unreasonable supposition, when Earth has abandoned us—until now…Zo, of the ones willing to help, many are merely the lawless and corrupt. Motivated by money; vell, if one must shovel manure, one uses a pitchfork.”
Jonah smiled and nodded, grasping the meaning if not the agricultural metaphor. And the end justifies the means. My cheeks are starting to hurt. “Well, I have my mission to perform. On a need-to-know basis, let’s just say that Lieutenant Raines and I have to get to Wunderland, preferably to a city. With cover identities, currency, and instructions to the underground there to assist us, if it’s safe enough to contact.”
“Vell.” Markham seemed lost in thought for moments. “I do not believe ve can expect a fleet from Earth. They would have followed on the heels of the so-effective attack, and such would be impossible to hide. You are an afterthought.” Decision, and a mouth drawn into a cold line. “You must tell me of this mission before scarce resources are devoted to it.”
“Impossible. This whole attack was to get Ingri—the lieutenant and me to Wunderland.” Jonah cursed himself for the slip, saw Markham’s ears twitch slightly. His mouth was dry, and he could feel his vision focusing and narrowing, bringing the aquiline features of the guerrilla chieftain into closer view.
“Zo. This I seriously doubt. But ve haff become adept at finding answers, even some kzin haff ve persuaded.” The three “aides” drew their weapons, smooth and fast; two stunners and some sort of homemade dart-thrower. “You vill answer. Pozzibly, if the answers come quickly and wizzout damage, I vill let you proceed and giff you the help you require. This ship vill be of extreme use to the Cause, vhatever the bankers and merchants of Earth, who have done for us nothing in fifty years of fighting, intended. Ve who haff fought the kzin vit’ our bare hands, while Earth did nothing, nothing…”
Markham pulled himself back to self-command. “If it is inadvisable to assist you, you may join my crew or die.” His eyes, flatly dispassionate, turned to Ingrid. “You are from zis system. You also vill speak, and then join or…no, there is always a market for workable bodies, if the mind is first removed. Search them thoroughly and take them across to the Nietzsche in a bubble.” A sign to his followers. “The first thing you must learn, is that I am not to be lied to.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Jonah drawled, lying back in his crashcouch. “But you can’t take this ship.”
“Ah.” Markham smiled again. “Codes. You vill furnish them.”
“The ship,” Ingrid said, considering her fingertips, “has a mind of its own. You may test it.”
The Wunderlander snorted. “A zelf-aware computer? Impozzible. Laboratory curiosities.”
“Now that,” the computer said, “could be considered an insult, Landholder Ulf Reichstein-Markham.” The weapons of Markham’s companions were suddenly thrown away with stifled curses and cries of pain. “Induction fields…Your error, sir. Spaceships in this benighted vicinity may be metal shells with various systems tacked on, but I am an organism. And you are in my intestines.”
Markham crossed his arms. “You are two to our four, and in the same environment, so no gases or other such may be used. You vill tell me the control codes for this machine eventually; it is easy to make such a device mimic certain functions of sentience. Better for you if you come quietly.”
“Landholder Markham, I grow annoyed with you,” the computer said. “Furthermore, consider that your knowledge of cybernetics is fifty years out of date, and that the kzin are a technologically conservative people with no particular gift for information systems. Watch.”
A railgun yapped through the hull, and there was a bright flare on the flank of the stubby toroid of Markham’s ship. A voice babbled from the handset at his belt, and the view in the screen swooped crazily as the Catskinner dodged.
“That was your main screen generator,” the computer continued. “You are now open to energy weapons. Need I remind you that this ship carries more than thirty parasite-rider X-ray lasers, pumped by one-megaton bombs? Do we need to alert the kzin to our presence?”
There was a sheen of sweat on Markham’s face. “I haff perhaps been somevhat hasty,” he said flatly. No nonsentient computer could have been given this degree of initiative. “A fault of youth, as mein mutter is saying.” His accent had become thicker. “As chentlemen, we may come to some agreement.”
“Or we can barter like merchants,” Jonah said, with malice aforethought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ingrid flash an “O” with her fingers. “Is he telling the truth?”
“To within ninety-seven percent of probability,” the computer said. “From pupil, skin-conductivity, encephalographic and other evidence.” Markham hid his start quite well. “I suggest the bargaining commence. Commandant Reichstein-Markham, you would also be well advised not to…engage in falsehoods.”
✩ ✩ ✩
“You are not on the datarecord of vessels detached for this duty,” the kzin in the forward screen said.
Buford Early watched carefully as the readouts beside the catlike face formed themselves into a bar-graph; worry, generalized anxiety, and belief. Not as good as the readings on humans—ARM computer technology was as good as telepathy on that, and far more reliable—but enough. Around him the four-person combat crew tensed at their consoles, although at this range reaction to any attack would have to be largely cybernetic. The control chamber was very quiet, and the air had a neutral pine-scented coolness that leached out the smell of fear-sweat. They were a long way from home, and going into harm’s way.
“Ktrodni-Stkaa has ordered me to observe and report upon the efficiency with which these operations are carried out,” he said; the computer would translate that into the Hero’s Tongue, adding a kzin image and appropriate body language. The Inner Circle’s stealthing included an ability to broadcast energies which duplicated the electromagnetic and neutrino signatures of a kzinti corvette.
The kzin officer’s muzzle jerked toward the screen and the round pupils of his eyes flared wide. Hostility. Aggressive intent, the computer indicated silently.
“This is not Ktrodni-Stkaa’s sector!” the kzin snarled. Literally; lines of saliva trailed from the thin black lips as they peeled back from the inch-long ivory daggers of the fangs. Early felt tiny hairs crawling along his spine, as instincts remembered ancestors who had fought lions with spears.
Early shrugged. Formal lines of authority in the kzinti armed forces seemed to be surprisingly loose; the prestige of individual chieftains mattered a good deal more, and the networks of patronage and blood kinship. And it was not at all uncommon for a high-ranking, full-name kzin to jump
the chain of command and send personal representatives to the site of an important action. Ktrodni-Stkaa seemed to be about fourth from the top in the kzinti military hierarchy, to judge from the broadcast monitoring they had been able to do, and a locally-born opponent of Chuut-Riit.
“Report on your progress,” he went on, insultingly refusing to give his own name or ask the other kzin’s.
“You may monitor,” the alien replied.
Receiving dataflow, the computer added.
The kzinti ships were floating near an industrial habitat, an elongated cylinder that had been spun for gravity, with a crazy quilt of life-bubbles and fabricator frameworks spun out for kilometers on either side. There had been a rough order to it, before the missiles from the Yamamoto struck. Those had been ballonets and string-wire; broad surfaces worked well in vacuum and transferred energy more readily to the target. The main spin-habitat was tumbling now, peeled open along its long axis; many of the other components were drifting away, with their connecting lattices and pipelines severed as if by giant flying cheesecutters. Two kzinti corvettes hung near, with space-armored figures flitting about; they were much like the one the Inner Mind had been rebuilt from. A troop-transport must be loading with refugees from the emergency bubbles, and a human-built self-propelled graving dock had been brought for heavy repair work.
Which will be needed, Early reflected; the strikes would have lasted microseconds, but the damage was comprehensive. Frozen air glittered in the blind unmerciful light, particles of water-ice and ores and metal mists, of blood and bone. The close-ups showed bodies drifting amid the wrecked fabricators and processing machines, and doubtless the habitat had been a refuge for children and pregnant mothers, as was common in the Sol-belt. Certain things required gravity, and he doubted the kzinti had spread gravity polarizers around wholesale.
A pity, he thought coldly, a little surprised at his own lack of emotion. You could not live as long as he had, in the service to which he had been born, without becoming detached. What is necessary, must be done.