by Larry Niven
Then, “Discuss it with the humans. The rest of you withdraw and switch to a music channel. Telepath, take your sedative.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Tree-of-life” was a term coined over seven centuries earlier by a man who had eaten some. It had been brought by a Pak protector, a sort-of-alien from the Galactic Core, and it had turned the man into an asexual killing machine with vastly increased intelligence and the single goal of ensuring his descendants’ propagation—just the effect it had on the Pak. An ill-conceived attempt by the ARM to do the same thing deliberately during the First War had misfired, and had things gone even a little worse all other intelligent life in Known Space would have been methodically exterminated.
Richard was beginning to recover from the shock, but only in stages. “This can’t be tree-of-life,” he protested. “The time is off by a factor of, of eight hundred. How the tanj do you know about tree-of-life, anyway?”
“It’s in my area,” said Slaverexpert. “The Pak were a Tnuctip bioweapon.”
Richard stared for a moment, then said, “Impossible. In two billion years they would have evolved beyond recognition.”
“They ate their mutations,” said Slaverexpert. “They could distinguish variation of a single codon by smell.”
“Richard, I read a monograph on that once,” Gay said. “The author made a good case.”
“Where was this?” he exclaimed.
“Fractal Edge netzine.”
Richard sighed. “Gay, the only people who contribute to that are conspiracy theorists.”
“You mean, like the people who used to believe in alien abductions?”
Gay was one of a large proportion of modern Wunderlanders descended from kidnapped humans that the Jotoki had engaged as mercenaries; Richard’s ancestral kin had been aboard so many kzinti warships that it was practically a Guthlac family tradition. Richard opened and closed his mouth once, scowled, and stuck out his tongue.
“Don’t change the subject,” Gay said primly.
As Richard was sputtering, Second Trooper, who had been idly watching him from a distance, touched helmets with First Trooper and said, “Why would he expose his tongue?”
“From what I’ve read on them, humans spend most of their spare time either mating or making plans to mate. That’s why there are so many of them.”
“What does that have to do with what I said?”
“Human mating rituals include grooming each other’s genitals,” First Trooper replied.
Second Trooper, who like all kzinti had a tongue not unlike a wood rasp, looked at the Guthlacs with new respect. No wonder human fighters were so tough.
Richard got back on track: “Look, two and a half million years ago the Pak colonized Earth, the root didn’t grow right, the breeders stopped turning into protectors, and they wound up evolving into us. If the Pak had been around for two billion years, wouldn’t that have happened somewhere else by now?”
“It likely did,” said Slaverexpert. “Repeatedly. It may have come to your attention that humans are warlike. Certainly it has not escaped ours. It would have been easy for them to exterminate one another.”
Richard was still finding it too incredible. “Look, the plants needed thallium to work right. Where’s the thallium supply?”
“Richard Guthlac,” Slaverexpert said gently, “did you see any tools suitable for Tnuctip use? This is a cache prepared for rebellion against the Tnuctipun. The proto-Pak would have tailored a root for themselves that was not limited by the availability of a rare-earth element, which was doubtless a feature designed by the Tnuctipun to restrict their spread.”
It was chillingly plausible.
Gay made it a little more so: “I just realized there are no fabricators, to copy those model tools,” she said. “A protector would build one on the spot after the stasis box was opened, rather than waste storage space that could be used for more models.”
It accounted for the potato peeler.
—Except that nothing accounted for the potato peeler: “Why is there a potato peeler?” Richard exclaimed. “They ate the whole things, didn’t they?”
Slaverexpert thought. Then he looked at the roots and thought some more. Finally he said, “All I can think of is flavor, which is illogical; they could surely have tailored for that as well. I shall have to analyze one for better information.”
As Slaverexpert signaled to Charrgh-Captain, Gay murmured to Richard, “Do you think he’d have destroyed them without testing otherwise?”
“If they’re tree-of-life, I’d help,” he replied in equally low tones. “Protectors are asexual and all look ancient. I prefer to be young and dumb and…keep my hair.”
“I like your hair too.” She smiled.
Cunning Stalker’s lab was a thorough one, and its safety features were appallingly practical: In an emergency, the entire lab would be ejected from the ship and into the path of the message laser, which would keep firing until the beam was unobstructed. “No need for the calcium notch,” said Richard weakly. He had won the toss, and Gay was back in their compartment, watching by screen.
“Urr?” said Slaverexpert, as he put the sample case into the lab manipulator with one hand and began undoing his suit with the other.
“On the spectroscope next to the laser.”
“Why a spectroscope?” The kzin’s Interworld was excellent.
Surprised, Richard said, “I thought it was standard equipment. When something is blown up, the spectroscope scans the cloud, and if there’s no band at the calcium frequency it was a miss or a decoy.”
“Because a real target would include something with a skeleton,” Slaverexpert said. “I see. Richard Guthlac, I find I enjoy working with you, so I hope you will take this suggestion: Do not say things like that very often around kzinti. There is something deeply disturbing in the didacticism that humans bring to the business of battle.”
Richard could think of nothing to say—it probably had been thought up by someone sitting at a desk somewhere, who might never have so much as seen a live kzin.
Slaverexpert opened a cabinet next to the manipulator controls and put on a set of goggles from it. He looked through various compartments in the cabinet, growled very deep in his throat, and took off his goggles. “There is no human-version viewer,” he said, putting them away, “so we will have to use window displays. I would prefer something that stayed in view when I turned my head, but leaving you out would violate the agreement.”
Richard was about to ask why he couldn’t use kzinti goggles, when the displays appeared on the window before them. The one in front of him was familiar in style, with different kinds of information displayed in different colors of high chroma, arranged in rows and columns with any useful diagrams at the top. The one in front of Slaverexpert had kzinti script in deep purple written right across light gray diagrams, whose shapes were constantly shifting, just slightly. The writing moved around slowly within the diagrams. The positions of the diagrams underwent abrupt changes every few seconds, too. Just looking at it was disturbing; trying to get information out of it would have given him a bad headache very quickly. “Telepath should see this,” Richard murmured.
He’d forgotten kzinti hearing. “Why?” said Slaverexpert.
“Oh, a while back he was talking to us about the similarities in human and kzinti thinking. There’s some fundamental differences in brain structure suggested here, and it might be of interest.”
“Oh. Good, I thought I was going to have to wake him up. He doesn’t sleep enough.” Before Richard could absorb the concept of a healthy kzin showing concern for a telepath, Slaverexpert went on, “He’s right, though. The fact that your readout looks like something I’d watch to get to sleep merely reflects a difference in hunting style.” His ears curled up for a moment as the readouts changed several times. Then they uncurled, the readouts steadied, and he said, “Unfamiliar equipment. I’ve got it now.”
Behind the window, waldoes opened the bin of root
s and removed one. Richard had controls at his own station, and directed a sniffer to sample the air that had been in the container. “I did read somewhere that humans and kzinti are the only races to use fissionables to make bombs,” he remarked.
“Odd. It seems such an obvious idea,” said Slaverexpert. “No thallium, but I didn’t expect it. Air interesting?”
“Nitrogen, oxygen, a little argon. Pretty standard habitable-planet issue,” Richard said, and heard the kzin snort in amusement. “Traces of medium-sized hydrocarbons.”
“Urr?” Slaverexpert brought some new instruments into play, then said, “The root is rich in terpenes. And there is no taurine.”
“Taurine?”
“An amino acid human metabolism uses in dendrite connections. You do not synthesize it, so tree-of-life should be crammed with it to facilitate the change…Though you may have lost the ability to synthesize it due to the supply available in Earth prey—no, Jack Brennan had no difficulty…I am unable to detect any trace of steroid compounds. The roots from the Pak ship that came to Sol System were found to contain a hormone for rapid muscle and bone development. This does not appear to be tree-of-life,” Slaverexpert concluded.
“Good!” Richard said. “So what is it?”
“Let me try something.” A waldo took up the uncut half of the root, then tossed it at a wall. It bounced back. “It’s rubber.”
“What?”
“Rubber. Rather, a long-chain molecule assembled from terpene monomers, suitable for insulation, seals, and padding. Hardenable and readily cast into nonconductive parts.”
“Rubber,” said Richard, amused.
“A valuable industrial material. I speculate that many of the life-forms we have found here will be tailored to produce such. Shall we investigate?”
“Let’s.” Now that fear was going, avarice had come out of hiding to put in a few words.
Unreasonably many hours later, Richard said, “Is that the last?” and wiped his brow with a hand that, he noticed, was developing a twitch from operating waldo gloves for so long.
“It is,” said Slaverexpert. “I marvel at your endurance.”
“I’m ready to fall down,” Richard protested. “You’re in much better shape.”
“I possess medical enhancements added long ago to repair lethal injuries, and can produce my own natural stimulants at will. Nevertheless I am losing image persistence. I need exercise and sleep.”
“Me too, not in that order.”
“Urr. I can’t remember whether you said there were any microorganisms present in anything.”
“Just the handmade stuff in the cans.”
“Good.” Slaverexpert cycled a sample box through the containment lock, put a few roots into it, and brought it out, saying, “These should be amus—What’s wrong?”
Richard had backed across the lab and was squinting. “I’m not that fond of mint.” Even the traces on the outside of the closed box were disagreeably strong.
“You’ll want to avoid the relaxroom, then, because I’ll be bouncing one of these around. You don’t like this? It seems quite pleasant to me.”
Richard’s throat was trying to close up. “Have to go,” he choked out, and fled.
Telepath was in their quarters, looking like he just woke up, which was likely. Gay, off monitor duty, was already in the shower. Richard said to Telepath, “Excuse me please,” and began peeling off his suit.
“Certainly. What smells so good?”
“That’s right, you slept through the analysis. Well, I’ve got time”—a pressure suit should not come off quickly—“so: there was a root that looked a lot like Pak protector root, but it turned out to be something that produced a useful organic polymer. You’re smelling the monomer. There were roots that produced other polymers, bacteria that made enzymes that chelated trace elements from iodine to uranium, seeds for trees that collected other elements in their bark, other this and that. We’re all going to be rich. You look better,” Richard realized.
“Possibly the good news. I feel better. I’ll return to my own quarters now, in case you two wish to get in some more breeding practice.” Telepath left.
Richard, almost stripped, stared at the closed door for a moment. That had sounded like humor.
Even in the shower, Gay was bleary with fatigue. She’d been watching everything, and hadn’t had the stimulation of doing the actual work to keep her going. “You smell like a Vurguuz bottle,” she said, frowning.
“I knew there was a reason I don’t like the stuff. That monomer in the roots. Kzinti apparently enjoy it.”
“What did you do, roll in them?”
“This is just what wafted over and stuck to my face when Slaverexpert got a closed box out of the containment. They’re elastic, he’s going to bat them around to wind down.”
“Phew.” She used a squirter and began shampooing his hair.
They’d gone straight to sleep. Richard had bad dreams, and awoke suddenly, remembering an obscure reference in chemistry. “Fuck,” he exclaimed.
“Brush’r teeth,” Gay murmured, not awake.
He was already headed for their library.
He worked fast. Once he excluded cooking, most references to any sort of mint were in folk medicine, where their analgesic effects produced the illusion of recovery. He added a search for references to terpenes, and got false mint: nepetalactone. It was not a salicylate as mints were, but scent receptors et cetera, right, composed of two isoprene groups, aha! there’s your monomer. Found in various Earth plants never successfully raised on other worlds, chiefly nepeta cataria.
More commonly known as catnip.
He wasn’t aware of making any kind of sound, and Gay was later unable to describe the noise clearly, but she came running out and said, “Richard, what’s wrong?”
“The roots are made of catnip extract,” he said.
She burst out laughing. Abruptly she stopped and covered her mouth, then uncovered it and said, “Oh my god.”
“Uh-huh. It’s in the relaxroom, thousands of times any sane concentration, and it’s hours late to warn Charrgh-Captain. Any ideas?”
She was paralyzed for a long moment, then sat at the other screen and began hunting. Soon she said, “Says here the effect only lasts a few minutes, and is followed by temporary immunity.”
“Sounds like someone working from theory. Shebee used to get blitzed for about an hour, sleep it off for four, and repeat until the catnip was used up,” Richard said. He found the page she was on. “Also claims it has to be smelled, ‘eating it has no effect.’ What is this atad doing in our library?”
“I don’t know!” Gay said, frazzled. “Richard, I think we’d better get the stuff off the ship. Suit up and go out really carefully.”
The door beeped.
They both looked at it.
Gay had the wit to turn on the intercom and say, “Is it important? We’re a little busy,” putting a chuckle into her voice.
“You aren’t either,” said a voice much like Telepath’s. “The crew are stalking one another, Charrgh-Captain is running on the walls, Weapons Officer is chasing his tail, and I cannot awaken Slaverexpert for more than a few seconds at a time. We need to make plans.”
They looked at each other. “Admit,” they said in unison.
Telepath came in, closed the door, and said, “Better lock.”
They did. Richard might have hit his switch first.
Telepath was neatly groomed, relaxed, and clear-eyed. “I heard you wake up all the way from my quarters,” he said, and settled on the deck. “You should eat. I already have.”
He smelled of mint. “Are you okay?” Gay said.
“Depends what you mean. Like everyone else but you two, I’m dead drunk. It’s just that in my case it happens to be an improvement.”
“You heard us?” Richard repeated.
“You only. I seem to have the…hang of it? Is that a fabric-working term? You make your language do such funny things. That’s part of
it. I’ll use a metaphor. Think of thought as hunting. A kzin sees his prey and pounces. Humans follow it wherever it wanders until it tires and stops moving. Right now I seem to be chasing mice all over a crowded warehouse.” He took a deep breath, sat up, and brought his tail around his feet. “I’m able to follow your train of thought,” he clarified.
“This stuff has improved your filters?” Gay guessed.
Telepath shook his head. “If anything they’re weaker. It’s just destroyed my sense of criticism. Everything’s great.”
“What do we do now?” Richard said.
“I already said. Eat.”
“I meant about our situation.”
“So do I. You’ll think better.”
That was undoubtedly true. They got meals from the dispenser. Gay said, “This doesn’t bother you?”
“Right now I can hear three Heroes trying to eat textiles. Reconstituted vegetables are a decided improvement.”
While they ate Telepath sat quietly, aside from an occasional soft rumble. His eyes narrowed briefly each time he exhaled, which when Shebee had done it indicated great comfort. It was something only done at home.
When Richard realized this, Telepath focused on him, leaned forward a bit, and gave a sleepy-looking blink: a gesture of abiding fondness. “This room and your company have been a good time in my life,” Telepath said. “And no, pity does not offend me. It is many steps up from fear and contempt.” The comment made Richard acutely self-conscious, and Telepath added, “There is truly no need to reply to everything I say. I spoke to clarify: I feel good. Eat.”
As he finished, Richard realized who Telepath was making him think of. “Gay, remember Steve Rhee?”
“Richard,” she reproved.
“I am not offended,” Telepath said. “But thank you for your concern.”
Steve Rhee was a Jinxian immigrant who had settled outside Auslandburg and started a farm, a café, a bakery, a music shop, and a furrier’s, in that order. The fur business was successful. Through all his business failures he had never lost his cheerful attitude, due to his intrinsic good nature, his enjoyment of living under a third of the gravity he was accustomed to, and his careful selective breeding of a staggeringly powerful strain of hemp on his homestead plot. The fact that smoking hemp never caught on with Wunderlanders was not a problem; his own consumption of the stuff was vast, and what he didn’t smoke, stray Morlocks, living in deep woods now that there were no uncollapsed caves in the region, came out and ate all night. He would go out among the stupefied creatures in the morning and snap their necks, which was where he got so many pelts.