Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - XIII

by Larry Niven

  “Dare I ask what you’ve named him?”

  “Cranky. Some insist on the longer version: Cranky Cat.”

  Dieter raised an eyebrow. “Something tells me you never expect to establish communications with him, giving him a name like that.”

  “It’s hard to see how we would forge a communicational link with him: he cannot be safely approached, and he is resistant to both positive and negative operant conditioning. Surprisingly so, for a young creature.”

  “Although that could be the norm, for kzinti.”

  “Absolutely so. And I could see several ways in which it would be a necessary survival trait. The kits are ferociously competitive with each other from a very early age. In Cranky, what we perceive as stubbornness and irascibility might well be tenacity and aggressiveness, now warped by being penned up in an alien, aversive environment.”

  “And the second oldest male?”

  Selena shrugged. “Hard to tell; he’s had a lot of trouble.”

  “Why? I thought he was fine when we got him.”

  “He was. But although he was probably too young to remember any of the trauma of his capture, he was old enough to feel it, for it to leave an emotional scar.”

  Dieter clucked his tongue. “Kind of hard to think of kzinti having emotional scars.”

  “I understand, but they can and do get them. In his case, I don’t think it would have been too bad: they are very resilient. But without a mother as a source of basic mammalian reassurance, I suspect his mind tucked the experience under his growing consciousness, and is now experiencing its side effects.

  “From the beginning, he rejected food until he became desperately hungry. We had to feed him intravenously twice to ensure his survival. Of course, it doesn’t help that the damn milk substitutes just don’t appeal to the suckled kits.”

  “I thought it was genetically reengineered from samples, that it was an exact match for their real milk.”

  “Oh, it has all the right chemicals in all the right proportions, but something is still missing. As a lab-tech in the biology group put it, ‘ersatz is ersatz.’ And we should hardly be surprised: we’ve done no better with our own foods.”

  Dieter smiled ruefully. “True enough. I’ve had tasty non-alcoholic beer, except it never really tastes like beer.”

  “Yes, and given how much more acute the kzin senses of smell and taste are—about thirty thousand times and one hundred times, respectively—it’s hardly surprising that they reject the substitutes we’ve created.”

  “And so the younger kzin male is weak from starvation?”

  “Yes. It will be good when we can move him to unprocessed meat, about a month from now.”

  “But Hap looks pretty robust.”

  “That’s probably because he was newborn when he was taken.”

  “What? Wouldn’t that make him weaker? More vulnerable?”

  “No. He hadn’t been suckled yet. So, apparently, if newborn kzinti haven’t yet had natural milk, they tolerate our synthetics much better.”

  “So he’s feeding well?”

  “I don’t know that I’d call his intake anything more than ‘adequate.’ He’s still not a fan of our version of kzin food, but he doesn’t find it particularly aversive, either.”

  “And the female kits?”

  Selena nodded. “One is having an easier time of it; the other is in the worst shape of all. I expect we’ll lose her within the week.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Selena shrugged, jammed her hands deep in her lab coat pockets. “Damned if I know. But my gut level instinct is that she has no will to live. I know that sounds bizarre to say about so young a creature, but it’s been true from the first. Listless, limp as a wet rag. She’s been on IV for the past three days; we had to catheterize her this morning. Nothing we do matters: she just keeps fading away, further and further. The other female is the exact opposite: some think she’s the most promising of all the kits. She’s certainly the apple of the director’s eye, and is surprisingly friendly to most of her handlers.”

  “So, that’s good.”

  “No, that’s bad. Or rather, it’s too much of a good thing. Now Pyragy has started exploring the possibility of making the females the primary focus of the research program, with the intent of increasing their intelligence and using them as a long-term weapon against the natural kzinti males. Kind of kzin Mata-Hari Delilahs that are secretly working for the good of humankind.”

  Dieter rolled his eyes. “Please tell me you are making that up.”

  “I wish I was. Unfortunately, it’s just further proof that the entire project is being administrated by a scientific illiterate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that he’s still talking about this after Boroshinsky delivered his preliminary reports regarding the cause of the females’ lack of intelligence. And Boroshinsky’s preliminary reports are often more meticulous than papers presented at the Royal Academy.”

  Dieter lagged behind; the orange and black ball of fur that he had dubbed Hap had flopped down in a histrionic excess of weariness. Dieter crouched down to be closer to him: through the glass, the kzin’s eyes narrowed happily, his torso pumping deeply and only a little more quickly than normal. “And what are Boroshinsky’s preliminary conclusions?”

  “Firstly, the cause of the females’ semi-sentience is clearly genetic. So no amount of rehabilitation is going to work. But secondly, Boroshinsky also confirmed that the genetic constraints upon their intelligence is not merely a matter of a single, sweeping alteration to the original female genetics: it involves an ongoing program to maintain that genotype.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Before she could stop herself, Selena had her hands out of her pockets, punctuating and emphasizing. “The kzinti had those clones on their ship—and probably near all breeding sites—to ensure that their females remain subsentient. Each of the clones belongs to one of sixteen different gene patterns, which, despite a great deal of diversity in other particulars, have two genetic traits in common: diminished development of the higher-function brain elements and neurochemical deficiencies. Both of which are sex-specific.”

  Dieter stood, looked more puzzled. “Okay, I get the part about diminished brain development. I’m guessing that this trait keeps their equivalent of the cerebral cortex from becoming large enough to support sophisticated thought?”

  “Correct. Whereas the neurochemical deficiency works by reducing how frequently and effectively the synaptic gaps are resupplied with the necessary bioelectric transmitters.”

  “So the brain is smaller and slower.”

  “Right. But that’s arguably not the most important fact uncovered by Boroshinsky. The kzinti have taken another eugenic step to ensure that female cognitive impairment remains permanent: the clones.”

  “How do the clones fit into this?”

  “Boroshinsky’s guess is that despite the genetic alterations, there are occasional regressions to the original, undiminished female genotype. So what the kzinti are doing with the clones, at least on interstellar voyages, is constantly refreshing the desired genetic signal with fresh copies.”

  “And that’s important because…?”

  “Because it tells us how primitive and imperfect their genetic science is. The genetic fix they’ve imposed must not hold too well if they are constantly having to inject direct copies of the modified gene line back into the population all the time. Boroshinsky suspects, and I concur, that they probably couldn’t create a more absolute genetic alteration without risking that some of the effects would spill over into the male genome as well. That suggests that their genetic alterations are subject to considerable drift. That’s probably why they put in the neurochemical modification, too: being an entirely different gene modification, it’s an insurance policy against any reexpressions of full female brain development.”

  Dieter frowned. “It’s hard to imagine the kzinti relying on such a complicated
matrix of changes.”

  “I agree, but a truly permanent solution would require one to be very good at genetic manipulation. From the looks of it, the kzinti never got to be very good at genetics: just pretty good.”

  Dieter nodded. “Well, I guess that’s to be expected. Brandishing a test tube and wearing a white coat: hardly a Hero’s garb, I suspect.”

  “Yes, there’s probably an inbred behavioral disinclination, as well. The life of a scientist might be suitable for the faint of heart, but not for the short-tempered.”

  “Which is why the kzinti seem to rely on their slave races to provide many, or even most, of their technicians and bean-counters.”

  “Yes. The kzin males have a glandular system that keeps them awash in a cocktail of hormones that functions like testosterone in human males, except about one hundred times stronger. Obversely, the females have an almost complete lack of it: another development of their highly selective breeding, apparently.”

  “So the females are not merely bred for low intelligence, but for docility, as well.”

  “Yes, but that creates a problem, too. Calm is the handmaiden of cooperation. And patience. And patience generally assists learning. So ironically, if the females were not cognitively suppressed, they would be likely to outperform the males in terms of education and organization.”

  “Which the males would take extra steps to prevent.”

  “Exactly,” affirmed Selena. “I suspect that’s why their neurochemical alteration to the female genome induces a kind of kzin ADHD syndrome.”

  Dieter stared. “A kzin with ADHD? Given their normal behavior, how could you tell?”

  Selena smiled. “This is even more extreme: it significantly impedes language acquisition, deductive reasoning, symbolic and abstract thought. All those tasks would simply feel like too much work to a being with this genetic trait. This pretty much predicts that the females will not only be incapable of learning complicated tasks, but ensures that they will be most adept at activities that are instinctual, and that they will derive most pleasure from sensory stimuli. And that, in turn, means that their self-awareness will be rudimentary, akin to that of a mentally sluggish three year old.”

  Dieter scratched the back of his head. “Rather like me, then.”

  Selena stared at him frankly. “Tell me, Captain, does that self-deprecating humor act usually work on women?” She smiled.

  The smile he returned was both sheepish and genuine. “Sometimes.”

  Four meters away, Hap yawned, flopped prone again, allowing his eyes to stay closed as the sun approached its zenith. He rolled slowly, presenting his belly for the bright orb to warm…

  2398 BCE: Subject age—two years

  Hap, who was at the age where his posture only rarely reverted to the quadrupedal, was literally bouncing on all fours as Selena’s team led him toward the outer paddock. Sometimes she found it hard to remember that this endearing little fur-ball would evolve into a two-and-a-half-meter apex predator that was the scourge of her species. As if in reminder, Hap’s mouth gaped open as he panted in eagerness, revealing rows of surprisingly long, densely packed, sharp teeth. No, he was a kzin all right.

  Selena crouched down, face to face with him. “Are you ready, Hap?”

  Hap nodded, having picked up the gesture from the humans around him. His nose was twitching eagerly; despite the supposedly hermetic seals, he could smell the natural biome beyond the paddock door. Then he stopped, looked around. “Deeder?” he asked, his ears flattening a bit in the kzin equivalent of a frown.

  “Sorry, Hap. Dieter can’t be here today. He wanted to be. But he’s away.”

  Hap’s nose twitched once, mightily. “No, he not. I smell him.”

  “No, Hap; I’m sorry, but Dieter is not here—”

  “Not here, but I smell him.” Hap pointed. “On you.”

  Oh. Each member of Selena’s staff suddenly discovered that their routine tasks and instruments now demanded unusually close scrutiny. Well, her relationship with Dieter was going to get out eventually, anyhow. Probably half her team already knew or at least suspected. But, to coin a phrase, the cat was well and truly out of the bag now. “I understand now, Hap: you can detect his scent. But Dieter had to leave a while ago; the person I work for asked him to—”

  The small wet nose twitched again. “Selena, no. You wrong. Smell is new, fresh. Very Dieter.” He wrinkled his nose. “Very strong Dieter smell.” His eyes drifted down, below her waistline.

  Oh good god. “Hap, listen: Dieter couldn’t come. He wanted to but—but some other people wanted him to be somewhere else today.” Selena imagined herself punching Pyragy in his supercilious mouth. Again and again. “But Dieter will be back soon.”

  The kzin cub’s fur flexed once. Was that akin to a shrug? A similar reflexive gesture had been observed in the other three cubs, and in circumstances that suggested the same social valence. “Okay,” acceded Hap. “We go now?”

  Selena smiled, careful to keep her lips over her teeth as she did so, and nodded to him, then at her staff.

  They opened the paddock door, and Hap looked back quickly at Selena, his eyes very wide. “No harness?”

  Selena shook her head. “No harness; not today.”

  Whereupon Hap performed a prompt, skittering, one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and was through the open doorway in a shot. Selena followed at a more leisurely pace.

  By the time she emerged into the open air—and this time, it was truly open air, not an enclosed habitat like the others Hap had been in—the small cub was racing to and fro, moving so fast that he was a blur. He sped from bush to tree to flower to insect to rock and finally, to what was apparently an especially fragrant Mystery Groovy Spot in the middle of the grass. Where he stopped, panting, rolling in luxurious abandon.

  Selena approached him slowly, carefully, mostly because she did not want to impede on his first experience of The Wild, but also because she was not quite sure what he would do next, and he was already big enough to be modestly dangerous, albeit not deadly.

  Hap had evidently heard her approach. “Smells!” he purr-gasped. “Smells! All around! In my head, all over! It…it…” He stopped suddenly, sat up, a quick and terrifying gravity in his eyes: “No more walls. I want here. Always.”

  Selena nodded. “Not yet, but soon.” She looked up, squinted into the distance: just a kilometer away, a high-security fence—three of them, actually—traced a dim line that paralleled the horizon. She wondered how long that restraint would be a sufficient guarantee against his already-awakening instinct for roving, for wanderlust.

  “How soon?” Hap’s query was uttered in such a flat, matter-of-fact tone, that she couldn’t keep herself from glancing down at him. The cub that looked back—orange belly fur tremoring against the surrounding black of his pelt—suddenly seemed much older than two.

  “I’m not sure how soon. The man I work for said that maybe, if you like the new food we have for you, you can stay here right away. Would you like that?”

  Hap didn’t even nod. “Where is new food?” His eyes roved purposefully.

  Selena schooled her face to impassivity as she motioned one of her staff to bring in the sealed plate. Hap’s nose was immediately hyperactive. “Meat?” he purred eagerly.

  “Yes.” Selena kept her voice calm. “Try some.”

  The plate was placed before Hap; the lid was removed. He started at the sudden puff of steam, the pungent smell of seared beef. “Meat,” he agreed. “But burned.”

  “No: cooked. It brings out the smells, the tastes,” explained Selena, wishing she had authority in this matter. “Try it.”

  Hap’s nose wrinkled dubiously, but he gamely seized and devoured a small chunk of the sirloin. He chewed for a moment—then his eyes went wide and the meat came out in a rush, propelled from behind by a veritable torrent of vomit.

  Pyragy looked cross. It could have been for any one of several reasons. Rumor had it that his ongoing hormone therapy was interfering
with his cardio meds. If so, his choice was between tiring easily (perhaps fatally) or verging into a cascade of implant and transplant rejections that would likely render his body alarming to all but the most open-minded of partners.

  Perhaps no less distressing to him was the presence of Admiral Coelho-Chase and the ARM’s Associate Chief Executive, Maurizio Dennehy. Their presence was a clear indictment of his handling of the Kzin Research Project. And probably the recent episode involving the cooked meat had caused the long-standing official uneasiness to reify into a full-blown investigation.

  But perhaps most frustrating of all to Pyragy was that his two most senior researchers—Boroshinsky and Selena herself—had been summoned by those same powers to explore a possible redirection of the program’s research goals. For a man who hungered after preeminence and prestige more than anything else, this was indeed a most annoying turn of events.

  The admiral looked up from the reports and toward Boroshinsky. “So you confirm that you made these multiple recommendations against attempting to feed cooked meat to the kzin cub named Hap?”

  “Da, Admiral. Some of our studies suggested that it might be mildly toxic to him. For kzinti, eating cooked meat would be analogous to us eating a mix of carbonized and denatured meat. Either upsets our stomach. Cooked meat has the equivalent effect upon the kzinti, causing the cub’s projectile vomiting: his system was purging itself of toxins.”

  The admiral and the associate chief executive stared at Pyragy, who shrugged: “This was not known before we tried.”

  “According to the collected reports and testimony, this outcome was suspected.”

  “Suspected, but not known,” Pyragy persisted.

  “Even if we were to concede that possibly specious point, why did you feel that it was important to attempt to get the kzin to eat cooked meat?”