by Larry Niven
The knife flashed down, and there was a small spurt of blood, a rather grisly crunching sound like celery being sliced. Watsuji made no sound, but his face went pale around the lips. Shigehero bowed more deeply. The servant-guard walked forward on his knees and gathered up the paraphernalia, folding the cloth about it with the same ritual care. There was complete silence, save for the sigh of ventilators and Watsuji’s deep breathing, harsh but controlled.
The two Nipponjin poured themselves more of the heated rice wine and sipped. When Shigehero spoke again, it was in English.
“It is good to see that the old customs have not been entirely forgotten in the Solar System,” he said. “Perhaps my branch of the Association was…shall we say a trifle precipitate, when they decided emigration was the only way to preserve their, ah, purity.” He raised his glass slightly to the general. “When your young warriors passed through last month, I was surprised that so much effort had been required to insert so slender a needle. I see that we underestimated you.”
He picked up a folder of printout on the table before him. “It is correct that the…ah, assets you and your confederates represent would be a considerable addition to my forces,” he went on. “However, please remember that my Association is more in the nature of a family business than a political organization. We are involved in the underground struggle against the kzinti because we are human, little more.”
Early raised his cup of sake in turn; the big spatulate hands handled the porcelain with surprising delicacy. “You…and your, shall we say, black-clad predecessors have been involved in others’ quarrels before this. To be blunt, when it paid. The valuata we brought are significant, surely?”
Jonah blinked in astonishment. This is the cigar-chomping, kick-ass general I came to know and loathe? he thought. Live and learn. Learn so that you can go on living…Then again, before the kzinti attack Buford Early had been a professor of military history at the ARM academy. You had to be out of the ordinary for that; it involved knowledge that would send an ordinary man to the psychists for memory-wipe.
Shigehero made a minimalist gesture. “Indeed. Yet this would also involve integrating your group in my command structure. An indigestible lump, a weakness in the chain of command, since you do not owe personal allegiance to me. And, to be frank, non-Nipponese generally do not rise to the decision-making levels in this organization. No offense.”
“None taken,” Early replied tightly. “If you would prefer a less formal link?”
Shigehero sighed, then brought up a remote ’board from below the table, and signed to the guards. They quickly folded the priceless antique screens, to reveal a standard screen-wall.
“That might be my own inclination, esteemed General,” he said. “Except that certain information has come to my attention. Concerning Admiral Ulf Reichstein-Markham of the Free Wunderland Navy…I see your young subordinate has told you of this person? And the so-valuable ship he left in the Herrenmann’s care, and a…puzzling discovery they have made together.”
A scratching at the door interrupted him. He frowned, then nodded. It opened, revealing a guard and another figure who looked to Early for confirmation. The general accepted a datatab, slipped it into his belt unit and held the palm-sized computer to one ear.
Ah, thought Jonah. I’m not the only one to get a nasty shock today. The black man’s skin had turned greyish, and his hands shook for a second as he pushed the “wipe” control. Jonah chanced a glance at his eyes; it was difficult to be sure, they were dark and the lighting was low, but he could have sworn the pupils had expanded to swallow the iris.
“He—” Early cleared his throat. “This information…would it be about an, er, artifact found in an asteroid? Certain behavioral peculiarities?”
Shigehero nodded and touched the controls. A blurred holo sprang up on the wall; from a helmet-cam, Jonah decided. Asteroidal mining equipment on the surface of a medium-sized rock, one kilometer by two. A docked ship in the background, he recognized Markham’s Nietzsche, and others distant enough to be drifting lights, and suited figures putting up bubble-habitats. Then panic, and a hole appeared where the laser-driller had been a moment before. Milling confusion, and an…yes, it must be an alien, came floating up out of the hole.
The young Sol-Belter felt the pulse hammer in his ears. He was watching the first living non-Kzin alien discovered in all the centuries of human spaceflight. It couldn’t be a kzin, the proportions were all wrong. About 1.5 meters, judging by the background shots of humans. Difficult to say in vacuum armor, but it looked almost as thick as it was wide, with an enormous round head and stubby limbs, hands like three-fingered mechanical grabs. There was a weapon or tool gripped in one fist; as they watched the other hand came over to touch it and it changed shape, writhing. Jonah opened his mouth to question and—
“Stop!” The general’s bull bellow wrenched their attention around. “Stop that display immediately, that’s an order!”
Shigehero touched the control panel and the holo froze. “You are not in a position to give orders here, gaijin,” he said. The two guards along the wall put hands inside their lapover jackets and glided closer, soundless as kzinti.
Early wrenched open his collar and waved a hand. “Please, oyabun, if we could speak alone? Completely alone, just for a moment. More is at stake here than you realize!”
Silence stretched. At last, fractionally, Shigehero nodded. The others stood and filed out into the outer room, almost as graciously appointed as the inner. The other members of Early’s team awaited them there; half a dozen of assorted ages and skills. There were no guards, on this side of the wall at least, and the oyabun’s men had provided refreshments and courteously ignored the quick, thorough sweep for listening devices. Watsuji headed for the sideboard, poured himself a double vodka and knocked it back.
“Tanj it,” he wheezed, under his breath. Jonah keyed himself coffee and a handmeal; it had been a rough day.
“Problems?” the Belter asked.
“I can’t even get to an autodoc until we’re out of the Finagle-forsaken bughouse,” the Earther replied. “I knew they were conservative here, but this bleeping farce!” He made a gesture with his mutilated hand. “Nobody at home’s done that for a hundred years! I felt like I was in a holoplay Namida Amitsu, we’re legal, these days. Well, somewhat. Gotten out of the organ trade, at least. This—!”
Jonah nodded in impersonal sympathy. For a flatlander, the man had dealt with the pain extremely well; Earthsiders were seldom far from automated medical attention. Even before the War, Belters had had to move self-sufficient.
“What really bothers me,” he said quietly, settling into a chair, “is what’s going on in there.” He nodded to the door. “Just like the ARM, to go all around Murphy’s Hall to keep us in the dark.”
“Exactly,” Watsuji said gloomily, nursing his hand. “Those crazy bastards think they run the world.”
“Run the world,” Jonah echoed. “Well, they do, don’t they? The ARMs—”
“Naw, not the UN. This is older than that.”
Jonah shrugged.
“A lot older. Bunch of mumbo jumbo. At least—”
“Eh?”
“I think it’s just mumbo jumbo. God, this thing hurts.”
Jonah settled down, motionless. He would not be bored; Belters got a good deal of practice in sitting still and doing nothing without losing alertness, and his training had increased it. The curiosity was the itch he could not scratch.
Could be worse, he thought, taking another bite of the fishy-tasting handmeal. The consistency was rather odd, but it was tasty. The flatlander could have told me to cut my finger off.
“Explain yourself,” Shigehero said.
Instead, Early moved closer and dipped his finger in his rice wine. With that, he drew a figure on the table before the oyabun. A stylized rose, overlain by a cross; he omitted the pyramid. The fragment of the Order which had accompanied the migrations to Alpha Centauri had not included anyone pa
st the Third Inner Circle, after all…
Shigehero’s eyes went wide. He picked up a cloth and quickly wiped the figure away, but his gaze stayed locked on the blank surface of the table for a moment. Then he swallowed and touched the control panel again.
“We are entirely private,” he said, then continued formally: “You bring Light.”
“Illumination is the key, to open the Way,” Early replied.
“The Eastern Path?”
Early shook his head. “East and West are one, to the servants of the Hidden Temple.”
Shigehero started, impressed still more, then made a deep bow, smiling. “Your authority is undisputed, Master. Although not that of the ARM!”
Early relaxed, joining in the chuckle. “Well, the ARM is no more than a finger of the Hidden Way and the Rule That Is To Come, eh? As is your Association, oyabun. And many another.” Including many you know nothing of. “As above, so below; power and knowledge, wheel within wheel. Until Holy Blood—”
“—fills Holy Grail.”
Early nodded, and his face became stark. “Now, let me tell you what has been hidden in the vaults of the ARM. The Brotherhood saw to it that the knowledge was suppressed, back three centuries ago, along with much else. The ARM has been invaluable for that…Long ago, there was a species that called themselves the Thrint—”
Jonah looked up as Early left the oyabun’s sanctum.
“How did it go?” he murmured.
“Well enough. We’ve got an alliance of sorts. And a very serious problem, not just with the kzinti. Staff conference, gentlemen.”
The Belter fell into line with the others as they left the Association’s headquarters. I wonder, he thought, looking up at the rock above. I wonder what really is going on out there. And whether it might get him Catskinner back.
Chapter V
“STOP THAT,” Dnivtopun said angrily, alerted by the smell of blood and a wet ripping sound.
His son looked up guiltily and tried to resist. The thrint willed obedience, feeling the adolescent’s half-formed shield resisting his Power like thick mud around a foot. Then it gave way, and the child released the human’s arm. That was chewed to the bone; the young thrint had blood all down its front, and bits of matter and gristle stuck between its needle teeth. The slave swayed, smiling dreamily.
“How many times do I have to tell you: Do not eat the servants!” Dnivtopun shrieked, and used the Power again: SHAME. GUILT. PAIN. ANGUISH. REMORSE. SHOOTING PAINS. BURNING FEET. UNIVERSAL SCRATCHLESS ITCH. GUILT.
The slave was going into shock. “Go and get medical treatment,” he said. And: FEEL NO PAIN. DO NOT BLEED. This one had been on the Ruling Mind for some time; he had picked it for sensitivity to Power, and its mind fit his mental grip like a glove. The venous spurting from its forelimb slowed, then sank to a trickle as the muscles clamped down on the blood vessels with hysterical strength.
Dnivtopun turned back to his offspring. The young thrint was rolling on the soft blue synthetic of the cabin floor; he had beshat himself and vomited up the human flesh—thrint used the same mouth-orifice for both—and his eating tendrils were writhing into his mouth, trying to clean it and pick the teeth free of foreign matter. The filth was sinking rapidly into the floor, absorbed by the ship’s recycling system, and the stink was fading as well. The vents replaced it with nostalgic odors of hot wet jungle, spicy and rank, the smell of thrintun. Dnivtopun shut his mind to the youngster’s suffering for a full minute; his eldest son was eight, well into puberty. At that age, controls imposed by the Power did not sink in well. An infant could be permanently conditioned, that was the way baby thrint were toilet trained, but by this stage they were growing rebellious.
CEASE HURTING, he said at last. Then: “Why did you attack the servant?”
“It was boring me,” his son said, still with a trace of sulkiness. “All that stuff you said I had to learn. Why can’t we go home, father? Or to Uncle Tzinlpun’s?”
With an intense effort, Dnivtopun controlled himself. “This is home! We are the last thrintun left alive.” Powerloss take persuasion, he decided. BELIEVE.
The fingers of mind could feel the child-intellect accepting the order. Barriers of denial crumbled, and his son’s eye squeezed shut while all six fingers squeezed painfully into palms. The young thrint threw back his head and howled desolately, a sound like glass and sheet metal inside a tumbling crusher.
QUIET. Silence fell; Dnivtopun could hear the uncomprehending whimper of a female in the next room, beyond the lightscreen door. One of his wives; they had all been nervous and edgy, female thrintun had enough psionic sensitivity to be very vulnerable to upset.
“You will have to get used to the idea,” Dnivtopun said. Powergiver knows it took me long enough. He moved closer and threw an arm around his son’s almost-neck, biting him affectionately on the top of the head. “Think of the good side. There are no tnuctipun here!” He could feel that bring a small wave of relief; the Rebels had been bogeymen to the children since their birth. “And you will have a planet of your own, some day. There is a whole galaxy of slaves here, ready for our taking!”
“Truly, father?” There was awakening greed at that. Dnivtopun had only been Overseer of one miserable food-planet, a sterile globe with a reducing atmosphere, seeded with algae and bandersnatchi. There would have been little for his sons, even without the disruption of the War.
“Truly, my son.” He keyed one of the controls, and a wall blanked to show an exterior starscape. “One day, all this will be yours. We are not the last thrintun—we are the beginning of a new Empire!” And I am the first Emperor, if I can survive the next few months. “So we must take good care of these slaves.”
“But these smell so good, father!”
Dnivtopun sighed. “I know, son.” Thrintun had an acute sense of smell when it came to edibility; competition for food among their presapient ancestors had been very intense. “It’s because—” no, that’s just a guess. Few alien biologies in the old days had been as compatible as these humans…Dnivtopun had a suspicion he knew the reason; food algae. The Thrint had seeded hundreds of planets with it, and given billions of years…That would account for the compatibility of the other species as well, the Kzin; they could eat humans, too. “Well, you’ll just have to learn to ignore it.” Thrintun were always ravenous. “Now, listen—you’ve upset your mother. Go and comfort her.”
Ulf Reichstein-Markham faced the Master and fought not to vomit. The carrion breath, the writhing tentacles beside the obscene gash of mouth, the staring faceted eye…It was so—
—beautiful, he thought, as shards of crystalline Truth slid home in his mind. The pleasure was like the drifting relaxation after orgasm, like a hot sauna, like winning a fight.
“What progress has been made on the amplifier helmet?” his owner asked.
“Very little, Mast—eeeeeeeeee!” He staggered back, shaking his head against the blinding-white pressure that threatened to burst it. Whimpering, he pressed his hands against the sides of his head. “Please, Master! We’re trying!”
The pressure relaxed; on some very distant level, he could feel the alien’s recognition of his sincerity.
“What is the problem?” Dnivtopun asked.
“Master—” Markham stopped for a moment to organize his thoughts, looking around.
They were on the control deck of the Ruling Mind, and it was huge. Few human spaceships had ever been so large; this was nearly the size of a colony slowship. The chamber was a flattened oval dome twenty meters long and ten wide, lined with chairs of many different types. That was logical, to accommodate the wild variety of slave-species the Thrint used. But they were chairs, not acceleration couches. The Thrint had had very good gravity control, for a very long time. A central chair designed for thrint fronted the blackened wreck of what had been the main computer. The decor was lavish and garish, swirling curlicues of precious metals and enamel, drifting motes of multicolored lights. Beneath their feet was a porous matrix that s
eemed at least half-alive, that absorbed anything organic and dead and moved rubbish to collector outlets with a disturbing peristaltic motion. The air was full of the smells of vegetation and rank growth.
Curious, he thought, as the majority of his consciousness wondered how to answer the Master. The controls were odd, separate crystal-display dials and manual levers and switches, primitive in the extreme. But the machinery behind the switches was…there were no doors; something happened, and the material went…vague, and you could walk through it, like walking through soft taffy. The only mechanical airlock was a safety-backup.
There was no central power source for the ship. Dotted around were units that apparently converted matter into energy; the equivalent of flashlight batteries could start it. The basic drive was to the kzinti gravity polarizer as a fusion bomb was to grenade; it could accelerate at thousands of gravities, and then pull space right around the ship and travel faster than light.
Faster than light—
“Stop daydreaming,” the Voice said. “And tell me why.”
“Master, we don’t know how.”
The thrint opened its mouth and then closed it again, the tendrils stroking caressingly at its almost nonexistent lips. “Why not?” he said. “It isn’t very complicated. You can buy them anywhere for twenty znorgits.”
“Master, do you know the principles?”
“Of course not, slave! That’s slavework. For engineers.”
“But Master, the slave-engineers you’ve got…we can only talk to them a little, and they don’t know anything beyond what buttons to push. The machinery—” he waved helplessly at the walls “—doesn’t make any sense to us, Master! It’s just blocks of matter. We…our instruments can barely detect that something’s going on.”
The thrint stood looking at him, radiating incomprehension. “Well,” he said after a moment. “It’s true I didn’t have the best quality of engineering slave. No need for them, on a routine posting. Still, I’m sure you’ll figure something out, Chief Slave. How are we doing at getting the Ruling Mind freed from the dirt?”