Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - III

by Larry Niven

  The kzin’s tone softened. “I know this is a stormwind upon you. You will need a while to regain balance. Go. Rest, think. Come back to me when you feel ready.”

  Nordbo stumbled from him.

  Grief welled up: I have lost you for always, my beloved.

  Bleak joy: You are free. We can outpace light. Surely our fleets went on to defeat the kzinti everywhere and ram peace down their throats.

  Despair: But no secret has ever stayed long under lock and key. Someday, somehow, they too will gain the knowledge. This ship bears news that may well help them to it. We did conclude that the machine englobing the black hole is tnuctipun and is meant to pass it through hyperspace. We think we identified the activator. We could not puzzle out more than the likeliest-looking procedure for starting it up, and we have no idea how to set a course or stop a destination. But a later expedition, better equipped, with up-to-date physicists, ought to learn much more than we did.

  Wrath: “We!” As if this were my band!

  Shame: For a while it came near being so. I was captivated. In the work, I could forget my loss for hours at a time. But then I began to see what the thing must be—

  Horror: A part of the arsenal that destroyed intelligent life throughout this galactic sector, those billions of years ago. Shall it fall into kzinti hands?

  Logic: Oh, by itself it might not prove decisive, come (God take pity on us) the next war. But it would kill many. Worse, it would lead the kzinti to the hyperdrive; or, if they have that by now, it could well suggest improvements that make their ships irresistibly superior to ours. And who can be certain that that would be all it did?

  Agony: And I am helpless, helpless.

  Revelation: NO!

  Through a time beyond time, Nordbo stood amidst lightnings. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse—

  Apocalypse opened itself to metal, silence, and unseen stars; but the hand of the Lord was upon him. Somewhere a voice quavered that he had better take nourishment, sleep, recover his full strength, while watching for the best chance. He scorned it into extinction. He would never be stronger than now. Surprise, and a will that had given doubt no days or weeks to corrode it, were his only allies.

  With long strides he made his way to the workshop. Every sense thrilled preternaturally keen. A bulkhead bore furrows where a kzin in a rage had scratched the facing. Air from the ventilators blew warm, a tinge of ozone cleansing a ratcat taint become slight. His feet thudded on the deck, the impacts went up through his bones. His mouth was no longer dry, but hunter-wet. He had bitten his tongue and tasted the salt blood, His heart beat steady, powerful. His fingers flexed, making ready.

  Though the shop was dark, cramful of stored equipment, he had no trouble finding his toolbox. Things clattered as he went after the knife he had made and left buried at the bottom. The kzinti had never suspected; else he would have become meat. He drew it forth. Heavy in his grasp, blade about thirty centimeters by two, it was crude, a piece of scrap surreptitiously sawed, hammered, and filed, a haft of plastic riveted to the tang; but patience had given it a microtome edge. He discarded the improvised sheath and held the steel behind his back when he went out. Barehanded, a kzin could take a man apart, and speed as well as strength was why. Nordbo didn’t plan to waste time drawing.

  Nor had he any qualms of conscience. The odds against him were huge enough without the beasts he hunted being prepared for him.

  He found Gunner slumped sullen in the den that corresponded to a human ship’s saloon. The kzin watched a drama which Nordbo recognized as classic. Maybe he’d seen the popular repertory too often and was desperate for entertainment. In the screen, Chrung was attacking an enemy stronghold, wielding an ax on its parapet. Gunner was moderately interested. He did not notice the man who glided forward until Nordbo reached his shoulder.

  The massive head turned. Lips pulled from fangs, irritation that might flash into murder frenzy, did the intruder not grovel and plead. Nordbo’s hand came around, machine precise. He drove his knife through the right eye, upward into the brain.

  Gunner bellowed. Nordbo cast himself against the great body. His left hand clung to the fur while his right twisted the knife. An arm scythed past him, reflex that would have laid him open were he in its path. He worked his blade to and fro. Abruptly he clutched limpness. The kzin sagged to the deck. Death-stench rose fetid.

  Nordbo withdrew the knife and stepped aside. Not much blood ran from the socket at his feet. He had hoped for a silent kill. Well, that he had killed at all was remarkable. Next he must repeat it or die trying. He felt no fear, nor gladness or even anger. His mind was the control center of the mechanism that was himself.

  He wouldn’t get a second opportunity like this. A spear, a crossbow—a daydream. He glanced about. Their food being synthetic, these travelers had adopted the Wunderlander fashion of tablecloths. The gory play continued in the screen. It stirred memory of things watched or read at home, historical sociology and fiction. The trick he recalled must require long practice to be done right, but a man who had pitched tents and hoisted sails shouldn’t be too inept. Heavy feet sped along the passageway outside. Nordbo took a corner of the napery in his left hand. He snapped the fabric, to gain some feeling for its behavior.

  Yiao-Captain burst into the den. “What’s wrong?” he roared while he slammed to a halt. His look blazed across the corpse and the man who stood beyond it, knife reddened. Insolent past belief, the man shook a rag at him and grinned.

  For a whole second, sheer stupefaction held Yiao-Captain immobile. Then fury exploded. He screamed and leaped.

  Nordbo swayed aside. The giant orange body arced across the space where the cloth rippled. It slipped aside. As the kzin passed, Nordbo hewed.

  Yiao-Captain hit the bulkhead. It groaned and buckled. The kzin bounded off the deck and rushed. Nordbo was drifting toward the door. Again his capework saved him, though a leg brushed his and made him stagger. Yet he had gotten a stab into the neck.

  He reached the corridor. “Blunderfoot!” he shouted in the kzinti language. “Eater of sthondat dung! Come get me if you dare!” His trick would soon fail him unless he kept his antagonist amok.

  Yiao-Captain charged. Blood marked his trail, pumped out of the rents beneath ribs and jaws. Nordbo cut him. Leaping by, he closed teeth on fabric. Nordbo nearly lost it. He slashed it across and saved half.

  Scarlet spouted. My God, I got a major vein, Nordbo realized. Yiao-Captain turned. He lurched and mewled, but he attacked. Nordbo retreated. Flick cape over eyeballs, once, twice, thrice. Blindly, Yiao-Captain went past. Nordbo sliced his tail off.

  Yiao-Captain came back around. He crumpled to his knees, to all fours. Snarling, he crawled at the man. Nordbo backed up, easily keeping ahead of him.

  Yiao-Captain stopped. He stared. The raw whisper held a sudden gentleness. Or puzzlement? “Speaker for Humans, I…I liked you. I thought…you liked…me…” He collapsed. His death struggle took several minutes.

  The ship is mine, said the computer in Nordbo’s head. Not that I can do anything with it. Except, of course, shut off the beamcast. And wait. Recycling is operative; plenty of food and water. Including kzin steaks, if I want. I can break into the small arms locker and shoot them where they lie. But probably that’s too ugly an act. I am not a kzin, I am a man.

  Otherwise I wait. Forty or more years till I reach their sun. I will occupy myself, handicrafts, study of what’s in the database, love letters to Hulda. Meditation, maybe. For something may yet happen to set me free. The one sure way to lose all hope is to give up all hope.

  Rationality fell apart. He retched and began to shake, miserably cold. Reaction. Let him go sleep and sleep and sleep. Afterward he would eat something, and clean up this mess, and settle down into solitude.

  Chapter XII

  In galactic space a sun is a mote, a planet well-nigh infinitesimal. How then to find a spacecraft felling through light-years?

  “Ve haff our met�
�ods,” boasted Saxtorph. Begin by reasoning. The kzinti would not stay longer at the black hole than it took to learn everything they were able; and they were doubtless not extremely well chosen or well outfitted for scientific research. Having shot a beam at Alpha Centauri, describing what they had done and recommending a proper expedition, they’d start after it. Presently they’d receive word that the system was falling to an armada from Sol. Consider the dates of events, assume they’d been some months at work before they set forth, figure in acceleration time, and you conclude that they got the news about a third of the way along their course. What would they then plausibly do? Why, make for 61 Ursae Majoris, the star that Kzin itself orbits, the world that spawned their breed. Just as likely, they’d spend their engine reserve boosting to a full half c, and now be moving at approximately that speed. Calculate the trajectory.

  Your answer will reflect the uncertainties in your guesstimates. What you get is not a curve but a cone. The ship is somewhere near the top, which leaves you with a volume still so enormous that random search is a fool’s errand.

  However, space is not empty. The interstellar medium, mostly hydrogen with some helium and pinches of higher elements, has a mean density equivalent to about one proton per cubic centimeter. An object passing through it at 150,000 klicks per second hits a lot of stuff. The X-rays given off at these encounters would quickly fry the crew and their electronics, save that the screen fields keep the gas at a distance from the hull and guide it into a fairly smooth flow. Nevertheless, the perturbation is considerable. Atoms are excited and emit softer quanta. The tunnel of near-total vacuum left behind the vessel will take years to fill: which means it is correspondingly long. All this shows in the radio spectrum from that part of the sky. Sensitive instruments can detect it across quite a few parsecs.

  The technique was not original with Saxtorph. The UN Navy had developed and employed it during the war. Since Rover was not specially equipped for it, he did have to devise modifications. In essence, he went via hyperspace from point to precalculated point. At each, his gang took readings. Dorcas had written a program that interpreted them. In due course, the seekers should get an identification. On that basis they could measure a parallax and obtain a fix.

  Saxtorph and Tyra sat by themselves over beers in the saloon. Talk ransacked the past, for the future seemed like a wire drawn so taut that at any moment it would snap and the sharp ends recoil. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I have been on Silvereyes. It is fascinating. A hundred lifetimes were too little for to understand those ecologies.”

  “You were writing about it?” he inquired.

  “What else? One must pay for one’s travel somehow. Of course, I knew better than to try squeezing a whole world into a book. I looked me around, but that which I made my subject was the Cyclops island.”

  “Really? I’ve got to read your book when we get back. You see, I was there myself once. A tourniquet vine damn near did for a shipmate, but we chopped her free in time, and otherwise it was, as you say, fascinating. I begrudged every minute I was on duty and couldn’t explore.”

  “You have been everywhere, have you not?” she murmured.

  “No, no, much though I’d like to. Besides, this wasn’t my idea. Navy, tail end of the war, establishing a just-in-case base. Satellite, but initial supplies of air and water and such would come from the ground.”

  Reminiscence went on. “—boats, to check out the surrounding shoals. A simple mooring is a timber tethered to a rock. What I could’ve told those clowns, because I’d been in Hawaii, was that they’d picked a chunk of volcanic pumice. But I wouldn’t’ve known either that the log was stonewood. So they took the ensemble to the mooring place and heaved it overboard, and the rock floated while the log sank.”

  He always liked the heartiness of Tyra’s laughter.

  “Here I’ve gone again, blathering on about me,” he said. “You’re a good listener—no, a great, a vintage listener—but honest, I set out to hear about you. And I really can listen too.”

  She sobered. “I know. Not many men can, or will. You act very everyday, Robert, but in truth you are a deep and complicated person.”

  “Wrong, wrong. Never mind. I said we should talk about you. Uh, on Silvereyes, did you visit the Amanda Lakes region?”

  “Of course.” Tyra sighed. “Beauty that high comes near to hurt, no? At least when there is no one to share it with.”

  “You had nobody? You should have.”

  Her smile was rueful. “Well, I roomed with another woman. Although she was pleasant, finally we agreed what a shame that one of us was of the wrong sex.”

  “Yah, I daresay it’ll become a favorite honeymoon resort.” Saxtorph stared into his beer stein. “Tyra, none of my business, except we’re friends. But you rate better than going through life alone the way you’re doing.”

  She reached across the table and laid her hand on his. “You are kind.” Her voice lowered. “On this journey I have discovered my father was not the only man who is a fine creature.”

  “Aw, hey—”

  They turned their heads. Tyra pulled her hand back. Dorcas had entered. Her slenderness reared over them. “We have a decision to make about the next jump point,” she said calmly. “It depends on what weight we give the last set of data. Will you come and consult, Bob?”

  Saxtorph’s chair scraped. “’Scuse me, Tyra.”

  The Wunderlander smiled. “Why should I?” she replied. “What need? You go in my cause.”

  He tossed off his drink and left with his wife. When they were several meters down the corridor, she told him, “I lied, you realize. Not to make a scene.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” he exclaimed. “Nothing was going on.”

  “I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

  “You, jealous?” He forced a chuckle. “Honey, you flatter me.”

  “Not exactly. I’ve watched where things are headed. No bad intentions on anybody’s part. I continue to like her myself. But, Bob, I’d hate to see you hurt. And I’ve no reason—so far—to wish it on her. As for this team of ours—” She clutched his forearm. Had the muscle been less thick underneath, her fingers would have left marks.

  Chapter XIII

  Weoch-Captain was a thoughtful and self-controlled kzin. Much though he lusted to streak directly to his goal, first he pondered the implications of what he knew about it. Ideas came to him which he communicated to Ress-Chiuu. The High Admiral agreed that his flight plan should be changed.

  Therefore Swordbeak cruised about, in and out of hyperspace, day after tedious day. It chewed on nerves. The crew grew restless. Quarrels exploded. A couple of times they led to fights. Weoch-Captain disciplined the offenders severely; they were long in sickbay and would bear the marks for the rest of their lives.

  He had given his officers an explanation. The Swift Hunter that went to the unknown body had not been heard of again. If it found the thing, as was probable, this would have happened just about when the human armada entered the Alpha Centaurian System. That news would have taken five years to reach the ship, except that it was likely bound back. What then was its best course? Other kzin-held worlds might fall to the enemy before it could get to any of them. Wisest was to head directly for the Father Sun, especially if the expedition had made worthwhile discoveries. Assuming the crew still lived, they were now about a third of the way home. Swordbeak ought to search them out and learn what they could tell, before proceeding. Furthermore, such Heroes deserved to know as soon as possible that they were not forgotten.

  Every basis for calculation was a matter of guessing. That included, especially, the location of the mystery object. The data that Ress-Chiuu’s informant had been able to pass on were fragmentary, maddeningly vague. Thus the Swift Hunter’s cone of location was immense. But the High Admiral had ordered Weoch-Captain’s vessel outfitted with the best radio spectrum detectors and analyzers that its hull could accommodate.

  So at length his technicians identified a tunnel of passa
ge and placed it approximately in space. Prudence dictated that Swordbeak not attempt immediate rendezvous. The precise trajectory and momentary position of the other craft remained unclear; and mass moving at half light-speed is dangerous. Weoch-Captain made for a point about two light-years behind. Inside the trail, the technicians could map it exactly and pinpoint his target.

  There they picked up a message.

  Weoch-Captain was not totally surprised. In a like situation, he did not think he would send a radio beam ahead. The slimy humans might come upon it, read it, and jam it. However, the idea of superluminal travel would have been unfamiliar to the expedition members. They would scarcely have thought of everything that it meant. If the possibility did occur to them, they might well have discounted it, since the probability of interception was slight, while the transmission increased by a little the likelihood that the Patriarch would eventually get the news they bore. At any rate, Weoch-Captain had provided for the contingency. When he reached the tunnel, receivers were open on a wide enough band that they would register anything, Doppler-diminished though the waves be.

  They buzzed. A computer got busy. A part of the message unrolled on a screen before him.

  He narrowed his eyes. What was this? “—material unknown. Eroded but, except where pierced, impervious to radiation—” His finger stabbed at the intercom. The image of Executive Officer appeared. “We have evidently come in, in the middle of a sending,” Weoch-Captain said. “Doubtless the Swift Hunter plays a recorded beamcast continuously. I want the entirety of it. Have an acquisition program prepared.”

  “Immediately, sire.”

  “Mock me not,” purred the commander. “You know full well that we shall have to leap about, snatching pieces here and there, while reception will often be poor; and the whole must be fitted together in proper sequence, ungarbled where needful, until it is complete and coherent; and the highly technical content will make this a process difficult and slow. Do you suggest I am ignorant of communications principles?”