by Larry Niven
When there was no response from the ghostship, he rose from the communicator’s station and turned to the captain. “They are dead. The entire crew, slaves, all. Send your boarding party! Instantly! We have captured a hyperdrive!”
Sixteen warriors, in readiness for hours, swarmed out of the kzin warship, angry wasps. Cautious at first, they were deployed so they couldn’t all be slaughtered at once. They were ready to return fire with a fire that would surgically remove any weapons that the ghostship might use. But there was no return fire. Two warriors were about to open their prey like a can of rations when…it disappeared. Fourteen warriors had nothing to attack.
Hwass-Hwasschoaw reacted in stunned surprise. At that moment, Grraf-Nig took control, almost as if he were a trainer-of-slaves again and these warriors were suddenly his by right of a higher bid. “Honored Captain! I know what has happened! Call the navy. Bring up support! In the meantime, full acceleration perpendicular to the hyperboundary. Down!”
“My warriors!” wailed the captain.
“They are safe,” he hissed urgently. “Pick them up later. They’ll still be there. It is absolutely vital that this ship not be attacked! We carry the secret of the hyperdrive to the Patriarch—in my head! Get us down!” Then more calmly Grraf-Nig turned to a recovering Hwass. “The beasts were on automatic pilot. We should have expected that. The crew is dead but their ship flies itself.” He made a gesture of respect to the captain. “You will be remembered as the Hero who delivered the hyperdrive technology to our valiant Patriarch. The secret is on board! Get out of monkey range!”
Calmly, the captain gave the orders.
As an aside to Hwass, but in a voice loud enough for the captain to hear, Grraf-Nig added, “Plans have a life of their own. We gambled that not only could we bring the secret of the hyperdrive to Kzin, but also an actual ship. We lost.”
The Patriarch’s Eye tried to hide his disappointment by growling out his anger in mangled English, vocally—but only to himself. “Major Yankee Clandeboye iss not alive he!” The monkey who had humiliated him, broken Markham’s word, toyed with him, kept him in a cage—was dead at last, culled by the God of the True Form. That reminded him of his diplomatic pouch and the mission Clandeboye had interrupted by his arrival at Tiamat.
He arranged with the captain that the pouch on the discarded shuttle be retrieved by the same ship that was retrieving the stranded warriors, that it be inspected by a device expert, and returned to him as soon as it was certifiably safe. Peace! He was bringing peace! What a disappointment this trip had been. A molting yellow coward would get all the glory.
•
Chapter 20
(2438 A.D.)
The domain of the Patriarch was sparse, austere, even gloomy when compared 4th W’kkai. The granite walls were ancient and of a cruder stone masonry than one might expect at the center of galactic power. Spiraling stone stairs to the attic guest rooms had depressions where thousands of years of feet had polished them. The decorations were simple. Tapestries. Ancient, fragile weapons. Armor of beads and woven metal. A collection of wtsai blades. Vases from an age when fire was the mightiest of energies.
Grraf-Nig was guided everywhere by a kdatlyno slave who had strict orders; thus he saw but a small portion of the Palace. He didn’t even know which Riit Palace he was in. He had glimpses of passages. From his room he could see a rotunda’s dome and on a distant hill the ruin of the old Palace destroyed more than eight millennia ago by the Jotok traders who had been annoyed by the murder of an accountant. Few kzin could any longer imagine their spiderlike Jotok slaves as fierce merchants. An old trainer-of-slaves could. Their fierceness had not altogether been bred out of them.
When his kdatlyno led him to his endless interviews with the science bureaucrats of the Palace, he took quick peeks into chambers, galleries, and into a fascinating maze where an earless snow-furred kzintosh led a bevy of silent kzinrretti in flowing lace. He longed to sneak off on his own but in this awesome seat of power he had no intention of disobeying even a slave’s suggestion. Everywhere there were signs that the slightest infraction meant an instant death.
His guide had orders to give his life to stop any transgression—or face death himself. Who knew in what black arts the beast had been trained? His arms were huge, even in proportion to a height that was taller than any kzin. The hands were strangler’s hands that brushed his knees as he led, eight retractile claws at the knuckles. Horns marked his knees and elbows. Attack him? They were filed sharp and then buffed to a polished glow. His brown hide would have stopped a knife. With only his radar sense to shape his surroundings, he had nothing resembling eyes. His face was marked only by a gash of a mouth and by a lumped region above it where the skin was stretched taut.
On the fourth day his kdatlyno made an awkward gesture of obeisance, a bow that forced the beast to lift his hands slightly so that his fingers would not touch the floor. A machine strapped to his body spoke in the Hero’s Tongue. “Make ready for your audience with the Patriarch.”
Jotok slaves dressed him. One of them was propped on three hands while two other hands cut and sewed. The other sat on its underbelly mouth to free five hands for rapid hem-work. They produced a heavy, flowing robe that would have hampered any fighting; indeed, guards attacking him could have used it to wrap him into a sack. It looked good in the mirror, though not up to W’kkai flamboyance. Grraf-Nig followed the kdatlyno through keeps he had never seen. A pride of kzinti guards let them pass into the sanctuary of the Patriarch’s lair.
It was a huge room, furnished simply in slashtooth fur and kudlotlin hide rugs, wooden chairs, tables. The ceiling frescoes blazed from curved arches that rivaled the sky. A gravitic sleeper, elaborately inlaid, peeked from behind a screen—he was clearly equipped to work here for long periods. A huge flatplate dominated his desk, wooden, cluttered. Ostentatious kzinrretti tents filled a distant corner. An orange and yellow striped kzinrret lounged before the flaming hearth that fed into its chimney’s giant tower.
Nobody had given Grraf-Nig instructions. His inclination was to crawl forth on his belly, but the Patriarch stood and beckoned him forward across that great expanse of territory with the age-old sign of well-met in the wilderness. The grizzly old kzin next to him did not move. That would be High Admiral Ress-Chiuu.
It took all his willpower not to crawl but he did stop at a distance to give his snappiest slashing claw-across-the-face, first to the Patriarch and then to Ress-Chiuu. The impatient Patriarch summoned him again. The Riit did not even bother to introduce himself or the admiral. Instead he turned with happy ears to the reclining kzinrret by the fire. “My gift to you. From my harem. Well trained, docile. She will serve your every need. She’s been trained to do an extraordinary number of tricks. Lismichi.”
At the sound of her name, Lismichi looked up with large yellow eyes that peered out between her languid ears. The ears waved sensually.
“Come here, wench. Meet your new mount” She rose and came. “Lie.” The Patriarch indicated a chair for Grraf-Nig—and Lismichi lay beside it, ready to have her back scratched or not. “Horowrrr!” exclaimed the Patriarch, “I believe you are more comfortable now than when you entered my lair I smell more raunch than fear!” His ears were flapping, not nearly such beautiful ears as those of Lismichi.
Grraf-Nig remained speechless.
Ress-Chiuu was ready to begin serious discussion. “My engineers have interviewed you and believe that you can help us to build one of those ghostships that come and go. They’ve been a fearsome puzzle to us. I understand from Hwass-Hwasschoaw that you worked on a similar program at W’kkai. If we give you the whole of our resources, can we catch up? I dread to see those W’kkaikzin in a position of dominance. A brash, superficial culture ignorant of its birthing nest. Hwass tells us that W’kkai will field a major ghost fleet within an octalyear. Is this truth or fantasy? In these grim days we have few sources of good information.”
“Truth. When I first arrived at W’kkai I though
t in hopeful despair that it would take us an octal-squared of years to achieve our goal, and only then if we could draw upon the smuggled covert creativity of the entire Patriarchal realm. W’kkai’s naturalists astonished me with their technical powers. My best estimate is that Si-Kish’s arm is as long as his ambition. His numbers, you see, are the very numbers I gave him. I will add that I expect your naturalists to astonish me, too.”
The Patriarch cleaned his fangs with black claws. “We have different strengths. The W’kkaikzin have always enjoyed puzzles and the abstract whim of symbol. Our muscle lies more in the practical, though we do have a mathematical tradition that extends back to the time of Chmeee the Blind. You’ve never been to Kzin? You must visit the caves of the Mooncatcher Mountains where the Weirdmind-Hunters chiseled the tenets of their geometry into the walls. They flayed their better theorems onto the pelts of enemies but unfortunately few such hides survived the coming of the Jotok.”
Lismichi was placidly out of the conversation but she was winding her tail up between his legs and flicking its tip. The sensation was very distracting.
Ress-Chiuu had more on his mind. “Hwass brought us an analysis of the situation on W’kkai that is disturbing, but he also brought us another very peculiar document that may mean something to you. It means nothing to any of our engineers—who claim that only a major research project can translate it into something they can even read. You were present during the humiliation at Ka’ashi. Did you ever smell the urine of Ulf Reichstein Markham?”
“On a distant breeze. He was a feral-slave who preyed in the Serpent Swarm. There was a reward offered to any kzin who brought in his head.”
“He is now Interworld Space Commissioner for the man-beasts. We have had very peculiar dealings with him. He sent us messages via Wunderland repatriates. We ignored him.” Ress-Chiuu switched into the Mocking Tense. “But he will not be ignored; we are to conquer the galaxy together with animal curiosity and Heroic discipline.” The admiral paused, as if trying to comprehend something incomprehensible. “Lately he begins to suggest that he might be able to cooperate with us—against Man-home. Monkeys delight in betraying each other. What could we lose by encouraging such folly?”
“You have contact with the tree-swingers? At W’kkai there is none.”
“At W’kkai they are wasps, swarming at every prod. We have no choice but to make contact and restrain our patrols. The MacDonald-Rishshi Treaty was written here. It needs adjusting, discussion, concession. Markham has helped us with some commercial deals. We are cut off by the blockade and are forced to use human ships for trade. Our trade is stifled, theirs prospers. They forge wealth at our expense. We tinker a little money, too, with cooling iron castoffs in a cold corner of the mongery—but it is their money which must, in the end, be spent on them. We sent Markham some money to grease our pitiful trade interests. Strangely, he has just sent us a document via Hwass.”
“Hwass mentioned some nonsense. I mean no offense—was the Markham-beast offering human subservience and tribute to the Patriarchy?”
Ress-Chiuu stood up to pace. “‘Subservience and tribute’ is not the correct translation of the word”—he butchered his attempt at English—“‘peace.’ I refer you to the linguists. But let us not deal with incomprehensible alien psychology. Let us deal with this manuscript that our engineers cannot understand.” He pulled out a thick sheath of paper. “The document is also available electronically for quick scan, but I want you to sniff through the paper version and give me a quick opinion. What is it?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now!” snarled Ress-Chiuu impatiently.
Grraf-Nig read bits and pieces, skipping pages. “It is pedantic and in the high formal English grammar,” he said. “I have my troubles speaking the language but no trouble reading it.”
“Good. Does it amount to gibberish about alien harmony and the music of the spheres and astrological farting among the thistles of prescient weeds—or does it have any red meat? My engineers say it contains equations but the notation is unfamiliar to them. I understand that the monkey astrological texts also contain equations.”
Moments later Grraf-Nig lifted his muzzle in astonishment “It’s a discussion of hyperspace mechanics!”
“Markham’s meanderings said as much but we are not altogether ready to believe a monkey who makes his way across the battlefield singing to birds!”
“What now?”
“Read on, you begat of a lice-infested female kshat. Is this meat or is it mushroom?”
Grraf-Nig read, all the while wishing he could nail Shakespeare-Newton to Hwass’s Kdapt cross so that he might save himself from the agony of their notational sins. Patriarch and admiral waited as if they could hear approaching prey in the bushes. Lismichi rubbed her head against his leg. He located a likely-looking equation and painfully translated it into kzinti script. It still didn’t make sense but it was exactly the equation one would use for a rotation into hyperspace if such a thing had meaning.
While he worked, the Patriarch called for a snack of vatach. Servants released the little animals in the lair and the Patriarch sicked Lismichi on them. She chased them down with clever pounces and swivels, skidding on rugs and overturning a few chairs. She brought her first catch to the Patriarch in her teeth and dumped it upon his golden plate, where he ripped it apart, devouring the tidbit, bones and all, before licking his chin and licking his fur where the blood had spattered. The next delicacy came to the admiral, who was not as neat. Lismichi licked him clean.
Then after a frantic chase, she brought to Grraf-Nig the last vatach, squealing unharmed in her teeth. Gently she crushed its skull with her jaws before she laid it carefully on his plate. He was too excited to be hungry. He scratched her head, and put the plate on the floor for her. She thanked him with a whack of her hips against his leg, pushed aside a rug so that she wouldn’t bloody it, and devoured her catch on the floor, daintily getting no blood on her fur.
“She’s so well trained,” marveled the ex-slave-trainer, who could appreciate such niceties.
“For a female,” bellowed the Patriarch.
When Grraf-Nig followed his kdatlyno guide back to his quarters with his new wife on a leash, he saw none of the marvels of the Palace. His mind was racing over his new duties. He was the Hssin barbarian who held the fate of the Patriarchy in his decisions. Where would it go? Another war for sure, with W’kkai and Kzin fighting over the territory recovered from the ephemeral man-beasts.
In his room Lismichi sniffed about her unfamiliar surroundings. He called up a map of Kzin on the flatplate, zooming in on the design daedal that was to be his new home, Power and responsibility and respect like he’d never known. It frightened him to the point where he could hardly think.
I’m too old to be afraid, he thought.
He took his wife by the scruff of the neck and threw her on the bed which had once seemed too large and now seemed too small. After those horrible months in that conundrum cell with only liquid meal and a water hose to keep him alive and a stone floor to sleep on, having a kzinrret again, and such a pleasant one, was a real pleasure. No use trying to sex with her. She wasn’t in estrus and wouldn’t be in the mood. It was always more exciting when they had that delicious smell about them and were full of desire. A Hero really needed five wives with their periods properly staggered to enjoy life.
He dimmed the lights and took one last look at the ruins of the old palace against the mountainside, undressed, and brought his great body down on the bed to snuggle with his petite wife. What an honor to be given a kzinrret from the Patriarch harem! He would cherish her. She was licking his face affectionately and he had to dodge out of the way of her tongue. The pleasures of life! He nibbled at her huge floppy ears! He didn’t deserve such a beauty.
She went to sleep in his arms, still smelling slightly of wood smoke. He didn’t sleep. He had too much to ponder. He was remembering the desperate loneliness of space. I was mad then. He had his malfunctioning hypershun
t motor, and his slaves, and a mangled world to remind him of the deadly beasts from Man-sun. Cuddling with Lismichi nostalgically reminded him of his days with the Nora-beast in that dimly remembered palazzo of the nightmare Hssin.
She had been under control then, the memory of her past gone, her language capability gone, no longer a fearsome warrior who had killed the entire crew of a kzin warship and had nearly killed her Trainer-of-Slaves. Peaceful. She was like a young kzinrret curiously learning about her unknown world, learning how to hiss, to get angry, to groom her fur, to beg for food and affection. In many ways like a young kzinrret with a fierce loyalty to her children—but not like a kzinrret. Different. Odd the way one grew fond of slaves.
He had slept with her all that time, cuddling like he was cuddling with Lismichi now in the dark. A strange relationship. There had never been any sex—sex between man-beast and kzin was impossible, as much as sex was impossible between kzin and Jotok. She never went into estrus and she smelled wrong so he had never desired her. She had the ugliest ears of any beast he had ever seen. But he had needed her. He loved to stroke her soft fur. She needed him, growing up fresh in a dangerous world surrounded by poisonous gases. When she began to learn to speak again, with the limited language apparatus he had left her, her first words in broken patois were, “My Hero.” The Nora-beast had followed him everywhere as loyal and naive as only a slave can be.
He thought about killing slaves. Lying on his bed in this sacred place where Jotoki had once ruthlessly killed their enslaved kzinti, he tried to imagine being a slave who was being killed by his master. It was impossible. As impossible as to imagine being an animal. Many a kzin killed his slave. Jotoki were delicious. Kdatlyno hide made the finest couch leather. Once on Kzin, Hwass-Hwasschoaw had immediately located a source of human slaves who had long ago been imported from Wunderland as exotic luxuries—and he would skin them to make masks for the rituals of supplication to his Only God. Expensive masks, but that was his taste.