Man-Kzin Wars III

by Larry Niven

  And that could well have been forged by a person crazy-desperate for vindication, Saxtorph thought. She admits the instrumental search drew a blank.

  Tyra had won to a steely calm. “Furthermore, thinking about it, I realized that if the Navy should go, it would be entirely in hopes of discovering something worthwhile. They would not care about the honor of Peter Nordbo, who was condemned as a traitor and is most likely long dead.”

  “But you have your own reputation to rescue,” Saxtorph said gently.

  The fair head shook. “That doesn’t matter. Neither Ib, my brother, nor I was accused of anything. In fact, at the liberation, he was among those who tried to storm the Ritterhaus where the kzinti were holding out, and was wounded. I told you, he has since become a naval officer. And I . . . helped the underground earlier, in a very small way, for I was very young then, and during the street fighting here I worked at a first aid station. Ach, the court said how they sympathized with us. We must have been one reason why they never formally charged my mother. That much justice got we, for she was innocent too. She could not help what happened. But except for those few real friends, only Ib and I ever again called on her, at that lonely house on Korsness.”

  The musicomp man set his instrument to violin mode with orchestral backing and played a tune that Saxtorph recognized. Antique indeed, from Earth before space-flight, sugary sentimental, yet timeless, “Du kannst nicht treu sein.” You can’t be true.

  Tyra’s gaze met his. “Yes, certainly we wish to rejoin the Freuchens, not as a favor but by birthright. And that would mean restoring us the holdings, or compensation for them; a modest fortune. But it doesn’t matter, I say. What does is my father’s good name, his honor. He was a wonderful man.” Her voice deepened. “Or is? He could maybe be alive still, somewhere yonder, after all these years. Or if not, we could—maybe avenge him.”

  The wings of her pageboy bob stirred. He realized that she had laid her ears back, like a wolf before a foe, and she was in truth of the old stock that conquered this planet for humankind.

  “Easy, there,” he said hastily. “Rover’s civilian, remember. Unarmed.”

  “She should carry weapons. Since you discovered the kzinti have the hyperdrive—”

  “Yah. Agreed. I wanted some armament installed, during this overhaul. Permission was denied, flat. Against policy. Bad enough, a hyperdrive ship operating as a free enterprise at all. Besides, I was reminded, it’s twenty years since the kzinti were driven from Alpha Centauri, ten years since the war ended, and they’ve learned their lesson and are good little kitties now, and it was nasty of us to smash their base on that planet and do in so many of them. If they threatened our lives, why, mightn’t we have provoked them? In any event, the proper thing for us to have done was to file a complaint with the proper authorities—” Saxtorph broke off. “Sorry. I feel kind of strongly about it.”

  He avoided describing the new equipment that was aboard. Perfectly lawful, stuff for salvage work or prospecting or various other jobs that might come Rover’s way. He hoped never to need it for anything else. But he and his shipmates had chosen it longsightedly, and made certain modifications. Just in case. Moreover, a spacecraft by herself carried awesome destructive potentialities. The commissioners were right to worry about one falling into irresponsible hands. He simply felt that the historical record showed governments as being, on the whole, much less responsible than humans.

  “Anyway,” he said, “under no circumstances would we go looking for a fight. I’ve seen enough combat to last me for several incarnations.”

  “But you are serious about going!” she cried.

  He lifted a palm. “Whoa, please. First describe the situation. Uh, your brother’s in the Navy, you said, but may I ask what you do?”

  Her tone leveled. “I write. When liberation came, I had started to study literature at the university here. Afterward I worked some years for a news service, but when I had sold a few things of my own, I became a free-lance.”

  “What do you write? I’m afraid I don’t recognize your byline.”

  “That is natural. Hyperdrive and hyperwave have not been available so long that there goes much exchange of culture between systems, especially when the societies went separate ways while ships were limited by light speed. I make differing things. Books, articles, scripts. Travel stuff; I like to travel, the same as you, and this has gotten me to three other stars so far. Other nonfiction. Short stories and plays. Two novels. Four books for young children.”

  “I want to read some . . . whatever happens.” Saxtorph forbore to ask how she proposed to pay him on a writer’s income. He couldn’t afford a wild gamble that she might regain the family lands. Let the question wait.

  Pride spoke: “Therefore you see, Captain, Ib and I are independent. My aim—his, if I can persuade him—is for our father’s honor. Even about that, I admit, nothing is guaranteed. But we must try, must we not? We might become what the Nordbos used to be. Or we might become far more rich, because whatever it is out yonder is undoubtedly something strange and mighty. But such things, if they happen, will be incidental.”

  Or we might come to grief, maybe permanently, Saxtorph thought. Nonetheless he intended to hear her out. “Okay,” he said. “Shall we stop maneuvering and get down to the bones of the matter?”

  Her look sought past him, beyond this tavern and this night. Her muted monotone flowed on beneath the music. “I give you the background first, for by themselves my father’s notes that I have found are meaningless. Peter Nordbo was twelve years old, Earth reckoning, when the kzinti appeared. He was the only son of the house, by all accounts a bright and adventurous boy. Surely the conquest was a still crueler blow to him than to most dwellers on Wunderland.

  “But folk were less touched by it, in that far-off northern district, than elsewhere. Travel restrictions, growing shortages of machines and supplies, everything forced them into themselves, their own resources. It became almost a . . . manorial system, is that the word? Or feudal? Children got instruction from what teachers and computer programs there were, and from their parents and from life. My father was a gifted pupil, but he was also much for sports, and he roamed the wilderness, hunted, took his sailboat out to sea—

  “Mainly, from such thinly peopled outlying regions, the kzinti required tribute. The Landholders must collect this and arrange that it was delivered, but they generally did their best to lighten the burden on the tenants, who generally understood. Kzinti seldom visited Gerning, our part of Skogarna, and then just to hunt in the forests, so little if any open conflict happened. When my father reached an age for higher education, the family could send him to Munchen, the university.

  “That was a quiet time also here. The humans who resisted had been hunted down, and the will to fight was not yet reborn in the younger generation. My father passed his student days peacefully, except, I suppose, for the usual carousals, and no doubt kzin-cursing behind closed doors. His study was astrophysics. He loved the stars. His dream was to go to space, but that was out of the question. Unless as slaves for special kzinti purposes, no Wunderlanders went any longer. The only Centaurian humans in space were Belters, subjugated like us, and Resistance fighters. And we never got real news of the fighters, you know. They were dim, half-real, mythic gods and heroes. Or, to the collaborationists and the quietists, dangerous enemies.

  “Well. My father was . . . twenty-five, I think, Earth calendar . . . when my grandfather died a widower and Peter Nordbo inherited the Landholdership of Gerning. Dutiful, he put his scientific career aside and returned home to take up the load. Presently he married. They were happy together, if not otherwise.

  “The position grew more and more difficult, you see. First, poverty worsened as machinery wore out and could not be replaced. Folk must work harder than ever before to stay alive, while the kzinti lessened their demands not a bit, which he must enforce. Resentment often went out over him. Then later the kzinti established a base in Gerning. It was fairly
small, mainly a detector station against raids from space, for both the Resistance and the Solarians were growing bolder. And it was off in the woods, so that personnel could readily go hunting in their loose time. But it was there, and it made demands of its own, and now folk met kzinti quite commonly, one way or another.

  “That led to humans being killed, some of them horribly. Do you understand that my father must put a stop to it? He must deal with the ratcats, make agreements, be useful enough that he would have a little influence and be granted an occasional favor. Surely he hated it. I was just eight years old on your calendar when he left us, but I remember, and from others I have heard. He began to drink heavily. He became a bad man to cross, who had been so fair-minded, and this made him more enemies. He worked off a part of the sorrow in physical activity, which might be wildly reckless, steeplechasing, hunting tigripards with a spear, sailing or skindiving among the skerries. And yet at home he was always kind, always loving—the big, handy, strong, sympathetic man, with his songs and jokes and stories, who never hurt his children but got much from them because he awaited they would give much.”

  Saxtorph was smoking too hard; his mouth felt scorched. He soothed it with beer. Tyra proceeded:

  “I think he turned a blind eye on whatever underground activities arose in Gerning, or that he got wind of elsewhere. He could not risk joining them himself. He was all that stood between his folk and the kzinti that could devour them. Instead, he must be the subservient servant, and never scream at the devils gnawing in his soul.

  “But I believe the worst devil, because half an angel, was the relationship that developed between him and Yiao-Captain. This was the space operations officer at the defense base in Gerning. Father found he could talk to him, bargain, persuade, better than with any other kzin. Naturally, then, Yiao-Captain became the one he often saw and . . . cultivated. I am not sure what it was about him that pleased Yiao-Captain, although I can guess. But Ib remembers hearing Father remark to Mother, more than once, that they were no longer quite master and slave, those two, or predator and prey, but almost friends.

  “Of course folk noticed. They wondered. I, small girl at home, was not aware of anything wrong, but later I learned of the suspicions that Father had changed from reluctant go-between to active collaborationist. It was in the testimony against him, after liberation.”

  Tyra fell silent. The long talk had hoarsened her. She drank deep. Still she looked at what Saxtorph had never beheld.

  Gone uneasy, he shifted his weight about, minor though it was on this planet, and sought his stein. The beer was as cool and strong as her handshake had been. He found words. “What do you think that pair had in common?” he asked.

  She shook herself and came back to him. “Astrophysics,” she answered. “Father’s abiding interest, you know. It turned into one of his consolations. He built himself an observatory. Piece by piece, year by year, he improvised equipment.” Humor flickered. “Or scrounged it. Is that your American word? Scientists under the occupation were as expert scroungers as everybody else.” Once more gravely: “He spent much time at his instruments. When he had gotten that relationship with Yiao-Captain—remember, he mostly used it to help his tenants, shield them—he arranged for a link to a satellite observatory the kzinti maintained. It had military purposes, but those involved deep scanning of the heavens, and Father was allowed a little time-sharing.” Her voice went slightly shrill. “Was this collaboration?”

  “I wouldn’t say so,” replied Saxtorph, “but I’m not a fanatic.” Nor was I here, enduring the ghastlinesses. I was an officer in the UN Navy, which was by no means a bad thing to be during the last war years. We managed quite a few jolly times.

  With a renewed steadiness that he sensed was hard-held, Tyra continued: “It seems clear to me that Yiao-Captain shared Father’s interest in astrophysics. As far as a kzin would be able to. They are not really capable of disinterested curiosity, are they? But Yiao-Captain could not have foreseen any important result. I think he gave his petty help and encouragement—easy to do in his position—for the sake of the search itself.

  “And Father did make a discovery. It was important enough that Yiao-Captain arranged for a ship so he could go take a look. Father went along. They were never seen again. That was thirty Earth years ago.”

  By sheer coincidence, the musician changed to a different tune, brasses and an undertone of drums. Saxtorph knew it also. It too was ancient. The hair stood up on his arms. “Ich hat’ einen kameraten.” I had a comrade. The army song of mourning.

  “He did not tell us why,” Tyra said. The tears would no longer stay captive. “He was forbidden. He could only say he must go, and be gone a long time, but would always love us. We can only guess what happened.”

  Chapter III

  The air was rank with kzin smell. The whole compound was, but in this room Yiao-Captain’s excitement made it overwhelming, practically to choke on. He half leaned across his desk, claws out, as if it were an animal he had slain and was about to rip asunder. Sunlight through a window gleamed off eyes and wet fangs. Orange fur and naked tail stiffened erect. The sight terrified those human instincts that remembered the tiger and the Sabertooth. Although Peter Nordbo had met it before and knew that no attack impended—probably—he must summon his courage. He was big and muscular, Yiao-Captain was short and slender, yet the kzin topped the man by fifteen centimeters, with a third again the bulk and twice the weight.

  Words hissed, spat, snarled. “Action! Adventure! Getting away from this wretched outpost. Achievement, honor, a full name. Power gained, maybe, to end this dragged-on war at last. And afterward—afterward—” The words faded off in an exultant growl.

  When he thought he saw a measure of calm, Nordbo dared say, in Wunderlander, “I don’t quite understand, sir. A very interesting astronomical phenomenon, which should be studied intensively. I came to request your help in getting me authorization to— But that is all. Isn’t it, sir?” While he knew the Hero’s Tongue, he was not allowed to defile it by use, especially since his vocal organs inevitably gave it a grotesque accent. When he must communicate with a kzin ignorant of his language, he used a translator or, absent that, wrote his replies.

  Yiao-Captain sat down again and indicated that Nordbo could do likewise. “No, humans are slow to perceive such possibilities,” he said. With characteristic rapid mood shift, he went patronizing. “I supposed you might. You are bold for a monkey. Well, think as best you can. A mysterious source of tremendous energy. Study of the stars deepened knowledge of the atom, and thus became a key to the development of nuclear weapons. What now have you come upon?”

  Nordbo shook his head. His mouth bent upward ruefully in the bushy brown beard that was starting to grizzle, below the hook nose. “Scarcely an unknown law of nature in operation, sir. What it may be I’d rather not try to guess before we have much more data. It does suggest— No, how could it have appeared so suddenly, if it were what has crossed my mind? In any case, not every scientific discovery finds military applications. Most don’t. I can’t imagine how this one could, five light-years off.”

  “You cannot. We shall see.”

  “Well, sir, if I get the kind of support I need for further research—” Nordbo stopped. Appalled, he stared at the possibility that his eagerness had camouflaged from him. Might this really mean a weapon to turn on his folk? No. It must not. Please, God, make it impossible.

  “You will have better than that,” Yiao-Captain purred. “We shall go there.”

  Have I misheard? Nordbo thought. Even for a kzin, it is crazy. “What?”

  “Yes.” Yiao-Captain rose again. His tail switched, his bat’s-wing ears folded and lay back. He gazed out the window into the sky. “If nothing else, maybe that energy source can be transported. Maybe we can fling it at the enemy. They may have noticed too. If they have, they are bound to send an expedition sometime. Their peering, prying curiosity— But Alpha Centauri is closer to it than Sol by . . . three light-years, is
that a good guess? We shall forestall. I can readily persuade the governor, given the information you have brought. And I will be in command.”

  Nordbo had risen too, less out of deference, for he realized that at present the kzin wouldn’t notice or care, than because he couldn’t endure being towered over by those devils. It struck him, not for the first time, that the reason few households on Wunderland kept cats any longer was that their faces were too much like a kzin’s. Well, that was far from being the only happy thing the conquest had ruined.

  “I, I wish you would reconsider, sir,” he said.

  “Never.” The bass voice grew muted. “Our ancestors tamed their planet and went to the stars because they had learned that knowledge brings might. Shall we dishonor their ghosts?”

  Nordbo moistened his lips. “I mean you personally, sir. We will . . . miss you.”

  It twisted in him: The damnable part is that that is true. Yiao-Captain has never been gratuitously cruel, nor let others be when he had any control over them. By his lights, he is kindly. He has helped us directly or intervened on our behalf when I showed him the need was dire and there would be no loss to his side. He has received me as hospitably as a Hero can receive a monkey, and, yes, we have had some fascinating talks, where he listened to what I said and thought about it and gave answers that approached being fair. Why, he got me to teach him chess, and if he loses he doesn’t fly into a murderous rage, only curses and goes outside to work it off in hand-to-hand combat practice. He likes me, after his fashion, and, confess it, I like him in a crooked sort of way, and—what will happen to us in Gerning if he leaves us?

  Yiao-Captain turned his head. Something akin to mirth rasped through his words. “Lament not. You are coming along.”

  Nordbo took a step backward. The horror was too vast for him to grasp immediately. He felt as if he were in a cold maelstrom, whirling down and down. His hands lifted. “No,” he implored. “Oh, no, no.”