07-Beowulf Shaeffer

by Larry Niven

  I know people who do that to kittens.

  Some of a child's rash courage is ignorance. By thirty it's gone. The little girl's smile was a rictus. Aliens were here for her entertainment; she would not willingly miss any part of the adventure, but she just couldn't make herself approach the Kzin or his octopus servant. The boy hadn't even tried.

  First Officer Quickpony finished what she'd been doing. She stood in haste, took the vacuum packs from Heidi and handed them to the aliens. "Fly-By-Night, thank you for coming. Thank you, Mart. You'd be Paradoxical?"

  The woman's body language invited a handshake, but the Jotok didn't. "Yes, we are Paradoxical, greatly pleased to meet you."

  The Kzin snarled a question in the Heroes' Tongue. Everybody's translators murmured in chorus, "Is this the bridge?"

  Quickpony said, "Bridge and lobby, they're the same space. You didn't know? We wondered why you never came around."

  "I was not told of this option. There is merit in the posture that one species should not see another eat or mate or use the recycle port. But, LE Quickpony, your security is a joke! Bridge and passengers and no barrier? When did you begin building ships this way?"

  Captain Preiss looked up. He said, "Software flies us. I can override, but I can disable the override. Hijackers can't affect that."

  "What of your current problem? Did you record the Kzin's demand?" The Captain spoke a command.

  A ghostly head and shoulders popped up on the holo-stage, pale orange but for two narrow, lofty black eyebrows. "I am Mee-rowreet. Call me Envoy. I speak for the Longest War."

  My translator murmured, "Mee-rowreet, profession, manages livestock in a hunting park. Longest War, Kzin term for evolution."

  The recording spoke Interworld, but with a strong accent and flat grammar. "We seek a fugitive. We have destroyed your gravity motors. We will board you following the Covenants sworn at Shasht at twenty-five naught five your dating. Obey, never interfere," the ghost head and voice grew blurred, "give us what we demand. You will all survive."

  "The signal was fuzzed out by distance," Captain Preiss said. "The ship came up from behind and passed us at two hundred KPS relative, twenty minutes after we dropped out of hyperdrive. It's ahead of us by two light-minutes, decelerated to match our speed."

  I said, speaking low, "Pleasemadam," alerting my pocket computer, "seek interstellar law, document Covenants of Shasht date twenty-five-oh-five. Run it."

  Fly-By-Night looked up into the dome. "Your intruder?"

  We were deep into the Nursery Nebula. All around were walls of tenuous interstellar dust lit from within. In murky secrecy, intersecting shock waves from old supernovae were collapsing the interstellar murk into hot whirlpools that would one day be stars and solar systems. Out of view below us, light pressure from something bright was blowing columns and streams of dust past us. It all took place in an environment tens of light-years across. Furious action seemed frozen in time.

  We had played at viewing the red whorl overhead. In IR you saw only the suns, paired protostars lit by gravitational collapse and the tritium flash, that had barely begun to burn. UV and X-ray showed violent flashes and plumes where planetesimals impacted, building planets. Neutrino radar showed structure forming within the new solar system.

  We could not yet make out the point mass that would bend our course into the Tao Gap and out into free space. Turnpoint Star was a neutron star a few miles across, the core left by a supernova. But stare long enough and you could make out an arc on the sky, the shock wave from that same stellar explosion, broken by dust clouds collapsing into stars.

  My seek system chimed. I listened to my wrist computer:

  At the end of the Fourth Man-Kzin War, the Human Space Trade Alliance annexed Shasht and renamed the planet Fafnir, though the long, rocky, barren continent kept its Heroes' Tongue name. The Covenants of Shasht were negotiated then. We were to refrain from booting Kzinti citizens off Fafnir. An easy choice: they prefer the continent, whereas humans prefer the coral islands. They were already expanding an interstellar seafood industry into Patriarchy space.

  In return, and having little choice, the Patriarch barred himself, his clan and all habitats under his command, all others to be considered outlaw, from various acts. Eating of human meat... willful destruction of habitats... biological weapons of certain types... killing of Legal Entities, that word defined by a long list of exclusions, a narrower definition than in most human laws.

  Futz, I wasn't a Legal Entity! Or I wouldn't be if they learned who I was.

  Quickpony projected a virtual lens on the dome. I'd finish listening later. The Kzinti ship and its boat, vastly magnified, showed black with the red whorl behind them. There was enough incident light to pick out some detail. For a bare instant we had seen the intruder coming up behind us, just as our drive juddered and died and left us floating. After it slowed to a relative stop, a boat had detached. The approaching boat blocked off part of the ship. Gamma rays impacting their magnetic shields made two arcs of soft white glow. Ship and boat bore the same glowing markings.

  The ship was moving just as we were, its drive off, falling through luminous murk toward Turnpoint Star at a tenth of lightspeed.

  First Officer Helm said, "Odysseus' security systems can deal with hijackers, but they're just not much use against an armed warship. Is that what we're seeing?"

  "I see a small warship designed for espionage and hunting. I don't know the make. My knowledge is too old. The name reads Sraff-zisht." My translator said, "Stealthy mating."

  Fly-By-Night continued, "Captain, I can't see, are there magnetic moorings on Sraff-zisht?"

  "No need. Those big magnets on the boat would lock to the ship's gamma ray shielding."

  "The boat is armed, the ship is not? There is no bay for the boat? Understood. Leave the boat in hiding among asteroids. Land an unarmed converted cargo ship on any civilized world. Yes?"

  "Speculative," Preiss said.

  "Do you recognize the weapon?"

  "No. I assume it's what burned out our thrusters... our gravity motors." I sat and dialed a cappuccino. The Kzin joined me, dwarfing the booth. I dialed another with double milk, thinking he ought to try it.

  The other passengers shrank back a little and waited. Any human being knows how to fear a Kzin.

  I said, speaking low, "Pleasemadam, seek Heroes' Tongue references, stealthy mating, literal, no reference to rape." There had to be a way to narrow that further. I guessed: "Seek biological references only. Run it."

  Fly-By-Night tasted the cappuccino.

  Captain Preiss said, "Why would they be interested in us?"

  "In me. The boat is close." Fly-By-Night sipped again. "Do you know of the Angel's Pencil?"

  The Kzin was speaking Interworld as smoothly as if he'd grown up with the language. Some of us gaped. But his first words to me had been Interworld, after I startled and angered him... and he liked cappuccino.

  Fly-By-Night said, "Angel's Pencil was a slowboat, one of Sol system's slower-than-light colony craft. Four hundred years ago, Angel's Pencil sent word of our coming. Sol system was given years to prepare. My ancestor Shadow contrived to board Pencil after allying himself with a human captive, Selena Guthlac. He and she joined their crew."

  "That must have been one futz of a makeup job," Nicolaus Van Zild said.

  "He had to stoop and keep his ears folded, and depilate! Whose story is this, boy?" Nicolaus grinned. The Kzin said, "Angel's Pencil's crew had already destroyed Tracker. They later destroyed Gutting Claw, the first and second kills of the First War, not bad for a ship with no intended armaments. "Pencil was forced to pass through Patriarchy space before they found a world to settle. None of those ramscoop ships were easy to turn, and none were built for more than one voyage. We were ninety light-years from Earth. One hundred and six years had passed on Earth."

  I asked, "We?"

  "Gutting Claw's Telepath, later named Shadow, is our first sire. Pencil rescued six females from the Admiral's
harem. Our species have lived together on Sheathclaws for three hundred years. We remained cut off. Any message laser aimed at human space would pass through the Patriarchy. We spoke with no sapient species, we did not even know of faster-than-light travel, until...”Fly-By-Night looked up.

  Stealthy-Mating's boat had arrived. We were looking directly into an obtrusively large electromagnetic weapon.

  Nicolaus asked, "Can you read minds?"

  "No, child. Some of us are good at guessing, but we don't have the drug. Where was I?" Fly-By-Night said, "They told me in the hospital after my first failed name quest. The universe had opened up-" He cut himself off as a furry face popped into hologram space in the workstation.

  "I am Envoy. I speak for the Longest War. Terminate your spin. Open the airlock."

  Captain Preiss nodded to Quickpony. Reaction motors whispered, slowing us. Fly-By-Night spoke more rapidly. "Boarding seems imminent. You cannot protect me. Give me to them. If you live long enough to speak to your people, tell them that three grown males left Sheathclaws on our name quests. Half our genes derive from Shadow, from a telepath. The Patriarch needs telepaths. Now he will learn of a world peopled by Gutting Claw's telepath, none of whom has felt the addiction to sthondat lymph in three hundred years."

  Gravity eased away until sideways thrust was all there was, and then that was gone too. Odysseus' outer airlock door opened.

  The boat thumped into place against our hull. The older Van Zilds and I had our seat webs in place. The children floated, clinging to the arms of couches.

  "They will have my genes. They will find Sheathclaws," Fly-By-Night concluded. "You will face my children in the next war, if they have their way." Two big pressure-suit shapes left the boat on jet packs. One entered the lock. We heard it cycle. The other waited on the hull, to shoot the dome out if he saw resistance.

  The inner door opened. The armored Kzin entered in a leap, up and into the dome where his companions could see him, a half turn to keep us in view. In his hand was a light that he aimed like a weapon. He was graceful as a fish. I squinted to save my vision. The light played over every part of the lobby and workstation. What he saw must have been reassuring.

  Envoy said, "We have demands. The Covenants will be followed where possible. All losses will be paid. Give us your passenger. He is in violation of our law. Fly-By-Night, is this Jotok your slave?"

  "Yes."

  "Fly-By-Night, Jotok, you must enter your vacuum packs. Fly-By-Night, give your w'tsai to Packer."

  "W'tsai?" Fly-By-Night asked. "This? My knife?"

  "Carefully."

  Giving up his w'tsai was the ultimate surrender. If I knew that from my reading, surely a Kzin knew it. Three hundred years among humans... Had they lost the tradition?

  But Fly-By-Night was offering a silver knife-prong-spoon ten inches long and dark with tarnish.

  A spoony? We ate with those! They matched several shapes of digits and were oversized for human hands. Odysseus' kitchen melted the silver to kill bacteria, then squirted it into molds for the next meal.

  Packer took it, stared at it, then showed it to Envoy's hologram. Envoy snarled in the Heroes' Tongue. He wasn't buying it.

  Our passenger answered in Interworld. "Yes, mine! See, here is my symbol," the sign of Outbound Enterprises, a winged craft black against a crescent world. "Fly by night!"

  A laugh would be bad. I looked at the children. They looked solemn. Of Packer's weapon I saw only a glare of light. But he held it on Fly-By-Night as if it had to fire something deadly, and he snarled a command and lashed out with his tail. Under the minor impact Fly-By-Night spun slowly so that Packer could examine him for more weapons.

  He snarled again. Fly-By-Night and Paradoxical pulled tabs on vacuum packs. The packs popped into double-walled spheres. Held open by higher pressure, the collar on each refuge inflated like a pair of fat lips.

  Fly-By-Night had trouble wriggling through the collar. Once inside he had room. These vacuum refuges would have held the whole Van Zild family. Paradoxical looked quite lost in his.

  Envoy spoke. "Captain, you carry human passengers frozen in three cargo modules. Release these modules."

  The world went gray.

  I began to breath deep and hard, to hyper-oxygenate, because I dared not faint. Captain Preiss' hands hadn't moved. That was brave, but it wouldn't save anyone. The elder Van Zilds buried their faces in each other's shoulders. The children were horrified and fascinated. They watched everything. Once I caught them looking at their parents in utter contempt.

  Like them, I had been half enjoying the situation.

  This would have been my last interstellar flight. Chance had me riding not as frozen cargo, but as a passenger, aware and entertained.

  Flying the ship would have been more fun, of course.

  Quickpony had suggested joining our cabins, as we were the obvious unpaired pair. I showed Quickpony videos displayed by the circuitry in my ring. Our lockstep ceremony. Jenna/Jeena just a year old. Sharrol/Milcenta not yet pregnant again; I should have updated while I could. We are lockstepped, see, here is our ring. Quickpony admired and dropped the subject.

  And that left what for entertainment?

  Kzinti hijackers!

  I'd treated it like a game until Stealthy-Mating claimed my family. Bound into my couch by a crash web, I let my hand rest on the release while I considered what weapons I might have at hand.

  Lips drawn back, fangs showing, Envoy's speech was turning mushy. "Examine the Covenants, Captain Preiss. They were never altered. We take only hostages. They will be returned unharmed when our needs are satisfied. Compensation will be paid for every cost incurred."

  "What crime do you claim against Fly-By-Night?" Quickpony asked.

  "His ancestor committed treason against his officers and the Patriarch. Penalties hold against his blood line forever. We may claim his life, but we will not. We value his blood line."

  "Has Fly-By-Night committed a crime?"

  "False identity. Purchase of a Jotok without entitlement. Trivia." Dumb and happy Mart Graynor wasn't the type to carry weapons aboard a spacecraft. The recorded Covenant of 2505 might be the only weapon I had. I let it play in one ear. The old diplomatic language was murky....

  Here it was. Hostages are to be returned in health if all conditions met, conditions not to be altered... costs to be assessed in time of peace at earliest ...

  Was I supposed to bet lives on this?

  Heidi asked, "Do you eat human meat?"

  Packer and the hologram both turned to the girl. Envoy said, "Hostages. I have said. The Covenants say. Kitten, we consider human meat to be... whasht-meery... unsafe. Captain Preiss, the modules we want are all addressed to Outbound on Home, yes? We will deliver them. Else we would face all the navies of human space."

  Preiss said, "I have no such confidence."

  Packer kicked down from the dome. He set his huge hands on the girl's waist and looked into her face. He still hadn't spoken.

  Nicolaus screamed and leapt. As he came at the armored Kzin, Packer reached out and wrapped both children against his armored chest. They looked up through the bubble helmet into a Kzin's smile.

  Nicolaus bared his teeth.

  Envoy said, "Pause, Packer! Captain Preiss, think! Without gravity generators you must still fall around Turnpoint Star and into flat space. Hyperdrive will take you to the edge of Home system. Call for help to tow you the rest of the way. What other path have we? We might smash your hyperdrive and hyperwave and leave you to die here, silenced, but your absence at Home will set the law seeking us.

  "This is the better risk, to violate no law unless we must. We take hostages. You must not call your authorities until you arrive near Home. We will transport our prisoner, then deliver your passengers."

  Packer's arms were full of children: hampered. Preiss and Quickpony were on a hair trigger. I was unarmed, but if they moved, I would.

  "Wait," Envoy said. Preiss still hadn't moved. "You carry stock fr
om Shasht? Sea life?"

  "Yes."

  "I must speak with my leader. Lightspeed gap is two minutes each way. Do nothing threatening."

  We heard Envoy yowling into his communicator. Then nothing.

  My pocket computer dinged.

  Everybody twitched, yeeped or looked around. Heidi floated to the rim of my booth and listened over my shoulder.

  Sea lions around the Earth's poles live in large communities built around one alpha male, many females and their pups, and several beta males that live around the edges of the herd. When the alpha male is otherwise occupied, an exile may rush in and mate hurriedly with a female and escape. Several species of Earth's mammals have adapted such a breeding strategy, as have life forms on Kzin and even many Kzinti clans. Biologists, particularly reproductive biologists, call them sneaky-fuckers.

  I said, "Maybe there's a more polite term for the journals. Anyway, good name for a spy ship. Please madam, seek Longest War plus Kzinti plus piracy, run it." We waited.

  When Hans Van Hild couldn't stand the silence any more, he said, "Heidi, Nicolaus, I'm sorry. We should have let you grow up."

  "Hans!"

  "Yes, Hilde, there was all the time in the world. Hilde, there's never time. Never a way to know."

  Envoy spoke. "Release one of the modules for Outbound Enterprises and two addressed to Neptune's Empire. The passengers will be returned. Neptune's Empire will be recompensed for their stock."

  Fish?

  Captain Preiss's fingertips danced. Three cargo modules slowly rose out of the rim. I felt utterly helpless.

  Packer left the children floating. He pushed Fly-By-Night's balloon toward the airlock.

  I said, "Wait."

  The armored Kzin turned. I squinted against the glare of his weapon. "We do not permit slavery aboard Odysseus," I said. "Odysseus belongs to the Human Space Trade Alliance. The Jotok stays."

  "Who are you? Where derives your authority?" Envoy demanded.