by Larry Niven
The answer was in rr-Pilot’s next report: “Lasso is tumbling, commander.”
A tumble meant that the human ship’s engines were no longer slowing her, so the debris would stay with all the craft slightly longer, now, continuing to hem them in. Indeed, the human ship’s spin about its considerable longitudinal axis would ultimately bring it end-over-end, so that the fusion drive would be in a position to exert forward thrust.
Or, in other words, the drive’s exhaust plume would rotate straight back into the faces of the two debris-encircled kzin smallships.
hn-Pilot saw it before the others. “One-eighty tumble and counterboost—max gees! Now! Do it now!”
But as the last word left his wet, spittle-spraying mouth, the blinding blow-torch tail of the Lasso’s fusion drive completed its one-hundred-eighty degree spin: hn-Pilot watched a literally blinding sun rise swiftly into his viewscreen—
—a split second before he and every other object in the two-ship kzin escort were stripped down into subatomic particles by the shaft of blue-white radiance that shot almost fifty kilometers behind the Euclid’s Lasso.
* * *
By the time the inner hatch of the secret asteroid base finally opened, Dieter Armbrust presumed he would find himself staring down the muzzles of at least half a dozen recoilless assault rifles. What he found instead was a single, slim woman of indeterminate age and Far East Asian descent. “Welcome,” she said. “I am Miriam Yang.”
The thirty-year-old lieutenant from Neue Ingolstadt nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You were one of the two specialists I was told might have sent the request that was the catalyst for this mission.”
“Which you have carried out quite well, Herrenman Armbrust.”
Dieter was partly flattered, partly insulted. “I am not a Wunderlander aristocrat, Dr. Yang. I do have my degree from the Uni in Munchen, and I was educated in a private school. But I am not the child of a wealthy family.”
“No? Then I suppose you must be quite talented, to have received state assistance to attend a private school.”
“Actually, I was not the truly gifted one. That was my older brother, Wulf. He received a full scholarship to go to the private school from the time he was a bub. Which meant my parents were able to save enough to send me, also.”
Dr. Yang’s gaze was unblinking, assessing. “Since you were not born into the herrenman aristocracy, I doubt your parents could afford more than half the tuition.”
“Exactly half,” confirmed Dieter.
“So, the Colonial Branch of the Amalgamated Regional Militia has sent me a half-genius.” Yang’s momentarily impish expression became severe once again. “Would you like some tea?”
Dieter nodded and followed her gesture into an adjoining room.
* * *
Dieter had expected that Dr. Yang’s offer of tea had simply been an invitation to nothing more than a shared cup. But he had been mistaken. As he now redid his collar button, still stunned at the events of the preceding half-hour and the stamina of the much-older Miriam Yang, he cleared his throat.
She looked over at him: her face was composed, serene, maybe a bit defiant. “It has been a long time, for me.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “And it may be much longer from here on.”
Dieter cleared his throat again. “Dr. Yang, about that tea—”
She seemed to laugh; it was a muted sound. “Of course. The tea has been steeping; I hope you like it strong.”
Right now, thought Dieter, the stronger the better. “Yes, Doctor.”
She proferred a delicate china teacup. “So. You have brought the supplies I requested?”
“Yes. And we deposited the disguised reentry vehicle at the specified coordinates in the Serpent Swarm.”
“It is encased in rock, to look like the other asteroids?”
“Yes.” Curiosity got the better of Dieter: “Is it a delivery vehicle? For dropping a warhead?”
“In a manner of speaking. More tea?”
Dieter had not realized that he had already drained his cup. “Yes, please.”
Yang spoke as she poured. “That was quite a clever trick you pulled on the kzinti escorting you. Was it your idea?”
“Partly.”
Yang obviously knew false modesty when she heard it. “Not just a half-genius, are you, Lieutenant?”
“I was never sufficiently bookish, Doctor.”
“Ah. A man of action.” She smiled at him, glanced so briefly at his muscular thighs that he almost missed it. “How was it that the kzin did not find you and your team’s habitation module within Lasso’s main cargo hull?”
“We were already underway by the time the escorts caught up with us. When the kzin took over facilities that handle the Lasso, the documentation there indicated that her cargo was routine.”
“And they believed that?”
Dieter shrugged. “Evidently. After all, they had little reason to fear a single automated transport. Just how much military gear could it carry? And what would it achieve out here?”
“So, the kzin approach problems head-on. And foresee threats in the same way.”
“Hmm. I suspect it’s their first inclination, but I also saw evidence that some of them can learn to be a bit more, well, devious. Particularly if they are forced to contend with human sneakiness on a daily basis.”
“Not surprising. Indeed, I was worried that they might simply eliminate Euclid’s Lasso outright.”
“I did not share your worry, Doctor. Judging from events in Serpent’s Swarm, the kzin mostly observe a hands-off policy when it comes to local economies, even before a formal surrender. They have a keen understanding that damage to infrastructure means a reduction of tribute. And since Lasso’s payload was already outbound by the time they caught up with her, they probably concluded that we had not had enough time to put a military cargo in her. They presumed it was business as usual.”
“A presumption which they will now realize was erroneous.”
“Well, they’ll know something went wrong, but those two kzin smallships did not get a signal off. And once we take Lasso outsystem to rendezvous with the generation ships launching from Wunderland, the kzin will never be sure of just what did go wrong, even if they come out here to investigate.”
“If there’s anyone left alive by the time they come out here, that is.”
Dieter swallowed and nodded. That had been the hardest part of approving the operation: knowing that it might very well condemn the population of Proxima Centauri to slow death. Because when Dieter and the rest of his team rode the Lasso out into the void between this system and Earth, how would the needs of Proxima be served? What would happen to the men, the women, the children? The children . . .
Dieter opened his eyes, belatedly realizing that he had closed them. Yang was staring at him intently. “It may not be so dire, Lieutenant. The kzin will want to know what happened out here, so they will probably come quickly. When they arrive, they will find no evidence that the locals were involved in foul play. Presuming that they will leave the fate of Proxima in human hands, either a new cycling vessel will be tasked to provide for the system, or it will be evacuated.”
“But we don’t know that’s what will happen.”
“None of us ever know what is going to happen, Lieutenant.”
“You seemed to, Doctor.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m referring to your research proposal, Doctor. An eighty-page experimental précis doesn’t get whipped together in three days. But that’s how much time elapsed between the first news of the kzin invasion and the time you sent the proposal insystem by tightbeam relay.”
“That is because it was already written. As you surmised. But that did not require any powers of prophesy on my part, Lieutenant, simply reasonable deduction.”
“Deduction based on what?”
“Why, on the first warnings of alien contact we received from Sol’s high-power lascom array. The news that the kzinti had almost destroyed one
of our deep-space STL ships years ago provided me with enough information that I was able to construct a research program to help us win a war against them. In concept, at least.”
“So you designed a multi-tiered set of research initiatives based on those first sketchy reports from Angel’s Pencil?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I did. And you must take them to Earth. And must give the Amalgamated Regional Militia’s leadership the necessary information for maintaining communications with me.”
“Which is to be accomplished by—?”
“Reception and transmission on my end will be by phased arrays, with the individual components embedded on native rocks that have been adjusted to maintain absolute position in relation to each other during their orbit of Proxima.”
“And how do you intend to send your signals to Earth without the kzinti detecting you?”
“The components of the array will send separate, intermittent bursts, usually no more than a few per month. These will mimic the local background noise, except that the frequencies and wavelengths are rare, for this region of space. It should be undetectable as a message, since the time intervals between the signals will be hours, or even days. Now, tell me: how much longer until the slow boats at Wunderland are ready to launch?”
“A month, maybe five weeks before the general exodus begins. Lasso will be on its way now, so as to match their vector and velocity. Once we’ve rendezvoused, we’ll transfer our hab module and join everyone else for a long, cold nap as we return to Earth. At which point your plans can be put before the Amalgamated Regional Militia. Although I confess, I’m not exactly sure how to do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dr. Yang, how do I get the ARM brass to listen to me long enough to ensure that your rather expensive project is delivered to people with enough clearance, and enough clout, to make it happen?”
“You will give them my name. That will be enough.”
“Just your name?”
“Yes.” She filled their teacups again. “Have you ever wondered how it was that the ARM managed to exert so much control over weapons and technology development out here in Centauri?”
Dieter smiled. “I have indeed wondered about that, since ARM supposedly has no official presence out here.”
“Just so, Lieutenant. You see, ARM has no way of working unobtrusively in a frontier environment the way it does on Earth. Back there, the entire solar system is under constant observation, and since all technological innovation is actually technological evolution, ARM’s observers know what precursor innovations to look for. They simply preempt would-be inventors before they achieve their goal.”
Dieter nodded, understanding. “But out here in Centauri that model doesn’t work. The population is too dispersed, too disparate.”
Yang shrugged. “The preferred method here is to wait, to watch, and to intervene selectively and secretly.”
“So you are ARM.”
“As much as one can be, beyond the Sol System, yes.”
“And the research team you indicated you were gathering for this project is already assembled—?”
“—and safely hidden on another rock.”
“A rock that’s big enough to store at least twenty years of consumables for you and your staff.”
Yang shook her head. “No. We, too, shall be in cryogenic sleep during your trip back to Sol.”
“And this place?”
Yang looked casually at the walls around her. “By sidereal midnight, it will be permanently abandoned. It will appear to have been ransacked by raiders.”
“Let me guess. Any records of either facility have already been erased from all files in the three Centauri systems.”
“Correct. Which means, of course, that if anything happened to us now, no one would know. So at this point, I suppose we are entirely in your hands, Lieutenant Armbrust.”
From her tone and unblinking gaze, Dieter wondered if Dr. Yang had meant that phrasing to obliquely prepare the ground for another intimate interlude and fresh pot of tea. He decided to interpret her words more literally: he drew his automatic and laid it beside him on the table. Yang looked at it; for the first time since he had entered her asteroid retreat, he saw an emotion pass across her supremely composed face. Well, technically, it was the second time he had seen the doctor without her façade of absolute composure—
She raised her eyes from the gun to meet his gaze, searching. “That is a most unusual gesture, Lieutenant.”
“As you said, you are in my hands.”
“And so?”
“And so, it seemed to those of us on the Lasso that however much good you would do here in the Centauri system, you would be infinitely more effective contributing to the war effort back on Earth. There you would have complete safety and the very best facilities in which to—”
Yang’s appraising eyes became distant, cold. “A half-genius, after all.” Her comment was not quite a pronouncement, was not quite spat out like bile, but it was close on both counts. She sat up very straight. “Lieutenant, I will guide you through the flaws of your conclusion. And you will not interrupt, because I sincerely doubt you have anything to add that I have not already considered.”
Dieter shrugged, leaned back. And being a creature of habit, he made sure that his change of position did not increase the amount of time it would take for him to reach his sidearm.
“Lieutenant, when you awaken in the Sol system, you will indeed be in the safest, best place in which to conduct a scientific experiment. Except in this one, crucial particular: there will be almost no kzin test subjects on Earth. The kzinti are here. This is where they will work, where they will ‘play.’ Where they will live, die, mate, make war, make mistakes—and will occasionally go missing. A resistance organization is already being laid out quietly on Wunderland. And so the kzin will experience ambushes there. There will be hunting accidents that claim both their young and their old. There will be trips that go awry, there will be lost castaways, renegades, adventurers, wanderers. In short, the kzin will suffer the losses that are inevitable during an extended occupation. And during the years you and I are sleeping, select agents will take advantage of these unlucky kzinti. They shall provide us with our first samples. If you are squeamish, you might not want to hear what is involved; if you are vengefully minded, you might savor the details. No matter: we are fighting for our lives and we do not have the luxury of gentle methods.
“Consequently, when my team and I awaken, we will remotely access the data compiled from these samples and from long years of observing kzin behavior and practices. And from that information and from those samples, and with the aid of the research you will cause to commence on Earth, we will eventually design weapons specially tailored to eliminate the kzin invaders.”
“You mean a selective bioweapon, a tailored virus?”
“Our ambitions go well beyond that, Lieutenant. However, suffice it to say that whatever weapon is to be used against them, it will be far more effective if it is produced, and readied, here. You will have live kzin subjects on Earth eventually, but probably never enough to amass as diverse a sample base as we will have accumulated here. And besides, what good is a secret weapon if you cannot be sure it will survive deployment? If it must cross space to get here, traveling in a ship, how could we be sure that it will not also be destroyed with that ship in battle? On the other hand, if the weapon is already here, and ready to deploy in proximity to the most sensitive enemy targets—”
“Yes. I see. But why do you think we will have any live subjects on Earth at all?”
Yang raised one pencil-thin eyebrow. “Do you really doubt the kzinti will attack our home system? Be assured of this: they will. They must. Indeed, I suspect that the first attacks on Sol will have occurred before your own voyage has ended. Their gravitic polarizers should allow them to make that same journey in five, six years, at the most.”
Dieter had a sudden vision of taking a shuttle down for his first visit t
o Earth, to the homeworld and womb of the human race, watching the disembarkation ramp lower—only to reveal a smoke-plumed panorama of devastation. He swallowed: “That’s a disturbing concept, Dr. Yang.”
“Perhaps. But remember: the kzinti leap before they look. I suspect Earth’s defense fleets shall take advantage of this repeatedly. And with every defeat, the kzinti will leave behind new technology that we will reverse-engineer. Imperfectly, of course, but we will narrow those gaps that exist. And in the course of such clashes, you will also have the opportunity—if you are very careful—to gather experimental subjects. Not many perhaps. But you will be able to examine the kzinti in ways that even I cannot, because you will control their environment absolutely. Conversely, I will have access to an immense social sample, but must observe it surreptitiously, from hiding. However, working together, we will be able to find the strategic pearl of great price: the answer to what makes a male kzin—a kzintosh—tick.”
“I presume you are not referring to anything as simple as biological imperatives.”
“You are on the verge of redeeming yourself, half-genius.” Dr. Yang smiled; Dieter wished she hadn’t. The expression was so unsuited to her face that it looked more like a rictus. “We must learn about their psychology, about their inner lives. Not just what they will show us in the course of our normal interactions with them; we must have knowledge of their emotions and thought patterns.”
Dieter nodded. “Of course. And when they invade our homesystem, we will undoubtedly take some prisoners. And with an unlimited amount of time in which to conduct interrogations—”
“No!” Dieter was startled by the loud, sharp monosyllable that jumped out of Yang’s small mouth. “I am not referring to interrogations. That would be completely counterproductive. What we must acquire is a command of their true, seminal psychology. And to do that, we will need to observe them without the trappings of culture and training. You will be in a position to separate their nature from their nurture.”