Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC

by Larry Niven

  Still, the kzinti had recovered quickly from Dieter’s ambush, a skill at which they had been steadily improving since their invasion force had arrived insystem twelve days ago. Scream-and-pounce was no longer the full measure of their tactical repertoire. They had become canny hunters, too, and this group had been the canniest yet.

  And Dieter Armbrust would know. He had been in the thick of the fighting since this fourth kzin fleet had made its real objectives clear: to smash the defenses of the Belt as a preliminary to attacking Earth. The ratcats had become smarter, considering the unfolding game two or three moves in advance, instead of being constrained to their prior engagement doctrine of “damn the torpedos; full speed ahead.” Almost two weeks’ worth of human ruses and decoy ships, double-reverses, and delayed envelopments had taught them not to ignore the torpedos (or any of the other human toys in the battlespace) and to proceed with a judicious mix of decisiveness and caution.

  But I’ve still got one trick left up my sleeve, thought Dieter. “Ms. Hitsu, ready at the helm: we are bringing the auxiliary thrust package on line within the minute. Until then, slow to one-quarter, feathering the gravitic planer to simulate battle damage.”

  “Should I engage the damage simulation subroutine, Captain Armbr—?”

  “Not entirely. Use occasional overrides. I’m worried that our automated damage mimicry is becoming predictable enough that their computers can detect it. It was a great trick a week ago, but it’s getting old. Time to revivify it by throwing in some random human overrides.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Paraway?”

  “Engineering here, sir.”

  “If we dump the current charge stored in our capacitors, how fast can we initiate the auxiliary thrust package?”

  “About two seconds, sir.”

  “Then prepare to do so on my mark.”

  “Awaiting your mark, sir.”

  On the plot, Armbrust watched as the three motes designating the kzin ships closed in, the one astern closing the gap most rapidly, the one on his bow coming fully out of the shadow of the planetoid alongside which the Catscratch Fever was making its now unsteady way. The bogey to port was keeping distance: she’d taken some beam damage at the start of the engagement, and might not be so ready to mix it up at closer ranges anymore. All the better.

  “Helm: range to bogey astern?”

  “Fifty klicks, sir. Full launch of missiles detected.”

  “Full power to aft shields, as well as all active defenses that can bear.”

  “Missile launch from the bogey dead ahead, sir. Should I take evasive—?”

  “Steady at the helm, Ms. Hitsu. Remainder of active defenses are to concentrate upon those missiles. Range to bogey astern?”

  “Uh—thirty klicks, sir. They’re coming up our pipes, closing to the point where shield effectiveness will begin eroding.”

  “Which is what I’m counting on. Tell me when they are at ten klicks.”

  “Uh—now, sir!”

  “Mr. Paraway, engage the auxiliary thrust package.”

  The Catscratch Fever bucked as kzin missiles and beams hammered at her stern, almost pushing through the defenses there. Shocks from the other direction announced the close intercept of the bow-bogey’s missiles. Meanwhile, a thready tremor rose up through the deck of the heavily modified smallship. Possibly, on the bridge of the stern-chasing Raker II, kzin eyes opened wide as they beheld the blue glow of an initiating fusion thruster—right before the star-hot exhaust came out and vaporized them like a moth caught in the flame of an acetylene torch. It had not occurred to this invasion’s kzinti that, apparently, the humans would not rely solely upon the gravitic planer drives: fusion still had a place as a thrust agency. And as a surprise weapon at close range.

  The thruster’s extra propulsive force shot the Catscratch Fever almost straight at the bow-bearing kzin bogey. Armbrust turned to his weapons officer. “All tubes and beams on that ratcat. Cascading fire: don’t stop ’til she’s gone.”

  Which took less than four seconds, during which exchange the Catscratch Fever took a few heavy hits herself, tumbling both crew and electronics. When the jolts and jerks ceased, the viewscreen was flickering, the sensors were offline, inertial damping sketchy. Armbrust swung himself up from the deck and back into the commander’s chair. “Damage report?”

  “Coming in, sir.”

  “Helm; do you have control?”

  “Yes, sir, but I’m flying without sensors.”

  “Do you have visual?”

  “Scope-relays only, sir.”

  “They’ll do. Take us back around this rock; we need to have its mass screening us as we sort ourselves out—before the third kzin ship arrives.”

  “Aye, sir; flying by eye,” announced Hitsu.

  Who was unable to see that the kzin had indeed learned all sorts of devious tricks from fighting the humans. Invisible in the great, dark reaches of space, Lieutenant Hitsu had no way of detecting the minefield that the now-destroyed kzin bow-bogey had sown just in the lee of the planetoid. Into which the Catscratch Fever now blindly flew.

  At best speed.

  2408 BCE: Subject age—twelve years

  “If it’s any consolation, he never knew what hit him.”

  Hap did not look over at Selena. “It doesn’t sound like that fact has been much consolation for you.”

  “No, it hasn’t been. Not in the least.” Selena damned herself as she felt a cool, wet line trace itself from her left eye down the long, smooth slope of her cheek. She had promised herself she wouldn’t tell Hap about Dieter’s death until she could talk about it calmly, with perfect composure. She had thought she was ready; she had practiced in front of the mirror for three weeks, and finally, two days ago, had been able to get through her whole semi-rehearsed speech without so much as a quaver in her voice.

  But that had been without an audience, without feeling the eyes of another person who knew how she felt about Dieter, who had been around to sense the love that had existed between them, despite the separations and impediments imposed by their respective careers and duties. Most importantly, in sharing the news with Hap, she was sharing it with another person who had loved Dieter, who would feel his own loss, and in expressing it—even if only by the careful suppression of public grief—would resummon Selena’s.

  Of course, she temporized, maybe I never was going to be that ready: maybe one never is, when the loss is as painful as this one.

  What Hap was feeling was unreadable. He was perfectly still, except for the faint expansion and contraction of his immense ribs: ribs which still bore the ragged scars of his first battle with a prehistoric short-faced bear.

  “I have something for you,” Selena said. “Two things, actually.”

  Hap did not look at her. “Oh? What are they?”

  “Documents. One is a letter from Dieter, which he left with me years ago, and then recently updated.” If that had any impact upon Hap, she could not detect it. Then again, there was something in his posture and the set of his jaw which made her suspect that he would probably not have reacted to an incoming artillery barrage.

  “I am grateful for it. And the other document?”

  “It is the transcript of the debriefing of a man from the Wunderland system. His name is Kenneth Upton-Schleisser. The kzin occupiers attempted to use him to gain control of the slowship R.P.Feynman prior to their recent invasion of this system. You might find it interesting reading.”

  “Why? Because I will therein learn of the horrors of war the kzinti have brought to the Alpha Centauri system?”

  “Well, yes, but not battlefield horrors.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, in addition to often using children and innocent persons condemned on thin pretexts to populate their live hunts on the surface of Wunderland—”

  That got a reaction from Hap: the faintest flinch, but clearly this was not in alignment with the “noble-warrior” view he had constructed of his own ra
ce, in comparison to humanity.

  “—he reports how the kzinti convinced him to commit treason: they presented him with the severed hand of his wife. As an added incentive, his children would be used in a Hero’s Hunt if he did not succeed. He did not.” Selena stretched weary muscles; news of Dieter’s death had made her suddenly feel every year of her age. More.

  “And so you have told me this. Why do I need to read the full transcript?”

  “Because you won’t really believe the story unless you do. If I were in your position, I would suspect it was a propaganda narrative; a few unpretty truths amplified and bloated until they enrage readers, but bear little resemblance to reality. When you read what Upton-Schleisser said, and how he said it, you’ll know he’s telling the truth. And he’s offered to meet with you personally: to come here, without guard if you prefer, so that you can look into his eyes and hear his words from his own mouth. He tells me that this is the sort of personal accountability that the kzinti admire. Back in Centauri, he stood up to them, told the truth, and they respected him. They still used him ruthlessly, of course, but apparently they held him in some esteem.”

  “They would, I think. But why would he be so willing to speak to me? I’m half worried he thinks that if he can get close enough to me, he hopes to kill me.”

  “No: that’s not his reason at all. Actually, Upton-Schleisser grudgingly admires the kzinti, at least enough so that he believes there could be a foundation for communication. And maybe, in some distant time, cooperation.”

  “So he’s a raving idealist, then.”

  “Hardly raving. He hasn’t expressed this opinion to anyone other than me and Dr. Boroshinsky.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows that, in the wake of the fourth invasion attempt—in which over five million Belters died, and we lost almost two-thirds of the Home Fleet—that he’d be muzzled. No one wants to hear any talk about future peace: they want their own pound of kzin flesh. Almost every family lost someone in the Battle of Ceres and the aftermath engagements, so right now, they are focused on vengeance. But he wants to share what he experienced with you because, as he puts it, you both know what it’s like to have your life stolen by an enemy who wants to use you for their own purposes.”

  Hap finally looked over at Selena: a stunned stare. “I’m surprised that you’re even willing to allow a person with those opinions in here to speak with me.”

  Selena shrugged. “You may not feel it right now, Hap, but if, in some future time, you choose to look back at how we treated you as you grew up, I think you’ll find we have been as honest as we could be at any given moment. There were lapses, I know, and I’m sorry for those, but in general, we’ve been guided by the proposition that honesty is the best policy. Bringing Upton-Schleisser here to talk with you, that’s just an extension of that policy.”

  Selena laid both documents on the flat rock table that Hap had crafted for himself: a dolmen that served him as a desk. She turned to leave, but paused. “Hap, you haven’t said one thing about Dieter’s death. Not one. And no physical reaction except silence. Why? Is this how you think kzinti face personal loss?”

  “I really don’t know how natural kzinti face personal loss, and I really don’t care. My lack of reaction, as you perceive it, is more a consequence of being suspended between two completely contradictory feelings.”

  “Which are?”

  “You will not like them—at least not one of them.”

  “And they are?” Selena insisted.

  He looked at her. “I am proud of my people. They came back a fourth time, and from what I can read between the lines, they very nearly beat you; they came much closer than on any of the three prior invasions. And this time, they weren’t swatting down tufted monkeys who’d evolved into clever accountants: they grappled with a new generation of your best warriors. Because that’s certainly what Dieter was: one of your best warriors.” His voice faltered; it had a hum at the back of it and became thicker. “And that is the other feeling: great loss. I remember Dieter from—well, from the moment I can remember anything. And then, later, when it seemed like the world around me began to shift, when the simple truths of cubhood changed into the intricate lies of my life as your specimen, there was still Dieter. He always found ways to tell the truth, or at least distance himself from the lies. I did not always see and understand what he was doing when I was very young, but I do now.” His large, dark eyes looked into hers. “You have always cared for me, Selena, but allow me to be frank: we kzinti have spent untold millenia not having mothers beyond the first few months of our lives. But we have always had male mentors and role models, often more powerful than merely that of a father. Dieter was the only one I had. And he was worthy of it. Yes, he killed my family, but he was a great warrior, and had a great heart: he mixed great resolve and great regret in one soul and was not torn apart by it. Instead, it defined his greatness. And now he is gone. And I mourn him. And I am glad that he died a Hero’s death.

  “And then, in the very next second, I feel that it is wrong to be sad at his passing: he did destroy my family; he has killed my Hero brothers. So how can it be right to grieve him?”

  Selena put out a hand to touch Hap on one rock-hard arm, made soft by the layer of fur. “How can it be wrong?” she asked. “Yes, he was fair, and honest, and tried to help you, to compensate for the hurt and losses he had inflicted upon you. But those are just a bunch of words: you miss him because he was the first being to do this ”—she squeezed his arm gently—“and you imprinted upon him. You came to know his smell and his movements and his voice and you treasured them in the very center of your soul. So how could you not mourn him?”

  The arm beneath Selena’s hand was trembling very slightly as Hap looked away. He was quiet for several seconds. Then he swallowed and said, “I will be happy to have Kenneth Upton-Schleisser as a visitor. Good-bye, Selena.”

  2412 BCE: Subject age—sixteen years

  Selena stepped off the transport: the chill Far South Sea wind set her teeth on edge. Hap was waiting, staring at the endless inbound waves, the serried ranks of breakers making a perpetually futile assault upon the scree-lined coast. Well, perpetual as far as we humans measure time, she thought.

  As she approached, he stood and his fur rumpled in glad greeting. “Welcome to Campbell Island, Selena. It is good to see you.”

  My Hap has grown up. His voice was level and calm. Years of intensive reading, viewing, and study had put a high polish on his diction: had he been a human, he would have been called urbane. “It’s good to see you, too, Hap.”

  He waved at the one tilting streetlamp perched just beyond the high-tide waters: it had already been old when the last of the whalers had abandoned the island in the twentieth century. It was a true museum piece now. “We can have our chat in the shadows of the one remaining sign of human habitation, if you’d like.”

  Selena considered the rust-eaten metal pole and shook her head. “I’m fine here. Still enjoying your freedom?”

  He looked around. “Yes. And no. The constant buzzing of your observation drones really does spoil the illusion of solitude and self-determination. Then again, so do your monthly shipments of my new opponents and prey. But I am grateful: without them, I’d lose too many of my skills. About which . . .”

  She waited for him to resume; he did not. “What about your skills?”

  “Is it true that the project’s overseers intend to send me along with the return mission to Wunderland?”

  She shrugged. “That’s their intent.”

  “And what about the rumors of a faster-than-light drive: are those accurate as well?”

  Selena considered. Technically, she had been asked not to reveal the details on this bit of information, that the hyperdrive craft from We Made It was not merely a hopeful rumor but a fact. But just who was Hap going to tell? And honesty was, as she had always claimed, the best policy. “Yes; the stories about the hyperdrive are real.”

  “Then
I will accompany your human fleet to Alpha Centauri, at such time as it is ready.”

  Selena felt the cold air rush in her open mouth. She didn’t care. “You’re serious.”

  “Of course I am. I would not waste your time, summoning you out to the ends of the Earth as a joke.” He reflected. “I do not think my pranks were ever that inconsiderate . . . were they?”

  “No, no.” She couldn’t even remember anything she’d rightly call a prank: Hap had found ways to circumvent authority and security on occasions—the scars on his ribcage were a reminder of that—but a “prank” implied frivolity. Frivolity had never been one of Hap’s traits. “I’m just surprised. Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “There is nothing sudden about it. I just have not been willing to speak about my ‘change of heart’ as you call it, until now.”

  “And how long have you been ruminating on this?”

  “Before your last trip here, when you told me about the readying of the fleet.”

  “Really? Before that?”

  “Selena, after Dieter died, I turned from absorbing information to using it. To think for myself. And that was why I asked to come here: I needed solitude to think about what I should do next. I thought I might commit suicide.”

  “Suicide?” Selena all but leaped over to his side. As if she could prevent any physical course of action that a full grown and clever kzin might be contemplating.

  “Yes, of course.” Then, seeing the horror on her face, he snapped his head in the half-shake that was the kzin negation-reflex. “No, not because I was depressed or anything so pointless and melodramatic. I am happy to observe that this seems to be a purely human pathology. But when I thought about my duty to my race, I wondered.”

  “Wondered if the time had come to make sure you couldn’t be used as a tool to further human interests?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But,”—she poked him—“you’re still here.”

  He looked down at her and his pelt stirred through one, long, friendly ripple. “Yes, I am still here. Not due to a failure of courage. Quite the opposite, actually: I realized that the true test of my courage—the path that had fallen to me as a Hero, if I had such aspirations—was to keep moving forward. And that I would have to do so knowing that my actions and perspectives would probably never be understood, no matter which race was considering them.” His sigh drowned out the surf’s susurrations for a brief moment. “Both human and kzin philosophers, at least according to the translated materials you provided me, have pointed out that there are some deeds that require more courage than facing certain death. I do not know if I am about to embark upon an existence which is one long example of such a deed, but I foresee it as a distinct possibility.”