by Larry Niven
A huge paw, twenty centimeters wide, swept across over his head and snagged the Fiddle out of her hands. In the partial gravity of the control space, the device flew toward the wall, bounced off it with a clack!, missed Cuiller’s ear by four centimeters on the rebound, ricocheted under the control panel, and skittered along the floor.
He dove for the Fiddle, but before his hands could close on it, a massive, clawed foot stamped down on the hullmetal plates. The barrel of the device exploded in a shower of fragments and sparks. Cuiller closed his eyes in reflex and felt the pieces patter against his face.
The kzin ground its foot against the floor for good measure, then kicked the mixed fragments off to one side. It had lurched out of the crash-couch to reach the Fiddle, and now the kzin collapsed against the padded armrest, gasping with the effort.
Before the kzin could move again to attack Cuiller, Sally had retrieved one of their laser rifles and slid its projector up against the prisoner’s left eye. The kzin raised his paw in a warding gesture and shook his head. Then he slipped back into the chair and made to fasten the restraints again.
The kzin growled and hissed in Fellah’s direction. “Better this way, he says,” the alien translated, and then, speaking directly: “Thrintun power…Bad thing, yes? Bad in your world. Bad in his. Now, no more.”
The kzin stretched his lips without baring his teeth.
Cuiller looked down at the shattered tube and glittering shards of what could be electronic circuits—or perhaps conductors of some other energy. He nodded.
“Do humans eat their prisoners?” Fellah asked, again translating. “Or do you allow an…honorable death…in hunt for sport.”
“Neither,” Cuiller answered. “You—” He pointed at the kzin. “—will probably be interned for the duration of the coming war.”
“Kept in…confinement?” Fellah asked, still working through the Hero’s Tongue.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Worse yet. But…” And here the kzin thumped his paw on the couch’s padding. “Better at least than this.”
Magnetic grapples seized the hull. Fellah gave out a glad, barking laugh that would translate the same in both Interworld and the Hero’s Tongue.
THE END