Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - I

by Larry Niven

  “Of course. I’ve been racking my brain to comprehend why we can’t do the same for Shep.”

  The pain in her voice and in himself brought anger into his. “God damn it, we’re spacers, not sorcerers! Groundsiders think a spacecraft is a hunk of metal you can cobble anything onto, like a car. She isn’t. She’s about as complex and interconnected as your body is. A few milligrams of blood clot or of the wrong chemical will bring your body to a permanent halt. A spacecraft’s equally vulnerable. I am not going to tinker with ours, light-years from any proper workshop. I am not. That’s final!”

  Her face bent downward from his. He beard her breath quiver.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” he added, softly once more. “I’m sorrier than you believe, maybe sorrier than you can imagine. Those are my crewfolk down and doomed. Oh, if we had time to plan and experiment and carefully test, sure, I’d try it. What should the footpads be made of? What size? How closely machined? How detached—explosive bolts, maybe? We’d have to wire those and—Laurinda, we won’t have the time. If I lift Rover off within the next hour or two, we can pick up Dorcas and Kam, boost, and fly dark. If we’re lucky, the kzin warboats won’t detect us. But our margin is razor thin. We don’t have the days or weeks your idea needs. Fido’s people don’t either; their own time has gotten short. I’m sorry, dear.”

  She looked up. He saw tears in the ruby eyes, down the snowy cheeks. But she spoke still more quietly than he, with the briefest of little smiles. “No harm in asking, was there? I understand. You’ve told me what I was trying to deny I knew. You are a good man, Robert.”

  “Aw,” he mumbled, and reached to rumple her hair.

  The suiting completed, he took her hands between his gloves for a moment, secured a toolpack between his shoulders where the drive unit usually was, and cycled out.

  The land gloomed silent around him. Nearing the horizon, the red sun looked bigger than it was. So did the planet, low to the southeast, waxing close to half phase. He could make out a dust storm as a deeper-brown blot on the fulvous crescent. Away from either luminous body, stars were visible—and yonder brilliancy must be Quarta. How joyously they had sailed past it.

  Saxtorph started for his ship, in long low-gravity bounds. He didn’t want to fly. The kzinti might have planted a boobytrap, such as an automatic gun that would lock on, track, and fire if you didn’t radio the password, Afoot, he was less of a target.

  The ground lightened as he advanced, for the yellow dust lay thicker. No, he saw, it was not actually dust in the sense of small solid particles, but more like spatters or films of liquid. Evidently it didn’t cling to things, like that horrible stuff on Prima. A ghostly rain from space, it would slip from higher to lower places; in the course of gigayears, even cosmic rays would give some slight stirring to help it along downhill. It might be fairly deep near the ship, where its surface was like a blot. He’d better approach with care. Maybe it would prove necessary to fetch a drive unit and flit across.

  Saxtorph’s feet went out from under him. He fell slowly, landed on his butt. With an oath he started to get up. His soles wouldn’t grip. His hands skidded on slickness. He sprawled over onto his back. And he was gliding down the slope of the valley floor, gliding down toward the amber-colored blot.

  He flailed, kicked up dust, but couldn’t stop. The damned ground had no friction, none. He passed a boulder and managed to throw an arm around. For an instant he was checked, then it rolled and began to descend with him.

  “Laurinda! I have a problem,” he managed to say into his radio. “Sit tight. Watch close. If this turns out to be serious, obey your orders.”

  He reached the blot. It gave way. He sank into its depths.

  He had hoped it was a layer of just a few centimeters, but it closed over his head and still he sank. A pit where the stuff had collected from the heights—maybe the kzinti, taking due care, had dumped some extra in, gathered across a wide area—yes, this was very likely their boobytrap, and if they had ghosts, Hraou-Captain’s must be yowling laughter. Odd how that name came back to him as he tumbled.

  Bottom. He lay in blindness, fighting to curb his breath and heartbeat. How far down? Three meters, four? Enough to bury him for the next several billion years, unless—“Hello, Shep. Laurinda, do you read me? Do you read me?”

  His earphones hummed. The wavelength he was using should have expanded its front from the top of the pit, but the material around him must be screening it. Silence outside his suit was as thick as the blackness.

  Let’s see if he could climb out. The side wasn’t vertical. The stuff resisted his movements less than water would. He felt arms and legs scrabble to no avail. He could feel irregularities in the stone but he could not get a purchase on any. Well, could he swim? He tried. No. He couldn’t rise off the bottom. Too high a mean density compared to the medium; and it didn’t allow him even as much traction as water, it yielded to every motion, he might as well have tried to swim in air.

  If he’d brought his drive unit, maybe it could have lifted him out. He wasn’t sure. It was for use in space. This fluid might clog it or ooze into circuitry that there had never been any reason to seal tight. Irrelevant anyway, when he’d left it behind.

  “My boy,” he said, “it looks like you’ve had the course.”

  That was a mistake. The sound seemed to flap around in the cage of his helmet. If he was trapped, he shouldn’t dwell on it. That way lay screaming panic.

  He forced himself to lie quiet and think. How long till Laurinda took off. By rights, she should have already. If he did escape the pit, he’d be alone on the moon. Naturally, he’d try to get at Rover in some different fashion, such as coming around on the hillside. But meanwhile Dorcas would return in Shep, doubtless with the other two. She was incapable of cutting and running, off into futility. Chances were, though, that by the time she got here a kzin auxiliary or two would have arrived. The odds against her would be long indeed.

  So if Saxtorph found a way to return topside and repossess Rover—soon—he wouldn’t likely find his wife at the asteroid. And he couldn’t very well turn back and try to make contact, because of those warboats and because of his overriding obligation to carry the warning home. He’d have to conn the ship all by himself, leaving Dorcas behind for the kzinti.

  The thought was strangling. Tears stung. That was a relief, in the nullity everywhere around. Something he could feel, and taste the salt of on his lips. Was the tomb blackness thickening? No, couldn’t be. How long had he lain buried? He brought his timepiece to his faceplate, but the hell-stuff blocked off luminosity. The blood in his ears hammered against a wall of stillness. Had a whine begun to modulate the rasping of his breath? Was he going crazy? Sensory deprivation did bring on illusions, weirdnesses, but he wouldn’t have expected it this soon.

  He made himself remember—sunlight, stars, Dorcas, a sail above blue water, fellowship among men, Dorcas, the tang of a cold beer, Dorcas, their plans for children—they’d banked gametes against the day they’d be ready for domesticity but maybe a little too old and battered in the DNA for direct begetting to be advisable—

  Contact ripped him out of his dreams. He reached wildly and felt his gloves close on a solid object. They slid along it, along humanlike lineaments, a spacesuit, no, couldn’t be!

  Laurinda slithered across him till she brought faceplate to faceplate. Through the black he recognized the voice that conduction carried: “Robert, thank God, I’d begun to be afraid I’d never find you, are you all right?”

  “What the, the devil are you doing here?” he gasped.

  Laughter crackled. “Fetching you. Yes, mutiny. Court-martial me later.”

  Soberness followed: “I have a cable around my waist, with the end free for you. Feel around till you find it. There’s a lump at the end, a knot I made beforehand and covered with solder so the buckyballs can’t get in and make it work loose. You can use that to make a hitch that will hold for yourself, can’t you? Then I’ll need your help. I have two
geologist’s hammers with me. Secured them by cords so they can’t be lost. Wrapped tape around the handles in thick bands, to give a grip in spite of no friction. Used the pick ends to chip notches in the rock, and hauled myself along. But I’m exhausted now, and it’s an uphill pull, even though gravity is weak. Take the hammers. Drag me along behind you. You have the strength.”

  “The strength—oh, my God, you talk about my strength?” he cried.

  —The cable was actually heavy-gauge wire from the electrical parts locker, lengths of it spliced together till they reached. The far end was fastened around a great boulder beyond the treacherous part of the slope. Slipperiness had helped as well as hindered the ascent, but when he reached safety, Saxtorph allowed himself to collapse for a short spell.

  He returned to Laurinda’s earnest tones: “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I should have guessed. But it didn’t occur to me—such quantities gathered together like this—I simply thought ‘nebular dust,’ without stopping to estimate what substance would become dominant over many billions of years—”

  He sat straight to look at her. In the level red light, her face was palely rosy, her eyes afire. “Why, how could you have foreseen, lass?” he answered. “I’d hate to tell you how often something in space has taken me by surprise, and that was in familiar parts. You did realize what the problem was, and figured out a solution. We needn’t worry about your breaking orders. If you’d failed, you’d have been insubordinate; but you succeeded, so by definition you showed initiative.”

  “Thank you.” Eagerness blazed. “And listen, I’ve had another idea—”

  He lifted a palm. “Whoa! Look, in a couple of minutes we’d better hike back to Shep, you take your station again, I get a drive unit and fly across to Rover. But first will you please, please tell me what the mess was that I got myself into?”

  “Buckyballs,” she said. “Or, formally, Buckminster-fullerene. I didn’t think the pitful of it that you’d slid down into could be very deep or the bottom very large. Its walls would surely slope inward. It’s really just a…pothole, though surely the formation process was different, possibly it’s a small astrobleme—” She giggled. “My, the academic in me is really taking over, isn’t it? Well, essentially, the material is frictionless. It will puddle in any hole, no matter how tiny, and it has just enough cohesion that a number of such puddles close together will form a film over the entire surface. But that film is only a few molecules thick, and you can’t walk on it or anything. In this slight gravity, though—and the metal-poor rock is friable—I could strike the sharp end of a hammerhead in with a single blow to act as a kind of…piton, is that the word?”

  “Okay. Splendid. Dorcas had better look to her standing as the most formidable woman in known space. Now tell me what the—the hell buckyballs are.”

  “They’re produced in the vicinity of supernovae. Carbon atoms link together and form a faceted spherical molecule around a single metal atom. Sixty carbons around one lanthanum is common, galactically speaking, but there are other forms, too. And with the molecule closed in on itself the way it is, it acts in the aggregate like a fluid. In fact, it’s virtually a perfect lubricant, and if we didn’t have things easier to use you’d see synthetic buckyballs on sale everywhere.” A vision rose in those ruby eyes. “It’s thought they may have a basic role in the origin of life on planets—”

  “Damn near did the opposite number today,” Saxtorph said. “But you saved my ass, and the rest of me as well. I don’t suppose I can ever repay you.”

  She got to her knees before him and seized his hands. “You can, Robert. You can fetch me back my man.”

  22

  Ponderously, Rover closed velocities with the iron asteroid. She couldn’t quite match, because it was under boost, but thus far the acceleration was low.

  Ominously aglow, the molten mass dwarfed the spacecraft that toiled meters ahead of it; yet Sun Defier, harnessed by her own forcefield, was a plowhorse dragging it bit by bit from its former path; and the dwarf sun was at work, and Secunda’s gravity was beginning to have a real effect…

  Arrived a little before the ship, the boat drifted at some distance, a needle in a haystack of stars. Laurinda, was still aboard. The tug had no place to receive Shep, nor had the girl the skill to cross safely by herself in a spacesuit even though relative speeds were small. The autopilot kept her accompanying the others.

  In Rover’s command center, Saxtorph asked the image of Dorcas, more shakily than he had expected to, “How are you? How’s everything?”

  She was haggard with weariness, but triumph rang: “Kam’s got our gear packed to transfer over to you, and I—I’ve worked the bugs out of the program. Compatibility with kzin hardware was a stumbling block, but—well, it’s been operating smoothly for the past several hours, and I’ve no reason to doubt it will continue doing what it’s supposed to.”

  He whistled. “Hey, quite a feat, lady! I really didn’t think it would be possible, at least in the time available, when I put you up to trying it. What’re you going to do next—square the circle, invent the perpetual motion machine, reform the tax laws, or what?”

  Her voice grew steely. “I was motivated.” She regarded his face in her own screen. “How are you? Laurinda said something about your running into danger on the moon. Were you hurt?”

  “Only in my pride. She can tell you all about it later. Right now we’re in a hurry.” Saxtorph became intent. “Listen, there’s been a change of plan. You and Kam both flit over to Shep. But don’t you bring her in; lay her alongside. Kam can help Laurinda aboard Rover before he moves your stuff. I’d like you to join me in a job around Shep. Simple thing and shouldn’t take but a couple hours, given the two of us working together. Though I’ll bet even money you’ll have a useful suggestion or three. Then you can line out for deep space.”

  She sat a moment silent, her expression bleakened, before she said, “You’re taking the boat to Prima while the rest of us ferry Rover away.”

  “You catch on quick, sweetheart.”

  “To rescue Juan and Carita.”

  “What else? Laurinda’s hatched a scheme I think could do the trick. Naturally, we’ll agree in advance where you’ll wait, and Shep will come join you there. If we don’t dawdle, the odds are pretty good that the kzinti won’t locate you first and force you to go hyperspatial.”

  “What about them locating you?”

  “Why should they expect anybody to go to Prima? They’ll buzz around Secunda like angry hornets. They may well be engaged for a while in evacuating survivors from the warship; I suspect the shuttles aren’t terribly efficient at that sort of thing. Afterward they’ll have to work out a search doctrine, when Rover can have skitted in any old direction. And sometime along about then, they should have their minds taken off us. The kzinti will notice a nice big surprise bound their way, about which it is then too late to do anything whatsoever.”

  “But you—How plausible is this idea of yours?”

  “Plausible enough. Look, don’t sit like that. Get cracking. I’ll explain when we meet.”

  “I can take Shep. I’m as good a pilot as you are.”

  Saxtorph shook his head. “Sorry, no. One of us has to be in charge of Rover, of course. I hereby pull rank and appoint you. I am the captain.”

  23

  The asteroid concealed the ship’s initial boost from any possible observers around Secunda. She applied her mightiest vector to give southward motion, out of the ecliptic plane; but the thrust had an extra component, randomly chosen, to baffle hunter analysts who would fain reduce the volume of space wherein she might reasonably be sought. That volume would grow fast, become literally astronomical, as she flew free, generator cold, batteries maintaining life support on a minimum energy level. Having thus cometed for a time, she could with fair safety apply power again to bring herself to her destination.

  Saxtorph let her make ample distance before he accelerated Shep, also using the iron to conceal his start. Howev
er, he ran at top drive the whole way. It wasn’t likely that a detector would pick his little craft up. As he told Dorcas, the kzinti wouldn’t suppose a human would make for Prima. It hurt them less, losing friends, provided the friends died bravely; and few of them had mastered the art of putting oneself in the head of an enemy.

  Mainly, though, Carita and Juan didn’t have much time left them.

  Ever circling, the planets had changed configuration since Rover arrived. The navigation system allowed for that, but could do nothing to shorten a run of 30-odd hours. Saxtorph tried to compose his soul in peace. He played a lot of solitaire after he found he was losing most of the computer games, and smoked a lot of pipes. Books and shows were poor distraction, but music helped him relax and enjoy his memories. Whatever happened next, he’d have had a better life than 90 percent of his species—99 percent if you counted in everybody who lived and died before humankind went spacefaring.

  Prima swelled in his view, sallow and faceless. The recorded broadcast came through clear from the night side, over and over. Saxtorph got his fix. Fido wasn’t too far from the lethal dawn. He established a three hour orbit and put a curt message of his own on the player. It ended with “Acknowledge.”

  Time passed. Heaviness grew within him. Were they dead? He rounded dayside and came back across darkness.

  The voice leaped at him: “Bob, is that you? Juan here. We’d abandoned hope, we were asleep. Standing by now. Bob, is that you? Juan here—”

  Joy surged. “Who else but me?” Saxtorph said. “How’re you doing, you two?”

  “Hanging on. Living in our spacesuits this past—I don’t know how long. The boat’s a rotted, crumbling shell. But we’re hanging on.”

  “Good. Your drive units in working order?”