by Larry Niven
“I trust you were not offended,” Sarah said nervously.
“On the contrary, I have had some made for my own kits.”
Senator von Hohenheim was busy. He was always busy. So when the little sharp-faced man knocked on his door and came in without being asked, the senator switched on a scowl that would have astonished his electorate. The senator was a bulky man, and on television could have passed for a bald Santa Claus out of uniform, but just at the moment his glare would have smashed mirrors and broken camera lenses. “What the hell do you want, you grubby little runt? I’m busy. I’ve got a committee to chair in ten minutes.”
Alois Grün was apologetic. “I’m sorry, Senator, but it’s important. The evening news will have some footage of a spaceship from Earth that crashed into the Great Southern Ocean some years ago. Nobody knew of it until now, apparently. Well, hardly anybody.” He looked meaningfully at the senator.
“Why should it be of the slightest interest to me, for G—Oh.” There was a pause which, if not in fact pregnant, had definitely been going into overdrive on the chocolate biscuits.
“Oh. You don’t think . . .”
“Well, Senator,” Grün was still deferential, but there was more than a faint hint of something a great deal less gentle. Skinny little Smeagol of a creature the man might be, but, Senator von Höhenheim reminded himself, he had survived the Occupation, where perhaps eight Wunderlanders in every ten had not. Darwin had operated ruthlessly among the humans of Wunderland for more than sixty years. There was cunning there, and even more importantly, ruthless determination. “It is hard to explain otherwise, is it not? I mean, your orders were obeyed instantly. I was there to see the missiles launched in accordance with your instruction. Obviously I didn’t see the actual strike, but there must have been one, must there not? And since the ship was never found, well, this might well be it, don’t you think?”
The senator looked at him and considered. “Is it too late to damp the story down? Can we prevent it going out?”
“I have read Earth history. I was a schoolteacher once, a long time ago, before the invasion.” A not-so-subtle reminder that he had been one of the fortunate or cunning few who had retained access to geriatric drugs. And that he knew a lot. “The Marconi scandals, Watergate, the climate change falsifications. In each case the cover-up was worse than the original wrongdoing. To cover up now would surely cause an even bigger storm than the video itself. It would prove there was something to hide. I cannot recommend that approach, Senator.” The little man rubbed his hands together. It didn’t show in any too obvious way, but he was enjoying this, just as he enjoyed lecturing the senator on subjects he would know nothing about.
“Of course, it goes without saying that should an unfortunate accident befall me, I have left a record that would be published. Killing my attorney, banker, or other obvious trustees would be an inadequate means of suppression. It is not in an obvious or vulnerable place, and indeed, there may be more than one copy.”
The senator looked at him narrowly. “Well, it surely is inconsequential. After all, it’s been eighteen years. The thing has been in the sea and must surely be corroded. There will be nothing to show what brought it down. And one hole must look much like another. Everyone will take it for granted that it was some kzin attack that destroyed it.”
“Forensic science is very advanced, Senator. And some modern materials resist corrosion. Spaceship hull alloys, for instance.”
“Most of the police stations and laboratories were destroyed at Liberation.”
“Only ‘most.’ Some records survived. As did a few of the police—the lucky ones. You know how collaborators were dealt with . . . Except for those smart enough to keep a foot in each camp,” Grün said. “The Kzin got most of those early, with telepath sweeps.” He went on: “Meanwhile, ARM has been bringing in new up-to-date detection equipment. To say nothing of the rumors we hear that they’ve got kzin telepaths working for them on interrogations. Kzin torturers, too, some say.”
“I refuse to believe that, even of ARM. If the population found out . . .”
“I could not be at all sure that there won’t be some that tell the truth,” Grün said. “And if that got out, well, you would be in serious trouble, Senator. Hanged as a traitor, very likely. You’ve seen plenty of hangings, and worse. You know what they entail. Certainly the story of how you only pretended to join the collaborators to spy on them would be . . . difficult . . . to sustain. At best, it would be the end of your career. Even if you escaped the noose or the axe, I doubt you would find eking out a living as a laborer in some back-block farm very appealing. And don’t forget there are still plenty of people who wouldn’t let an acquittal by a court inhibit them.”
“But there cannot be many of the KzinDiener left alive. Who could tell that the order was mine?”
“Well, I was there, of course, and I saw you give the order. Oh, not that I would say anything, of course.” The little man rubbed his hands together again. “But there might well have been other survivors. The abbot at Circle Bay Monastery tried to protect von Thoma, and maybe . . . some others. Naturally, they would not be anxious to draw attention to themselves at this stage of things, but they might seek amnesty in exchange for testifying against you. I don’t say this is inevitable or even likely, but are you prepared to completely rule it out?” He looked with his head tilted to the side, at his master. His master pursed his lips and looked back.
Stan Adler was in fine form. His current affairs program always beat the competition in the audience ratings. He spoke into the camera with his trademark lopsided half-grin. “Tonight, the Appropriations Committee Chairman, Senator von Höhenheim, has again objected to funding a proper investigation of the downing of the spaceship Valiant in the Southern Ocean. Our news investigators, following the initial sighting of the wreck by honeymooners Sarah and Greg Rankin in the Southern Ocean,” the screen cut to a wedding picture of the happy pair, “have gone diving in difficult storm-tossed waters to find the wreck and have positively identified her.
“It is known that she was bringing military and medical supplies, which might have saved many lives had they arrived and been transferred to the Resistance. Perhaps even shortened the final phase. Tell me, Senator, why exactly do you object to a properly equipped government investigation of this tragedy?”
The camera facing the senator showed a green light, and he looked into its lens rather than at his interrogator. “Well, Stan, you know that I am only the chairman, I don’t make these decisions all on my own.” The senator was genial.
Stan the Man smiled in the way that, his admirers had suggested, would make a kzin warrior nervous. He wore a casual shirt with his monogram, a small stylized eagle in black, over the pocket holding his phone. Cell phones had been back in the city for less than six months, so it was something of a status symbol.
“But I hear that your voice was the strongest in opposition to it. In fact, it was taken for granted that it would go through unopposed. It was only at the last moment that your supporters came out against it. And you got the casting vote. That was the first passage. And things aren’t very different now you have it back from the lower house.”
“You have to understand, Stan, that we cannot spend the taxpayers’ money just the way we would like. It is a matter of priorities. Of course we would all like to know exactly what happened, and someday we shall. But it is hardly urgent. The wreck has been there for many years, a few more will hardly make much difference.”
“But you funded the building of a new Arts Complex costing over ten million dollars. Many people could give you long lists of things they would say were needed more urgently. From orphanages to prostheses to pharmaceutical factories. Not many on Wunderland are interested in arts today. Poetry and painting were not really survival skills. Dancing a ballet for a hungry kzin would be like playing a lure for a hungry fish. Not to mention rebuilding our space navy instead of relying on Sol forces. And what about the very controversial pla
n to drain much of Grossgeister Swamp at a much bigger cost? Even if one accepts that both of these are worthwhile projects, which I don’t, they are hardly more urgent. The longer the wreck is underwater, the less information we shall be able to recover. I can hardly take it that that is what you want, Senator?”
“On the subject of the Arts Complex . . .” von Höhenheim began.
“Perhaps it would be better if we remained with the subject at hand at the moment, Senator. The question was, why do you want to delay getting any information about what downed the Valiant?”
“I want nothing of the kind. After all, what mystery is there? We are certain to discover that a kzin warship crippled it somewhere in space, as happened to countless others,” said von Höhenheim.
“Not according to the kzin leader, Vaemar, who is in the process of getting a couple of doctoral degrees in mathematics and history, and who had a look at the kzin records.”
“A kzin!” The senator’s scorn was virtually palpable.
“A kzin, may I remind you, Senator, who has proved his loyalty to the ideal of kzin-human cooperation on more than one occasion. You will recall that it is only a few years since he saved an entire expedition into Grossgeister Swamp, and was instrumental in obtaining our first live specimens of Jotok. Before that, he helped thwart a plan by former collaborators to kidnap him and use him against humanity. ARM, which is not renowned for being over-trustful, has allowed him to accept a commission in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Munchen University. He works with Nils and Leonie Rykermann, not only two of the most heroic leaders of the Resistance, but also two of the most respected leaders on Wunderland today. He is a friend of Dimity Carmody.”
“Quite a paragon of felinoid virtue, in fact!” The sneer would play well with a big part of the audience, the senator thought. “Perhaps you’d like to remind your audience of his family connections, also! And the humans his sire sent to the public hunts!”
Stan the Man’s body language projected confidence and relaxation. It was a tool of his trade that he he’d worked on for a long time, and modern fabrics dealt with the sweat. “Yes, it is true that Chuut-Riit was his sire. Personally, I don’t think that that should be held against him in this context. Quite the reverse, if anything: the values of the high kzin nobility may differ from ours in many ways, but their sense of honor is almost physically real. Unless there is a very strong reason for supposing otherwise, I think it likely that he is telling the truth.”
“High nobility . . . Assuming what you say is true, the kzin still fighting us in space—and many of those who have grudgingly accepted a peace with us here on Wunderland—regard him as a quisling.”
“Sometimes it takes courage to accept the name of quisling. Vaemar has mixed with humans—on equal terms—since he was a kit . . . But tell me, Senator, why are you so hostile to Vaemar-Ritt?”
“Apart from the fact that the idea of quislings—of any species—disgusts me, I am hostile to all kzin—I suppose it is no longer politically correct to call them ratcats. It you want a reason, doesn’t my record in the Resistance speak for itself? Of my guerrilla group, only I and one other survived to see the Liberation. I am a lawmaker and a law-abiding citizen, but I don’t mind telling you and the people of Wunderland that I have some sympathy for the exterminationist position. Wipe them out while we still have a chance! Before they get the hyperdrive!” Careful, he thought, don’t go overboard here. “Or so many say.” He caught himself up quickly. “I’m not saying that is exactly how I feel, I appreciate the necessity for peace, but I do understand how the exterminationists feel.”
Stan fired back. “But if we attack the surrendered kzinti here, the war in space will have no chance of a settlement. Surely it would mean a fight to the finish, with one race or the other annihilated—and they might very well be the ones doing the annhilating. The Kzin Empire is big. We don’t even know its full size. There is no guarantee we would win, hyperdrive or not.”
“Exactly, Stan. That is why I have used my influence, when I can, to try to restrain the exterminationists as a movement. We must have peace with the kzin of this planet at least, but let it be a firm and watchful peace. Anyway,” he continued, “although I am opposed to this expedition, if I should be overridden by the lower house, I intend to accompany it personally. I will pay my own expenses, and will be able to ensure that there is no more wastage than necessary.”
“Don’t you have to be invited?” Stan asked quizzically.
“Professor Rykerman and his wife will no doubt be organizing it, and they are old colleagues of mine, both politically since Liberation, albeit on opposing sides, and before that in the Resistance, though we were in different groups. I shall have no trouble arranging it with them.”
Senator von Höhenheim was thinking he had diverted the interview satisfactorily, when Stan the Man returned to the attack like a barracuda.
“And now, we come back to Vaemar-Riit. I talked to him earlier today, and here is what he said.”
Stan the Man turned to a screen, which took up most of a wall, and still showed Vaemar at reduced size. The young kzin was standing in the garden of his palace, and Stan, seen from the back, held up a microphone.
“Lord Vaemar, I gather you have seen the video we showed last week of the wreck of the Valiant?”
“Yes, I saw it nearly two weeks ago.” The kzin was a long way from the microphone, but his voice was unmistakably clear.
“How come you saw it before we broadcast it?” Stan appeared miffed.
“The two humans who took it came to see me and showed it to me.”
“Why did they show it to you?”
To those who knew how to tell, Vaemar looked slightly uncomfortable. “They wanted to know if I thought it should be made public out of fear that it might damage man-kzin relations.”
“And what did you say?” Stan asked.
“I told them that complete openness between us is the only basis for the trust both species need if we are to live together on this world,” Vaemar told him reluctantly. It was true enough, he told himself, but it sounded too good and virtuous. Kzin didn’t like feeling virtuous. It tended to go with self-deception, a very bad habit for a warrior.
“So, you told them to go ahead and give it to the media?” Stan asked.
“I take it that they would want to sell it to the highest bidder, not give it,” Vaemar explained. Stan changed the subject hurriedly.
“It was obviously important for us to know about this tragedy, and the kids deserved some sort of reward for their enterprise. And did you think it was likely that the Valiant was shot down by a kzin warship?”
“It was the simplest explanation, of course, but it was a little puzzling that it had got so close. Most of the Earth ships trying to run the blockade were detected way out in space. There were few kzin resources so close to the planet beyond aircraft and satellite defense. But I now know that it was not a kzin satellite or aircraft. I have had the surviving records checked, and they show no sign of any strike from space defenses at a spacecraft at that time.”
“Then what could it have been that brought it down?”
Vaemar looked thoughtful. “The most likely explanation is that it was wounded but not destroyed out in space. Since we do not know exactly when the Valiant crashed, we cannot say with confidence that this did not happen. A kzin commander might have thought he had destroyed a vessel that he had only injured. However, that particular error seems to have been more common in human than in kzin record-keeping. But there were not many blockade runners at around that time. A close examination of the ship and its log would go some way to resolving the matter. There would be records of when it left Sol System, but they would only give an estimated time of arrival. It might have slowed or been diverted for some reason.
“There were countless minor skirmishes in space of which no records were kept. One of my earliest memories is of my Honored Sire’s rage when the Man’s Bone-Shredder disappeared. There were many such.
Our capital ships travelled in squadrons—’prides’—as we called them, or fleets, but there were a variety of smaller ships travelling alone on innumerable tasks. Perhaps one met the Valiant, though I think that is unlikely.”
“Why, sir?”
“Space is too big to make chance encounters likely. Especially with modern detection technology.”
“Indeed. Yet they have happened. Especially near planets. And what other possibilities are there?”
“There is always the possibility of a freak accident. Even a meteor impact, for instance. Although that would seem most improbable given modern meteor-defenses. But the Wunderland System is cluttered with junk, of course. And again, an examination of the wreck might provide evidence on this point.”
“You are a qualified space pilot. Is there any other explanation that you can think of?”
Vaemar thought hard, but he couldn’t see any way to avoid this.
“There is the possibility that the KzinDiener fired missiles at it. There was a group of very enthusiastic collaborators who had some weaponry. They were not under very strict control; they had been passed as loyal by telepaths. Eventually their armaments would have had to be replaced, and the kzin commander would have found out that missiles had been launched. The missiles would have been numbered, of course, but if this happened just before the truce, then it might have been overlooked. It would not have had a high priority by then.”