by Larry Niven
I noticed Thompson seemed to have formed a queer association with the telepath, rather as I had done. A case of uttermost underlings coming together. All of us, in our different ways, were protected a little by our value to Chuut-Riit from the casual savagery of kzin society. Much to my surprise, the telepath asked me to read aloud to him. I gathered it helped him relax, or gave him some relief from the mental noise that constantly surrounded him. I had heard rumors of telepaths with prohuman leanings, and perhaps that was what saved me at the time of the meat incident.
I dropped some meat, the food of another kzin (I had had a shock when I recognized the human bones). I was terrified the owner of the meat would attack me. Telepath, to my surprise, stopped him, as slavering, claws extended, he gathered himself to spring.
“Do not harm the Patriarch’s property!” Telepath said, and there had been something like a command in his voice.
The angry kzin, one who plainly had been drafted into the class to rid some fighting unit of his stupidity, growled and snarled. Even he, however, could realize that damaging the Patriarch’s property and Chuut-Riit’s was not a wise move. He snarled some threats about me losing my other arm, and resumed his seat. I gave the telepath some books, and tried to broadcast feelings of friendship to him—with how much success I did not know. But from that time there seemed, though I dared not have presumed upon it, to be some sort of unspoken understanding between the telepath and myself. He was, I guessed, like many telepaths, a secret intellectual, desperately lonely, and as frightened as I was, secretly not only terrified of the strutting Heroes, but also despising them.
Gradually, I began to realize the politics of the situation. I knew Chuut-Riit’s interest in humans was not universally approved of among senior kzinti. Some considered it disgusting, virtually a perversion. Others thought it a waste of time. Instead of building up the elite corps that Chuut-Riit had envisioned, many commanders had used the unit as a dumping-ground to get rid of unwanted personnel. Apart from those who were simply old or physically disabled, some of these were misfits because they were stupid, and some were misfits because they were intelligent.
I was, however, beginning to worry about graduating the class. I could not fail any, but if I passed them all as qualified “human experts,” the more stupid ones might well let me down in the field. Certainly the consequences would be unpleasant for them, but they would be a great deal more unpleasant for me. I realized that all I could do was try to teach well, keep the content of my classes innocuous, and emphasize my position as the property of the Patriarch. Also, another worry came to me: the obviously bright ones would resent being marked no higher than the obvious thick-heads.
One day, the telepath approached me.
“This Moby Dick that Kleist-human speaks of?”
“Yes, Dominant One, have you completed it?”
“We are not far advanced with it yet. But I have a question . . . What became of the cetaceans?”
“The whales? Their killing was stopped by law eventually, Dominant One. It was feared that they would become extinct, and better sources of oil were found . . . petroleum: ‘Rock-oil.’”
“Yes, you have Cetacean allies now.”
“Yes, the dolphins. We brought them to Ka’ashi.”
“But Moby Dick was not your ally.”
“No, Dominant One. A different species. Larger and more fearsome. Ahab believed he had to be destroyed, partly in vengeance for having taken his leg, partly because” (Careful, now!) “he was an enemy of Man.”
“I see.” Yes, I thought, a Kzin would see that. “I meant to speak to Thompson-human about it, but I sensed he did not wish to discuss the matter. I could have pressed him, of course.”
Of course.
“But I did not wish to. Such things are painful to me.” No kzin normally admitted pain in any circumstances, least of all to a human, but telepaths were different. It was, I thought, a sign of the delicate empathy between us. It also, I thought, tended to confirm my guess that this one was reaching the end of the line.
“It shows Ahab’s obsession,” I said. I did not know the deeper literary criticism of Moby Dick; in fact, I had forgotten most of the story, but a kzin would not need to know it either. “He must kill the whale at all costs.” Something made me add, “Humans are like that, Dominant One.” No fearsome headache. He was not trying to read my mind. Then he said, “Like our Morris-monkey.”
Morris? Had he read Morris’s mind? But if he had discovered anything there, why had he not reported it? I found it difficult to imagine. Morris was the quietest and most self-effacing of us all. And that phrase, “our Morris-Monkey,” was odd.
Seeing that he had no more questions, I made the prostration and he left, with me wondering what had sparked his curiosity. It was then that, returning to our quarters, I found von Kleist and Thompson dead, von Kleist with his throat cut, Thompson with the veins of his wrists opened in a bath of bloodstained water. I called security. As I said, the telepath cleared me. Not merely because of that frail empathy between us downtrodden beings either. I truly did not know any more. The fact that I had been with him was, of course, an additional alibi.
No motive for the murder-suicide. Thompson, as far as we knew, was happily married—as happily, that is, as anyone could be in those ghastly days—with three children. He seemed to have a great deal to live for. But madness was thick in the air of occupied Wunderland.
The telepath did ask me about it several times, not probing my mind, or not much. I gathered the kzin were as puzzled about the murder-suicide as I was. “Why,” Telepath asked, “did the Professor Thompson not simply denouncee the Professor von Kleist if he knew him to be in contact with the feral monkeys?”
“Perhaps, Dominant One, he wished to spare him disciplining.” The cruellest and most vengeful human that ever lived might wish to spare another kzin torture. “But I do not understand.” It was true, and he knew it. I didn’t understand.
“Slave Supervisor wishes to know,” he said. I detected fear buried in his voice.
An answer even smacking distantly of smart-aleckry, such as “I wish to know too” was not advisable. “I will inform you, at once, Dominant One, should I learn anything,” I told him.
Suddenly a great howling filled the air. Meteor strikes had increased dramatically since the kzin invasion. Before that, Wunderland had had a meteor-guard service. This had held off the kzin force for some time while our hastily convened defense council tried to think of something to do. Now it was gone and we had meteors to add to everything else. The only defense the kzin permitted us was a system of sirens.
I knew nothing about the ramscoop raid then, only saw a glaring light in the sky, from which streamed molten matter, travelling hellishly fast, and on a nearly constant bearing. Telepath didn’t need to read my mind. We ran. I was a poor runner. My arm unbalanced me. Telepath grabbed my other arm and pulled me. We reached a shelter—an abandoned storage tank—just before impact, climbed a short ladder and fell in just as the blast-wave hit us. The tank rang like a bell as something fell on it. The blast lifted it off its mountings.
A white streak—a Beam’s Beast that had been in the tank—leaped through the air and fastened its jaws on Telepath’s shoulder. I was badly shaken up, but still had my flashlight—we, or those of us trusted by the kzin, carried them with Beam’s Beasts, Advokats and Zeitungers specifically in mind. After all, it suited them also if we killed the dangerous vermin, and you would have to be lucky and very, very quick to do a kzin much harm with one of the small devices. At the time I was not thinking of Telepath. It was purely a reflex action: if you saw a Beam’s Beast, you fired. It was a difficult shot, but the close range compensated for that. I burned its head free of its body, and, using the flashlight as a lever pried the locked jaws apart. The skin was broken, but Telepath’s fur seemed to have protected him from worst of the venom. I opened the lid of the tank and slammed it shut again. We were in the middle of a puddle of fire. Many kzin, I knew, if
they were frightened of anything, were frightened of fire—I suppose because their fur was iflammable. We sat together in the tank for what seemed a long time, as the air grew hotter and fouler. At last the sound of the flames died.
“I can’t move my arm,” he said after a time.
There was only one thing for it. It was a highly distasteful idea, but it was a chance to win some brownie points with my masters. Anyway, I owed him. After explaining what I was going to do, I sucked some of the venom out of the wound.
“If you had had a cut on your mouth, you would be dead too by now,” Telepath said when I had finished and was spitting and retching, with a finger down my throat.
“That did occur to me,” I said when I could. Somehow I knew it was safe now to say something mildly sarcastic to him. We seemed to have moved away from “Dominant One.”
“Did it? You saved my life? A monkey saved a kzin?”
“You saved mine,” I told him. “I would never have reached this place without you.”
He took a spray from his belt, and looked as if he was preparing to apply it. Then he returned it, unused.
“It would dishonorable to read your mind in this situation,” he said. “I must assume you are telling me the truth.”
I climbed out of the tank, but the rusty ladder would not bear telepath’s weight. With my arm there was not much I could do to help him, and in that confined space he could not leap. There was fire and death in the streets all around us. Fortunately, as we later learned, the missiles used in the Ramscoop Raid had been inert dumb bombs, their destructive force coming only from their colossal kinetic energy. There was no radioactivity. Eventually I found an old-fashioned fire engine, one of the museum pieces the kzin allowed us to use. The firemen were unimpressed when I told them I wanted to rescue a kzin, but of course they were part of the collabo government themselves. I could see a couple debating whether to quietly kill me and say nothing about it. I pointed out that they could expect a reward, and that swayed them. I also lied to the effect that the kzin command knew where I was. I don’t think they were greedy men—on occupied Wunderland, a small reward from the kzin might well be the difference between life and death for oneself and one’s family.
The “meteor” had struck well beyond the outer fringes of Munchen. A direct hit would have levelled the city. We got Telepath out, though his arm was still stiff. Since it did not interfere with his mind-reading abilities, I doubted the kzin authorities would care about that much. We somehow agreed without words to say nothing of who had saved whom.
Somewhat to my surprise, Krar-Skrei supervised some of the rescue operations. Although he looked askance at Chuut-Riit’s whole human project and regarded humans as vermin, they were vermin who belonged to the Patriarch, and he did his duty to them as effectively as he might. I saw the burning ruins of a schoolroom cleared, and a badly injured kzin who had been inside taken away.
I also saw Krar-Skrei supervising the lifting of a fallen beam, which had blocked the entrance to a meteor-shelter. The firemen descended into it. I stood, with Telepath beside me, feeling shocked and useless. Telepath caught my arm, thankfully remembering to retract his claws, and pointed.
“The Morris-human,” he said.
It was Morris, all right, heading for the unattended fire engine. Telepath was getting out his injector now. Why? Something in Morris’s walk? Something Telepath picked up even with his unheightened powers?
It happened very quickly. Morris flung the fire engine into gear and drove it forward over Krar-Skrei and von Rathenau, killing them both instantly, if the bump it made going over them was anything to go by. Morris was screaming something, and I picked up the last words “. . . but I’ll slay him yet!” Half a dozen guns turned on the fire engine from a group of kzinti beside a burning wall, and melted it to slag almost instantaneously.
Lucky Telepath. The burning wall collapsed on them. He turned and stared at me. There was no one else in sight alive. I knew what he was thinking, and he knew I knew: The human firemen were all working down in the shelter. I was the only witness to his negligence. He began to raise one arm. I reached, as furtively as I could, for my flashlight, a pea-shooter wielded by a cripple against a saber-tooth. Then he lowered his arm. “A bad accident,” he said.
I agreed. “Not even the usual suspects to round up,” he continued. I started laughing hysterically.
I am no telepath, but even I picked up the wave of Telepath’s relief and joy. Krar-Skrei was dead.
Since the course was nearly completed, the first class of Chuut-Riit’s human experts was pronounced graduated, and its members posted to the fleet and elsewhere. That solved a problem for me. I presented them all with diplomas, written on parchment made of the finest human skin, each illustrated by a picture of a Hero standing rampant atop a pile of slain simians.
I felt as if my teaching had been a furlough in the cool First Circle of Hell, but that I could not take any more teaching, and contemplated escaping into the eastern mountains before the next class, which would presumably also include a telepath with a watching brief. Perhaps the Resistance would have me in spite of my arm. They must be running very short of personnel. Perhaps I could even survive on my own. If not, so be it.
But that was to be the only one of Chuut-Riit’s human classes. In quick succession, Chuut-Riit was killed as a result of techno-sabotage, civil war broke out between the followers of Traat-Admiral and Ktrodni-Stkaa, and the UNSN Hyperdrive Armada arrived. The sky was suddenly filled with fighters, and humans in battle-armor descending with lift-belts.
Escaping to the wild was not necessary. The kzin lost interest in me and I was able to keep alive, cowering with a few other academics in a sub-basement while the battle raged above us. Since then I have seen some rediscovered film of the fall of Berlin in 1945 (our civics classes had become more realistic by then). It was like that, only worse. Once a lost kzin kitten blundered down among us, and, moved by some impulse I still do not understand, I took him up into the street and found a kzin warrior and handed him over—the only really brave thing I have ever done. The kitten, I remember, had a curious red patch on the fur of its chest, and specially elaborate ear-tattoos, and the kzin who received it prostrated himself before it, before snatching it up and vanishing with it into the smoke.
The fighting moved on. I talked my way past the vengeful humans, and fortunately, when he was recovered, my old colleague Nils Rykermann spoke up for me. There was no telepath this time to defend me, and I had some hairy moments—my former head of department was beheaded, and his deputy taken to Munchen Zoo and fed to the kzinretti—but once again my arm served as an excuse, and perhaps I was lucky in the composition of the panel I faced. I found the firemen who had helped Telepath and me, and expended my credit, such as it was, pleading for them, pointing to the lives they had saved in the Ramscoop Raid.
Had von Kleist and Thompson survived, the Resistance would have made short work of them, I mused—dirty KzinDiener. At least I, heart in my mouth, had occasionally towards the end left food parcels where the Resistance might find them. It wasn’t much, but it had, just, passed under the telepath’s radar, and some humans remembered it.
Liberated Wunderland, 2420
THERE WAS PLENTY for all of us to do in the months that followed. The kzin who remained on Wunderland were no longer our dreaded conquerors. Many of those who remained had formed some sort of relationship with humans. There was modern medicine available again, and my arm was repaired.
I was walking back to my apartment one evening when a voice hailed me out of the shadows of an alley: “Professor!”
Not a voice produced from a human voice-box. I spun round. A dark shape, too big for a man, but small for a kzin. Well, we were officially at peace on Wunderland now, and I knew it was no use running from a kzin—many had tried. I waited until it emerged into the bright light of the main street.
It was tTelepath. He looked bad, but telepaths usually did. He stumbled as he walked, and almost fell
at my feet.
Did I owe him anything? Thinking it over, I decided that perhaps I did. He could have made my life a lot more uncomfortable, and a lot shorter, if he had tried. I remembered the incident of the meat, the time in the tank, and the risk he rook letting me live at the end. And, well, even in this case, I felt as a teacher I owed a former student something. I called up an aircar and, lifting him with considerable difficulty (lifting a normal male kzin would have been out of the question, but my repaired arm with its metal bones was now stronger than a natural one), carried him home.
I had thought he was starving, but he appeared no more emaciated than before. A large bowl of hot milk and a couple of raw chops and sausages did seem to do him good.
“Remember the meat?” he asked me. Like all telepaths, his command of the language was perfect, though his accent was strange. What was wrong with him, I learned as he talked, was that he was suffering from a near-terminal case of uselessness. He was shunned by other kzin, humans fled from him. ARM had assessed him, like all telepaths they had captured, and found him so nearly burnt-out as not to be worth recruiting. He was in a kind of passive state, which was a recognized clinical symptom indicating that the end was near. Like practically all telepaths, the drug had left him a wreck, and he had not been physically able to handle the effects of sudden, brutal, total withdrawal, though mentally he seemed clear enough.