by Larry Niven
He saw me weaken. “Why, Peter, rum has been my meat and drink before now, my mother and father, my mates and their sisters. If I canna got some rum into me, I’ll get the cold horrors, so I will. I already seen K’zarr i’ the corner there behind ye, wi’ blood-boltered fur, matted fur, some of the blood his’n and some not. I’ve led a hard life, Peter, a turrible hard life, wi’ hard kzin beyond anythin’ ye could believe in. An’ when I gets the horrors, why, I’ll scream like a kitten or a kzinrett wi’ the knife i’ them, as they feels it turn inside ’em like.” I shuddered and he saw it.
“Yes, there’ll be screams as o’ the dyin’, Peter, dyin’ in agony, dyin’ o’ the horrors, like a burnt-out telepath. So I begs you, as a gift to a dyin’ old Hero, t’ spare me o’ the horrors, Peter. I’ll gi’ ye a gold star for your own, Peter, if ye’ll just get me a noggin.”
“I’ll not take your money, but I’ll get you one glass and one only,” I told him. I went and got him one beer mug, half-full of rum, and gave it to him.
“Ah, thankee, Peter, yer a fine little kz’zeerkt.” He drank it slower than usual, but eventually it had all gone.
“Yes, that’s a deal better, Peter. A deal better.” He wiped his mouth and squinted at me.
“And Peter, when will I be able to get up and go accordin’ t’ that there human healer of yourn?” he wanted to know.
“Tomorrow, but the day after will be better.”
He groaned. “By the Traveller’s Moon, but it’s all too late. Those sthondats will be after me afore then. I have to go, Peter, I have to go right now. Help me fool ’em, Peter, an’ I’ll see you right as a driupthpn. I’ll fool them yet, can I but get away a while. Could I get astride a hoss wi’out crushing the thing, I’d be away where they’d never find me for many a year. But it has to be now, Peter, else they’ll have the claw o’ me, for sure.”
Some hope, I thought. Only horses trained from birth will let kzin near them. He gripped my shoulder and made me cry out, and Marthar came in at a run.
“No, no lady, I didn’t mean t’ hurt the little Kz’zee…man,” the Captain said frantically. “I jest need a little help t’ get up. Maybe the two o’ you could do it? I’m a big fellow t’ be sure.” He was far too big for me to lift, I knew. Yet somehow those words roused a queer little spark of empathy in me. Whatever his crimes, I felt sorry for him sitting there so helpless at that moment.
“Pass me that bindle there,” he pointed at his great pack, and Marthar pushed it over to him. He felt in one of the pockets and produced a box. It was about seven inches long, two inches wide and over an inch deep, and black as midnight in a cave; he showed us how to press an invisible button at one end and the lid flipped back to reveal the interior.
“Here, take this, ’tes for you, Peter, a present. Certainly, ’tes no use t’me, for sure. Has come a long way, so it has, a long, long way.”
The inside looked like ivory and was soft to the touch. There was one thing in the box, sitting in a triangular hole, an indentation in the ivory. I lifted it out. It was a gold color, but it was hard, and heavy, but not so heavy as gold, and it was a perfect tetrahedron. Four sides, all triangular, all exactly the same. It had each side just over an inch long and a little more from each vertex to the opposite face.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Now there you have me, little kz’zeerkt. But there was more, but ’tes lost, d’ye see.”
And I did see. There were four other indentations in the box where other things had rested. The first one was a triangular space where the tetrahedron had sat; next to it was a square space; and in the middle the space was for a pyramid, point down. The next one had a pentagonal space and the last more sides than I could tell without counting them.
“It’s obvious what they were,” Marthar said. “Everyone should be able to work that out.” She could be very irritating at times.
“Is that so?” the Captain asked with the beginnings of a growl.
“Yes. There are five of them, and only five. The first is a tetrahedron, the second a cube, the third an octahedron. Even Peter should be able to tell you the last two.”
I ignored her; it’s the only thing to do when she’s like that. “Thank you, Captain, it is an interesting present. Perhaps we’ll be able to make the other shapes to complete the set.” I put the tetrahedron back in its place, closed the box and put it in my pocket. I was going to have to work out what the other shapes were, and I was definitely not going to ask Marthar, who was quite smug enough already. I had a faint glimmering already, but would need to do some searching.
“Well, if ye can do that, ye may have solved some sort of test, for that’s what it seems to be. And not one I could pass, nor most of those I knew. Anyway, ’tes all useless now. Unless ye can get to K’zarr’s treasure. Ah, I’ll never get it now. No more will K’zarr himself.” He sank back on the footch and a shadow passed over his face. He lifted himself a little and looked longingly at the empty jug.
“K’zarr’s treasure,” he went on. “I know where it’s hid. Only I.”
Even for us, K’zarr was a name of vague dread. There had been many kzin freebooters, outside the disciplined armed forces of the Patriarchy (who in all good faith had been more than bad enough!), but he had been the worst. Even kzin-occupied villages and asteroids had not been safe from him, and he had slain men and kzin who crossed him or stood in his way with impartial cruelty. He was one of the few beings who had had a reward placed on his head by kzin and humans both, a distinction in which, it was said, his crew took some pride. It had been the abbot at Circle Bay Monastery who had told me of him first—he had raided the place for the drugs in the infirmary, and carried them off with all the monastery’s treasures, as well as human refugees the monastery had been sheltering from the slave markets in some God-forsaken back-blocks of the Kzin Empire. The abbot and a few monks had been attending a conference in München at the time, or none would have survived. It was his horde who, during the initial landings, had cremated Neue Dresden when it had tried to surrender. After the human surrender to the Patriarch’s regular forces he had destroyed what was left of the precious chain of meteor-warning satellites from sheer viciousness.
The Captain struggled and then gave up and fell back as Marthar checked with me. I nodded. His grip had hurt, but he had not intended it to.
“Ah, Peter, and yer Ladyship, both o’ ye, did ye see that Dog? He was a bad one, he was. Still is. But there’s worse than him, Peter, yer ladyship. Far worse than him, them that set him upon me. There’s the one wi’ the red fur an’ on’y one true leg, he’s the one. He’s a devil out o’ the fanged demons’ pit, that one. Last thing many a Kz’zeerkt and Hero saw was that one smiling at him, wi’ his jaws like a man, and wi’ his ears, like a kzin. And felt the blade o’ the wtsai in his gut, reachin’ for the heart at the same time, turnin’ slowly, lovingly. An’ when the poor scum saw the blood rush out over his belly, just as his eyes blacked out, he’d hear the devil whisper softly to him: Gi’ my regards to the Queen o’ the fanged demons, an’ tell her there’s plenty more t’come.” That’s what he’d say.
“An’ they get me here, Peter, ’tes the death claw for me. An’ ’tes my gunnysack, m’ bindle, they’re after Peter, my lady. Now if ye could ride a hoss, Peter, like the wind, and if yer Ladyship could run wi’ him, an’ get that Doctor man t’ bring the deputies an’ the sheriff, why, they could find all of K’zarr’s crew here, ready fer the plucking! But they’ll need a mort o’ Heroes an’ some weaponry, for they is killers all. I was the first mate, I was, d’ye see, K’zarr’s first mate, an’ I’m the on’y one what knows where his treasure is. He gave it t’me, K’zarr did, when he lay dying, out there where the purple nebulae lit the sky, where ancient suns go to die, that’s when K’zarr got his. The suns died and so did K’zarr. But not before he gave me the directions, so he did. An’ the scum wants them, they wants them bad. An’ it’s the death claw fer me, ’tes so.”
“What is this dea
th claw, Captain?” I asked.
“Ah, ’tes the summons, the last one a freebooter iver gets. But keep yer eyes open, Peter, my lady, an’ I’ll share it all wi’ ye both, in memory o’ the last noggin. ’Tes on’y fair. You helped me face down the horrors, Peter.”
He pronounced my name carefully, as he always did: Names are important to a kzin. But he was wandering, it was plain to see, and his voice trailed off and he lapsed back into sleep. When we heard him snoring, we tiptoed out.
“What was that about where the purple nebulae lit the sky and ancient suns go to die? It’s where K’zarr died, of course, but where is it?” Marthar was as inquisitive as any monkey. She wanted to know everything. I had heard that Alpha Centauri B’s lead Trojan position was a dust-collector, and in its neighborhood, space appeared purple. It was death for a ship to venture into it for any length of time without special shielding. Micro-meteorites got through the mass-detectors and eroded the hulls.
“I don’t know. Sounds like a black hole, don’t you reckon? And I also don’t know what the directions that K’zarr gave him are for. This treasure he mentioned. What is it?”
“I think we can guess it’s not milkweed and mushrooms, K’zarr’s old crew want to get their hands on it.”
“We can only hope he forgets he told us as much as he did, or we’ll both be for the death claw or whatever it is they do to you before they kill you,” I told her. I also thought that one thing about warfare had not changed through centuries and light-years: a real man still had a duty to protect the females. That thought gave me a sour little smile.
The next day the Captain got up painfully and, with much help from Marthar and me, he got downstairs. He lounged on the footch with his wtsai drawn and within easy reach, his other hand on the hilt of his cutlass. He got up only to help himself to rum, leaning against the walls as he did so, with a gray look about him. He ate nothing. Marthar and I had schoolwork to do, and did some of it in the room with the fire, after setting tables. Mother served behind the bar the few customers who came in. In the afternoon, the Captain looked a little better. I heard his crooning to himself in the patois, a strange song, quite different from anything else I had heard from him:
“There was a kzinrett in her kilt so green,
Upon a morning on the mountain,
Floating like the down o’ spring
O’er the scent o’ dawn,
O’er the scent o’ dawn,
Her fur was soft and fine
And her body so warm on mine
And I loved her well upon the mountain.”
It was something like that. It may not be a good translation. I suppose people tend to think of the kzin as just totally ferocious and can’t imagine them having a culture. But you can’t possibly maintain a star-spanning civilization on pure ferocity. Things are always more complicated than they seem at first sight.
I went outside into the chilly air. There was a kzin coming towards me, in a long black cloak. Kzin, except for ceremonies, seldom wore clothes like humans; they wore only webbing to hold pockets. They had plenty of fur. I had been surprised by the reference to a kilt in the song, although kzinretti wore them sometimes. But this was no kzinrett. The figure had no eyes and almost no nose. Where the eyes should have been, some horrible antennae quivered. Maybe they gave some sort of sight as well, but he looked like an insect, perhaps a cockroach from the Old Earth picture books. But a ’roach-two-and-a-half meters tall, maybe more, even with a stoop. The cloak had a cowl which hid much, but not the blank hairless face and the quivering antennae. It made me sick to look at him, but I couldn’t let him know how horrible I found him.
“Ah, I sense somebody. Can you tell me where I am, kind being?” The voice was reedy and didn’t fit the frame.
“This is the Lord Templemount Inn, sir,” I told him with a quaver in my voice. He moved with shocking speed and gripped me, his claws surrounding my upper arm.
“And a young voice, a kz’zeerkt. Mayhap a servant? A juvenile?”
“Please let me go, sir, you are hurting me.” I wished for Marthar, but she would be working through algebra problems. And perhaps it was unfair to wish this horror upon her. Mutilated as he was, to judge from the strength he had in him she’d have little more hope than I did.
“I shall release you when you have served your purpose, youngling. I want the captain. Skel, we called him. I know he is here. Take me to him, else lose your arm. For I could pinch it, like this, only clean through.” He squeezed my arm and drew blood.
“I shall take you to him, sir, if you will release me,” I told him.
“You will take me to him and then I will release you. For the young may be cunning, and a poor old blind Hero might be deceived. As happened once, long ago. But no more, youngling, never more. I found that one after a long hunt, and he goes more eyeless than I do. Now take me to Skel.”
I didn’t have a choice, so I guided him through the door, and he followed me in, still gripping my arm in his claws.
“Lead me straight up to him, and when I face him, call out Here’s a friend of yours, Skel, and then I shall know if you lie.” His voice was like a wind blowing from ice-capped mountains.
I led him into the room reluctantly. As I did, his robe came apart a little and showed me why he wore it. Underneath, his raw skin, like a plucked chicken, showed him hairless; his fur had nearly all fallen out, except for a few tufts, and his skin looked as though it had been burnt by flame or acid. It was horrible.
We walked slowly in front of the footch on which the Captain reclined, old and gray and unseeing. I spoke to him:
“Here is a f-friend of yours, Captain Skel,” I said. He looked up and gasped as he saw the blind kzin.
The antennae quivered and seemed to focus on the Captain.
The Captain looked at death’s door, but the rum had gone out of him.
“After so many years,” the arctic voice came from the cowl. “Now don’t trouble to move, Skel. I cannot see you, but I can tell any movement you make, be sure of it. Now boy, take his left hand and bring it to my right hand.”
Both the Captain and I obeyed like robots. This was no telepath, but I think he had a related power, of which I had heard vague rumors, of compelling thoughts and actions in others. Something was passed from the blind kzin’s hand into the Captain’s.
“There, ’tis done now,” the blind kzin said, and with that he released me and almost skipped in three quick steps to the door of the inn. He was out in an instant, and I saw him almost run up the hill, a strange insectoid scuttling. I noticed that, blind and noseless or not, he swerved to avoid obstacles.
I loosened my grip on the Captain’s left hand. He looked into his palm.
He drew in a breath. “Midnight!” he said almost with exultation. “We’ll do them yet, there is still time.” Then he stood up, staggered and seemed to turn to stone. For a moment he swayed, then his eyes closed and he fell forward in a crash upon the floor, like a dislodged statue more than a living being. I jumped to him and touched his stiff body, with the fleeting thought that, however much the children of the two species might play together in Thoma’stown now, to touch an adult male kzin without leave on occupied Wunderland would have been courting death for the human. But he was gone. There was no more life in him than in the statue he resembled.
Strange to say, I wept. Marthar comforted me and I hugged her. Why I cried, I do not know, for it could hardly be said that I cared for him. I had seen my father lie dead, he had been killed by lesslocks while out fishing, and his body had been bitten and disfigured until he had been hard to even recognize as human. At the time I had felt that I ought to have been more distressed than I was, but I was more angry than sad, angry at the waste, angry at the lesslocks. Well, we had seen almost the last of them now, there were few left in this part of the world. The men and kzin had gone out and hunted them down ruthlessly, the men on horses and the kzin either on foot or riding thoats, all accompanied by the sole aircar the town possessed
. The thoats, some strange name from history I do not understand, were huge herbivores about the size and shape of the extinct triceratops of Old Earth, and had been well on the way to extinction themselves until one of the kzin, inspired by seeing men ride horses, had tried riding one, guiding it by the huge horns. Now they were never eaten by the kzin, but bred for riding. I had wished to go with them, on horseback or running, but was accounted too young.
Now I had seen a kzin die, presumably from another stroke. We had no ability to revive him in Thoma’stown. Few people died these days, for modern medical techniques, lost during the Occupation, were being restored, and actually seeing a death was rare. I knew that even if we somehow got him to München and its hospital, central nervous tissue would by then have decayed beyond repair. I suppose I felt surprise, but also a sense of loss. He had certainly been large and imposing in life, even in his weakened state. In a funny way, I would miss him.
“Foolish Peter,” Marthar whispered to me with a comforting purr. “He was a bad, evil creature, and the world is better without him.”
I had wanted to look at the death claw, but Marthar stopped me. “I think it may have killed him, Peter. And whatever toxins are on it may still have the power to kill you too. And I feel nothing for losing him, but if I lost you I should be very sad.”
I snuggled into the warmth of her fur. “You’d miss me, would you?” I asked.
“Ooh, yes. Really badly. For several weeks I expect. I would regret your dying. But those who caused it would regret it more.” She bit me lightly on the neck. She thought me foolish and sentimental, and perhaps I was. My hand gripped the golden tetrahedron in my pocket. It was all I had left to remember the old pirate by.
CHAPTER FOUR
Marthar and I went to find my mother. I felt a little guilty that I had not told her all I knew before this, but confiding in her would have put more responsibility on her shoulders than I cared to see. I could say anything to Marthar, who was my confidante on everything, large or small, but Mother was, for me, too old, and had been sorely hurt by my father’s death those two years before.