by Larry Niven
I did. It wasn’t difficult.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We were curving in towards the tower now. It must have been enormous when it was complete, it still dominated the landscape. It loomed against the sky, the broken spikes of different heights at the top showing black against the faintly pink skyline. I suppose we had been walking for two or three hours; I could have checked with my phone, which was still on ship-time, local time not passing very fast. There were still enough shrubs and bushes to shelter us from Silver’s lander, although we could see the red spire of the nose sticking up.
“Where are we going?” I asked Marthar in what was almost a whisper. Somehow, the knowledge that Silver was in the vicinity made me uneasy and disposed to hide.
“I want to get in the tower. And to size up the situation with the pirates. If we can disable their lander that would give us an edge; difficult, but not out of the question. Even better if we could steal it.”
I shrugged. I was more inclined to stay as far away from the pirates as possible, and little inclined to explore until we had worked out what to do about them. My heart was in my boots when I thought of the ominous silence from Valiant. We both knew in principle how to restore her from her corrupted form, but that required us to be on the ship. Maybe we shouldn’t have run from the first lander. If we went back, maybe we could persuade Sam and Ursula to take us back to the Valiant. And stealing the pirate lander looked a crazy idea. Anything that got us closer to Silver seemed like a crazy idea to me.
“Alright, stay here and wait for me,” Marthar said. “I’ll make much less noise than you. The whole animal population of the planet could hear you coming a mile off.”
“What if you get caught? What will I do on my own?”
“I won’t get caught. And if I do, find your way back to the Andersons and try to get them to take you back to the Valiant and get Valiant back online. But beware of saying that you know how to do it in front of any possible pirates. They’d kill you instantly.”
She disappeared with a casual wave of her left paw. The other held the needler. I watched her go and my heart sank even lower.
I waited in a little glade that was carpeted by something like grass, but also like moss, because the leaves were very tiny and tight together. The glade was about twenty paces long and seven or eight wide, and I sat down on a small boulder near one end of it. I had absolutely no idea how long Marthar would be, I couldn’t phone her and ask her because she might be hiding from danger and wouldn’t be pleased if anyone heard her alarm ringing. More likely, she’d thought of that and switched it off anyway. Of course, we didn’t even know if we could phone each other; we hadn’t tried, which was thoughtless of us. Maybe we couldn’t even get through to the lander.
Altogether it wasn’t a very pleasant wait. I tried to make up my mind when to go back to the lander and the Andersons, and checked the time on my phone rather a lot. About an hour had passed since Marthar had disappeared when I heard voices. I jumped up, looking forward to company, then thought again and scurried to hide. Fortunately, the vegetation was thick enough to hide me. I lay prone and waited to see who it was.
I heard Silver’s voice. They came into view, Silver and a kzin, and I froze.
“Mate, it’s because I thinks gold dust of you—gold dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn’t took to you like pitch, do you think I’d ha’ been here a-warning of yer? All’s up, yer can’t make nor mend, it’s to save yer neck that I’m a-speaking, and if one o’ the wild ones knew it, where’d I be, T’orr—now, tell me, where’d I be?”
“Silver,” said the other Kzin, and his voice was hoarse, and quavered like a taut rope. “Silver,” he said, “you’re old and you’re honest or has the name for it; and you’ve money too, which lots of poor spacers hasn’t; and you’re brave or I’m mistook. And will you tell me you’ll let yourself be led away wi’ that kind o’ mess of sthondat droppings? Not you! And as sure as the Fanged God sees me, I’d sooner lose my ears. If I turn against my dooty—”
And then he was interrupted by a noise. Here was one of the honest kzin, and at that moment came the sound of another. Far away, out near the lander, came a shout of anger, then another on the back of it, and then a horrible, long, drawn-out scream. The rocks re-echoed it a score of times, and the lizard-birds rose into the sky, darkening the heavens with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had reestablished its empire and only the rustle of the redescending flying things disturbed the languor of the permanent afternoon.
T’orr had leapt at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was, leaning on the seven-foot-long cutlass he had taken from his back, watching his companion like a snake.
“Silver!” said the spacer, stretching out his arm.
T’orr’s voice was shaking, for this was surely the first and only time in his humble life he had spoken out in the Ultimate Imperative tense, which a kzin not of royal blood may use only when the honor of the kzin species is at stake. “Silver!” he cried. “In the Name of the Patriarch and by the honor of the Heroes’ Race, I command you to return to your dooty!”
“Away!” Silver exclaimed, springing back two yards with the speed and assurance of a gymnast.
“Away if you like, Silver,” said the other kzin. “It’s a black conscience that can make you feared o’ me. But in the Name of the God, what was that?”
“That?” returned Silver, his head on one side, his eyes black and gleaming. “That? Oh, I reckon that’ll be Araarr.”
“Araarr! Then may he go to the Fanged God’s home for a true Hero! And as for you, Silver, you’re a companion of mine no more, must I die like a Dog. You’ve killed Araarr, have ye? Then kill me too if ye can, but I defies you!” And with that, the kzin turned his back directly on Silver and set off walking away from him, towards the first lander. But he was not to get far. With a cry, Silver lifted the huge cutlass and sent it hurtling through the air. It struck T’orr point foremost and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back. It takes a lot to knock a kzin down—no human could do it—but that blow must have broken T’orr’s spine. His arms flew up; he gave a muffled cry and fell.
He was not dead. I heard him gasping and trying to cry out—a dreadful, pitiful sound from that great bulky creature. But his limbs were not moving. Even if he were not paralyzed, Silver gave him no time to recover. Silver was as agile as a monkey, and was on him and had twice buried his wtsai up to the hilt in that defenseless body. I could hear him grunt aloud as he struck the blows. He was snarling like…well, like a kzin.
For a time the world swam in front of my eyes and the sound of chanting crowds and bells rang in my ears. When my head cleared, Silver was still there, minding the corpse not a whit, but cleaning his wtsai on the other’s fur, then licking the last of the blood from the blade. I could even hear him purring. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shone down and the bushes glistened dark green, and I could scarcely persuade myself that I had seen murder done.
Silver sprayed a little urine over the corpse and cut off its ears. Then he reached into a pouch and pulled out a phone and clawed a digit into it, held it up to his face and spoke a word. Then he put it away and waited. When he turned away from me, I very slowly backed up and then turned and crawled. The other pirates would be coming this way soon, and what chance would I have if I were found? When I was far enough away from Silver, I stood and ran away. I didn’t stop to think where I was going so long as I was as far from the horror of that scene as I could get. I ran and I ran, over small hills and through valleys with bushes that were almost trees, and when I came to something like a dried river bed, I went down the bank, tripped, stumbled, fell and hit my head hard enough to send me out like a light.
I awoke to feel myself lifted up and was taken by panic until I recognized the soft fur and smell of Marthar. She raised me to a sitting position, and I opened my eyes
to look into those big green and yellow eyes of my friend.
“You banged your head, little Peter,” she crooned at me. “I don’t suppose it did much damage, it isn’t as if there’s much inside it. But it’s good to see you alive again.”
“Marthar, I saw the most dreadful thing,” I told her. “Silver killed one of the crew. I just ran. It was horrible.” I shuddered. She hugged me.
“Not the first creature he’s killed, nor the last. Silver is quite the most lethal Kzin around.” She sounded as if she rather admired him for it.
“How did you find me?”
“You leave the sort of trail a Gagrumpher or a male sthondat would make when mad and in a hurry. It wasn’t hard, I just had to cast around a bit. Not many of the native species would leave a Gram and Henry shoe print in your size. We’ll have to get you some sensible foot coverings that don’t leave big fat tracks everywhere you go. Being with you is going to be too dangerous if you stomp around like that.”
“Do our phones work here?” I asked her.
“Yes, but I switched mine off in case you were silly enough to call me when I was concentrating on other things. Such as not getting seen. We can switch them on, but make sure it does a vibrate only with no tone, or one of us will call the other and tell everyone for quarter of a mile around. Here, let me fix yours.” She took my phone and set it so it would be silent, then did the same with hers. “And don’t call unless you have something important to say. We aren’t going to be in the social chat business for a long time, I can tell you.”
“What happened? Did you get to the tower?”
“Yes, but there was nothing new inside. Silver hasn’t been there yet, well, he hadn’t as of a few hours ago. Maybe he’s started collecting the books by now. Although I suspect he’s going to be doing some experiments to work out which are likely to be valuable, and how to handle them safely—he’ll use others for that. Now he’s killed Valiant, he has lots of time, I guess. Though eventually he’ll have to repair her if he’s going to get home. He’s going to be picking off the Andersons and any residual loyal crew, like the one you saw him kill. But he’ll have trouble keeping enough to crew the Valiant back if he’s is too murderous. It’s his main problem. There is another thing, too. You heard him swear to kill my Sire”—there was a ring in her voice when she said that, something I had never heard before, and for a moment I felt more terrified of her than of Silver—“He can’t do that or even attempt it from the ground.”
“What about the lander? Did you get near it?”
“Enough to see it was guarded rather closely. Claws was there. Silver thinks he is particularly loyal to him. So because the lander is his link with the Valiant and he must have it, he covers it carefully. Very sensible of him. And why we win hands down if we can steal it. Though it may be damaged—there were signs of it. Maybe it could be fixed. You heard him say in the meat-locker that Great-Grandsire Chuut-Riit had sworn vengeance to the death and the generations.”
“Yes.”
“That means that if Silver is alive after this coup, he had better start running. Either his kits, if he has any, may survive, or some members of the Riit Clan, but not both. He will be pursued. And Grand-Sire Vaemar has a hyperdrive ship. Not to mention that the Patriarch now has some also.”
“That makes me feel better,” I said, thinking of the murder of the honest kzin in the glade. I had grown up with kzin like that…
“We’ll make a Hero of you yet! But it will be difficult.”
Difficult! I thought she was drunk with enthusiasm and the prospect of revenge, hunting and killing to even contemplate the idea. But being with Marthar was intoxicating; she radiated competence and confidence. She would have made an excellent leader in almost any military role. One just soaked up her own boundless zest and certainty.
“You know, I’m starting to get hungry,” I told her.
“That’s because I turned down your glucose drip a bit. It had increased itself when you were unconscious, and if it had stayed at that level you’d have gone into shock when it was all used up. So we have to hunt. And I’m not going to light a fire, so you’ll eat it raw. Just as well you tried it back home, so you should be able to handle it.”
“Why no fire?” I protested. I had eaten raw kill, but I can’t say I liked it much.
“You want to make finding us so easy we might just as well go and hand ourselves in to Silver so as to save him the trouble? Fire gives off smoke and heat, both of which can be seen. We must assume that the now-corrupted Valiant can see us and is going to tell Silver where we are. I suspect he already knows, I would guess he could smell you watching him. And he could follow your trail as well as I could. I think he’s saving you.”
“Saving me? What for?”
Marthar looked at me. I couldn’t read her gaze at all. “If I were him, I’d be thinking of getting someone to read some of those books for me. Telling me which ones had details of the transfer discs and how they worked and which ones were just knitting patterns.”
The recollection of the burnt thing being blinded by those groping snakes hit me, and the prospect of having them thrust into my eyes in order to read the mysterious metal bars gave me the cold horrors. I would sooner be dead. I asked Marthar to kill me before that happened and she agreed in a disturbingly matter-of-fact way. Plainly she has considered no other possible courses of action available, she simply said that it was a pity I had no kits to carry on my line. I keep forgetting that despite human speech, a kzin is still a kzin.
Marthar had no difficulty locating prey. She twitched her ears, then lunged into a bush, snarling with the pleasure of it, and dragged out a thing about as big as a turkey that looked a little like a kangaroo but had a beak. It tried to peck Marthar, who screwed its neck in one movement. She hadn’t needed to use the needler or to make a bow and arrows. She just ripped it apart, drank some of its blood and handed me one of its legs. I ate it gloomily. At least it didn’t poison me. No worse than steak tartare, I suppose. Marthar ate with pleasure, licking her lips and getting through the rest of the carcases. She was bigger than me and had a faster metabolism, so I guess she needed it. Anyway, kzin always eat raw meat. Cooked food actually makes them sick. Then she told me to wait for her and went out to do some more hunting; she was still really hungry. I found out later that she had turned her glucose drip off altogether, partly to save it for emergencies, partly because she was happier doing things ‘naturally,’ which meant killing her own food. I suppose eating steak tartare after someone else has killed the cow and yet another person has minced the meat is rather good at hiding the reality from us. We kill for our food too, we just like to pretend otherwise. We may be fooling ourselves, but I prefer to do my hunter-gathering at the markets.
I looked around. There were something very like small green oranges on some of the bushes. I pulled one off and tried eating it. It was possible, for me at least; I knew Marthar would eat such things only when faced with starvation. I chewed thoughtfully. I guess getting used to this was a good idea. All the same, it didn’t taste good. It didn’t taste much of anything, just sort of faintly squishy.
By the time Marthar got back, I had eaten three of them. Some things are acquired tastes, and a taste for these things most definitely took a lot of acquiring. I had heard that there were plants on kzin that, if you tried to eat them, ate you right back, but these did not seem to be related to them.
“What do we do now?” I asked her. “Do you think it’s time to sleep yet? It won’t be easy in a place where it’s going to be mid-afternoon for another couple of months.”
“Sleep? Not for another four or five hours. I think we should try to raise the Andersons. If we can’t steal Silver’s lander, we shall just have to steal theirs, or at least borrow it. I figure getting Valiant back up is our top priority, and next is staying away from Silver. And finding out what has happened to Sire and the others.”
“Sire,” not “Daddy” now. Not the kzin battle-tongue yet, but moving th
at way.
I shivered. Staying away from Silver was my first priority. It was also my second, third and fourth.
Marthar had no luck with trying to raise the Andersons by phone. “I’m sure it’s the right number. Almost sure. I saw a list of people’s numbers, early on the voyage. But I might have transposed a few digits. I suppose we’d better walk back there.”
I pulled out my phone and checked the tracker. “Okay. The phone says it’s that way.”
“Of course, it is,” Marthar was exasperated. “Don’t you have any idea where you are? It’s not as if the sun moves much in the sky, you just use it to orient.”
“When I ran away from Silver, I didn’t bother to check which way I was going,” I confessed. “I just ran. As fast as I could, and I only had eyes for any sort of path through the bushes.”
“You should have at least noticed which way the shadows fell,” she scolded me. “What a poor sad, terrified little monkey you are sometimes. You’re lucky you’ve got me.”
“I know,” I told her. She was a bit taken aback. I think she cared for me, even if I was mostly a pet monkey, but she was surprised when I cared for her.
We set off, well away from the direct line indicated by my phone, in a direction we’d never been before. I pointed this out and she looked at me.
“I want to give Silver’s lander as big a miss as possible. Horizons are a long way off on this world, even with the hills in the way. And I want to make sure they can’t see us. I said that if they want us they will be able to get the Valiant to see us easily enough, or maybe they don’t have much control of whatever they have left of Valiant’s capabilities. Not the sort of thing you’d take a gamble on in my book. So we’ll go by the scenic route.”