by Larry Niven
“Gosh, that sounds just the thing!” I said enthusiastically to Marthar. “We were worried about making sense of those bars, now it sounds as though we can bypass the snake things.”
“’Tes so, young monk—…master, indeed, ’tes so. And be sure that poor Bengar will show ye both exactly how ’tes done. Safe will ye both be with me, so long as ye treats me right, which I’ve no doubt ye will. I can tell ye that there is such matter there will be very excitin’ for the scientists and the engineers, though ’twas no use to poor Bengar, who knows nothing o’ such matters. Being but a poor lad from the country when I was took by the press gangs of K’zarr, may he live wi’ the mist demons in hell, and havin’ no education to speak of. But K’zarr knew nothin’ of it, d’ye see? Oh, given time, I daresay he’d have found the true treasure, but it took me a year or so, and I was lucky to find the right tower.”
This sounded pretty good, if we could trust Bengar. I had no idea whether we could or not, but no doubt Marthar could think of some way of keeping control of him. We kept walking in silence for another hour, broken only by the panting of Bengar. He must have used up his implanted oxygen a long time ago, and was struggling to find enough in the local atmosphere.
We could see the spire of the Andersons’ lander, and almost broke into a run. Then a kzin stepped out from behind a bush and halted us with a gesture.
“My lady, go no further,” he said with some formality to Marthar. “Wait while I get Ursula. The renegades have taken the lander. We can’t get in, and they seem to be unable to take off. It’s a stalemate.” He looked thoughtfully at Bengar for a moment. Then he stalked off, and a moment later Ursula bustled into view. “Marthar, Peter, thank God you’re safe! Terrible things have happened.” Ursula hugged me and beamed at Marthar. She gave Bengar a bewildered look.
“What happened?” I asked.
“There were some mutineers on board the lander, taking orders from Silver. They pulled back inside and sealed the doors. The last one in shouted something at us, something to the effect that they were going to join Silver at the tower. We ran for it so as not to get scorched by the rockets when they lifted, but they never did. They never came out, either. We tried to raise them by phone, to ask what was going on, but they cut the phones. Now nobody knows what is going on.”
“How many of them went back inside?” Marthar wanted to know.
“Seven. That left three loyal kzin and Sam and me.”
“Hmmm. Now who stopped them taking off, and how?” Marthar asked herself. Then she brightened. “It must have been Sire and S’maak-Captain. They must have managed something with even the corpse of Valiant. Now we have to get in touch with them.”
That was the moment when we heard a humming sound, and the third lander came into view. For an awful moment I thought it was Silver’s lander, but the colors were different. The Andersons’ was green, Silver’s was red, and the one coming down close to the green one was a beautiful silvery blue. My spirits soared. Soon we would be back on the Valiant and we could take Bengar and get Valiant back into life again, or at least give it a jolly good shot.
It didn’t work out like that.
PART FOUR
A DEFENSIVE POSITION
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The lander settled on its four spindly legs and the hatch opened, and Orion-Riit stood at the top of the steps within minutes of the flames closing down.
“Daddy!” Martha shrieked and ran towards him. He looked astonished to see her running across the field, but he went down quickly to hold her as she threw herself at him. Where he had stood, S’maak-Captain took up nearly as much space, and behind him, the Judge and the Doctor looked out more cautiously.
“What happened?” Orion demanded. His daughter explained it all at speed, the mutineers held the other two landers, and the loyal crew were there in the clearing, coming in despite the possibility that the mutineers were armed and would shoot them down. It was true that there were no known weapons on the lander, but it certainly didn’t seem safe to assume they hadn’t brought some with them.
S’maak-Captain looked up at the other lander with some satisfaction, I thought. “Get everyone aboard! We must get back to the Valiant before Silver and his cutthroats arrive,” he ordered. “We saw them heading this way as we came into last descent. I want us away, and we have only minutes!”
I was calling out to Ursula and Sam to come quickly. Not knowing who was in the lander until they saw S’maak, and not having the best reflexes, it took them an agonizingly long time to explain.
“Sam is some miles off, he went to spy out the land,” Ursula explained, worried. “And the other two of the loyal kzin went off in the opposite direction for the same purpose. There’s only me and Rarrgh here.”
“Damn,” muttered the Judge. “Nothing goes according to plan. We hoped to come on down, pick up the good guys and leave the bad guys to stew. Now it turns out that the bad guys are much easier to pick up.”
“And here they come, I think,” Orion said drily. The hatch of the green lander was opening and one of the mutineers peered out. S’maak-Captain shot him with a needler. He yelled and the hatch door slammed shut behind him.
“Phone your mate and the other one, and tell them to rendezvous with us, say ten miles away, north of here. We can lure Silver away in the opposite direction, then double back and pick them up,” Orion ordered.
“But the phones stopped working. Oh, I suppose now you’re here they’ll work again, right?” Ursula was rattled.
“Get in the lander first!” S’maak-Captain ordered.
Flustered, Ursula, followed by the loyal kzin, moved towards the lander. I started off to go with them, as did the other humans.
“Too late for that, me little friends,” said Silver, coming out from some bushes. He pointed a gun at S’maak-Captain. Not a needler—a blaster. S’maak dived and rolled and shot at him with his needler, but Silver roared and fired. The needler must have hit the weapon, for it flamed out, a brilliant white fire that missed S’maak but hit one of the legs of the blue lander. The spindly thing evaporated, the lander tilted and then very slowly fell over, its gyros whirring futilely. We all looked at it in horror as it canted, seemed to settle then came down like a great tree. The sound of fracturing metal and plastic seemed to go on for ever. Silver disappeared. S’maak-Captain leapt up after him, but stopped to pick up the blaster where Silver had dropped it. Then he threw it away contemptuously.
The lander lay on its side, the door gaping open and half off.
“Inside. It will still give us some protection!” S’maak bellowed. We all sprang for it. Getting in was only a bit awkward. Although the door was sideways, the kzin had to twist to get in. The inner door was open, so the air inside was still that of the treasure planet. We got inside just before the rest of the pirates turned up. All the rooms were sideways too, so it felt very strange as if we were standing on the walls. We couldn’t close the door, but we could try to block the entrance and hold it by firepower. S’maak wasn’t the only one with a needler. And if they blasted us, well, at least the hull would hold off the ravening fury of the blaster bolt for a while.
There were eight of us, looking at each other. Bengar had vanished as soon as Silver had appeared. Outside, there were nine of Silver’s men, standing there with no sign of Silver himself, and another seven in the green lander. And no way of escape for any of us. Nothing we had would get the blue lander back into the air, let alone into space.
S’maak ordered one of the crew to look to see if we had any communications capacity, then went to guard the door. The rest of us looked at each other.
“I suppose this gives us time to catch up,” Marthar remarked philosophically. “We seem to be stalemated. I always hate that.”
Orion looked at her fondly. “You begin. Tell us what happened after you silly kits eloped.”
Marthar told the whole story, and how we’d caught Bengar, and what he had told us about the treasure, then finishing up with us
seeing the blue lander come down. I added what I might, including the story of the murder of the faithful crewman.
“What was his name?” he asked me.
“I think he had no official Name, sir, but he was called T’orr.”
Orion-Riit made a strange, clearly ceremonial, gesture. “He will not be forgotten,” he said.
“The rest you know because you were here,” Marthar finished. “Bengar seems to have vanished. Now it’s your turn. And why didn’t you restore Valiant? No, tell us everything in order.”
So Orion settled down to tell what had happened in the Valiant, and here is the tale.
The four of them, S’maak, Orion, the Judge and the Doctor were in the eating area, sitting around a table. S’maak had the closed look of someone who was communing with the ship and studying readouts in his head.
Orion asked Valiant, “Where are the kits?”
“Inside the first lander,” Valiant answered.
“Dear God, not with Silver?” the Doctor exclaimed.
“No, in the lander commanded by Samuel Anderson,” Valiant told them.
“Well, that’s something to be grateful about, I suppose,” the Doctor said. “Why the devil did they have to do it?”
“High spirits,” Orion answered comfortably. He seemed more pleased with their enterprise than annoyed.
“Valiant, Silver’s lander has just left. I want you to ensure that neither lander can lift again without a direct order from me. Can you do that?”
“Certainly, S’maak-Captain,” Valiant replied.
“Now I want you to destroy Silver’s lander while not damaging the Andersons’. Can you do that? I would prefer it to happen on planetfall and to look like an accident.”
There was no answer.
“Valiant, that was an order.” S’maak-Captain said with a trace of anger.
There was no response.
“Why is Valiant not acknowledging your order?” the Doctor wondered.
“Uh-oh,” the Judge said thoughtfully. “I rather think that Silver has anticipated that.”
“Valiant, acknowledge,” S’maak-Captain said coldly. There was no response.
“I think we had best get to the control room,” Orion suggested. “We may have to put into action the emergency measures.”
They all went up in the lift, looking at each other. When they got to the control room, the door was closed; this was normal, but when S’maak ordered it to open it did nothing.
“There is a subsidiary intelligence node called Vorchar which is supposed to respond in an emergency,” S’maak said. “Vorchar, acknowledge.”
Nothing happened.
“Mine was called Vi’irth,” Orion told them. “Vi’irth, please reply.” Nothing happened.
“Mine was called Victor. Victor, please acknowledge,” said the Judge. There was only the hum of the engines and the faint hiss of atmosphere controls. They turned to the Doctor.
“Mine was called Victor too. I guess we shared one,” the doctor admitted.
“I should say that Silver anticipated this too,” the Judge sighed. “Anybody else got any bright ideas?”
The elevator sighed and went down.
“The armaments. Quickly, one deck down, before the crew get to them!” S’maak called over his shoulder as he moved to the stairs, Orion after him instantly. The humans rattled after the two kzin, making a deal more noise as they clattered down. One deck down and the small room where the hand weapons were stored was close. S’maak-Captain wrenched it open and took out some human needlers, which he gave to the men. He also took some kzin-sized needlers, sticking three in his belt and giving three more to Orion. There was a blaster, which he also stuck in a belt, and some rifles, which he looked at for a moment. He gave three to each of the humans and broke the others like dry sticks. The ammunition boxes for the rifles he handed out to the Doctor and the Judge, and spare magazines for the kzin needlers went into his pouch and Orion’s. They heard the lift coming back. There were many weapons left, including some huge kzin cutlasses, which he ignored, but Orion took one.
The lift opened on three kzin who saw them and in the same moment screamed and charged, wtsais drawn instantly. S’maak-Captain shot them with a needler. Their bodies came apart under the hail, but the corpses wouldn’t admit they were dead until Orion sliced their heads off with the cutlass. He swung the great blade casually as though it weighed nothing, and the Doctor winced as it went through tissue, bone and cartilage like butter.
“Your ears, I think, Lord,” S’maak-Captain said politely.
“Not my custom,” Orion said, equally politely.
“There are more where they came from,” the Judge warned. “By my count there were thirteen kzin still on board when the landers left. That leaves ten of them.”
“Leave the lift, with those bodies there so the door won’t close, which cuts off access to the mutinous scum. We take the stairs down. You humans, stay behind us. And keep those needlers on safety. I don’t want to be shot in the back.”
The two kzin prowled down the stairs like ghosts in a hurry, the two humans following them with less speed but more noise.
“Do you think we can take out ten kzin?” the Doctor whispered.
“You and I can’t, not even with a blaster apiece. They move too damned fast,” the Judge answered with an air of regret. “But S’maak doesn’t seem to have any problem with needling them. Orion would probably want to do it the old-fashioned way in single combat. But I’d back him to win that too. S’maak would think it a waste of time. He’s a realist. Like young Marthar. If she were here, those mutinous scum would already be dead I suspect, probably vaporized. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
There were seven kzin in the eating area, looking around aimlessly. S’maak-Captain got two before the others worked out what was happening, then they all drew wtsais and attacked. S’maak-Captain took down another one, and Orion took down another three with his cutlass. The Judge and the Doctor killed one between them, though S’maak-Captain had to finish him with a wtsai.
“Not our custom either,” the Judge thanked him. “Help yourself if you collect ears, though; you did a good job of finishing this one off.”
“I already have plenty of ears, ears of genuine warriors, not scum like these,” S’maak said briskly, cleaning his wtsai fastidiously on the mutineers’ fur.
“Waiters, can you clean up the mess, please?” the Doctor asked the mechanical trolleys with arms which brought the food. The trolleys had a little trouble, but they started cleaning up the corpses between them. Somehow the machines managed to give the impression they both enjoyed cleaning and disapproved of the mess. What happened to the meat after that was something the Valiant party never found out.
“How do we find the others?” Orion asked.
“We try crew territory. I rather think the Spy-Glass Inn has been reopened for business,” S’maak-Captain answered. He was right. They found the remaining three kzin largely drunk, but still capable of putting up a fight, though not very effectively. S’maak-Captain shot them before they could get their coordination back. It was rather noisy for the human beings, with the screams of outraged tigers and the hiss of the needlers in counterpoint. Orion and S’maak hefted the corpses to an airlock and spaced them. Both kzin treated it as a day’s work. The Doctor was almost in shock by the time it was over. He’d seen plenty of death before, but retail rather than wholesale. And usually with a lot less blood.
The kzin had cleaned themselves before they all met again in the eating area, which was now clear of bodies and indeed any sign that there had ever been any. The kzin drank a warm broth, while the Doctor looked on in fascination.
“You think it might contain bits of mutineer, Doctor?” Orion asked with a flick of his ears. “Very likely some will at some point. Were Valiant still operating, she would disapprove of our spacing the last three. A waste of good organics.”
“I think I’ll have a whisky and soda, wait
er,” the Judge announced as he lit a cigar.
“And I think a medicinal brandy for me,” the Doctor added. This was a very unusual request for the Doctor, who would seldom drink, even wine and never spirits. He took the glass, sniffed at it, sipped it, made a face and started to fill his pipe.
“Speaking of the Valiant, what do we do now?” the Judge asked. “We’ve no control over anything more central than the waiters and lifts. I suppose that Silver controls everything else, unless Valiant managed to get him before he got her.”
“I hardly think he had time to install his substitute for Valiant. It is possible, the swab is clever. But my guess is that he has fallen back onto direct command from the console. And he can’t get to it, he’s grounded. And his men can’t get to it, for they are dead.”
“And we can’t get to it, because the residual control won’t let us in,” Orion pointed out. “We’re here for a long time by the look of things.”
There was a long, gloomy silence.
“There is one faint possibility,” Orion growled thoughtfully. “It depends on Silver having made a slight miscalculation, and whether we can get down on planet and back.”
“What is your idea, Dominant One?” asked S’maak-Captain. Now they’d got over the excitement and the killing, S’maak was back on formal terms.
“The kits. Valiant gave them access to some portion of her. They might not have been stopped, Silver may not have thought Valiant could do such a thing. But she did, or at least I hope so. I’m sure my daughter would have checked and complained vociferously had she not been given access. So there’s a good chance Marthar or Peter could get us into the command center, but we would need to be able to get down there, find them, pick them up and bring them back. Is that possible, S’maak-Captain?”
S’maak considered. “We can get down, and maybe we can get back. There is one lander left, and it can be controlled manually in an emergency. I can fly it by claw. It’s hardly a difficult orbit to compute since we are in Lagrange One, as you humans call it, directly between the planet and the sun. Getting down requires little power and no great skill. Getting back is harder, requiring a careful rendezvous with the Valiant, but I could do it. Finding the kits might be more of a problem. We don’t know what has happened down there. Silver may have got them and killed them.”