by Larry Niven
A faint slitting of the smaller kzin’s eyes might have meant determination, a grasping for patience, or—if Locklear recalled the texts, and if they were right, a small “if” followed by a very large one—a pause for relatively cold calculation. The smaller kzin said, in his own tongue, “If the monkey speaks the Hero’s tongue, it is probably as a spy.”
“My presence here was not my idea,” Locklear pointed out, surprised to find his memory of the language returning so quickly. “I boarded the Weasel on command to leave a dangerous region, not to enter one. Ask the ship’s quartermaster, or check her records.”
The commander spat and sizzled again: “The crew are all carrion. As you will soon be, unless you tell us why, of all the monkeys on that ship, you were the only one so specially protected.”
Locklear moaned. This huge kzin’s partial name and his scars implied the kind of warrior whose valor and honor forbade lies to a captive. All dead but himself? Locklear shrugged before he thought, and the shrug sent a stab of agony across his upper chest. “Sonofabitch,” he gasped in agony. The navigator kzin translated. The larger one grinned, the kind of grin that might fasten on his throat.
Locklear said in kzin, very fast, “Not you! I was cursing the pain.”
“A telepath could verify your meanings very quickly,” said the smaller kzin.
“An excellent idea,” said Locklear. “He will verify that I am no spy, and not a combatant, but only an ethologist from Earth. A kzin acquaintance once told me it was important to know your forms of address. I do not wish to give offense.”
“Call me Tzak-Navigator,” said the smaller kzin abruptly, and grasped Locklear by the shoulder, talons sinking into the human flesh. Locklear moaned again, gritting his teeth. “You would attack? Good,” the navigator went on, mistaking the grimace, maintaining his grip, the formidable kzin body trembling with intent.
“I cannot speak well with such pain,” Locklear managed to grunt. “Not as well protected as you think.”
“We found you well-protected and sealed alone in that ship,” said the commander, motioning for the navigator to slacken his hold. “I warn you, we must rendezvous the Raptor with another Ripping-Fang class cruiser to pick up a full crew before we hit the Eridani worlds. I have no time to waste on such a scrawny monkey as you, which we have caught nearer our home worlds than to your own.”
Locklear grasped his right elbow as support for that aching collarbone. “I was surveying life-forms on purely academic study—in peacetime, so far as I knew,” he said. “The old patrol craft I leased didn’t have a weapon on it.”
“You lie,” the navigator hissed. “We saw them.”
“The Weasel was not my ship, Tzak-Navigator. Its commander brought me back under protest; said the Interworld Commission wanted noncombatants out of harm’s way—and here I am in its cloaca.”
“Then it was already well-known on that ship that we are at war. I feel better about killing it,” said the commander. “Now, as to the ludicrous cargo it was carrying: what is your title and importance?”
“I am scholar Carroll Locklear. I was probably the least important man on the Weasel—except to myself. Since I have nothing to hide, bring a telepath.”
“Now it gives orders,” snarled the navigator.
“Please,” Locklear said quickly.
“Better,” the commander said.
“It knows,” the navigator muttered. “That is why it issues such a challenge.”
“Perhaps,” the commander rumbled. To Locklear he said, “A skeleton crew of four rarely includes a telepath. That statement will either satisfy your challenge, or I can satisfy it in more—conventional ways.” That grin again, feral, willing.
“I meant no challenge, Grraf-Commander. I only want to satisfy you of who I am, and who I’m not.”
“We know what you are,” said the navigator. “You are our prisoner, an important one, fleeing the Patriarchy rim in hopes that the monkeyship could get you to safety.” He reached again for Locklear’s shoulder.
“That is pure torture,” Locklear said, wincing, and saw the navigator stiffen as the furry orange arm dropped. If only he had recalled the kzinti disdain for torture earlier! “I am told you are an honorable race. May I be treated properly as a captive?”
“By all means,” the commander said, almost in a purr. “We eat captives.”
Locklear, slyly: “Even important ones?”
“If it pleases me,” the commander replied. “More likely you could turn your coat in the service of the Patriarchy. I say you could; I would not suggest such an obscenity. But that is probably the one chance your sort has for personal survival.”
“My sort?”
The commander looked Locklear up and down, at the slender body, lightly muscled with only the deep chest to suggest stamina. “One of the most vulnerable specimens of monkeydom I have ever seen,” he said.
That was the moment when Locklear decided he was at war. “Vulnerable, and important, and captive. Eat me,” he said, wondering if that final phrase was as insulting in kzin as it was in Interworld. Evidently not . . .
“Gunner! Apprentice Engineer,” the commander called suddenly, and Locklear heard two responses through the ship’s intercom. “Lock this monkey in a wiper’s quarters.” He turned to his navigator. “Perhaps Fleet Commander Skrull-Rrit will want this one alive. We shall know in an eight-squared of duty watches.” With that, the huge kzin commander strode out.
After his second sleep, Locklear found himself roughly hustled forward in the low-polarity ship’s gravity of the Raptor by the nameless Apprentice Engineer. This smallest of the crew had been a kitten not long before and, at two-meter height, was still filling out. The transverse mustard-tinted band across his abdominal fur identified Apprentice Engineer down the full length of the hull passageway.
Locklear, his right arm in a sling of bandages, tried to remember all the mental notes he had made since being tossed into that cell. He kept his eyes downcast to avoid a challenging look—and because he did not want his cold fury to show. These orange-furred monstrosities had killed a ship and crew with every semblance of pride in the act. They treated a civilian captive at best like playground bullies treat an urchin, and at worst like food. It was all very well to study animal behavior as a detached ethologist. It was something else when the toughest warriors in the galaxy attached you to their food chain.
He slouched because that was as far from a military posture as a man could get—and Locklear’s personal war could hardly be declared if he valued his own pelt. He would try to learn where hand weapons were kept, but would try to seem stupid. He would . . . he found the last vow impossible to keep with the Grraf-Commanders first question.
Wheeling in his command chair on the Raptor’s bridge, the commander faced the captive. “If you piloted your own monkeyship, then you have some menial skills.” It was not a question; more like an accusation. “Can you learn to read meters if it will lengthen your pathetic life?”
Ah, there was a question! Locklear was on the point of lying, but it took a worried kzin to sing a worried song. If they needed him to read meters, he might learn much in a short time. Besides, they’d know bloody well if he lied on this matter. “I can try,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“Tell him,” spat Grraf-Commander, spinning about again to the holo screen.
Tzak-Navigator made a gesture of agreement, standing beside Locklear and gazing toward the vast humped shoulders of the fourth kzin. This nameless one was of truly gigantic size. He turned, growling, and Locklear noted the nose scar that seemed very appropriate for a flash-tempered gunner. Tzak-Navigator met his gaze and paused, with the characteristic tremor of a kzin who prided himself on physical control. “Ship’s Gunner, you are relieved. Adequately done.”
With the final phrase, Ship’s Gunner relaxed his ear umbrellas and stalked off with a barely creditable salute. Tzak-Navigator pointed to the vacated seat, and Locklear took it. “He has got us lost,” mu
ttered the navigator.
“But you were the navigator,” Locklear said.
“Watch your tongue!”
“I’m just trying to understand crew duties. I asked what the problem was, and Grraf-Commander said to tell me.”
The tremor became more obvious, but Tzak-Navigator knew when he was boxed. “With a four-kzin crew, our titles and our duties tend to vary. When I accept duties of executive officer and communications officer as well, another member may prove his mettle at some simple tasks of astrogation.”
“I would think Apprentice Engineer might be good at reading meters,” Locklear said carefully.
“He has enough of them to read in the engine room. Besides, Ship’s Gunner has superior time in grade; to pass him over would have been a deadly insult.”
“Um. And I don’t count?”
“Exactly. As a captive, you are a nonperson—even if you have skills that a gunner might lack.”
“You said it was adequately done,” Locklear pointed out.
“For a gunner,” spat the navigator, and Locklear smiled. A kzin, too proud to lie, could still speak with mental reservations to an underling. The navigator went on: “We drew first blood with our chance sortie to the galactic West, but Ship’s Gunner must verify gravitational blips as we pass in hyperdrive.”
Locklear listened, and asked, and learned. What he learned initially was fast mental translation of octal numbers to decimal. What he learned eventually was that, counting on the gunner to verify likely blips of known star masses, Grraf-Commander had finally realized that they were monumentally lost, light-years from their intended rendezvous on the rim of known space. And that rendezvous is on the way to the Eridani worlds, Locklear thought. He said, as if to himself but in kzin, “Out Eridani way, I hear they’re always on guard for you guys. You really expect to get out of this alive?”
“No,” said the navigator easily. “Your life may be extended a little, but you will die with heroes. Soon.”
“Sounds like a suicide run,” Locklear said.
“We are volunteers,” the navigator said with lofty arrogance, making no attempt to argue the point, and then continued his instructions.
Presently, studying the screen, Locklear said, “That gunner has us forty parsecs from anyplace. Jump into normal space long enough for an astrogation fix and you’ve got it.”
“Do not abuse my patience, monkey. Our last Fleet Command message on hyperwave forbade us to make unnecessary jumps.”
After a moment, Locklear grinned. “And your commander doesn’t want to have to tell Fleet Command you’re lost.”
“What was that thing you did with your face?”
“Uh—just stretching the muscles,” Locklear lied, and pointed at one of the meters. “There; um, that has a field strength of, oh hell, three eights and four, right?”
Tzak-Navigator did not have to tremble because his four-fingered hand was in motion as a blur, punching buttons. “Yes. I have a star mass and,” the small screen stuttered its chicken-droppings in Kzinti, “here are the known candidates.”
Locklear nodded. In this little-known region, some star masses, especially the larger ones, would have been recorded. With several fixes in hyperdrive, he could make a strong guess at their direction with respect to the galactic core. But by the time he had his second group of candidate stars, Locklear also had a scheme.
Locklear asked for his wristcomp, to help him translate octal numbers—his chief motive was less direct—and got it after Apprentice Engineer satisfied himself that it was no energy weapon. The engineer, a suspicious churl quick with his hands and clearly on the make for status, displayed disappointment at his own findings by throwing the instrument in Locklear’s face. Locklear decided that the kzin lowest on the scrotum pole was most anxious to advance by any means available. And that, he decided, just might be common in all sentient behavior.
Two hours later by his wristcomp, when Locklear tried to speak to the commander without prior permission, the navigator backhanded him for his trouble and then explained the proper channels. “I will decide whether your message is worth Grraf-Commander’s notice,” he snarled.
Trying to stop his nosebleed, Locklear told him.
“A transparent ruse,” the navigator accused, “to save your own hairless pelt.”
“It would have that effect,” Locklear agreed. “Maybe. But it would also let you locate your position.”
The navigator looked him up and down. “Which will aid us in our mission against your own kind. You truly disgust me.”
In answer, Locklear only shrugged. Tzak-Navigator wheeled and crossed to the commander’s vicinity, stiff and proper, and spoke rapidly for a few moments. Presently, Grraf-Commander motioned for Locklear to approach.
Locklear decided that a military posture might help this time, and tried to hold his body straight despite his pains. The commander eyed him silently, then said, “You offer me a motive to justify jumping into normal space?”
“Yes, Grraf-Commander: to deposit an important captive in a lifeboat around some stellar body.”
“And why in the name of the Patriarchy would I want to?”
“Because it is almost within the reach of plausibility that the occupants of this ship might not survive this mission,” Locklear said with irony that went unnoticed. “But en route to your final glory, you can inform Fleet Command where you have placed a vitally important captive, to be retrieved later.”
“You admit your status at last.”
“I have a certain status,” Locklear admitted. It’s damned low, and that’s certain enough. “And while you were doing that in normal space, a navigator might just happen to determine exactly where you are.”
“You do not deceive me in your motive. If I did not locate that spot,” Tzak-Navigator said, “no Patriarchy ship could find you—and you would soon run out of food and air.”
“And you would miss the Eridani mission,” Locklear reminded him, “because we aren’t getting any blips and you may be getting farther from your rendezvous with every breath.”
“At the least, you are a traitor to monkeydom,” the navigator said. “No kzin worthy of the name would assist an enemy mission.”
Locklear favored him with a level gaze. “You’ve decided to waste all nine lives for glory. Count on me for help.”
“Monkeys are clever where their pelts are concerned,” rumbled the commander. “I do not intend to miss rendezvous, and this monkey must be placed in a safe cage. Have the crew provision a lifeboat but disable its drive, Tzak-Navigator. When we locate a stellar mass, I want all in readiness for the jump.”
The navigator saluted and moved off the bridge, Locklear received permission to return to his console, moving slowly, trying to watch the commander’s furry digits in preparation for a jump that might be required at any time. Locklear punched several notes into the wristcomp’s memory; you could never toll when a scholar’s notes might come in handy.
Locklear was chewing on kzin rations, reconstituted meat which met human teeth like a leather brick and tasted of last week’s oysters, when the long-range meter began to register. It was not much of a blip but it got stronger fast, the vernier meter registering by the time Locklear called out. He watched the commander, alone while the rest of the crew were arranging that lifeboat, and used his wristcomp a few more times before Grraf-Commander’s announcement.
Tzak-Navigator, eyeing his console moments after the jump and still light-minutes from that small stellar mass, was at first too intent on his astrogation to notice that there was no nearby solar blaze. But Locklear noticed, and felt a surge of panic.
“You will not perish in solar radiation, at least,” said Grraf-Commander in evident pleasure. “You have found yourself a black dwarf, monkey!”
Locklear punched a query. He found no candidate stars to match this phenomenon. “Permission to speak, Tzak-Navigator?”
The navigator punched in a final instruction and, while his screen flickered, turned t
o the local view-screen. “Wait until you have something worth saying,” he ordered, and paused, staring at what that screen told him. Then, as if arguing with his screen, he complained, “But known space is not old enough for a completely burnt-out star.”
“Nevertheless,” the commander replied, waving toward the screens, “if not a black dwarf, a very, very brown one. Thank that lucky star, Tzak-Navigator; it might have been a neutron star.”
“And a planet,” the navigator exclaimed. “Impossible! Before its final collapse, this star would have converted any nearby planet into a gas shell. But there it lies!” He pointed to a luminous dot on the screen.
“That might make it easy to find again,” Locklear said with something akin to faint hope. He knew, watching the navigator’s split concentration between screens, that the kzin would soon know the Raptor’s position. No chance beyond this brown dwarf now, an unheard-of anomaly, to escape this suicide ship.
The navigator ignored him. “Permission for proximal orbit,” he requested.
“Denied,” the commander said. “You know better than that. Close orbit around a dwarf could rip us asunder with angular acceleration. That dwarf may be only the size of a single dreadnaught, but its mass is enormous enough to bend distant starlight.”
While Locklear considered what little he knew of collapsed star matter, a cupful of which would exceed the mass of the greatest warship in known space, the navigator consulted his astrogation screen again. “I have our position,” he said at last. “We were on the way to the galactic rim, thanks to that untrained—well, at least he is a fine gunner. Grraf-Commander, I meant to ask permission for orbit around the planet. We can discard this offal in the lifeboat there.”
“Granted,” said the commander. Locklear took more notes as the two kzinti piloted their ship nearer. If lifeboats were piloted with the same systems as cruisers, and if he could study the ways in which that lifeboat drive could be energized, he might yet take a hand in his fate.