Man-Kzin Wars XII, Larry Niven [readnow .TXT] 📗

hunt and with minor, kittenish trophies, frolicked around them. A small squad of guards with modern weapons deployed around the vehicles.

Hunt Master gestured to the others to follow him in single file to the crest of the slope. Trader spat a command in the slaves' patois to the human squatting in the shadow of his car. It prostrated itself and crept back into the vehicle.

Silently, the felinoids moved through the tall grass up the ridge. Three moons, small but with brilliant albedo, cast a bright light and confused patterns of shadow. From the crest there was a panoramic view across a wide valley and plain, to a distant slope dark with vegetation. Instinctively, they had gone down on all fours, crawling forward with bellies to the ground, tails twitching.

"Kz'zeerekti country," Hunt Master said. He touched a stud on his helmet and vision-enhancers slid over eyes already far better than those of any human. The other kzinti copied him. "See there!"

The beam of his laser, set to illuminate rather than burn, touched what the others recognized as a scatter of brown, weathered bones on the other side of the river that ran below. It jumped to light other such jumbled heaps nearby. Here and there round, small-toothed skulls stared back at them—convincingly human.

"You recognize the bones of kz'zeerekti? Indeed. But it is my duty to point out to you that not all the bones that lie under the sky were owned by monkeys." His laser touched upon what was plainly a kzinti skull, broken and weathered. There was a stir and growl among the youngsters who had been following his pointer. A respected warrior who died in battle might expect his bones to be recovered by his companions or sons for installation in an ancestral shrine. An unblooded kit who perished in his first action far from home often left his bones where they fell.

"Kz'zeerekti killed a Hero on Kzrral?" asked one kit, in a tone of outrage that provoked a ripple of amusement from some of the elder kzinti.

"Kz'zeerekti have killed many Heroes," Hunt Master replied. "And even more kits. And they have killed not only on Kzrral. Look and you will see. And at present we are but at the marches of one planet's Monkeydom. Look, cubs, and be wise. You too, offworlder. I do not know if the kz'zeerekti of this planet will make the slaves you desire."

"When do we see them, Respected Hunt Master?" asked a cub, jumping and rolling on the ground with excitement.

"Probably soon after we cross the valley and climb the next slope into the trees. Be sure, youngster, that they watch for us. You see how short the grass is on the slopes beyond the river? The monkeys burn it to deny approaching Heroes cover. Now arm and armor yourselves as I have shown you." The hunting kzinti's rifles were powerful and accurate repeaters, but antiques for all that: solid-bullet projectors with chemical propellants, rifles in the literal sense, not beam-weapons. The kits were given a few scraps of leather "armor."

"By the standards I am used to, these indeed seem fierce kz'zeerekti, Respected Hunt Master," Trader remarked. He passed Hunt Master a generous flask of shrimp-flavored bourbon, part of his stock. "But surely they are no match for modern weaponry," he continued. "I wonder you do not simply wipe them out."

"If we use modern science in the hunt—real body armor, overly enhanced heat and other sensors, beam-weapons—where is the sport in that, Trader?" Hunt Master replied, disposing of the bourbon in a single, gracious swig. "Where the training of kits? We might as well simply missile them from the air or from space. Besides, we have come to realize that exterminating a cunning and warlike species would deprive us permanently of both a valuable training asset and a rewarding game. The world would be duller with no kz'zeerekti."

"I have heard some of our ancestors regarded the Sol monkeys so. Until they deployed relativistic weapons and acquired the hyperdrive."

"These aren't like that. I have studied them. Indeed to conserve the species, I have often allowed young ones and pregnant females to live when, hunting alone, I came across them."

"Do they ever cross this valley?"

"They go as far as the river, but they never cross it in force. If they did, I suppose it would become a matter of exterminating them. They would be a menace to other game. Rogues or single scouts do cross though. I've found monkey droppings this side of the river a few times. I also found individuals, including that one." He pointed to a weathered skeleton scattered in the grass nearby. "Old villain! He got careless. But when they cross they don't usually attack or draw attention to themselves. I think they spy out the land, with a little thieving. As it is, they occupy only some fringe wooded country here and roam south into the hot savannah and deserts beyond.

"I do have some supplies of special body armor," Hunt Master continued. He could not ask Trader if he wished to avail himself of this without implying an insult to his courage. Kzinti had dueled to the death for saying less.

Trader replied with a casually polite ear twitch, as if Hunt Master's words had been a mildly interesting pleasantry about his collecting hobby, rather than a potentially dire test. Now that they were ready to move, Hunt Master glanced quickly over the kits' armor and weapons.

These were sprigs of landowners and various, mainly minor, nobility and he was tasked not only to train them but also to protect them to an elementary extent. However, any young kzintosh, once weaned, was expected basically to look after himself, and even the games and competitions of young kits were often and deliberately lethal. Apart from the sheer enjoyment, a large part of the purpose of hunting dangerous game on all kzinti worlds was to teach youngsters by experience the difference between the quick and the dead. It was never expected that all would