Man-Kzin Wars XI, Hal Colbatch [story books to read .txt] 📗

looks like equipment from a ship's infirmary. From Starsieve, of course. Where on Earth would they get kzinti medicines and stretchers? Kzinti forces never managed to invade Earth, not in any of the four interstellar wars (plus "incidents") that ended more than two hundred years ago.

They carry antiallergens and diet supplements. Earthly life doesn't quite fit their evolution.

Guns and ammunition: well, those are all mine. I can't carry everything I might need. One of the kzinti might have to be my bearer, but first I'd better test them out a little. It can turn sticky when the bearer runs up a tree with your gun.

Food: I've packed oranges and root vegetables and dry stuff. We'll make do with less cookware than usual, some canned goods, sugar, flour, condiments and so forth. That's all for me. Clients eat mostly meat, and we shoot that on the trail. Kzinti eat nothing but raw meat. I'll be doing all the cooking.

And of course I'm carrying nine kilos of sensory equipment spotted over my head and body: cameras, sound, somasthetic, scent.

Cape buffalo are back on the permitted list. I'll get them one before the Greens pull him off again.

November 3, 2899 CE

Three days into the brush. We camped by a river. It's low and yellow, and we're filtering the water. The kzinti drink a lot of it. I'm not carrying booze. It's hard on me, but I don't want them drinking.

Wave Rider wants to know why it's taking so long to get anywhere interesting. I waved around and told him to pick out a transfer booth for me. Long Tracks laughed at him, teeth showing. I've never seen a kzin's killing gape. I hope I can recognize the difference in time.

In fairness to Wave Rider, there are a few transfer booths out here, and we white hunters tanj well know where each of them is. They're big enough to pass a mini ambulance. We use them for medical emergencies, including veterinary work. I usually don't tell clients about them.

* * *

Waldo's been attacked by a lion.

He was sleeping outdoors. We set up a palisade, of course. I pitched my tent not too close so that I can cook without their complaining. Smoke my pipe, too.

I was updating my log when I heard the yowling. I got out there, armed, and barely glimpsed the lion smashing out through the branches of the palisade. I fired and got no joy of it.

Wave Rider's right front claws are bloody, but so's his ear, torn half off. He swung at the lion and scored, and the lion swung back, then kept going. But Waldo looks worse. The lion was stalking him. It found him asleep and attacked in a lion's favorite fashion: it tried to bite through the kzin's skull. Do that to a man, the prey barely twitches and the lion can just haul him away.

Waldo is big and the lion may be smaller than usual, though he sure didn't look it in mid leap in the moonlit dark. The beast's fangs didn't get through Waldo's skull. They tore off half his scalp. Waldo came awake with a screech, and I expect Leo had never heard anything like that.

I used antiseptic on both injured. They put up with it, but Waldo assures me that Earthly bacteria have little interest in kzinti. Waldo's half-scalping is the subject of much merriment.

November 5, 2899 CE

We're looking at a herd of Cape buffalo, maybe a hundred. The buff have made a nice comeback. "Once upon a time they were near extinction," I say.

Kashtiyee-First asks, "These are herbivores?"

"Yeah, grass eaters, but they're not rabbits and they're not puppeteers—"

"LE Bannett, we're familiar with oversized herd beasts who charge in numbers."

"How do you handle them, LE Kash?"

"Run. Hide. Climb rocks or trees. How shall we approach these? We want only one head."

"Right. Now that you've got the scent we could maybe track down a rogue. Or— How about that old bull grazing off to the right? We get his attention—"

"Yes, approach using that channel as cover. Was that once a stream?"

"Yeah. Will be again."

Kashtiyee-First speaks to the others. They move off on all fours and low to the ground. I'll stay where I am, on high ground. If a gun's needed, I'll need to see why. And never shoot a kzin's prey. And while I'm holding my sectry to make this recording, I'll just check the lists.

Tanj dammit.

Stet. First I tap the open code. Answer, futz you! I can barely make out motion, but they've nearly reached the old buff. Their sectries must be buzzing—

Now there's motion. It looks like the kzinti are fighting each other.

* * *

And it's night, and Kashtiyee-First may be dying, and it's been one strange day.

* * *

I ran toward the kzinfight, but I zoomed my specs too. I was clear on this: I sure didn't want to get between two kzinti in a fight. If I saw the wrong thing I might want to run the other way. I'd already marked the best trees.

Too many kzinti? That wasn't a kzin! It was a she lion, and another, and a black-maned male, all dancing with the kzinti. The lions were bigger. That dry riverbed had been good cover for lions, too. Now Waldo and the male were in a wrestling match, rolling over in the dust. Claws and w'tsais swung. The male lion wrenched loose and turned tail, and the old buff charged straight into the fray.

Waldo dashed after the lion.

Kashtiyee-First saw the buffalo just in time to face its charge. He swing his w'tsai overhead and split the bull's forehead just between the horns. The bull kept coming. I saw the kzin officer bowled over, lost to view.

The lions were in full flight. The buffalos gathered their strength, seven or eight bulls in front of the pattern, then cows, youngsters in the center.

Long Tracks answered my call. "We're busy."

"Don't kill any more buffalo. They're off the list."

"Repeat. The rest have to hear." He turned his volume up.

I stopped