Man-Kzin Wars IX, Larry Niven [leveled readers TXT] 📗

us in the hills that did much damage. When he was cut off at last, he killed an eight plus one of Heroes though armed with only a ratchet-knife while the others of his troop escaped. We did not eat him but honor him and honor Kzarl-Sergeant who killed him at last. I cannot give you Ptrr-Brunurn."

"You say his full name. I thought kzinti never said the full names of humans."

"We say his. It is a Mess tradition. Before setting out on a hunt for ferals, we have toasted Ptrr-Brunurn and Kzarl-Sergeant for many years. Since before I became Raargh-Sergeant."

"I never heard of him."

"It was many years ago. Soon after the first landings, in the time of my GrandSire."

"We have lost so much even of our own history. But we will find it again! We are not like the wretched Jotok."

"No. It may have been our mistake to think you were. Jotok are faithful slaves when they have been trained."

She peered more closely at the trophy.

"He still has kzinti ears on his belt!"

"Yes. We did him Honor. We left him his own trophies."

He smelled or sensed a sort of change in her.

"Perhaps that one may stay. The rest go now!" She rapped out human orders. The waiters and two of her guards gathered the human trophies and carried them away.

"Now," she said, "the traitor. He comes with us."

"You did not call him traitor a few hours ago. He was your dominant one. Are you not traitor to him?"

"It has been said that treason is largely a matter of timing. But treason it is."

"He is loyal to the Patriarchy."

"And I am loyal to humanity."

"If we had put a Telepath on you a month ago, I think you would have gone to the public hunting arena."

"No. I knew it might happen. I have carried the means of suicide for years." She felt in the pocket of her garment and produced a white capsule. She spoke for a moment in a different voice, as though surprised at a thought.

"Now I can throw it away. We were taught other techniques—how to make ourselves die of shock quickly when we were tortured. Now . . . I cannot quite believe it yet . . . we may forget them. The whole ghastliness is departing from us. We may live as . . . as humans again."

Suddenly she whirled on him: "Some may say it was the humiliation and helpless anger of our slave status that hurt us most. Well, they lie. It is possible, easy for some, to be a certain kind of slave. No, those things were bad enough but it was not humiliation or anger that we felt worst but naked terror, terror of our lives and our people in every waking moment and in our dreams as well! How many humans took to wandering mad—mad from sheer terror—before the ratcats or the collabo government tidied them up in their different ways? There is not a human family on Wunderland that has not dead to mourn!"

"Nor a kzin family."

"You started the war. Is war too hard for you?"

She opened her hand and let the thing drop to the floor. He saw liquid run out of her eyes which she quickly wiped away. "And my people, who I, to keep sane, had thought of as having gone away for a time, who I told myself, in the night, that I would meet again when I chose, I can mourn now as dead." He was no Telepath but all kzin had a rudimentary ability to detect emotional emanations at short range if they cared to use it. The terror of prey was a powerful stimulant as well as a guide when hunting in darkness or tall grass. Now he felt this creature's rage and hatred giving way to a greater degree of calm. The liquid ran more freely. Did it discharge emotions with it? You can learn something new every day, he thought.

"And now, Raargh-Sergeant, we come to the meat. Hand over Jorg von Thoma and the weapons. I will place you under my personal protection."

"Jocelyn-human, I will not."

"Then you will die. I speak not in challenge. I but state a fact. Kill me on this spot and the result will be the same. You see my people at the gate."

"The Patriarch's Honor is involved. And mine."

The six-foot human female and the scarred eight-foot felinoid carnivore stared at each other. Raargh-Sergeant knew all eyes in the room were upon them.

"The live humans are your people. I see I have no right to detain them now. Also I accept that with the human victory you have a right to the trophies. It comes to my mind that were I the victor I would wish to see what had been the bodies of Heroes disposed of according to the customs of our kind. So be it. But the Jorg-human is under my protection, and so are all these of my kind. I will not give up the Jorg-human and I will not give up the means of protecting my charges."

"I offer you my protection. I . . . I will give you my Name as my word."

"I do not mean to insult you, but I know that humans lie. Honor does not hang on human names. I do not say it to condemn you. You are made so. You yourself have already turned against your profession of loyalty to the Patriarchy."

"We took oaths to you kzin in order to save our lives. A promise made under threat of death does not bind."

"All promises bind. There is no exception, ever, ever! How could it be otherwise when Honor is real? Were I to give my word under threat my word would still be my word though the stars fell and till the Fanged God took me. But I will not leave my folk defenseless. And you do not offer the Jorg-human your protection."

"No, I do not offer it to him. We have waited too long, endured too much. The collaborators will pay for their treachery and for what we have suffered. We hate them