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

the campaigning consisted largely of lurking in ambush or patrolling, either stalking on foot or on a gravity sled, though the thick vegetation limited the use of the latter. Though kzinti loved hunting for its own sake, this particular hunt was accompanied by a great deal of frustration. Tempers had frayed. The only compensation the posting had offered for most of the kzinti had been that there was a large amount of game, but even so solitary expeditions far into the forest were forbidden.

Trooper Number Eight had been at first less unhappy than previously. Indeed he was probably the least unhappy kzin in the garrison. He had no expectation or hope of achieving the only things which, given any wishes, he would have wished for: to return to his homeworld and family and to escape from Sergeant and the others. But campaigning, even such feeble and unheroic campaigning as this, did tend to create a sense of camaraderie of some kind, and when they were so few of them, death duels between kzinti rankers were plainly and strictly forbidden.

He had got away by himself occasionally, and sometimes, when alone, enjoyed striking the triangle. Further, there was a small collection of human books on the post, taken from a ruined human dwelling nearby—actually the remnants of one attempt to put together a military library and technology base in the first days of the kzin invasion—written by a human named Braddon and others. Sometimes in the long, eventless days, he had read them and tried to understand them, and that had also helped pass the time. He had taken the precaution of first getting Officer's permission to do this, explaining that it would make him a more effective slave master when they had slaves again. Officer had not cared one way or the other, but had agreed.

However, the climate and the exotic life-forms had not made his duties lighter—cleaning barracks and equipment had been never-ending. A constant problem had been the small, white, blue-eyed things which humans at Munchen had called "Beam's Beasts." Despite their harmless appearance they had poisonous fangs and secreted a powerful acid which dissolved not only the body tissues of their prey but a variety of other things. They bred in large numbers in the forest and were constantly invading the base, giving him a great deal of work. He had kept out of Sergeant's way as much as he could. Sergeant, as time went on without the chance of glory, grew increasingly ill-tempered and Corporal followed him. One day, there had been disaster.

Trooper Number Eight had been in charge of the unit's trophy-maintenance-and-cleaning engine. The ears, kzinti and human, which successful duelists and warriors carried in rings on their belts as trophies and signs of status, could be a problem. Though freeze-dried in small units developed for the purpose, they still had a tendency to get knocked around and eventually fall apart, as well as becoming ill-smelling, unless specially preserved in clear envelopes of strong material. Further, in this warmer environment it was discovered that there were species of fungi which had a liking for the ears, causing them to turn black and eventually crumble unless they were cleaned at intervals. Several of the other troopers had a few human ears, but only Sergeant and Corporal had kzinti ears as well, and kzinti ears were what really mattered.

Sergeant had given Trooper Number Eight his earring and told him to clean the ears and renew the protective envelopes. In his nervousness, Trooper Number Eight had spoilt one of the kzinti ears—the oldest and most precious—causing it to break up into a handful of membrane and cartilage.

Trooper Number Eight tried to persuade himself that Sergeant would not punish him in such a way as to make him physically useless. Nor, he thought, would Sergeant sully his trophy ring with ears as unworthy as his own. Nor, he thought, would he scar him, since scars could be taken as a badge of honorable combat. He was correct.

He was punished with the Hot Needle of Discipline. The kzinti had refined and specialized their instruments of torture over thousands of years, and this one had been developed specially for stupid or inept soldiery. He was allowed an eight of days to recover, a time period specified in the Patriarch's Regulations, not out of mercy, but because it had been found that a lesser period left the soldiers so punished still unfit for battle.

He was noticed by no one during this period, being regarded as unfit to be noticed. No one cared when, one night late at the end of this period of "invisibility," when he could once again walk, or at least shuffle, he left the post and climbed a winding game path to a small, solitary hill. He sat and played the triangle there in the night.

Far above there were moving lights in the sky, shifting and winking stars, a soundless battle fought on the edge of space.

He was still recovering, though considered fit for duty, when Officer called them together for a briefing.

A transport vessel carrying military equipment to one of the outpost garrisons in the Serpent Swarm Asteroids had been attacked by feral human spacecraft as it climbed through the upper fringes of Ka'ashi's atmosphere, Officer told them. Its gravity motors had been badly damaged. It had been able to make a soft landing in the forest not far away but could not take off again.

The pilot was defending it, but plainly its cargo would be a great prize for the local ferals. The Heroes of Sergeant's platoon were to secure the area and assist the pilot until a heavy-lift unit arrived to retrieve it.

With the favor of the Fanged God, Officer pointed out, this unfortunate incident could be made into a positive opportunity—the downed transport could serve as a trap to draw the local ferals to their doom under the teeth and claws of Sergeant's Heroes. Sergeant, Corporal, and their eight of troopers were being given a chance