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

Lacking both weapons and patience, Gay stuck her tongue out at him.

Second Trooper's pupils grew huge, his ears curled, and with a faint squeak he leapt back into his quarters and sealed the door.

Astounded, Gay stared at the door for a moment. The kzin had reacted like he was scared to death.

She shook off the momentary paralysis and quickly entered the door's security override, then turned, thinking to go back to the bridge and report the last straggler caught. She refrained. It could wait.

She continued back to their cabin for what sleep she could get.

She was always tired now, though, and never did think to ask what could have prompted the reaction.

Toward the end of hyperspace transit, even Slaverexpert's fatigue override system was under some strain. It manifested as garrulity.

At least he was interesting.

On the seventy-fifth day he was on watch with Richard when he looked up from his screen and said, "Most of the design changes in this ship are based on human ideas, you know."

"They are?" Richard said, looking around incredulously. Past the row of little blue globes the humans used to avoid eyestrain, the kzin-scale mechanisms with their deep orange lighting looked not unlike the foundry of the Cyclopes.

"Very much so. Crew posts not facing a common center, for instance, so everyone can see the same view. Far less distracting than my old command."

"You commanded a ship before?" Richard exclaimed.

"At the start of the Fourth War," Slaverexpert said, which made him something over three hundred years old—unheard of! "I had a partial Name then. I gave it up after my injuries were repaired. Having a Name is grounds for killing if it is not used properly, and I had lost the desire to kill."

"What was it?" Richard had never heard of any kzin giving up a Name, and hadn't known it was possible.

"Richard, I told you: I no longer use it," he said patiently. "Twice since then I have been offered one for my competence. Normally the degree of ability adhering to being an Expert carries such an honor. However, one of my crew had been an Expert, so I knew it was done."

"Why didn't he have one?"

"His behavior was too exotic," said Slaverexpert. "I learned much later that he had been raised in an obscure sect which worships death. He had left the faith, though."

"I may have heard of it," Richard said, taking another look at the mass detector. "There were a few incidents after the First War. When kdaptism got started there was a form that adopted crucifixion of humans as a means of prayer. Rare events, but memorable."

"Indeed. It does sound like the same sect as his. Some time after we parted I understand he resumed a worship of death."

"I wonder what happened," Richard said absently, noticing something at the edge of the globe.

Slaverexpert was silent for a moment, then said, "I suppose you could call it an epiphany—"

"I think we're there," said Richard. He pointed, then remembered and said, "Sorry."

"As long as you're correct," said Slaverexpert. "Take us to the edge and we'll drop out and look."

Richard was no daredevil, but he was very intent on getting home. He let the line get almost to the shell before shutting down the motor, then lit the viewscreens.

Slaverexpert studied the dome, altered the perspective twice, then pointed. "That's the Axe, and that's the Puffball," he said, indicating stars which suggested nothing to Richard, but were presumably grouped into constellations to the eye of a native of Kzin. "Well done, Richard Guthlac. Turn the Returning Vessel beacon to the fifth setting and pull twice."

"I remember." That was for Medical Assistance, Nonlethal. "What happened to the rest of your crew?"

"All but one are dead now," Slaverexpert said, starting deceleration. "The last is a Patriarch's Counselor."

"Wow."

"What? Where?"

"No no, sorry, 'wow' is a human expression of admiration. I'm sorry." Wow was also a kzinti exclamation, usually used when something was broken or lost.

Slaverexpert waved a hand in a very human gesture. "I'll live." He began preparing a message giving details of their situation.

After far too many unpleasant surprises, only the latest of which had been the Wallaby incident, the kzinti were taking no chances. The lead team of the boarding party was four telepaths in powered armor, each with a fusion bomb and his own gravity generator. They flew through the Cunning Stalker's corridors on a swift initial survey and found them apparently clear. Three then stood guard while the fourth took out rescue bubbles, enclosed the four acting crew one by one, and linked them to retrieval lines that drew them to the intercept ship.

A judicious mixture of friendly persuasion and stunners got the other ten kzinti bagged and delivered. The telepaths packaged the items from the stasis box, followed by personal keepsakes, and sent those after the personnel. Then they flooded the Cunning Stalker with ozone, set off radiation flash bombs, let the atmosphere out, and did another inspection in vacuum. No green-scaled corpses were found, and they returned to the Excessive Force, which took the exploration vessel in tow.

The ARM general was keeping his voice and hands under control, but his body language would have started a fight in any bar on Kzin-aga. Probably on Earth, for that matter. "Our legal position is unassailable," he insisted. "The Guthlacs were working as employees of the UN, and any bonuses due for their performance belong to the ARM."

Charrgh-Uft replied cheerfully, "After five centuries of dealing with humans, the kzinti are well-qualified to state that no position is unassailable. You, personally, insisted on their military rank being officially acknowledged in all particulars for this mission. That makes them crew. They get prize shares."

"If these things are as good as they look it's going to leave two people owning half a dozen of the biggest industries in human space!"

Charrgh-Uft was growing tired of the argument, and he played the trump the Patriarch had told him he could if necessary: "This is a matter of the Patriarch's honor."

The gray-bristled human