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

ARM because of its accurate depiction of the history of industrial development. I've never found the credits, but clearly somebody couldn't bring himself to destroy the last copy. The other one I made myself. I don't think anybody else ever trusted themselves to be able to convey Zelazny's imagery adequately. The old woman and the cube, for instance."

" 'Go crush ore!' " he murmured, and his voice caught.

"It wasn't easy to get the timing on that pause right," she remarked. "Look, if there's nothing else right now I've got an errand. I'll be gone a couple of months your time." And she was off again.

Shleer had to spend six days out of sight while the Thrint wandered through the harem, nagging the Tnuctipun and their Jotoki assistants. Gnix had been an immensely powerful telepath even before he had the amplifier, but he was too stupid to follow his slaves' thoughts very far when they did something as simple as free-associating. The Tnuctipun had delayed the adaptation of the kzinretti as long as they could, simply to put off the day when they had another Thrint to cope with; still, Gnix's constant pestering—Pestering, rather—forced them to maintain some kind of progress, however slow.

About one surviving kzinrett in four was hairless and developing skin flakes—the biological modifications seemed to be trying to produce scales. The survivors weren't going toxic, so it appeared the Tnuctipun had stalled as long as they could.

Then, while Gnix was doing another nag-through, a kzinrett began screaming and thrashing. The thrashing continued after the screaming stopped; though her arms and legs gradually fell still, her torso kept jerking. Then a greenish larval thing tore a hole into the open air from inside her, shuddered, and died.

CLEAN THAT UP, Gnix commanded irritably. AND FIX THE PROBLEM. Then he left.

The Tnuctipun had not been surprised. That was what made Shleer risk detection and go searching for a camera that night. They hadn't been surprised.

Shleer's own birthing tunnel gave him a private place to work; his mother had been one of the first to die.

Peace shut down Cordelia's accelerator as soon as she was in range.

Larry had living quarters set up outside the control area, so he could work on the door every day. Being able to draw on the expertise of dozens of colonists had actually gotten him through the first lock. He'd been working on the second long enough not only to grow a beard, but to start grooming it during the times when he couldn't think of what to try. He'd quit smoking and resumed, too, probably twice.

"I apologize," she said as soon as he saw her. "I should have set the field to shut down. Please come in, so I can show you how to run things in case I'm killed or trapped."

He said nothing as he entered.

"One of the things I was looking for was any residue of an ARM agent named Hamilton," she said, leading him to a workshop. "He was a telekinetic esper who lost an arm and an eye, and the shadow organs his brain produced in compensation let him feel inside things and see in the dark, and like that. I figured the proper training would allow a clone to develop an entire remote presence, very handy. Unfortunately the woman running the ARMs now really hates Protectors, and they wasted a lot of my time before I could meet her and frighten her into cooperation. There's a lot less margin now for what I need to do before we get to Kzin."

"So we'll just go out and have fun while you sit at home, alone, in the dark, and go blind," he said as they reached the shop.

She stared at him a little longer than necessary; it was no mean feat to surprise a Protector, and he was entitled to something for it. He kept his gratification off his face, but it had grown to be considerable by the time she said, "Sorry. I'll watch that." She opened the door and led him to where a crumpled perfect mirror lay. "I'll need to study your telepathy to develop some myself," she said as she got out the control for the accelerator field and switched it back on.

"Um," he said as the suit went from perfect reflection to merely shiny.

She looked at him, and saw that he was horribly embarrassed all of a sudden.

Something inside the suit moved.

She drew and aimed, realized what had to have happened, and was putting the gun away when he said, "It's a slave! Kzanol found a planet and brought one back with him."

"Yes. Let's get him out." She removed the helmet and opened up the suit, and a head the size of a breeder's fist poked warily out. Two eyes; those refractive nodes would serve as ears; a generally humanoid shape aside from thumb displacement; traces of something more like feathers than hair; and some pretty fine clothes and jewelry. Of course Kzanol had taken their leader.

"Oh my God, he was their High Judge," Greenberg said.

"Figures. And it never mattered to the Slaver, so you never realized it before. Talk to him while I rummage."

There was a baroquely embroidered cloth bundle, and as she got it out the trace of scent on it made her want to kill something. Hardwired response; the Pak were survivors of the Slaver era, and the Protectors had been created as a Tnuctipun weapon. (They hadn't evolved in two billion years because they ate mutated descendants; there wasn't really a tactful way to mention that to Greenberg.) She had to spend several seconds learning how to override it, then unwrapped the bundle to reveal a remarkably prosaic watch—with a casing of niobium chromide, so that it would survive events that would vaporize the wearer. Absurd: Anybody who could afford a watch like this didn't have to be on time. Two more bundles held figurines of extraordinary repulsiveness: Thrintun females. Next was the amplifier helmet.

She'd been listening and building up vocabulary, not without