Man-Kzin Wars IV Larry Niven (ink ebook reader .txt) đ
- Author: Larry Niven
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And for another thing, in this world there were too many of the yellow-orange carnivores. They made all of him anxious. He didnât know why his own yellow-one was special except that the nervousness disappeared when they were together. Then very interesting things happened.
Among himselves he referred to his special carnivore companion as Mellow-Yellow, which was not a vibrating-word but was a pastel image-word of the kind used to communicate between his selves. Mellow-Yellow was âworld-lights filtering down through mingled leaf-tissue.â It was the best forest image there was. His companion did seem to have a voice-name, but the rules were confusing. Sometimes he referred to his body as âHero,â sometimes as âWarrior,â sometimes as âKzin,â sometimes, when he was dangerous to be with it was âEater-of-Grass,â or âFangless.â The voice-names changed as night and day. Lately it was âTrainer-of-Slaves.â Simpler to think: Mellow-Yellow.
The furry Mellow-Yellow had a game with the low-frequency sounds that was so exciting to play that Long-Reach couldnât seem to stop playing. If Mellow-Yellow quieted his vibrator (which seemed stuck in his mouth where he couldnât chew it). Long-Reach felt compelled to hum and rumble and chatter in order to provoke more of that game. When he deliberately tried to keep one of his lungs silent, another was sure to interrupt the hush. Big(arm) had more restraint than skinny(arm).
The game had rules. Each eye-image had an ear-sound that only Mellow-Yellow knew and Long-Reach had to guess. Since the kinds and varieties of image were endless, it was a never ending quest to find the voice that fitted the image. What was exciting was that if his selves were clever he could use words to provoke the new sounds out of Mellow-Yellow, or even better, use the words themselves as an aid to discovering the new words. His selves carried on an internal race. Which lungs would first utter the true sequence of sounds? Sometimes they all spoke at once. Short(arm) was best at such races and tended to dominate the role of talker. When short(arm) was asleep, Long-Reach was less glib.
In this world beyond the trees, there were many new images, many new words.
âLeaves,â said short(arm). âLeaves, leaves,â repeated skinny(arm) because there werenât any.
âAh, youâre hungry.â Mellow-Yellow left the cave through ⊠an elevator? Door, door, corrected short(arm). When Long-Reach tried to follow there was no door. Anxiety.
But Mellow-Yellow came back with leaves in a container of grass. Big(arm) thought about the right words for the sight and made suggestions while feeling the weave of the grass blades that were entwined in a very regular way. His eye had never seen anything like it. âLeaves sit on grass-floor,â said short(arm) while communicating the thought that flat-âfloorâ could not be a good word for hollow-container.
âItâs a basket, not a floor. I got it from the slave quarters. Say âbasket.â â
âBasket, basket. Basket of grass. Grass basket.â
âAnd donât take it apart! Donât you ever stop being curious?â
Long-Reach picked up the basket with two arms and dumped the leaves on the floor. He sat on them, elbows in the air, and began to masticate. âGood,â exclaimed all the arms in unison.
âMy ears ripple when I watch you sitting down to eat.â
âMy ears ripple when I watch you sitting down to excrete. One-mouth better than two.â
âLong-Reach, your ears donât ripple. Your ears are in your wrists.â
âRipple? Ripple?â Big(arm) rose so that its eye could look at the resonance cups on its wrist which analyzed sound.
Trainer-of-Slaves rippled his ears to demonstrate. He was genuinely amused. âThatâs what I do when I tell a joke. How do I know when you are telling a joke?â
âJoke?â
âSome other day!â
Trainer-of-Slaves needed to sleepâso Long-Reach hooked himself to a wall rack and slept himself, with only freckled(arm) awake and watching the door. Freckled(arm) had things to mull over but that was difficult with sleep-silence on four channels.
Thinking did not go rapidly without question-answers from other-arms. But questions were themselves interesting. What had happened to the forest? Why did the absence of trees make floors flat? What was glass? How could something invisible resist the push of a hand? How was Râhshssira attached to its ceiling? Did all worlds have different colored lamps?
There were more questions in the morning when Mellow-Yellow led Long-Reach to a cavern full of weird shapes and vines that swallowed eyes and arms. The giant carnivore was there with the smell of leaf-eater flesh on his breath. Frightening.
âYou wonât be able to put him in the machineâthey panic when their arms are constrainedâand his vocabulary isnât big enough so that an explanation will register. Weâll have to shoot him up with trazine. First, weâll let him watch a Jotok come out of the trainer unharmed.â
Long-Reach stayed as near his yellow companion as he could get. They put him too close to a big leaf-eater like himself who was suspended in mid-air, his arms in thick sleeves, with vines coming out of the caps over his eyes. His limbs convulsed as if he were running and flying among the treesâbut he wasnât going anywhere. Terrifying.
The big kzin unhooked the eyes. The sleeves came off. While the beast was being liberated, three of Long-Reachâs brains came to the simultaneous conclusion that he was going to become the replacement. Three arms started to back offâand couldnât move.
âThe trazine wonât harm you. Be gone within heartbeats.â They were putting him into the sleeves and he couldnât resist. His eyes had retracted to their armored state in a reflex at the shock
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