Man-Kzin Wars IX Larry Niven (grave mercy .txt) 📖

off an infinite cliff. Lights still shone, ventilation whispered. But nothing responded to his claws. He glared at the panel. The gravity polarizers were dead. He had no thrust.

How? flashed through him. An integrated system, well armored— But the damage to the massive water circulators and everything that regulated them, the escape of those tonnes, vibrations, resonances, yes, the plunge in temperature—he was breathing air gone wintry—yes, that could have disrupted critical circuitry. Then safety locks cut in and the fusion generator shut down. Nothing was left but the energy reserve in the accumulators.

That's as well, he thought starkly. Radiation from reactions running free would have killed me in minutes.

Which would have been better. Easier.

"No!" he snarled. A Hero did not surrender.

He was on trajectory, outward bound. The chilling gave him a short respite before temperature mounted. It might level off, as he receded, before he was cooked dead.

If he survived, it would be an exploit unmatched in history. None could then deny him his birthright, and more, much more.

If not, this remained his deed, wholly and entirely his, which nothing could ever take from him.

13

"Oh-oh," said Raden very softly. "I don't like this at all."

Tyra's pulse jumped. "What is it?" Her voice sounded shrill in her ears. It must involve the kzin sundiver. Freuchen and Samurai were peering with high-tuned instruments, as the thing came out of Pele's blinding glare and deafening plasma. But they were almost two light-minutes farther away than Caroline had ventured. They had sent their request that the boat likewise keep watch. Orbiting ahead of them, the kzin mother ship currently had the sun between it and its explorer. Whoever was in command there had not deigned to respond to the human offer to relay information as soon as it was received.

Raden gestured. "Look."

Tyra peered over his shoulder at the viewscreen before which he sat. Magnified, chosen wavelengths dimmed or amplified, the image was hardly more than a schematic. To her eyes, a small segment of Pele was a purple rectangle filling a slice along the left side of the screen. Prominences were tendrils, the corona a ghost-shimmer. A starlike speck gleamed nearby. That must be the best that the boat's sensors could do at this remove, lacking interferometry, she thought almost mechanically. Raden's finger pointed at the displays and readouts beneath the video.

"The spectroscope gives no hint of water molecules or OH," he said starkly. "She ought to be venting yet, to maintain an endurable temperature till she gets clear of the peristellar zone. Instead, the infrared emission is like an oven's, or worse. And doppler shows she isn't boosting to escape. Hyperbolic trajectory, slung off by the planet at terrific speed but not fast enough. Something's gone terribly wrong."

It would be obscene to rejoice. However, Tyra could not find pity in her heart. "What may have happened?" she inquired.

"God knows, at this stage. Close examination ought to give an idea or two." Raden turned his head to stare at her. "Meanwhile, though, the crew are being baked alive!"

"If they haven't already. Or he. Whichever. What do you want to do?"

"Try saving them. Nobody else possibly can."

"How can we?" The figures he had mentioned to her spun through her head. If the sundiver's periapsis grazed through the significant fringe of Kumukahi's distended atmosphere—and what other course would a kzin plot?—the planet had hurled it forth at more than a hundred KPS, far over stellar escape velocity, bound for the stars. . . . But the plan must have been to decelerate till the craft could swing around to rendezvous with its mother.

Raden swiveled about in his seat. His fingers danced across a keyboard. Meanwhile he voice-activated transmission. "Caroline to Freuchen and Samurai. By now you'll have seen that sundiver's in trouble. The other kzinti can't match velocities and lay to till long after the ones aboard are dead. I propose to make rendezvous and rescue them if they aren't, yet. If this craft has the capability. That's being checked. Assuming a positive answer, we'll need to skite off immediately. I'll await your response."

Three or four minutes— "Have you gone crazy?" Tyra protested.

He gave her a lopsided grin. "No, in my opinion I'm being more sane than most. If the computations tell me what I hope they will . . . Ah!" He swung his chair again to stare at the readouts. She stood above him, behind him, helpless, listening to his monotone. "Yes. Just barely feasible. Killing our present vector, boosting to match while approaching, yes, it calls for accelerations up to ten gee. Within stress limits for our craft, though an engineer would probably shake his head a bit. The thermostatic system will be overloaded too, but not overwhelmed if we're quick. And we'll squander energy. We should have enough delta vee left afterward to make it home. If not, the difference by then will be slight, and Samurai has a tug plenty well able to meet us and haul us back. We can do it."

Abruptly his tone rang. "Therefore we must."

The comscreen lightened, view split to show two faces. "This is lunacy," growled Worning. "No!" and Bihari, quietly, with her ironic smile: "The kzinti aren't noted for gratitude. My recommendation is a decided negative."

"Ma'am and sir," Raden replied, "let me respectfully remind you that while this vessel is in free space, I'm in command, with discretionary authority. If I'm mistaken, a board of inquiry will pass judgment later. Now I've no time to lose. We're on our way."

He rapped his piloting instructions. In a moment or two the boat left free trajectory. The interior gravity polarizer field kept weight steady under Tyra's feet, but she saw the stars whirl into a new configuration and felt a brief surge of power fully aroused, a shiver in the deck and through her bones.

"Well, you are within your legal rights," Bihari said. "I am not so sure about the moral ones. You understand, do you not, that we can do nothing to help you until much later in this game."

"And the