Man-Kzin Wars V Larry Niven (e novels to read .txt) 📖

stuck his shovel in the pile and helped him out of the rope harness, then handed him a bucket made from a section of log. The kzin lapped down a gallon or so and then poured the rest over his head, scooping out another from the trough and repeating the process. Then he licked his whiskers back into shape and shook himself, showering Jonah and Hans with welcome drops from his fur. The air was full of the smell of a quarter ton of hot wet carnivore.

"Bigs needs someone to help with the shoring," he rasped, drinking again. "He digs more quickly than we thought."

"Guess I'd better," Hans said, rubbing a fist into the small of his back. "See you later, youngster." He walked off up the trail to the shaft they had sunk into the hillside, whistling.

Spots paused as he gathered up the drag harness and the film. "Ah—adventure!" he said. "Travelling to far-off lands; ripping out the gizzards of hardship and danger; winning fortune and Name. Is it not glorious? Does your liver not steam with—"

"Go scratch fleas," Jonah muttered, spitting on his hands and reaching for the shovel.

"Better that than hauling freight like a zitragor," the kzin replied, flapping his ears ironically as he turned to go for the next load. "Far better."

* * *

"I cannot believe it! I do not believe the testimony of my own nose!" Bigs said, pawing through a pile of datachips.

"Believe what?" Spots replied.

Across the campfire Jonah looked up at the sound; the hiss-and-spit of the Hero's Tongue always sounded like a quarrel, but this was probably the real thing.

"That I was stupid enough to let you pack the virtual-reality kit!" Bigs said.

That was a late-model type, with nose implants for scents as well as ear and eye coverings for visual and aural data.

"It's in perfect working order."

"The chips, fool, the chips—you forgot the Siege of Zeeroau, the Hero Chruung Upon the Ramparts, no Warlord Chmee at the Pillars—all our good stuff. None of the classics at all!"

Spots flapped his ears and fluttered his lips against his teeth. "You run too many of that graypelt sthondat excrement," he said. "You will curdle your liver and stultify your brain living in the past that way; you should pay more attention to the modern world, sibling. Renovate your tastes! Entertainment should be instructive!"

"Modern—heeraaeeow—The Kzinrette's Rump?" Bigs said sarcastically, throwing one chip aside and digging for more. His voice rose an octave as he listed titles, and his tail quivered and then began to lash.

"Blood and Ch'rowl? The Lost Patriarch of the Hareem Planet? Energy Swords at the Black Sun?" He screamed, a raw sound of rage. "Is there nothing here but smut and cheap, trashy science fiction adventures?"

He abandoned the carton of chips. The two kzinti faced each other, crouching low and claws extended: their ears were folded away and their tails held rigid. The air smelled of ginger as they growled through their grins, and their fur bottled out. Jonah started to rise in genuine alarm; most of the siblings' spats were half in fun, but this looked like the real thing—and when kzinti got angry enough to stop exchanging insults in the Mocking Tense, they were milliseconds away from screaming and leaping. It must be the sheer frustration of the hard labor . . .

Hans broke in first: "You two tabbies interested in our results, or are you too set on killing each other and leaving it all for us monkeys?" he said dryly.

The kzin relaxed, breaking the lock of their unwinking eye-to-eye stare. The huge golden orbs turned on the old man instead, and they both licked their lips with washcloth-sized pink tongues. After a moment their fur sank back and their tails relaxed, but they both drooled slightly with tongues lolling. Hans brought out the portable scale and a set of bags of tough thermoplastic, setting a heatrod at one hand.

* * *

"That's the last of it," Hans said.

He took the container off the scales and dropping the dust into a bag; then wrote the weight on the outside and sealed it shut with the rod. Jonah watched the digital readout blink back to zero. They were sitting in front of the humans' tent—the shelters of the felinoids were longer but much lower—and the sunken firelight was flickering on their faces, shining in the eyes of the kzin. Tonight it was scarcely brighter than the moon, full and larger than Luna from earth, leaving a circle of blackness in the sky where the stars were outshone. The dust had not looked like gold, save for a few granules larger than pinheads. Mostly it was blackish.

"Not much to look at," he said, hefting one of the bags. It was a little larger than his fist, but heavy enough to bring a grunt of surprise.

"No nuggets," Hans nodded. "It's rich, but not that rich. We've cleared about three thousand krona. Not bad for the first day's work."

"First month's work," Bigs grunted, lying flat on his belly with his hands on either side of his chin. "Not counting walking in to this verminous spot."

"There is that, yes," Hans went on cheerfully, and spat into the fire before lighting his pipe with a twig. "Thing is, we'll get as much tomorrow. For a while, too. Sort of time for it all to pay off. Remember what I said back in Munchen; getting the benefit of all the labor that everyone else who went looking put into it. Now we reap the results. Should be tasty, very tasty."

Spot's tongue moistened his nose. "How much?" he said. At their looks: "How much shall we take out before we stop?"

Hans pursed his mouth. "Twenty thousand over our expenses would do me fine. Twenty thousand's enough to get the shop I've had my eye on."

"Not enough for me," Bigs said; the humans looked at him in slight surprise. Usually the larger kzin spoke as little to them as he could. "For what I want . . .