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

a pride of kzintosh. Will a lost kzin kit be able to walk with safety among humans now?"

"Perhaps you do not know all that happened to human children. Certainly many of them were lost. But I do not wish to word-duel now."

"And some thought the Fanged God had sent you to teach us various lessons. I am only Raargh-Sergeant but I know there were officers who thought that way . . . as the war went on."

"Strange. Some thought our God had sent you to teach us lessons."

"You think that makes a bond between us, Monkey? . . . Ratcats . . . You always called us ratcats? But you say Ka'ashi is my home. So it is. I have lived nowhere else."

"We call it Wunderland, remember. Some of us see you kzinti who were born here as a little . . . different . . . to the first Conquest Warriors." Her voice changed and he perceived some other shift in her chemistry since she had made herself laugh at the kit. "We sometimes call you Wunderkzin. You are changed physically. Already in this light gravity you are taller and more lightly built. It has changed us in the same way, but for you the difference is even greater for Kzinhome was heavier than Earth. I think perhaps you are changed mentally more. May I drink? The Heroes' Tongue is not easy for human throats."

"Yes. I concede that life on Ka'ashi was changing us. Who could live with you daffy monkeys and not be changed?"

"Chuut-Riit nearly began to understand us. And unlike most of your geniuses—"

"Chuut-Riit was a warrior! A great Hero!"

"For us 'genius' is not an insult . . . Chuut-Riit, and perhaps Traat-Admiral, were the first high-ranking kzintosh to try to understand us . . . and all the more dangerous enemies for it. And yet I have wondered once or twice if it were not possible that . . . a son of Chuut-Riit, brought up on Wunderland with humans, might . . . No! No! And again, no! Have you kzin driven us mad?" There was liquid on her face again. He smelled its salt.

"There could still be a life here for you and yours," she went on. "Sometimes, just lately, when it seemed we would be slaves and prey no longer, I wondered if the children of our two kinds might work together on this world." She gestured at the sleeping youngster and at the kit, who had been watching them with his huge eyes. "Would you not save those at least? Is one of them not as your son might have been, Raargh-Sergeant?"

This monkey is a female and knows female wiles. Does she try to wheedle me? She cannot know my son and his mother died in the UNSN ramscoop raid. But Chuut-Riit's son! How has the God devised it that I am caught in this vise! The life of a monkey or blood of the Riit is spilt and Chuut-Riit's seed is lost! A monkey under my protection. Raargh-Sergeant's eye fell upon the poison pill. He wondered if it would be deadly for kzinti as well as humans. Probably. After all, their biochemistry was patently alike enough for them to eat one another. He picked it up, then threw it with all his strength out the open door. A dead Hero was no use. Responsibility could not be abrogated that way. And if he died, he would die as a kzin should, in battle, on the attack.

"You spoke of terror. You are not so terrified of this old kzintosh now, with one arm and eye gone and holes in his legs?"

"I have the weapons now. Except for those which you are about to hand over along with Jorg the traitor. There is not a kzin formation left fighting on the surface of the planet or a kzin warcraft left in the space of Alpha Centauri! No, ratcat, I am not terrified now! I am offering you life and freedom if you surrender the traitor and the weapons at once. Death for all otherwise. Your deaths will cause me no loss of sleep nor tears."

"I cannot . . . I will not hand over the Jorg-human or the weapons without authority from Hroarh-Captain or higher Patriarchal orders," he said.

"I will return in one hour," she said. "Then there will be no further argument." She spoke the last words in the Heroes' Tongue's tense of ultimatum. She turned and left, her escort following.

Chapter 3

The tank display showed almost no orange lights now, only the green of human, moving and deploying without interruption.

"Those manretts can be trouble," said Trader-Gunner. "It was a manrett that killed Cherrg-Captain."

A last orange light grew into a globe, flashed and disappeared in a sea of green. It appeared that kzin resistance had ceased everywhere. He clicked to erase the tank's memory. Around the room, the kzinti remained crouched behind their scanty collection of weapons.

"What is happening, Raargh-Sergeant?" Lesser-Sergeant asked him.

"I think there is tension between the two human bands. The UNSN dominates the locals, who have all or almost all turned feral, even many of those who swore to serve the Patriarchy."

"They are not attacking because they fear our weapons?"

"I think they are not attacking because the UNSN wants us alive."

"Why?"

"I do not know. If it is a matter of dishonor we may still die heroically. But I have Hroarh-Captain's orders." He dialed some food. There was almost nothing left now but basic infantry rations. He sloshed bourbon-and-prawn ice cream on one of the unappetizing blocks of protein and carbohydrate and passed it to the kit.

"Now you may say you have eaten Sergeant's food, Vaemar-Riit," he told it. "Soon you will make a soldier!" The kit looked dubious but took determined bites at the brick-like material. Not what you would have got at the palace, the Sergeant thought. Still, none could accuse Chuut-Riit of softness, even to his own. You have missed training by the most lethal combat master on the planet, little one.

Some had accused Chuut-Riit of certain other things, of course, though not within his hearing if they wished to live. According to Lord Ktrodni-Stkaa's faction he had been a human-lover, altogether too