Man-Kzin Wars XII Larry Niven (list of ebook readers .TXT) 📖

very well say much, but the idea that the humans he was hunting might be making their own firearms worried him. I think they do, and I think they could do a great deal more if they wanted. I think these hunts are used to cull out weak and stupid humans, too—except that the humans are really doing it, not corrupting the system." His tail lashed once.

"I wonder if that was Warrgh-Churrg's own idea," Perpetua said.

"I'm off the scent."

"Well, if the Jotoki are all working together, what about the humans? During the Occupation there were some Wunderlanders who managed to talk their masters into some amazingly bad plans. And that was after just a few years' acquaintance."

Ginger's tail lashed again. "I now find myself less enthused about rescuing them. Some kzinti's only virtues are courage and honor. It's consistent with what I've read of Roman history, too."

"Huh?"

"They raised the children of potential rebels in the homes of Roman nobles. Disgraceful. No respect for heritage."

Every so often Perpetua was forcibly reminded that her partner was an alien. His regarding Rome's most brilliant peacekeeping innovation as a betrayal of family values accomplished this now. "Oh. I didn't know where, but I knew they had to have decent industrial technology."

"The lamps?"

"No, M—what about the lamps?"

"They gave white light. That takes superior refining techniques. The thorium that goes into lamp mantles is found with other things that are hard to remove, and those would have made the light yellow."

"How come you know so much about thorium?"

"It can be bred into fissionable material. I got interested in its other uses when I was a student."

"Why did you want to know about fissionable material?" she said, a little alarmed.

"I didn't, particularly. It's just used in making weapons." Seeing her expression, he said, "I'm a kzin! Do I get all suspicious because you know how to cook things? I mean, you might be planning to boil me up, right?"

"Meat isn't usually boiled," she said, her expression one of distaste.

"Aha," he said archly. "You've been thinking about this, then?"

Perpetua made a strangling noise in her throat, then said, "Behave."

Having made his point, and enjoyed it, he recalled what he'd been saying. "So if it wasn't the lamps, what?"

"Marcus Augustus didn't talk down to me, and the female slaves we saw were treated about the same as the males. You surely know that humans die easily. Well, pregnant female humans, in a society without high technology, die really easily. Women tend to be regarded as property unless they're aristocrats, and even then they're not included in serious discussions. Nothing that'll endanger them, see?"

"Not really."

"I guess you'll have to take my word for it. He didn't treat me like I was helpless, so he's used to women who aren't."

"Oh, now I see.—I think that purple dye was synthetic, too."

"You can see purple?" she said.

"Of course," he said, surprised. "Why not?"

"Well, Kzin's sun is a lot redder than Sol. I'd have thought it was outside your range."

"How are we supposed to tell if a kill is diseased?" he said. "Liver color is everything."

"Oh."

Ginger reflected for a moment. "I never thought about it before, but now that I do, purple tends to look brighter than other colors. I suppose it doesn't show up well on Kzinhome. We should make a note of that; it could be useful to someone."

"How?"

"Well, say if someone is trying to hide from kzinti aerial surveillance in a garden, he'll want to look for violets. They'll blot out what's around them."

Perpetua frowned, but plugged in a pad and began writing. She was far from the first, of either species, to find such things counterintuitive. (During the Second War, when there was real combat rather than conquest, it had taken considerable time for the combatants to realize that human eyes identify shapes, while kzinti eyes detect motion—so that, at first, both had used camouflage gear that was guaranteed to stand out to the enemy's vision.) When she finished, she said, "It occurs to me to wonder what the Romans are planning that they haven't told us."

It had evidently just crossed her mind for the first time. Every so often Ginger was forcibly reminded that his partner was an alien. "We just have to present them with nothing but specific courses of action and explain it as force of circumstance," he said, as if he had thought it up on the spot.

"I suppose," she said, looking something up. "I hope things go quickly. It's going to be summer soon on We Made It."

Ginger thought about it. "How does that affect us?"

"It's hard to land in a wind traveling twice the speed of sound."

"Why would we want to?"

"Aren't we going there for hyperdrive parts?"

"What? No. Earth," said Ginger, confused.

"Earth? How are we supposed to keep the ARM from finding out?"

"But that's who we have to get them from," Ginger said. "They're the only ones who would keep it a secret. If anybody else found out about the Romans, they'd never be left alone again. The ARMs will keep it a secret, because they keep everything a secret."

"I don't . . . If . . . But . . . Give me a minute here."

"Certainly."

Perpetua sat and thought it through. Finally she said, "Why would they help us?"

"To reduce the Patriarchy's capabilities, which is one of their constant goals, without having to go through channels. I know some of the flatlander veterans who settled on Wunderland, and more than one has joked that the UN bureaucracy was a kzinti plot. I'll give you an example—and I had to see records of this before I believed this fellow wasn't making fun of me, so I know it's true: Chemical firearms, delivered in response to a properly logged requisition, arrive without ammunition. There's a different requisition to be completed, for ammunition without which the firearm is useless. This procedure is still in use. My Name as my Word."

Perpetua, who had lived with human government all her life and didn't see what was so odd about the story, said, "I'm convinced that's true," which was meant to