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

"It appears there was a factor of provocation," the UNSN colonel said. "I see that kzinti have died too." Raargh-Sergeant saw that though his face was impassive, Hroarh-Captain was trembling almost as much as the abbot. Lights flashed on the control panel of the thing that took the place of his legs as it sought to compensate for the movements.

"There are major considerations of policy here," the colonel went on. "It has been decided for various reasons that those of the kzinti who wish to remain on Wunderland may do so. In any case, we can hardly repatriate them. The war goes on."

"It is not repatriation that I was thinking of."

"I can assure you, Captain van der Stratt, that this was decided for a number of carefully considered reasons."

"So you want hostages. You can do without this one. How many of the Teufels do you think you need?"

"It is not only that. The Wunderkzin who have grown up with humans are an important asset to us!"

"Grown up with humans! As tyrants and predators! Not a family on Wunderland is not maimed by what they have done! Not one of us does not mourn dead! Apart from those who fought and died, two kinds of humans have lived on Wunderland for the last two generations: slaves and unassigned slaves! Not one of us, not even the human traitors in the house of Chuut-Riit himself, had an hour's security for our lives or our family's lives. Can you comprehend that, Staff Colonel!

"Have you lived and grown old knowing there was nothing—nothing—to prevent you, your wife, your parents, your children, your lover, your closest friend, from dying in the Public Hunt, or conscripted to die manning kzinti auxiliaries in space battles? To know that whatever day's life you gained, the only future for you and yours was as kzinti slaves? And you ask us to have mercy on these monsters?

"You know the new Munchen Space Port? We call it the Himmelfarte, the Heaven Way, not because it leads to the Heavens, but because so many of us died in the building of it, under the lashes and fangs of their 'Supervisors-of-animals' when fleet facilities had to be expanded quickly. Children, old ones, sick! A child would take food to its parent conscripted to slave there in the morning, and itself be dead under the lash by the time the First Sun had set!

"Orphanages raided, humans taken from the streets, casually, to provide specimens for neurological dissection when the Great Chuut-Riit, the Enlightened Chuut-Riit, the kindly planetary governor the collaborators flattered as a 'good master,' decided we should be studied! Humans taken to Kzin and its other colony worlds who are there still, lost souls in Hell. And we police, who licked the boots of our chief Montferrat-Palme in terror even as he prostrated himself before his Master, who might be a kzin trainer-of-humans too lowly to have a kzin name! Shall we forgive and forget those things?"

"You have had revenge on Chuut-Riit," said Hroarh-Captain. "He died terribly. And your vengeance is widespread. Few of full or partial name survive, and none of the best save Hroth who was Staff Officer. Where is Traat-Admiral who tried to be a benign master to you humans? Where are all those I knew? Indeed, even few of the nameless survive. I have sought to save a few kzinretts, and kits and wounded . . . You seek further vengeance on kzinti? Look at me, man. Would you be as I am?"

Jocelyn stared at the wreck of the kzin officer in its hovering craft as though seeing it for the first time.

"No," she said at last.

"Or Raargh-Sergeant? Is it a crime for a soldier to abide by his duty?"

"We never denied your strength and courage. Hell seeks always the worst ways to torment us, and it was one of the cruellest tricks of Hell that demons should be so magnificent. We could not—we cannot—afford to think of your suffering."

"I would not expect you to. We enjoy the smell of a prey's terror, but humans might as well have no noses. I remember in the Hohe Kalkstein, I smelt a group of ferals lying in ambush. I kept downwind and they never smelled me till I was a dozen bounds from them . . . Then one jumped up and leaped to heft his strakakker . . . too late. And underground . . ." Hroarh-Captain's ragged ears folded and unfolded in a kzinti laugh. Some memories were still good.

"Our fathers tried to negotiate with you when your ships first appeared in our system," she replied. "Some of us tried to empathize with you. Your answer was beams and bombs and enslavement. We were a peaceful culture then and nightmare fell upon us. Well, we have learnt better now, half-ratcat!"

"Let us all put down our weapons," said the colonel. "There is no need for more to die here, human or kzin. Enough have died in this war. And I see the guns in the monastery are still trained upon us. We have won, Captain van der Stratt, we do not need heroic rhetoric."

"But we have needed heroic rhetoric, Earthman. Flatlander! We who lived and died under the ratcats needed to rediscover heroism! And we did!"

"So did we," the colonel replied. "It was we who built the Space Navy."

"I can no longer order you to sssurindir, Raargh-Sergeant," said Hroarh-Captain. It was a difficult word to pronounce, a new word that had crept into the Kzinti vocabulary on Wunderland over the last few months, and until very recently, on the occasions it had been used, it had been prefixed by the modifier "nevirr." He went on: "I can no longer take the burden from you. Who is in the Mess?"

"Wounded. A kzinrett. A very old Conservor. A few others . . . a suckling infant." He paused. "And a/the kit." He wondered if the humans would catch the blurring of the article. "And the Jorg. The human who has been under my protection."

"If they die, they will die uselessly, and there will be