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

the falling dust. Opposite charge, so when it came down it fused to the ground."

"And the current fused the wall of the chamber," Ginger said, as pleased as if he'd done it himself. "There are caverns back home that humans carved that way during the Second War, with openings a kzin couldn't get a leg into. A lot of invaders died after passing by one of those."

"Oh, yeah," said Perpetua.

"How come it took you so long?" Smith wondered.

"This one's a lot bigger," Ginger said.

"Never saw one with trees in it, either," said Perpetua.

"True."

The proprietor returned. "Excuse me; what's your name?" said Perpetua.

"Joanna." She seemed a little startled, but went on with what she had come back for: "This way."

"Perpetua, and Ginger."

"How do."

They followed her into a back corridor, then into a cramped chamber which looked like a storeroom for things too odd to keep out front—which was saying something. Ginger just had time to notice that while things sat on the floor or hung on the walls, nothing on the floor leaned against a wall. Then the floor descended.

The elevator was slower than the one before. "I keep meaning to study tap dancing," Joanna said after a while, for no discernible reason.

T.C. seemed to find it funny. "Another archaic reference," he told them. "One reason the ARM presence here is so thin on the ground. They have to do constant data searches to find out what people are saying. Usually just conversation—drives them nuts."

The light was from overhead, and grew fainter as they went down. The walls ended, leaving blackness at the edge of the floor. They were in a big volume, and still descending. Ginger's tail tried to lash.

When they stopped, Joanna said, "Basement dungeon, everybody out."

"As I said," T.C. remarked, but didn't go on.

When they were off the platform, lights began to go on.

This took a while.

Eventually Ginger said, "Why don't you all live down here? There's more room than all the domes."

"We do. Different families have their own caverns, but they all connect up—how do you think we got this stuff down here?"

The equipment could have made up a well-equipped multifunction carrier—troopship, fighter station, hospital, and kzinforming—though the assembled hull sections would have given it an awfully odd profile. And extra nacelles would have had to be custom-made for all the weaponry. Possibly a tertiary power plant to supply them, too.

"This way," Joanna said, interrupting Ginger's reverie. They stepped onto a slidewalk, one of many, and began moving through what might have been the toy box of a precocious infant Titan. "What do you need two hyperdrives for?" she said.

"Equipping a couple of transport ships to evacuate a lot of humans from a kzinti world," T.C. said.

"And Jotoki," said Perpetua.

"What's that?" Joanna said.

Ginger and Perpetua stared at her, speechless with astonishment.

"They look sort of like starfish," T.C. said. "They don't come to Sol System much," he explained to the Wunderlanders. "The ARM harasses them about what they can sell."

"They're aquatic?" Joanna said.

"Amphibious, if I remember right," T.C. said.

"They have an immature aquatic stage, and five sexes," Ginger said. "Each limb starts as a separate nonsentient creature. They meet and join at maturity. They develop intelligence just before they breed."

"Oh," said Joanna. "Just the opposite of us, then."

They had to get off to go back and get Perpetua; she was laughing so hard she fell off the slidewalk.

Once they were going again, Joanna asked T.C., "You two up to something?"

"Mother," he said.

"Well, I just don't like surprises."

"Neither do I, so keep the next one to yourself. . . . Great Ghu, where did all these come from?"

There were five complete hyperdrive systems, and parts to make up perhaps a dozen more. Two of the complete hyperdrives would need extensive rework before use—there is something distinctive and disquieting about a functional hyperdrive, at least to most organic intelligences, and those two systems didn't have it. Of the working ones, one was immense—about the right size for the hypothetical ship made from everything in the cavern. The other two were about of a size, but not much alike in appearance. One was clearly human design. The other . . . "Who made that?" said T.C.

"Beats the free ions out of me," said Joanna. "Came off a smuggler that piled in about nine years back. Notice how all the parts are linked to a central armature, so you can disconnect them without them floating away?"

"Pierin," said Ginger. "I've never met one, but they're supposed to do things like that. Incredibly fussy about details. Very good at war, the Patriarchy still isn't making much progress against them."

"They're warlike?" Joanna said. She sounded surprised.

"Did you think we were the only ones?" Ginger said, and he definitely was surprised.

"Well, yes. I thought you were found by some peaceful species and got to space by conquering them."

Ginger snorted. "We were found by the Jotoki, but what they wanted us for was to be mercenaries. If there's a 'peaceful' race advanced enough for star travel, I've never heard of them."

"There's the puppeteers," said Joanna. "They never attack anybody."

"Funny how you never hear about anyone attacking them, either," Ginger said. "How much for these two?"

"How much would you like to pay?"

"Nothing. Thanks, where can we hire a lifter?"

Perpetua and T.C. merely stood by and watched the two traders at work. Due to his combination of predatory shrewdness and disconcerting honesty, Ginger was even more effective at bargaining with humans than with kzinti. It threw off human merchants to have their claims taken with apparent seriousness; it slowed them down, forcing them to think about what they were actually saying.

There was another consideration. "Mom," T.C. interrupted after about ten minutes' chaffering, "has it occurred to you that he literally has a nose for just how low you'll go?"

Joanna stared at her son, then looked at Ginger.

Cats always look like they're smiling.

Joanna grumbled something inarticulate and named a price.

"Done," said Ginger.

"I can rent you a lifter," Joanna began.

T.C. sighed loudly—and theatrically—and then told the Wunderlanders, "My treat." He opened one of his suit pockets and undid a