Choosing Names: Man-Kzin Wars VIII Larry Niven (fantasy novels to read txt) 📖

She stared at him as she huddled in her blankets. “I’ve contacted Earth,” he said, trying to make her feel better. “I can offer you anything within reason, including the captain’s best whiskey. You’ve gone through a terrible ordeal. Once you’re back on Earth you can ask for anything, reasonable or not. They say the rehab program on Hawaii is very nice.” He wondered if she’d ever make it out of it, or join the permanent residents. It was too soon to tell.

Dr. Bonet smiled at him, though he thought she put a little too much teeth into it. “All I want,” she said, “is a decent cup of coffee, my clothes, a hot bath in a real bathtub . . .”

Lt. Aziz nodded briskly. “No problem. We’re heading toward a station with its own spin and a little more room. You can have the first two right off, though I recommend a slug of brandy to go with that coffee. Anything else?”

“Yes,” she said with another smile. Definitely too much teeth this time, Aziz thought. She leaned forward and whispered, “A fur coat.”

JOTOK

Paul Chafe

Copyright © 1998 by Paul Chafe

The planet overhead was breathtaking. Planets always were. Especially the ones with atmosphere. This one was a life-bearing oxygen world, swirled in clouds with nearly three-fifths of its surface area covered in ocean and dazzling icecaps. Cities sparkled on the night side as the terminator slid slowly past. It had started as a pinprick on the one nav screen that was currently imposed on sixty percent of Joyaselatak’s field of vision. It continued to swell until it was no longer a planet but a place as the laws of motion carried the tiny ship inexorably toward its final destination.

Outwardly Joyaselatak was calm, secure in a resilient anti-acceleration bubble full of oxygenated fluid. Inwardly its torochord buzzed with chatter between its five self sections. The beauty of the view belied the danger. This planet was the citadel of the enemy. In order to evade detection, the ship would enter the atmosphere at meteoric speeds. The larger and more powerful pair of the ship’s gravity polarizers would be used—and burnt out—in a massive last-instant surge to check its fall. Secrecy was essential. The enemy’s sensors and weapons were crude but effective and getting better all the time, augmented by technology stolen from captured Jotok merchants. Attempts to reconnoiter with ultra-low albedo satellites had failed. The enemy detected the remote spies and destroyed them before they even entered orbit, thus the need for a risky ground-based scout mission. Joyaselatak hoped it would reach the surface intact and undetected. What the enemy lacked in technology they more than made up for in unrestrained aggressive energy. And as they mastered what they stole, their technological deficiencies diminished. It had taken a fifth of a lifetime for the news of the predators to reach the Jotok Trade Council at the speed of light and two-fifths more—unaccelerated times—for the probeship that had brought Joyaselatak to arrive at this distant star. Who knew what tricks the aliens might have developed in the meantime.

* * *

 “You mock my honor!” Swift-Son of Rritt-Pride snarled the words through a fanged smile and dropped to attack-crouch in the dust of the pride circle. A pair of frolicking kits startled and bolted for their mother. Pkrr-Rritt watched from the den mouth with mild interest as other kzinti backed up to make room for a challenge duel.

Opposite Swift-Son, Rritt-Conserver shifted only slightly, but his new posture balanced him at once for attack or defense. “I taught you honor, kitten,” he snarled back, deliberately insulting. “You mock yourself.”

Swift-Son circled slowly, watching his opponent, looking for an opening. He was worthy of his name—his claws were faster than lightning, and his teacher was old and slow. Swift-Son could take him, perhaps. Hadn’t he already two sets of ears on his belt? His anger told him he could win, but Rritt-Conserver smelled so calm.

“I will go east for my Name. I will steal the Mage-Kzin’s totem!”

The old kzin pivoted slightly to keep his eyes locked on Swift-Son. “You will defy the Fanged God and destroy us all. If this one has taught you no better, it deserves to die. Come claim your due.” Rritt-Conserver purred the words in the humbled tense but his meaning was clear, and his belt held more ears than a tangle-tree held leaves.

But to back down today of all days, and in front of the pride and the Patriarch, that would be too humiliating. Swift-Son held his crouch and let his rage give him strength. “I am an adult and I choose my own Namequest.” He breathed rapidly through his mouth, priming his blood for battle.

His teacher abandoned sarcasm for the mocking tense. “You are a fool. You would refuse a name from the Fanged God for a kitten’s dream.”

“Only a fool would die in the desert for another fool’s prattlings.” Swift-Son gathered himself for the killing leap. But the old kzin’s move had brought a rock from the fire circle into Swift-Son’s touchdown area. A poor landing was quick death, and so he did not leap.

Rritt-Conserver noted the young kzin’s restraint and relaxed his snarl but not his posture. “Remember the portents,” he said, almost gently. Swift-Son stared back at him, eyes locked and muscles tensed for attack.

The tableau held as Pkrr-Rritt and the other kzin watched in silence. This was the critical moment. Swift-Son was acutely aware of their gaze. He could not back down now! But his teacher’s words rang in his brain. Never in his life had the Fanged God sent portents, though the pride-ballad spoke of them. Then, on the eve of his Namequest, the Sky Streak had fallen in the east with thunder to shame a cloud burst. And that very morning he’d watched with his own eyes as the Fanged God’s talons raked four cloud-slashes across the sky from west to east. Strong portents, indeed, and the