Man-Kzin Wars V Larry Niven (e novels to read .txt) 📖

thirsty for blood and revenge?" he said. Bigs was growling, a hand resting on the module. Still, the smaller kzin licked his nose for greater sensitivity and stood stretched upright, sniffing open-mouthed.

"The wind favors us," he said after a moment. "And I do not recognize any individual scents. That does not mean these are not the ones we defeated—I had little time to pay close attention then." He sounded disappointed, thwarted in his longing to lose himself in combat and forget the decisions that had been oppressing him.

"Spread out and we'll see," Jonah said; it made no sense to outline themselves against their campfire. "No, leave the fire. If you put it out, they'd know we'd spotted them."

Not bandits, was his first thought, as he watched through his field glasses. The bandits had been in a mismatch of bits of military gear and outbacker clothes. These were in coarse cotton cloth and badly tanned leather, with wide-brimmed straw hats and blanket-like cloaks. Their weapons were a few ancient, beautifully-tended chemical hunting rifles, and each man carried a long curved knife, heavy enough to be useful chopping brushwood. Tough looking bunch, he thought, but not particularly menacing. They stopped a hundred or so yards out from the fire and called, a warning or hail. He could not follow their thick backcountry dialect, but Hans and Tyra evidently could. They stood and called back, and Jonah relaxed.

"Act casual," Hans said as they all returned to the fire. "These people are deep outback. They've got peculiar ways." He frowned a little. "Don't think they'll like we've got kzin with us."

The men did stiffen and bristle when they saw the silent red-orange forms on the other side of the fire, but they removed their hats and squatted none the less, their hands away from their weapons. One peered across the embers of the fire at Tyra and smiled, nudging the others. That brought a chorus of delighted, crook-toothed grins; the kzinti controlled themselves with a visible effort.

"I passed through their village," Tyra explained.

"What do they want?" Jonah asked.

Now that fear was gone it was a nagging ache to be delayed. They must get to Neu Friborg before Early and his cohorts could think up something else. Jonah never doubted for a moment that the bandits had had Early's backing, doubtless through his Nipponjin friends. The ID cards proved that, the forgery was far too good for hill-thieves to have managed.

"Got to handle the formalities first," Hans said. "Go on, light up."

The outbackers were passing around their pouch of tobacco; Jonah clumsily rolled a cigarette and passed it to Tyra, who managed the business far more neatly, even one-handed. She poured cups of coffee and handed them around as Hans filled his pipe, lit it with a burning stick from the fire and passed that likewise; the kzinti were pointedly ignored, crouching back with their eyes shining as red as the coals. Time passed in ritual thanks, in inquires about their health and that of their horses and mules, talk of the dry weather . . .

Tyra leaned forward intently as the real story came out. "They had a brush with our bandits," she said. "And—oh, Gott, no!"

Hans took up the story, listening intently; Jonah could catch no more than one word in three. "Sent some of their kids up-hill for safety. Ran into an ambush. Couple of men killed; they got the kids back, but they'd been hit with some sort of weapon they don't understand. The kids are alive and breathing, but they won't wake up."

Jonah's skin crawled. He relayed a few questions through the two Wunderlanders. "Neural disrupter," he said, when the villagers had answered. "Didn't know they had one—nasty thing, short-range but effective."

"They want—they want us to do something for them, heal the children," Tyra burst in. "What can we do?"

"Hmmm." Hans broke off to rummage through their medical kit. "Yep. That might work." He spoke to the headman of the strangers; they stood. "Wants us to come right away. That'd be better. Take a day or two to get to their settlement, two three days there."

Jonah opened his mouth to object—couldn't they call in to one of the lowland villages and get a doctor in by aircar?—and then shut his mouth again when Tyra looked at him. Damn. Shame works where guilt wouldn't.

Bigs felt no such objection; he shot to his feet, sputtering in the Imperative Mode of the Hero's Tongue, with his brother only half an expostulation behind. A dozen outbacker heads turned to the aliens like gun-turrets tracking, hands moving towards rifles and machetes. A sudden chill hit Jonah's stomach as he heard Bigs:

"We will not delay."

Even then, Jonah frowned in puzzlement. His command of the Hero's Tongue was excellent if colloquial, and he could have sworn that that had been in Ultimate Imperative Mode—which only the Riit, the family of the Patriarch, were entitled to use. Not that there was anything on Wunderland to stop Bigs using any grammatical constructions he pleased, but it was an unnatural thing for the big kzin to do. He was a traditionalist to a fault, that much had been clear for months. Spots stopped in mid-yowl to glance aside at him, confirming Jonah's hunch.

No matter. Both kzin were on the verge of fighting frenzy, and a very nasty little battle could break out at any second with a scream and leap. Garm backed up, bristling and barking hysterically; the kzinti ears twitched, and that was just the extra edge of hysteria that might set them off.

"Shut that damned dog up!" he barked. Tyra grabbed its collar and soothed it. "You two, you won't get extra speed by starting a battle now."

"What are the kittens of these feral omnivores to us?" Spots said, all his teeth showing. "You pledged to cooperate in this hunt with us, Jonah-human. And you were the one who said we risk failure with every minute of delay. Is the word of Man good, or is it not?"

A