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

the voice whispered in his ears. "You have work to do. Gather the equipment. Bury the bodies. We must move."

Bigs shook his head as if shaking off water, clawing at his own ear. The little implant seemed impossible to dislodge; sometimes these days in evil dreams he felt that it was growing tendrils into his brain from his ear. Pain shot through his head at the thought.

"Nonsense. Now, get to work."

Howling again, Bigs beat fists on the capsule until the mule reared and kicked and nearly escaped. Then he seized the halter and dragged it after him into the night. He must run, like Warlord Chmee, run from his guilt. Had not Chmee broken an oath for ultimate power? He must run.

"Stop, you brainless savage! Obey!" The pain again, but Bigs ignored it.

"I did it for the Heroic Race!" he screamed into the night. "None shall command us. No more monkey arrogance. I did it for you, my brother!" His grief rose shrill, a huge sound that daunted even the advokats pack that had come to prowl at the edge of sight, attracted by the blood. Dragging the mule behind him, Large-Son of Chotrz-Shaa ran into the darkness.

* * *

The pain in his head was continuous now. Sometimes he felt as if his brain were being dragged out, and he found himself walking in a circle to the left, head bent to his shoulder. When it lessened, he was conscious of the voice again. It was daylight, but he was uncertain of the day. They were over the pass, and the ground on either side was covered in long grass, with patches of trees on the higher slopes. The cool damp scent from the lowlands spread out below him was like a benediction in his nostrils; there was no sight of Man, not even of his herdbeasts.

"Very well," Durvash said. "We will proceed straight. That pack of scavengers probably finished them off in any case. No time may be spared to go back, in any case."

Bigs mumbled something. He felt he should resent the tone; did the ancient revenant not know he was speaking to a Conquest Hero? Soon to be the greatest of all Conquest Heroes? Yet the emotion was far away, as if muffled behind a thick layer of sherrek fur. Why was his mind wandering so? Great chunks of time seemed to be missing, and sometimes his vision would blur like a badly adjusted holoscreen. It kept the grief at bay, though. With that he began to weep, an eeeuuureuee sound.

"My brother fought for me when the older kits pulled my nose," he mumbled to himself. "I grew bigger, but he never quarreled with me." Not enough to really draw blood. "We shared our first kzinrett." An under-the-grass transaction with a warrior needing quick cash to cover a gambling debt. "We—"

"Silence."

"Urr-urrr—" Bigs's throat would not work anymore, and he found he had lost interest in speaking.

* * *

Well, now I know how the implant will work on these kzin, Durvash thought sourly. Badly. It had been designed to use on thrint and thrintun slave species, of course, with multiband capacity. Kzinti seemed very resistant to pain-center stimulus, and on a strange species the control of volitional routines was impossibly coarse.

Report, he thought/ordered the autodoc system. Impatiently, he ran through the diagnostic and came to the conclusion. Prepare to decant me, he told it. Warnings flashed, but he overrode. The autodoc would be priceless as part of his breeding program, since it was capable of acting as an artificial womb, but he must not run down the base supplies of organic molecules for recombinant synthesis before he was sure of obtaining more. The local biochemistry was unlikely to have all a tnuctipun metabolism required.

Besides, I am hungry and mad to see the sky, to smell fresh air again. If he was to be reborn into this new world, let his fangs and tongue take seizin of it.

"I will emerge," he said to the kzin. It stood apathetic, eyes dull; he ordered the machine to jolt its pleasure centers and relax forebrain restriction, and awareness returned to the big golden eyes. "Where are we?"

"Near . . . hrreeawho, how did we come here so fast? Where is . . . we are near Neu Friborg, I think. We are there, I think."

It lifted the module to the dirt and sank exhausted to the ground. Fluid began to cycle out of Durvash's lungs, and he wrapped his lips against the pain.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Something was biting his tail.

Spots groaned and tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed together. The biting stopped, and water fell across his face. He heard shouting. Feebly, he scrubbed at his eyes with a wrist, and blinked back to wakefulness. An advokat slinked in the middle distance, huge jaws working, matted pelt stinking of carrion.

Jonah-human was looking down at him, from a safe distance, canteen in hand. Matted blood covered one side of his face, and fresh blood glistened on clumsy bandages around his neck and one arm. They glanced aside from each other's eyes, and the human stepped forward and sank down by the kzin's side.

"Got to stop the bleeding," he rasped. "Here, drink."

Spots lapped water from his cupped palm, and then seized the canteen to guzzle with his thin lips wrapped awkwardly around the spout. He coughed and felt tearing pain in his chest; water spurted out of his mouth. Looking down, he could see the bright gleam of steel among the tangled red mass of his flank.

"It is not as bad as it looks," he wheezed, after taking a careful deep breath. "See, the steel must have turned aside and snapped on the ribs—thanks to your cutter bar, which weakened it. My lungs are not pierced, nor my intestines." He licked at his nostrils and sniffed again. "I would smell that."

"Could be stuff inside hanging on by a thread," Jonah said worriedly.

"I will survive while you pursue the oath-breaker," Spots