Man-Kzin Wars III Larry Niven (classic books for 10 year olds .TXT) 📖

became a factor in determining what they did afterward.”

“Have you any idea about it?”

“None, really,” Dorcas admitted. “Your brother may well be right, it was a freak of no special significance.”

“Except, we believe, Yiao-Captain thought otherwise,” Saxtorph pointed out. “And he got his superiors to agree it was worth a shot. Of course, from a human viewpoint, kzinti are natural-born wild gamblers.” He thumbed tobacco down into bowl. “Well, this is a secondary mystery. What you’ve engaged us for is to learn, if we can, what happened to your father. Yonder objective is a starting point.”

Tyra went to a window and gazed out across sea and wrack. A burst of rain spattered on the glasyl. “You have mentioned intercepting radio waves in space,” she said slowly. “Could you get any from that ship?”

“We’ll try. I’m not optimistic. Space is almighty big, and if a beam wasn’t very tightly collimated to start with, I doubt we could pick it out of the background noise after this many years, supposing we could locate it at all. Shipboard transmitters aren’t really powerful. But I do have some notions as to what the kzinti may have done.”

“Ja?” she exclaimed, and swung around to stare at him.

He got his pipe going. “What do you know about the Swift Hunter class?”

“Almost nothing. I see now that I should have looked it up, but—”

“No blame. You had a lot else to keep track of, including the earning of your daily bread and peanut butter. I remembered things from the war, and retrieved more from the naval histories in the Wunderland library system.”

Saxtorph blew a smoke ring. “I don’t know if the kzinti still use Swift Hunters. Who knows for sure what goes on in their empire? Any that remain in service will certainly be phased out as hyperdrive comes in, because it makes them as obsolete as windjammers. In their time, though, they were wicked.

“Good-sized, but skimpy payload, most of what they carried being mass for conversion. Generally they took special weapons, or sometimes special troops, on ultra-quick missions followed by getaways faster than any missile could pursue. Total delta v of about two and a half c, Newtonian regime. Customarily, during the war, they’d boost to one-half c and go ballistic till time to decelerate. Anything higher would’ve been too inefficient, as relativity effects began getting large. This means that they’d strike and return, with the extra half light-speed available for high-powered maneuvers in between. The gravity polarizer made it all possible. Jets would never have managed anything comparable. At that, the Swift Hunters were so energy-hungry that the kzinti saved them for special jobs, as I said. Obviously they figured this was one such.”

“Nevertheless, ten years to their goal,” Dorcas murmured.

“But in stasis, apart from standing watch,” Saxtorph reminded her. “Or, rather, the kzinti version of time-suspension technics, in those days. You can be pretty patient if you get to lie unconscious and unaging during most of the voyage.”

It had been in Tyra’s awareness, of course, but she tautened and breathed, “My father—” Seen from indoors, she was a shapely shadow against the silver-gray in the window, save for the light on her hair.

Saxtorph nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said around puffs. “Do not, repeat, do not get your hopes up. But it just could be. Bound back here with word of something tremendous—or without, for that matter—the kzinti captain catches a beam that tells him Wunderland is falling to humans who’ve acquired a faster-than-light drive. What’s he going to do? He’s got a half c of delta v left to kill his forward vector, and another half c to boost him to the kzinti home sun.”

“But when he got there, he could not stop,” she said, as if against her will.

“He might wager they could do something about that at the other end,” Saxtorph answered. “Or he might travel at one-fourth c and take about 120 years, instead of about sixty, to arrive. In stasis he wouldn’t notice the difference. But I doubt that, especially if he was carrying important information which he couldn’t reliably transmit by radio. And kzinti always do go balls-out. If he could not be recovered at his new destination, at least he’d die a hero.

“Anyway, this is a possibility that we’ll investigate as best we can, within the bounds of due caution.”

Once again, as on that evening in the tavern, Tyra stared beyond him and the room and this world. “To find my father,” shuddered from her. “To waken him back to life.”

Dorcas gave her a hard look. The same unease touched Saxtorph. He rose. “Uh, wait a minute,” he said, “you’re not supposing you—”

Tyra returned to them. Total calm was upon her. “Oh, yes,” she stated. “I am going with you.”

“Hey, there!”

He saw her grin. “Nothing is in the contract to deny me.” Grimly: “If you refuse, I do not give it my print and you have no charter. Then I must see what if anything the Navy will do.”

“But—”

Dorcas laid a hand over his. “She is determined,” she said. “I don’t imagine it can do any harm, if we write in a waiver of liability.”

“You may have that, but you won’t need it,” Tyra promised. “I take responsibility for myself. Did you imagine I would stay behind while you hunted for my father? Well, Ib does, so I suppose it is natural for you. Let him. If he knew, he might feel he must release the truth and get the authorities to stop us. As for me—” sudden laughter belled—“after all, I am a travel writer. What a story!”

Saxtorph chuckled and dismissed his objections. She could well prove an asset, and would indisputably be an ornament.

Dorcas stood pensive. When she spoke, it was so quietly that he knew she was thinking aloud. “In relativity physics, travel faster than light is equivalent to time travel. We use quantum rules. And yet what are we trying on this voyage but to probe the past and learn what happened long ago?”

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