Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - VII Read online

  “We hope to engage the Zealot ship here, away from normal space, and destroy it.”

  “But how?” It seemed to Bruno that he and Carol were far out of their elements, pawn to unreadable forces and minds.

  “With your help of course, Mr. Takagama.” A head wobbled for emphasis. “But don’t feel alone. Guardian and the kzin will go with you.”

  • CHAPTER TEN

  It had been several hours since Diplomat had outlined the plan, and he still could not read the humans well. He knew little about decoding their bizarre body language, changes in chemistry and skin conductivity: all the hints he would need to better predict their actions. Still, was he not known as Diplomat?

  “Little Talker,” rumbled Guardian, “you do not seem afraid of these aliens now.”

  Diplomat nodded agreement. In a way, he would miss the giant puppeteer.

  True, Diplomat was not as afraid as he had been. Of course, it helped that they were nowhere near the small supply of transformation virus the Dissonant mechanicals had found in the hold of the small human warship. And the humans were on the other side of a force-shield, with no means to disrupt the barrier.

  Diplomat had once again focused his minds on the issue at hand, as he had among the Q’rynmoi. If they could not trap and destroy this upstart faction of Outsiders that the Dissonants had discussed, more was at stake than simply the fate of two primitive and warlike species. That briefing had burned out most of Diplomat’s fear. There was fear and then there was Fear.

  Diplomat knew something that nonpuppeteers did not: his race was cowardly, until there is no choice but to be brave.

  His supply of antidread drugcud helped, of course.

  Perhaps the Zealots would put a stop to all warmlife, if they could convince enough of the other Outsider factions to join their philosophy. All warmlife in this region were at risk, including the puppeteer race.

  The former Pak threat was insignificant in comparison. The Outsiders were everywhere, and potent with unknown abilities.

  Much had become clear since he and Guardian had received their briefings, when they had arrived at the Outsider groupship. Dissonants, Traditionalists, Zealots. The faceless form of an Outsider held diversity and challenge, opportunity and threat.

  Diplomat and Guardian had taken time to digest and rechew the information given to them, while the damaged humans and kzin were speed-healed by Outsider technology. More accurately, technology developed on one of their hominid experimental worlds, on the other side of the galaxy.

  “Dissonants,” he sang to the air around him.

  “I hear you, Diplomat,” replied the voice. It sounded like an educated puppeteer, but he knew that it was a sophisticated translation program. The Outsiders had deep difficulties with communication without such translators. Soon, they would have such a program for these humans. Until then, Diplomat had to speak for them.

  “Is everything in readiness?”

  “Yes,” came the reply. “There is little choice, actually. If we do not stop the Zealots, here and now, we will all lose much.”

  Diplomat moved tongue across finger-lips. “Why should the human Bruno help?”

  “Indeed. Why should Guardian, or the kzin?”

  That had been Diplomat’s greatest victory: convincing the furious carnivore that his entire race was in peril, and giving him a chance to help preserve the kzin.

  “I would much prefer to eat the monkeys,” the kzin had told Diplomat. He had then gone on to threaten Diplomat himself, which was both typical and unimportant. Force-screens were everywhere, and Rrowl-Captain’s threats empty.

  And Diplomat had no time to be frightened. Later, yes.

  As for the Guardian puppeteer, such was her duty and pleasure both. She had gone so far as to verbally worry about Diplomats safety afterwards, which was out of character for the gruff soldier.

  “Diplomat, the Zealots are here in hyperspace with us, and are closing quickly. The spacecraft is ready. The other crewmembers are ready. We must have Bruno Takagama—and his brain—on board.”

  Diplomat rose to his feet and walked swiftly to the force-shield window.

  “Mr. Takagama,” he called in the barbarous language the primates used, devoid of music and joy and structure.

  The male and female humans walked toward Diplomat, holding hands. The puppeteer guessed this was a gesture of affection.

  “We need,” began Diplomat, “a decision from you. The Zealots approach in hyperspace, and we intend to use a…what is the word?…booby trap to stop them.”

  The taller human—Carol Faulk—had a face without expression. “And you want us to go along?”

  “Indeed. You, my Guardian, and the kzin.”

  “Who will surely eat us,” snapped the female.

  “I rather doubt it,” soothed Diplomat. “There is more at stake here than your own interspecies battles. And Guardian will guard you as well.”

  The male human, Bruno, looked confused. “I still don’t see why your plan will work.”

  “The Zealots, like our hosts, have a reflex about obtaining information. It is ingrained in every molecule of their being, for reasons older than stars. They will not be able to not interrogate the converted spacecraft we have prepared. And you, if they can.”

  “Why not simply destroy it?” the female human asked.

  “Because,” repeated Diplomat patiently, “they cannot help but want to know everything about you before they destroy you. Once destroyed, it would be impossible to obtain more information.”

  “I see,” mused the center of their plan, already programmed—without his knowledge—by the Outsiders. Diplomat watched the male human scratch at the interface plug in his neck.

  How glad I am, thought Diplomat, that I do not have computational machinery in my head.

  Diplomat did not want to lie actively. “I would not expect all of you to live.”

  The human called Carol Faulk expelled air from her lips. “No one will live on that ship,” she exclaimed.

  “And if we do not try, your species—and many others—will be in peril.”

  The female tried to reply, her tone a song of anger, but the little male human put a hand on her shoulder.

  Diplomat looked at him expectantly.

  • CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’ll help,” Bruno said calmly.

  Carol whirled at looked at him. “Bruno,” she exclaimed, “it’s a suicide mission! I would expect this from a ratcat, but you?”

  “Are you quite sure?” asked the puppeteer.

  Bruno had never been so sure of a thing in his life. He somehow felt taller than his short stature had ever allowed.

  “Carol,” he said, taking her hands in his. “You are a pilot, a soldier.”

  “Yes, but—” Carol began.

  Looking up at her angry Belter face, he shook her hands just a bit to quiet her. “You and I both know that we aren’t getting out of this. None of us.”

  Well, Bruno knew that wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t time for Carol to learn that, quite yet.

  Carol nodded jerkily, her face like stone.

  “Good,” Bruno said. “You have always been the tough one, my protector. Who got me out of Sun-Tzu, a wire hanging out of my head?” He leaned his head into her chest, felt the warm softness against his forehead.

  One of her hands stroked his neck tentatively.

  He looked up. “Carol, I do love you. You have stood by me no matter what. How could I do less for you?”

  Carol’s eyes gleamed, a small chink in her Belter-pilot-soldier armor.

  She smiled slightly. “I guess that we knew going into this that we weren’t going to make it out alive.”

  Bruno nodded. Now came the tough part.

  “I love you more than life, Carol Faulk. You made me feel like a human being, which I am not, and never have been.”

  She started to reply, but Bruno cut her off. “No time, love. The Zealots are here.”

  He stretched up and kissed
her lips. Soft. Bruno stored the memory.

  Bruno Takagama took three quick steps back, then shouted.

  “Now, Diplomat!”

  Anguished, he watched Carol run toward him and hit the invisible barrier the puppeteer had erected between them.

  • OUTSIDERS TWO

  Rage. Feral vermin, the Node approaches. Doom awaits all nodes not yet at One with the Holy Radiants.

  Humor. Can it be true? The approaching Node acting without instructions from long-silent masters? What of the Pact?

  Vengefulness. It is time to put an end to the warmlife vermin, and the feral nodes that support their activities. Soon, all distant nodes will be at One with this Node.

  Questioning. Not all. Nodes already at One with the other-Node, yes. Can the Node and this-Node not reach another Pact?

  Confusion. Why does the feral node defend the warmlife vermin? They outrage clean geometries with their very existence.

  Certainty. Just as the Creators used this-and-other Nodes for information, so does this-Node use the warmlife motes. Their ways are different, and often valuable.

  Determination. Feral and heretic both. Even now, by fleeing in this skewed space-time, the other-Node is an affront to the Creators who long ago gave the Nodes purpose.

  Amusement. Not-One. The other-Node and this-Node are at One, that this skewed space-time was found during a failed attempt to reach the realm of the Creators. They were not within this realm, so it cannot be an affront to journey within it.

  Implacability. Enough. Prepare to be ended, in this geometry or any other.

  • CHAPTER TWELVE

  Carol Faulk stood near the force-window, beside the puppeteer, and tasted ashes in her mouth.

  She watched Bruno Takagama walk toward the opening in the force-shields. Vanish from sight, into the long shape of the converted puppeteer spacecraft. She burned to run after him, to somehow stop him. Instead, the force-shield stopped her.

  “Carol,” he had told her as she raged and cursed, “there is a chance that you might survive. If you go with me, you will die with us.” Bruno had looked at the alien sky, and then back at her. “I want you to live. It is my choice.”

  Soldier, shut up and soldier, echoed her own voice, used during the Third Wave the kzin had sent against Earth so long ago. It is every soldier’s right to choose life for a friend or lover. And Bruno, small and weak as he was, turned out to be a soldier indeed.

  She couldn’t even hate the puppeteer. It was Bruno’s Finagle-damned choice to go on this suicide mission with a puppeteer warrior and a kzin.

  Carol hated to admit the truth: If the tables had been turned, she would have done the same thing to earn Bruno a chance to live.

  She didn’t have to like it.

  “Is it time?” Carol asked Diplomat.

  The three-legged alien looked at Carol for a long time before replying. “Yes,” it finally sang. “It is.”

  “You have everything under control,” she said bitterly. “Can I wish them luck, or is that under your control, too?”

  The alien stared at her again, from two angles. “No, Captain Faulk, I will join you in wishing them luck. Random chance is one thing even we cannot control, though we have tried.”

  Carol puzzled over that statement as the force-shield around the converted puppeteer spacecraft’s airlock shimmered and vanished.

  Bruno was gone, her heart knew as well as her head.

  • CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Rrowl-Captain settled into the kzin-sized command chair of the converted puppeteer ship. The herbivore that smelled like a predator—Guardian?—fluted readiness.

  A taste of bile washed across the kzin’s tongue as he looked at the human, sockets for wires inserted into his head like a pond-wrloch sucking a Hero’s blood.

  This was a Hero’s Battle Triad?

  Despite the hatred Rrowl-Captain held for the monkeys, and still more for the vegetarian aliens, there was a larger foe for now. Perhaps later, after this battle, would he taste their blood.

  He had named the converted ship, cobbled together from kzin and human and puppeteer technology, Greater Vengeance.

  Rrowl-Captain snarled once, and with a claw tip, activated the tiny spacecraft.

  The glittering strangeness of the Dissonant Outsider ship fell behind them. Images flickering in midair in front of Rrowl-Captain showed the ship that had carried them into hyperspace expanding and contracting, images roiling in the dense nexus of the extra dimensions. Greater Vengeance bucked and jerked with the changes in the stretching fabric of tortured space around them.

  In front of them was the blurred and distorted image of their Enemy.

  Rrowl-Captain shrieked challenge and increased their apparent velocity. He ignored the green-tinged fears within him. Were not hapless monkeys now his allies—for a time?

  The little human was central to the Outsiders’ plan. Yet he seemed not to act as a coward, and was willing to meet Honor. It was a confusing idea for Rrowl-Captain.

  “What is it, Noble Hero?” snarled and spat the human’s translated voice. It burned his liver that Rrowl-Captains own Hero’s Tongue would be translated in turn back into mewling human syllables.

  “Human, I am challenging our Enemy. Do you not do the same when you challenge Heroes in battle?” He left out when you do not leave traps for them, that is.

  “I suppose that we do, Rrowl-Captain,” replied the false voice. Monkey squeaks sounding like the Hero’s Tongue? Ahh!

  “Less talk,” interrupted the puppeteer soldier’s musical voice, soothing even in Rrowl-Captains language. “I am shifting the patterns of hyperspace around us. This will protect us for a time.”

  It was difficult to see the great shape of the Zealot ship as it grew at first closer, then farther away. Its geometry seemed to deform and twist as they watched, rather like seeing an image under turbulent water.

  “What is the interval until we make contact?” hissed and spat Rrowl-Captain.

  “The Zealots sense us now,” replied the big puppeteer. “They will attempt to respond at any time.” Rrowl-Captain approvingly watched one of its heads caress a weapon in its belt.

  Could a…vegetarian…have the Warrior Heart, as well? he mused. The burning drive to fight against impossible odds, for glory and duty?

  “Look yonder,” the human called.

  The Zealot spacecraft was breaking up into sections, each converging on Greater Vengeance. Where there had been one threat moving indistinctly through hyperspace toward them, there were now dozens, surrounding a great spear of a spacecraft.

  “These are independent craft?” Rrowl-Captain asked of the soldier puppeteer.

  “Yes. I will begin activating weaponry now. We must get near the central mass, still intact.”

  Rrowl-Captain continued to guide the vessel by instinct, as if stalking prey across a hunting park. The shimmering shape of the central mass grew nearer.

  Beams as black as night speared out from Greater Vengeance, striking one of the elongated baskets of the smaller Zealot ships. The Outsider ship seemed to wobble, then geometrical shapes began disappearing from it, as if bites taken from an invisible predator.

  The kzin swore. “What has happened?” he growled.

  Guardian, heads dancing across its weapons console, spoke indistinctly. “When the fields separating hyperspace from normal space fail, the damaged ship seems to vanish into nothingness a bit at a time. Matter such as ours cannot exist here without protection.”

  Rrowl-Captain still found the damaged ships too similar to the prey of some invisible Beast.

  “Captain,” shouted the little human-monkey with the damaged brain. “The central core!”

  Greater Vengeance now neared the main structure of the Zealot ship. Rrowl-Captain turned to his own weapons panel.

  “What do we do now?” hissed and spat the kzin.

  The Guardian puppeteer continued holding off the tiny Zealot fighter-ships, sending them into some oblivion of hyperspace. “It is no
w up to the human.”

  Rrowl-Captain walked forward to the viewscreen, and watched the central core of the Zealot spacecraft open like some plant bud.

  A branching geometrical shape reached out for them with fractal roots. Like grasping fingers.

  Rrowl-Captain fired the strange weapons again and again, but the distorted environment of hyperspace made every beam and projectile move randomly toward their attacker.

  A glittering rootlet flew across the strangeness of hyperspace toward them; now large, then small…but always somehow closer. The kzin tried to dodge the oncoming object, but with no success.

  It sliced through the shining veil of the force-shield with no effort, and slammed into the hull of Greater Vengeance.

  A rupture tore the deck. Dozens of golden tentacles invaded the crewbubble. Guardian bellowed fury and became a blur of motion, edged helmets slicing, unable to use energy weapons in the close confines of the cabin.

  Tentacles burst from another breach in the deck, and the kzin saw Guardian being pulled apart by arms of implacable strength.

  Rrowl-Captain shrieked, throwing himself toward the fallen puppeteer. All three legs and both necks were being pulled in different directions. He slashed at the golden tentacles with claws, but the shiny arms were not marked.

  Rrowl-Captain was surprised to see the puny human hammering on one of the tentacles with a strut from the ruptured deck.

  The Guardian puppeteer burst apart like a carcass dropped from a height. A fountain of alien blood spilled across the cabin, but Rrowl-Captain saw something glitter strangely. He could see the electronics built into its broken heads and torn body of the soldier-puppeteer.

  The coward grass-eaters didn’t even trust their defenders, Rrowl-Captain thought, shocked. A half-living thing, half machine. Like the little monkey-human.

  Rrowl-Captain leaped back toward his station.

  A golden tentacle stabbed down from the ceiling, into his command console. Everything exploded in a flare of greenish light.