Man-Kzin Wars 25th Anniversary Edition Read online

  The quartermaster was showing her around while Rover moved up the Alpha Centaurian gravity well until it would be safe to slip free of Einsteinian space. Her holds being vacant, the acceleration was several g, but the interior polarizer maintained weight at the half Earth normal to which healthy humans from every world can soon adapt. “You want the grand tour, not a hasty look-around like you got before, and who’d be a better guide than me?” Ryan had said. “I’m the guy who takes care of inboard operations, everything from dusting and polishing, through mass trim and equipment service, on to cooking, which is the real art.” He was a stocky man of medium height, starting to go plump, round-faced, dark-complexioned, his blue-black hair streaked with the earliest frost. A gaudy sleeveless shirt bulged above canary-yellow slacks and thong sandals.

  “Well, I—well, thank you, Karri,” Laurinda whispered.

  “Thank you, my dear. Now this door I’d better not open for you. Behind it we keep chemical explosives for mining-type jobs. But you were asking about our hyperdrive, weren’t you?

  “Well, after the war Bob and Dorcas—they met and got married during it, when he was in the navy and she was helping beef up the defenses at Ixa, with a sideline in translation—they worked for Solar Minerals, scouting the asteroids, and did well enough, commissions and bonuses and such, that at last they could make the down payment on this ship. She was going pretty cheap because nobody else wanted her. Who’d be so crazy as to compete with the big Belter companies? But you see, meanwhile they’d found the real treasure, a derelict hyperdrive craft. She wasn’t UN property or anything, she was an experimental job a manufacturer had been testing. Unmanned; a monopole meteoroid passed close by and fouled up the electronics; she looped off on an eccentric orbit and was lost; the company went out of business. She’d become a legend of sorts, every search had failed, on which basis Dorcas figured out where she most likely was, and she and Bob went looking on their own time. As soon as they were ready they announced their discovery, claimed salvage rights, and installed the drive in this hull. Nobody had foreseen anything like that, and besides, they’d hired a smart lawyer. The rules have since been changed, of course, but we come under a grandfather clause. So here we’ve got the only completely independent starship in known space.”

  “It is very venturesome of you.”

  “Yeah, things often get precarious. Interstellar commerce hasn’t yet developed regular trade routes, except what government-owned lines monopolize. We have to take what we can get, and not all of it has been simple hauling of stuff from here to there. The last job turned out to be a lemon, and frankly, this charter is a godsend. Uh, don’t quote me. I talk too much. Bob bears with me, but a tongue-lashing from Dorcas can take the skin off your soul.”

  “You and he are old friends, aren’t you?”

  “Since our teens. He came knocking his way around Earth to Hawaii, proved to be a good guy for a haole, I sort of introduced him to people and things, we had some grand times. Then he enlisted, had a real yeager of a war career, but you must know something about that. He looked me up afterward, when he and Dorcas were taking a second honeymoon, and later they offered me this berth.”

  “You had experience?”

  “Yes, I’d gone spaceward, too. Civilian. Interesting work, great pay, glamour to draw the girls, because not many flatlanders wanted to leave Earth when the next kzin attack might happen anytime.”

  “It seems so romantic,” Laurinda murmured. “Superficially, at least, and to me.”

  “What do you mean, please?” Ryan asked, in the interest of drawing her out. Human females like men who will listen to them.

  “Oh, that is—What have I done except study? And, well, research. I was born the year the Outsiders arrived at We Made It, but of course they were gone again long before I could meet them. In fact, I never saw a nonhuman in the flesh till I came to Centauri and visited Tigertown. You and your friends have been out, active, in the universe.”

  “I don’t want to sound self-pitying,” Ryan said, unable to quite avoid sounding smug, “but it’s been mostly sitting inboard, then working our fingers off, frantic scrambles, shortages of everything, and moments of stark terror. A wise man once called adventure ‘somebody else having a hell of a tough time ten light-years away.’ “

  She looked at him from her slightly greater elevation and touched his arm. “Lonely too. You must miss your family.”

  “I’m a bachelor type,” Ryan answered, forbearing to mention the ex-wives. “Not that I don’t appreciate you ladies, understand—”

  At that instant, luck brought them upon Carita Fenger. She emerged from a cold locker with a hundred-liter keg of beer, intended for the saloon, on her back, held by a strap that her left hand gripped. High-tech tasks were apportioned among all five of Rover’s people, housekeeping chores among the three crewmen. This boat pilot was a Jinxian. Her width came close to matching her short height, with limbs in proportion and bosom more so. Ancestry under Sirius had made her skin almost ebony, though the bobbed hair was no longer sun-bleached white but straw color. Broad nose, close-set brown eyes, big mouth somehow added up to an attractive face, perhaps because it generally looked cheerful. “Well, hi,” she hailed. “What’s going on here?”

  Ryan and Laurinda halted. “I am showing our passenger around the ship,” he said stiffly.

  Carita cocked her head. “Are you, now? That isn’t all you’d like to show her, I can see. Better get back to the galley, lad. You did promise us a first-meal feast.” To the Crashlander: “He’s a master chef when he puts his mind to it. Good in bed, too.”

  Laurinda dropped her gaze and colored. Ryan flushed likewise. “I’m sorry,” he gobbled. “Pilot Fenger’s okay, but she does sometimes forget her manners.”

  Carita’s laugh rang. “I’ve not forgotten this night-watch is your turn, Kam. I’ll be waiting. Or shall I seduce Commissioner Markham—or Professor Tregennis?” To Laurinda: “Sorry, dear, I shouldn’t have said that. Being coarse goes with the kind of life I’ve led. I’ll try to do better. Don’t be afraid of Kam. He’s harmless as long as you don’t encourage him.”

  She trudged off with her burden. To somebody born to Jinx gravity, the weight was trifling. Ryan struggled to find words. All at once Laurinda trilled laughter of her own, then said fast, “I apologize. Your arrangements are your own business. Shall we continue for as long as you can spare the time?”

  6

  The database in Rover contained books as well as musical and video performances. Both the Saxtorphs spent a considerable amount of their leisure reading, she more than he. Their tastes differed enough that they had separate terminals in their cabin. He wanted his literature, like his food, plain and hearty; Dorcas ranged wider. Ever since hyperwave made transmission easy, she had been putting hundreds of writings by extrasolar dwellers into the discs, with the quixotic idea of eventually getting to know most of them.

  The ship was a few days into hyperspace when she entered the saloon and found Tregennis. A couple of hours’ workout in the gym, followed by a shower and change of coverall, left her aglow. The Plateaunian sat talking with Markham. That was unusual; the commissioner had kept rather to himself.

  “Indeed the spectroscope, interferometer, the entire panoply of instruments reveals much,” Tregennis was saying. “How else did Miss Brozik discover her star and learn of its uniqueness? But there is no substitute for a close look, and who would put a hyperdrive in an unmanned probe?”

  “I know,” Markham replied. “I was simply inquiring what data you already possess. That was never made clear to me. For example, does the star have planets?”

  “It’s too small and faint for us to establish that, at the distance from which we observed. Ah, I am surprised, sir. Were you so little interested that you didn’t ask questions?”

  “Why should he, when he was vetoing our mission?” Dorcas interjected. It brought her to their notice. Tregennis started to rise. “No, please stay seated.” He looked so fragile. “
No offense intended, Landholder Markham. I’m afraid I expressed myself tactlessly, but it seemed obvious. After all, you were—are a busy man with countless claims on your attention.”

  “I understand, Mme. Saxtorph,” the Wunderlander said stiffly. “You are correct. Feeling as I did, I took care to suppress my curiosity.”

  Tregennis shook his head in a bemused fashion. He doubtless wasn’t very familiar with the twists and turns the human mind can take. Dorcas recalled that he had never been married, except to his science—though he did seem to regard Laurinda as a surrogate daughter.

  The computerman sat down. “In fact,” she said conciliatingly, “I still wonder why you felt you could be spared from your post for as long as we may be gone. You could have sent somebody else.”

  “Trustworthy persons are hard to find,” Markham stated, “especially in the younger generation.”

  “I’ve gathered you don’t approve of postwar developments on your planet.” Dorcas glanced at Tregennis.

  “That’s apropos the reason I hoped you would be here, Professor. I’m reading The House on Crowsnest—”

  “What do you mean?” Markham interrupted. “Crowsnest is an area on top of Mount Lookitthat.”

  Dorcas curbed exasperation. Maybe he couldn’t help being arrogant. “I understand it’s considered the greatest novel ever written on Plateau,” she said.

  Tregennis nodded. “Many think so. I confess the language in it gets too strong for my taste.”

  “Well, the author is a Colonist, telling how things were before and during the revolution,” Dorcas said in Markham’s direction. “Oppression does not make people nice. The wonder is that Crew rule was overthrown almost bloodlessly.”

  “If you please,” Tregennis responded, “we of the Crew families were not monsters. Many of us realized reform was overdue and worked for it. I sympathized myself, you know, although I did not take an active role. I do believe Nairn exaggerates the degree and extent of brutality under the old order.”

  “That’s one thing I wanted to ask you about. His book’s full of people, places, events, practices that must be familiar to you but that nobody on any other planet ever heard of. Laurinda herself couldn’t tell me what some passages refer to.”

  Tregennis smiled. “She has only been on Plateau as a student, and was born into a democracy. Why should she concern herself about old, unhappy, far-off things? Not that she is narrow, she comes from a cultured home, but she is young and has a whole universe opening before her.”

  Dorcas nodded. “A lucky generation, hers.”

  “Yes, indeed. Landholder Markham, I must disagree with views you have expressed. Taken as a whole, on every world the young are rising marvelously well to their opportunities—better, I fear, than their elders would have done.”

  “It makes a huge difference, being free,” Dorcas said.

  Markham sat bolt upright. “Free to do what?” he snapped. “To be vulgar, slovenly, ignorant, self-centered, materialistic, common? I have seen the degradation go on, year by year. You have stayed safe in your ivory tower, Professor. You, Mme. Saxtorph, operate in situations where a measure of discipline, sometimes old-fashioned self-sacrifice, is a condition of survival. But I have gotten out into the muck and tried to stem the tide of it.”

  “I heard you’d run for your new parliament, and I know you don’t care for the popular modern styles,” Dorcas answered dryly. She shrugged. “I often don’t myself. But why should people not have what they want, if they can come by it honestly? Nobody forces you to join them. It seems you’d force them to do what pleases you. Well, that might not be what pleases me!”

  Markham swallowed. His ears lay back. “I suspect our likes are not extremely dissimilar. You are a person of quality, a natural leader.” Abruptly his voice quivered. He must be waging battle to keep his feelings under control. “In a healthy society, the superior person is recognized for what he or she is, and lesser ones are happy to be guided, because they realize that not only they but generations to come will benefit. The leader is not interested in power or glory for their own sake. At most, they are means to an end, the end to which he gives his life, the organic evolution of the society toward its destiny, the full flowering of its soul. But we are replacing living Gemeinschaft with mechanical Gesellschaft. The cyborg civilization! It goes as crazy as a cyborg individual. The leading classes also lose their sense of responsibility. Those members who do not become openly corrupt turn into reckless megalomaniacs.”

  Dorcas paled, which was her body’s way of showing anger. “I’ve seen that kind of thinking described in history books,” she said. “I thought better of you, sir. For your information, my grandfather was a cyborg after an accident. Belters always believed it was as criminal to send convicts into the organ banks as any crime of theirs could be. He was the sanest man I’ve known. Nor have I noticed leaders of free folk doing much that is half as stupid or evil as what the master classes used to order. I’ll make my own mistakes, thank you.”

  “You certainly will. You already have. I must speak plainly. Your husband’s insistence on this expedition, against every dictate of sound judgment, merely because it suits him to go, is a perfect example of a leader who has ceased to be a shepherd. Or perhaps you yourself are, since you have aided and abetted him. You could have remembered how full of terrible unknowns space is. Belters are born to that understanding. He is a flatlander.”

  Dorcas whitened entirely. Her crest bristled. She stood up, fists on hips, to loom over Markham and say word by word: “That will do. We have endured your presence, that you pushed on us, in hopes you would prove to be housebroken. We have now listened to your ridiculous rantings because we believe in free speech where you do not, and in hopes you would soon finish. Instead, you have delivered an intolerable racist insult. You will go to your cabin and remain there for twenty-four hours. Bread and water will be brought to you.”

  Markham gaped. “What? Are you mad?”

  “Furious, yes. As for sanity, I refrain from expressing an opinion about who may lack it.” Dorcas consulted her watch. “You can walk to your cabin in about five minutes. Therefore, do not be seen outside it, except for visits to the head, until 1737 hours tomorrow. Go.”

  He half rose himself, sank back down, and exclaimed, “This is impossible! Professor Tregennis, I call you to witness. “

  “Yes,” Dorcas said. “Please witness that he has received a direct order from me, who am second in command of the ship. Shall we call Captain Saxtorph to confirm it? You can be led off in irons, Markham. Better you obey. Go.”

  The commissioner clambered to his feet. He breathed hard. The others could smell his sweat. “Very well,” he said tonelessly. “Of course I will file a complaint when we return. Meanwhile we shall minimize further conversation. Good day.” He jerked a bow and marched off.

  After a time in which only the multitudinous low murmurings of the vessel had utterance, Tregennis breathed, “Dear me. Was that not a . . . slightly excessive reaction?”

  Dorcas sat down again. Her iciness was dissolving in calm. “Maybe. Bob would think so, though naturally he’d have backed me up. He’s more good-natured than I am. I do not tolerate such language about him. This hasn’t been the only incident.”

  “There is a certain prejudice against the Earth-born among the space-born. I understand it is quite widespread.”

  “It is, and it’s not altogether without foundation—in a number of cases.” Dorcas laughed. “I shared it, at the time Bob and I met. It caused some monumental quarrels the first couple of years, years when we could already have been married. I finally got rid of it and took to judging individuals on their merits.”

  “Forgive me, but are you not a little intolerant of those who have not had your enlightening experience?”

  “Doubtless. However, between you and me, I welcomed the chance to show Markham who’s boss here. I worried that if we have an emergency he could get insubordinate. That would be an invitation to disaster.”<
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  “He is a strange man,” Tregennis mused. “His behavior, his talk, his past career, everything seems such a welter of contradictions. Or am I being naive?”

  “Not really, unless I am, too. Oh, people aren’t self-consistent like the laws of mechanics—even quantum mechanics. But I do think we lack some key fact about Landholder Markham, and will never understand him till we have it.” Dorcas made a gesture of dismissal. “Enough. Now may I do what I originally intended and quiz you about Plateau?”

  7

  While Rover was in hyperspace, all five of her gang stood mass detector watch, six hours a day for four days, fifth day off. It was unpopular duty, but they would have enjoyed still less letting the ship fly blind, risking an entry into a gravity well deep enough to throw her to whatever fate awaited vessels which did not steer clear. The daydream was becoming commonplace among their kind, that someday somebody would gain sufficient understanding of the psionics involved that the whole operation could be automated.

  It wasn’t torture, of course, once you had schooled yourself never to look into the Less Than Void which filled the single port necessarily left unshuttered. You learned how to keep an eye on the indicator globe while you exercised, read, watched a show, practiced a handicraft. On the infrequent occasions when it registered something, matters did get interesting.

  “And I’ve decided I don’t mind it in the least,” said Juan Yoshii after Kamehameha Ryan had relieved him.

  “Really?” asked Laurinda Brozik. She had met him below the flight deck by agreement.

  He offered her his arm, a studied, awkward gesture not used in his native society. She smiled and took it. He was a young Sol-Belter. Unlike Dorcas Saxtorph, or most folk of his nation, he eschewed spectacular garb. Small, slim, with olive-skinned, almost girlish features, he did wear his hair in the crest, but it was cut short.