Choosing Names: Man-Kzin Wars VIII by Larry Niven (novels to read for beginners txt) 📕

on it and several other trophies, though he scarcely needed to mark them again as his own. Even had I not been Telepath his mood would have been obvious to me.

“Dominant One, these Space-kz’eerkti may be tricky, certainly. Many of their artifacts are clever, and though I am too lowly to understand such matters in full, AT tells me their boat’s computers are more versatile than our own. Their connectivity is such that they have pattern-recognition and other machine-reasoning capabilities which our own computers, however fast, have not achieved—indeed we have never attempted to achieve it. Those properties could confer great advantages, military and medical . . .”—We took military medicine seriously—“Perhaps it is because they are used to looking down from tree-tops and therefore perceive relationships differently to Heroes who once hunted on plains. We have kept one of their programmers, also one of their navigators. It is a female, but in each case I feel there may be useful knowledge still to be extracted.”

“Merrower. Say nothing yet of this to any other.” Feared Zraar-Admiral did not need to use the Menacing tense to me. “In any event,” he went on, “their flavor may be a reason to husband them. I am inclined to keep a pair to breed from. Or would tissue be enough?” (The Dominant One would not, of course, be an expert in such an unHeroic matter as cellular biology). “Anyway, there ought to be plenty more of them soon. You may pace, Telepath,” he added graciously, “if it will aid your thoughts.”

“And third, Dominant One,” I continued, “We learn the monkeys who destroyed Tracker are now warning ‘Earth’ of our presence. That is their home planet.” I felt his conflicting emotions at the thought of the Earth-monkeys’ impotent terror when that warning was received.

Then suddenly he spun, whirling upon me so that I jumped back, fearing that he was about to attack me. “TELEPATH!”

I rolled belly upward in total submission. “Dominant One, have I offended?”

“Telepath, repeat to me those first words. Translate EXACTLY.”

“Dominant One, the words were: ‘They may not be so obliging as to leave themselves in the way of our drive next time’.”

“Do you see the implications of that?” His eyes and mind were flaring at me.

“Only what I have said, Dominant One.”

“Stupid. Urrr.” But he gave me an absent-minded grooming lick, and now I could feel the pleasure from his mind. He felt he was the first to see something wonderful. Slaver dropped onto my face from the tips of his splendid fangs.

“They speak of ‘Next Time’!” he churred. “Feeble as they are, those monkeys think of giving us a fight!

“Remember, too, those other monkey-words: ‘Keeping the transmission going is more important than our lives.’ What does that tell us about them? . . . No, perhaps that is not a question for Telepath to answer.”

Feared Zraar-Admiral stretched his claws. “We have followed spoor into long grass. Telepath, you are loyal . . .”

“Dominant One!” Fear! Did he suspect my commission from Honored Maaug-Riit? Did he suspect the Telepaths’ War? Did he suspect that Rilla and Niza . . .

“Remember it. You have brains. Of all the Telepaths I have encountered, you are the closest to a warrior.”

And where are those other Telepaths now? I thought. Zraar-Admiral had much of benign mood about him at that moment, but with danger always, always. Did he seek to cozen me into games with the family of the Patriarch?

“A reaction-drive . . . Urrr,” he churred more thoughtfully. “It is a clumsy makeshift but I do not like aliens having any weapons we lack. Heroes have died in the hunt when a fleeing prey kicked them with hard sharp hooves. Tell Alien Technologies Officer and Weapons Officer to look into the matter. If it is of truly dangerous potential, then they must find out everything about it. Perhaps we can duplicate the principle and better it with our own drive . . . Tell Weeow-Captain in generalities only if he asks.” A new weapon-principle, if it works, may be valuable, he was thinking, and I do not know yet where Weeow-Captain may fit into all this new order that may come about it. I hope he will remain my loyal Flag-Captain and friend, but for the moment . . .

Alone, I took further thought, probed other minds. Waking and sleeping times passed. There were minds whose rhythms I followed. Zraar-Admiral’s speculations . . . At last there came a certain time for sleep when, as the ship grew quieter and most minds around me grew still, I knew I had to move, to try to leap the chasm I had contemplated in fear so long.

I went to the cabin where one of the last monkeys was confined.

* * *

“You female.” Pronunciation was impaired by the construction of its speaking apparatus as well as by its fangs.

“Yes,” said Selina, staring up from the corner where she crouched. “I am female.”

It was the one which had most often watched her, had pointed out the sanitary arrangements and thrown her food. It was smaller than the other felinoid monsters, not much more than seven feet high, and thinner. The lines of jaw and muzzle were thinner too, adding, with the large eyes and ears, a hint of lynx to the tiger face.

The words were grating and slurred, but she made them out. It was saying: “You are astrogator in the Happy Gatherer. Sapient are females of your species.”

The first thought that penetrated her fog of terror was: Give it a human larynx and mouth and it would be speaking good English.

The second thought was: It is sick. She somehow knew the other creatures she had seen were normal. In all sorts of ways, its violet-edged eyes, its posture, its odor, this creature was not normal.

She found her brain was racing. She could analyze her own observations of the nightmare thing. She felt clear-headed, too. It was as if what had never made any sense to her before did so now. I felt the universe was out to get us and I was right. If