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

useless Telepath and a monkey to pursue, but pursue wrong way. Monkeys on Kzin planets have tricks. You are a monkey. You must trick them.”

“What do you think our chances are?”

“Perhaps one in eight to fourth or fifth power. But random mathematics not my field . . . Does contortion of your muzzle signify anger? Or fear?”

“No. Amusement, of a sort.”

“I remember. Urrr. But not Heroic for leaping one to calculate odds.”

She was silent. She noticed again the endless ripping-cloth sound that vibrated ceaselessly throughout the ship.

“How can I believe you.” She was full of fear as she asked this question—somehow she knew (a flash of thought: how do I know) that to question the honor of this creature might be a deadly insult. But Telepath answered calmly.

“I could give you my name as my word if my kind ever had names. But name or no name, it is dishonorable to lie except as . . . as . . . you have no word for it. I have so little honor I do not wish to lose any. And you are not going to get a better deal.”

“Where do we actually escape to? Have you thought of that?”

“I told you, this is our only chance. We escape to your monkeyship, of course.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your Winged Undying Shining . . . The Angel’s Pencil . . . We are following it.”

* * *

Winged Undying Shining Monkey’s Writing Stick! Yes! Suddenly an image flashed from her mind to mine. I saw our target at last.

A “colony ship”, carrying a crew and many embryos to a planet circling a star named something like “Fifth of the River.”

A thin cylinder, circled by a halo.

The halo was the lifesystem in which the monkeys traveled, spinning to mimic gravity with centrifugal force. The cylinder housed the drive . . . and the laser.

A reaction-drive, as I had known. Small attitude-jets and gyros. But so cumbersome, hard to turn! Defense of such a thing would be hopeless!

But then, to fight Gutting Claw in conventional battle was not my plan.

To reassure the Selina-monkey further, I gave it back (gave her back. I reminded myself it was female) the Space-suit which had been taken during examination. It was badly torn, but the creature seemed eager for it, and hastily put it on its body. In its damaged state it seemed quite useless, but of course all females love decorating themselves. She seemed more composed then.

“Why are you taking me?” she asked.

“I will need you to talk to the Writing Stick monkeys of course. Tell them that Telepath is a useful companion and will help them remain alive. That is the prime reason, but there are others also. I have read Astrogator’s mind recently. I know as much of guiding a vessel in space as Astrogator, but I will forget. The knowledge Telepaths take from other minds cannot stay with us without a . . . bridge. And I only need to forget a little of astrogation procedures—questions for the computer—to be lost beyond all recovery I will need you then.”

“Or do you just want me to eat for yourself. Spare provisions perhaps?”

“I could not eat you personally, unless I was in hunger frenzy. Perhaps not even then. I have read your mind too deeply. It would be like eating myself. My condition has many disadvantages, one is inhibition in that area. We have too much . . . empathy. Unfortunately, this does not diminish with time. There is an effect. Besides, there are plenty of rations. There are provisions in all boats, and I have identified extra stores and prepared them for loading.

“Also, it is generally desirable to have a zzrow graff . . . useful companion.

“Yours was a sea-faring race before it took to the stars, I know. When Alien Technologies Officer and I examined this”—I gave it the thing we had taken from the suit—“we were baffled by its function. It was shaped something like a weapon. Yet once, when I was reading your mind as softly as I might, I discovered it was a small replica of an ancient ship. I do not know why you have it, but I thought perhaps . . .”

“A gift from my brother.”

New vistas of alien thought were opened to me. I felt new images from this monkey’s mind—of blue monkey home-world oceans, wider than those of Kzin, oceans which the monkeys had crossed for trade or even in order to stimulate some alien sense of pleasure, oceans they had voluntarily swum in and which they had written poetry about. Creatures lived in those oceans and I even caught a taste of them that stiffened my whiskers.

How alien these aliens were! And yet . . . the gift from the brother—would a Hero give a Kzinrett sister a gift? Yes, perhaps, when they were young. Bright shiny ornaments young Kzinretts liked. Heroes could feel affection for sisters they had spent kittenhood with, and Heroes could and should treasure mementos of great deeds and give gifts to those they cared for. Heroes who grew up in the households of Noble Sires, as I did not. But no Kzinrett crewed a Space-ship: the vocabulary of the Female tongue was perhaps eight to the power of three words.

The brother had been a museum guard. That was more strangeness. On Kzin Museum Guard was a task for certain old and honored warriors, perhaps heroically disabled in battle, supervised by the Conservors’ mystic order.

These creatures had not a warrior among them, nor, it seemed to me, a real notion of honor, yet they had museums. It made no sense. What would they display in such places? I extracted images of museums weirdly perverted—displaying not relics of battle but of games, of dances, of the origins of monkeydom and the animal forms that had preceded their own dominance.

Or was there something else? A hint of something secret deeply buried? The model had been preserved as a curio not for associations of honor or glory but for the sake of its age alone. Its name meant nothing to the Selina. A mere sound.

Like their other names that were