Man-Kzin Wars III by Larry Niven (good short books TXT) 📕

hope we’d survive, Jonah added to himself. Early caught his eye and nodded with an ironic turn of his full lips. The younger man felt a slight chill; how good at reading body language would you get, with two centuries of practice? How human would you remain?

“Speaking of which,” the general continued, “where is Lieutenant Raines, Matthieson?”

Jonah shrugged, looking away slightly and probing at his own feelings. “She . . . decided to stay. To come out later, actually, with Yarthkin-Schotmann and Montferrat-Palme. I’ve got all the data.”

Early’s eyebrows rose. “Not entirely unexpected.” His eyes narrowed again. “No personal animosities, here, I trust? We won’t be heading out for some time—” if ever, went unspoken “—and we may need to work with them again.”

The young Sol-Belter looked out at the passing crowd on the slideway, at thousands swarming over the handnets in front of the shopfronts on the other three sides of the cylinder.

“My ego’s a little bruised,” he said finally. “But . . . no.”

Early nodded. “Didn’t have the leisure to become all that attached, I suppose,” he said. “Good professional attitude.”

Jonah began to laugh softly, shoulders shaking. “Finagle, General, you are a long time from being a young man, aren’t you? No offense.”

“None taken,” the Intelligence officer said dryly.

“Actually, we just weren’t compatible.” What was that phrase in the history tape? Miscegenation abyss? Birth cohort gap? No . . . “Generation gap,” he said.

“She was only a few years younger than you,” Early said suspiciously.

“Biologically, sir. But she was born before the War. During the Long Peace. Wunderland wasn’t sown nearly as tight as Earth, or even the Solar Belt . . . but they still didn’t have a single deadly weapon in the whole system, saving hunting tools. I’ve been in the Navy or training for it since I was six! We just didn’t have anything in common except software, sex and the mission.” He shrugged again, and felt the lingering depression leave him. “It was like being involved with a younger version of my mother.”

Early shook his head, chuckling himself, a deep rich sound. “Temporal displacement. Doesn’t need relativity, boy; wait ’til you’re my age. And now,” he continued, “we are going to have a little talk.”

“What’ve we been doing?”

“Oh, not a debriefing. That first. But then . . . ” He grinned brilliantly. “A . . . job interview, of sorts.”

* * *

“Well. So.” The oyabun nodded and folded his hands.

Jonah looked around. They were in the three-twelve shell of Tiamat, where spin gave an equivalent of .72 G weight. Expensive, even now when gravity polarizers were beginning to spread beyond kzinti and military-manufacturing use. Microgravity is marvelous for most industrial use; there are other things that need weight, bearing children to term among them. This room was equally expensive; most of the furnishings were wood. The low tables at which they all sat, knees crossed. The black-lacquered carved screens with rampant tigers as well, and he strongly suspected that those were even older than General Buford Early. A set of Japanese swords rested in a niche, long katana and the short “sword of apology” on their ebony stand.

Sandalwood incense was burning somewhere, and the floor was covered in neat mats of plaited straw. Against all this the plain good clothes of the man who called himself Shigehero Hirose were something of a shock. The thin ancient porcelain of his sake cup gleamed as he set it down on the table, and spoke to the Oriental who had come with the general. Jonah kept his face elaborately blank; it was unlikely that either of them suspected his knowledge of Japanese . . . enough to understand most of a conversation, if not to speak it. Nippon’s tongue had never been as popular as her goods, being too difficult for outsiders to learn easily.

“It is . . . an unexpected honor to entertain one of the Tokyo branch of the clan,” Shigehero was saying. “And how do events proceed in the land of the Sun Goddess?”

Watsuji Hajime shrugged. “No better than can be expected, Uncle,” he replied, and sucked breath between his teeth. “This war presents opportunities, but also imposes responsibilities. Neutrality is impossible.”

“Regrettably, this is so,” Shigehero said. His face grew stern. “Nevertheless, you have revealed the Association’s codewords to outsiders.” They both glanced sidelong at Early and Matthieson. “Perhaps you are what you claim. Perhaps not. This must be demonstrated. Honor must be established.”

Whatever that meant, the Earther did not like it. His face stayed as expressionless as a mask carved from light-brown wood, but sweat started up along his brow. A door slid open, and one of the guards who had brought them here entered noiselessly. Jonah recognized the walk; training in the Art, one of the budo styles. Highly illegal on Earth until the War, and for the most part in the Alpha Centauri system as well. Otherwise he was a stocky nondescript man in loose black, although the Belter thought there might be soft armor beneath it. Moving with studied grace, he knelt and laid a featureless rectangle of blond wood by Watsuji’s left hand.

The Earther bowed his head, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead. Then he raised his eyes and slid the box in front of him, opening it with delicate care. Within were a white linen handkerchief, a folded cloth, a block of maple and a short curved guardless knife in a black leather sheath. Watsuji’s movements took on the slow precision of a religious ritual as he laid the maple block on the table atop the cloth and began binding the little finger of his left hand with the handkerchief, painfully tight. He laid the hand on the block and drew the knife. It slid free without sound, a fluid curve. The two men’s eyes were locked as he raised the knife.

Jonah grunted as if he had been kicked in the belly. The older man was missing a joint on the little finger of his left hand, too. The Sol-Belter had thought that was simply the bad medical care available in the Swarm, but anyone who could afford this