Man-Kzin Wars XII by Larry Niven (books you have to read .TXT) 📕

hyperwave spoke up: "Incoming ship, identify yourselves."

Ginger tapped the mike. "We're the Jubilee, out of Wunderland," he said in quite good Flatlander. "Who are you?"

"Triton Relay Customs Station. Are you carrying any fissionables or bioactives?"

"No, but if you make a list we could come back," Ginger said cheerfully. Perpetua's eyes went wide and she clapped her hands over her mouth as he continued, "We'd like to talk to an ARM."

The Belter Customs officer said, "Why?" He sounded honestly perplexed.

"To engage in commerce."

"With the ARM? You'll walk out smiling and holding two coat hangers."

Ginger looked at Perpetua, who was no more enlightened than he. "Nevertheless."

"Well, I'll pass the word.—I advise against joking with them," the voice added. "There's a flatlander law against ARMs laughing at any jokes but their own."

"Thanks," Ginger said, and cut the mike.

"You don't ever joke with Customs, have you taken leave of your senses?" Perpetua exploded.

"No, but hopefully you won't be the last to think of that," Ginger said. "It may help. The idea came to me when I heard that silly question—as if a smuggler of murder supplies would be surprised into blurting out a truthful answer." His ears waved, once. "Suddenly I thought of a way to cope with human bureaucracy."

"I'll talk to the next one!" she said.

A com laser found them about an hour later. "Attention Jubilee, this is T.C. Smith, senior agent, ARM ident RM35M4419. I am the ARM officer at earliest available rendezvous, presently at Juno, coordinates follow. Be seeing you." A datastream beeped in and was recorded.

As Ginger altered course, Perpetua sent, "Senior Agent Smith, this is Jubilee, we will arrive your location—" Ginger showed the figures "—in about twenty-nine hours." She set that to repeat, then said, "He sounded positively friendly."

"I've heard that ARMs are all supposed to be kept insane," Ginger said. "Perhaps he welcomes the company. I wonder what he's doing at Juno?"

"Why, where's Juno?"

"According to these figures, it's an asteroid. Not under ARM jurisdiction."

Perpetua looked for herself, because she had to—if a kzin had done so it would have been insulting—and said, "That's weird."

Juno Traffic Control had them lie off two thousand kilometers, and at that the region seemed pretty busy. "There must be five hundred ships here!" Perpetua said wonderingly.

"About half with their drives aimed at us," Ginger commented. When she stared at him, he said, "We are of largely kzinti design, after all. And Belters who trusted strange ships in either war probably didn't survive long enough to teach the habit to anyone."

A tanker began signaling them. Perpetua acknowledged, and the speaker said, "Smith here. You need any fuel?"

"No, our planer is rigged to scoop up ambient hydrogen constantly," she replied, and Ginger stuck his finger in her mouth. She spit it out, cut the mike, and said, "What are you doing?"

"Not revealing capabilities," he said. "How did you people last long enough to get to space?"

She glared, then switched back on. "Are you in the tanker, or relaying?"

"In. Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted."

The tanker moved alongside and extended a travel tube, and presently Smith came through the lock with a parcel bigger than he was. "Great, gravity," he said, taking his helmet off.

He was one-gee short, and blond as a Herrenmann, but his skin was quite black, at least on his head. Also, his pressure suit was decorated with the head and shoulders of a pale-skinned man in an odd-looking cap, with a bill in back as well as in front; the man was smoking a curly pipe and holding a magnifying glass before one eye. Perpetua, who had spent the past day learning something about Sol Belter culture, said, "Just how long have you been at Juno?"

"Open curiosity, that's refreshing! Just over eleven years now. Well done. Junior assistant to the second deputy secretary of the consul."

"What does that mean?" Ginger said, stepping into view.

"I thought you sounded like a kzin. It means by the time I'd accumulated enough procedural complaints to be retired, my pension would have come to more than I get in salary, so they sent me where I couldn't annoy anybody worse than they normally are."

"What does T.C. stand for?" Perpetua said.

"The name of a classical author. I come from a long line of subversives, and I joined the ARM to stop being inundated with the material. So what do they do but put me in Propaganda. Where can I put this?" He indicated his parcel.

"What is it?" said Ginger.

"My official weaponry. If you want to search it, don't press any switches. Can I use your shower? I've spent the past day suited up and reading the manuals on all this junk."

"Why'd you do that in a pressure suit?" Perpetua said.

"The display's in the helmet." He grimaced.

"Through there," she said.

As he departed, she murmured, "Wonder what the complaints were for?"

"Throoping!" he called back up the passageway.

"Good ears," said Ginger. After the refresher had opened and closed, he added, "What's 'throoping'?"

"No idea."

The ship's database defined it as Intra-bureaucratic use of sarcasm and absurdity to point out, refute, and if possible punish extreme foolishness. Context invariably implies the sole voice of reason speaking with total lack of concern for consequences. Origin artificial, circa 1950. "Interesting concept," Ginger said, opening the parcel. "But does it work?"

"They must have had some reason for sending him here," she said. Then she fell silent.

There was a slug gun, a folding multibladed hullmetal knife, a hullwelding laser with a huge battery, a variable stunner, small grenades of assorted types both lethal and nonlethal, interrogation drugs, flare goggles, and impact armor; then there were the concealed weapons, like the dartgun rings, and the watch with its loop of Sinclair filament. "Interesting," Ginger said.

"A man arrives equipped for piracy and you call it 'interesting'?"

"No, what's interesting is that it's all newly opened. Still smells of packing foam. Never been used."

"And he must have brought it all with him eleven years ago," Perpetua realized.

"Oh?"

"The Belters wouldn't have allowed the ARM to establish an arsenal. They're as touchy about independence as