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

“I believe the captain has his reasons,” Syet said. He hated seeing disaster come his way without being able to avoid it. He might as well agree with everything Argton-Weaponsmaster proposed, though, no matter how idiotic. It was safer that way.

“Possibly.” The weaponsmaster flexed and unflexed his claws. “One who wished to keep all the honor to himself might also act this way. Too bad. There might be enough of it here for even someone like you to acquire a true Name. All you would have to do is keep quiet. Yet that might show enough courage to report your valor when we return in triumph.”

The telepath could easily see themselves being blown into floating debris instead. Syet was tempted, though. Telepaths had informal designations on their mental searches, but they were not true Names at all. “One wishes to know the extent of the plans,” he said, “to advise and assist as is the duty of all the Hero’s Race.”

Argton closed his eyes briefly, a clear sign of approval, which Syet received mentally as well. “As far as the techs can tell, we’re on a course to rendezvous with another human ship in thirty of their days. If the human-rett is still alive, we can use her to lure them in. We should record her voice soon just in case. Once we have two ships . . .”

Syet filled in the rest silently. One ship could return, as per the captain’s orders, while the other rampaged through the human system—a rampage that might open the way to an outright invasion by the rest of the fleet. As long as Ship Captain got a human ship to examine, the telepath saw nothing wrong with the plan—just as long as he was on the ship that returned. “Glory,” he whispered.

* * *

Marybeth fell into a mind-dulling routine in the next few days. She awoke, sneaked in and out of the refresher, cowered when one of the aliens came near, and hid in the galley. Her arms didn’t hurt as much from cutting meat as they did at first. One “morning” she laid out more Kobe beef. That was still the aliens’ favorite, though she occasionally varied it with fish. She gave most of the kzinti nicknames, though she’d learned a few of their words. Furball was the tech who’d first tried to use the autochef. She took care to cringe in fear whenever he cuffed her around, though he didn’t hit very hard. It was worth it, though. One of the others had tried to claw her up for no reason, and Furball had cuffed him. After that she made sure Furball got the first serving each meal time. He’d earned it. She gave names to others, too. Snaggletooth was the telepath, or so Marybeth thought. She kept Dalkey’s watch close to her when he was around. He didn’t spend much time in the galley, though, and she didn’t think he could read her without being nearby. The only one she was really afraid of was a magnificently tiger-striped kzin with a gloriously fluffy coat. Evidently both humans and kzinti made up for lack of height with attitude sometimes. Everyone else was scared of him, too. She nicknamed him Hobbes—nasty, brutish, and short. She disappeared into her nest of blankets whenever he showed up.

One night she began to analyze the kzinti rations while preparing a meal for herself. Since she had become a sudden convert to a vegetarian lifestyle, she thought it was unlikely she’d be interrupted. It was like waking from a terrible dream to start using her mind again. It took several hours to crack their notation system. Fortunately, their style of structural charting was similar to the human standard. Once she’d spotted a familiar looking lipid she was home free. Once she and the computer knew where the carbons were, the rest was easy interpolation. No wonder the kzinti enjoyed beef and fish—as well as fresh human. Their metabolism was like that of other Earth carnivores. The autochef food was clearly superior to the kzinti rations, as far as she could tell from the small amount she synthesized. The stuff was probably well-balanced and so forth, but it was clearly mulch, ready to eject as far as texture and flavor. The aliens’ nutritional experts probably had the same slogan as at home: “Food will win the war—but how can we get the enemy to eat it?”

She concentrated on fat ratios. Lipid metabolism was a great deal simpler than protein, and seemed to work the same way for the aliens as it did for humans, judging by the rations. She wasn’t surprised to find most of the fats were polyunsaturated. Kzinti probably got less exercise in space than they did on the ground. That was the standard for human food synthesis, as well. She examined the carbons in the kzinti ration fats again. There was something odd about their number, but she couldn’t figure it out. Marybeth hastily ate her soysteak and fake broccoli. Since the kzinti were using up the protein and fat reservoirs, she had free run of the carbohydrates. It might even make her smell less threatening.

Was there anything she could do to the kzinti food? With their metabolism so close to human, anything overt would be stopped by the autochef’s poison control program. Furball watched her too closely when she chopped the meat for her to add anything then. He also inspected the salt shakers. Could she reverse engineer the kzinti rations and find something that’d be bad for them without getting the autochef to lock down?

There were a few things she could do now. Marybeth changed all the fats to saturated ones. That called up a nutrition flag, but went through. Then she increased the sodium to just under the max allowable. Just for fun, she converted one of the drink dispensers to grain alcohol. If that didn’t increase their triglycerides, she’d like to