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

A screen on one of the half-rebuilt Swarm-Belter computers by his foot lit. Gibberish, except—The pure happiness of solving a difficult programming problem filled him. It had never been as strong as this, just as he had never been able to concentrate like this before. He shuddered with an ecstasy that left sex showing the grey, transient thing it was. But I wish Ingrid were here, he thought. She would be able to appreciate the elegance of it.

“You haff results?”

Jonah stood up, dusting his knees. Somewhere, something went pop and crackle. He nodded, stiff cheeks smiling. Not even Markham could dampen the pleasure.

“It was a Finagle bitch,” he said, “but yes.”

Something struck him across the side of the face. He stumbled back against the console’s yielding surface, and realized that the thing that had struck him was Markham’s hand. With difficulty he dragged his eyes back to the Wunderlander’s face, reminding himself to blink; he couldn’t focus properly on the problem Master had set him unless he did that occasionally. Absently, he reached to his side and attempted to thrust a three-fingered palm into the dopestick container. Stop that, he told himself. You have a job to do.

“Zat is, yes sir,” Markham was saying with detached precision. “Remember, I am t’ voice of Overmind among us.”

Jonah nodded, smiling again. “Yes, sir,” he said, kneeling again and pointing to the screen. “The operational command sections of the memory core were damaged, but I’ve managed to isolate two and reroute them through this haywired rig here.”

“Weapons?” Markham asked sharply.

“Well, sort of, sir. This is a . . . the effect is a stabilizing . . . anyway, you couldn’t detect anything around here while it’s on. Some sort of quantum effect, I didn’t have time to investigate. It can project, too, so the other ships could be covered as well.”

“How far?”

“Oh, the effect’s instantaneous across distance. It’s a subsystem of the faster-than-light communications and drive setup.”

Markham’s lips shaped a silent whistle. “And t’other system?”

“It’s a directional beam. Affects on the nucleonic level.” Jonah frowned, and a tear slipped free to run down one cheek. He had failed the Master . . . no, he could not let sorrow affect his efficiency. “I’m sorry, but the modulator was partially scrambled. The commands, that is, not the hardware. So there’s only a narrow range of effects the beam will produce.”

“Such as?”

“In this range, it will accelerate solid-state fusion reactions, sir.” Seeing Markham’s eyebrows lift, he explained: “Fusion power units will blow up.” The herrenmann clapped his hands together. “At this setting, you get spontaneous conversion to antimatter. But—” Jonah hung his head “—I don’t think more than point-five percent of the material would be affected.” Miserably: “I’m sorry, sir.”

“No, no, you haff done outstanding work. The Master vill—” he stopped, drawing himself erect. “Master! I report success!”

* * *

The dopestick crumbled between the thrint’s teeth as he looked at the wreckage of the computer and the untidy sprawl of human apparatus. The sight of it made his tendrils clench; hideous danger, to trust himself to unscreened tnuctipun equipment. He touched his hands to the head-bandages again, and looked over at the new amplifier helmet. This one had a much more finished look, on a tripod stand that could lower it over his head as he sat in the command chair. His tendrils knotted tight on either side of his mouth.

Markham had followed his eye. “If Master would only try—”

“SILENCE, CHIEF SLAVE,” Dnivtopun ordered. Markham shut his mouth and waited. “ABOUT THAT,” the thrint amplified. The Chief Slave was under very light control, just a few Powerhooks into his volitional system, a few alarm-circuits set up that would prevent him from thinking along certain lines. He had proved himself so useful while the thrint was unconscious, after all, and close control did tend to reduce initiative.

If anything, a little over-zealous: many useful slaves had been destroyed lest they revert; but better to rein in the noble znorgun than to prod the reluctant gelding. The thought brought a stab of sadness; never again would Dnivtopun join the throng in an arena, shouting with mind and voice as the racing animals pounded around the track . . .

Nonsense, he told himself. I will live thousands of years. There will be millions upon millions of thrintun by then. Amenities will have been reestablished. His species became sexually mature at eight, after all, and the females could bear a litter a year. Back to the matter at hand.

“We have established control over a shielding device and an effective weapons system, Master,” the Chief Slave was saying. “With these, it should be no trouble to dispose of the kzinti ships which approach.” Markham bared his teeth; Dnivtopun checked his automatic counterstrike with the Power. That is an appeasement gesture. “In fact, I have an idea which may make that very simple.”

“Good.” Dnivtopun twisted with the Power, and felt the glow of pride/purpose/determination flow back along the link. An excellent Chief Slave, he decided, noting absently that Markham’s mind was interpreting the term with different overtones. Disciple?

The computer slave beside him swayed and the thrint frowned, drumming his tendrils against his chin. This was an essential slave, but harder than most to control. A little like the one that had slipped away during the disastrous experiment with the jury-rigged amplifier helmet, able to think without contemplating itself. He considered the structure of controls, thick icepicks paralyzing most of the slave’s volition centers, rerouting its learned reflexes . . . yes, best withdraw this, and that—It would not do to damage him.

Dnivtopun twitched his hump in a rueful sigh, half irritation and half regret. There were still sixty living human slaves around the Ruling Mind, and he had had to be quite harsh when he awoke. Trauma-loops, and deep-core memory reaming; most of them would probably never be good for much again, and many were little more than organic waldos now, biological manipulators and sensor units with little personality left. That was wasteful, even perhaps an abuse of the Powergiver’s