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

that much higher than her own. She didn’t think that kzinti could go pale, but Furball did his best as he apparently came to the conclusion she hoped he would. After all, Hobbes fit under the overhang. Furball picked up the body, but stared at the knife. Marybeth hastily pantomimed the drawer holding all the knives being pulled out and knocked onto the floor, then quickly huddled into one of her blankets to show that she was hiding during most of it anyway. She didn’t have to force herself to start crying.

With any luck, Furball would be too frightened to ask Hobbes anything till it was too late. They cleaned most of the mess up. Marybeth washed and put the deadly knife back in the drawer once Furball got it out of Snaggletooth’s body. Two other kzinti came down and carried the telepath’s remains off. She began slicing up the morning rations. Furball kept watching her. He probably had his suspicions, but not as much as if he’d caught her taking the body apart herself. Then he took one platter and set it in front of her. She gagged down a few mouthfuls so as not to make him suspicious. Fortunately the beef was salty enough for her to stand it. Urn . . . did humans have any processes that involved triple carbon bonds? She didn’t think so, but hoped that her vegetarian diet would protect her from most of the receptor’s effects. Making sure they ate it was more important. She just hoped the DMSO-type delivery molecule would get the enzyme through kzinti mucous membranes as well as her own.

After the meal, she finished cleaning everything up. It would take hours for the molecule to take effect, if it ever did. She trembled as she picked up the platters. At least she could think what she wanted to about them now!

As soon as the place was clean, she went into the air ducts with her special knife. Perhaps she’d smell like a meat-eater from this morning. She was certainly sweating hard enough. Then she picked off a clump of fur from a screen in the vents and rubbed it all over herself. That might help. Marybeth listened for complaints. She was ecstatic when she heard gripes about headaches, chest pains, and numbness from the aliens. At least that was how she interpreted their gestures as she caught sight of them through the grates over the vent outlets.

Then someone roared in anger as a kzin fell to the floor. Given the anger in the voice, she thought she’d just learned the kzinti word for poison. She heard lots of comments with rett this and rett that. A good thing she wasn’t in the galley! They probably thought a dangerous human was running around. How right they were.

The next few hours were a nightmare of roaming from air duct to air duct as the kzinti scoured the ship for her. She thought the engine sounded odd, but figured that was because she was closer to it than usual. A good thing the kzinti were too big for the vents! Lethal or sleepy gas would disable them, too, unless they blocked off just one section, so she was probably safe from that danger if she kept moving. Once she screamed out a vent, “I killed him! And now you’re all going to die, too!” Then she laughed.

The ship rocked as something hit it. Of course! The Peregrine must have come, and the kzinti couldn’t answer the challenge correctly. Then she heard the sizzle and clang of weapons as men from the other ship boarded. She peered out of a vent. A dead alien lay by a weapons locker without a mark on him. She kicked the grate out, grabbed a disruptor for herself and slid back in the duct. She headed toward the loudest noise, then peered out again. Hobbes was fighting two marines, and was winning. Marybeth popped open the vent and blasted him right in the back. Two other kzinti were already on the floor, but she shot at them anyway, just for fun. Besides, they might be faking. The marines gaped at her. She waved at them, then crawled back into the duct to look for another fight. The ship’s gravity cut loose again. She banged her head right on the old sore spot. She felt herself blacking out, but didn’t care. She’d won.

* * *

Lt. Aziz helped the unconscious woman into the autodoc. At first he’d thought she was dead. After the mopping up was done, two marines had sworn they’d seen a naked female come out of an air vent and join the battle. Even though the commander had been skeptical, they’d gone looking anyway. Armed. The ducts were designed to fit humans, not the aliens, but one never knew.

Aziz had been very surprised to find her. The only woman assigned to the Cormorant had been a civilian specialist sent to fix the autochef. The skeletal figure who’d damned near bit off his ear when he’d tried to put her into the shower hardly resembled her picture at all. He sincerely regretted having to sedate her.

Dr. Bonet looked a little better once she’d been cared for. She’d have to undergo major surgery back on Earth for muscle repair and scar removal, as well as diagnostics for her head injury. How she’d managed to live so long as a prisoner of the kzinti was beyond him. Her internal status had stabilized once she’d received several pints of universal blood substitute.

The next day, she was able to sit up and ask for something to eat and drink. She laughed hysterically when he offered something from the autochef. He decided to humor her and fetch something from the other ship. For all he knew, the kzinti had gotten their rations programmed into it. He’d had a taste of them once, and didn’t blame her if she’d gotten tired of them. Especially if a bad batch had been responsible for killing the