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

son where it rested in his lap; the girder had driven straight through the youth’s midsection, and his face was still fixed in eager alertness, frozen hard now.

“Yes,” Conservor said. “The shadow of the God lies on us, all three. We will go to Him together, the hunt will give Him honor.”

“Such honor as there is in defeat,” he sighed.

A quiver of ears behind the faceplate showed him the sage’s laughter. “Defeat? That thing which we came to this place to fight, that has been defeated, even if we will never know how. And kzinti have defeated kzinti. Such is the only defeat here.”

Traat-Admiral tried to raise his ears and join the laughter, but found himself coughing a gout of red stickiness into the faceplate of his helmet; it rebounded.

“If—I—must—drown,” he managed to say, “not—in—my—own—blood.” Vacuum was dry, at least. He raised fumbling hands to the catches of his helmet-ring. A single fierce regret seized him. I hope the kits will be protected.

“We have hunted well together on the trail of Truth,” the sage said, copying his action. “Let us feast and lie in the shade by the waterhole together, forever.”

* * *

“What do you mean, it never happened?”

Jonah’s voice was sharp again; a week in the autodoc of the oyabun’s flagship had repaired most of his physical injuries. The tremor in his hands showed that those were not all; he glanced behind him at Ingrid and Harold, where they sat with linked hands.

“Just what I said,” General Buford Early said. He glanced aside as well, at Shigehero’s slight hard smile.

“So much for the rewards of heroism,” Jonah said, letting himself fall into the lounger with a bitter laugh. He lit a cigarette; the air was rank with them, and the smell of the general’s stogies. That it did not bother a Sol-Belter born was itself a sign of wounds that did not show.

The general leaned forward, his square pug face like a clenched fist. “These are the rewards of heroism, Captain,” he said. “Markham’s crew are vegetables. Markham may recover—incidentally, he’ll be a hero too.”

“Hero? He was a flipping traitor! He liked the damned Thrint!”

“What do you know about mind control?” Early asked. “Remember what it felt like? Were you a traitor?”

“Maybe you’re right . . . ”

“It doesn’t matter. When he comes back from the psychist, the version he remembers will match the one I give. If you three weren’t all fucking heroes, you’d be at the psychist’s too.” Another glance at the oyabun. “Or otherwise kept safely silent.”

Harold spoke. “And all the kzinti who might know something are dead, the Slaver ship and the Catskinner are quantum bubbles . . . and three vulnerable individuals are not in a position to upset heavy-duty organizational applecarts.”

“Exactly,” Early said. “It never happened, as I said.” He spread his hands. “No point in tantalizing people with technical miracles that no longer exist, either.” Although knowing you can do it is half the effort. “We’ve still got a long war to fight, you know,” he added. “Unless you expect Santa to arrive.”

“Who’s Santa?” Jonah said.

* * *

The commander of the hyperdrive warship Outsider’s Gift sat back and relaxed for the first time in weeks as his craft broke through into normal space. He was of the large albino minority on We Made It, and like most Crashlanders had more than a touch of agoraphobia. The wrenching not-there of hyperspace reminded him unpleasantly of dreams he had had, of being trapped on the surface during storms.

“Well. Two weeks, faster than light,” he said.

The executive officer nodded, her eyes on the displays. “More breakthroughs,” she said. “Seven . . . twelve . . . looks like the whole fleet made it.” She laughed. “Wunderland, prepare to welcome your liberators.”

“Careful now,” the captain said. “This is a reconnaissance in force. We can chop up anything we meet in interstellar space, but this close to a star we’re strictly Einsteinian, just like the pussies.”

The executive officer was frowning over her board. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “Sir, something very strange is going on in there. If I didn’t know better . . . that looks like a fleet action already going on.”

The captain straightened. “Secure from hyperdrive stations,” he said. “General Quarters. Battle stations.” A deep breath. “Let’s go find out.”

THE END

INCONSTANT STAR

Poul Anderson

Copyright © 1990 by Poul Anderson

Chapter I

A hunter’s wind blew down off the Mooncatcher Mountains and across the Rungn Valley. Night filled with the sounds of it, rustling forest, remote animal cries, and with odors of soil, growth, beast. The wish that it roused, to be yonder, to stalk and pounce and slay and devour, grew in Weoch-Captain until he trembled. The fur stood up on him. Claws slid out of their sheaths; fingers bent into the same saber curves. He had long been deprived.

Nonetheless he walked steadily onward from the guard point. When Ress-Chiuu, High Admiral of Kzin, summoned, one came. That was not in servility but in hope, fatal though laggardness would be. Something great was surely afoot. It might even prove warlike.

Eastward stretched rangeland, wan beneath the stars. Westward, ahead, the woods loomed darkling, the game preserve part of Ress-Chiuu’s vast domain. Far and high beyond glimmered snowpeaks. The chill that the wind also bore chastened bit by bit the lust in Weoch-Captain. Reason fought its way back. He reached the Admiral’s lair with the turmoil no more than a drumbeat in his blood.

The castle remembered axes, arrows, and spears. Later generations had made their changes and additions but kept it true to itself, a stony mass baring battlements at heaven. After an electronic gate identified and admitted him, the portal through which he passed was a tunnel wherein he moved blind. Primitive instincts whispered, “Beware!” He ignored them. Guided by echoes and subtle tactile sensations, his pace never slackened. Ress-Chiuu always tested a visitor, one way or another.

Was it a harder test that waited in the courtyard? No kzin received Weoch-Captain. Instead hulked a kdatlyno slave. It made the clumsy gesture that was as close as the species could