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

come to a prostration. However, then it turned and lumbered toward the main keep. Obviously he was expected to follow.

Rage blazed in him. Almost, he attacked. He choked emotion down and stalked after his guide, though lips remained pulled off fangs.

Echoes whispered. Corridors and rooms lay deserted. Night or no, personnel should have been in evidence. What did it portend? Alertness heightened, wariness, combat readiness.

A door slid aside. The kdatlyno groveled again and departed. Weoch-Captain went in. The door closed behind him.

The room was polished granite, austerely furnished. A window stood open to the wind. Ress-Chiuu reclined on a slashtooth skin draped over a couch. Weoch-Captain came to attention and presented himself. “At ease,” the High Admiral said. “You may sit, stand, or pace as you wish. I expect you will, from time to time, pace.”

Weoch-Captain decided to stay on his feet for the nonce.

Ress-Chiuu’s deceptively soft tones went on: “Realize that I have offered you no insult. You were met by a slave because, at least for the present, extreme confidentiality is necessary. Furthermore, I require not only a Hero—they are many—but one who possesses an unusual measure of self-control and forethoughtfulness. I had reason to believe you do. You have shown I was right. Praise and honor be yours.”

The accolade calmed Weoch-Captain’s pride. It also focused his mind the more sharply. (Doubtless that was intended, said a part of his mind with a wryness rare in kzinti.) His ears rose and unfolded. “I have delegated my current duties and am instantly available for the High Admiral’s orders,” he reported.

Shadows dappled fur as the blocky head nodded approval. “We go straight to the spoor, then. You know of Werlith-Commandant’s mission on the opposite side of human-hegemony space.” It was not a question. “Ill tidings: lately a human crew stumbled upon the base that was under construction there. They came to investigate the sun, which appears to be unique in several ways.”

Monkey curiosity, thought Weoch-Captain. He was slightly too young to have fought in the war, but he had spent his life hearing about it, studying it, dreaming of the next one. His knowledge included terms of scorn evolved among kzinti who had learned random things about the planet where the enemy originated.

Ress-Chiuu’s level words smote him: “Worse, much worse. Incredibly, they seem to have destroyed the installations. Certain is that they inflicted heavy casualties, disabled our spacecraft, and went home nearly unscathed. You perceive what this means. They conveyed the information that we have developed the hyperdrive ourselves. All chance of springing a surprise is gone.” Sarcasm harshened the voice. “No doubt the Patriarchy will soon receive ‘representations’ from Earth about this ‘unfortunate incident.’ ”

Over the hyperwave, said Weoch-Captain’s mind bleakly. Those few black boxes that the peace treaty provided for, left among us, engineered to self-destruct at the least tampering.

Well did he know. Such an explosion had killed a brother of his.

Understanding leaped. If the humans had not yet communicated officially—“May I ask how the Patriarchs learned?”

“We have our means. I will consider what to tell you.” Ress-Chiuu’s calm was giving way ever so little. His tail lashed his thighs, a pink whip. “We must find out exactly what happened. Or, if nothing else, we must establish what the situation is, whether anything of our base remains, what the Earth Navy is doing there. Survivors should be rescued. If this is impossible, perhaps they can be eliminated by rays or missiles before they fall into human grasp.”

“Heroes—”

“Would never betray our secrets. Yes, yes. But can you catalogue every trick those creatures may possess?” Ress-Chiuu lifted head and shoulders. His eyes locked with Weoch-Captain’s. “You will command our ship to that sun.”

Disaster or no, eagerness flamed. “Sire!”

“Slow, slow,” the older kzin growled. “We require an officer intelligent as well as bold, capable of agreeing that the destiny of the race transcends his own, and indeed, to put it bluntly—” he paused—“one who is not afraid to cut and run, should the alternative be valiant failure. Are you prepared for this?”

Weoch-Captain relaxed from his battle crouch and, inwardly, tautened further. “The High Admiral has bestowed a trust on me,” he said. “I accept.”

“It is well. Come, sit. This will be a long night.”

They talked, and ransacked databases, and ran tentative plans through the computers, until dawn whitened the east. Finally, almost jovially, Ress-Chiuu asked, “Are you exhausted?”

“On the contrary, sire, I think I have never been more fightworthy.”

“You need to work that off and get some rest. Besides, you have earned a pleasure. You may go into my forest and make a bare-handed kill.”

When Weoch-Captain came back out at noontide, jaws still dripping red, he felt tranquil, happy, and, once he had slept, ready to conquer a cosmos.

Chapter II

The sun was an hour down and lights had come aglow along streets, but at this time of these years Alpha Centauri B was still aloft. Low in the west, like thousands of evening stars melted into one, it cast shadows the length of Karl-Jorge Avenue and set the steel steeple of St. Joachim’s ashimmer against an eastern sky purpling into dusk. Vehicles and pedestrians alike were sparse, the city’s pulsebeat quieted to a murmur through mild summer air—day’s work ended, night’s pleasures just getting started. Munchen had changed more in the past decade or two than most places on Wunderland. Commercial and cultural as well as political center, it was bound to draw an undue share of outworlders and their influence. Yet it still lived largely by the rhythms of the planet.

Robert Saxtorph doubted that that would continue through his lifetime. Let him enjoy it while it lasted. Traditions gave more color to existence than did any succession of flashy fashions.

He honored one by tipping his cap to the Liberation Memorial as he crossed the Silberplatz. Though the sculpture wasn’t old and the events had taken place scarcely a generation ago, they stood in history with Marathon and Yorktown. Leaving the square, he sauntered up the street past a variety of