Man-Kzin Wars XII by Larry Niven (books you have to read .TXT) 📕

The door beeped. Someone desired entrance. Gay kicked herself over and pulled the cover up to her chin, then let it fall. "What the hell, kzinti aren't going to be shocked by monkeys."

"Shall we let them in?"

"Why not?"

"Admit," said Richard. Unless specially locked, the door was voice-keyed.

"May I join you?" It was Telepath. Like Charrgh-Captain, he spoke Interworld, the largely Jinxian-based common human tongue which, despite its name, was difficult for nonhumans to pronounce.

"We speak some kzinti tongues," said Richard, experimentally. Even on Wunderland, some kzinti strongly disliked simians "defiling" the Heroes' Tongue—and this, as he was all too well aware, was not Wunderland. Still, his accent was good; and a certain amount of the hostility was due to frequent mangled pronunciation.

"I would be grateful," said the telepath, "if I could spend some time here with you. The minds of the Heroes leak at me endlessly. I can shield, but it is not enough. Humans are so different that when I am not drugged I need to concentrate to understand you at all. The noise drowns out the others. This cabin, your minds, give me a refuge."

Richard felt uncomfortable. Telepath was obviously trying to control his neurotic behavior. Good manners toward the humans were clamped about him like a coat of mail. Yet this timid, wistful, depressed, and undersized kzin was so hideously unnatural. It's just the instinctive revulsion one feels towards a sick animal, he thought. Don't let him sense it! How do I stop him sensing it? No headaches yet. He's not trying to read my mind. But I'll bet he gets the vibes.

Gay nodded. "Stay awhile," she said, sitting up. "We can offer you bourbon if you like."

"A small one, thank you. So that is what you really look like, without your clothing."

They had forgotten for a moment that they were naked. Richard and Gay came from a culture where nudity, if not everyday, was less uncommon for everyone than it had been in the past—after the wars, Wunderland had needed a lot of work to clean up its climate, and there had been no reason to stop short of comfort. In any case Telepath himself, like most kzinti, wore very minimal garments consisting chiefly of utility belts and pouches for tools (including, they presumed, his drugs). "What you see is what you get," said Richard, a laugh covering a momentary stab of embarrassment. He swung his feet to the deck and crossed to the drinks cabinet.

"It is fascinating," said Telepath, looking them both up and down. "I knew you were tailless, but I have never actually seen tailless beings like you before. How do you balance? And would you not need them when you are swinging through trees?"

"We don't actually swing through trees very much," Richard said. "Not now."

"And only two teats. You must have small litters."

"Yes, usually one, sometimes two. More are rare."

"A lot of your cubs must survive, then. This is the first time I have left Kzin-aga. You are the first aliens I have met. Such spindly limbs, no muscles at all." He reached out and touched. "Such soft skins. Yet you have fought Heroes. And won. I am glad you are not like Heroes."

His voice changed.

"But so many similarities," he said. "Spinal column, skull, ribs, two forelimbs, two hindlimbs. Same number of eyes and ears, similar mouth, same arrangement of alimentary canal, same division of functions by organ. Both mammalian. It is extraordinary."

"Well, it's a good design," said Richard. "Crops up all over. The ancestors of humans evolved on a world in the Galactic Core, while I understand that kzinti evolution can be traced back in a nearly unbroken chain to an incredible distance."

"I hadn't known that myself," Telepath said.

"It was in an article in Jinx Goshographic," Richard said. "Something about geological stability—or, no, continuity of processes," he said, trying to remember. "What's the word—gradualism! Changes were very standard, and laid down fossils pretty reliably up to two or three million years ago."

"What happened then?" Telepath wondered.

"Asteroid impact. After that the geology wasn't as stable. Anyway, it's not that big a coincidence."

"But our brains have functional similarities, too, I think. I have read minds of Pierin, of Jotoki. More strange. They don't understand about the need to fight." Telepath's voice was becoming slurred. His eyelids were beginning to droop. "I think I am going to sleep now," he said. "Let me sleep here. They will not come and kick me here." He curled on the deck like a house cat after a large meal. After a minute he began to purr faintly, his claws extending and retracting rhythmically, though irregular twitches also ran over his muscles. He was runtish for a kzin, under eight feet tall, but it was still fortunate that their cabin was roomy. I think the poor creature is actually happy at this moment, Richard realized with a shock. With some memory of their own old cat in mind, he moved to scratch him under the chin, a gesture which with old Shebee had never failed to produce an ecstatic purring. Gay reached out quickly to halt him, and he stopped, shaking his head at himself. Telepath was, after all, still a kzin, small and weak by kzinti standards, but still with teeth and claws and speed capable of dismembering a buffalo. The rules for a human touching kzinti were very strict, and the rule for touching a sleeping one was NEVER.

It was a long time later that Telepath awoke.

"I have never slept so well that I remember," he said. "But I should not have trespassed on you."

"Perhaps you will come and talk with us again," said Gay.

"We don't want him as a permanent guest!" said Richard after Telepath left.

"I think he knows that. Well, he would, wouldn't he? But I'm sorry for him."

"I'd rather have him for a friend than an enemy," said Richard. "I hate to think what a telepath enemy might do! But you're right as usual. And I guess I'm sorry