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

wiped furiously at her eyes. “I am, am sorry,” she stammered. “I did not plan to cry at you.”

No more than a few drops had glistened along those cheekbones. Saxtorph half reached to take her hand. No. She might resent that; and after snapping once or twice for air, she had regained her balance. Best stay prosy. “You think the kzin honcho forced your father to go,” he deduced.

She shrugged, not quite spastically. “Or ordered him. What was the difference? He could not tell us anything. If he had, and the kzinti had found out—”

Uh-huh, Saxtorph knew. Children for dinner at the officers’ mess. Mother to a hunting preserve, unless they didn’t reckon she’d make good sport and decided on a worse death as a public example. “This implies the ratcats considered the object important,” he said. “Even more does the item that it involved an interstellar journey, in those days before hyperdrive and with a war under way. It was interstellar, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Father spoke of . . . long years. Also, after the war, investigators got two or three eyewitness accounts by humans who worked for the kzinti. They had only seen requisition orders, that sort of thing, but it did establish that Yiao-Captain and a small crew left for some unrevealed destination in a vessel of the Swift Hunter class. Hardly anything else was learned.”

Saxtorph laid his pipe on the ashtaker rack and rubbed his chin. “You’re right, kzinti don’t do science for the sake of pure knowledge, the way humans sometimes do. They want it to help them cope with a universe they see as fundamentally hostile, or to win them power. In this case, surely, they thought of military potential.”

Tyra nodded. “That is clear.” She braced herself. “Father had been excited, almost happy. He spoke to several people of a marvelous discovery he had made from his observatory. I do not remember that, but I was little, and maybe I did not happen to be there. Mother was not interested in science and did not understand what he talked of, nor recall it afterward well enough to be of any use. Likewise for what servants or tenants heard. Ib was at school, he says. Everybody agrees that Father said he must see Yiao-Captain about having a thorough study made; the kzinti had the powerful instruments and computers, of course. He came home from that and—I have told you.” She bit her lip. “The accusation later was that he deliberately put the kzinti on the trail of something that might have led them to a new weapon, and accompanied them to investigate closer, in hopes of wealth and favors.”

“Forgive me,” Saxtorph said softly, “but I’ve got to ask this. Could it possibly be true?”

“No! We, his family, knew him. Year by year we had heard as much of his pain as he dared utter, and felt the rest. He loved us. Would he free-willingly have left us, for years stretching into decades, whatever the payment? No, he simply never thought in terms of helping the kzinti in their war, until they did and it was too late for him. But the hysteria immediately after liberation— There had been many real collaborators, you know. And there were people who paid off grudges by accusing other people, and— It was what I think you call a witch hunt.

“The fact that Peter Nordbo had cooperated, that was not in itself to be held against him. Most Landholders did. Taking to the bush was maybe more gallant, but then you could not be a thin, battered shield for your folk. Just the same, this was part of the reason why the new constitution took away the special status of the Nineteen Families. And in retrospect, that Peter Nordbo gave knowledge to the kzinti and fared off with them, that was made to make his earlier cooperation look willing, and like more than it actually was.” Tyra’s grip on the table edge drove the blood from her fingertips. “Yes, it is conceivable that in his heart he was on their side. Impossible, but conceivable. What I want you to find for me, Captain Saxtorph, is the truth. I am not afraid of it.”

After a moment, shakily: “Please to excuse me. I should be more businesslike.” She finished her wine.

Saxtorph knocked back his beer and rose. “Let me get us refills,” he suggested. “Care for something stronger?”

“Thank you. A double Scotch. Water chaser.” She managed a smile. “You may take you an akvavit this time. I have not much left to tell.”

When he brought the drinks back, she was entirely self-possessed. “Ask whatever you want,” she invited. “Be frank. I believed my wounds were long ago scarred over. What made them hurt again tonight was hope.”

“Don’t get yours too high,” he advised. “This looks mighty dicey to me. And, like your dad, I’ve got other people to think about before I agree to anything.”

“Naturally. I would not have approached you if the story of your adventures had not proved you are conscientious.”

He attempted a laugh. “Please. Call ’em my experiences. Adventures are what happen to the incompetent.” He sent caraway pungency down his throat and a dollop of brew in pursuit. “Okay, let’s get cracking again. I gather no details about that expedition ever came out.”

“They were suppressed, obliterated. When the human hyperdrive armada arrived and it became clear that the kzinti would lose Alpha Centauri, they destroyed all their records and installations that they could, before going forth to die in battle. Prisoners and surviving human witnesses had little information. About Yiao-Captain’s mission, nobody had any, except what I mentioned to you. It was secret from the beginning; very few kzinti, either, ever knew about it.”

“No report to the home world till success was assured. Nor when Wunderland was falling. They were smart bastards; they foresaw our new craft would hunt for every such beam, overtake it, read it, and jam it beyond recovery.”

“I know. Ib has described to me the effect of faster-than-light