Man-Kzin Wars V by Larry Niven (people reading books txt) 📕

whispered to herself. And yet she knew that the motion had been localized. If it had been wind, the whole canopy would be surging around her now.

She turned her head slowly, swinging her nose centimeter by centimeter to the right. She did not dart with her eyes, but shifted them only in slow blinks. But before she could begin facing the whatever-it-was, the radio strapped at her wrist crackled.

"Sally, are you all right?" in Cuiller's voice. The leaves off her right shoulder swirled with movement, as the something there darted quickly, but whether lunging or withdrawing, she couldn't tell.

Krater had no time to fool with the hand-laser attached at her belt but instead slapped the release on her cable reel. She dropped three meters in near freefall. On the way, she bobbled and almost lost the field kit. Finally she caught it, snapped it closed, and slipped it back in her pocket. The kit would digest the vegetable sample and report later.

"I'm fine," she called into the radio, although her voice was shaky.

"You shouldn't just head off like that, Sally," Cuiller said. His tone was masked by the tinny quality of the transmission.

"I wanted some samples."

"Well, next time, ask first. Please?"

"Yes, sir. I'd like to come down now—with your permission."

"Do so."

She toggled the reel to unwind. In a few seconds her feet broke through the lowest layer of leaves into clear air.

The canopy above her did tremble then, like a breeze fluttering its lower edges. But Krater could swear that no wind had stirred since she climbed up there. She stared into the overgrowth, looking for anything that might be poking through and . . . reaching for her.

Nothing.

To rest her eyes, she looked away to the middle distance. From where she hung, about three meters below the canopy proper, the spaced tree trunks were just beginning to branch out into the flying buttresses and arching vaults that supported the greenery. The view was almost what a medieval mason might have seen, working in a sling up near a cathedral's ceiling and looking out between the stone pillars. Except these pillars were green and alive—and all were suddenly swaying.

Expecting to see the ripples of an earthquake, she looked down at the forest floor, scanning the barren ground there. That was when she saw the iceberg, moving off to one side.

"Captain . . ." She kept her eyes on the shape.

"Right here, Sally."

"Can you see me?"

"I do. You're just below where you went up, aren't you?"

"Yeah, still on the same grapple point. Now, do you see my arm?" She pointed it at the white object. "Follow that line and tell me what you see."

"Trees and deepening gloom. What do you see?"

"A white shape. And it's moving."

"Jared!" It was Gambiel, on another radio channel. "I can see it, too, from here." Had the weapons officer also wandered away from the commander? Krater wondered.

"Then you're closer, Daff," from Cuiller.

"Sally? How big would you say it is?" from Gambiel.

"I don't know. It's about . . . oh, six or seven trees off. Say a hundred and fifty meters over the ground. But it seems to be . . . squeezing between the trunks. That would make the thing more than twenty-five meters wide, wouldn't it? And I'd guess it's at least five or six times that long—but I can't see all of the creature."

"Can you see its head?" Daff asked.

"No. And I won't swear that it has one."

"Not important," Gambiel said. "I know what it is anyway."

"Bandersnatch?" from Cuiller.

"Yes, Captain. You've seen them before?"

"Once, on Jinx. They're intelligent—and harmless."

"Right. Sally? Which way is it moving? I can't tell from down here."

"Back the way we came, looks like," she said. "Roughly parallel to our path."

"I'll call Jook," Cuiller said. "Alert him, so he doesn't do anything rash if it shows up at the ship. And Sally, why don't you come down and join us now?"

"Aye, Captain." She paid out line and dropped toward the forest floor.

Her feet touched the ground near where Cuiller was standing, finishing his call back to the ship. Gambiel walked up a moment later. She showed him the dye on the line and explained her reasoning. He nodded thoughtfully.

"But how do I recover the grapple?" she asked, looking up into the trees. "We can't afford to lose one each time one of us goes up and comes down."

The weapons tech reached over to her harness, locked the takeup reel, and thumbed the cover off a protected red stud on the control panel. He pushed it—unconsciously shoving her backward with his latent strength. "Step back and bend your knees," he said.

She did so, and a moment later something fell out of the canopy. When it hit the ground, she recognized her grapple, with the barbs folded in.

"Radio-controlled unlocking device," Gambiel said. "Don't use it while you're hanging around . . . Well, reel it in."

Krater started the winder motor.

"Slowly!" Gambiel ordered. "Or you'll catch that thing right in the tits."

She slowed the winding and watched the folded grapple tumble and walk across the scoured dirt toward her. When it was a meter out, she braked the reel, picked up the grapple, and tucked it into her belt loop.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now, we go on," Cuiller replied, pointing the way toward their objective, the calculated position of the deep radar's return image.

* * *

Hugh Jook was wedged under—or now over, rather—the forward control yoke. He was bent around the station-keeping stirrups, stretching as far as he could go with one leg immobilized by the bubble cast. In one hand Jook held a collection of electronics chips, all banded and tagged with alphanumerics to show what each circuit was supposed to do. In the other hand was a socket-puller. He was poking into the guts of the overturned weapons pod, hoping to get enough response from it for the ship's computer to run a diagnostic. Then it would be thumbs up or thumbs down: reconnect and rebrace the unit, or bleed away its residual