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

Jook speculated. "Any sufficiently advanced technology would be able to reconstruct the brains later, rebuilding their RNA linkages through some kind of computer setup—and remember, the Tnuctipun were genetic engineers. Rendering the brain inert is like insurance. That way you could keep your pet scientist quiet, but you also keep him around in case you need him to make adjustments in whatever he built."

From the position of Fellah's head, Cuiller could see that the dog was listening closely. How much was he understanding?

"So what did these Tnuctipun build?" Cuiller asked. "Fellah himself?"

"Not likely," Sally Krater offered. "Fellah said he was 'of-class,' part of a race, called the Pru . . . Pruntaquilun. But here!" She drew a long, sticklike device out of her belt. "This was in the stasis-box, too."

"What is it?" Cuiller asked, taking it from her.

"I don't know. It looks like some kind of musical instrument."

Fellah at first regarded it with keen-eyed interest, then turned his head away.

"Fellah?" the commander asked suddenly. "Do you know what this does?"

The animal looked back at him, reluctantly. "Stick-thing."

"But what did the Thrint do with it?"

"Point at head. Work fingers. Reach deep inside. Set mind in—"

"Is it something the Thrint used to fiddle about with your brains?" Jook asked, trying to overcome the word-hurdles for Fellah.

"Yes, fiddle. Itself name, Fiddle."

"It's the source of the Slavers' power, then," Jook went on eagerly, to his crewmates. "It has to be! And all this time we thought they were mentalists. But instead they had these shock-rod things. 'Fiddle,' he calls it."

"My-Thrint," Fellah said slowly, "my—master, used it, it was secret . . ."

"Of course it would be a secret," Jook explained. "They would keep the existence of the Fiddle from their subject races, hiding it as a musical instrument or pretending it was something else benign. In that way they could maintain the myth of their innate power. And they would be willing to kill in order to preserve their secret—as those freeze-dried brains prove."

Cuiller, who still held the Fiddle, brought it up near his face and fitted his fingers awkwardly to the keys. He pressed them in no particular order. And nothing happened.

"I can hear music," Krater said. "Or, sort of. Anyway, it's . . . silvery, like bells and woodwinds, far off."

Cuiller tried a different pattern of fingering.

"Yeah, me too," Jook said. "Kind of . . ."

* * *

Nyawk-Captain had been trailing the remaining human for hours, walking in his powered armor across the ground while the human swung invisibly through the high branches. His reworked radar easily tracked the quarry's particular carbon pattern as it moved east then south, pausing occasionally to rest in the trees.

Twice he had to detour around the glimmer of large white shapes, which passed in the distance under the forest roof. They did not see or sense him, and each time Nyawk-Captain was able to regain the trail of the human's passage.

After most of the morning, when the sun was high, the prey paused once more. This time, however, it joined two more pattern signatures that had been showing to the west of it. The monkey troupe was forming up.

Nyawk-Captain shed his bulky armor, left the locator beside it, and began climbing a nearby bole. By his calculations, he was almost under the humans as they paused in the forest canopy. He moved as quietly as he could, gripping with his forepaws around the trunk's side and pushing with his feet and claws against the bark.

Arriving approximately at the humans' level, and shielded by green fans from their sight, he extended his natural ears and listened to their ongoing conversation. He understood only the vaguest fragments of spoken Interworld but soon realized the humans were talking about the Thrintun and their long-ago time. He picked up the word for "master."

Nyawk-Captain was preparing himself for the forward rush that would put an end to these human thieves and intruders on his mission—when he suddenly froze. Through a gap in the greenery he saw one of them pointing a wandlike object at him. And he could not move!

The human diddled its fingers, and Nyawk-Captain felt his paws twitch, his leg kick, his tail go stiff. Either the humans had recently developed a psychokinetic power unknown to the Patriarchy, or this was a display of power from the Thrintun artifacts they had discovered in the box. Experience and common sense suggested the latter.

As the device worked his body over, Nyawk-Captain could also feel his attitude toward the human holding it begin to change, becoming mellow and accepting. Nyawk-Captain hated that! After a few seconds, the human stopped diddling the keys of the device and turned away.

Nyawk-Captain was himself again.

Without the traditional challenging scream, he leaped through the wall of leaves and slashed left and right One of the humans went down under his blows, flagging bloody strings of tissue. Nyawk-Captain paused only to shake fragments of meat and fabric off his paws.

The human holding the Thrintun device dropped it and rolled to one side. The artifact skittered through the leaves, up-ended, and dropped. The human reached for it.

Realizing its immediate value, Nyawk-Captain dove after it, pushing that human away with a forehand swipe that snagged cloth and skin. He fought his way down through twigs and vines, into the lower levels of the canopy.

Too late!

He could see the wand falling, spinning, finally striking the brittle soil of the forest floor.

Whatever the device might be, Nyawk-Captain's instincts told him that by retrieving it he would preserve his honor and buy his way back into Admiral Lehruff's good graces. He leapt for a nearby trunk and raced down it headfirst, moving just slower than terminal velocity. Nyawk-Captain did a diving roll across the ground and gathered up the fallen prize.

He paused only to stash it with his powered armor and then headed back up the tree to finish off the remaining humans.

* * *

Hugh Jook was messily dead, scattered in four pieces across the center of their clearing. Several meters