Larry Niven - Man - Kzin Wars 4

THE SURVIVOR

MAN- KZIN

WARS IV

Created by

Larry Niven

with

Donald Kingsbury

Greg Bear

and

S.M. Stirling

CALL

MAN-KZIN WAR:;; IV

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and

events portrayed in this book are fictional and

any resemblance to real people or incidents is

purely coincidental.

Copyright (it) 1991 by Larry Niven

reproduce this book or portions thereof in any

form.

A Bacn Books Original

Bacn Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

ISBN: 0-671-72079-1

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, September 1991

Distributed by

SIMON & SCHUSTER

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10020

Printed in the United Stutes of Amenca

CONTENTS

Introduction, Larry Niven vii

THE SURVIVOR, Donald Kingsbury1

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KZIN,

Greg Bear & S.M. Stirling 245

INTRODUCTION

Last month a stranger in New Jersey asked

permission to use the kzinti in his fanzine.

(Fanzines, fan magazines, exist strictly for

recreation.) Gary Wells wanted nothing of

Known Space, just the kzinti, embedded in a Star

Trek backgrounds

I wrote I hereby refuse you permission to use the

kzinti in any literary property.

The last guy who did that involved the kzinti in a

sadomasochistic homosexual gang,bang, badly, and

published it on a computer network. A friend

alerted me and we spoke the magic word and

frightened him away. (Lawsuits) I'm still a little

twitchy on the subject, so don't take any of this too

personally....

Wells persisted. He sent me the Fleet bio for

his kzin: a crewman aboard a federation

battlewagon. He's got his format well worked

out. It would have been fun to see what he might

do with it; but I'm going to refuse him anyway. I

don't want the playground getting too crowded.

I hope the network bandit doesn't turn up again.

I wouldn't be so picky with a story set in

someone else's territory . . . but when you play in

my playground you don't vandalize the

equipment. Jim Bacn and I have solicited stories

which we bought and then rejected because they

didn't fit my standards.

The bandit's kzin was ridiculous. Large

warm-blooded animals that have to fight don't

have big impressive

dongs. There's no flexibility in their mating habits.

(We have some partial understanding of why

humans are an exception.) Humans will smell

wrong; this is established as important to kzinti.

Yet such matters can be handled with taste, or

at least versimilitude.

If you once read Donald Kingsbury's Courtship

Rite . . . but the nightmares have since gone away

. . . "The Sulvivor" is your chance to get them

back. Kingsbury writes horror stories for bright

people. You will come to understand his cowardly

kzin, and even to sympathise with him, but not, I

hope, to love him. Grass-Eater is not normal.

"The Man Who Would Be Kzin," as portrayed

by Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling, isn't normal

either.

There are writers out there who know

considerably more about the kzinti than I do. The

Man-~zin Wars authors have already delved deep

into normal kzinti family life. The kzinti are mean

and dangerous and intelligent. I fear I've been

taking them too lightly.

Lay Niven

THE SURVIVOR

Donald Kin'~gshnry

Copyright ~ 1991 by Donalcl Kingsbury

CIIAPTER

(2391 A.D.)

His tail was cold. Where could he run to?

The Short-Son of Chiirr-Nig fluffed the fur

inside his suit to help him keep warm. At the

airlock exit he hadn't had time to appropriate

better surface garb from the public racks. The

suit was non-standard, too large and good only

for a limited surface excursion. Eventually he

would freeze. The oxygen mask and support pack

should last indefinitely.

Ruddy light from an enormous red sun gilded

the snow-swept rocks. A dim rose cast itself

across the hunching sprawl of atmosphere-tight

buildings that spread down into the valley gloom.

The scene demanded infra-red goggles to

penetrate the shadows but Short-Son had no

goggles. Could he run to the mountains? The

jags against the sky had been named the

Mountains of Promised Victory by the founding

warriors of Hssin, but they were mountains of

death.

Dim as R'hshssira was, the sanguine glare from

the snow peaks drowned the stars along the

horizon. But above, undismayed by the pale glow

of R'hshssira, the

3

4 Mun-Kzin Wars IV

heavens peered from a darkly mauve sky, seeming

to give more light than Hssin's

litter-runt-of-a-star, even as they peered through

wisps of cirrus.

If there was little light, there was warmth. But

one had to be standing out on the open plain of

Hssin in full daylight forge-red R'hshssira

looming full round in the sky to feel the warmth.

Nevertheless it was real warmth that soaked into

space armor if one was willing to freeze his

backside and tail.

Short-Son of Chiirr-Nig turned his back to the

sun, his tail held up to the radiation.

His warrior elders sometimes joked about

whether Hssin was a planet or a moon because no

kzin was really sure whether the pitiful primary,

R'hshssira, was a father star or a mere lost whelp

with slave. R'hshssira was too cool, too smaD to

be a star, already having collapsed, without

igniting its hydrogen, to the density of a heavy

metal. Still it bathed them in a bloody warmth.

A star-beast in hibernation, its metabolism

inactive.

A beast with no rotation, no magnetic field,

fighting nothing. It slept and the slave satellite

Hssin patrolled protectively close to the master's

lair.

Short-Son couldn't go to the mountains. He had

to escape back into the city he had just run from.

He stared up at the constellations, at five brilliant,

distant giants that lay across the River of Heaven.

If there was no place to run to then let the

Fanged God Who Drank at the River of Heaven

take him to the stars.

Hssin served as a forward military base of the

Kzin Patriarchy, barren as a moon, yet with

atmosphere like a planet. The gas was thin,

wicked, noxious, sometimes as stormy as the

surface of R'hshssira was docile. The

temperatures ranged over extremes impossible for

life to endure. Nothing worth hunting could Eve

in those hills and plains of shattered rock and ice.

The kzinti

THE SURVIVOR 5

who stayed here were pitied by the kzinti who

passed through on their way to greater glory.

. . . And, thought Short-Son bitterly, who mock

and torture the loyal kzin whose heroism keeps this

wretched base open for the use of the Patriarchy. He

envied the outward-bound warriors their journey,

their wily females, the wood and leather and

tapestry in their starships. He scorned their petty

complaints about the hardships of space. He openly

hated their sons who used him as sport, but kept

private his thoughts about violating their

soft-furred daughters.

The Short-Son of Chiirr-Nig knew where they

were running to. The brightest star on the horizon

of Hssin was the beacon that made them endure

both their travels and the tedious duty at bleak

military bases along the way. Looking at it, he

refused to call that white binary by its Kzin name,

Ka'ashi he always called it by its unpronounceable

exotic alien name, Alpha Centaurs. What did those

weird sounds mean?

An old warrior had once told him that the

monkey aliens had named it after a beast that was

half monkey, half herbivore; four cloven hooves

and two hands. Just the name could make him

smell the hunting and stalking of strange beasts!

He had salivated over smellpictures of the

six-legged underland gagrumphers.

But it was he who was being hunted!

The Son of Chiirr-Nig thought of himself as a

freak, as the only kzin in the Patriarchy who had

ever felt fear. Perhaps others had felt fear but

they did not run.

What was a half-grown kzin youth doing on the

surface, hurrying in a pressure suit so hastily

donned that he had forgotten his thermal

underwear? He had also forgotten his oxygen. His

mask-pack was rumbling to make up the lack by

the dissociation of atmospheric carbon dioxide and

his fur was not keeping him warm. His tail was

already numb. Heroes as stupid as he was,

6 Mandarin Wars IV

died, he castigated himself. He was alone. He

didn't even have his mother to protect him.

I m a coward, he thought, using a particularly

vicious word from the Hero's Tongue which

referred to scurrying animals too small to bring

hunt-honor. He would never have let another kzin

know that he used such a word to describe

himself. Nevertheless, he wished he could

understand why no one else was afraid to die.

Puller-of-Noses and Hidden-Smiler he had his

own private names for his youthful

comrades were hunting him and they would

catch him and kill him. A game. His father was

always pushing him into such games before he

was ready. His father wouldn't care if he died

stupidly. It would please Short-Son's sire not to

be embarrassed anymore. That noble one had a

name and many sons to do him honor, enough

sons themselves to earn names and make

themselves rich on the labor of monkey slaves.

An old warrior friend of Short-Son had told

him that there were octal-to-the-octals of the

man-monkeys to be had out there, swarms! herds!

forestfuls! You could kill them by the army and

eat them by the feast and still have enough

monkey slaves left over to make you rich! For a

while Son-of-Chiirr-Nig held his furless tail

between his legs to warm it and, shivering, found

Man-sun, a radian to the right of Wunderland's

two stars, at the edge of the constellation Raised

Dagger. It was almost touching Victim's Blood, a

distant red giant star that the man-beasts

worshiped as lucky Mirach or simply as Beta

Andromeda. They had a rich vocabulary of

hauntingly soft sounds.

Sometimes it awed him to be on the frontier.

From within the Patriarchy, it was said, one could

gaze at the night sky and be unable to espy any

nearby unconquered stars but out here the sky

was filled with unspoiled herds and grass! So

much monkey meat; too

THE SURVIVOR 7

bad those kit warriors were going to kill him before

he got his fangs into it. What a waste! His claws

extended and retracted.

Short-Son had a problem. As long as he was

outside, he was probably safe. But Puller-of-Noses

was one organized kzin, a born commander.

Already Puller's father was arranging to send him

with the recruits to Wunderland for the fourth

assault on Man-home. By now there were probably

two octals of his fur-licking sycophants waiting at

the entrances to the city with their wtsai daggers

ready to clip ears.

Looking for me.

But the base was enormous. The original assault

on Wunderland had been staged from here. And

the base had grown fivefold since then as the news

of the coming conquest of the Man-system spread

back deep into the Patriarchy. New ships arrived

constantly and new facilities, tunnels, buildings,

floater landing sites were springing up with

disordered proliferation. Surely there was a place

to hide.

The kzin youth began stumbling his way in the

direction of some newer diggings, taking deceptive

shortcuts that only led into mazes of walls. He had

certainly not been prepared for this frantic

expedition. He was already too cold to continue.

When the pads of his feet began to go numb a

more local solution seemed in order. He almost

turned back when he found his advance blocked by

the great Jotok Run, an extensive collection of

domes and subterranean warrens used for the

breeding and hunting of the Jotok slaves. He was

going to freeze to death before he worked around

it.

Why didn't he get it over with? If he went back

through a main residential entrance, they'd catch

him there would be a fight and he would be killed

or hopelessly maimed. Maybe he could surprise

them with a terrible rage and kill one of them

before they

8 Man-Kin Wars IV

t him? He could smile, but the rage paralyzed

his leap. He had never been able to leap. It was

hopeless. Why not let them kill him today? Even

if he escaped today, they'd find him tomorrow

and kill him to purify the race.

That was when he remembered that kits were

not allowed to hunt in the Jotok Run without a

guardian. Puller-of-Noses could not be there with

his gang. Of course, Short-Son was not allowed in

the Jotok Run either, and if he was found there

he'd be mauled, but at least the adults would not

kill him.

There were no windows, and the walls were

thick, self-repairing mechanisms which would give

warning of malfunction. He found ways to climb

up over the walls, with four fingered hands that

had evolved for rock climbing.

In his mind, as he climbed, he dreamed that he

was clandestinely attacking a monkey-fort. At

every corner and ramp he brought out an invisible

beam-rifle and poured light into the swarming

man-monkeys. By the time he was overlooking the

central loading courtyard, vast enough to take

twenty floaters, he had killed octals and octals of

the furless beasts. He gazed down upon the

shadowed landing area and planned his final

assault on Man-home.

Doom for all mankind! Then he could hunt

giraffes!

He saw surface elevators big enough to take a

floater down into the city. He could dimly make

out some small kzin-sized airlocks. But a freight

entrance would be the easiest to jimmy. There

were good locks on the inside to contain the

Jotok, who were clever and sometimes

treacherous, but no real barriers from the outside.

There was no need for barriers from the outside-

a kzin did not break and enter without a reason

he would be vvilling to explain to another kzin.

Short-Son did not have the normal entering

tools, but he did have a toolkit on his suit and he

had always

THE SURVIVOR 9

been curious about mechanisms, probing them

until he understood their function. He could no

longer feel his feet when he dropped into the

courtyard, and his fingers were so frozen he took

an eternity to release the outer freight door. Stupid

mechanism! A female could design a better latch

hold!

The black wall slid open. He entered the freight

chamber to swirls of condensation while the outer

door rolled shut and the purifiers hummed to life

cleaning the nitrogen of carbon dioxide and

methane, and adding oxygen. It took him seconds

to disable the alarm. By virtue of kzin habit he was

battle ready when the inner door released, ready

for the fivelimbed Jotok leap, or an adult

custodian, or even a follower of Puller-of-Noses.

What he found was three of the baby five-armed

Jotok, about the size of his hand, crawling around

the loading area, totally confused by the stone

floor. He squashed them with his foot. He passed

through the barrier maze of opaque glass walls

into a verdant biocology tall trees, the babble of

a brook, and when he removed his oxygen mask,

the rotting steamy smells of a pampered rainforest

and the hint of a distant pond with rushes. Some

of the smells he couldn't classify.

CHAPTER 2

(2391 A.D.)

Short-Son of Chiirr-Nig shivered in relief at the

warmth. He packed his face-mask and holstered

his tools with stiff fingers, dropping one of them.

Just having to pick it up brought his fear and rage

out in a grumbling snarUnot too loud. He didn't

want to attract attention. He assessed his location

and picked out a cluster of bushes and trees

where he could hide without leaving a trampled

trail. Assume an imminent attack.

He removed his boots and began to massage

blood back into his feet. Another of the baby

Jotok was trying to climb a thin tree,

unsuccessfully, three spindly arms waving

impotently, while the other two doubleelbowed

arms pushed against the ground. Short-Son did

not kill it his rage was subsiding. Stupid leafeater.

You ll make a stupid slave when s/ou grow up. The

bark was too smooth. The soft-boned fingers of

the tiny infant needed to catch on rough bark. He

noticed more of the creatures. They were

probably coming from the pond.

10

THE SURVIVOR 11

Leaves rustled, and he looked up quickly,

scanning the branches. The ceiling lamps that

imitated a tropical sky did not make it easy, there

were too many of them and not enough shadows.

Had to watch out for those Jotoh. They were smart

when they grew up and big, too. They had five

cunning brains, one in each arm, and they never

slept without at least one brain on the alert and in

control.

Short-Son did not feel too threatened. The

Jotoki ran from danger and the wild ones were

used to being hunted. Give them an escape route

and they ran. But they were said to have no fear at

all when they were hidden. Caution was still called

for. The father of Striped-Son of Hromfi had been

killed in seconds when a wild Jotok dropped on

him from above during a hunt. Yes, they knew how

to hide. A nose couldn't even find them because

their skin glands imitated the smells of the forest.

What to do now? Rest. Catch some game and

gorge even if it was poaching. Short-Son was fam-

ished. The odors were turning his mind toward its

natural ferocity, but he had no intention of hunting

Jotoki without training. Any small dumb animal

would do. This vast array of domes and caves was

made for hunting. It was the best he'd ever do on

Hssin, much better than buying frightened vatach

in cages at the market, and lugging them home on

his back for his father.

What he found on the second layer down was a

slithering snake as long as his leg. He made a fool

of himself catching it. Kzinti enjoyed hunting

anywhere, but they were not built for hunting in

the forest, and tree climbing snakes were not their

natural prey. Nonetheless it made a good morsel

and the blood had an interesting tang. The bones

were unpleasantly crunchy.

He had to think about getting out of the reserve

12 Man-Kzin Wars IV

even though he didn't want to leave. If he stayed,

some adult would find and thrash him; if he left,

his peers would kill him. Finding refuge in his

father's compound was, perhaps, not the best

idea. His brothers were allies, even though they

taunted and humiliated him, but his father would

just throw him back into the jaws of his peers to

make a good warrior out of him. He could hear

his father lecturing him in the sonorous formal

tense of the Hero's Tongue, "Make every use of

the games to hone your skills."

He found a large fungus the size of his head,

growing between two roping trees, with

microscopic flowers flourishing on the black

patches. He sniffed in wonder. He found the trail

of some small animal and he saw a wild Jotok

sitting high above on a lamp, its elbows in the air,

watching him with an armored eye that poked up

out of a shoulder blade. The eyes of the other

arms were retracted, probably asleep.

And he wandered down to the pond and waded

among the reeds, looking for fish. All he found

were prejotok arms swimming about, the size of

his finger, the gill-slit red. Each arm was an

individual creature only joining in a colony of five

when they were ready to crawl upon the land. The

polliwogs had an armored eye already, but only

graceful fins where the fingers would develop.

What a distraction, wading in a pond. He

should be thinking about the mock battle of the

game. He shouldn't be alone here. He should

have a whole squad working with him, or at least

be on the team of some other squad. But he

didn't mind the distracffons. It was probably his

last day alive. His father had forgotten that the

games weren't fair. The kits tested each

other and there were rules of honor and honesty

to keep the exchanges from being lethal. And

then something happened that had no rules.

A consensus developed about who was the

weakling.

THE SURVIVOR 13

And from that day he was hunted and marked for

death. The unweaned were "after ear." There was

no escape. No act of bravery was good enough.

The consensus was a death sentence. Short-Son

knew. He had himself helped hound a "designated"

weakling into a trap to be torn apart eight of his

peers. So much for being swift to do the bidding of

Puller-of-Noses.

Death. Standing to his ankles in the water he

found three of the Jotok arms locked together in

a union that would last a lifetime, their

thin-filament headfeelers waving, sending out a

chemical call for two more mates. At this stage

they were particularly helpless, unable to dart

away, unable to escape onto the land. He pulled

them apart, curiously, to see how the head was

formed. It bled because the circulation system was

already joined. The intestines of the head spilled

out. When his wonder was satiated, he popped the

arms, one at a time, into his mouth.

CHAPTER 3

(2391 A.D.)

"You devour my charges!" came a rough voice

from the shore.

Before he turned, Short-Son of Chiirr-Nig

heard in his head an inane lullaby tune that his

father sometimes sang to his sons when they

had scampered and tussled too much and were

very tired.

"Brave little orange kzin Brave little striped

kzin, Turn to the din And if' it makes you

smile, Leap But if it is nothing at all Really

nothing at all You may turn-in; And droop your

Larry Niven - Man - Kzin Wars 4

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