Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC (2 page)

“I don’t know if they quite deserve that. The tiger people will arrive at Glot long before the end of the first canto, John Wayne. Still, if that’s their preferred form of communication, yes, let’s try it. And we should welcome them and show them something of our culture, although I foresee problems. I think my new avatar should be ready by now, and we can use that on the television.”

“I can use one of my old avatars, I expect. Might have to scale it up a bit so it looks like something they would recognize though. Some fur, and teeth perhaps. I rather fancy my Jabba the Hutt, the pink one, what do you think?”

“Why not? But teeth might be a problem for the captain. I mean, you have to be horribly insecure to tell everyone to be afraid of you all the time. Something friendly like a moustache might be better.”

“Good thinking. Suppose I start with fur and take it off later, to show that we aren’t the least bit threatening. That might calm him down a bit.”

* * *

“We have a signal from the planet, sir.” Technology Officer saluted respectfully, claws-across-the-face. “It seems to be a 3-D video and we are translating it now. And a sound channel as well.”

“Call the telepath and get him here immediately! Oh, and the strategist, it will be something for him to think about.” The captain snorted with contempt. He was not kindly disposed to thinking as an activity, considering it some kind of perversion, and he also despised telepaths, as did all right-thinking kzinti. “Bring the image up there, where we can all see it!” he decreed.

The big screen cycled through blue, green, yellow and purple, formed two images overlayed and then separated into a stereo image. It was somewhat surprising that it made any sense at all; some intelligent species had only three-color sensitivity, and their artificial images were incomprehensible.

“Strategist, what are we seeing?”

“Clearly two aliens, sir, and very different in appearance, to be sure. Perhaps different species, possibly merely different sexes. Since the signals originate from the middle continent, and since there are four distinct large land masses, it is conceivable that different species have attained intelligence on different continents. Their technology levels would seem to be at least what ours were some centuries ago. Since they are beaming the signal we may infer that they have detected our presence, which suggests somewhat more advanced technology.”

Before them with what might or might not be a toothless smile, a bright pink face with a huge slit mouth looked out of the screen at them. It had grey fur and wore a straw hat on its head which, although the kzinti didn’t know it, was decorated with bananas, apples and a lobster. It wasn’t, of course, a real lobster, but it was quite convincing. Next to the pink animal with the big mouth was a skeletal creature with a big green head wearing a morning suit complete with grey top hat. It had two arms with clawless hands on the end encased in grey gloves. The captain found it difficult to tell what parts were artificial and which parts were of its integument. It had its hands clasped on a black cane with a gold knob on the end. It looked into the eyes of the captain and spoke.

“Welcome to Altair One.” It spoke in the Heroes’ Tongue. It spoke as well as the captain. In fact it spoke in the captain’s voice.

The captain’s response was not fully articulate, being something between a howl and a roar, but a definite note of interrogation could be detected in it. Coco wondered if he had been misheard.

“Yes, welcome. We are very pleased to greet you and we anticipate with pleasure your arrival from the stars. We are sure you have lots of interesting things to tell us,” the big fat pink one spoke. It also spoke the Heroes’ Tongue and also sounded exactly like the captain.

Captain looked at them. They appeared to be waiting for a response.

“Is it possible that they can hear us, Strategist?”

“Since they speak the Heroes’ Tongue, they have plainly heard Kzin before, and since they speak in your voice, my captain, then they must have somehow heard you previously. It would be prudent, therefore, to assume that they
can
hear us.”

“Kill the link!” ordered Captain. “And Technology Officer, ensure that no transmissions from this ship are permitted.” It was elementary that the enemy aliens should not hear their Council of War. None of the kzinti were aware that this made no difference to Coco and John Wayne.

“Ha,” growled the captain in the mocking tense. “They may not be so pleased to see us when we arrive. I don’t know what they taste like, but they look as if they could be made into competent slaves.” A new, populated planet! That would mean wealth for him, and a Name! A pity there were not really enough marines aboard to leave a garrison, but that could wait until their return. However, he wondered at the big mouth on the fat one. He had not seen teeth, but there was something unsettling about the implied swallowing power.

Telepath had slumped into a semi-sitting position, hind-legs sprawled out before him. The captain thought of bringing him to his feet and to attention very forcibly indeed, but he knew from past alien contacts that he must be suffering from information overload. Some alien species, like the Chunquen with their nasty undersea boats, were like enough to kzinti in their thought processes to make it relatively easy to get a handle on them. Species on different planets followed broadly similar evolutionary paths, possibly because they had common microbe ancestors, possibly because those were the best way to go. Assuming these were mammalian, the number of teats would indicate the size of their litters. But the sexual dimorphism was more extreme than anything he had ever heard of. He found it hard to imagine either of them being sexually attractive even to each other. Perhaps they were different species. But could different species share a planet? The screen came on again, though no one had laid a claw on the control console.

“Taste like?” the pink one spoke in bewilderment.

Captain’s comfortable ideas were turned upside-down. If these enemies had superior technology, and they’d just demonstrated that they had, then not only was
Prowler
in trouble, so was the whole kzin species.

Captain shot a look full of death at Technology Officer. “They can hear us? They control our communications links! How is that possible?”

“I cannot imagine, sir. They must have some advanced technology indeed.”

Alien Technologies remembered, fortunately for him, that stating the obvious to Captain was never a good idea at the best of times, and this was decidedly not one of them. He tried to shift the blame:

“We know, sir, that they have been listening to us, as Strategist pointed out.”

Strategist broke in. “And if they deduced our language on only one sample, they are extremely advanced in linguistics. And if they have had other samples, how far-ranging are their probes? . . . or ships?”

That was also not a pleasant thought. If other kzinti had met them, why had they not reported the fact and staked their claim? A reason occurred to the captain and he did not like it. It fitted uncomfortably with the pink one’s big mouth.

The pink Jabba avatar spoke breezily. “Never actually met a space-faring species before, Captain, not to speak to. But my friend, Coco, here has been visiting you by the hielterober for some dozens of days now.” Coco lifted his tophat respectfully and put it back. His head appeared fleshless bone, not unlike the skull of a
kz’eerkt
. “So naturally he picked up your languages. But let’s get back to this tasting business. What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I have it in mind to find you on your planet, hunt you down, and then rip off your head and gorge myself on the flesh of your body,” the captain explained.

“Good Lord, are you serious?” John Wayne asked in astonishment.

Captain snarled, showing a lot of teeth, most of them very pointy. Still, addressing him as “Good Lord” showed the creature had some elementary grasp of decorum. Perhaps, thought Captain, making what was for him an unusual effort at empathy, it was attempting to pay him a compliment—or was it an insult? None of his slaves on Kzin had ever addressed him as “Good,” though they certainly addressed him as “Lord.”

The big pink creature studied the teeth thoughtfully. “Yes, I see what you mean,” he told the captain. “Well, I’m very sorry, but I don’t feel that it’s a good idea. I can see that opinions may honestly differ on this point, but on balance I’m against it. How about you, Coco?”

Coco, or the avatar that looked like death in a formal costume, considered the matter. Then he shrugged. “It seems a frightful waste to me. But you want—and let me be quite clear about this—you want that
you
should eat
us
?”

“Yes!” snarled the captain, who wasn’t used to arguments from food.

“Not that
we
should eat
you
?”

Captain was lost for words. Telepath, who had been struggling to his feet, was knocked down again by the full psychic blast of Captain’s outrage, made no less devastating by the fact, which even the other officers sensed, that it also contained more than a hint of fear.

Coco looked out at them from the screen, turning to look at each of the kzinti in turn, another cause for worry. “I’m not wildly keen on that idea either, frankly, but I just want to be sure.” Coco was trying to be polite on the off-chance there was a misunderstanding here.

There wasn’t. The captain made it very clear that he was expecting to greatly enjoy tearing them limb from limb and feasting on the remains.

“But the plain fact is that we would taste absolutely terrible. Think sawdust laced with lots of small pebbles and nails, with a dollop of jam,” John Wayne told him reasonably. “Particularly nasty jam. Made from sour fruit that was stolen from the trees by plague-stricken
sthondats
. We’re talking serious indigestion here. And that’s the best bit. Coco’s body here has got hardly any meat on him by any standards.” John Wayne had wanted to say
avatar
, but there didn’t seem to be a word for it and had chosen
body
as the next best thing.

If the captain did not understand the meaning of the word “jam,” Telepath did. Vegetable reproductive structures crushed to a pulp, fermented with sucrose, and . . . and eaten! Generally when spread upon a paste of crushed and baked vegetable seeds! He began vomiting convulsively, with barely time to turn away from Captain. Fortunately, the bridge, as in every ship which might encounter aliens and carried a Telepath, was fitted with a disposal unit for just such emergencies.

“Then he and his kind will make slaves.” The captain was not in a good mood, but he saw that what the enemy said was probably true enough. It was plain from Telepath’s behavior that here was a horribly perverted race . . . or races. Further, he had to admit to himself, neither of them looked particularly appetizing. One more-than-vaguely resembled a long-dead and sun-dried
kz’errkt
, the other a very large version of something that lived under a rock.

“Slaves. You mean fetching and carrying and dying in the arena, that sort of thing?” John Wayne asked.

“That sort of thing,” Captain agreed. “I see you’ve got the idea.” It was interesting that they were showing some sense. Two questions rose at the back of his mind.
Where
did they get the idea? And
who
had told them about the arena? True, dying in the arena was a criminal punishment by which disgraced kzin nobility might regain some honor, far beyond a slave’s aspirations, but the fact that these aliens were aware of it suggested that they had the rudiments of culture. They did, of course, but in this case it came from watching old broadcast versions of
Gladiator
and
Spartacus
.

“Well, I suppose it could be interesting,” John Wayne said reflectively. “What do you think, Coco?”

“Only for a week or so,” Coco told him. “After that, I should think, it could get rather tedious. And those who got to die in the arena might very well object. It would be a terrible waste, some of those bodies have been around for decades. I think they’d quite possibly refuse, frankly. Not really much of an improvement over being eaten, when you come right down to it.”

“You will obey in all things, vermin,” Captain told them with emphasis, the kzinti words for “alien,” “enemy,” “slave” and “vermin” all being much the same, though the Heroes’ Tongue was remarkably rich in suggestive insults otherwise. The idea of a slave, or a meal, refusing a command was too alien to be digested easily. It had happened, from time to time in the past, but to say the consequences had been drastic would be putting the matter altogether too mildly.

Then Captain asked: “Can you keep records? Do you have good record-keeping devices?” He had not had a good record-keeper since he lost his temper with his Chunquen slave for spilling the ship’s ceremonial jar of the Patriarch’s urine during a sudden maneuver.

“Well, with all due modesty, I think I have a good memory,” John Wayne told him. “And so does my colleague here. Weather now, and rainfall . . . I think I can recall the weather-patterns for most of my lifetime so far. Or do you mean by ‘record’ those round things humans previously placed on turn-tables to make sounds? Coco thought-skibbed it was to make music, but I fropgrivened to him that that was not possible—not once you heard it.”

“Do not presume to trade on your usefulness!” Captain snarled.
“Trade”
in the Heroes’ Tongue was in most contexts one of those many deadly insults. Still, good record-keepers would be useful, he admitted to himself. He was in no mood to track down the meaning of the various strange words the creature used.

“I skrieg that you are using the speaking-to-slaves tense already. But I think you’re wrong about that,” John Wayne told him soberly, using the tense of equals, a breach of etiquette which would certainly cost any slave his tongue and shortly thereafter his life if he was within reach of Captain’s claws. “I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but we’re not very good at obedience. And frankly, we don’t often even try.”

For the unfortunate Telepath, it was as if the control-room turned white as Captain’s rage washed over him. At least it blotted out the alien thoughts, even of the . . . jam . . . for a time.