Man-Kzin Wars IV by Larry Niven (graded readers .txt) 📗

think he has a better deal than we do.”

Trainer-of-Slaves was consulting his book. These rotting manuals never seemed to carry what you needed in the place you were looking at! “Omnivore,” he clacked and hissed. Not very helpful. “Try one of everything. Water, too.”

Long-Reach returned with a variety of warm, raw meats on a skewer and a bowl of leaves with a side dish of leaf sauce.

The older man sniffed the meat but tried the leaves first. “Tastes like eucalyptus. Same texture, too.” He spat it out and tried the meat with a sour expression. “We’re going to have to teach them how to cook all over again.”

“It’s raw? Gottdamn!”

“And tough.”

Trainer-of-Slaves was impressed when he watched them chewing on the meat and rejecting the leaves.

“Can you ask him for some clothes?” whimpered Marisha.

“I don’t think they have our size. Maybe something in yellow lace with five arm holes?”

Trainer-of-Slaves busied himself with professional questions—asked of himself because it was impossible to ask them anything. He examined the bottoms of their feet, clawing the sole gently, and decided that the skin was too soft. Had they been carried about by machines on Wunderland? Maybe on the two-year trip to Hssin in the hibernator their feet had grown soft? Certainly they wouldn’t be able to last out the hunt on those!

Item: provide them with makeshift sandals. The giant was frugal to the point of insanity and had all sorts of hides around that had been softened by Jotok mastication,

He wasn’t sure what to do about the rest of their skin. It had no fur to protect them from heat and cold, and would be useless against brambles and branches. Nor was it thick like a Jotok’s hide. Just running his claws along their skin made them flinch in pain and make noises that didn’t sound like polite conversation. Had they been shelled out of their carapace? Or was it just that Man-home was a paradise?

Item: provide them with leggings. With their build and fragility, what they really needed was a military suit of armor.

At first light he took them into the forest—with Long-Reach, Joker, and Creepy following in the trees. He tried to teach them the lay of the caverns, how to run and where to run, how to backtrack and hide, what to rub on their bodies to disguise their rank smell. After frustrating misunderstandings, he decided that they didn’t understand that they were going to be hunted. Were they stupid?

For a while Trainer-of-Slaves entertained the notion that they might be females. What did he know of monkey anatomy? They certainly didn’t understand him when he quite carefully enunciated from his man-talk phrase book. They behaved exactly like kzinrretti he’d tried to converse with—lifting their faces attentively, listening, all attention and no comprehension. Females for sure.

But they did chatter. Was it mindless chatter? Some sounds seemed … meaningful. “Notsofast!” was a demand that he stop demonstrating kzin reflexes. “Let’s-restaminute!” was a cry of weakness. “LunkheadOverThere” and “BarrelRibs” was a way of referring to a dominant slave master while deferentially averting one’s eyes.

At twilight he tried an experiment. Painfully he copied for them words from his phrasebook using man-script.

day tomorrow run fast

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

4/8 day hunt catch—man die

6/8 day hunt catch—man die

8/8 day hunt end hunt—man live

“Holy Mother Earth, he’s telling us that tomorrow we’re going to be on the wrong end of a kzin hunt!”

The young one paled.

The older one turned toward Trainer. “Jack, she’s only fifteen!”

They understood! He could smell their sudden fear. They could read! Ah, males for sure.

CHAPTER 10

(2396 A.D.)

Trainer-of-Slaves took the game animals out into the darkness of the caverns before lights-on. This time they were far more receptive to his instructions about sneaking away, dodging, and hiding. It was fascinating to observe the sudden increase in their intelligence. Now he owned an essential fact: a motivation-prompt accelerated a man-beast’s learning rate.

Interesting.

He compared this with what he knew about the Jotoki. A Jotok’s intelligence depended upon a hormone that was triggered by body-size; they were all geniuses during transition. You couldn’t stop them learning! Then, at adulthood when the mass of their arm-brains stabilized, their ability to learn began to taper off rapidly. A mature Jotok could always retain what he had mastered during transition, but he learned new facts and new ways only slowly. Motivation was a minor variable.

He wondered if a motivator triggered some kind of intelligence hormone in a man-beast? A kzin who controlled such a hormone directly would have a useful tool. Perhaps that could be accomplished through a chemical bypass-block that shunted around the motivator. The slave-master could induce a rapid learning mode, teach a specialized behavior to his monkey, then turn off the monkey’s ability to self-modify that behavior. A compulsive slave. No chains. No threats. Very economical.

As he watched them, Trainer-of-Slaves began to catalog in his mind the motivators he was observing. Certainly these beasts were able to modify their behavior rapidly when their lives were threatened. They’re like me, he thought as he helped the Marisha-beast lay a false trail through the marshes.

But, of course, they were different, too. He doubted that they had a concept of honor.

Sometimes life was not valuable. Trainer-of-Slaves was beginning to resent the hunt. These slaves were valuable alive. Study your enemy—who had said that? What was valuable in a pile of stripped and bloody bones?

When it was still dark he released the game at a multiple divide of caverns which Long-Reach called The Place of Many Ways. He felt sad. He needed at least ten more days to toughen them up, to learn enough of their language to train them in the more subtle evasions.

“Long-Reach,” he said to his companion when the man-beasts had disappeared beyond hearing, “as my special hunter, I have a service for you to perform. Who knows these sprawling forests and caves and liquid ponds better than you?”

“Only the