Choosing Names: Man-Kzin Wars VIII by Larry Niven (the best books to read TXT) 📗

to see me then, and the speed with which my claws worked the computer’s keys. A visual array of sensors took in the model ship, its diagrammatic image appearing on Local Display a moment later. I rotated it through three dimensions and confirmed the display was consistent. Then I handed it to the Rick.

“It is done,” I said, “Part of our deception is prepared.”

I consulted the computer again, touched System Controller’s mind once more, and the Rick’s, linked the image to the battle-alert sensors, then set the program to run. A tunneling thing it was. Time, a little time, it would need yet to burrow its way into the entrails of the Battle-Display tank.

“Do you know how to open these doors?” The Rick asked. Normally I might have swiped the monkey with my claws for the stupid and insulting question, but I thought it necessary that the timid thing be reassured.

“There are officers who do,” I said, “and this boat has emergency over-ride for any command to be obeyed when issuing from it. Long ago when he was distracted did I take the code-word from Feared Zraar-Admiral’s mind.

“Timing is difficult now. We should load extra stores and what weapons we may.”

“More stores? But it is only a short journey, surely?”

This time I nearly did swipe it. “And if we reach the monkey-ship, do you expect me to eat monkeyfood?”

Quickly I climbed down from the barge and began collecting the storage-bins I had prepared previously. The monkeys followed and tried to help, but they were slow and clumsy and could hardly lift the containers. I was fearful that they would drop them. Suddenly the door crashed open.

“What are you doing here? Answer, Addict!” I had forgotten Weapons Officer. Stupid. Stupid. He had returned, of course, to work on the gravity-motor weapon.

What did Weapons Officer see? Telepath and the two loose monkeys, surrounded by bins of stores, standing between the weapon’s test-bed and the Admiral’s barge. For a moment he was stunned with surprise. He had not come prepared, as he would have come to the training arena. But I knew his battle-reflexes. The next moment he would leap.

Yet I had one Wtsai hidden in my cave: the idea of Telepath planning to steal the barge and escape was too insane to occur to him. Weapons Officer was a typical Kzintosh, the same as those youngsters who would have killed me in the crèche when they had taken me from Karan, had not my talent been recognized by the Trainers-of-Telepaths.

The speed of thought! But I did not need to read his mind to see its image of me: I had seen it in the minds of all the officers, yes, and in the minds of the lowliest infanteers and wipers, too, countless times already. To him I was the addict, eunuch-substitute, herder-of-apes, beneath contempt . . .

How could he know how Telepaths thought? But I had a moment, as Weapons Officer stood puzzled, staring at me and at the monkeys, and the image of an alien warcraft burrowed its way into the computer’s vitals.

A red jet flared in his mind. No clear understanding yet, but: The addict! The monkeys! Treachery! Weapons officer’s hand moved to the grip of his Wtsai.

I had a Wtsai in my belt, too, but to touch it would be fatal. I could not fight Weapons Officer. No addict he, but tall, strong, fast, superbly fit, with countless hours of combat training. There was not a Kzintosh on the ship that I, Telepath, could best in combat. None, indeed, so poor and lacking in dignity as to challenge me in the practice arena. “Fight a Telepath” was a Kzintosh insult.

They did not know the Telepath’s Weapon. The light dose of Sthondat-drug I had taken was still in my system: enough to heighten my power, not enough to disorient me. I reached for the pain-centers of his mind, and struck.

Given skill, practice, familiarity with the one whose mind is entered, an experienced Telepath can avoid causing pain at entry I had read Kzin minds all unknown to them. First Telepath had praised my art. Now I bent all my power not to avoid pain but to cause it: the Telepath’s own Hot Needle and Vengeful Slasher.

The agony in his brain Weapons Officer had never expected or experienced. He reeled back screaming, clutching his head, eyes rolling and ears knotted. The effort weakened me, but I was prepared and summoned my will. I stood rampant as Weapons Officer doubled in agony. He dropped his Wtsai, its blade clattering on the deck. I leapt upon him and cut his throat.

“That’s torn it,” said Rick behind me, as I regained my breath and was bending to take Weapons Officer’s ears for my first belt-trophy.

I saw what he meant beyond the statement of the obvious. We were committed now. Rick looked pleased. I had no time to read his mind, but the expression on his face, with his little omnivore teeth showing, signified either amusement or defiance.

I could feel Kzintosh minds moving not far away now. “Hurry!” I told the monkeys as I tucked the ears safely away, “Silence has second priority now!”

Selina cried out. Two troopers burst through the door by which Weapons Officer had entered. I could not have held two at once, and for the moment my power was drained. Both carried side-arms.

Selina moved fast for a monkey. She turned the gravity-planer weapon at them and activated it, catching them unprepared, knocking them back and away up the corridor. I took it and spun the controls at random. The monkey-boat, only temporarily secured, broke loose and went smashing away, rupturing cables and ducting. Infantry boats were torn loose and hurtled across the deck. Small-arms ammunition exploded.

Then the huge appalling battle alarms roared.

* * *

The alarms and the howls of damage-alert klaxons mingled with the screams of Kzin. Zraar-Admiral leapt for the bridge, a standing leap upward from one deck to the next,  ignoring the vertical ladder, his staff and bodyguards close behind him.