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

An old female human. Mother of Selina, I knew. And now came a single certainty in one part of my mind, one doubt dissolved: as I knew that I moved not in real-time or real-Space, so at one level at least I knew the things I was experiencing to be only monster-images of wandering imagination, not memory from Selina’s mind or my own. For the presence of an impossible animal made this that I saw, even on a human world, impossible: it appeared as if, curled and asleep upon the old human’s legs, stroked by the old human, there had been a goblin-creature like a tiny Kzin.

What tortuous symbol was this from Telepath’s sick brain? But it proved that the scene had no reality. Bridge to Selina or no, this scene could not be from her memory. And as this vision was unreal, the delusion of a poor addict’s mind lost in the tunnels, so the earlier scene must be dream and delusion too. There were no tiny goblin-creatures in the shape of Kzin, so Karan had never spoken to her kitten save in the few soft words of the Female Tongue. And Karan knew no other than those few soft words.

Then Telepath alone once more, Telepath stumbling over a rocky landscape, the pale tunnels ghostly and transparent, and then the pale tunnels fading, a dark stalker, whose shape could not be told, appearing and disappearing. I felt my mind dissolving, and knew I had at last seen the approach of the Shadow, the End and Last Despair that First Telepath had warned me would come like this.

I cried out for help. To First Telepath, to Karan, to Zraar-Admiral, to Selina.

An empty space, and then arches like a high-roofed cave. Naked sky. A gigantic face. I fell into the position of supplication. It was the God. Fanged, rampant, come for Telepath’s soul, and Telepath was not the warrior to fittingly defy Him. Or was it the Fanged God. The face seemed to shimmer, and was bearded like the face of the human god? Fanged God or Bearded God, or somehow . . . both?

I mewed like a kitten. Stars whirled about me, and Gutting Claw exploded.

Angel’s Pencil

 “And those females? It’s obvious what he loaded them for.”

“Wouldn’t you, in his position?”

“Give you a continent to breed cats on? Selina, are you insane? A colony of Kzin to attack our colony the moment they’ve got the numbers?”

“Hear me out.” Selina half rose, as the senior crew of the Angel’s Pencil fell silent about her. “Telepath is highly abnormal. You can see that. If he lives—and he may not—he has a chance of being the first of his kind even allowed to breed. What he breeds may be something quite new.

“The Kzinretts are unintelligent. They can do nothing to educate their children in any real sense. I can. I know Telepath’s mind, and I know that no other human can come close to the knowledge of the Kzinti that I have. Dammit, I doubt many Kzin know as much about the Kzinti as I do! Few but the Telepaths have a multi-leveled picture of their own make-up, and the Telepaths have it only flickeringly and without proper context.

“I think I can guide such a colony. You can keep watch on it—put a satellite above it with camera, sensors, weapons. If I fail and it becomes a threat, you’ll know in good time. You can help me guard it, guide it, trade with it, maybe. Visit it before aggression and xenophobia can take hold in the culture. Of course I can’t give guarantees. If necessary you can discipline it and if necessary you can wipe it out. Obviously with the Kzin in space the human colony must be on a war-footing always. But here we have a chance to create a Kzin society as it ought to be.”

“A chance to play god, you mean? I don’t like that idea.”

“What else are you going to do? Kill them here and now? Helpless prisoners? One of whom you owe? A desperately sick Telepath and two females in hibernation? Isn’t that playing god, too? I am offering the human race an asset. No-one else has it to offer.”

“If Earth is conquered by the . . . Kzin, what good will having a few tame cats do?”

“Almost certainly no good at all. But then nothing will matter anyway, unless anything from the more distant colonies can flee further into Space. And I do not think the Kzin will find Earth as easy a conquest as Zraar-Admiral imagined. Unarmed and surprised as we were, we have met them twice and beaten them twice already . . .” Her voice trailed off. She suddenly understood what Telepath had meant when he spoke of the wrong cave at last.

“I think it is likely the war will be long. I suppose there will be prisoners taken, but I doubt Earth can deal with Kzin prisoners. That’s another reason Telepath and the females are precious.”

“Your motives sound very patriotic, Selina. But is that all your agenda? It comes down to breeding Kzin?”

“To breeding Kzin you can talk to,” she corrected him.

“Is that really an asset?”

“It could be a bigger asset than you can imagine. Not only for this colony . . . There can be interchange between the two kinds right from the start. Humans will have the advantage of numbers, and Telepath’s children will not be the Kzin of the Patriarchy.

“When I learnt Telepaths were not allowed to breed, I wondered: when the gift is both so rare and so valuable a military asset, why is every effort not made to increase the strain, as it is among humans when even the smallest trace of such ability is found? I think I know why: Telepaths are introspective, empathetic—qualities that could be a deadly threat to the Patriarchy, if they became common among Kzin. Even if the proportion of Telepaths to the general population was only a little higher than it is now, they could be an intolerable influence for