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

He spoke to her now in the corrupt form of the Hero’s Tongue which he used to communicate with his Jotoki. “No one lives on Hssin,” he spat-growled. “Your Navy has murdered them, kits and all.”

I shouldn’t have let him baby-sit Louis, she thought. She had had a theory that kzin males must have lots of paternal abilities inside somewhere, since their females were so mentally limited. I was trying to stimulate his compassion. Compassion? That was my excuse.

Actually, Nora had needed time off from Louis. Stupid. Louis could work even “love-everybody Nora” into a murderous rage. Imagine what he could do to a kzin who had just lost his family and nation?

I think My Hero killed Louis. “What happened to Louis?” she asked in the staccato patois because she wanted a reply.

He wouldn’t tell her. He turned away, as contrite as a kzin who has just eaten one of his own kits.

But later, as he was making plans to move her down to Hssin, he did talk to her about Louis, however obliquely. He told a story about his own family. He was reminiscing about Hssin and recalled for Nora the day his father murdered a youngling half-brother on a point of discipline.

Poor doomed Louis. I saved him and then I fed him back to the lion’s den. She felt horrible that all she felt was relief. Maybe with her pelt of chimpanzee/ kzinrret fur she really was turning into a kzin.

CHAPTER 27

(2423–2435 A.D.)

Selected excerpts from the journal of UNSN Lieutenant Nora Argamentine found in the ruins of a kzin border fortress.

Day 1

The Jotoki have cleaned out and refurbished an old kzinrret palazzo among the rubble left by the UNSN attack, admittedly in one of the least damaged areas of the city. It is, of course, only for the use of me and the two girls. His Royal Male Highness will take up appropriately masculine quarters, I think the domicile once used by the late lamented Grand Panjandrum himself. The Jotoki have sealed our unit and arranged for water and air. What about food? My Hero says this will be no problem but I expect pretty awful fare.

I have found a hiding place for my journal! It seems the kzinrretti keep secrets from their masters! The cache is cunningly clever, crudely constructed—and invisible to curious eyes. I don’t know what to make of its contents. Found trinkets, I would call them. What kind of a mind would think such things beautiful enough to cherish? Dare I make the analogy of a dog hiding precious bones from his master?

I was touched as I stared at the trinkets. Is that what I am to become, a mind who values such simple things and knows somewhere in her soul that her master will not let her keep such junk?

I am living a nightmare. I can’t kill myself because of the girls, who are pathetic in their need for me, and I can’t escape. My brain is dissolving slowly and I don’t know enough about the human mind to know what parts of it he’s going to leave me. I can’t feel the difference from day to day—except for the temporary rushes and blackouts he triggers with his gizmo—but I can tell the difference from last year and I fear the future. For instance, I’m not sure I’m qualified anymore to lead a mutiny.

Sometimes I don’t believe that My Hero is doing this to me, and then I stroke the soft auburn fur on my body and know that, yes, he is. I can’t argue with him. I’ve tried. He is like some men I know. He listens. I feel his kindness, even his love—but he doesn’t listen!

Brunhilde is dying of some malady of perception that has grown markedly worse in the last year. Some days she can’t take care of herself or eat. Jacin is thin, chronically insecure, and epileptic. I expect neither of them to live, but I try. Louis was beyond my meager skills—poor abandoned, caged, brutalized child!

Once, back on the ship, when I was going out of my mind with worry, I asked My Hero for help with the children’s health. He had the practical suggestion that they be destroyed. Yet he surprised me. He actually read my horror at his suggestion and came back a day later with an experimental program of damage control. Wetware revision and editing. He couldn’t promise results.

How can I bear this life—to let my girls die, perhaps like Louis, or to ask My Hero to experiment on them again to fix what he has botched? Would anyone trust him with girls?

Day 4

The kzin use an octal clock and a hopelessly complicated dating system. I really have lost track of what time it is, what day it is, what month it is. Females aren’t supposed to care about such things. The year, I think, is 2423. I have periods of blankness, where whole days are missing. Of these I remember nothing. That makes keeping track of time even harder. I could put X’s on my prison wall. Would that mean anything? How do I know when it is a new day? I’m arbitrarily assigning this day the number four, counting from the day of planetfall.

Writing is easier than talking for me now. When I write I have time to remember the words, to pause and rebuild what I’ve lost or to think my way around any mental block. Nora From-My-Future, if you are reading this over and do not understand it, I am writing it because my memory is going. The loss is subtle. But I have noticed that if I practice remembering, I can hold on to things. It is when I forget to remember, that I forget how to remember what I want to remember.

Practice. Practice. Practice. Remember that.

THIS IS MY MEMORY. If you’ve forgotten something, Nora, maybe you’ll find it here. Maybe. My ability to learn doesn’t seem to be impaired, except during the blanks. My