The Man-Kzin Wars 04

Non-military beamcasts giving the tone and morale of the monkey civilization. Better and better maps of the cities of Earth.

Trainer-of-Slaves often flipped through the images. He gave only a glance to one of the earliest post-battle transmissions. It was a single crude picture of a vehicle being assembled in the asteroid belt. The scale markings indicated enormous size but its size was deceptive. Most of the structure seemed to be a flimsy magnetic funnel one of the monkey ramscoops of no military utility. To be noted and ignored. Perhaps it was to be an emissary to one of their local allies.

Months later there was a second flurry of activity when more pictures of the ramscoop came through. Now it was equipped with massive disposable hydrogen tanks and was actually being launched toward Alpha Centauri! To what possible purpose? This time Trainer noticed the furor only because Grraf-Hromfi used the item as the inspiration for a seminar lecture on human technology.

Trainer-of-Slaves was not to recall that seminar for another five years. Immediately when he left the briefing room other worries occupied his mind. He had a sick Jotok to tend and he was in the middle of a card game that he was losing to Long-Reach.

In that five years the Fifth Fleet doubled in size. The effort caused great hardship among the vassals of Wonderland, more than Chuut-Riit thought prudent to impose. Such stress created an alarming increase in feral activity. But there was no help for it. Extraordinary war efforts always cause hardship, both among slave and Hero. Sacrifices had to be made for the Long Peace, always. Peace did not exist without war to impose it.

Trainer-of-Slaves developed a lucrative sideline. It did not pay off in coin, but it paid off in favors. His Jotoki became experts at modifying warships and fighter craft to better than standard performance. This was not particularly difficult to do.

“Kr-Captain, your Screener now gives us a perfect check-down. But I do know ways its performance could be improved.” While unbinding the terrified zianya who was to be their dinner, Trainer paused to let his message sink in. It was against regulations to make non-standard changes. Waiting without comment, he watched Kr-Captain tear out his hunk of flesh to an anguished animal cry. Trainer was not going to mention the subject of irregular modifications again.

“I'll take any edge,” said Kr-Captain, blood on his Jaws.

“Of course, any alteration can be re-standardized.”

“A laudable way to deal with fussy bureaucrats.”

“Useful too, in case non-standard parts are unavailable during an emergency.”

“When might such work be done?”

To avoid equipment chaos, standardization had been rigidly imposed since the time of the first interstellar Patriarchs. All improvements, by decree, had to come out of Kzin-home. In a subluminal empire, sixty light-years in diameter, new standards diffused slowly.

Brilliant innovations built to serve a need during the heat of some local war tended to die in the files. First the innovation had to reach Kzin-home. Then it had to be tested by a bureaucracy which considered itself to be the sole font of all change—and was understaffed. The ideas that lived often took ten or fifteen generations to become the new standard authorized by the High Admiralty, not because the Admiralty was particularly senile, but because the pace of light from star to star was pitiably slow.

Still, many such battle-tried ideas could be found hibernating within the labyrinthine network of lairs inside the data-links. Finding them took maze-tracking skills, and battle-cunning to know what was wanted, and an engineering background to know what was possible. Having fanatically loyal Jotoki technicians also helped.

The Flayer-of-Monkeys was a three-kzin fighterscout. They were well away from the Sherrek's Ear, testing the illegal modifications, when they got an emergency message. “Flayer. Flayer. Flayer. Record. Record. Record.” Kr-Captain was at the leading point of the delta-shaped control chamber. He switched on his combat communications memory. Trainer-of-Slaves happened to be riding in the Sensor's harness, and Long- Reach was uncomfortably seated on his mouth in the Weapons-Operator chair, peering at his instruments. He was used to maintaining them, not reading them.

Sherrek's Ear continued urgently. “Acknowledge and Execute. Time Lag too Long for Confirmation. Will Repeat Message. Ramscoop Coming Through. Intercept and Destroy. Flayer is only Warcraft in Combat Range. Repeat: Intercept and Destroy. Ramscoop Coming in Much Faster than Predicted.”

The excited kzin controller spat out a number. “We See Target: Three Octal-squared Light-days Out, Coming In. Real Position: Passing A-star; Perhaps Already Outbound. Possible Collision A-star. If So: Cancel Intercept. Now Read Coordinates for Flayer Intercept.”

They were given a position which placed Man-sun almost in occultation with Alpha Centauri A, on a circle surrounding A at a point thirty degrees north-east of a reference longitude through Kzin-sun. If they couldn't intercept within forty-seven hours, the ramscoop would escape.

“…We Assume You Are Unarmed. Destroy-mode Your Choice. Message Will Now Repeat. Flayer. Flayer…”

A startled Kr-Captain swung his outer antenna toward the Sherrek's Ear. “Flayer Ack. Will Intercept. Flayer Ack. Flayer Ack. Moving out.” He switched off the comm—they were too far away to carry on a conversation—pulled down his goggles, and took a brief look at the heavens while he rolled Flayer-of- Monkeys in the direction of the line joining Man-sun and Alpha Centauri A, now separated by about seven degrees.

“We've got to close up Man-sun and the A-star. That's shaving the hairs. Hope your juiced-up polarizer really will do octal-squared g's. What the sthondat is a ramscoop?”

“Hey, two missiles!” said Long-Reach's short(arm) after checking the weapons readout.

“Camera missiles,” snarled Kr-Captain, lolling his tongue. “For maneuvers.”

Trainer-of-Slaves was suddenly remembering Grraf-Hromfi's long forgotten seminar on ramscoops. “I know what a ramscoop is.”

“Good. Whatever it is, can we kill it? We're disarmed.” They were already accelerating at sixty-three g's, yet it would be hours before they began to see Alpha Centauri creeping across the starfield. Kr-Captain turned to calculating orbits on his screen. They were going to have to cross the line-of-flight of the man-thing at ninety degrees. “We have just enough time to decelerate and stop on their line-of-flight. Should we stop or do a flying pass?”

All of Grraf-Hromfi's lectures on tactics crowded into Trainer's thoughts. Think before you leap. “Stop if we can. We get one try. We don't want our fire crossing the line-of-flight at an angle—not at those velocities.”

The old seminar room on the Sherrek's Ear was filling Trainer's imagination. The smell of frame-beryllium and old fur. The wet sniff of algae. But especially that room five years ago. Grraf-Hromfi was the same benevolent tyrant that he had always been, mane a bit scraggly. His halo mockup of the ramscoop floated to one side and he held his shamboo pointer tipped with slashtooth tusk that he liked to jab into his holos and sometimes into the bellies of his less attentive listeners.

“We do not know its intention,” the ghost-memory was saying to Trainer. “It is probably coming to sniff spoor around our boundaries. It cannot have an attack capability.”

Trainer tried to reevaluate was that still true? And drew a blank.

“It cannot defend itself.”

Yes, thought Trainer, its speed is its only defense, running like a fangless herbivore.

“The most interesting fact that this mockup reveals about the United Nations Space Navy is that they have not as of four years ago, I repeat learned how to build an interstellar-grade gravity polarizer. Otherwise they would not be launching such a massive low-performance device. The magnetic funnel”—he pointed—“is used to collect interstellar hydrogen for the reaction drive. Can any of you tell me its major constraint?”

There had been silence in the classroom. Today it was the silence of interception through soundless space.

Trainer remembered himself prompting, mischievously, “Ask Long-Tooth. He knows.”

Long-Tooth-Son of Grraf-Hromfi jumped out of his reverie. “Honored patriarch, a ramscoop is too slow.”