Man-Kzin Wars IV

mistake. First he faced one casual kzin, in the shirt and epaulets favored by the young of Hssin. But there were others; he smelled their exertion. When he edged back toward the door he confronted the brown striped watcher who had followed him. To his right a third kzin rose from the grass. Before he could run, a fourth blocked his way. Two others guarded distant exits. He was trapped by six grinning kzin who wanted his ears.

“Now you’ll have to fight,” said Puller-of-Noses, already crouched and waiting for his leap.

CHAPTER 5

(2392 A.D.)

Short-Son tried to look over the edge of the roof but he was too far away and he already knew there was no escape in that direction. He glanced toward the pair of almost ship-sized elevators that rose into the artificial sky. Much too far away. Could a kzin fly?

Never had he felt such a rage. His mouth was wrapped back over his fangs in a death grin and he couldn’t have erased it from his face if he’d tried. His claws were out. His haunches were primed to leap at his tormentor and tear him to bits with fang and claw and hatred. He breathed. Only the fear kept him rooted.

“We hear you do it in trees with Jotok playmates!” taunted Hidden-Smiler whose smile was not hidden.

He remembered clearly through the rage how Jotok-Tender had told him the usage of fear, and practiced with him. Wait for the first leap. Apply that body-twist while extending the claws just so. A strange part of his mind was noticing that he had no control over his claws now—they were unretractable.

“Your father was a vatach!” rumbled another kzin who was not coming too close.

“His mother taught this toothless kit how to fight!”

Puller-of-Noses was relaxing now, sensing that Short-Son really didn’t have the courage to fight. That emboldened him. He wasn’t going to need his friends. He motioned them away. He’d take these ears himself. “You’re tied up like a zianya on the table, ready for the feast. I smell your fear, zianya.”

Short-Son snarled.

“Oh, we disturbed you! You came up here to feed on the grass. Don’t let us stop you.” Puller-of-Noses was enjoying the repartee.

“The grass is choice for one with a double stomach,” jibed Hidden-Smile.

Attack me! I’ll flip and slash your throats out! Short-Son’s thoughts were ravening, but he could say nothing. He hated them for teasing him, playing with him before they killed him. His fangs were sticking to dry lips, frozen by his grin.

“Our coward stinks of fear,” said Puller-of-Noses, ready for the kill, charging himself for a single leap that would rip the life from his prey. “You smell like a fattened grass-eater.” When his opponent didn’t respond, he couldn’t resist the final, ultimate insult. While he composed it, the tip of his pink tail flipped back and forth. “I’ll make a deal with you. Be an herbivore. Put your head in the grass and eat it, and I’ll spare your life. Or fight like a Hero and I’ll give you honor.”

If Puller-of-Noses had attacked then, a desperate Short-Son might have unbalanced him and slashed him to a quick death, but the pride leader was prolonging the agony, waiting for a reply, enjoying his wit too much to begin a battle that would end instantly and thus instantly end his fun. While he taunted, his only caution was to reestablish his crouch. The pause gave Short-Son a fatal moment of thought.

Puller-of-Noses had tendered a verbal bargain: eat grass and live or be a Hero and die.

His word of honor would force him to keep that bargain.

Puller-of-Noses was also too stupid to understand that he had actually offered Short-Son a real choice between life and death. In the challenger’s mind there was no choice at all between honor and eating grass. He thought he had Short-Son trapped.

Trembling, full of disgust for himself, Short-Son sank to his knees and began to eat the tall strands of green—crawling, ripping it from its roots with his fangs, chewing, though his teeth were not meant for such chewing. There was no way for his throat to swallow the fibrous cud, but he kept chewing and chewing.

Six kzin came forward with stunned eyes. Their ears twitched in amusement, but it wasn’t amusement they felt; what they felt was disbelief. And only then did Puller-of-Noses realize that he could gain no honor by killing this sniveling coward. Worse, he would be condemned to death if he broke his word. The ears of his intended victim were worthless.

* * *

From that day on Hssin’s “herbivorous” kzin had a new name spontaneously bestowed upon him—Eater-of-Grass. There was no suppressing the story. It spread like grassfire throughout the Hssin base. The Chiirr-Nig household disowned him. The naval shipyards no longer trusted him to work on their gravity polarizers.

He had no place to sleep, no place to eat, no one to talk to, no work. For a while he lived in corners and on roofs and in tunnels, hunting escaped rodents. It was hard to keep clean. Once he was mistaken for a wretched telepath. He even tried chewing on roots to ease his hunger, but in his stomach they turned to gas and indigestion. He begged—and grown kzin pretended he didn’t exist. He robbed a cage once of its live vatach which had been hung out for fresh air, a death offense if caught. He made it look as if the vatach had escaped. They all expected him to walk out onto the surface of Hssin and disappear into the mountains to die but he had no suit.

When he begged for a surface suit, yes, then they paid attention to him and charitably granted his wish. Eater-of-Grass didn’t walk into the mountains, however—he used the suit to break back into the Jotok Run, mostly because he wanted a bath. Soaking in water wasn’t the best way to take a bath, but it would do. He spent a day cleaning and grooming his fur.