Larry Niven - Footfall

Digit Ship Six was moored in place at Message Bearer’s stem. While fuel flowed into the digit ship, Chintithpit-mang’s eightsquared, now reduced to forty-one, moved through the airlock and forward along the mating tube.

The prisoners had suffered on the trip out. Hours after takeoff, warriors checking their cell had found the air stinking with the smelt of half-digested food. They must have been breathing the stuff until the air flow pulled it out. In free-fall they were like fish out of water, they acted like they were dying. Chintithpit-mang’s warriors had to tow them like baggage. They towed other baggage: food stocks, maps, books full of pictures, tape cassettes, and projection machines.

Chintithpit-mang himself moved clumsily. One leg was braced straight, and it interfered with his every motion. A thermonuclear device had exploded near the ship just before takeoff. Chintithpitmang and six prisoners had slammed against a wall. The prisoners, with their negligible mass, were barely bruised, but Chintithpitmang’s right hind leg had snapped under him.

Two octuples of warriors met them at the end of a makasrupk of tunnel. They all looked irritatingly clean and healthy. Chintithpit-mang was glad to mm his prisoners over to them. If any died, he preferred that another have them in charge.

He took the shortest route toward Shreshleemang. His mate would be waiting.

Humans in a corridor startled him. He was reaching for his gun before he realized that they must be prisoners. They seemed to want something… He glared at them and kept moving. The next corner brought him face to face with Fathisteh-tulk.

Had the Herdmaster’s Advisor noticed? “May your time stretch long, Advisor,” he said, and would have passed.

“Stay,” said Fathisteh-tulk. “I need you.”

Chintithpit-mang suppressed a fluttering snort of displeasure, but the Advisor sensed it anyway. “This is of massive importance, and none other will do,” be persisted. “You are of the Year Zero Fithp, and a dissident. So is your mate. She will assume that yow duties kept you at the ship until you can explain to her. Come.”

Dmitri and Arvid climbed wearily from the air duct.

Two female fithp looked at the Soviets and passed on. A passing fi’ warrior trumpeted anger at them; they flinched back. Dmitri frowned. “Why did he do that? I thought they had their instructions—”

“He may have had other instructions,” Arvid said.

“No. He was injured. A ship must have arrived from Earth — that series of thuds this morning—”

“Da. Injured warriors will not like humans.”

The next Ii’ warrior seemed friendly enough. Perhaps he was glad of a touch of strange in his life. He made conversation, and the Soviets answered in kind. He dawdled for the benefit of the tired duct-cleaners, who moved a little more slowly than necessary. Hide your strength!

The Herdmaster looked up from his viewscreen and snorted angrily. His digits pounded a baseball-sized button. “Communications, get me Fathisteh-tulk. Find out why he isn’t on duty.”

“Will you talk to him yourself?”

“No. Send him here. Has Digit Ship Six arrived?”

“It arrived while you slept, Herdmaster.”

“After you have the Advisor, get me Breaker-One.”

“The Advisor doesn’t answer, Herdmaster.”

“What? Never mind. Get me Breaker-One,”

The screen showed Raztupisp-minz looking as if his youth had returned. Power could do that for an aging fi’. He had had power while breaking the sleepers to their new role. Now his human charges had given him his authority back.

“We will put the new prisoners to distributing the dietary supplements,” he said, “and let them talk with the Soviets, with Tashayamp present. First, however, I intend to house them with Dawson. Dawson has been alone for several days now. We hoped that, like a newborn meatflyer, he would fixate on me if he had no other companionship.”

“Did it work?”

“It is too soon to tell, but I think not. Dawson is not newborn. He talks to me, but not as a new slave talks to one who has taken his surrender. There is anger if not impudence, Herdmaster, I wonder if there is a surrender symbol among humans that we have not discovered.”

“He surrendered. He must be made to know the implications.”

“At your orders—”

“Drown you, your task is not within my thuktun! I advise only. You will do what you can, in whatever way you feel is good, and you will accept full responsibility for failure!”

“Lead me, Herdmaster. Companions from Dawson’s herd may give him back his rationality.”

“Your scarlet-tufted female was considered a curable rogue. Will her presence in Dawson’s cell affect Dawson’s sense of reality?”

“Mice accepted surrender. She obeys orders. Eight-cubed leader Siplisteph says she seems saner than most.”

“Keep me informed. Are the air ducts clean?”

Raztupisp-minz bridled at his sarcastic tone. “The prisoners have covered perhaps six sixty-fourths of the network. They’re doing well. Herdmaster, you are aware that a battle might destroy the duct sweepers or rip the ducts open. The humans are gaining practice against real need.”

“Your meaning wets my mind. I take it that they are indeed being broken to the Traveler Herd.”

Breaker-One hesitated. Then, “They do not interpret orders rigorously. One has explored regions to which he was not assigned. This may demonstrate the curiosity native to a climbing species, or they may hope to gain knowledge that will make them of more benefit to us—”

“Still they do not obey. Carry on.” The Herdmaster broke contact. “Get me Chowpeentulk.” If he knew Chowpeentulk, she would know where her mate was under almost any circumstances.

Communications tracked her to the infirmary, where Chowpeentulk was in the act of delivering an infant. Even a Herdmaster had to wait sometimes.

The cell door was ajar; it opened to Wes Dawson’s touch. He pushed it shut with his feet, and heard the lock click. Thoughts and memories boiled in his head. He pushed them deep into his mind, concentrating on the pain in his leg, and on not appearing injured. The fithp are not telepathic, he thought. But why take chances?

The cell was large and lonely. He had lived there for five days now. He liked the elbow room and he hadn’t liked dealing with the Soviets. Nonetheless—

They’re punishing me. But for what? it must be punishment. To a herd beast, being left in solitary must be agony.

They want to break me. I won’t let them. Think of something. What? There’s nothing to read…

Thuktun Flishithy’s main drive was a universal subliminal hum in Dawson’s mind. Its source was a gnawing ache.

It must be pushing against an enormous mass, for the acceleration to be so low. The fillip must have a hell of a big reserve of deuteriwn-tritium mix. That’s an ominous thought. It’s a big ship, and it can fight.

It has to be D-T mix. Any other assumption is worse. A fusion motor using simple hydrogen would have to be far more sophisticated, halfway from science fiction to fantasy. Wes Dawson preferred a more optimistic assumption.

Endlessly he waged the Fithp-Human War in his mind.

The door opened.

The intruder wailed as she entered. She had bright red hair and a pale face that would have been pretty if she hadn’t looked so sick. She was slender as a pipe cleaner, fragile-looking. Free-fall was making her terribly unhappy.

Wes caught her arm. The newcomer wailed at him without seeing him.

Others came into the cell. A blond girl, no more than ten years old, floated gracefully to remove his hand from the slender woman’s arm. “It’s all right, Alice,” the girl said.