Larry Niven: The Warriors

“I’m sure they saw us coming,” the Alien Technologies Officer persisted. “Do you see that ring, sir?”

The silvery image of the enemy ship almost filled the viewer. It showed as a broad, wide ring encircling a cylindrical axis, like a mechanical pencil floating inside a platinum bracelet. A finned craft projected from the pointed end of the axial section. Angular letters ran down the axis, totally unlike the dots-and-commas of Kzinti script.

“Of course I see it,” said the Captain.

“It was rotating when we first picked them up. It stopped when we got within two hundred thousand miles, and it hasn’t moved since.”

The Captain flicked his tail back and forth, gently, thoughtfully, like a pink lash. “You worry me,” he commented. “If they know we’re here, why haven’t they tried to get away? Are they so sure they can beat us?” He whirled to face the A-T Officer. “Should we be running?”

“No, sir! I don’t know why they’re still here, but they can’t have anything to be confident about. That’s one of the most primitive spacecraft I’ve ever seen.” He moved his claw about on the screen, pointing as he talked.

“The outer shell is an iron alloy. The rotating ring is a method of imitating gravity by using centripetal force. So they don’t have the gravity planer. In fact they’re probably using a reaction drive.”

The Captain’s catlike ears went up. “But we’re lightyears from the nearest star!”

“They must have a better reaction drive than we ever developed. We had the gravity planer before we needed one that good.”

There was a buzzing sound from the big control board. “Enter,” said the Captain.

The Weapons Officer fell up through the entrance hatch and came to attention, “Sir, we have all weapons trained on the enemy.”

“Good.” The Captain swung around. “A-T, how sure are you that they aren’t a threat to us?”

The A-T Officer bared sharply pointed teeth. “I don’t see how they could be, sir.”

“Good. Weapons, keep all your guns ready to fire, but don’t use them unless I give the order. I’ll have the ears of the man who destroys that ship without orders. I want to take it intact.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s the Telepath?”

“He’s on his way, sir. He was asleep.”

“He’s always asleep. Tell him to get his tail up here.”

The Weapons Officer saluted, turned, and dropped through the exit hole.

“Captain?”

The A-T Officer was standing by the viewer, which now showed the ringed end of the alien ship. He pointed to the mirror-bright end of the axial cylinder. “It looks like that end was designed to project light. That would make it a photon drive, sir.”

The Captain considered. “Could it be a signal device?”

“Urrrrr… Yes, Sir.”

“Then don’t jump to conclusions.”

Like a piece of toast, the Telepath popped up through the entrance hatch. He came to exaggerated attention. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

“You omitted to buzz for entrance.”

“Sorry, sir.” The lighted viewscreen caught the Telepath’s eye and he padded over for a better look, forgetting that he was at attention. The A-T Officer winced, wishing he were somewhere else.

The Telepath’s eyes were violet around the edges. His pink tail hung limp. As usual, he looked as if he were dying for lack of sleep. His fur was flattened along the side he slept on; he hadn’t even bothered to brush it. The effect was far from the ideal of a Conquest Warrior as one can get and still be a member of the Kzinti species. The wonder was that the Captain had not yet murdered him.

He never would, of course. Telepaths were too rare, too valuable, and—understandably—too emotionally unstable. The Captain always kept his temper with the Telepath. At times like this it was the innocent bystander who stood to lose his rank or his ears at the clank of a falling molecule.

“That’s an enemy ship we’ve tracked down,” the Captain was saying. “We’d like to get some information from them. Would you read their minds for us?”

“Yes, sir.” The Telepath’s voice showed his instant misery, but he knew better than to protest. He left the screen and sank into a chair. Slowly his ears folded into tight knots, his pupils contracted, and his ratlike tail went limp as flannel.

The world of the eleventh sense pushed in on him.

He caught the Captain’s thought: “…sloppy civilian get of a sthondat…” and frantically tuned it out. He hated the Captain’s mind. He found other minds aboard ship, isolated and blanked them out one by one. Now there were none left. There was only unconsciousness and chaos. Chaos was not empty. Something was thinking strange and disturbing thoughts.

The Telepath forced himself to listen.

Steve Weaver floated bonelessly near a wall of the radio room. He was blond, blue-eyed, and big, and he could often be seen as he was now, relaxed but completely motionless, as if there were some very good reason why he shouldn’t even blink. A streamer of smoke drifted from his left hand and crossed the room to bury itself in the air vent.

“That’s that,” Ann Harrison said wearily. She flicked four switches in the bank of radio controls. At each click a small light went out.

“You can’t get them?”

“Right. I’ll bet they don’t even have a radio.” Ann released her chair net and stretched out into a fivepointed star. “I’ve left the receiver on, with the volume up, in case they try to get us later. Man, that feels good!” Abruptly she curled into a tight ball. She had been crouched at the communications bank for more than an hour. Ann might have been Steve’s twin; she was almost as tall as he was, had the same color hair and eyes, and the flat muscles of conscientious exercise showed beneath her blue falling jumper as she flexed.

Steve snapped his cigarette butt at the air conditioner, moving only his fingers. “Okay. What have they got?”

Ann looked startled. “ I don’t know.”

“Think of it as a puzzle. They don’t have a radio. How might they talk to each other? How can we check on our guesses? We assume they’re trying to reach us, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Think about it, Ann. Get Jim thinking about it, too.” Jim Davis was her husband that year, and the ship’s doctor full time. “You’re the girl most likely to succeed. Have a smog stick?”

“Please.”

Steve pushed his cigarette ration across the room. “Take a few. I’ve got to go.”

The depleted package came whizzing back. “Thanks,” said Ann.

“Let me know if anything happens, will you? Or if you think of anything.”

“I will. And fear not, Steve, something’s bound to turn up. They must be trying just as hard as we are.”

Every compartment in the personnel ring opened into the narrow doughnut-shaped hall which ran around the ring’s forward rim. Steve pushed himself into the hall, jockeyed to contact the floor, and pushed. From there it was easy going. The floor curved up to meet him, and he proceeded down the hall like a swimming frog. Of the twelve men and women on the Angel’s Pencil , Steve was best at this; for Steve was a Belter, and the others were all flatlanders, Earthborn.

Ann probably wouldn’t think of anything, he guessed. It wasn’t that she wasn’t intelligent. She didn’t have the curiosity, the sheer love of solving puzzles. Only he and Jim Davis—

He was going too fast, and not concentrating. He almost crashed into Sue Bhang as she appeared below the curve of the ceiling.

They managed to stop themselves against the walls. “Hi, jaywalker,” said Sue.

“Hi, Sue. Where you headed?”