Larry Niven - The Man-Kzin Wars 05

The old man finished fanning himself with his straw hat and continued:

“Jade, of course. No mines, but from the high mountain rivers; that is how we paid our tribute to the kzin. We are not ignorant knuzen here, Fra Nordbo!”

There was a pathetic pride to that; a hovertruck had come once a month from the lowlands, until the final disruption at liberation. Tyra felt a slight stinging in her eyes. Once even the most isolated settlement had been linked to Munchen, with virtual-schools and instant emergency services…

“Then, sometimes hunters come through; hunting for tigripard bides, quetzbird feathers. Or prospectors. There is gold, hafnium… when I was a small boy, scholars also from the Scholarium in Munchen.”

“Scholars?” she said, pricking up her ears.

“Yes; they said little-this was just after the War you understand, people were suspicious then-but there were rumors of formations that could not be accounted for. But they found nothing, and had to return to Munchen when so much of the Scholarium was closed by the government.” The collaborationist authorities had other priorities than education; their own profits, primarily. “And -but your supplies, they have arrived!” He rose and left, bowing and murmuring good wishes.

Another hovertruck pulled into the square; big and gleaming by contrast with the single ancient relic the village of Neu Friborg owned, although shabby enough by Munchen standards, much less Earth’s. The man who stepped down from it was tall, 190 centimeters at least; his black hair was worn in a shag cut, although she knew he had kept it in a military-style crop while he was Police Chief of Munchen. Chief for the collaborationists, and notoriously corrupt even by the gang’s standards. Claude Montferrat-Palme, of the Sydow clan. He wore expensive outbacker clothes, leather boots and grey usthcloth jacket and breeches, with a holstered strakkaker, and a beret. A small, neatly clipped black mustache lay on his upper lip, and his mouth quirked in a slight smile,

“Fra Nordbo,” he said, bowing formally over her hand with a click of heels.

“Fro Palme,” she replied, inclining her head with equal formality. A server bustled up with stems of the local beer.

“Prosit,” he said.

“Skaal,” she replied. “Now that the amenities are over, could you tell me exactly what you had in mind?”

Her voice held a chilly correctness; he seemed to recognize the tone, and smiled wryly.

“Fra Nordbo, I’m very strongly reminded of your father.”

“You knew him?” she said, with a raised eyebrow. “Perhaps you will claim to have been his friend, next?”

He surprised her by letting the smile grow into a deep laugh. “Quite the contrary” he said, shaking his head. “He treated me with the most frigid politesse, as befitted an honorable Landholder forced to deal with noxious collaborationist scum.”

She relaxed slightly. “He couldn’t have known you were involved with the Resistance,” she said.

“Ach, at the time I wasn’t,” he replied frankly. “I was a collaborationist at that point. My conversion came later; people do change. As some claim your father did, later.”

“That is a lie!” she said. More calmly: “My father was an astrophysicist, it was his… hobby, since he had to govern Skognara from a sense of duty. How was he to know the enemy would think a mere energy-anomaly a thing of potential military importance? The kzin-Yiao-Captain-forced him to accompany them on the expedition.”

“From which he has never returned, and hence cannot defend himself. And the Commission has been in no charitable mood.”

Tyra’s blond head drooped slightly. “I know,” she said quietly. “Tb,.. my brother and I, we have discussed resigning the Nordbos from the Freunchen clan.”

“Advisable, but it may make little difference. Unless I’ve lost my political feelers-and I haven’t-the Reformers are going to strip the Nineteen Families of everything but ceremonial power. And from all but their strictly private property, as well.”

Tyra nodded jerkily, feeling the hair stir on her neck as her ears laid back. That mutation was a mark of her heritage, of the old breed that had won this planet for humankind.

“it is unjust! Men like my father did everything they could to shield -“ She shrugged and fell silent again, taking a mouthful of the beer.

“Granted, but most of the kzin are gone, and a great deal of repressed hatred has to have a target.” He turned one hand up in a spare gesture. “Even our dear Grand Admiral Ulf Reichstein-Markham has been able to do little to halt the growth of anti-Families feeling. Which means we of the Families-as individuals-had better look to our own interests.”

Tyra looked down into her mug. Montferrat laughed again.

“How tactful you are for one so young, Fra Nordbo. I have a reputation for looking after my own interests, do I not? Old Sock is the nickname now; because I fit on either foot, having changed sides at just the right moment. Unfortunately, most of my accumulated wealth went on securing my vindication.”

He nodded dryly at her startled glance. “Yes, our great and good government of liberation is very nearly as corrupt as the collaborationists they hunt down so vigorously. Not Markham; his vice is power, not wealth. A little too nakedly apparent, however, and I doubt he will retain much of it past the elections, when the junta steps down. Which it will, given that the UN Space Navy is overseeing the process… but I digress.”

“Ja, Herr,” Tyra said. “You spoke of a matter of mutual interest?”

“Indeed.” He took out a slim gold cigarette case, opening it at her nod and selecting a brown cigarillo. His gaze sought the mountains as he took a meditative puff. “After you mentioned rumors of something… strange in these mountains.”

“I was a student at the Scholarium before the liberation, and afterwards a little. Before my brother… Well, he greatly admires Admiral Markham.”

“Of whom you no longer think highly, and who is notoriously unfond of myself, thus showing his bad taste,” Montferrat said suavely. “Yes. Thank you for the information on that little atrocity, by the way; it may come in useful as a stick for the Admiral’s spokes.” He frowned slightly, looking at the glowing tip of the cigarillo.

“I don’t believe in fate, but there’s a… synchronicity to events, sometimes. Your father vanished, seeking an artifact of inexplicable characteristics, near this system. You come across evidence of another here in these mountains. And I -“

Tyra made an inquiring sound.

“Well, let us say that this is the third instance,” Montferrat went on. “More would be unsafe for you to know; it has to do with General Markham, and his Sol-System patrons the ARM. It would certainly be unsafe for me to be openly involved in any such search.”

“You implied that you would be commissioning a search?” Tyra said.

“No. Searchers. Who will be looking, but not specifically for that. It is necessary that someone guard these unaware guardians; and since this presents me with an opportunity to do a lovely lady a service-”

He smiled gallantly; Tyra retained her look of stony politeness. Montferrat sighed.

“As you will.” A puff made the cigarillo a crimson ember for a moment. “First I must tell you a story, about a man named Jonah, and some friends he has made recently. Unusual friends-”

The hovercraft that carried the outgoing shift back to the Munchen docks was an antique. Not only would the design be completely obsolete once gravity polarizers were available for ordinary civilian work; it had been built before the kzinti frontier world of Hssin had decided to send a probing fleet to investigate the promising electromagnetic traffic from Alpha Centauri. That was nearly sixty Terran years ago, fifty Wunderlander and it had soldiered on ever since, carrying cargo and passengers up and down the Donau river and out into the sheltered waters of Spitzer Bay. It was simplicity itself, a flat rectangle of light-metal alloy with a control cabin at the right front corner and ducted fans on pivots at the rear. Other fans pumped air into the plenum chamber beneath, held in by skirts of tough synthmesh; power came from molecular-distortion batteries.