Larry Niven - The Man-Kzin Wars 12

"I thought they were tree-swingers."

"Only among other things. The kz’eerkti have unblocked that entrance again recently. No, I do not think we will enter it on this occasion. I was in the tunnels before, and from now on I will allow some other Hunt Master the glory of discovering what surprises they may have installed in there, and how deep they may have dug. Further, our radar shows there are big natural caves further south. They might link up. I believe in hard training but there is no point in throwing kits away for nothing."

"What surprises did they have before?"

"Too many. Not just poisoned arrows and stakes in the darkness. Roof collapses, gases of their own-not as effective as ours, but worthy enough in a confined space-fire, those swords and knives they use, and, increasingly, guns they took from our own dead-or at least I hope they took them from our dead. There were feral Jotoki, too. They cooperated with the monkeys."

"Strange," said Trader. "I know of feral Jotoki on many worlds, in many hunting preserves. But unless they are trained young they are solitary and savage. I have never heard of them behaving cooperatively before, least of all with another species. Anyway, it seems these monkeys of yours are smart."

"I doubt you'll find them good slaves. At least, not without a lot of breaking in and culling. However I have not had the opportunity to travel to other worlds and I do not know what the fashions may be. Perhaps some like savage little animals for their own hunts."

"Kill them all!" snarled Trrask-Rarr. "Why tolerate a plague on our planet?" He glared at Trader and Hunt Master as if defying them to say differently. An insult or an aspersion cast by one kzin on another could explode into a death duel in an instant, but the full-named Noble knew both were under the protection of Warrgh-Churrg, and an attack on his people would be an attack on the magnate himself.

Trader, avoiding any overt gesture of either insolence or subservience to the snarling kzin, made a diplomatic answer: "It can be difficult to throw things away sometimes." It was about as far as he could go in exploiting Warrgh-Churrg's protective power; and the association of kz’eerkti with inedible offals did seem to amuse Trrask-Rarr.

"You said, you hoped they had taken guns from your dead," Trader prompted Hunt Master.

"Yes. They certainly shot at us with guns; the alternative supposition is that they made their own. I like that idea less."

"Do they have any technology?"

"Some. They sometimes wear pieces of metal armor, so I suppose they have smelters somewhere." There was no interest in Hunt Master's voice or body language. Kzinti were as curious as any other cats when on the hunt, but sustained abstract curiosity was a fairly rare trait in them-their intelligences could be very high, but their culture militated against the survival of intellectuals.

"How good could their armor be?" Trader also betrayed no great interest. "You understand their level of competence may be of professional importance to me-and of benefit to this planet, if they are acute enough to be an exportable resource. I have spoken to Honored Warrgh-Churrg but you are the expert and on the spot. Would you say they could be as technologically capable-potentially-as trained Jotoki, for example?"

"I could not say. Their armor is metal alloys. But you may find pieces of it lying around if you wish to see it. There have been hunts here for a long time."

Hunt Master's keen eyes lit on something on the ground. He picked it up and handed it to Trader, bending the flattened, corroded metal back into its original shape with his powerful grip. "This looks as if it was one of their helmets once."

"Worthy Hunt Master, may I keep it to examine?"

"It is of no use to me."

"A Hero collects his enemies' ears for trophies," Trader agreed. His own eyes now recognizing what they sought, he too bent and collected a few more scraps of metal from the ground, stowing them in a belt pouch. He also, as Hunt Master turned away, gathered up a few scraps of weathered bone.

Estate Manager screamed and leapt to one side. There was the sudden unmistakable whistle of a flight of arrows and a sudden turmoil in the bushes on the crest above them. Kzinti screamed with rage and pain, kzinti rifles cracked. Dim shapes could just be made out high in trees too slender for full-grown kzintoshi to climb. A couple fell.

"After them, kits!" cried Hunt Master. "Win your first ears! Anticipate their counterattack and destroy it!"

The youngsters, ululating joyously again, raced for the trees through whose upper branches the shadows of kz’eerkti were fast disappearing. Another flight of arrows made them pause for a moment, but a running kzin among the whipping branches was too fast to be any sort of target. Estate Manager, who had got into the spirit of the hunt by sporting a crossbow of antique design, fired several bolts in rapid succession. The solid thump of a bolt finding its home was followed by a dead kz’eerkt plumping to the ground.

The kz’eerkti screams were not meaningless animal noises, Trader realized. They were taunts and insults in the Hero's Tongue: "Come and get your Name! Come give your ears for my trophy belt! Piss-Licker! Arrow-Target! Coward!" Females too joined in, exploiting all the Hero's Tongue's truly remarkable resources of deadly insults: "Come watch me shit half-digested vegetable matter down on your ancestors' shrines!" At any rate they were effective, kits breaking away and rushing shrieking into battle. Trader saw the white-striped kit completely out of control, screaming meaninglessly. As they passed he found himself fighting down an atavistic impulse to join them.

A couple more adult kzintoshi had been wounded by the first volley: Rress Landowner, and a Senior-Fixer-of-Computers, here in honor for what must have been immense competence. Hunt Master sent them back to the cars with a peremptory voice that brooked no denial. When the hunt turned to battle his orders compelled even nobles of partial Name. Trader followed him to examine the fallen kz’eerkti.

They were pale-skinned under the dirt on their bodies, and, for kz’eerkti, who tended to be spindly and fragile, they were tough, wiry-looking specimens. A male and female. One was dead, killed either by the shots that had brought them down or by the fall. The other was thrashing feebly in terminal "shock," that mysterious alien condition. Hunt Master gave them a cursory glance.

"None of the old-men monkeys I'm after here," he said.

"You know them?" asked Trader.

"Most of the local old stagers, yes. I've even picked up a few words of their language over the years." He bent and placed the sucker of what looked like an electronic book on the mouths of each, holding the dying female still with his extended claws.

"DNA readouts," he explained.

"What do you need them for?" Trader asked with rather elaborate casualness.

"To see if these are part of a local troop or if they've moved here from somewhere else." He dropped the female onto the ground and bent his gaze to the readouts. "Yes, these are locals, related to others I've got recorded here. If a big new kz’eerkt band moves into the area it's as well to know about it."

"You are very thorough, Skilled Hunt Master."

"Got to know your monkey. I pick up what I can about them when things are quiet. Not like Trrask-Rarr."

"The Full-Named one? How so?"

"He's a Noble coming down in the world. To add to his troubles, the monkeys have raided his lands and destroyed some of his hunt-beasts' pastures. Not a great thing, but he hates them. I mean really hates them."

"Have any in the hunt used telepaths?" That was a delicate question. No fighting kzin liked admitting association with telepaths. They had mainly military uses, and to suggest to a hunter that he accepted aid from such despised creatures might be taken as an insult. Hunt Master, tough, hulking, hard-bitten, and scarred, with a good collection of kzinti as well as simian ears on his belt ring, did not look like the sort of kzintosh one would duel lightly. However, perhaps because of his orders to cooperate with the trader, he evidently decided to take it as a mere professional question.