Larry Niven: Ringworld

"A mad puppeteer, a full grown kzin, and me. Our fourth crew member had better be a psychiatrist."

"No, Louis, none of our candidates are psychiatrists."

"Well, why not?"

"I did not select at random." The puppeteer sucked at its bulb with one mouth and talked with the other. "First, there was myself. Our proposed voyage is intended to benefit my species; hence we must include a representative. Such a one should be mad enough to face an unknown world, yet sane enough to use his intellect to survive. I, as it happens, am just on the borderline.

"We had reason to include a kzin. Speaker-To-Animals, what I tell you now is secret. We have been observing your species for some considerable time. We knew of you even before you attacked humanity."

"Well that you did not show yourselves," rumbled the kzin.

"Doubtless. At first we deduced that the kzinti species was both useless and dangerous. Lines of research were initiated to determine whether your species could be exterminated in safety."

"I will tie your necks in a bow knot."

"You will commit no violence."

The kzin stood up.

"He's right," said Louis. "Sit down, Speaker. You don't stand to profit by murdering a puppeteer."

The kzin sat down. Again his hassock did not collapse.

"The project was cancelled," said Nessus. "We found that the Man-Kzin wars put sufficient restriction on kzinti expansion, made you less dangerous. We continued to watch.

"Six times over several centuries, you attacked the worlds of men. Six times you were defeated, having lost approximately two-thirds of your male population in each war. Need I comment on the level of intelligence displayed? No? In any case, you were never in real danger of extermination. Your nonsentient females were largely untouched by war, so that the next generation helped to replace the numbers lost. Still, you steadily lost an empire you had built up over thousands of years.

"It became apparent to us that the kzinti were evolving at a furious rate."

"Evolving?"

Nessus snarled a word in the Hero's Tongue. Louis jumped. He had not suspected that the puppeteer's throats could do that.

"Yes," said Speaker-To-Animals, "I thought that was what you said. But I do not understand the application."

"Evolution depends on the survival of the fittest. For several hundred kzin years, the fittest of your species were those members with the wit or the forebearance to avoid fighting human beings. The results are apparent. For nearly two hundred kzin years there has been peace between man and kzin."

"But there would be no point! We could not win a war!"

"That did not stop your ancestors."

Speaker-To-Animals gulped at his hot bourbon. His tail, naked and pink and ratlike, lashed in turmoil.

"Your species has been decimated," said the puppeteer. "All kzinti alive today are descended from those who avoided death in the Man-Kzin wars. Some among us speculate that the kzinti now have the intelligence or the empathy or the self-restraint necessary to deal with races alien to them."

"And so you risk your life to travel with a kzin."

"Yes," said Nessus, and shivered all over. "My motivation is strong. It has been implied that if I can demonstrate the worth of my courage, by using it to perform a valuable service for my species, I will be allowed to breed."

"Hardly a firm commitment," said Louis.

"Then there is other reason to take a kzin. We will face strange environments hiding unknown dangers. Who will protect me? Who would be better equipped than a kzin?"

"To protect a puppeteer?"

"Does that sound insane?"

"It does," said Speaker-To-Animals. "It also appeals to my sense of humor. What of this one, this Louis Wu?"

"For us there has been much profitable cooperation with men. Naturally we choose at least one human. Louis Gridley Wu is a proven survival type, in his casual, reckless way."

"Casual he is, and reckless. He challenged me to single combat."

"Would you have accepted, had not Hroth been present? Would you have harmed him?"

"To be sent home in disgrace, having caused a major interspecies incident? But that is not the point," the kzin insisted. "Is it?"

"Perhaps it is. Louis is alive. You are now aware that you cannot dominate him through fear. Do you believe in results?"

Louis maintained a discreet silence. If the puppeteer wanted to give him credit for cool intellection, that was fine with Louis Wu.

"You have spoken of your own motives," said Speaker. "Speak now of mine. What can it profit me to join your voyage?"

And they got down to business.

To the puppeteers, the quantum II hyperdrive shunt was a white elephant. It would move a ship a light year in one-and-a-quarter minutes, where conventional craft would cross that distance in three days. But conventional craft had room for cargo.

"We built the motor into a General Products Number Four hull, the biggest made by our company. When our scientists and engineers had finished their work, most of the interior was filled with the machinery of the hyperdrive shunt. Our trip outward will be cramped."

"An experimental vehicle," said the kzin. "How thoroughly has it been tested?"

"The vehicle has made one trip to the galactic core and back."

But that had been its only flight! The puppeteers could not test it themselves, nor could they find other races to do the work; for they were in the middle of a migration. The ship would carry practically no cargo, though it was over a mile in diameter. Furthermore, it could not slow down without dropping back into normal space.

"We do not need it," said Nessus. "But you do. We plan to turn the ship over to our crew, together with copies of the plans for making more. Doubtless you can improve the design yourselves."

"That will buy me a name," said the kzin. "A name. I must see your ship in action."

"During our trip outward."

"The Patriarch would give me a name for such a ship. I am sure he would. What name should I choose? Perhaps -" The kzin snarled on a rising note.

The puppeteer replied in the same language.

Louis shifted in irritation. He couldn't follow the Hero's Tongue. He considered leaving them to it, then had a better idea. He pulled the puppeteer's holo from his pocket, scaled it across the room into the kzin's furry lap.

The kzin held it delicately in his padded black fingers. "It appears to be a ringed star," he observed. "What is it?"

"It relates to our destination," said the puppeteer. "I cannot tell you more, not now."

"How cryptic. Well, when may we depart?"

"I estimate a matter of days. My agents are even now searching for a qualified fourth member for our exploration team."

"And so we wait upon their pleasure. Louis, shall we join your guests?"

Louis stood up, stretching. "Sure, let's give 'em a thrill. Speaker, before we go out there, I have a suggestion. Now, don't take this as an assault on your dignity. It's just an idea …"

The party had split into sections: tridee-watchers, bridge and poker tables, lovers in pairs and larger groups, tellers of tales, victims of ennui. Out on the lawn, under a hazy early-morning sun, was a mixed group of ennui victims and xenophiles; for the outdoor group included Nessus and Speaker-To-Animals. It also included Louis Wu, Teela Brown, and an overworked bartender.

The lawn was one of those tended according to the ancient British formula: seed and roll for five hundred years. Five hundred years had ended in a stock market crash, after which Louis Wu had had money and a certain venerable baronial family had not. The grass was green and glossy, obviously the real thing; nobody had ever tampered with its genes in search of dubious improvements. At the bottom of the rolling green slope was a tennis court where diminutive figures ran and jumped and swung their oversized fly swatters with great energy.