Man-Kzin Wars XIII-ARC by Larry Niven Read Free Book Online Page A

voices had wakened him. Now, smothered by their babble, grateful for the darkness that claimed him, he drowned.
    * * *
    “The prisoner was found after a battle,” the man from Intelligence explained, leaning in a proprietary fashion against the large freeze unit that now dominated her largest lab.
    After he had come to stay at the research station, the man had told Jenni to call him “Otto Bismarck.” This was so obviously a pseudonym that Jenni still tended to think of him as “the man from Intelligence,” or “MFI,” transformed into “Miffy” for short.
    She thought the name gave the man a certain distinction he otherwise completely lacked. He was so neutral in appearance as to be completely forgettable: brown eyes, light-brown skin, brown hair cut to average length, average build, average height, average features. The one thing that would set him apart in a crowd was his exceptional physical conditioning, but Jenni had no doubt that Miffy could make himself look soft and flabby if the need arose.
    Miffy went on. “Usually a kzinti crew suicides and a self-destruct takes out the ship. Best as we can reconstruct, this one would have followed protocol, but he was already down and out. Between his suit—he was wearing a hardened vac suit—and the bulkhead, he survived. The self-destruct did take out key areas of the ship, but not the compartment this one was in.”
    Jenni nodded. Taking this as encouragement, Miffy continued.
    “The ship’s doctor was worried she couldn’t keep the prisoner alive, so they popped him in a freeze unit. It wasn’t built to hold a kzin, but the hope was his suit would take up the slack. Best as we can tell, it did. At least the telltales haven’t shifted to indicate a deceased occupant.”
    Jenni didn’t ask how the man from Intelligence knew which indicators meant what. Knowing things like that was part of his business.
    “If you can read that suit panel, I’ll need a translation,” she said, “as well as anything else you’ve learned about the suits, what they do, how the hardened variety differs from the standard.”
    She pretended not to notice how Miffy stiffened. She could almost hear him saying, “That information is classified, released on a Need To Know basis only.” Then as clearly, his automatic conservatism was immediately countered by the realization that if anyone “Needed to Know,” it was the doctor that Intelligence hoped could save this improbable patient.
    Miffy cleared his throat to swallow his automatic response. “I’ll have the information downloaded to your terminal at once.”
    Jenni studied the figure in the freeze unit, wondering how severe his injuries were, if she could even bring him out of the freeze without killing him in the process.
    “How much time do I have?” she asked.
    “As much as you need,” Miffy said. “Of course, the sooner we can talk to him, the better, the more lives that may be saved.”
    Jenni nodded again. “I’ll do what I can.”
    “That’s all we can ask.”
    Fiddle-faddle, Jenni thought. You do realize that what you’re asking for is little short of a miracle?
    * * *
    The kzin came conscious. As soon as he was certain he was alive, he tried to kill himself.
    This proved to be impossible since he was strapped down so securely he could hardly move a finger. However, he felt better for having made the attempt.
    Now that he had resolved that he could not kill himself, the kzin set about assessing his surroundings without giving away that he was conscious. Knowing how sight-dependant humans were, he did not open his eyes. His ears were slack against the pillow on which his head rested. He struggled against the impulse to unfurl them in order to hear better.
    Sound told the kzin that he was the only creature breathing in the room, but it was likely there were several recorders, both visual and audio, trained on him. He attempted to hold his breath and learned that his breathing was being mechanically assisted.