The Man-Kzin Wars 01 by Larry Niven Read Free Book Online

long voyage, you know, about ninety days cooped up together, with God knows what at the end. Not that we expect anything more than interesting astronomical objects. Still, you're right, it is unpredictable. We're a close-knit crew, and the scientists seem to fit in well, but what about this stranger?" “ I refer you to my record," Markham replied. When Saxtorph drew a sharp breath, the Wunderlander added, “ Y es, I am doubtless being selfish. However, my abilities in space are proven, and-in spite of everything, I share the dream."
    I n her youth, before she became a tramp, Rover was a naval transport, UNS Ghost Dance, She took men and mat e riel from their sources to bases around the Solar System, and brought some back for furlough or repair. A few times she went into combat mode. They were only a few. The kzinti hurled a sublight fleet out of Alpha Centauri at variable intervals, but years apart, since one way or another they always lost heavily in the sanguinary campaigns that followed. Ghost Dance would release her twin fighters to escort her on her rounds. Once they came under attack, and were the survivors .
    Rover might now be less respectable, maybe even a bit shabby, but was by no means a slattern. The Saxtorphs had obtained her in a postwar sale of surplus and outfitted her as well as their finances permitted. On the outside she remained a hundred-meter spheroid, its smoothness broken by airlocks, hatches, boat bays, instrument housings, communications boom, grapples, and micrometeoroid pocks that had given the metal a matte finish. Inboard, much more had changed. Automated as she was, she never needed more than a handful to man her; on a routine interplanetary flight she was quite capable of being her own crew. Most personnel space had therefore been converted for cargo stowage. Those people who did travel in her had more room and comfort than formerly. Instead of warcraft she carried two Prospector class boats, primarily meant for asteroids and the like but well able to maneuver in atmosphere and set down on a fair-sized planet. Other machinery was equally for peaceful, if occasionally rough use.
    “ B ut how did the Saxtorphs ever acquire a hyperdrive?" asked Laurinda Brozik. I thought licensing was strict in the Solar System, too, and they don't seem to be terribly influential. ”
    “ T hey didn't tell you?" replied Kamehameha Ryan. “ B ob loves to guffaw over that caper. ”
    Her lashes fluttered downward. A tinge of pink crossed the alabaster skin. “ I don't like to ... pry-ask personal questions. ”
    He patted her hand. “ Y ou're too sweet and considerate, Laurinda. Uh, okay to call you that? We are in for a long haul. I'm Kam. ”
    The quartermaster was showing her around while Rover moved up the Alpha Centaurian gravity well until it would be safe to slip free of Einsteinian space. Her holds being vacant, the acceleration was several g, but the interior polarizer maintained weight at the half Earth normal to which healthy humans from every world can soon adapt. “ Y ou want the grand tour, not a hasty look-around like you got before, and who’d be a better guide than me?" Ryan had said. “ I 'm the guy who takes care of inboard operations, everything from dusting and polishing, through mass trim and equipment service, on to cooking, which is the real art." He was a stocky man of medium height, starting to go plump, round-faced, dark-complexioned, his blue-black hair streaked with the earliest frost. A gaudy sleeveless shirt bulged above canary-yellow slacks and thong sandals .
    “ W ell, I-well, thank you, Kam," Laurinda whispered .
    “ T hank you, my dear. Now this door I'd better not open for you. Behind it we keep chemical explosives for mining-type jobs. But you were asking about our hyperdrive, weren't you? “ W ell, after the war Bob and Dorcas-they met and got married during it, when he was in the navy and she was helping beef up the defenses at Ixa, with a sideline in