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

translation-they worked for Solar Minerals, scouting the asteroids, and did well enough, commissions and bonuses and such, that at last they could make the down payment on this ship. She was going pretty cheap because nobody else wanted her. Who'd be so crazy as to compete with the big Belter companies? But you see, meanwhile they'd found the real treasure, a derelict hyperdrive craft. She wasn't UN property or anything, she was an experimental job a manufacturer had been testing. Unmanned; a monopole meteoroid passed close by and fouled up the electronics; she looped off on an eccentric orbit and was lost; the company went out of business. She'd become a legend of sorts, every search had failed, on which basis Dorcas figured out where she most likely was, and she and Bob went looking on their own time. As soon as they were ready they announced their discovery, claimed salvage rights, and installed the drive in this hull. Nobody had foreseen anything like that, and besides, they'd hired a smart lawyer. The rules have since been changed, of course, but we come under a grandfather clause. So here we've got the only completely independent starship in known space."
    “ I t is very venturesome of you. ”
    “ Y eah, things often get precarious. Interstellar commerce hasn't yet developed regular trade routes, except what govern ment-owned lines monopolize. We have to take what we can get, and not all of it has been simple hauling of stuff from here to there. The last job turned out to be a lemon, and frankly, this charter is a godsend. Uh, don't quote me. I talk too much. Bob bears with me, but a tongue-lashing from Dorcas can take the skin off your soul." “ Y ou and he are old friends, aren't you?"
    “ S ince our teens. He came knocking his way around Earth to Hawaii, proved to be a good guy for a h ole, I sort of introduced him to people and things, we had some grand times. Then he enlisted, had a real yeager of a war career, but you must know something about that. He looked me up afterward, when he and Dorcas were taking a second honeymoon, and later they offered me this berth."
    “ Y ou had experience? ”
    “ Y es, I'd gone spaceward, too. Civilian. Interesting work, great pay, glamour to draw the girls, because not many flatlanders wanted to leave Earth when the next kzin attack might happen anytime. ”
    “ I t seems so romantic," Laurinda murmured. “ S uperficially, at least, and to me. “
    “ W hat do you mean, please?" Ryan asked, in the interest of drawing her out. Human females like men who will listen to them .
    “ O h, that is-What have I done except study? And, well, research. I was born the year the Outsiders arrived at We Made It, but of course they were gone again long before I could meet them. In fact, I never saw a nonhuman in the flesh till I came to Centauri and visited Tigertown, You and your friends have been out, active, in the universe. ”
    “ I don't want to sound self-pitying," Ryan said, unable to quite avoid sounding smug, "but it's been mostly sitting inboard, then working our fingers off, frantic scrambles, shortages of everything, and moments of stark terror. A wise man once called adventure 'somebody else having a hell of a tough time ten light-years away.' "
    She looked at him from her slightly greater elevation and touched his arm. “ L onely too. You must miss your family. ”
    “ I 'm a bachelor type," Ryan answered, forbearing to mention the ex-wives. “ N ot that I don't appreciate you ladies, understand- ”
    At that instant, luck brought them upon Carita Fenger. She emerged from a cold locker with a hundred-liter keg of beer, intended for the saloon, on her back, held by a strap that her left hand gripped. High-tech tasks were apportioned among all five of Rover's people, housekeeping chores a m ong the three crewmen. This boat pilot was a jinxian. Her width came close to matching her short height, with limbs in proportion and bosom more so. Ancestry under Sirius had made