Jerry Pournelle Houses of the Kzinti

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

uniform cap began hissing and snarling override-transmission in the Hero's
Tongue.
Yarthkin relaxed and smiled as the policeman sprinted for the exit. He cocked
one eye towards the ceiling and silently flourished
Montferrat's last glass of schnapps before sending it down with a snap of his
wrist.
* * *
"Weird," Jonah Matthieson muttered, looking at the redshifted cone of light
ahead of them. Better this way. This way he didn't have to think of what they
were going to do when they arrived. He had been a singleship pilot before
doing his military service; the Belt still needed miners.
You could do software design anywhere there was a computer system, of course,
and miners had a lot of spare time. His reflexes were a pilot's, and they
included a strong inhibition against high-speed intercept trajectories.
This was going to be the highest-speed intercept of all time.
The forward end of the pilot's cabin was very simple, a hemisphere of smooth
synthetic. For that matter, the rest of the cabin was quite basic as well; two
padded crashcouches, which was one more than normal, an autodoc, an autochef,
and rather basic sanitary facilities. That left just enough room to move-in
zero gravity. Right now they were under one-G
Page 133
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
acceleration, crushingly uncomfortable.
They had been under one-G for weeks, subjective time;
the Yamamoto was being run to flatlander specifications.
"Compensate," Ingrid said. The view swam back, the blue stars ahead and the
dim red behind turning to the normal variation of colors.
The dual-sun Centauri system was dead ahead, looking uncomfortably close.
"We're making good time. It took thirty years coming back on the slowboat, but
the Yamamoto's going to put us near Wunderland in five point seven. Objective,
that is. Probably right on the heels of the pussy scouts."
Jonah nodded, looking ahead at the innocuous twinned stars. His hands were in
the control-gloves of his couch, but the pressure-sensors and lightfields were
off, of course. There had been very little to do in the month-subjective since
they left the orbit of Pluto. Accelerated learning with RNA boosters, and he
could now speak as much of the Hero's Tongue as
Ingrid-enough to understand it.
Kzin evidently didn't like their slaves to speak much of it; they weren't
worthy. He could also talk Belter-English with the accent of the Serpent
Swarm, Wunderland's dominant language, and the five or six other tongues
prevalent in the many ethnic enclaves . . . sometimes he found himself
dreaming in Pahlavi or
Croat or Amish Pletterdeisz. It wasn't going to be a long trip; with the
gravity polarizer and the big orbital lasers to push them up to ramscoop
speeds, and no limit on the acceleration their compensators could handle . . .
We must be nipping the heels of photons by now, he thought. Speeds only robot
ships had achieved before, with experimental fields supposedly keeping the
killing torrent of secondary radiation out. . . .
"Tell me some more about Wunderland," he said.
Neither of them were fidgeting.
Belters didn't; this sort of cramped environment had been normal for their
people since the settlement of the Sol-system Belt three centuries before. It
was the thought of how they were going to stop that had his nerves twisting.
I've already briefed you twenty times," she replied, with something of a snap
in the tone. Military formality wore thin pretty quickly in close quarters
like this. "All the first-hand stuff is fifty-six years out of date, and the
nine-year-old material's in the computer. You're just bored."
No, I'm just scared shitless. "Well, talking would be better than nothing.
Spending a month strapped to this thing is even more monotonous than being a
rockjack You were right, I'm bored."
"And scared."
He looked around. She was lying with her hands behind her head, grinning at
him.
"I'm scared too. The offswitch is exterior to the surface of the effect." It
had to be; time did not pass inside a stasis field.
"The designers were pretty sure it'd work."
"I'm sure of only two things, Jonah."
"Which are?"
"Well, the first one is that the designers aren't going to be diving into the
photosphere of a sun at point-nine lights."
"Oh." That had occurred to him too. On the other hand, it really was easier to
be objective when your life wasn't on the line . . .
and in any case, it would be quick. "What's the other thing?"
Her smile grew wider, and she undid the collar-catch of her uniform. "Even in
a gravity field, there's one thing I want to experience again before possible
death."
* * *
"Overview, schematic, trajectory," Traat-Admiral commanded. The big semicircle
Page 134
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
of the kzinti dreadnought's bridge was dim-lit by the blue and red glow of
screens and telltales, crackly with the ozone scents of alerted kzintosh;
Throat-Ripper was preparing for action.
Spray-fans appeared on the big circular display-screen below his crash couch.
Traat-Admiral's fangs glinted wet as he considered them. The ship would pass
fairly near Wunderland, and quite near Alpha Centauri itself. Slingshot effect
was modest with something moving at such speeds, but
. . . ah, yes. The other two suns of this cluster would also help. Still, it
would be a long time before
that vessel headed back towards the Sol system, if indeed that was their aim.
What forsaken-of-ancestors trick is this? he wondered. Then: Were those
Kfraksha-Admiral's last thoughts?
He shook off the mood. "Identification?"
"Definitely a ramscoop vessel, Dominant One,"
Riesu-Fleet-Operations said.
"Estimated speed is approximately .9071 c. In the
1600 kilokzinmass range."
About the mass of a light cruiser, then. His whiskers ruffled. Quite a weight
to get up to such a respectable fraction of c, when you did not have the
gravity polarizer. On the other paw, the humans used very powerful
launch-boost lasers-useful as weapons, too, which had been an unanticipated
disaster for the kzinti fleets-and by now they might have the gravity
polarizer. Polarizer-drive vessels could get up to about .8 c if they were
willing to spend the energy, and that was well above ramscoop initial speeds.
"Hrrr. That is considerably above the mass-range of the robot vessels the
humans used"-for scouting new systems and carrying small freight loads over
interstellar distances. They used big slowboats at .3
c for colonization and passenger traffic. "Fleet positions, tactical."
The screen changed, showing the positions of his squadrons, stingfighter
carriers and dreadnoughts, destroyers and cruisers.
Most were still crawling across the disk of the Alpha Centauri system,
boosting from their ready stations near replenishment asteroids or in orbit
around
Wunderland itself. He scowled;
the human probe was damnably well stealthed for something moving that fast,
and there had been little time. His own personal dreadnought and battle-group
were thirty AU outside the outermost planet, beginning to
accelerate back in toward the star. The problem was that no sane being moved
at interstellar speeds this close to high concentrations of matter, which put
the enemy vessel in an entirely different energy envelope.
We must strike in passing, he thought; he could feel the claws slide out of
the black-leather-glove shapes of his hands, pricking against the rests in the
gloves of his space armor.
"Dominant One," Riesu-Fleet-Operations said. The tone in his voice and a
sudden waft of spoiled-ginger scent brought Traat-Admiral's ears folding back
into combat position, and his tongue lapped across his nose instinctively.
"Separation . . . No, it's not breaking up . . .
We're getting relay from the outer-system drone sentinels, Traat-Admiral. The
human ship is launching."
"Launching what?"
"Traat-Admiral . . . ahhh. Projectiles of various sorts. Continuous launch. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki