Read The Man-Kzin Wars 01 for Free Online

another ten or fifteen years."
    Iron had been in Tregennis' answer: I cannot. ”
    “ W onderful!" exclaimed Dorcas. Her jubilation was moderate merely because she had expected this outcome. The only question had been how long it would take. Stefan Brozik wouldn't likely deny his little girl a chance to go visit the foreign sun which she, peering from orbit around Plateau, had discovered, and which could make her reputation in her chosen field.
    Nonetheless, Dorcas' gaze left the table and went off down the well of stars. Alpha Centauri B, dazzling bright, had drifted from it. She had a clear view toward the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. In yonder direction lay Beta Hydri, and around it swung Silvereyes, the most remote colony that humankind had yet planted. Beyond Silvereyes-But glory filled vision. Laurinda's sun was a dim red dwarf, invisible to her. Strange thought, that such a thing might be a key to mysteries .
    Anger awoke. “ M aybe we won't need your father's money," Dorcas said. “ M aybe the prospect will make that slime-bugger see reason."
    “ I beg your pardon?" asked Tregennis, shocked .
    “ M arkham." Dorcas grinned. “ S orry. You haven't been toe-to-toe with him, over and over, the way Bob and I have. Never mind. Don't let him or a quantum-beaded kzin spoil our evening. Let's enjoy. We're going!"
    The office of Ulf Reichstein Markham was as austere as the man himself. Apart from a couple of chairs, a reference shelf, and a desk with little upon it except the usual electronics, its largeness held mostly empty space. Personal items amounted to a pair of framed documents and a pair of pictures. On the left hung his certificate of appointment to the Interworld Space Commission and a photograph of his wife with their eight-year-old son. On the right were his citation for extraordinary heroism during the war and a portrait painting of his mother. Both women showed the pure bloodlines of Wunderland aristocracy, the older one also in her expression; the younger looked subdued.
    Markham strove to maintain the same physical appearance. His father had been a Belter of means, whom his mother married after the family got in trouble with the kzinti during the occupation and fled to the Swarm. At age 50 he stood a slender, swordblade-straight 195 centimeters. Stiff gray-blond hair grew over a narrow skull, above pale eyes, long nose, outthrust chin that sported the asymmetric beard, a point on the right side. Gray and closefitting, his garb suggested a military uniform. I trust you have recovered from your experience, Captain Saxtorph," he said in his clipped manner .
    “ Y ah, I'm okay, aside from puzzlement. " The spaceman settled back in his chair, crossed shank over thigh. “ M ind if I smoke?" He didn't wait for an answer before reaching after pipe and tobacco pouch .
    Markham's lips twitched the least bit in disdain of the uncouthness, but he replied merely, “ W e will doubtless never know what caused the incident. You should not allow it to prey on your mind. The resident kzinti are under enormous psychological stress, still more so than humans would be in comparable circumstances. Besides uprootedness and culture shock, they must daily live with the fact of defeat. Acceptance runs counter to an instinct as powerful in them as sexuality is in humans. This individual, whoever he is, must have lashed out blindly. Let us hope he doesn't repeat. Perhaps his friends can prevail on him. “
    Saxtorph scowled. I thought that way, too, at first. Afterward I got to wondering. I hadn't been near any kzinti my whole time here, this trip. They don't min gle with humans unless business requires, and then they handle it by phone if at all possible. This fellow was way off the reservation. He lurked till I arrived, in that empty place. He was wearing a phone. Somebody else, shadowing me, could have called to tell him I was coming and the coast was clear."
    “ F rankly, you are being paranoid. Why in creation should he, or