Man-Kzin Wars XIV Read Online Free PDF Page A

difficult storm-tossed waters to find the wreck and have positively identified her.
    “It is known that she was bringing military and medical supplies, which might have saved many lives had they arrived and been transferred to the Resistance. Perhaps even shortened the final phase. Tell me, Senator, why exactly do you object to a properly equipped government investigation of this tragedy?”
    The camera facing the senator showed a green light, and he looked into its lens rather than at his interrogator. “Well, Stan, you know that I am only the chairman, I don’t make these decisions all on my own.” The senator was genial.
    Stan the Man smiled in the way that, his admirers had suggested, would make a kzin warrior nervous. He wore a casual shirt with his monogram, a small stylized eagle in black, over the pocket holding his phone. Cell phones had been back in the city for less than six months, so it was something of a status symbol.
    “But I hear that your voice was the strongest in opposition to it. In fact, it was taken for granted that it would go through unopposed. It was only at the last moment that your supporters came out against it. And you got the casting vote. That was the first passage. And things aren’t very different now you have it back from the lower house.”
    “You have to understand, Stan, that we cannot spend the taxpayers’ money just the way we would like. It is a matter of priorities. Of course we would all like to know exactly what happened, and someday we shall. But it is hardly urgent. The wreck has been there for many years, a few more will hardly make much difference.”
    “But you funded the building of a new Arts Complex costing over ten million dollars. Many people could give you long lists of things they would say were needed more urgently. From orphanages to prostheses to pharmaceutical factories. Not many on Wunderland are interested in arts today. Poetry and painting were not really survival skills. Dancing a ballet for a hungry kzin would be like playing a lure for a hungry fish. Not to mention rebuilding our space navy instead of relying on Sol forces. And what about the very controversial plan to drain much of Grossgeister Swamp at a much bigger cost? Even if one accepts that both of these are worthwhile projects, which I don’t, they are hardly more urgent. The longer the wreck is underwater, the less information we shall be able to recover. I can hardly take it that that is what you want, Senator?”
    “On the subject of the Arts Complex . . .” von Höhenheim began.
    “Perhaps it would be better if we remained with the subject at hand at the moment, Senator. The question was, why do you want to delay getting any information about what downed the Valiant ?”
    “I want nothing of the kind. After all, what mystery is there? We are certain to discover that a kzin warship crippled it somewhere in space, as happened to countless others,” said von Höhenheim.
    “Not according to the kzin leader, Vaemar, who is in the process of getting a couple of doctoral degrees in mathematics and history, and who had a look at the kzin records.”
    “A kzin!” The senator’s scorn was virtually palpable.
    “A kzin, may I remind you, Senator, who has proved his loyalty to the ideal of kzin-human cooperation on more than one occasion. You will recall that it is only a few years since he saved an entire expedition into Grossgeister Swamp, and was instrumental in obtaining our first live specimens of Jotok. Before that, he helped thwart a plan by former collaborators to kidnap him and use him against humanity. ARM, which is not renowned for being over-trustful, has allowed him to accept a commission in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Munchen University. He works with Nils and Leonie Rykermann, not only two of the most heroic leaders of the Resistance, but also two of the most respected leaders on Wunderland today. He is a friend of Dimity Carmody.”
    “Quite a paragon of felinoid