Man-Kzin Wars XIV Read Online Free PDF

virtue, in fact!” The sneer would play well with a big part of the audience , the senator thought. “Perhaps you’d like to remind your audience of his family connections, also! And the humans his sire sent to the public hunts!”
    Stan the Man’s body language projected confidence and relaxation. It was a tool of his trade that he he’d worked on for a long time, and modern fabrics dealt with the sweat. “Yes, it is true that Chuut-Riit was his sire. Personally, I don’t think that that should be held against him in this context. Quite the reverse, if anything: the values of the high kzin nobility may differ from ours in many ways, but their sense of honor is almost physically real. Unless there is a very strong reason for supposing otherwise, I think it likely that he is telling the truth.”
    “High nobility . . . Assuming what you say is true, the kzin still fighting us in space—and many of those who have grudgingly accepted a peace with us here on Wunderland—regard him as a quisling.”
    “Sometimes it takes courage to accept the name of quisling. Vaemar has mixed with humans—on equal terms—since he was a kit . . . But tell me, Senator, why are you so hostile to Vaemar-Ritt?”
    “Apart from the fact that the idea of quislings—of any species—disgusts me, I am hostile to all kzin—I suppose it is no longer politically correct to call them ratcats . It you want a reason, doesn’t my record in the Resistance speak for itself? Of my guerrilla group, only I and one other survived to see the Liberation. I am a lawmaker and a law-abiding citizen, but I don’t mind telling you and the people of Wunderland that I have some sympathy for the exterminationist position. Wipe them out while we still have a chance! Before they get the hyperdrive!” Careful , he thought, don’t go overboard here. “Or so many say.” He caught himself up quickly. “I’m not saying that is exactly how I feel, I appreciate the necessity for peace, but I do understand how the exterminationists feel.”
    Stan fired back. “But if we attack the surrendered kzinti here, the war in space will have no chance of a settlement. Surely it would mean a fight to the finish, with one race or the other annihilated—and they might very well be the ones doing the annhilating. The Kzin Empire is big. We don’t even know its full size. There is no guarantee we would win, hyperdrive or not.”
    “Exactly, Stan. That is why I have used my influence, when I can, to try to restrain the exterminationists as a movement. We must have peace with the kzin of this planet at least, but let it be a firm and watchful peace. Anyway,” he continued, “although I am opposed to this expedition, if I should be overridden by the lower house, I intend to accompany it personally. I will pay my own expenses, and will be able to ensure that there is no more wastage than necessary.”
    “Don’t you have to be invited?” Stan asked quizzically.
    “Professor Rykerman and his wife will no doubt be organizing it, and they are old colleagues of mine, both politically since Liberation, albeit on opposing sides, and before that in the Resistance, though we were in different groups. I shall have no trouble arranging it with them.”
    Senator von Höhenheim was thinking he had diverted the interview satisfactorily, when Stan the Man returned to the attack like a barracuda.
    “And now, we come back to Vaemar-Riit. I talked to him earlier today, and here is what he said.”
    Stan the Man turned to a screen, which took up most of a wall, and still showed Vaemar at reduced size. The young kzin was standing in the garden of his palace, and Stan, seen from the back, held up a microphone.
    “Lord Vaemar, I gather you have seen the video we showed last week of the wreck of the Valiant ?”
    “Yes, I saw it nearly two weeks ago.” The kzin was a long way from the microphone, but his voice was unmistakably clear.
    “How come you saw it before we broadcast it?” Stan