"Down in Flames" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Kzinti.
14) There's proof of sorts: a psychological point. Female Kzinti are
dumb animals, no more. The Kzinti may be thought of as asexual. So it is
with the Tnuctipun too. A Kzin will understand the kick they get from
eating intelligent beings. There has to be something to replace the kick
of mating with someone of your own intelligence.
15) And a second point of proof. The Grog's psi power is very like the
Slaver's. The Grog might well be a degenerate Slaver, except that with the
Grog the female is dominant and intelligent. How could that be?
Obvious. The Thrint (Kzanol) was copied from the Grog and modified.
But the Tnuctipun got it garbled; they could not believe in a sentient
female.
16) The core of the hoax is the Core explosion: the lie that our galaxy
is a Seyfert galaxy, that in twenty thousand years the wave of radiation
will make all of known space uninhabitable, and most of the galaxy too.
The hoax may extend much further than known space. Refugees will be
passing through from nearer the Core. Dozens of species will be
mothballing whole planets, expecting eventually to return. They will
sheath seeds and eggs of useful life-forms in lead or stasis fields, and
make every effort to preserve their artifacts for thousands of years.
Now look at it from the viewpoint of Tnuctipun returning to known space.
They'll find all the worlds of known space deserted, with their most
valuable artifacts preserved. They'll find trillions of beings in
spacecraft moving at Quantum I hyperdrive. All flavors, these beings. All
moving at that single velocity, three days to the light-year. Match
direction and you match course for boarding. In many cases, no weapons;
too many species would concentrate solely on the tremendous task of moving
billions of individuals clear out of the galaxy.

Obviously this would have been the last of the known space stories. (If
only Blish had stopped with his second Okie novel! He ended the universe,
then had to back up!) I've given the assumptions I have to make in order
to get a coherent picture. The framework does answer some questions left
open in the ``known space'' series and raises others.

1) The Quantum II hyperdrive was advertised for sale by the Puppeteers.
Why didn't someone buy it? (Those who tried got the runaround. The QII
ship never existed.)
2) If the Grogs are degenerate Slavers, how did the sex get changed?
(We figured it backward. The Tnuctipun reversed the sexes through male
chauvinist piggery.)
3) The ``soft weapon'' (see the Neutron Star collection) has to be a
real abandoned Tnuctip artifact.
It's too powerful to have been allowed to fall into human hands
deliberately; even if it didn't remain there. Why didn't the handle fit a
Kzinti (i.e., Tnuctip) hand? Probably because the Tnuctipun have their own
slave races.
4) Even if the Ringworld is edge-on to the Core, it isn't thick enough
to shield itself (and Teela Brown!) from the gamma rays. But Teela's
``luck'' requires that she be safe there. She is, if there's no Core