Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons

The story "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" was originally published in the June 1961 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction

"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" is a classic science fiction short story by American writer Cordwainer Smith, first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1961 and based partly on the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was collected most recently in the book The Rediscovery of Man. The story details the methods by which the Norstrilians (or "Old North Australians") of Smith's fictional "Instrumentality of Mankind" universe maintain their monopoly on the valuable immortality drug stroon. The story details part of the background for the novel Norstrilia, which references the Kittons in its introduction as a method for certain death.

The story was alluded to in Charles Stross's novel Glasshouse.

Cordwainer Smith is a pseudonym of Paul Linebarger, the noted China expert, who wrote most of his published science-fiction stories within the setting of the Instrumentality of Mankind.

Story

For many millennia, the rather static structure of the Instrumentality of Mankind (on those planets which the Instrumentality directly administered) was of Lords of the Instrumentality ruling over humans (who were allowed a fixed 400-year lifespan) and a large number of exploited animal-derived "Underpeople" servants. The use of the immortality drug "stroon" from the world of Norstrilia was a vital tool in maintaining this order.

The planet of Norstrilia, or in full the Commonwealth of Old North Australia, was settled by sheep farmers who ultimately hailed from a post-nuclear-war Australia through with many vicissitudes—such as a stay on the hell-world Paradise VII—before they found their current prosperity). The political system is based on a monarchy with "her absent majesty" the Queen as nominal head of state. However, the Queen has been lost for millennia ("But she might bloody well turn up one of these days."); a local deputy and Commonwealth Council until her nominal return. The municipal organization of the planet is based on ranches à la cattle stations, large farm allotments passed down through generations.

The sheep that were brought to this planet by the Australian immigrants suffer a local infection that causes them to grow larger than houses; completely immobile, they require constant attention. The infection also generates stroon, also called the santaclara drug, which halts aging in humans. Stroon has made Norstrilia the richest planet in the entire Instrumentality, and its people are thus targets of kidnap and theft attempts. The citizens are highly trained in self-defense, but the planet strategically maintains "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" for its defense.

Viola Siderea is a robber planet, once rich and civilized, but now reduced to a dog-eat-dog existence which has created a ruling class of highly sophisticated thieves. Benjacomin Bozart is a Warden of the Thieves' Guild, trained and prepared to raid Norstrilia for its stroon. Due to the impossibility of overpowering a Norstrilian adult, he ruthlessly drugs and kills a small Norstrilian boy on a vacation world to discover the exact nature of the planet's defenses, but the only information he gets is the name "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" scrawled in the sand on the beach.

He consults the Guild's encyclopedia, which says that the phrase is an archaic term for the disease caused by the stroon virus –a fictitious entry planted by another Norstrilian agent long ago. Now confident of somehow obtaining stroon, Bozart pays out immense bribes using Viola Siderea's credit to illicitly charter ships, further unaware that he is paying other Norstrilian agents who have tracked him since he murdered the child. The last leg of the journey drops his space yacht into orbit around Norstrilia, where he meets a hideous fate.

A 21-faceted moon and a network of relay stations orbit the planet. They are the armament of Mother Hitton, the "weapons mistress" in charge of the care and feeding of the "Littul Kittons", which are in fact mink which have been selectively bred for centuries for psychotic, self-destructive madness. Of necessity they spend almost the entirety of their lives under anaesthesia, and are only awakened to mate or when needed for defense. The brain patterns of these mad mink, when awakened into frenzy, are focused into an intense telepathic beam that can be directed at any incoming space ship from the relay station, driving all humans into immediate suicidal psychosis –as Bozart discovers first-hand, tearing out an eyeball in the process. The odd spelling of the "Littul Kittons" was intentional, as research into the term would act as a tripwire, alerting the Norstrilian defenses to potential hostile activity.

After his death the extent of the Norstrilians' revenge is revealed: Bozart's bribes have incurred a debt of 400 million man-megayears for Viola Siderea.

External links

• Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons at Faded Page (Canada)
• Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• eText of story