Ringworld's Children (29 page)

"I need to run all the power in the shadow square system into the superconductor grid. If I did that too early, it would leak--"

"Can't you get magnetohydrodynamic power from the rim ramjets?"

"What a good idea. It would have required a certain amount of redesigning, say twenty to thirty days and a thousand spill mountain protectors. I need half a day, then
go,
and no more Fringe War."

"Start now," Louis said.

Patiently Tunesmith said, "You've only just arrived. We don't even know,
you
don't even know who attacked us twenty-eight days ago. Where's the danger coming from? Can I just kill it? The superconductor net has been rewiring itself for only two falans, crystallizing into its new configuration. Even if the change is complete, I need to test it."

Sometimes you just have to gamble,
Louis thought. But Tunesmith wouldn't act fast enough without more pressure. "Show me how it happened," he said.

The sky changed: ships moved, stars didn't. The Ringworld went solid. A frame zoomed on one of the attitude jets, a gauzy glittering net molded magnetically into a hyperboloid of rotation with a line of white fire running down the axis. Suddenly it was bright, bright, dimming--the motor was gone, and a piece was bitten out of the rim wall. Along its foot, spill mountains were burning.

"Is
this
all you've got?"

"Various frequencies."

Replay, hydrogen alpha light. Louis waved it off. "It's too overt for puppeteers, too restrained for Kzinti. Maybe a Kzinti dissident. There are ARM dissidents too; we could ask Roxanny. Or anyone who'd like to see both sides reduced a little. I've never been sure about Trinocs, or puppeteers."

"Not much help," Tunesmith agreed.

"Tell me what you know about Teela Brown."

Proserpina asked, "Who?"

"An insane puppeteer scheme," Tunesmith said. "She was a victim. General Products, the merchant arm of Pierson's puppeteers in human space, set up a birthright lottery on Earth. The attempt was to breed for lucky humans. In practice what they got was a few statistical flukes, like Teela Brown. She... Louis!
Did you have a child with Teela Brown?"

Louis said nothing.

"
Where is your child?"

Louis said nothing. Among protectors, a poker face is easy; body language is hard.

He waited until he saw motion. Proserpina left her chair in a long jump. Tunesmith jumped in a different direction. Hanuman looked uncertain; he remained at the visible stepping disk, the far one. As soon as the protectors were committed, Louis jumped toward Tunesmith's chair.

One of these chairs
had
to be a stepping disk. It was a natural hiding place. Two would be redundant, though all three had been made too thick and too wide--and Tunesmith would have claimed the right one. But other stepping disks in this room had to be guarded. If Louis was right--and he was, because Hanuman instantly launched himself toward the same chair.

Hanuman got there first. The chair started to swing aside, but Louis was there. Hanuman caught Louis with a powerful kick, but Louis had the mass. He slammed Hanuman into the stepping disk and reached around the dazed hominid to pop the rim and turn the disk on. They both flicked out.

Heel of the hand, a blow to Hanuman's head. Hanuman went limp. Louis pushed, sent him flying. Grinding pain in his hip: Hanuman's kick had broken something.

They were underground, somewhere beneath Mars. He popped the disk's rim and tapped controls,
fast.

Louis flicked in, popped the rim. If Tunesmith tracked him to this sandy, barren island--or Hanuman signaled him a minute or two from now--he'd find Louis's footprints, hours old. He might even find scent traces of Wembleth and Roxanny.

And if Teela's genes were lucky, Wembleth and Roxanny and their child would be well out of Tunesmith's reach by now. But
every
surviving gene pattern is
insanely
lucky, and Teela's luck didn't matter a tanj to Tunesmith. What mattered was this:

Louis Wu could never give a dispassionate, trustworthy answer to Tunesmith's questions while he could shade his answers to favor his bloodline.

One more move. Louis tapped controls, then hit #, and flicked out.

In the crew quarters aboard
Hot Needle of Inquiry,
Louis rapidly typed up a bleu cheese and mushroom omelet and a salad. He stripped off his pressure suit, then his clothes. He dialed up a falling jumper and put it on. He turned on the shower just long enough to wet the bag. He half-expected to hear the Puppeteer's Voice, but it didn't come.

He flicked into the cargo bay. A flycycle would have been too big, but he typed up a flying belt modified for magnetic lift. He ate most of his salad and omelet while he waited, a hairy four minutes, for the flying belt to be built. Put it on, flicked back to crew quarters.

Now, where would a puppeteer hide a stepping disk? An escape hatch had to be here: the Hindmost might find himself trapped in crew quarters by a man and a Kzin. The toilet seat? Too small. The shower?

The shower
ceiling.
It was the right size. The code would be puppeteer music: Louis could never sing it. Maybe he could hack it, but first--

He set his hands against the shower ceiling and said, "Hindmost's Voice, put me through."

He was in the control room. He used the stepping disk there.

Neither Hanuman nor Louis were where the first flick had taken them. The second flick put Tunesmith and Proserpina on a barren island. They found Hanuman groggy, trying to sit up. Proserpina examined him. He didn't seem badly hurt.

Tunesmith asked, "How are you?"

"Injured, not badly. He held my life and released it," Hanuman said.

"That shows good self-control. Proserpina, see if you can find traces of your escaped guests. Hanuman, rest." Tunesmith went to work on the stepping-disk controls.

"I find their scent," Proserpina called. "Falans old. In rut."

"This changes all," Hanuman said. "I must warn my people."

"Your people are tree dwellers! How can they hide from what must come?"

"Stet. I know what to do."

"Do it after we're gone," Tunesmith said. "Then rejoin us in Meteor Defense." He and Proserpina flicked out.

Launch Room. Little Hanging People protectors were all lying prone about the cavern below Mons Olympus. The Hindmost was working on a laser projector. "How are you doing?" Louis called.

"I'm still disconnecting instruments. It's hard to tell where it's safe."

Louis began disconnecting laser and cable attachments, pacifying Tunesmith's instruments where necessary. He wished he could move faster. Something with sharp edges was loose in his hip; the flesh was badly swollen. "You're not safe on the Ringworld," he said. "How are you going to move the 'doc components?"

"I hadn't decided."

"I was hoping you'd think of something. Stet. This next part is risky." Louis finished disconnecting sensors. The 'doc's components were still connected to each other. Louis left them that way. "I'll be gone at least an hour. Get this stuff ready to be lifted with magnetic fields. Leave the roof open."

"Wait. What are you about to do?"

"No time."

"Where are the protectors we're robbing? What can I accomplish when death may find me in a moment? Tell me what you've
done!"

Better if he knew, and Louis had already cost himself an hour at least. Give the Hindmost a minute. He said, "I tried to tell Tunesmith that the Fringe War is about to blow up--"

"Eee!" A raucous chord of dismay.

"--Just as I'm telling you. If you tuck your heads under you, you will die in that position. Do you believe me?"

"Yah."

"I let Tunesmith guess I had a child--yes, a boy with Teela's genes. Congratulations, they survived. Your breeding program is still in force--"

"What of later inbreeding?"

"Oh, Hindmost, there must have been other ships crashed on the Ringworld. Wembleth's children will find mates."

"Stet."

"I flicked out to a few places, ended where Tunesmith can find traces of Wembleth. Then I used my block on the stepping disk and went to
Needle.
It won't take Tunesmith long to get around the block. When he does, he'll find out I went to
Hot Needle of Inquiry,
took my sweet time there, and didn't leave.

"I must be still aboard. I went to get Wembleth, right? It follows that we're trying to leave the Ringworld. The Fringe War balance must be ready to fall apart
right now.
No protector would otherwise risk his child's life this way, in a ship that can be shot down by Fringe War ships or blocked as easily as Tunesmith can block
Needle.

"If Tunesmith and Proserpina followed that line of logic, then they're getting ready to end the Fringe War, and they will not disturb us here, as long as you keep these protectors asleep and take care to shut down these cameras. Can do?"

"Trust me," the Hindmost said.

Louis took a moment to think that over. The Hindmost knew how to open the roof into Mons Olympus.
Long Shot
was too big to launch using the linear cannon, so the ship would rise slowly, on fusion jets, making too good a target. The Hindmost wouldn't have the nerve, and it was far too dangerous anyway.

So he wouldn't launch without Louis, Louis could trust him, and that settled
that.
Louis flicked out.

Meteor Defense. "We never did
locate
the ship," Tunesmith said. "Can you block his takeoff?"

"Yes. And I can search near space for any ARM ship coining for him. He can't possibly escape me. He must be mad. A failed transition to protector can warp a breeder's brain."

"Sudden understanding can do that too. Mad with fear?"

"But is he afraid of the Fringe War, or of what we'll do?"

Proserpina's eyes half-closed. She looked a little like Hanuman in that pose. She said, "He didn't expect to delay us long. He'd have just enough time to get clear, if we begin now and ignore Louis Wu and his freemother child."

Tunesmith looked up at the crowded sky. "Begin," he commanded.

Hanuman flicked in on a ridge of bare scrith. He looked down across miles and miles of forest, reviewing his options.

Louis Wu was the protector who had no children on the Ringworld--
unless
he'd had a child by Teela Brown. Louis-protector could have no interest in Teela, who was dead,
unless
she'd left a child; and that child would be Louis Wu's. The chain of logic was so straightforward that even a Hanging People protector could follow it.

Tunesmith had seen it in a moment. And in that moment, Louis Wu had gone to rescue his child and get him to safety.

It followed that the Ringworld's death was likely and immediate. Tunesmith would act.

And what now? Hanuman's people were tree dwellers! They didn't have minds; they couldn't follow instructions even if he had any to give. How was he to hide them from the sky?

Wish for a rainstorm?

Find and fetch Teela Brown's lucky child, bring the creature here,
then
wish for a rainstorm?

Hanuman decided.

He detached a float plate from the depleted service stack. He stayed above the forest, enjoying the scents of thousands of his people below the canopy. Brothers, sisters, N-children. He did not dip down to see them. There wouldn't be time.

Tunesmith would move immediately. Where a treetop blocked the sun, already Hanuman could see a glitter to the shadow squares. Power was being beamed down.

He settled his disk on raddled earth. A few Burrowing People emerged. He spoke to them.

"You must stay underground for two days. For you this is easy. Do not watch the sky. Spread the word as far as you can, but be underground before shadow hides the sun.

"There will be lights beyond your experience. Do not look at the sky until the light fades. Afterward the sky will be very dark. Go spin-and-port to where you will find Hanging People. Help them. They are mine, and they will have gone mad."

Penultimate's Palace. Louis flicked in and rolled off the burnt stack of float plates. Nothing fired on him.

The flying belt took him out and down. He skimmed above the yellow lawn, wondering at the black markings. One pattern must be the Penultimate's name or portrait... there, traces of a cartoon, very simplified, a style weirdly reminiscent of William Rotsler. The other would be speech.

He had guesswork for a Rosetta Stone. What would a protector say to an invader? That might be a pictograph pun: a word you could read as "Enter" or "Extinct"; "Greetings" or "Epitaph". Could you extrapolate a language from that?

Nah.

Louis flew low, enjoying the skill it took to weave between trees. Maybe they'd conceal him if Proserpina came looking for him on her own turf. (Nah. She had his scent.) Hard turns and high gees and a brief freedom from intellectual problems.

Proserpina's sunfish ship rested among the trees near Proserpina's base. Lesser trees had grown up through the gridwork. Louis set the flying belt behind a thick trunk, stripped off his falling jumper, and left that too. He made his way forward on foot.
See the naked, limping breeder.

Here was the ARM 'doc from
Gray Nurse.
Louis wondered what the diagnostic readings would say about him. Mutated? Not human? Dying? He walked past it without a pause. No time!

He stopped by
Snail Darter's
library.
No time,
but protectors didn't always have a choice.

He'd watched Claus and Roxanny work this device. It wasn't hard to persuade it to summon up a roster for the Fringe War fleet. There were dozens of Wu, and six Harmony: his first daughter had married a Harmony. An ID number sequence would identify his line of descent--