Ringworld

"No," said Chiron. "The temperature of the i

"How would you know that?"

"The frequency of the infrared radiation emitted by the outer surface -"

"You see me exposed as a fool."

"Not at all. We have been studying the ring since its discovery, while you have had a few eights of minutes. The infrared frequency indicates an average temperature of 290 degrees absolute, which of course applies to the i

"Do not let our attention to details mislead or frighten you," Chiron added. "We would not permit a landing unless the ring engineers themselves insisted. We merely wish you to be ready for any eventuality."

"You don't have any detail of surface formations?"

"Unfortunately, no. The resolving power of our instruments is insufficient."

"We can do some guessing," said Teela. "The thirty hour day-night cycle, for instance. Their original world must have turned that fast. Do you suppose that's their original system?"

"We assume that it is, since they apparently did not have hyperdrive," said Chiron. "But presumably they could have moved their world to another system, using our own technique."

"And should have," the kzin rumbled, "rather than destroy their own system in the course of building their ring. I think we will find their own system somewhere nearby, as denuded of worlds as this one. They would have used terraforming techniques to settle all of the worlds of their own system, before adapting this more desperate expedient."

Teela said, "Desperate?"

"Then, when they had finished building their ring around the sun, they would have been forced to move all their worlds into this system to transfer their populations."

"Maybe not," said Louis. "They might have used big STL ships to settle their ring if it was close enough to their own system."

"Why desperate?"

They looked at her.

"I would have thought they built the ring for — for-" Teela floundered. "Because they wanted to."

"For kicks? For scenery? Finagles fist! Teela, think of the resources they'd have had to divert. Remember, they must have had a hell of a population problem. By the time they needed the ring for living room, they probably couldn't afford to build it. They built it anyway, because they needed it."

"Mmm," said Teela, looking puzzled.

"Nessus returns," said Chiron. Without another word the puppeteer turned and trotted away into the park.

CHAPTER 7 — Stepping Discs

"That was rude," said Teela.

"Chiron doesn't want to meet Nessus. Didn't I tell you? They think Nessus is — crazy."

"They're all crazy."

"Well, they don't think so, but that doesn't make you wrong. Still want to go?"

Teela's answer was the same uncomprehending look she'd given him when he tried to explain whiplash of the heart. "You still want to go," Louis confirmed sadly.

"Sure. Who wouldn't? What are the puppeteers afraid of?"

"I understand that," said Speaker-To-Animals. "The puppeteers are cowards. But I fail to see why they insist on knowing more than they do. Louis, they have already passed the ringed sun, traveling at nearly lightspeed. Those who built the ring assuredly did not have faster-than-light travel. Thus they can be no danger to the puppeteers, now or ever. I fail to understand our role in this matter."

"It figures."

"Must I take that as an insult?"

"No, of course not. It's just that we keep ru

"Quite so. Explain, if you please."

Louis had been sca

"I can smell them individually. The very concept makes me itch."

"Now imagine them on the Ringworld. Better, yes?"

"Uurr. Yes. With more than eight-to-the-seventh-power times as much room … But still I fail to understimd. Do you suppose the puppeteers plan conquest? But how would they transfer themselves to the ring afterward? They do not trust spacecraft."

"I don't know. They don't make war, either. That's not the point. The point is, is the Ringworld safe to live on?"

"Urrr."

"You see? Maybe they're thinking of building their own Ringworlds. Maybe they expect to find an empty one, out there in the Clouds of Magellan. Not an unreasonable hope, by the way. But it doesn't matter. They have to know if it's safe before they do anything."

"Here comes Nessus." Teela stood up and moved to the invisible wall. "He looks drunk. Do puppeteers get drunk?"

Nessus wasn't trotting. He came tippy-toe, circling a four-foot chrome-yellow feather with exaggerated wariness, moving one foot at a time, while his flat heads darted this way and that. He had almost reached the lecture dome when something like a large black butterfly settled on his rump. Nessus screamed like a woman, leapt forward as if clearing a high fence. He landed rolling. When he stopped rolling he remained curled into a ball, with his back arched and his legs folded and his heads and necks tucked between his forelegs.

Louis was ru

All the flowers smelled like puppeteer. (If all the life of the puppeteer world had the same chemical basis, how could Nessus take nourishment from warm carrot juice?) Louis followed a right-angle zigzag of manicured dusty orange hedge and came upon the puppeteer.

He knelt beside him. "It's Louis," he said. "You're safe." He reached gently into the tangled mop over the puppeteces skull and scratched gently. The puppeteer jerked at the touch, then settled down.

This was a bad one. No need to make the puppeteer face the world just yet. Louis asked, "Was that thing dangerous? The one that landed on you."

"That? No." The contralto voice was muffled, but beaufifully pure, and without inflection. "It was only a flower-sniffer."

"How did it go with those-who-lead?"

Nessus winced. "I won."

"Fine. What did you win?"

"My right to breed, and a set of mates."

"Is that what has you so scared?" It wasn't unlikely, Louis thought Nessus could be the counterpart to a male black widow spider, doomed by love. Then again, he might be a nervous virgin … of either sex, or of any sex …

The puppeteer said, "I might have failed, Louis. I faced them down. I bluffed them."

"Go on." Louis was aware that Teela and Speaker-To-Animals had joined them. He continued scratching gently in Nessus's mane. Nessus had not moved.

The muffled, infiectionless contralto voice said, "Those-who-lead offered me the legal right to reproduce my kind if I survive the voyage we must make. But this was not enough. To become a parent I need mates. Who will willingly mate with a straggly-maned maniac?

"It was necessary to bluff. Find me a mate, I told them, or I will withdraw from the voyage. If I withdraw, so will the kzin, I said. They were enraged."

"I can believe that. You must have been in the manic state."

"I worked myself up to it. I threatened them with ruin to their plans, and they capitulated. Some selfless volunteer, I said, must agree to mate with me if i return from the ring."

"Beautiful. Nice going. Did you get volunteers?"

"One of our sexes is … property. Nonsentient; stupid. I needed only one volunteer. Those-who-lead -"

Teela broke in. "Why don't you just say leaders?"

"I had tried to translate into your terms," said the puppeteer. "A more accurate translation of the term would be, those-who-lead-from-behind. There is a selected chairman or speaker-for-all or … the accurate translation of his title is Hindmost.