Ringworld

"It was the Hindmost who accepted me as his mate. He said that he would not ask another to so sacrifice his self-respect."

Louis whistled. "That's something. Go ahead and cringe, you deserve it. Better to be scared now, now that it's all over."

Nessus stirred, relaxing somewhat.

"That pronoun," said Louis. "It bugs me. Either I should be calling you she, or I should be calling the Hindmost she."

"This is indelicate of you, Louis. One does not discuss sex with an alien race." A head emerged from between Nessus's legs and focused, disapproving. "You and Teela would not mate in my sight, would you?"

"Oddly enough, the subject did come up once, and Teela said -"

"I am offended," the puppeteer stated.

"Why?" asked Teela. The puppeteer's exposed head dived for cover. "Oh, come out of there! I won't hurt you."

"Truly?"

"Truly. I mean honest. I think you're cute."

The puppeteer unrolled completely. "Did I hear you call me cute?"

"Yeah." She looked up at the orange wall of Speaker-To-Aninials and, "You too," she said generously.

"I do not mean to give offense," said the kzin. "But do not ever say that again. Ever."

Teela looked puzzled.

There was a dusty orange hedge, ten feet tall and perfectly straight, equipped with cobalt blue tentacles that hung limp. From the look of them, the hedge had once been carnivorous. It was the border to the park; and Nessus led his little group toward it.

Louis was expecting a gap in the hedge. He was unprepared when Nessus walked straight into it. The hedge parted for the puppeteer and closed after him.

They followed.

They walked out from under a sky-blue sky; but when the hedge had dosed after them, the sky was black and white. Against the black sky of perpetual night, drifting clouds blazed white in the light cast upon their underbellies by miles of city. For the city was there, looming over them.

At first glance it differed from Earthly cities only in degree. The buildings were thicker, blockier, more uniform; and they were higher, terribly high, so that the sky was all lighted windows and lighted balconies with straight hairline cracks of darkness marking the zenith. Here were the right angles denied to puppeteer furniture; here on the buildings where a right angle was far too big to bash a careless knee.

But why had the city not loomed similarly over the park? On Earth there were few buildings more than a mile high. Here, none were less. Louis guessed at light-bending fields around the park's borders. He never got around to asking. It was the least of the miracles of the puppeteer world.

"Our vehicle is at the other end of the island," said Nessus. "We can be there in a minute or less, using the stepping discs. I will show you."

"You feel all right now?"

"Yes, Teela. As Louis says, the worst is over." The puppeteer pranced lightly ahead of them. "The Hindmost is my love. I need only return from the Ringworld."

The path was soft. To the eye it was concrete set with iridescent particles, but to the feet it was damp, spongy soil. Presently, after walking a very long block, they came to an intersection. "We must go this way," said Nessus, nodding ahead of him. "Do not step on the first disc. Follow me."

At the center of the intersection was a large blue rectangle. Four blue discs surrounded the rectangle, one at the mouth of each walk. "You may step on the rectangle if you wish," said Nessus, "but not on inappropriate discs. Follow me." He circled the nearest disc, crossed the intersection, trotted onto the disc on the opposite side, and vanished.

For a stu

Speaker-To-Animals snarled and leapt. No tiger could have aimed as accurately. Then Louis was alone.

"By the Mist Demons," he said wonderingly. "They've got open transfer booths."

And he walked forward.

He was standing on a square at the center of the next intersection, between Nessus and Speaker. "Your mate ran ahead," said Nessus. "I hope she will wait for us."

The puppeteer walked off the rectangle in the direction he was facing. Three paces brought him to a disc. And he was gone.

"What a layout!" Louis said admiringly. He was alone, for the kzin had already followed Nessus. "You just walk. That's all. Three paces takes you a block. It's like magic. And you can make the blocks as long as you like!" He strode forward.

He wore seven league boots. He ran lightly on his toes, and the scene jumped every three paces. The circular signs on the corners of buildings must be address codes, so that once a pedestrian reached his destination he would know it. Then he would circle the discs to got to the middle of the block.

Along the street were shop windows Louis would have liked to explore. Or were they something else entirely? But the others were blocks ahead. Louis could see them Mckering at the end of that canyon of buildings. He increased his pace.

At the end of a footstep the aliens were before him, blocking his path.

"I feared you would miss the turn," said Nessus. And he led off to the left.

"Wait -" But the kzin had vanished too. Where the blazes was Teela?

She must have gone ahead. Louis turned left and walked. Seven league boots. The city went by like a dream. Louis ran with visions of sugarplums dancing in his head. Freeway paths through the cities, the discs marked in a different color, ten blocks apart. Long-distance discs a hundred miles apart, each marking the center of a city, the receiver squares a full block across. Paths to cross oceans: one step to an island! Islands for stepping stones!

Open transfer booths. The puppeteers were fearfully advanced. The disc was only a yard across, and you didn't have to be entirely on it before it would operate. One footstep and you were stepping off the next receiver square. It beat the tanj out of slidewalks!

As he ran, Louis's mind conjured up a phantom puppeteer hundreds of miles tall, picking his way delicately along a chain of islands; stepping with care lest he miss an island and get his ankles wet. Now the phantom grew larger, and his stepping stones were worlds … the puppeteers were fearfully advanced …

He was out of stepping disc, at the shore of a calm black sea. Beyond the edge of the world, four fat full moons rose in a vertical line against the stars. Halfway to the horizon was a smaller island, brilliantly lighted. The aliens were waiting for him.

"Where's Teela?"

"I do not know," said Nessus.

"Mist Demons! Nessus, how do we find her?"

"She must find us. There is no need to worry, Louis. When -"

"She's lost on a strange world! Anything could happen!"

"Not on this world, Louis. There is no world as as ours. When Teela reaches the edge of this island, she will find that the stepping discs to the next islands will not work for her. She will follow the discs around the shoreline until she finds one that does work."

"Do you think its a lost computer we're talking about? Teela's a twenty-year-old girl!"

Teela popped into place beside him. "Hi. I got a little lost. What's all the excitement?"

Speaker-To-Ammals mocked him with a dagger-toothed grin. Louis, avoiding Teela's puzzled / questioning eyes, felt heat rising in his cheeks. But Nessus said only, "Follow me."

They followed the puppeteer where stepping discs formed a line along the shore. Presently there was a dirty brown pentagram. They stepped onto it …

They stood on bare rock, brilliantly lit by sun tubes. An island of rock the size of a private spaceport. In its center stood one tall building and a single spacecraft.

"Behold our vehicle," said Nessus.

Teela and Speaker showed disappointment; for the kzin's ears disappeared into their flaps, while Teela looked wistfully back toward the island they had just left, toward a wall of light formed by miles-high buildings standing shoulder to shoulder against interstellar night. But Louis looked, and he felt the relief loosening overtight muscles. He had had enough of miracles. The stepping discs, the tremendous city, the four tributary worlds hanging, pumpkin-colored, above the horizon … all were daunting. The ship was not. It was a General Products #2 hull fitted into a triangular wing, the wing studded with thruster units and fusion motors. Familiar hardware, all of it, and no questions asked.