Ringworld

The skycycles accelerated steadily and in silence. At a little below the speed of sound, a rushing sound penetrated the sonic fold. It reached a peak at sonic speed, then cut off sharply. The sonic fold found a new shape, and again there was silence

Shortly thereafter the 'cycles reached cruising speed. Louis relaxed within the 'cycle seat. He estimated that he would be spending more than a month in that seat, and he might as well get used to it.

Presently (because he was the only one flying, and it would not do to fall asleep) he began testing his 'cycle.

The rest facilities were simple, comfortable, and easy to use. But undignified!

He tried pushing his hand into the sonic fold. The fold was a force field, a network of force vectors intended to guide air currents around the space occupied by the flycycle. It was not intended to behave like a glass wall. To Louis's hand it felt like a hard wind, a wind that pushed straight toward him from every direction. He was in a protected bubble of moving wind.

The sonic fold seemed idiot-proof.

He tested that by pulling a facial tissue from a slot and dropping it. The tissue fluttered underneath the 'cycle, and then it rested on the air, vibrating madly. Louis was willing to believe that if he fell out of his seat, which would not be easy, he would be caught by the sonic fold and would be able to climb back up again.

It figured. Puppeteers …

The water tube gave him distilled water. The food slot gave him flat reddish-brown bricks. Six times he dialed a brick, took a bite, and dropped the brick into the intake hopper. Each brick tasted different, and they all tasted good.

At least he would not get bored with eating. Not soon, anyway.

But if they could not find plants and water to shovel into the intake hopper, the food slot would eventually stop delivering bricks.

He dialed a seventh brick and ate it.

U

Tanj near impossible, Louis decided. To antispinward was the largest mountain men had ever seen. There couldn't be many such supervolcanos on the Ringworld. To find the Liar one would aim for the mountain, then troll spinward for a linear gouge several thousand miles Iong.

… But the arch of the Ringworld blazed overhead: three million times the surface area of the Earth. There was room to get quite thoroughly lost on the Ringworld.

Nessus was begi

"Louis, may we have privacy?"

The transparent images of Speaker and Teela appeared to be dozing. Louis switched them out of the intercom circuit. "Go ahead."

"What has been happening?"

"Couldn't you hear?"

"My ears are in my heads. My hearing was blocked."

"How are you feeling now?"

"Perhaps I will return to catatonia. I feel very lost, Louis."

"Me too. Well, we've come twenty-two hundred miles in the last three hours. We'd have done better with transfer booths, or even stepping discs."

"Our engineers were unable to arrange stepping discs." The puppeteer's heads glanced at each other, eye to eye. A moment only they held the position; but Louis had seen that gesture before.

Now, tentatively, he tagged it as puppeteer's laughter. Would a mad puppeteer develop a sense of humor?

He continued speaking. "We're moving to port. Speaker decided that the portside rim wall was closer. I think we could have flipped a coin for it and got better accuracy. But Speaker's the boss. He took over when you went catatonic."

"That is unfortunate. Speaker's flycycle is beyond range of my tasp. I must -"

"Hold it a second. Why not leave him in command?"

"But, but, but -"

"Think about it," Louis urged. "You can always veto him with the tasp. If you don't put him in charge, he'll take over anyway, every time you relax. We need an undisputed leader."

"I suppose it ca

"That's the spirit. Call Speaker and tell him he's the Hindmost."

Louis hooked himself into Speaker's intercom to hear the exchange. If he was expecting fireworks he was disappointed. The kzin and the puppeteer spoke a few hissing, spitting phrases in the Hero's Tongue. Then the kzin cut himself out of the circuit.

"I must apologize," said Nessus. "My stupidity has brought disaster on us."

"Don't worry about it," Louis consoled him. "You're just in the depressive leg of your cycle."

"I am a sentient being, and I can face facts. I was terribly wrong about Teela Brown."

"True enough, but that wasn't your fault."

"It was indeed my fault, Louis Wu. I should have realized why I was having trouble finding candidates other than Teela Brown."

"Huh?"

"They were too lucky."

Louis whistled tunelessly through his teeth. The puppeteer had evolved a brand new theory.

"Specifically," said Nessus, "They were too lucky to become involved in such a dangerous project as ours. The Birthright Lotteries have indeed produced psychic, hereditary luck. Yet that luck was not available to me. When I tried to contact the Lottery Families, I found only Teela Brown."

"Listen -"

"I was unable to contact others because they were too lucky. I was able to contact Teela Brown, to involve her in this ill-fated expedition, because she did not inherit the gene. Louis, I apologize."

"Oh, go to sleep."

"I must apologize to Teela too."

"No. That's my fault. I could have stopped her."

"Could you?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't. Go to sleep."

"I ca

"Then you fly. I'll go to sleep."

And so it was. But before Louis dropped off he was surprised to realize how smoothly the flycycle was riding. The puppeteer was an excellent pilot.

Louis woke at first light.

He was not used to sleeping under gravity. Never in his life had he spent a night in sitting position. When he yawned and tried to stretch, muscles seemed to crack and crumble under the strain. Groaning, he rubbed sticky eyes and looked about him.

The shadows were fu

To his left all was darkness, deepening with distance. The missing horizon was a blackness born of night and chaos, beneath a navy sky in which outlines of the Ringworld arch glowed faintly.

To the right, to spinward, was full day.

Dawn was different on the Ringworld.

The desert was coming to an end. Its weaving border, clear and sharp, curved away to right and left. Behind the 'cycles was desert, yellow-white and bright and barren. The big mountain still blocked an impressive chunk of sky. Ahead, rivers and lakes showed in diminishing perspective, separated by patches of green-brown.

The 'cycles had maintained their positions, widely separated in a diamond pattern. At this distance they seemed silver bugs, all alike. Louis was in the lead. His memory told him that Speaker had the spinward position; Nessus was to antispinward, and Teela brought up the rear.

To spinward of the mountain was a hanging thread of dust, like the trail left by a ground-effect jeep crossing a desert, but larger. It had to be larger, though it was only a thread at this distance …