Ringworld

Teela Brown sat astride her flycycle with her larger-than-delicate hands resting lightly on the controls. The corners of her month curved slightly upward. She was poised against a flycycle's acceleration, relaxed yet alert setting off the lines and curves of her body as if she were posing for a figure study. Her green eyes looked through Louis Wu, and through a barrier of low hills, to see infinity at the Ringworld's abstract horizon.

"I do not understand," said Speaker. "Exactly what is the trouble? She is not asleep, yet she is curiously unresponsive."

"Highway hypnosis," said Louis Wu. "She'll come out of it by herself."

"Then she is in no danger?"

"Not now. I was afraid she might fall off her 'cycle, or do something crazy with the controls. She's safe enough on the ground."

"But why does she take so little interest in us?"

Louis tried to explain.

In the asteroid belt of Sol, men spend half their lives guiding singleships among the rocks. They take their positions from the stars. For hours at a time a Belt miner will watch the stars: the bright quick arcs which are fusion-driven singleships, the slow, drifting lights which are nearby asteroids, and the fixed points which are stars and galaxies.

A man can lose his soul among the white stars. Much later, he may realize that his body has acted for him, guiding his ship while his mind traveled in realms he ca

On the great flat plateau on Mount Lookitthat, a man may stand at the void edge and look down on infinity. Tbe mountain is only forty miles tall; but a human eye, tracing the mountain's fluted side, finds infinity on the solid mist that hides the mountain's base.

The void mist is white and featureless and uniform. It stretches without change from the mountain's fluted flank to the world's horizon. The emptiness can snatch at a man's mind and hold it, so that he stands frozen and rapt at the edge of eternity until someone comes to lead him away. They call it Plateau trance.

Then there is the Ringworld horizon …

"But it's all self-hypnosis," said Louis. He looked into the girl's eyes. She stirred restlessly. "I could probably bring her out of it, but why risk it? Let her sleep."

"I do not understand hypnosis," said Speaker-To-Animals. "I know of it, but I do not understand it."

Louis nodded. "I'm not surprised. Kzinti wouldn't make good hypnotic subjects. Neither would puppeteers, for that matter." For Nessus had given over his collecting of samples of alien life and quietly joined them.

"We can study what we ca

"But what is hypnosis?"

"An induced state of monomania."

"But why would a subject go into monomania?"

Nessus apparently had no answer.

Louis said, "Because he trusts the hypnotist."

Speaker shook his great head and turned away.

"Such trust in another is insane. I confess I do not understand hypnosis," said Nessus. "Do you, Louis?"

"Not entirely."

"I am relieved," said the puppeteer, and he looked for a moment into his own eyes, a pair of pythons inspecting each other. "I could not trust one who could understand nonsense."

"What have you found out about Ringworld plants?"

"They seem very like the life of Earth, as I told you. However, some of the forms seem more specialized than one would expect."

"More evolved, you mean?"

"Perhaps. Again, perhaps a specialized form has more room to grow, even within its limited environment, here on the Ringworld. The important point is that the plants and insects are similar enough to attack us."

"And vice versa?"

"Oh, yes. A few forms are edible for me, a few others will fit your own belly. You will have to test them individually, first for poisons and then for taste. But any plant we find can safely be used by the kitchen on your 'cycle."

"We won't starve, then."

"This single advantage hardly compensates for the danger. If only our engineers had thought to pack a starseed lure aboard the Liar! This entire trek would have been u

"A starseed lure?"

"A simple device, invented thousands of years ago. It causes the local sun to emit electromagnetic signals that attract starseeds. Had we such a device, we could lure a starseed to this star, then communicate our problem to any Outsider ship that followed it inward."

"But starseeds travel at a lot less than lightspeed. It might take years!"

"But think, Louis. However long we waited, we would not have had to leave the safety of the ship!"

"To you this is a full life?" Louis snorted. And he glanced at Speaker, fixed on Speaker, locked eyes with Speaker.

Speaker-To-Animals, curled on the ground some distance away, was staring back at him and gri

Louis turned back. Somehow he knew that something important had happened. But what? And why? He shrugged it away.

Straddling the contoured saddle of her 'cycle, Teela seemed braced for acceleration … as if she were still flying. Louis remembered the few times he had been hypnotized by a therapist. It had felt a lot like play-acting. Cushioned in a rosy absence of responsibility, he had known that it was all a game he was playing with the hypnotist. He could break free at any time. But somehow one never did.

Teela's eyes cleared suddenly. She shook her head, turned and saw them. "Louis! How did we get down?"

"The usual way."

"Help me down." She put her arms out like a child on a wall. Louis put his hands on her waist and lifted her from the 'cycle. The touch of her was a thrill along his back and an opening warmth in his groin and solar plexus. He left his hands where they were.

"The last I remember, we were a mile in the air," Teela said.

"From now on, keep your eyes off the horizon."

"What did I do, fall asleep at the wheel?" She laughed and tossed her head, so that her hair became a great soft black cloud. "And you all panicked. I'm sorry, Louis. Where's Speaker?"

"Chasing a rabbit," said Louis. "Hey, why don't we get some exercise ourselves, now we've got the chance?"

"How about a walk in the woods?"

"Good idea." He met her eyes and saw that they had read each other's thoughts. He reached into his 'cycles luggage bin and produced a blanket. "Ready."

"You amaze me," said Nessus. "No known sentient species copulates as often as you do. Go, then. Use caution where you sit. Remember that unfamiliar life-forms are about."

"Did you know," said Louis, "that naked once meant the same thing as unprotected?"

For it seemed to him that he was removing his safety with his clothes. The Ringworld had a functioning biosphere, ripe, no doubt, with bugs and bacteria and toothy things built to eat protoplasmic meat.

"No," said Teela. She stood naked on the blanket and stretched her arms to the noon sun. "It feels good. Do you know that I've never seen you naked in daylight?"

"Likewise. I might add that you look tanj good that way. Here, let me show you something." He half-raised a hand to his hairless chest. "Tanjit -"

"I don't see anything."

"It's gone. That's the trouble with boosterspice. No memories. The scars disappear, and after a while …" He traced a line across his chest; but there was nothing under his fingertip.