Ringworld

"It appears that we were both wrong about Teela," said Nessus.

"Yeah."

"She is moving under emergency power. Her forehead would not be enough to activate the proper controls. First she must manipulate the override slot. It is difficult to see how she could do that by accident."

"Where is it?" And when the puppeteer had shown him, Louis said, "She might have stuck her finger in it, just out of curiosity."

"Really?"

Speaker interrupted Louis's answer. "But what can we do?"

"When she wakes up, have her signal me," Nessus said crisply. "I can show her how to go back on normal thrust, and how to find us afterward."

"Meanwhile, we can do nothing?"

"That is correct. There is the danger that elements may burn out in the propulsion system. However, her vehicle will avoid obstacles; she will not crash. She is receding from us at approximately Mach four. The worst danger she faces is anoxia, which can lead to brain damage. I suspect she is safe from that."

"Why? Anoxia is dangerous."

"She is too lucky," said Nessus.

CHAPTER 18 — The Perils of Teela Brown

It was black night when they emerged from the iris of the eye storm. Then were no stars; but faint blue Archlight reached through an occasional break in the cloud cover.

"I have reconsidered," Speaker said. "Nessus, you may rejoin us if you will."

"I will," said the puppeteer.

"We need your alien insights. You have demonstrated great ingenuity. You must understand that I will not forget the crime your species has committed against mine."

"I would not wish to tamper with your memory, Speaker."

Louis Wu hardly noticed the triumph of practicality over honor, intelligence over xenophobia. Where the cloud bank met the infinity-horizon he searched for the mark of Teela's vapor trail. But it had entirely disappeared.

Teela was still unconscious. Her intercom image stiffed restlessly, and Louis shouted, "Teela!" But she did not answer.

"We were wrong about her," said Nessus. "But I ca

"Exactly what I have been telling Louis!"

"But," said the puppeteer, "if her luck has no power, how could she have activated the emergency thruster? I believe I was right from the first. Teela Brown has psychic luck."

"Then why was she picked in the first place? Why did the Liar crash? Answer me!"

"Stop it," said Louis.

They ignored him. Nessus was saying, "Her luck is clearly undependable."

"If her luck had failed her just once, she would be dead."

"Were she dead or damaged, I would not have selected her. We must allow for coincidence," said Nessus. "You must remember, Speaker, that the laws of probability do provide for coincidence."

"But they do not provide for magic. I ca

"You'll have to," said Louis.

This time they heard him. He continued, "I should have known much earlier. Not because she kept missing disasters. It was the little things, things in her personality. She's lucky, Speaker. Believe it."

"Louis, how can you credit this nonsense?"

"She's never been hurt. Never."

"How can you know?"

"I know. She knew all about pleasure, nothing about pain. Remember when the sunflowers blasted you? She asked you if you could see. 'I'm blinded,' you said. She said, 'Yes, but can you see?' She didn't believe you.

"Then, oh, right after the crash. She tried to walk barefoot up a lava slope that was just short of melting hot."

"She is not very intelligent, Louis."

"She is intelligent, tanjit! Shes just never been hurt! When she burned her feet, she charged straight down the slope onto a surface a dozen times more slippery than ice — and she never fell down!

"But you don't need details," said Louis. "All you've got to do is watch her walk. Clumsy. Every second, it looks like she's going to fall over. But she doesn't. She doesn't knock things over with her elbows. She doesn't spill things or drop things. She never did. She never learned not to, don't you see? So she's not graceful."

"This would not be apparent to nonhumans," Speaker said dubiously. "I must take your word for it, Louis. Still, how can I believe in psychic luck?"

"I do. I have to."

"If her luck were dependable," said Nessus, "she would never have tried to walk on recently molten rock. Yet the luck of Teela Brown does protect us sporadically. Reassuring, is it not? You three would be dead had not clouds shielded you when you crossed the sunflower field."

"Yeah," said Louis; but he remembered that the clouds had parted long enough to sear the skin of Speaker-To-Animals. He remembered the stairs of Heaven which had carried Teela Brown nine flights upward, while Louis Wu had had to walk. He felt the bandages on his hand, and remembered Speaker's hand charred to the bone, while TeeWs translator burned in its saddle case. "Her luck seems to protect her somewhat better than it protects us," he said.

"And why not? But you seem upset, Louis."

"Maybe I am …" Her friends would long since have stopped telling her their troubles. Teela didn't understand troubles. Describing pain to Teela Brown would be like trying to describe color to a blind man.

Whiplash of the heart? Teela had never been thwarted in love. The man she wanted came to her, and stayed until she had almost tired of him, then volunteered to go.

Sporadic or not, Teela's odd power made her … a little different from human, perhaps. A woman, surely, but with different strengths and talents, and blind spots, too … And this was a woman Louis had loved. It was very odd.

"She loved me too," Louis mused. "Strange. I'm not her type. And if she hadn't loved me, then -"

"What? Louis, are you speaking to me?"

"No, Nessus, I'm speaking to me …" Was that her real reason for joining Louis Wu and his Motley Crew? Then the mystery was compounded. Luck made Teela fall in love with an unsuitable man, motivating her to join an expedition both uncomfortable and disastrous, so that she had several times brushed close to violent death. It didn't make sense.

Teela's intercom image looked up. Blank eyes and empty face … puzzled … filling suddenly with stark terror. Her eyes, wide and white, looking down. Teela's lovely oval face was ugly with insanity.

"Easy," said Louis. "Take it easy. Relax. You're all right now."

"But -" A falsetto squeak was Teela's voice.

"Were out of it. It's way behind us. Look behind you. Tanj you, look behind you!"

She turned. For a long moment Louis saw only soft dark hair. When she turned back, she had better control of herself.

"Nessus," said Louis, "tell her."

The puppeteer said, "You have been moving at Mach four for more than half an hour. To bring your flycycle back to normal speed, insert your index finger in the slot marked with a green rim -"

Though still frightened, Teela was capable of following orders.

"Now you must rejoin us. My signal indicates that your course has followed a curve. You are to port and spinward of us. As you have no indicator, I will have to guide you to us by ear. For the present, turn directly to antispinward."

"Which way is that?"

"Turn left until you are aimed at one base of the Arch."

"I can't see the Arch. I'll have to go above the clouds." She seemed almost composed now.

Tanj, but she'd been frightened! Louis couldn't remember ever seeing anyone that frightened. Certainly he'd never seen Teela that frightened.

Had he ever seen Teela frightened?

Louis turned to look over his shoulder. The land was dark beneath the clouds; but the eye storm, a vast distance behind them, glowed blue in the Archlight. It watched them go with total concentration, and no sign of regret.