Ringworld's Children

Tunesmith said, "I found no convincing theory anywhere in the records. I must evolve one. Hyperspace is a false term, Louis. The universe accessed through the Outsider drive corresponds to our own Einstein universe, point-to-point, but there are fixed velocities, quantized.

"Youre aware that you can map any part of a mathematical domain onto the whole domain? For every point in one domain, you can place a unique point in the other. I thought the relationship here might be point-to-point except that space warped by nearby masses isnt represented. A ship that tried what Hanuman tried would go nowhere. Then I thought of an alternate model. Well have to look at the recordings to know if Im right, but after all, Hanuman did get in and back out — Excuse me," Tunesmith said, and turned to his controls.

Hot Needle of Inquiry began to dodge.

The war wasnt letting them through. Thermonuclear fireworks bloomed outside the ship. The ship surged, and protective blackness washed across the walls.

Louiss inclination was to beat Tunesmith over the head with something heavy until he talked, but that would not be prudent while he was flying them through a firestorm.

Tunesmith said, "Notice that we didnt travel far in hyperdrive. Hanuman didnt either. A light year in three days is characteristic of mass-free space. This close to a stars mass, space isnt flat. Im not sure we even exceeded lightspeed.

"We launched at point one C. Well be among the comets in a few hours. We can safely use hyperdrive then. Hindmost, will you take the controls?"

One head poked above the jeweled mane. "No."

Then get into ships memory and summon up what information we collected."

A mass pointer cant record, because the users mind is a necessary component. Tunesmith had built something better, something that took pictures in hyperdrive.

A virtual screen showed the streaming colors Louis remembered, and a deep violet dot expanding into a tadpole shape. Tunesmith said, "This explains why we didnt travel far. Too close to the suns mass—"

"Inside the singularity," Louis said.

"Louis, I dont think theres a mathematical singularity here at all. I found reference to a mass pointer in the Hindmosts library. Have you used a mass pointer?"

"Theres one in front of you. It only works in hyperdrive."

"This?" A crystal sphere, inert now. "What do you think you see with it?"

"Stars."

"Starlight?"

"…No. A mass pointer is a psionics device. You perceive, but its not with your usual senses. Stars look bigger than they should, as if youre seeing a whole solar system."

"Youve been perceiving this." Tunesmith waved into a recorded view of neon paint streaming through oil. "Dark matter. The missing mass. Instruments in Einstein space cant find it, but it huddles close around suns in this other domain youve been calling hyperspace. Dark matter makes galaxies more massive, changes their spin—"

"We rammed through that?"

"Wrong picture, Louis. My instruments didnt record any resistance. Well test that later. It might have been different if this had reached us." A deep violet comma-shaped shadow. "We find life everywhere we look in this universe. Would it be surprising if an ecology has grown up within dark matter? And predators?"

Maybe Tunesmith was mad. Louis asked, "Are you suggesting that ships that use hyperdrive near a star are eaten?"

Tunesmith said, "Yes."

Crazy. But… the Hindmost continued his work with the recordings and Needles instruments. He hadnt flinched at the notion of predators eating spacecraft.

The puppeteer already knew.

"I only held us in hyperdrive for a moment," Tunesmith said, "but these hypothetical predators only have one speed, Louis, and its fast. Singularity is a mathematical term. Certainly there are mathematics involved, but they may be more complex than just places where an equation gives infinities. Inside this morass of dark matter, the characteristic speed may be drastically lowered. The proof is that we live."

"We are being observed," the Hindmost said. "I sense ranging beams from ARM and Patriarchy telescopes and neutrino detectors. Ships begin to accelerate inward. The ship from Sheathclaws houses telepaths of both species, though they cant reach us yet. Ive found the comet cluster that hides the Kzinti flagship Diplomat. Its across the solar system, seven light-hours away and receding behind us. Tunesmith, do you have a plan?"

The Ghoul protector said, "I have the simple part. We will observe the Fringe War as we coast outward. Let our velocity carry us beyond the danger zone, the dark matter zone where predators lurk. Then swing around the system in hyperdrive. Approach Diplomat from the other side of the system. Await developments."

Hours passed. The Fringe War made no further test of Needles defenses. When the sun was only a bright point and the Ringworld was barely more than that, Tunesmith asked, "Hindmost, can you perceive hyperspace directly?"

"Yes."

"I cant. But if you cant fly for terror, I must fly Needle"

The puppeteer uncoiled. He took Needles controls. "Where shall I fly?"

"Take us ten light-minutes outward from Diplomats last position."

Human beings cant look into the Blind Spot. Most would go mad. Some can use a mass pointer to steer through hyperspace and keep their sanity too. Some Kzinti can perceive hyperspace directly; their female kin have mated into the family of the Patriarch for half a thousand years.

This time there was nothing. Not darkness, not featureless gray, not even the memory of sight. Louis fumbled until he could opaque the hull in crew quarters.

Acolyte said, "I dont know enough to ask intelligent questions, Louis."

"Were okay. I understand this. This is hyperdrive the way Im used to seeing it. Were outside the… borderline," Louis said. "Even if I have to unlearn everything I know."

All his life hed thought in terms of a mathematical singularity. In such a system, the realm of heavy masses — suns and planets — would be undefined in hyperspace. Ships couldnt go there.

"What were doing is a standard maneuver. We have a velocity, right? We were flung up from the Ringworld, toward the sun and past it and outward. We still have that huge velocity, straight out from the sun.

"But the Hindmost is taking us halfway around the system in hyperdrive. When he comes out, well have the same velocity we started with, but pointed back toward the sun and the Ringworld."

"Were out," the Hindmost said. They were in black space with one overbright star. Theyd been in hyperdrive about five minutes.

The Hindmost said, "The Fringe War doesnt normally reach this far out. Were safe for the moment. Our velocity vector is inward, toward Diplomat. We should act within ten minutes, before Diplomat can see our neutrino wake and Cherenkov radiation."

"Get me a view," Tunesmith ordered.

Ten light-minutes is further than the distance between Earth and Sol. The virtual window popped up, and zoomed, and wiggled a loose-packed comet out of the starscape, and zoomed…

A lens of steel and glass was the Kzinti command ship Diplomat emerging from its cometary nest.

That larger sphere just popping into view was Long Shot, close and closing.

Tunesmith barely glanced at the view. "Theyll be a few minutes matching. We have time. Hindmost, show us what we recorded in this last hyperdrive jump."

The hypercameras record was blank. Louis snickered.

Tunesmith reproved him. "Louis, theres nothing to see. Were outside the envelope of dark matter that collects around our star. Where there almost isnt any dark matter, there almost isnt space either! This is why we can travel faster than light does in vacuum, because distance in this domain is drastically contracted.