Ringworld's Children

Luis wouldnt know that, so Louis said, "I heard him giving orders."

They were crawling down the sky toward one of the spill mountains. Louis could hear a thin whining and feel a tremor in the rescue bubble. The sunfish ship had no kind of streamlining. They sank past an icy peak. Green showed much lower down. The sunfish ship moved close and slid sideways along a staircase of ledges, and now Louis could see trees and tiered fields and glimpse snow heaped in regular cones. Miles below was a breathtaking view of an endlessly rolling land, intricately detailed in tiny seas, rivers, ridges of hills.

There was a thump. Louis drifted against the bubble wall. Then the gravity generator went off and he slumped against the curve of wall in full gravity. Pain lashed up his leg and hip.

He didnt quite pass out. Roxa

The joker protector opened the rescue balloon. Warm air puffed out; thin cold air blew in. The joker stepped in, sniffed, looked at each of the occupants in turn. Roxa

The joker touched Louiss leg and its brace, using great care.

Wembleth bolted for the opening. The joker swiped at him and missed… or else changed his mind. Wembleth bolted along the ledge, past conical houses, and was out of sight.

Wembleth was suffocating again. There wasnt enough air. The folk around him didnt seem to be having trouble. A few children watched him curiously.

Hed snatched up the translator device Roxa

The houses were tall heaps of snow with a single small hole for a door. Hed be found quick in one of those, and only one way out. He considered hiding in a snowdrift, but only for an instant. Hed freeze. He wasnt wearing enough clothing. And he was leaving footprints!

A ridge of naked rock gave him the chance to backtrack. He followed it to where he could jump across snow onto the angled trunk of a huge elbow tree. His knees betrayed him as he jumped; he landed on the slope, slid, caught himself, and clawed his way up sixty feet of naked trunk. The top was a dense green tuft. Wembleth burrowed into it.

He could see out, a little.

Four spill mountain protectors, naked in the cold and their own thick white fur, wedged Gray Nurses doc through the opening into the rescue bubble.

Louis moaned when they moved him. The protectors were fiercely strong and surprisingly gentle, but it hurt. They lowered him into the Intensive Care Cavity and one reached around behind him. All sensation went away below the small of his back.

Though the military doc was severed from Gray Nurse, somehow theyd got it ru

The joker turned when Roxa

The joker answered in unknown speech.

Roxa

Through the greenery Wembleth watched the protector leave the rescue bubble. Roxa

She let him dangle from one hand as she climbed down. He was frozen with fear and cold.

A dozen Children crowded the rescue bubble, and more swarmed outside. Hanuman was clowning for them. They shied back when Louis stirred and woke.

He smiled at a wall of white fur and two dozen eyes. "Hello," he said. A few voices answered. His translator did not.

Most of the pain above his waist — left arm, ribs — had eased off. He wondered how long he was going to be like this. If Roxa

But Roxa

They couldnt get through the crowd to reach the rescue bubble. They didnt try. The joker began to lecture, pointing occasionally at the humans and Wembleth. The kids inside couldnt hear, so they went out. Presently the joker sent Wembleth and Roxa

Roxa

"Translator wont work?"

"The translators fine, but it doesnt have anything to say."

Louis asked, "Are you keeping ARM secrets?"

"Sos she! Yes, she, she told me that much. She said her name was Proserpina."

Wembleths teeth chattered as he spoke. His translator said, "Were going for another ride."

Louis asked, "Are you up for that?"

The man shivered violently. "I pissed my clothing last time. Thank you for not noticing."

Louis sniffed. The air in the bubble had never ceased to smell clean and fresh. "Protectors build good machines," he said. "Well be fine." He saw the joker enter the ships cabin.

Gravity went away. "Well be fine," he repeated.

The sunfish ship floated away from the cliff, then straight up. Blue sky darkened to black.

Louis said, "Ive figured out this ship. Gravity control—"

"Magnetic," Roxa

"Stet, but I meant the cabin gravity. Powerful, but it flutters. Why wouldnt Vashneesht fix that? I think theyre too arrogant to test what they build. They do it all in one shot."

"Got it all figured out, do you, kid?"

Louis flushed. He said, "Stet, its magnetic. Youd have near infinite range and huge acceleration as long as you stay near the superconductor net. You could use it as a weapon too. Push away missiles and ships. It could even be seen as a message."

"Message?"

" I cant invade you. Im purely defensive. Like a fort."

"Mmm. Or just Keep out. "

"Were falling again!" Wembleth burst out. "Roxa

Roxa

They crossed a wonderfully fractal shoreline, all curliques of bay and beach, and were over the ocean. Ocean and sprinklings of islands. If you thought of them as islands, you didnt see that much speed, but theyd be one-to-one maps of a world.

Near the shore of the Other Ocean the clusters were a bit foreshortened. Otherwise they were all maps of the same world. One sprawling continent with a spine of mountain; four smaller bodies and an archipelago of scattered tiny islands, all to antispin of the mainland; all showed a grainy texture. If you had to tell someone where you were — say, Tunesmith, if you could get hold of any kind of communicator — how would you?

But the shadows were different. Bands and flecks and patches of shadow on only a few of the islands.

Roxa