Ringworld's Children

"I was about to say, Time to quit," Roxa

"Stet," Louis muttered. "No point in being right there when something cremates the poor bastard."

The scars of blasting led Wembleth around the curve of the corridor, then rose up a wall. He couldnt follow on foot. He waved the flycycle down and climbed up between them. He pointed past Louiss ear. "There, high up."

The blast trail had broken through, high up. Louis looked around Wembleth at Roxa

There wasnt any cover. Louis took the flycycle straight up and through and let it fall. A beam — not a laser, a jet of plasma — fired at the hole after theyd dropped below it, and followed them all the way down to cower in a maze of ramps. The wall collapsed under its fury, a dozen meters too high to harm the flycycle.

They were deep inside the faux mountain. This interior cavity was mostly empty space laced with a maze of ramps of Brobdingnagian size. Louis wondered if it had been intended as a training ground for warriors. If that, it was other things too. As Roxa

Louis was tempted to stray off the path of destruction. Roxa

He floated across a broken ramp to a blackened flight of steps. It was fatuous to suppose that a death trap wouldnt repeat, yet Roxa

"Wait," Wembleth said. "Whats that?"

It was a war zone lit up like a holoflick ad. Rubble like a stack of pancakes slumped in the glare, soggy but not quite molten. It had been one of Tunesmiths service stacks. An attack laser on a wall high above them bathed the rubble in pearl-white light. As they approached, it burned out.

The stack still glowed white hot, and black at the top. Those float plates wouldnt fly after treatment like that. The stepping disk at its tip -

Hold that thought. "End of the trail," Louis said.

Roxa

"More melted machinery." A glitter of lenses. "Laser ca

"A weapons and shield package. It sat like a cap on that, that tower. It must have shot up everything that attacked it—"

"All but one, Roxa

"That last weapon just burned out ten seconds ago! Everything thats tried to hurt us is damaged. Luis, Wembleth, we have here a perfect chance to go exploring!"

That seemed a little too fortuitous to be credible. "You say burned out. What if its just sputtering?"

"Your point?"

"Go home now. Stick to the path, but photograph everything. Work our way back. Study what weve got. Show it to Proserpina if we cant solve it ourselves—"

"Luis, what does any of that get us?"

"Might get us another way in," Louis said. "Roxa

"Get out and look around. Luis, if were on foot, well look like breeders. We are breeders. I dont think the defenses will fire at a breeder on foot," Roxa

"Breeders are naked. Get naked?"

"Youre already naked."

"And youre already schitz." Louis turned the flycycle and started back. That last plasma beam had burned a nice big hole in the wall. It ran to floor level. Theyd be safer leaving than theyd been coming in.

Wembleth gripped his shoulder. "Look. Plants."

Far above their heads, greenery dripped over the edges of a ramp. It did seem a fu

"We know a way out," Louis insisted. "One."

Roxa

The ramps had no railings. Louis didnt say so. Roxa

Nothing fired on them.

A green jungle spilled over both sides of the upper ramp.

Roxa

"You dont know any of that. Youre betting three lives!"

"ARM detectives do that, Luis. This is our last chance to learn anything without Proserpina learning it too. And Proserpina is not my superior officer! Take us there, Luis."

"The jungle?"

"Yah."

He started to turn, and something found them.

The sonic fold rang like a great bell, and kept ringing. Louis shouted against the sound. He turned off the lift motor, and Roxa

From the moment it came in view of the Citadel, the mag ship was observed. Proserpina worked to muffle the wavelengths reflecting from the ship. As they neared the mountain, something got through: projectiles stuttered toward the mag ship, then veered away. Light blasted up at them and also veered. Hanuman kept flying. It was all he could do while Proserpina fought the ship.

His path wasnt in doubt. He hoped Tec Gauthier had followed the chain of chewed landscape. Even if she had, she could still be dead in a hundred ways, and her companions too.

He asked. "Do they live?"

Proserpina didnt answer. Her fields delicately plucked a section of wall away. There was an i

There were strong arms around Louis, easing him down to a flat surface. Everything hurt.

He was familiar with this pain: the injuries hed been healing from, plus a whack on his jaw and a ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes. Roxa

She shouted. "You awake?" He could barely hear her. "Here, help me with this." She lifted him into position. She was trying to hook Wembleth into the medical systems. "We had crash fields," she said, "but he didnt. He might have broken his back or his neck. Look, hes got a nosebleed."

"So do you," he shouted.

She looked at him. "So do you. I guess thats the sonics. Tanj, is he dead?"

Louis, with Roxa

"Its feeding him boosterspice, isnt it?"

That ancient trademark — "Yah. Hes never had boosterspice before. I think hes old, Roxa

"Tanj. That would have been my boosterspice supply. All right, Luis, put your hands on the controls."

"We cant fly in this position. We should get into seats."

"I know." She set his hands on the flight stick and the keypad. She turned on the lift. Then she pushed him hard in the chest. He flew backward into space.

He fell two meters onto rock. A sea of pain washed over him. He couldnt breathe. He saw the flycycle lift, and pause.