Ringworld's Children

"Youre Louis Wu," Roxa

Groaning, Louis rolled to his knees, then managed to stand. He stretched up, but the flycycle was floating out of reach. The controls shouldnt have served other hands than his. Maybe Proserpina had hacked the security system so she could use it herself.

Louis asked again. "What is this?"

"I made Proserpina tell me, but I guessed first, Louis. Theres just too much wrong with the way you act. You played me for a fool—"

"No, Roxa

She pointed at a mass that was still red hot. "What is that?"

"A service stack. Float plates from… elsewhere on the Ring."

"What about the weapons? Those."

"Dont know." He could guess. Tunesmith must have lost a service stack exploring the Citadel. Hed armed the next one and invaded again, and got this far.

"And that silver cap?"

He couldnt answer.

"Thats a puppeteer stepping disk, isnt it? And its pumping light and bullets and whatever else falls on it into some other space. That means its still working, and thats why its still working—"

"Dangerous! Roxa

"All the things you lied about! I am not a child." Roxa

"How could you—"

"There was a teacher."

"Roxa

"Well, we seem to be a target here. I think Ill just try it." The flycycle lifted, slid sideways.

The pile of ruined lift plates glowed dull red. The plate at the top was dull silver. Roxa

She was upside down and falling. Roxa

Then the flycycle righted itself and began to rise again — but her scream remained. The flycycle had emerged on Mars with the sonic fold off. In a vacuum you scream, or else your lungs rupture.

Mars. Ridiculous. Insane. But she knew this place, shed trained on Mars. Her spi

The blood that still streamed from her nose was foaming. Wembleths mouth was open in a long scream; he clutched the flycycle controls as if throttling them.

The flycycle eased up above a single silver plate like the one theyd come through: an inverted stepping disk.

Wembleth reached out, pulling at the umbilicals that attached him to the flycycles doc. He swung a fist at the edge of the stepping disk. The rim popped up on a hardware keyboard. His fist pounded the buttons. He twisted flycycle controls, and the vehicle dropped, twisted, and rose to touch the stepping disks undersurface.

There was air and baby blue sky.

Roxa

She could see everything there was of it. They were on a tiny island in the midst of a flat, calm sea. Nothing but scrub was growing here. It seemed a safe place to leave a stepping disk and its stack of lift plates.

Roxa

Louis tottered toward the service stack. Hed do better with a walking stick or a crutch. He stopped where the heat was too much. He had to follow her… but he couldnt get close. He sat down to think.

Jump to the stepping disk from a higher ramp? Yah, stet.

The service stack wouldnt be red hot forever… but it would take a long time to cool down. A day, two? Hed have to feed himself while he waited.

In a minute hed start climbing toward the hanging garden.

Sputtering light woke him. Hed dozed, or fainted. He watched without surprise as Proserpinas ship descended. Lasers stuttered from a dozen directions. The sunfish ship flickered. Then all the lasers died in fiery puffballs, and the big sunfish ship hovered above him.

Hanuman, in full pressure gear, emerged from the opening hatch.

"They went through there," Louis called. "I have to catch them, but its too hot. Wait!"

Hanuman jumped. He landed on the stepping disk and was gone.

What had turned it on, anyway? Plasma heat? A random bullet? Must have been something like that. Why would Tunesmith send a service stack in here with the stepping disk ru

She dropped onto the stepping disk and was gone.

The sunfish ship turned, questing blindly. It lifted toward the hole in the wall, outside and gone.

Louis wondered how much trouble he was in.

Everyone had left him. He hadnt felt this alone since… he couldnt remember. Roxa

Hed thought of her as his woman, decreed by fate, the only Homo sapiens woman in a vastness of three million worlds.

Shed taken the flycycle. Proserpina had programmed the sunfish ship to take itself home. Louis was on foot. That was good news and bad. It was a futz of a long way to a food source, but it was all downhill. Hunger wouldnt kill him. The Penultimates defenses wouldnt kill him, if he believed Roxa

But he had to find water sooner than that.

Thered be water to feed that vast green veldt. Even so, there was water closer: not far above his head. His eye could follow ramps around and up and over to the hanging gardens.

Louis began to walk. Nothing shot at him. Maybe Proserpina had shut down the rest of the Penultimates defenses.

He rested more and more frequently. Presently he was crawling. A walking stick sounded really good. Maybe hed find a sapling in the hanging garden. Then, walk home to Proserpinas base. Climb into the ARM doc and finish healing. Figure out what to do next.

He knew that smell.

Hed found the Penultimates tree-of-life supply!

It was a futzy good thing, he thought dizzily, that he hadnt landed the flycycle in the garden. Roxa

Water welled up, pooled on the ramp, and ran into the plants. Louis waded into it on hands and knees. It rose to his belly. He only stopped once, when he realized he was kneeling on bright cloth: on a womans skirt with a hologram ru

No telling how long it had been here at the bottom of the pool. Good cloth didnt rot. Teela had owned a skirt like this, bought at a shop in Phoenix. And Louis was crawling again.

He crawled into the garden, dripping, pulling the skirt behind him. There were trees: he could pull himself to his feet. There was more than tree-of-life here. He saw fruit, snap beans, fist-sized ears of corn… He knelt and began to dig.