Ringworld's Children

Proserpina snapped, "It is not! Its only different. We did this all the way from the galactic core to the Ringworld site! Theyve arranged a standoff, but its unstable here—"

"Yah. And this balance wont hold if — if some dissident faction, say the One Race contingent, is actually ru

"I dont see how it held this long. I dont see how it could hold much longer," Tunesmith said. "But you know them all, Louis."

"It wont hold. Youre missing the effect of the Outsiders. Theyre more powerful than the other factions and everybody knows it. Just being here, theyve made it all more stable until now. Everybodys been wondering what the Outsiders will do. What the Outsiders will do is nothing, and the whole Fringe War is gradually coming to know that."

He was seeing it now, the disintegrating patterns, strength built up here, bluff here. Two bar-shaped ARM ships poised to destroy one great Kzin lens. Thirty-one ships edged up around one Outsider ship in hope of protection that would vanish like dawn frost on the Moon. Futz, the balance just wasnt there.

"Tunesmith, this whole house of cards could come down at any second. Dont wait. How fast can you get us moving?"

"Half a day, with luck."

Louis turned, shocked. "Why so long?"

"I need to run all the power in the shadow square system into the superconductor grid. If I did that too early, it would leak—"

"Cant you get magnetohydrodynamic power from the rim ramjets?"

"What a good idea. It would have required a certain amount of redesigning, say twenty to thirty days and a thousand spill mountain protectors. I need half a day, then go, and no more Fringe War."

"Start now," Louis said.

Patiently Tunesmith said, "Youve only just arrived. We dont even know, you dont even know who attacked us twenty-eight days ago. Wheres the danger coming from? Can I just kill it? The superconductor net has been rewiring itself for only two falans, crystallizing into its new configuration. Even if the change is complete, I need to test it."

Sometimes you just have to gamble, Louis thought. But Tunesmith wouldnt act fast enough without more pressure. "Show me how it happened," he said.

The sky changed: ships moved, stars didnt. The Ringworld went solid. A frame zoomed on one of the attitude jets, a gauzy glittering net molded magnetically into a hyperboloid of rotation with a line of white fire ru

"Is this all youve got?"

"Various frequencies."

Replay, hydrogen alpha light. Louis waved it off. "Its too overt for puppeteers, too restrained for Kzinti. Maybe a Kzinti dissident. There are ARM dissidents too; we could ask Roxa

"Not much help," Tunesmith agreed.

"Tell me what you know about Teela Brown."

Proserpina asked, "Who?"

"An insane puppeteer scheme," Tunesmith said. "She was a victim. General Products, the merchant arm of Piersons puppeteers in human space, set up a birthright lottery on Earth. The attempt was to breed for lucky humans. In practice what they got was a few statistical flukes, like Teela Brown. She… Louis! Did you have a child with Teela Brown?"

Louis said nothing.

"Where is your child?"

Louis said nothing. Among protectors, a poker face is easy; body language is hard.

He waited until he saw motion. Proserpina left her chair in a long jump. Tunesmith jumped in a different direction. Hanuman looked uncertain; he remained at the visible stepping disk, the far one. As soon as the protectors were committed, Louis jumped toward Tunesmiths chair.

One of these chairs had to be a stepping disk. It was a natural hiding place. Two would be redundant, though all three had been made too thick and too wide — and Tunesmith would have claimed the right one. But other stepping disks in this room had to be guarded. If Louis was right — and he was, because Hanuman instantly launched himself toward the same chair.

Hanuman got there first. The chair started to swing aside, but Louis was there. Hanuman caught Louis with a powerful kick, but Louis had the mass. He slammed Hanuman into the stepping disk and reached around the dazed hominid to pop the rim and turn the disk on. They both flicked out.

Heel of the hand, a blow to Hanumans head. Hanuman went limp. Louis pushed, sent him flying. Grinding pain in his hip: Hanumans kick had broken something.

They were underground, somewhere beneath Mars. He popped the disks rim and tapped controls, fast.

Louis flicked in, popped the rim. If Tunesmith tracked him to this sandy, barren island — or Hanuman signaled him a minute or two from now — hed find Louiss footprints, hours old. He might even find scent traces of Wembleth and Roxa

And if Teelas genes were lucky, Wembleth and Roxa

Louis Wu could never give a dispassionate, trustworthy answer to Tunesmiths questions while he could shade his answers to favor his bloodline.

One more move. Louis tapped controls, then hit #, and flicked out.

In the crew quarters aboard Hot Needle of Inquiry, Louis rapidly typed up a bleu cheese and mushroom omelet and a salad. He stripped off his pressure suit, then his clothes. He dialed up a falling jumper and put it on. He turned on the shower just long enough to wet the bag. He half-expected to hear the Puppeteers Voice, but it didnt come.

He flicked into the cargo bay. A flycycle would have been too big, but he typed up a flying belt modified for magnetic lift. He ate most of his salad and omelet while he waited, a hairy four minutes, for the flying belt to be built. Put it on, flicked back to crew quarters.

Now, where would a puppeteer hide a stepping disk? An escape hatch had to be here: the Hindmost might find himself trapped in crew quarters by a man and a Kzin. The toilet seat? Too small. The shower?

The shower ceiling. It was the right size. The code would be puppeteer music: Louis could never sing it. Maybe he could hack it, but first -

He set his hands against the shower ceiling and said, "Hindmosts Voice, put me through."

He was in the control room. He used the stepping disk there.

Neither Hanuman nor Louis were where the first flick had taken them. The second flick put Tunesmith and Proserpina on a barren island. They found Hanuman groggy, trying to sit up. Proserpina examined him. He didnt seem badly hurt.

Tunesmith asked, "How are you?"

"Injured, not badly. He held my life and released it," Hanuman said.

"That shows good self-control. Proserpina, see if you can find traces of your escaped guests. Hanuman, rest." Tunesmith went to work on the stepping-disk controls.

"I find their scent," Proserpina called. "Falans old. In rut."

"This changes all," Hanuman said. "I must warn my people."

"Your people are tree dwellers! How can they hide from what must come?"

"Stet. I know what to do."

"Do it after were gone," Tunesmith said. "Then rejoin us in Meteor Defense." He and Proserpina flicked out.

Launch Room. Little Hanging People protectors were all lying prone about the cavern below Mons Olympus. The Hindmost was working on a laser projector. "How are you doing?" Louis called.