Ringworld's Children

There were no steps up to the cabin. Louis climbed up like a Hanging Person.

It was roomy inside. There were handgrips everywhere, and footgrips: just how prehensile were Proserpinas toes? And sensors and touchpads and toggles and levers, randomly placed. There was a horseshoe of couch, but only one control chair, and it would not fit Louis. Hed have to change it — but hed better give some thought to convincing the ship he was Proserpina.

Louis was disappointed in the Hindmost. He had steered the destiny of a species whose tools and learning beggared mankinds. Why couldnt he move a few kilotons of medical equipment? It would have saved Louis considerable trouble and two or three hours time.

Maybe the Experimentalist faction on the Fleet of Worlds was more like New Orleans traditional Fool King. Set them going, but watch them. Turn them off when they do something excessively expensive or dangerous. Sometimes theyll do something worthwhile -

He was getting distracted.

Thou shalt have no Proserpinas before me. Shed have set defenses to prevent a protector from manipulating the ship. Unless — would Proserpina really set a death trap for someone like Tunesmith, acknowledged as brighter and more dangerous than Proserpina herself? Retaliation could be terminal.

And what about protector slaves? This chair looked like it had been altered to fit a Hanging Person, then adjusted for Proserpina again. Hey, she must have let Hanuman fly it!

Futz! The ship wasnt defended. She was the defense. Who would dare steal Proserpinas ship? — and that was the point: risk for Louis Wu was do nothing. He adjusted the chair and sat down, strapped himself in, and lifted.

Trees had grown into the ships metal lacework. They tore loose. Louis lofted the ship above the atmosphere, then turned toward the rim wall.

Was the sun starting to roil? Hed burn his eyes out if he looked hard. There must be a way to dim the glass, right? And Tunesmith would have the meteor defense going. Louis zigzagged his path a bit, and studied the controls. Here?

It didnt just darken the view; it was light-amplification too. He turned it very dark, and looked up.

A solar prominence was reaching out and out.

Louis jogged the ship at high gees. The ground flared below him. He could see the beam tracking and avoid it, even guide it a little to miss a populated spill mountain, and then he was off the Ringworld and dropping, easing back and under the Ringworld floor.

He had to follow the arc halfway around, three hundred million miles. Now the nontrivial danger was alien ships. Louis zigged along the magnet grid, accelerating hard, hearing a toc, toc of multimolecule-sized cameras hitting the skin of the ship. The Fringe War would be after him soon enough.

Something flashed on the Ringworlds underside. Louis zagged almost into another flash. Maybe hed started a war himself.

Tunesmiths Meteor Reweaving System had closed Fist-of-God. Louis came up around the rim instead. He made for the Map of Mars, a little over half a million miles away. The sun was roiling again.

A spark struck upward: a launch from Mons Olympus. Louis slid the sunfish ship beneath the path of the meteor package, just for a moment. Tunesmith wouldnt have set the meteor defense to fire on those! He slowed, descended through the crater, and set the ship to hover.

He crawled halfway out of the cabin and shouted down. "Hindmost! Close it!"

The craters lid began to close.

Louis began to play with the sunfish ships controls. The docs Intensive Care Cavity rose, twirled in the air, and settled a bit jerkily into the bay in Long Shot. Then the Service Wall, trailing loose cables. Then other, smaller components. Then the lifeboat.

Then a tank Louis had identified earlier.

The puppeteer was shouting something. " — tied down?"

Louis settled the tank in with the rest of the doc. He brought the sunfish ship down and got out.

The Hindmost came trotting up. He asked, "How will you tie these components against shock of takeoff?"

"Tunesmith was using a tank of foam plastic. Lets set it going and close the ship up, then board."

The tank was spraying foam plastic as Louis closed the lid on it. Hed taken the pilots seat without comment. Hey, it was built for humans. The Hindmost asked, "Shouldnt we open the crater again?"

"Hindmost, lets try something else." He activated the hyperdrive. The cavern disappeared. The Q2 ship launched itself straight down into a boil of colors.

Map of Earth. Shortly after nightfall Acolyte begged audience with Chmeee.

One of the guards said, "Play elsewhere, child. Your father is busy." And gri

"I bear a message from Tunesmith."

"An odd name."

"Chmeee will know it. Tunesmith who lives under the Map of Mars."

The guard was bored, and he toyed with Acolyte a bit longer. Then he went into the tent. When he came out, he asked, "How did it come, this message?"

"There were flashes of light from the mountains to starboard."

Acolyte was allowed entrance. He groveled before his father, who asked, "Is this the Tunesmith who wants to give me the Map of Earth? Ive heard nothing since you delivered his message."

"He says you may take the Map yourself, after the other prides have gone mad."

It had gone quiet: Chmeees courtiers were paying attention.

Chmeee asked, "Mad?" and studied his son, whose subservience seemed laid over a whiplash eagerness. "Lecture me, then."

"Tunesmith instructs us to hide ourselves from the sky for two full days. We must be under a roof or tent, all of us, even females and kits. We should sleep if we can. We must all be under cover, or blindfolded, before shadow reveals the sun."

"So soon? How shall I manage that?"

Acolyte dared to grin. "What would Louis Wu say?"

" Thats why I get the big money. What is to happen to the sky?"

"That was not told. You have seen ships leaving tracks of light across the sky. You have heard talk of the Fringe War. I watched it in Tunesmiths Meteor Defense Room. It is told that Tunesmith will end the war."

Chmeee nodded. "Are you ready to run? It is well." His voice rose to a bellow. "All in my hearing, you are each an emissary to my far provinces! Divide the contents of my kitchen to feed yourselves. Go where I send you. Carry a blindfold ready to use. You will know when to use it. Fools will go blind or mad.

"You are each more valuable than those you will speak to, and you will be under cover before the shadow square passes. Two days hidden, or answer to me. The rest of us may conquer the Map of Earth if we so choose."

The boy Kazarp was gazing open-mouthed at the sky. Shadow had covered the sun, but the shadow squares were glittering in a way hed never seen. Presently he raised his instrument and began to play.

Over the music he heard a stealthy shift in posture, too close for any stranger, and he said, "I knew you were there."

"Dont turn around. I am become Vashneesht."

His father had disappeared falans ago, and now this: a thing out of fantasy, awesome and terrible. Kazarp didnt turn. "Father? Does mother know?"

"You must tell her. Tell her gently. Then tell her she must hide from the sky for two days, and you too, for fear of going mad. Spread the word. A burrow would be better than a roof. Afterward there is a world of mad folk to care for, and far more feasting than our folk will ever want."

"Will you stay?"

"Not now. I will visit when I can."

Long Shots cabin was at the bottom of the sphere, between four fusion-drive nostrils. In hyperdrive Long Shot flew ass-backward into the unknown. Louis launched straight down, into and through the Ringworld floor — feeling a touch of drag from the superdense scrith — and out into space.