Ringworld's Children

He was moving away from the sun and straight into the thickest gathering of Fringe War ships. Not that that mattered. Those ships were all in Einstein space, this close to a large mass. Louis was flying blind, of course, through hyperspace. What he hoped was that this faster ship would outrun the eaters.

The puppeteer was wound into a tight knot. He wouldnt be of much help.

How fast would Long Shot move near this great a mass? Hed wondered if it would even exceed lightspeed. Tunesmith might have worked out the QII systems behavior, but Louis didnt have enough clues. Hed learn soon enough. When the crystal sphere that was the mass detector began working, hed be outside the "singularity."

Eleven hours later, Louis knew that even protectors could grow tired. He could ignore that, and hunger and thirst, and pain in guts and joints, headache and sinus ache, that properly belong only to an aging savage. It didnt matter. Hed got clear of the Ringworld. Of thirty trillion Ringworld hominids, a fat percentage would survive. Wembleth and Roxa

Wi

The window was the floor, and it would darken, light-amplify, record and display recordings, or zoom. Louis watched flow patterns of colored light, and a dark comma zipping past.

He saw the view change. The window wasnt there: his eyes slid around it.

Louis looked at the mass detector. There should have been lines of light crawling toward him. Nothing showed. It was just doped crystal.

Louis hit the cutoff.

He saw showers of stars. The universe was wide and beautiful below his feet. He was in Einstein space.

It would have pleased him to sell Long Shot to some band of freebooters in human space. Or form his own! Now that looked unlikely. Louis set the window to zoom, then darkened it a little against the zodiacal glare. The Ringworld eclipsed the sun except for a tiny sliver of light.

Six light-hours from Ringworld system — he measured it — the sun wouldnt light up Long Shot very much, but putting the ship in the Ringworlds shadow would leave it black as space. He hadnt used fusion motors at all: nobody would find him via neutrino flux. The rest of the electromagnetic spectrum might reveal him to the Fringe War if they happened to look. Louis thought theyd be too busy for that. Theyd hunt for Proserpinas sunfish ship until something more interesting happened… real soon now.

The rec room above was as tiny as the cabin below, but there was a game-room wall, food dispenser, and a shower bag. He noticed also the hatch in the ceiling. That was new. It led into a maze of man-wide access tubes he could see through the wall. They were hard to follow, a neat puzzle, but one led to the storage room where he had stowed the lifeboat and autodoc. Good.

He took time for a shower. Hey, if he missed the event, Long Shot would catch the light wave further out.

Nothing had changed when hed dried himself. He sank his fingers in the Hindmosts mane and dodged a hind leg kick — almost. "Wake," he said.

"Did I hurt you?"

"Doesnt matter."

"Why are we at rest?"

"I want to watch something. Also, I cant use the mass detector."

"Eee!" the Hindmost whistled.

"Its a psionics device. Youll have to fly the ship yourself. But were loose, everyone I love is safe, the Fringe War wont be looking for us, and the way lies clear to Canyon."

"To Canyon?"

"Well, or the Fleet of Worlds, if you like. I just assumed youd brought your mate and children with you when you left the Fleet."

"Of course."

"If we can work out details, theres something I need."

"Youre bluffing, Louis, as you did once before. Youre dying, arent you?"

"Yah. I was too twisted up when tree-of-life started to change me. Im dying, stet, but not bluffing. Everythings worked out fine. But Id be pleased if we could get Carlos Wus autodoc ru

"That would take… mmm."

"Considerable trouble. Hard physical labor. What can I offer you?"

"Long Shot moves too fast. Collision with some star is nearly certain. I dont have the nerve to fly us to Home."

"Not Canyon?"

"Home," said the puppeteer. "I didnt think I could hide us on Canyon. Too small. Home is very like Earth, Louis, and has a wonderful history."

"Home it is," Louis said agreeably. "Hey." The magnified sun glared, etching the control room with sharp-edged shadows.

The puppeteer turned one head, then both. The pupils irised nearly shut. His voice was a monotone: the Hindmost was upset. "Where is the Ringworld?"

"Yah."

"Yah?"

"Yah. Tunesmith used nanotechnology to change the entire superconductor grid to the configuration he found in Long Shot. Hes off like a bu

"How far?"

"What?" But this was the only ship that could catch it. A little more than two thirty-hour days at Quantum II hyperdrive… a light year in 5/4 minutes… "Three thousand light years before Tunesmith runs out of power. Thats way out of human space. Telescopes wont see anything for a hundred generations. You might catch that much mass shifting around with a gravity-wave detector. What were you going to do, chase it down?"

"The wealth," mourned the Hindmost. "All gone. I lost my place as Hindmost chasing the Ringworlds wealth of knowledge. And those you spoke of, those you love, Louis, what of them?"

"Ill never find them. Hindmost, thats the point. Now lets fix that autodoc before something intimate tears loose inside me."

"I think we can ignore the tidal effect," Tunesmith said. "Dont you?"

Proserpinas fingers danced. The wall display — which showed nothing, a kind of curdled gray everywhere — went black. White hieroglyphs danced across it in a Pak mathematical system millions of falans old. "The suns gravity pulled up and a bit inward along a very narrow angle, when the Ringworld had a sun. With the sun gone," she said, "all the seas will tend to flow toward the rim walls. Were in flight for two days? Stet, thats negligible. What Im worried about," hieroglyphs danced again, "is the approach."

The sky had gone crazy. Roxa

"I swear I have no idea. Some supersecret weapon. Futz, I hope it isnt Kzinti. I dont see any ships at all, unless — what was that?" A little black comma fell wiggling across the sky, starboard to port. It left a pockmark near the top of the rim wall, visible through mag specs.

"I dont know," Wembleth said.

"A ship bigger than Long Shot? No species I know makes one."

"Its changing again, Roxa

For an instant the colors faded, and then the whole sky was gone, and they were both blind.

It was hard to remember that there had once been sight. "Its the Blind Spot," she said. Roxa

"Lets get into the tent," she said.

They lived in the pressure tent for two days. When they had a sky again, it was stars glaring on black. "This is going to drive a lot of your people crazy," Roxa

"I never saw stars so bright," Wembleth said. "Its a whole new age, Roxa