The Ringworld Engineers

A daylit, blue-and-white horizontal stripe was bright enough to make him squint. Louis covered it with the edge of his hand … and now, with the goggles to help, he could make out two small candle flames on the rims of the Arch, and two above them, tinier yet.

Valavirgillin said, “The first appeared seven falans ago, near the base of the spinward Arch. Then more to spinward, and these large flames to port and starboard, then more small ones on the antispinward Arch. Now there are twenty-one. They only show for two days each turn, when the sun is brightest.”

Louis heaved a gusty sigh of relief.

“Louis, I don’t know what it means when you do that. Are you angry or frightened or relieved?”

“I don’t know either. Let’s say relieved. We’ve got more time than I thought.”

“Time for what?”

Louis laughed. “Haven’t you had enough of my madness yet?”

She bridled. “After all, I can choose whether to believe you or not!”

Louis got mad. He didn’t hate Valavirgillin, but she was a thorny character, and she had already tried to kill him once. “Fine. If this ring-shaped structure you live on is left to itself, it will brush against the shadow squares—the objects that cover the sun when night comes—in five or six falans. That will kill everything. There won’t be anything left alive when you brush against the sun itself—”

She screamed, “And you sigh with relief?”

“Easy, take it easy. The Ringworld is not being left alone. Those flames are motors for moving it. We’re almost at the closest point to the sun, and they’re using braking thrust—they’re firing inward, sunward. Like this.” He sketched the situation for her in the dirt with a pointed stick. “See? They’re holding us back.”

“You say now that we will not die?”

“The motors may not be strong enough for that. But they’ll hold us back. We could have ten or fifteen falans.”

“I do hope you are mad, Louis. You know too much. You know that the world is a ring, and that is secret.” She shrugged as one shifts a heavy weight. “Yes, I have had enough of it. Will you tell me why you have not suggested rishathra?”

He was surprised. “I would have thought you’d had enough of rishathra to last a lifetime.”

“That is not fu

“Oh. All right. Back to the fire?”

“Of course, we need light.”

She pulled the pot a little back from the flame, to cook more slowly. “We must discuss terms. Will you agree not to harm me?” She sat down across from him on the ground.

“I agree not to harm you unless I am attacked.”

“I make you the same concession. What else do you want from me?”

She was brisk and matter-of-fact, and Louis fell into the spirit of the thing. “You will transport me as far as you can, subject to your own needs. I expect that’s as far as, ah, River’s Return. You will treat the artifacts as mine. You will not turn them or me over to any authority. You will give me advice, to the best of your knowledge and ability, that will get me into the floating city.”

“What can you offer in return?”

Here now, wasn’t this woman utterly at Louis Wu’s mercy? Well, never mind. “I will attempt to find out if I can save the Ringworld,” he said, and was somewhat astonished to realize that it was what he most desired. “If I can, I will, no matter what the cost. If I decide the Ringworld can’t be saved, I will try to save myself, and you if it’s convenient.”

She stood. “A promise, empty of meaning. You offer me your madness as if it held real value!”

“Vala, haven’t you dealt with madmen before?” Louis was amused.

“I have never dealt with even sane aliens! I am only a student!”

“Calm down. What else can I offer you? Knowledge? I’ll share my knowledge freely, such as it is. I know how the City Builders’ machines failed, and who caused it.” It seemed safe to assume that the City Builders were Halrloprillalar’s species.

“More madness?”

“You’ll have to decide that for yourself. And … I can give you my flying belt and eyepieces when I’m through with them.”

“When is that likely to be?”

“When and if my companion returns.” The lander held another flying belt and set of goggles, intended for Halrloprillalar. “Or let them be yours when I die. And I can give you half my store of cloth now. Strips of it would let you repair some of the City Builders’ old machines.”

Vala thought it over. “I wish I were more skilled. Well, then, I agree to all of your requirements.”

“I agree to yours.”

She began to take off her clothes and jewelry. Slowly, seemingly titillatingly … until Louis saw what she was doing: stripping herself of all possible weapons. He waited until she was quite naked, then imitated her, dropping the flashlight-laser and goggles and the pieces of impact armor some distance from her, adding even his chronometer.

They made love, then, but it wasn’t love. The madness of last night was gone with the vampires. She asked his preferred technique, then insisted, and he chose the missionary position. It was too much a formality. Perhaps it was meant to be. Afterward, when she went to stir the cooking pot, he was careful that she didn’t get between him and his weapons. It felt like that kind of situation.

She came back to him, and he explained that his kind could make love more than once.

He sat cross-legged with Vala in his lap, her legs closed tight around his hips. They stroked each other, aroused each other, learned each other. She liked having her back scratched. Her back was muscular, her torso wider than his own. A strip of her hair ran all the way down her spine. She had fine control of the muscles of her vagina. The fringe of beard was very soft, very fine.

And Louis Wu had a plastic disc under the hair at the crown of his head.

They lay in each other’s arms, and she waited.

“Even if you don’t have electricity, you must know about it,” Louis said. “The City Builders used it to run their machines!”

“Yes. We can make electricity from the flow of a river. Tales tell that endless electricity came from the sky before the fall of the City Builders.”

Which was accurate enough. There were solar power generators on the shadow squares, and they beamed the power to collectors on the Ringworld. Naturally the collectors used superconducting cables, and naturally they had failed.

“Well, then. If I let a very fine wire down into my brain in the right place—which I did—then a very little bit of electric power will tickle the nerves that register pleasure.”

“What is it like?”

“Like getting drunk without the hangover or the dizziness. Like rishathra, or real mating, without needing to love anyone but yourself and without needing to stop. But I stopped.”

“Why?”

“An alien had my electric source. He wanted to give me orders. But I was ashamed before that.”

“The City Builders never had wires in their skulls. We would have found them when we searched the ruined cities. Where is this custom practiced?” she asked. Then she rolled away from him and stared at him in horror.

It was the sin he regretted most often: not keeping his mouth shut. He said, “I’m sorry.”

“You said strips of that cloth would—What is that cloth?”

“It conducts electric current and magnetic fields with no loss. Superconductor, we call it.”

“Yes, that was what failed the City Builders. The … superconductor rotted. Your cloth will rot too, will it not? How long?”

“No. It’s a different kind.”

She screamed it at him. “How do you know that, Louis Wu?”

“The Hindmost told me. The Hindmost is an alien who brought us here against our will. He left us with no way home.”

“This Hindmost, he took you as slaves?”

“He tried to. Humans and kzinti, we make poor slaves.”

“Is his word good?”