The Ringworld Engineers

“Keep a watch on the attitude jets. See what’s functional and get their thrust.”

“I will.”

“Try to contact the floating city. Tell—”

“Louis, I can send no message through the rim wall.”

Of course not, it was pure scrith. “Move the ship.”

“It would not be safe.”

“What about the probe?”

“The orbiting probe is too distant to send on random frequencies.” With vast reluctance the Hindmost added, “I can send messages via the remaining probe. I should send it over the rim wall in any case, to refuel.”

“Yah. First set it on the rim wall for a relay station. Try to reach the floating city.”

“Louis, I had trouble homing on your translator. I trace the lander nearly twenty-five degrees to antispinward of your position. Why?”

“Chmeee and I split our efforts. I’m headed for the floating city. He’s headed for the Great Ocean.” It should be safe to say that much.

“Chmeee doesn’t answer my broadcasts.”

“Kzinti make poor slaves. Hindmost, I’m tired. Call me in twelve hours.”

Louis took up his bowl and ate. Valavirgillin had used nothing in the way of spices. The boiled meat and roots didn’t excite his taste buds. He didn’t care. He licked the bowl clean and retained just enough sense to take an allergy pill. They crawled into the vehicle to sleep.

Chapter 17

The MovingSun

The padded bench was a poor substitute for sleeping plates, and it was jolting under him. Louis was stiff tired. He slept and was shaken awake, slept and was shaken awake …

But this time it was Valavirgillin shaking his shoulders. Her voice was silkily sarcastic. “Your servant dares to break your well-earned rest, Louis.”

“Uh. Okay. Why?”

“We have come a good distance, but here there are bandits of the Ru

“Do Machine People eat after waking?”

She was disconcerted. “There is nothing to eat. I am sorry. We eat one meal, then sleep.”

Louis do

“Longer legs than mine, big chests, long fingers. They may carry guns stolen from us.”

The vehicle lurched into motion.

They were driving through mountainous country, through dry scrub vegetation, chaparral. The Arch was visible by daylight, if you remembered to look; otherwise it faded into the blue of the sky. In the haze of distance Louis could make out a city floating on air in fairy-tale fashion.

It all looked so real, he thought. Two or three years from now it might as well have been some madman’s daydream.

He fished the translator out of his vest. “Calling the Hindmost. Calling the Hindmost …”

“Here, Louis. Your voice holds an odd tremor.”

“Bumpy ride. Any news for me?”

“Chmeee still does not answer calls, nor do the citizens of the floating city. I have landed the second probe in a small sea, without incident. I doubt that anyone will discover it on a sea bottom. In a few days Hot Needle of Inquiry will have full tanks.”

Louis declined to tell the Hindmost about the Sea People. The safer the puppeteer felt, the less likely he was to abandon his project, the Ringworld, and his passengers. “I meant to ask. You’ve got stepping discs on the probes. If you sent a probe for me, I could just step through to Needle. Right?”

“No, Louis. Those stepping discs co

“If you took off the filter, would they pass a man?”

“You would still end in the fuel tank. Why do you ask? At best you might save Chmeee a week of travel.”

“That could be worth doing. Something might come up.” Now, why was Louis Wu hiding the rogue kzin’s defection? Louis had to admit that he found the incident embarrassing. He really didn’t want to talk about it … and it might make a puppeteer nervous. “See if you can work out an emergency procedure, just in case we need it.”

“I will. Louis, I locate the lander a day short of reaching the Great Ocean. What does Chmeee expect to find there?”

“Signs and wonders. Things new and different. Tanj, he wouldn’t have to go if we knew what was there.”

“But of course,” the puppeteer said skeptically. He clicked off, and Louis pocketed the translator. He was gri

Sex urge or self-defense or vengeance—any one of these would have driven Chmeee to the map of Kzin. For Chmeee safety and vengeance went together. Unless Chmeee could dominate the Hindmost, how could he return to known space?

But even with an army of kzinti, what could Chmeee expect to do against the Hindmost? Did he think they’d have spacecraft? Louis thought he was in for a disappointment.

But there would certainly be female kzinti.

There was something Chmeee could do about the Hindmost. But Chmeee probably wouldn’t think of it, and Louis couldn’t tell him now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, yet. It was too drastic.

Louis frowned. The puppeteer’s skeptical tone was worrying. How much had he guessed? The alien was a superb linguist; but because he was an alien, such nuances would never creep into his voice. They had to be put there.

Time would tell. Meanwhile, the dwarf forest had grown thick enough to hide crouching men. Louis kept his eyes moving, searching clumps and folds of hillside ahead. His impact armor would stop a sniper’s bullet, but what if a bandit shot at the driver? Louis could be trapped in mangled metal and burning fuel.

He kept his full attention on the landscape.

And presently he saw that it was beautiful. Straight trunks five feet tall sprouted enormous blossoms at their tips. Louis watched a tremendous bird settle into a blossom, a bird similar to a great eagle except for the long, slender spear of a beak. Elbow root, a larger breed than he’d seen on his first visit, some ninety million miles from here, flourished in a tangle of randomly placed fences. Here grew the sausage plant they’d eaten last night. There, a sudden cloud of butterflies, at this distance looking much like Earth’s butterflies.

It all looked so real. Pak protectors wouldn’t build anything flimsy, would they? But the Pak had had vast faith in their works, and in their ability to repair anything, or even to create new widgets from scratch.

And all of his speculation was based on the word of a man seven hundred years dead: Jack Bre

But there had to be a way to save all this.

Chaparral gave way to sausage-plant plantations to spinward, rolling hills to antispinward. Presently Louis saw his first refueling station ahead. It was a major operation, a chemical factory with the begi

Vala called him down from his perch. She said, “Close the smoke hole. Stay in the van and do not be seen.”

“Am I illegal?”

“You are uncustomary. There are exceptions, but I would need to explain why you are my passenger. I have no good explanation.”

They pulled up along the windowless wall of the factory. Through the window Louis watched Vala dickering with long-legged, big-chested people. The women were impressive, with large mammaries on large chests, but Louis wouldn’t have called them beautiful. Each woman had long, dark hair covering her forehead and cheeks, enclosing a tiny T-shaped face.