The Ringworld Engineers

Part Three

Chapter 23

Final Offer

He was in a great echoing glass bottle, in near darkness. Twilight-shrouded, half-dismantled spacecraft showed through the transparent walls. The probe had been returned to clamps on the back wall of the cargo hold, eight feet off the gray-painted floor. And Louis nestled in the probe, in the gap where the deuterium filter had been, like an egg in an egg cup.

Louis swung out, hung by his hands, and dropped. He was tired to the bone. One last complication, now, and then he could rest. Safety was just the other side of an impenetrable wall. He could see the sleeping plates …

“Good.” The Hindmost’s voice spoke from somewhere near the ceiling. “Is that the reading screen? I expected nothing so bulky. Did you have to chop it in half?”

“Yah.” He had also dropped the components eight feet to the floor. Fortunately puppeteers were good with tools … “I hope you’ve got a set of stepping discs in here.”

“I anticipated emergencies. Glance toward the forward left … Louis!”

A moan of unearthly terror rose behind him. Louis spun around.

Harkabeeparolyn was nestled in the probe, where Louis had been a moment ago. Her hands strangled the stock of a projectile weapon. Her lips were ski

The Hindmost spoke in a monotone. “Louis, who is this that invades my spacecraft? Is it dangerous?”

“No, relax. It’s just a confused librarian. Harkabeeparolyn, go back.”

Her keening rose in pitch. Suddenly she wailed, “I know this place, I’ve seen it in the map room! It’s the starship haven, outside the world! Luweewu, what are you?”

Louis pointed the flashlight-laser at her. “Go back.”

“No! You’ve wrecked the stolen library property. But if—if the world is threatened, I want to help!”

“Help how, you crazy woman? Look: you go back to the Library. Find out where the immortality drug came from before the Fall of the Cities. That’s the place we’re looking for. If there’s any way to move the world without the big motors, that’s where we’ll find the controls.”

She shook her head. “I don’t … How can you know that?”

“It’s their home base. The pro—the Ringworld engineers had to have certain plants growing somewhere close … Tanj … I’m guessing. I’m only guessing. Tanj dammit!” Louis held his head. It was throbbing like a big drum. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I was kidnapped!”

Harkabeeparolyn swung herself out from the probe and dropped. Her coarse blue robe was damp with sweat. She looked a good deal like Halrloprillalar. “I can help. I can read to you.”

“We’ve got a machine for that.”

She came closer. The weapon drooped as if forgotten. “We did it to ourselves, didn’t we? My people took the world’s steering motors for our starships. Can I help set that right?”

The Hindmost said, “Louis, the woman ca

“Harkabeeparolyn, give me that.”

She did. Louis held the projectile weapon awkwardly. It looked to be of Machine People make.

The Hindmost told him, “Carry it to the forward left corner of the cargo bay. The transmitter is there.”

“I don’t see it.”

“I painted it over. Set the weapon in the corner and step back. Woman, hold your place!”

Louis obeyed. The gun disappeared. Louis almost missed a flick of motion beyond the hull as the weapon dropped onto the spaceport ledge. The Hindmost had set a stepping-disc receiver on the outside of the hull.

Louis marveled. There were elements of Renaissance Italy in the puppeteer’s paranoia.

“Good. Next—Louis! Another!”

A brown-fuzzed scalp poked out of the probe. It was the boy from the map room, stark naked and dripping wet and on the verge of toppling out as he stretched to look about him. His eyes were big with wonder. He was just the right age for confrontation with magic.

Louis bellowed, “Hindmost! Turn off those stepping discs now!”

“I have. I should have earlier. Who is this?”

“A librarian child. He’s got a six-syllable name and I can’t remember it.”

“Kawaresksenjajok,” the boy shouted, smiling. “Where are we, Luweewu? What are we doing here?”

“Finagle only knows.”

“Louis! I will not have these aliens on my ship!”

“If you’re thinking of spacing them, forget it. I won’t allow it.”

“Then they must stay in the cargo hold, and so will you. I think you pla

“You never did.”

“Repeat, please?”

“We’ll starve in here.”

There was a longish pause. Kawaresksenjajok dropped lithely from the probe. He and Harkabeeparolyn engaged in furious whispering.

“You may return to your cell,” the Hindmost said suddenly. “They may stay here. I will leave a stepping-disc link open so that you may feed them. This may work out very well.”

“How?”

“Louis, it is good that some Ringworld natives survive.”

The Ringworlders weren’t close enough to hear Louis’s translator. He said, “You’re not thinking of giving up now, are you? What’s in these tapes could take us straight to the magic transmutation device.”

“Yes, Louis. And the wealth from the Maps of several worlds may be in Chmeee’s hands right now. We may count on distance to protect us for two or three days, no more. We must go soon.”

The natives looked around at Louis’s approach. He said, “Harkabeeparolyn, help me carry the reading machine.”

Ten minutes later the spools and the reading machine and the severed screen were with the Hindmost on the flight deck. Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok awaited further orders.

“You’ll have to stay here for a bit,” Louis told them. “I don’t know just what’s going to happen. I’ll send you food and bedding. Trust me.” He could feel the guilt in his face as he turned quickly and stepped into the corner.

A moment later he was back in his cell—pressure suit, vest, and all.

Louis stripped himself and dialed for a set of informal pajamas. Already he felt better. He was tired, but Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok had to be provided for. The kitchen would not give him blankets. He dialed for four voluminous hooded ponchos and sent them through the stepping discs.

He reached back into his memory. What did Halrloprillalar like to eat? She was an omnivore, but she preferred fresh foods. He chose provisions for them. Through the wall he watched their dubious expressions as they examined it.

He dialed for walnuts and a pedigreed Burgundy for himself. Munching and sipping, he activated the sleeping field, tumbled into it, and stretched out in free fall to think.

Lyar Building would pay for his banditry. Had Harkabeeparolyn left the superconductor cloth behind in the library to help pay for the damage? He didn’t even know that.

What was Valavirgillin doing now? Frightened for her whole species, for her whole world, and with no way to do anything about it, courtesy of Louis Wu. The woman and boy in the cargo hold must be just as frightened … and if Louis Wu died in the next few hours, they would not survive him long.

It was all part of the price. His own life was on the line too.

Step one: Get the flashlight-laser aboard Needle. Done.

Step two: Could the Ringworld be moved back into position? In the next few hours he might prove that it was not possible. It would depend on the magnetic properties of scrith.

If the Ringworld could not be saved, then flee.

If the Ringworld could be saved, then—

Step three: Make a decision. Was it possible for Chmeee and Louis Wu to return alive to known space? If not, then—