The Ringworld Throne

Acolyte said, “Stet.”

“Four protector servants saw that none of us could harm the transport or the ramjet. Whisper and I thought they would kill the losers. But they saw two dying and one unwary, and they struck to free themselves from us entirely! I must have seemed easy meat,” Bram said. “Witless ones. If they saw me flick in, couldn’t they guess I’d flick out?”

Bram looked at the webeye windows glowing in the Hindmost’s cabin. Four protectors in High Point pressure suits gathered around the stepping disk. Their helmet lights blinked heliograph patterns. One looked up into the window. Then all four eased around out of view.

The window went to moiré patterns.

“That won’t save them,” Bram said, and turned. “Hindmost, why was a link made between Weaver Town and the Meteor Defense room?”

The puppeteer said, “Ask Louis Wu.”

“Louis?”

One does not reproach a Pierson’s puppeteer for cowardice. Louis barely glanced at the Hindmost. “It’s the morals clause, Bram. I’ve judged you unfit to rule the Ringworld.”

Bram’s hand was a vise on Louis’s left shoulder, lifting. Louis could see the Kzin bristling, trying to decide whether to interfere. The protector said, “By what unjustifiable arrogance could a breeder—It’s Teela, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“She forced you to kill her. She forced you to kill hundreds of millions of Spill Mountain Folk in order to push the Arch back into place. Of course she had to die to save the hostages she had given me. Of course the Arch would have impacted the sun without plasma to feed the rim ramjets. But why did she impose these tasks on you?”

“All right. Why?”

Bram had set Louis on his feet, but his grip hadn’t relaxed. “I’ve read your record from the ship’s computer. You open problems, then abandon them—”

Louis believed he was prepared to die, but this was turning weird. “What problems, Bram?”

“You found a dangerous alien species in interstellar space. You opened negotiations, you showed their way to your world, then left professional ambassadors to try to deal with them. Teela Brown you carried to the Ringworld, then left to another’s care—”

“Tanj dammit, Bram, she made her own choice!”

“Halrloprillalar you brought to Earth, then allowed the ARM to take her. She died.”

Louis was silent.

“Despite Teela, still you have ignored your responsibility for forty-three falans. Only the fear of death brought you back here. But you understood her message, didn’t you, Louis?”

“That is completely–”

“You must judge the Ringworld’s safety. She trusted your wisdom, Louis, and not her own. She was half right, half bright.”

The Hindmost spoke from safety behind the kitchen wall. “Teela wasn’t wise. Protectors are not wise. Their motives don’t come from the forebrain, Louis. She may have been just wise enough.”

“Hindmost, that’s ridiculous,” Louis said. “Bram, I’m naturally arrogant. You’re being too clever. Bright people do a lot of that.”

“What shall I do about the protectors who killed my mate?”

“We’ll ask the High Point People if we can please talk to a protector. We’ll tell them they’re in charge of the rim. Bram, spill mountain protectors have every interest in protecting the Ringworld from any danger. Anything that happens hurts the rim wall first, and who should know that better than they do?”

Bram blinked. He said, “Yes. Next. I have ruled in the Repair Center for more than seven thousand falans. How do you judge me—”

“I know what you did. The dates, Bram, the dates. You didn’t even try to hide them!”

“You talk to too many kinds. You’ve traveled too far. How could I lie? You might have learned.”

“I am,” Acolyte said, “bewildered.”

Louis had nearly forgotten the Kzin. He said, “He and Whisper searched for the mysterious master protector for—how long, Bram? Hundreds of falans? But it wasn’t enough, even using the telescope display in the Repair Center. The Ringworld is too big. But if you know where a protector will be, you can be there first. A disaster lures protectors. Like Bram. You’ll have to do something about that ARM carrier ship, won’t you, Bram?”

“Yes.”

“Whisper and Bram found a large mass falling toward the Ringworld. That was all they needed. Cronus would have to do something about that. He’d come to the Repair Center. Whisper and Bram would be ready. Stet, Bram?”

Silence.

“Maybe Cronus knew how to stop the impact. Bram and Whisper would have waited, right? See if he could do it. But Bram knew something was wrong—”

“Louis, we think it was his habit. His first move was to set up defenses. We—We couldn’t. Couldn’t.”

Bram’s fingers were sinking into Louis’s shoulder, drawing blood.

Louis said, “You killed him before he could finish.”

“We moved almost too late! He and we stalked each other. He and we had mapped these vast spaces and set traps.” Bram was speaking to Acolyte now, telling of a duel to one who loved such tales. “A

Louis said, “And then?”

“He didn’t know, either. Louis, we searched his tools, he brought nothing.”

“Whatever he had, he never got to use it. You and Whisper, you had no ideas at all.”

Bram said, “Acolyte—”

“You let Fist-of-God hit the Ringworld!”

“Acolyte! An enemy waits for me in the Meteor Defense room. Here is your wtsai. Go and kill my enemy.”

“Yes,” Acolyte said.

Bram whistle-trilled into his eccentric flute. The Kzin stepped forward and flicked out. Louis tried to follow, but Bram’s fingers were sunk deep in his shoulder.

Louis said, “You bloodsucking freemother.”

“You know where I must be, but I decide the rest. Come.” Bram and Louis were on the stepping disk and gone.

Chapter 31

The Ringworld Throne

They flicked into the gloom of the Meteor Defense, and Louis was flying, hurled away.

He tried to land rolling. He glimpsed Bram flicking out in a burst of mad flute-oboe music. Something monstrous and shadowy was leaping at Louis, and something much faster scuttled toward them both.

Louis landed on his right shoulder, where a vampire protector had sunk dirty claws deep into the sinew and muscle. Louis cried out and kept rolling, and the first attacker landed almost on top of him. The second fended off a reflexive kick from an orange-furred leg and was at the stepping disk. He played a snatch of flute-oboe music and was gone.

The first attacker swept him up and rolled them another ten feet into shadow. “Louis?”

Louis’s shoulder was screaming. He pulled in great lungfuls of air. His nose was full of the smell of Kzin. “Acolyte,” he said.

“I intend to kill Bram,” the Kzin said.

“He may be dead already.” Smell of Kzin and something else. What? “Did that other one try to kill you? You were supposed to die to distract him. So was I, I think.”

“I didn’t scent him until he leapt. He must have judged me harmless.”

“Are you offended?”

“Louis, where is Bram?”

“Anywhere. Bram controls the stepping disks. There must be twenty or so scattered through the Repair Center.”

“Yes, he whistles them up, but that other got through before Bram could change the flick, don’t you think?”

“What I’m thinking,” Louis said, “is that Bram went through and then changed the flick to Mons Olympus, or the rim, or Hell. Then the other one copied Bram’s command and changed it back.”

“Then we’re missing a fine battle.”

What was he smelling? Flowers, something flowery, pulled at Louis’s attention and made it hard to think. The Kzin’s smell was far stronger … and his fur had hard lumps. Wait, now, that was a throwing knife, and that was a long metal pole with chisel-sharpened ends.

Louis said, “You probably can’t kill Bram. For that matter, wasn’t he teaching you?”