Larry Niven: Ringworld's Children

"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. Roxanny and Wembleth wriggled out of the tent, Roxanny a little clumsy, and stared into a light-show that would have won awards. Wembleth asked, "What is happening?"

"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, Roxanny."

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. Roxanny had been trained: she looked at her feet. Yes, there they were. "Futz, I cant believe it. Were in futzy hyperdrive! Look down. Lower your—" Wembleth was wandering off, still blind. Roxanny followed him and, still without looking up, felt her way up his body and tilted his head down.

"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," Roxanny said. "The Ringworld was never this dark. The headlights on the flycycle are going to be priceless."

"I never saw stars so bright," Wembleth said. "Its a whole new age, Roxanny. You said there are Ball Worlds around most stars? They could be our childrens inheritance."

One bright star was growing brighter above the portward rim wall.

The sky had returned to the Meteor Defense wall display.

Proserpina said, "Well have to find us a sun, stet? And shift the whole Ringworld sideways to get to it. The mag fields are useless without something to push against, so well be using just the attitude jets. Line up with a sun, fall toward it, use the fields to stop ourselves. The seas will shift, Tunesmith."

"I know. Ive found a yellow-white star with nearly our own velocity. There, the bright one, do you see it?"

"Yes. Zoom."

The star expanded, and darkened. "Increased X-ray output in this region," she said. "Well need to boost the ozone layer until we can build a shadow square system."

"Yes."

"Im more worried about tides."

"Yes, there will still be stress on the seas and oceans."

"I thought of letting them freeze, but we cant. We—"

"Of course not, but we can use magnetic effects on the sun itself. Look, I found a way to skew our path so the star comes straight down the axis. Well ring the sun. Well bob a few times stabilizing ourselves; that sends the seas back and forth, not just all in one direction, which would be disastrous."

White hieroglyphs danced across the starscape. "It would work," Proserpina said. "Well lose much of our population, even some species."

"I know."

"I have a request. Tell me if its feasible."

"See if you can describe it."

"Leave the sun bobbing back and forth along the Ringworld axis. Well get tides. Well get seasons, changing weather."

"What, like a Ball World?" Tunesmith laughed. "Like your world, the Pak world. What about breeders? Wont they go crazier yet?"

"Anyone who kept his mind through these last two days will get used to anything," Proserpina said.

Louis Wu woke aflame with new life. Cautious in free fall, he waited for the coffin lid to move aside. A hologram Hindmost was looking down at him.

Louis wriggled out. "Nothing hurts."

"Good."

"I was used to it. Oh, futz, Ive lost my mind!"

"Louis, didnt you know the machine would rebuild you as a breeder?"

"Yah, but… my head feels futzy. Full of cotton. I never felt so much myself as when I could think like a protector."

"We could have rebuilt the doc—"

"No. No." Fist against coffin lid. "I remember that much. I have to be a breeder, or dead. If Im a protector, I will track down Wembleth and Roxanny, and Tunesmith and Proserpina will follow me."

"But they would certainly protect your blood line."

"They would, yes. But if Wembleth is loose on the Ringworld, his luck… hey."

"You dont believe in Teela Browns luck."

"I didnt. But when I was a protector… its not good science, stet? Because its not falsifiable. But look at the pattern. He stole my woman, stet? She fell into his lap. The only woman in reach who could make Wembleth young again, and bear his children too. Hes the only survivor of a village that died of asphyxiation, and hed be dead if rescue hadnt fallen on him from interstellar space!"

"Louis! Teela wasnt lucky!"

"Stet, and Wembleth lost all his friends, and ended up a hunted refugee. What if its the genes that are lucky? Teelas genes want to reproduce. You can always argue either way.

"It could still be all moonbeams. Anything that doesnt make predictions that can be disproved isnt science. Maybe Teela was only a statistical fluke until we found her. After that, whatever happens to her, you can always explain it as luckier than something else that might have happened. Read Candide."

"Ill look it up."

"Unfalsifiable. If its wrong, you cant prove it. When I was a protector, I didnt dis believe. Maybe Teelas children are the Ringworlds luck. If their location is uncertain, they protect the whole Ringworld. Basic quantum mechanics. And its going to need that! Theyve all gone out into the universe at a minute and a quarter per light year—"

"Louis."

"What?"

"We havent moved since you went into the doc, two months ago Earthtime. Were a warm spot on the sky. Sooner or later the Fringe War will notice us. What else has that heterogeneous mob got for entertainment but to track us down and take our ship?"

"Right." Louis climbed back through the maze of access tubes, getting lost once, guided by the puppeteer behind him. He set himself in the pilots chair and jumped to hyperdrive. Radial lines indicating stars edged out of the mass detector, and Louis turned Long Shot toward Home.