Larry Niven - The Ringworld Engineers

The Hindmost said, “Louis, the woman cannot return. The stepping disc in the first probe is still a transmitter. Is that a weapon in her hands?”

“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 planned this, you and Chmeee. I should never have trusted either of you.”

“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—

Step four : Mutiny.

He should have left that patch of superconductor cloth in Lyar Building itself. He should have reminded the Hindmost to disconnect the probe’s stepping discs. The fact was that Louis Wu had been making some poor decisions lately. It bothered him. His next moves were going to be savagely important.

But for the moment, he would steal a few hours’ sleep… to match his other thefts.

Voices, dimly heard. Louis stirred, and turned in free fall, and looked about him.

Beyond the aft wall, Harkabeeparolyn and Kawaresksenjajok were in animated conversation with the ceiling. To Louis it was gibberish. He didn’t have his translator. But the City Builders were pointing into a rectangular hologram floating outside the hull, blocking part of the spaceport ledge.

Through that “window” Louis could see the sunlit courtyard of a gray stone castle. Rough-hewn stone in big masses; lots of right angles. The only windows were vertical arrow slits. Some kind of ivy was crawling up one of the walls. Luxuriant pale-yellow ivy with scarlet veins.

Louis pushed himself out of the field.

The puppeteer was at his bench on the flight deck. Today his mane was a cloudy phosphorescent glow. He turned one head at Louis’s approach. “Louis, I trust you are rested?”

“Yah, and I needed it, too. Any progress?”

“I was able to repair the reading machine. Needle ’s computer doesn’t know enough of the City Builder tongue to read tapes about physics. I hope to pick up a vocabulary by talking to the natives.”

“How much longer? I’ve got some questions about the Ringworld’s general design.” Could the Ringworld floor, the whole six hundred million million square miles of it, be used to manipulate the Ringworld’s position electromagnetically? If he could know for sure!

“Ten to twenty hours, I think. We all need to rest occasionally.”

Too long, Louis thought, with the repair crew coming down their throats. Too bad. “Where’s the picture coming from? The lander?”

“Yes.”

“Can we get a message to Chmeee?”

“No.”

“Why not? He must be carrying his translator.”

“I made the mistake of turning the translator function off by way of coercion. He isn’t carrying it.”

“What happened?” Louis asked. “What’s he doing in a medieval castle?”

The Hindmost said, “It has been twenty hours since Chmeee reached the Map of Kzin. I’ve told you how he made his reconnaissance flight, how he allowed kzinti aircraft to attack him, how he landed on the great ship and waited while they continued their attacks. The attacks lasted some six hours before Chmeee himself broke off and flew elsewhere. I wish I understood what he hoped to gain, Louis.”