Larry Niven - The Ringworld Engineers

Strange, how that much predator could show only as a sense of presence in the frilly yellow foliage. Watching eyes and playful murder, somewhere. Then a huge adult male and a furry, cuddly adolescent half his height were watching the intruder.

Louis had a tyro’s grasp of the Hero’s Tongue. He understood when the kzin kitten looked up at its parent and asked, “Is it good to eat?”

The adult’s eyes met Louis’s eyes. Louis let his smile widen to show the teeth.

The adult said, “No.”

In the confidence of four Man-Kzin wars plus some “incidents” — all centuries in the past, but all won by men — Louis grinned and nodded. You tell him, Daddy! It’s safer to eat white arsenic than human meat!

Ringworld, twenty years later:

The walls bathed him in heat. He started to sweat. It didn’t bother him. He’d used saunas. One hundred and sixty degrees isn’t hot for a sauna.

The Hindmost’s recorded voice snarled and spat in the Hero’s Tongue, offering sanctuary on the Fleet of Worlds. “Cut that broadcast!” Louis commanded, and it was done.

Upward-streaming flames screened the windows. The cannon-carrying vehicle had been moved away. A pair of distorted kzinti sprinted across the courtyard, placed a canister under the lander, sprinted back to a doorway.

These were not quite kzinti: not as civilized as Chmeee. If they got their paws on Louis Wu — but he should be safe enough here.

Louis squinted down through the flames. There were six of the canisters in place around the lander’s base. Bombs, no doubt. They’d be set off any second now, before the flame could explode them individually.

Louis grinned. His hands poised above the control board while he fought temptation. Then: he tapped in instructions, fast. The buttons were uncomfortably hot. He braced his legs and gripped the chair back, with his falling jumper to pad his hands.

The lander rose from the flames. A ring of fireballs billowed below, and then the castle was a dwindling toy. Louis was still grinning. He felt virtuous; he’d resisted temptation. If he’d taken off on the fusion drive instead of the repulsers, the kzinti would have been amazed at the power of their explosives.

Hail clattered on the hull and windows. Louis looked up, startled, as a dozen winged toys curved down toward him. Then the aircraft were dropping away. Louis pursed his lips; he reset the autopilot to halt his rise at five miles. Maybe he’d want to lose those planes. Maybe not.

He got up and turned for the stairs.

Louis snorted when he read the dials. He called the Hindmost. “Chmeee is fully healed and peacefully asleep in the ‘doc. The ‘doc won’t wake him up and let him out because conditions outside are not habitable.”

“Not habitable?”

“It’s too hot. The autodoc isn’t set to let the patient step out into a fire. Things ought to cool off now that we’re out of the flames!” Louis ran his hand across his forehead; water streamed to his elbow. “It Chmeee gets out, will you tell him the situation? I need a cold shower.”

He was in the shower when the floor dropped under him. Louis snatched for a towel and was wrapping it around his waist as he ran up the stairs. He heard hail rapping on the hull.

Slowly and carefully, as if he still hurt, Chmeee turned from his place at the controls. He squinted oddly. Hair had been shaved away around the eye. Mock skin covered a shaved strip running up his thigh to the groin. He said, “Hello, Louis. I see you survived.”

“Yah. What are you doing?”

“I left pregnant females in the fortress.”

“Are they about to be killed this instant? Or can we hover for a few minutes?”

“Have we something to discuss? I trust you know better than to interfere.”

“The way things stand now, your females will be dead in two years.”

“They may ride home in stasis aboard Hot Needle of Inquiry . I still hope to persuade the Hindmost—”

“Persuade me. I have taken command of Needle .”

Chmeee’s hands moved. The floor surged savagely. Louis grabbed at a chair back and rode it out. A glance at the board told him that Needle ’s descent had stopped. The rain of projectiles had stopped too, though a dozen aircraft still circled beyond the windows. The fortress was half a mile below.

Chmeee asked, “How did you arrange that?”

“I made slag out of the hyperdrive motor.”

The kzin moved incredibly fast. Before Louis could do more than flinch, he was wrapped in orange fur. The kzin was pulling Louis against his chest with one arm while the other held four claws against Louis’s eyebrows.

“Shrewd,” said Louis. “Very shrewd. Where do your plans carry you from here?”

The kzin didn’t move. Blood trickled past Louis’s eyes. He felt that his back was breaking. Louis said, “It seems I’ve had to rescue you again.”

The kzin released him and stepped back carefully, as if afraid to move on impulse. He asked, “Have you doomed us all? Or do you have some notion of moving the entire Ringworld back into position?”

“The latter.”

“How?”

“A couple of hours ago I could have told you. Now we’ll have to find another answer.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I wanted to save the Ringworld. There was just one way to get the Hindmost’s cooperation. His life’s at stake now. How do I go about getting your cooperation?”

“You fool. I fully intend to learn how to move the Ringworld, if only to save my children. Your problem is to persuade me that I need you .”

“The Pak who built the Ringworld were my ancestors. We’re trying to think like them, aren’t we? What did they build in that would do the job? Aside from that, I’ve got two City Builder librarians with a good knowledge of Ringworld history. They wouldn’t cooperate with you. They already see you as monstrous, and you haven’t even killed me yet.”

Chmeee thought it over. “If they fear me they will obey. Their world is at stake. Their ancestors were Pak too.”

The lander’s temperature had become uncomfortably cool for a naked man, but Louis was sweating again. “I’ve already located the Repair Center.”

“Where?”

Louis considered withholding that information, briefly. “The Map of Mars.”

Chmeee sat down. “Now, that is most impressive. These displaced kzinti learned a good deal about the Map of Mars during their age of exploration, but they never learned that.”

“I’ll bet some ships disappeared around the Map of Mars.”

“The aircraft pilot told me that many ships disappeared, and nothing of value was ever taken from the Map of Mars. The explorers brought home wealth from a Map further to spinward, but they never brought as much wealth as they put into making the ships. Do you need the autodoc?”

Louis wiped blood from his face with his falling Jumper. “Not just yet. That Map to spinward sounds like Earth. So it wasn’t defended after all.”

“It seems not. But there is a Map to port, and ships that went there never returned. Could the Repair Center be there?”

“No, that’s the Map of Down. They met Grogs.” Louis swabbed at his face again. The claws hadn’t cut deep, he thought, but a facial cut bleeds a long time. “Let’s do something about your pregnant females. How many?”

“I don’t know. Six were in their mating period.”

“Well, we don’t have room for them. They’ll have to stay in the castle. Unless you think the local lord will kill them?”

“No, but he may very well kill my male children. Another danger… Well, I can deal with that.” Chmeee turned to the controls. “The most powerful civilization is built around one of the old exploration ships, the Behemoth. If they track me here, there might be war against the fortress.”