Larry Niven - The Ringworld Engineers

“How would you save the Ringworld?”

The protector said, “I can’t.”

“Where are we? What went on in this part of the Repair Center?”

A long moment passed. The protector said, “I may not tell you more than you know. I don’t see how you can escape, but I must consider the possibility.”

“I quit,” said Louis Wu. “I concede. Tanj on your silly game.”

“All right, Louis. At least you will never die.”

Louis closed his eyes and curled up in free fall. Pious bitch.

“I will keep you company until you must go into stasis,” Teela said. “I can do little else for your comfort. You, what are your names and where are you from? You are of the species that conquered the Ringworld and the stars.”

Chattering. Why weren’t people born with flaps over their ears? Was there a hominid with that trait?

Kawaresksenjajok asked. “What is a magician’s position regarding rishathra?”

“That is important when you meet a new species, isn’t it, child? My position is that rishathra is for breeders. But we do love.”

The boy was enjoying himself immensely. His sense of wonder was stretched nowhere near its limits. Teela told of her great journey. Her band of explorers had been trapped by Grogs on the Map of Down, then freed by the odd inhabitants. On Kzin there were hominid animals imported long ago from the Map of Earth, bred for special traits until they differed as thoroughly as dogs do in human space. Teela’s crew had hidden among them. They had stolen a kzinti colony ship. They had killed one of the krill-eating island-beasts for food, freezing the meat in an empty liquid hydrogen tank. It had fed them for months.

Finally he heard her say, “I must eat now, but I will return soon.” And then there was quiet.

The few minutes of silence ended as blunt teeth closed gently on Louis’s wrist. “Louis, wake. We have no time to indulge you.”

Louis turned over; he killed the sleeping field. He took a moment to savor the interesting sight of a puppeteer standing next to a kzin in the prime of health. “I thought you were out of it.”

“A valuable illusion that came too near reality. I was tempted to let events take their own course,” said the puppeteer. “Teela Brown spoke the truth when she said we will not die. Most of the Ringworld will break up and fly free, beyond the cometary halo. We might even be found someday.”

“I’m starting to feel the same way. Ready to give up.”

“The protectors must have been dead for a quarter of a million years. Who told me that?”

“If you had any sense you’d quit listening to me.”

“Not quite yet, if you please. I have the impression the protector was trying to tell us something. Pak were your ancestors, and Teela is of your own culture. Advise us.”

“She wants us to do her dirty work for her,” Louis said. “It’s doublethink all the way. Futz, you studied the interviews with Brennan after he turned protector. Protectors have very strong instincts and superhuman intelligence. There’s bound to be conflict between the two.”

“I don’t grasp the nature of the dirty work.”

“She knows how to save the Ringworld. They all did. Kill 5 percent, save 95 — but they can’t do it themselves. They can’t even let someone else do it, but they have to make someone else do it. Doublethink.”

“Specifics?”

Something about those numbers ticked at Louis’s hindbrain. Why?… Tanj on it. “Teela picked that building because it looked like Halrloprillalar’s floating jail, the one we commandeered on the first expedition. She picked it to get our attention. She left it where she wanted us. I don’t know what this part of the Repair Center does, but it’s the right spot, in a billion-cubic-mile box. We’re supposed to figure out the rest.”

“What then? Is she certain we’re trapped?”

“Whatever we try, she’ll try to stop us. We’ll have to kill her. That’s what she was telling us. We only have one advantage. She’s fighting to lose.”

“I don’t follow you,” said the puppeteer.

“She wants the Ringworld to live. She wants us to kill her. She told us as much as she could. But even if we figure it all out, can we kill that many intelligent beings?”

Chmeee said, “I pity Teela.”

“Yah.”

“How can we kill her? If you are right, then she must have planned something for us.”

“I doubt it. I’d guess she’s done her best not to think of anything we can do. She’d have to block it. We’re on our own. And she’ll kill aliens by instinct. With me she might hesitate that crucial half-second.”

“Very well,” said the kzin. “The big weapons are all on the lander. We are embedded in rock. Is the stepping-disc link to the lander still open?”

The Hindmost returned to the flight deck to find out.

He reported, “The link is open. The Map of Mars is scrith, but only centimeters thick. It does not have to stand the terrible stresses of the Ringworld floor. My instruments penetrate it, and so do the stepping discs. Our only good fortune to date.”

“Good. Louis, will you join me?”

“Sure. What’s the temperature aboard the lander?”

“Some of the sensors have burned out. I can’t tell,” said the Hindmost. “If the lander can be used, well and good. Otherwise gather your equipment and return in haste. If conditions are intolerable, return instantly. We need to know what we have to work with.”

“The obvious next step,” Chmeee agreed. “What if the lander is inoperable?”

“We’d still have a way out,” said Louis, “but we’ve got to have pressure suits. Hindmost, don’t wait for us. Find out where we are, and find Teela. She’ll be in an open space, something suitable for growing crops.”

“Aye, aye. I expect we are some distance beneath Mons Olympus.”

“Don’t count on it. She could have put a heavy laser beam on us to keep Needle in stasis, then towed us to where she had molten rock ready to pour. And that place will turn out to be the murder site.”

“Louis, do you have any idea what she expects of us?”

“Barely an idea. Skip it for now.” Louis dialed himself a couple of bath towels and passed one to Chmeee. He added a set of wooden clogs. “Are we ready?”

Chmeee bounded onto the stepping disc. Louis followed.

It was like flicking into an oven. Louis had his clogs, but the only thing protecting Chmeee’s feet was the carpeting. The kzin disappeared down the stairs, snarling once when he brushed metal.

Louis was holding his breath. He hoped Chmeee was doing the same. It felt that hot: hot enough to sear the lungs. The floor was tilted four or five degrees. Looking out the window was a mistake: it froze him in disbelief. In the murky dark outside: a questing sand shark? Sea water?

He’d lost two or three seconds. He took the stairs more carefully than Chmeee had, fighting the need to breathe, snorting puffs of breath through his nose to clear the oven-hot air that worked its way in anyway. He smelled char, staleness, smoke, heat.

Chmeee was nursing burnt hands; the fur puffed up hugely around his neck. The handles on the lockers were metal. Louis wrapped the towel around his hands and began opening lockers. Chmeee used his own towel to heave out the contents. Pressure suits. Flying belts. Disintegrator. Superconductor cloth. Louis picked his pressure suit helmet out of that and turned on the air feed, wrapped his towel around his neck for padding and donned the helmet. The wind that blew around his face was merely warm. He pulled in sweet air, his chest heaving.

Chmeee’s suit didn’t have a separate helmet; he had to put it on and seal it up. The rasp of his sudden panting was fearsome in Louis’s earphones.