Larry Niven: Ringworld

"I must have a direct answer. Soon my agents may locate another candidate."

"Yes," said Teela Brown. "Yes, I do refuse."

"Remember, then, that by human law you must keep secret the things you have been told here. You have been paid a consultant's fee."

"Who would I tell?" Teela laughed dramatically. "Who would believe me? Louis, are you really going on this ridiculous -"

"Yes." Louis was already thinking of other things, like a tactful way to get her out of the office. "But not right this minute. There's still a party going on. Look, do something for me, will you? Switch the musicmaster from tape four to tape five. Then tell anyone who asks that I'll be out in a minute."

When the door had closed behind her, Louis said, "Do me a favor. Do yourselves one, too. Let me be the judge of whether a human being is qualified for a jaunt into the unknown."

"You know what qualifications are paramount," said Nessus. "We do not yet have two candidates to choose from."

"You've got tens of thousands."

"Not really. Many disqualify themselves; others cannot be found. However, you may tell me where that human being fails to fit your own qualifications."

"She's too young."

"No candidate can qualify without being of Teela Brown's generation."

"Breeding for luck! No, never mind, I won't argue the point. I know humans crazier than that. A couple of 'em. are still here at the party. Well, you saw for yourself that she's no xenophile."

"Nor is she a xenophobe. She does not fear either of us."

"She doesn't have the spark. She isn't — isn't -"

"She has no restlessness," said Nessus. "She is happy where she is. This is indeed a liability. There is nothing she wants. Yet how could we know this without asking?"

"Okay, pick your own candidates." Louis stalked from his office.

Behind him the puppeteer fluted, "Louis! Speaker! The signal! One of my agents has found another candidate!"

"He sure has," Louis said disgustedly. Across the living room, Teela Brown was glaring at another Pierson's puppeteer.

Louis woke slowly. He remembered donning a sleep headset and setting it for an hour of current. Presumably that had been an hour ago. After the set turned itself off the discomfort of having the thing on his head would have wakened him …

It wasn't on his head.

He sat up abruptly.

"I took it off you," said Teela Brown. "You needed the sleep."

"Oh boy. What time is it?"

"A little after seventeen."

"I've been a bad host. How goes the party?"

"Down to about twenty people. Don't worry, I told them what I was doing. They all thought it was a good idea."

"Okay." Louis rolled off the bed. "Thanks. Shall we join what's left of the party?"

"I'd like to talk to you first."

He sat down again. The muzziness of sleep was slowly leaving him. He asked, "What about?"

"You're really going on this crazy trip?"

"I really am."

"I don't see why."

"I'm ten times your age," said Louis Wu. "I don't have to work for a living. I don't have the patience to be a scientist. I did some writing once, but it turned out to be hard work, which was the last thing I expected. What's left? I play a lot."

She shook her head, and firelight shivered on the walls. "It doesn't sound like playing."

Louis shrugged. "Boredom is my worst enemy. It's killed a lot of my friends. but it won't get me. When I get bored, I go risk my life somewhere."

"Shouldn't you at least know what the risk is?"

"I'm getting well paid."

"You don't need the money."

"The human race needs what the puppeteers have got. Look, Teela, you were told all about the second quantum hyperdrive ship. It's the only ship in known space that moves faster than three days to the light year. And it goes almost four hundred times that fast!"

"Who needs to fly that fast?"

Louis wasn't in the mood to deliver a lecture on the Core explosion. "Let's get back to the party."

"No, wait!"

"Okay."

Her hands were large, with long, slender fingers. They glowed in reflected light as she brushed them nervously through her burning hair. "Tanj, I'm messing this up. Louis, are you in love with anyone right now?"

That surprised him. "I don't think so."

"Do I really look like Paula Cherenkov?"

In the semidarkness of the bedroom she looked like the burning giraffe in the Dali painting. Her hair glowed by its own light, a stream of orange and yellow flame darkening to smoke. In that light the rest of Teela was shadow touched by the flickering light of her hair. But Louis's memory filled in the details: the long, perfect legs, the conical breasts, the delicate beauty of her small face. He had first seen her four days ago, on the arm of Tedron Doheny, a spindly crashlander who had journeyed to Earth for the party.

"I thought you were Paula herself," he said now. "She lives on We Made It, which is where I met Ted Doheny. When I saw you together I thought Ted and Paula had come on the same ship.

"Close up, there were differences. You've got better legs, but Paula's walk was more graceful. Paula's face was — colder, I think. Maybe that's just memory."

From outside the door came bursts of computer music, wild and pure, strangely incomplete without the light patterns to make it whole. Teela shifted restlessly, stirring the firelight shadows on the wall.

"What have you got in mind? Remember," said Louis, "the puppeteers have thousands of candidates to choose from. They could find our fourth crewman any day, any minute. Then, off we go."

"That's all right," said Teela.

"You'll stay with me until then?"

Teela nodded her fiery head.

The puppeteer dropped in two days later.

Louis and Teela were out on the lawn, soaking up sunshine and playing a deadly serious game of fairy chess. Louis had spotted her a knight. Now he was regretting it. Teela alternated intellection with intuition; he could never tell which way she would jump. And she played for blood.

She was chewing gently at her underlip, considering her next move, when the servo slid up and bonged at them. Louis glanced up at the monitor screen, saw two one-eyed pythons looking out of the servo's chest. "Send him out here," he said comfortably.

Teela stood in one sudden, graceless motion. "You two may have secrets."

"Maybe. What have you got in mind?"

"Some reading to catch up on." She leveled a forefinger at him. "Don't touch that board!"

At the door she met the puppeteer coming out. She waved casually as they passed, and Nessus leapt six feet to the side. "I beg your pardon," he fluted. "You startled me."

Teela lifted an eyebrow and went inside.

The puppeteer stopped next to Louis and folded his legs under him. One head fixed on Louis; the other moved nervously, circling, covering all angles of vision. "Could the woman spy on us?"

Louis showed his surprise. "Sure. You know there's no defense against a spy beam, not in the open. So?"

"Anyone or anything could be watching us. Louis, let us go to your office."

"There ain't no justice." Louis was perfectly comfortable where he was. "Will you stop bobbing your head around, please? You act scared to death."

"I am frightened, though I know my death would matter little. How many meterorites fall to Earth in a year?"

"I wouldn't know."

"We are perilously close to the asteroid belt here. Yet it does not matter, for we have been unable to contact a fourth crew member."

"Too bad," said Louis. The puppeteer's behavior puzzled him. If Nessus had been human — But he wasn't. "You haven't given up, I trust."

"No, but our failures have been galling. For these past four days we have been seeking a Norman Haywood KJMMCWTAD, a perfect choice for our crew."