Ringworld's Children

Wembleth asked, 'In company, or only two?'

Claus was startled. 'Um. Company. I wouldnt know what to say to just, just one.'

Roxanny Gauthier stepped close to Wembleth. She spoke fast and low. Wembleth nodded. He changed language. Now the translators were picking up a few words of Hinsh speech.

One of the women bent far over. Her long fingers wrapped around a cantaloupe-sized yellow fruit. She bit into it, rind and all, then broke it and offered pieces to Wembleth, then Claus, then the other Hinsh. Wembleth broke his further and offered fruit to Louis and Roxanny. Louis realized that they were labeling themselves. Claus and Wembleth would rish with the women, Louis and Roxanny would not. Hanuman was getting his own fruit: he would not rish.

Do they rish with carnivores? Not by offering melon. But this ritual would eliminate Ghouls, and maybe they want that.

The fruit was red inside. It tasted a little like berries.

The others took it as a signal when the strangers ate: they feasted. There was fruit all around them. They were herbivores, all right: they needed to eat a lot. They fed Wembleth and Claus, and moved into more intimate contact.

Roxanny turned her back and walked away.

Louis picked up a melon, broke it on his knee — tanj, why not? — and followed her. He had hoped to court Roxannys attention.

She turned and waited; looked down, grinned up at him, and said, 'I told Wembleth to tell them were courting.' She took half the melon and ate.

Then she stepped into him, on tiptoe, half a head taller than he, and slid the length of her down his body until she was kneeling.

With a hoarse shout, Louis pushed her into the grass and entered her.

It was not the way he would ever have treated a woman. Roxanny was astonished. She wasnt quite ready, either, but she wrapped her arms and legs around him and made him prisoner again. Louis Wus mind went away.

When he came to himself again, he was babbling, and he wondered if he had blurted secrets. Roxanny, still holding him prisoner in the grip of her legs, was laughing. 'Boy, you are eager!'

And the Hinsh had moved to surround them.

The women knelt to rish. When they mated with their men, both knelt. The men watched the strangers with their women and made graphic half-translated commentary. They found short men funny. Wembleth, the shortest, was funniest. They learned he was ticklish.

'Im sorry, Roxanny. I lost control of myself,' Louis said. It felt like hed mated with one of the Ringworld bloodsuckers: it was that mindless, that intense. He dared not tell her about that!

She patted his cheek. 'Refreshing. Nine years to go on my implant, and its a tanj good thing.'

'Im fertile,' Louis said.

' Course you are.' She stood up, her back to him, fists on hips. 'I didnt buy it. Rishathra? You havent told me every last bit of the truth, Luis. But… shall we join them?'

What? 'Were mated! Youd shock them!'

Roxanny picked up a melon, broke it in half, and offered it to an elf.

The elf was shocked. Then he laughed, knelt, and swept her against him. Louis flushed… and picked up a melon.

By dusklight — too dark to tell which fruits were perfectly ripe — the Hinsh broke off eating and rishing and mating to introduce themselves: an odd reversal of order. Their names were long and formidable.

Wembleth took Louis aside and said, 'The Hinsh are like others where I have traveled. If strangers plan to stay a short time, they use short names, quick to learn. This can mean, go away soon. But do you see all this fruit? The wind shook hundreds of manweights of fruit to the ground. Every stranger eating means less fruit left to rot. We are welcome.'

Louis felt welcome. But rishathra was not sex. His body knew. His body wanted Roxanny.

And Claus wanted his blood.

Night on the Ringworld was rarely too dark to see. The Hinsh didnt want sleep; they conversed. The ARMs mostly listened.

Louis asked about the horned beasts. 'The grass eaters? They dont bother us, we dont bother them,' a man said. Of the sky he said, 'The stars used to hold their course. We could use them to tell time, if we wished. Now theyre loose, wandering across the sky. Only the Vashneesht know why.' They spoke of the crops theyd left behind, and of the weather. Dull people, really.

They talked about the sudden wild winds.

'The climate will change,' Louis told his lady companion, whose name hed memorized as Szeblinda. His translator would fish out all eight syllables. 'You may have to follow the pufftop forests as they die off to antispin. Carry melons and drop the seeds where you want more. Other folk may be running away from the disaster. Youll have to deal with them when they get here.'

'Will you stay with us, to advise?'

'We have to move faster than that. Were trying to solve it all,' Louis told her.

CHAPTER 13 Gray Nurse

In the morning Louis found himself on a grassy hill. He stood to look about him.

The flycycles hadnt been moved from their place on the rivers shore. Acolyte slept between them. Hanuman and the Earth folk were nowhere visible. The Hinsh had departed. Downslope toward the river were melon trees and broken melon shells. A puddle of orange-and-chocolate fur beside the pool had to be Acolyte.

He walked on down.

He expected the Kzin to wake as he approached, but Acolyte didnt move. His sides moved. Good: the Kzin was breathing. Now, what mischief were the ARMs up to?

Louis took a flycycle aloft.

Claus and Roxanny were on the other side of the creek, behind a hill. They were working with the heavy oblong brick shed stowed in Louiss baggage compartment. It unfolded into something like a holoscreen keypad: the library from their little spacecraft.

Wembleth and Hanuman were peering past them into the hologram display. Roxanny saw Louis and waved. He waved back.

That didnt look like they were keeping secrets. Louis returned to the pool.

Acolyte was sitting up, stretching. He looked around him. 'Where is everyone?'

'Across the river. Are you all right?'

'Well fed and well slept out. I found a small deer or something. Louis, nobody told me not to gorge. We should have arranged to stand watch.'

Louis stretched. 'I wondered if theyd stunned you. Hey, I slept as well as you did. The ARMs are doing something tricky, I think, but Hanumans watching them. Shall we see?'

They took a flycycle across.

Claus awaited their descent. He said, 'Luis, Acolyte, I want to interview both of you as to what you saw at the puncture. Any objection?'

Louis thought of objections, but none that Luis could back up. 'Show us how it works,' he said.

'Just the Kzin first,' Claus said.