Ringworld's Children

'No, not Chiron. Finagle knows where Chiron lives,' with a laugh he wished he could suppress. His tongue was curling out of control. 'Kzinti dont live in the village, theyre from somewhere on the Great Ocean.' If they pushed him, hed reveal another partial truth: that Chmeee lived among Kzinti who had taken over the Map of Earth, natives and all.

Tec-Major Schmidt said, 'A lot of Kzintosh call themselves Chmeee. He was some kind of legendary hero. What do you mean, Map of Earth?'

Louis realized hed been babbling, thinking out loud.

Schmidt repeated, 'Map of Earth?' with steel in his voice.

'Sir. There.' Louis pointed into the ceiling, into the Great Ocean, where the continents of Earth were arrayed around its north pole, a hundred thousand miles spinward of the Map of Mars. He knew now that he couldnt keep secrets. Maybe theyd drugged him, maybe it was just painkillers. Hed last as long as he could, and then tell them his name and watch Roxanny explode in his face.

Roxanny said, 'Futz. They keep human slaves?'

Luis: 'Homo habilis. Pak breeders.'

Schmidt: 'Unchanged? Like the skeletons in the Olduvai Gorge?'

Luis: 'I never saw one. Like to see their noses.'

'Maybe theyre a little skewed?' Schmidt said, clearly speaking for a recorder. 'From what we already know, a trillion Pak breeders had a quarter million years to evolve without protectors to cull the mutants. The Kzinti would have done some selective breeding. Anyway, these animals wouldnt have evolved into actual human beings, right, Luis?'

Louiss words came slowly. 'They could have evolved intelligence. We did. Did you want to invade?' He laughed. 'Rescue? These archaic Kzinti built the bigges sea ship in history, and that was a thousand years ago. Theyre not using jus spears and clubs.'

'We can beat seagoing ships. Now, what kind of tech has the puppeteer got? Anything weird?'

Whump.

Louis said, as Luis, 'How do I know whats weird?'

But he heard himself continue, 'Cameras like copper spiderwebs? Out of a spray gun?' his voice lost in a recorded bellow. The ceiling was flashing an unfamiliar distress symbol. Hull breach*in*aft portside consumables tank. Power*lost in*sections two*and*three. Schmidt and Roxanny drew weapons and turned away, stooping to get through a small oval doorway. Louis spoke to nobody: 'Hes got stepping disks too. What was that sound?'

Gray Nurse shook herself. Gravity went away.

Hanuman said, 'Invaders. Well either be rescued or killed. Expect surprises. No protector would leave us in alien hands.'

'Why not?' Louis heard the whine in his voice. 'Why the futz cant they jus leave us alone?'

He didnt hear Hanumans answer. It had become too noisy. A spacecraft being boarded made a fearful echo chamber.

Roxanny Gauthier ducked back through the oval door and around out of Louiss sight. A moment later Wembleth drifted loose, too drugged to act. Roxanny touched points on Hanumans cage, and it opened.

She was talking in a hysterical whisper. 'I dont know what they are. Not Kzinti. Nightmares.' She looked at Louis, immobile in his medical cage, and said, 'Sorry.'

'Whas happening?' Louis asked. She touched his lips with a forefinger. She braced herself behind Louiss medical cage. Only her projectile weapon showed, aimed at the doorway.

A voice spoke from somewhere, Tec Schmidts voice sounding much too calm. 'All hands, were fighting from the radiation refuge. I can see invaders on the hull and in four, five, six, and ten. Our motors are burned out, but were under acceleration anyway. We dont know where its coming from. Were also facing friendly fire, ARM missiles incoming, sixty and counting, no alien attackers yet. Tec-Admiral Wrayne doesnt want us captured, I guess.'

'Why didnt we see it coming?' she whispered. 'Theyve got an invisible ship! Shh.'

Schmidts voice — 'The missiles are veering away!' — died in a roar of static.

A shadow blinked past the little door. Roxanny fired, and cursed. What came through then looked like a small man filmed fast-forward. It was behind Roxanny before she could turn, and Louis couldnt see the rest.

Three bulkier man-shapes zipped through the door, moving more slowly. They sealed it behind them. They were wearing skintight pressure suits. They deployed a balloon with inflatable tubes around it: a big nonstandard rescue pod. They didnt wait for it to inflate.

Spill mountain people come in a variety of species, but they all look more or less alike: burly bodies and short thick arms and legs, large lung capacity, thick fur for insulation, hairless faces. These three had been spill mountain people. Now they werent. They wore pressure suits and big globular helmets, but their faces gave them away: mouths hard and toothless, like flattened beaks; big Roman noses; hairless skin wrinkled into leather armor. A mummified look, and an uncanny grace. Theyd eaten tree-of-life. They were protectors.

The fourth came around into view towing an unconscious Roxanny. It was a protector, but not of the spill mountain people. Smaller, more slender. A dead-looking face with no more nose than an ape. Louis didnt recognize the species, but it wasnt a Hanging Person. Louis had thought Tunesmith was involved in this. He was less sure now.

They pushed Wembleth into the rescue pod, then Roxanny. Hanuman crawled in without a struggle. Then the protectors turned to Louis.

'Im injured,' he said. No reaction.

They studied the machinery around him, talking tersely in a language Louiss translator didnt have. Then they switched things off. When one reached behind Louiss back, pain came as if hed been hit by a truck.

He fought to keep from fainting, holding his attention on his breathing. Later he remembered a good deal. The feel of their hands, large, with blunt fingers and knobby knuckles. Brown eyes with epicanthic folds. The slender odd-man-out protector gave orders in monosyllables. The others detached Louis from the ICC, pushed him into the rescue pod, and sealed it. A framework still held his leg and hip immobile. Two studied the machinery that had held him while another cut a wide hole in the hull.

Air puffed the rescue pod into space.

CHAPTER 14 The Spill Mountain People

Gray Nurse was an ARM warcraft, built more like a spear than a ship, with a few smaller ships along its length. An intruder had attached itself like a remora near the fore end. It was lighter than Gray Nurse, built like the skeleton of a sunfish: a cabin, then an extensive grid of crosshatching girders like those found on a Belt mining ship meant to carry rocks and ore. Louis couldnt immediately see anything like a motor.

The protectors followed the rescue bubble into space. Others, all spill mountain protectors, emerged from further aft in Gray Nurse. Some towed the rescue bubble to the sunfish ship and moored it to the grid. Then they spurted away on rocket plumes, leaving their prisoners exposed to open space.

Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was his bodys defenses: the pain had gone out like a tide. Louis looked around him at the universe.

A dusting of light motes, motionless a moment ago, were swept away in an eyeblink. Spy probes dismissed as by a sweep of Gods hand, but how?

Roxanny was stirring, trying to wake up. Hanuman was just watching. Wembleth was very jittery. He spoke; saw that he was not understood; switched languages. His translator said, 'I dont understand.'

Louis said, 'Talk to me, Wembleth.'

'Where am I, Looeess?'

'Under the Ringworld.'

Wembleth looked up at the black wall that blocked half the sky. 'We are falling.'