Ringworld's Children

Louis smiled. How would a genderless protector ever understand that?

He said, 'I was chasing a woman named Paula Cherenkov. I knew she wanted children. I had the habit of bugging out of human space from time to time. I always thought Id smuggle something some day… never did. This time I went to Jinx.

'Some worlds think just like flatlanders when it comes to the population explosion. Some worlds dont have much habitable territory. Not Jinx! When they need more room, they expand the terraformed regions. I got them to reconnect my vas deferens.

'Then Paula left Earth because she wanted a large family.

'A few years later I brought a new intelligent species into known space. The UN wanted to give me a birthright for finding the Trinocs and serving as their first ambassador. Now the doctors were waiting to fix what shouldnt have been already fixed. When Nessus made his offer, I went to the Ringworld.'

Proserpina set her hands on Louiss belly and moved them around. Pressure above his left hip. 'Old damage to the gut?'

'Yah.'

'Theres barely a trace. This floating rib is newly cracked—'

'Agh!'

Hands like a score of walnuts palpated his numb hips, then ran down his legs. 'Six breaks, maybe more, all on the left. It doesnt matter, they can all heal at the same time. In four days youll walk, in seven youll run. Would you try solid food?'

Louis pointed: 'That ones good. The Hinsh gave it to us.' She broke a canteloupe-sized yellow fruit for him, and fed him, and ate some herself.

He asked, 'Who are you?'

'Im the oldest protector, the last of the rebels,' she said. 'Tell me who you are. The woman doesnt know. She didnt perceive Hanuman either. What does she think he is?'

'We let her think Hanuman is a tame monkey. She thinks Im the son of an ARM who got himself stranded. Can we keep it that way? Roxanny is an ARM detective. There are things they shouldnt know.'

'ARM is one of the factions—'

'Amalgamated Regional Militia. From Earth, the United Nations police since eight hundred years ago. There are a few hundred ARM ships in the Fringe War. How much do you know, Proserpina? Have you been hacking into Needle?'

'Yah. Puppeteer civilization is too fascinating. I could become lost in it. Still, this Hindmost has extensive records of human civilization. Do you know the name Proserpina?'

'Plutos wife, the Lady who rules Hell. Greek myth, Elizabethan pronunciation. Is this Hell to you?'

'In a loose sense. Tell me about Tunesmith.'

'Not yet. I want to know about you. Who you are.'

He had the impression she was grinning. She said, 'Your muscle cues arent easy to read, flat on your back, hips and legs inert, and the rest hooked to all these pumps and sensors. Still, I sense something proprietary. Do you own Tunesmith?'

Louis laughed. 'He thinks he owns me.'

'You dont agree, but you dont hate him. Youd free yourself if you could. Will you serve me? No. For a time, then? Perhaps if you knew me better? Im not prone to rages or bouts of frantic activity or megalomania, Louis. I dont suck blood, though you served a bloodsucker. Ive been passive for millions of falans while the rest of my kind burned themselves out. Of course you must know me first, if we have time. My tale is complicated. I helped build the Ringworld.'

'Ive heard that before,' Louis said.

'From some braggart breeder? Theyve become hugely various, havent they? My telescopes wont penetrate atmosphere well enough, and I dare not travel to see more, but Ive dealt with spill mountain species. Louis or Luis, Im the real one. I broke promises before the work was finished, so it was finished without me, but I believe Im the last builder. Would you like your legs back?'

What did she mean? She bent over him, reached around behind him. Pain surged.

'Can you tolerate it? Its better if you can feel whats going on.'

'Thats pretty fierce,' he gasped.

'Ill cut the input by half—' (The pain receded.) ' — and change your chemical balance a little.' The pain fuzzed. 'There. Will you try to urinate and evacuate? The doc system is equipped to handle that.'

'In privacy, please.'

'Stet.' She turned away. 'Then you can tell me about the people of the Ringworld. Who have you met? What are they like? I have the right. Our children became their ancestors.'

Louis considered keeping silence. It was not his nature. He couldnt hide anything from a protector anyway. He did wonder if Proserpina had set ARM truth drugs dripping into him.

But the vampire nest wasnt a secret to be kept. It was a futzy good story. Breeders — Ringworld hominids — had evolved into an ecological slot elsewhere occupied by vampire bats. Louis Wu had interfered with the weather over a world-sized area. His intentions had been good — hed ruined the environment for some dangerous plants — but over the next few years, vampires moved under the permanent cloud deck established by Louis Wu, and took over a floating industrial park.

That happened far around the Ringworlds arc from where Louis was dwelling with a Weaver species. Hed watched through the Hindmosts webeye camera. Louis described it for Proserpina, and the Weaver village, and that led him back and back. Floating buildings gathered to form a city, and the shadow farm beneath, that grew a hundred kinds of fungus. The Ringworld slid off center, near to brushing against its sun. Back and back, until he was telling her how hed come to the Ringworld, lured into an expedition to explore something strange beyond the worlds he knew.

She knew what questions to ask, when to keep silent, when to break and feed him fruit. 'Here, this machine makes a nutrient fluid too. Would you eat that?'

He tried it. It was basic stuff to feed an injured soldier. 'Not bad.'

'You eat meat too, dont you? Fresh killed? Ill hunt you up a sampling tomorrow. Im more of a scavenger than you are, I think. How did you return to the stars? Through an eyestorm?'

'Something like that.'

He spoke of Halrloprillalar, the City Builder who claimed that her kind had built the Ringworld. 'She was joking with me, but she had it backward. She and her species nearly destroyed it.'

'How?'

'They dismounted the attitude jets on the rim wall and built them into their spacecraft. Proserpina, why did you let that happen?'

Poker face. 'We made attitude jets to be easily dismounted so that they can be easily replaced. We expected them to wear out in time. Was this a part of the Fringe War?'

'No. Earlier.'

'Well speak of this again. When did the Fringe War start?'

'Tanj, I dont know. The first ships may have got here ahead of the Hindmost, a hundred falans ago. You stole Gray Nurses library, didnt you? Have you got it running? See if its got footage of Needle coming in.'

'Ill do that,' said the protector.

Louis called after her. 'Check on the others, will you?'

'Theyre safe here, but I will. Sleep.'

It was night, and hed talked himself hoarse. He slept.

He woke to find Roxanny and Wembleth asleep on the plastic sheeting. He didnt disturb them. In an hour they woke, found the store of fruit, and ate.

Roxanny fed him delicately. Perhaps shed raised a child once.

She and Wembleth had spent yesterday exploring while Louis lay in his ICC. 'These elbow trees are easy to