Ringworld's Children

protector. She had moved the ship eight hundred miles through these corridors, then poured molten rock around them. Theyd used stepping disks — the puppeteers instant transport system — to reach Teela. For all these years since, the ship had been trapped.

Now Tunesmith had brought it back to the workstation under Mons Olympus.

Louis knew Tunesmith, but not well. Louis had set a trap for Tunesmith, the Night Person, the breeder, and Tunesmith had become a protector. Hed watched Tunesmith fight Bram; and that was about all he knew of Tunesmith the protector. Now Tunesmith held Louiss life in his hands, and it was Louiss own doing.

Hed be smarter than Louis. Trying to outguess a protector was… futz… was both silly and inevitable. No human culture has ever stopped trying to outguess God.

So. Needle was an interstellar spacecraft, if someone could remount the hyperdrive. That tremendous tilted tower — forty miles of it if it reached all the way to the Repair Center floor — was a linear accelerator, a launching system. One day Tunesmith might need a spacecraft. Meanwhile hed leave Needle gutted, because Louis Wu and the Hindmost might otherwise use it to run, and the protector couldnt have that.

Louis walked until Needle loomed: a hundred-and-ten-foot diameter cylinder with a flattened belly. Not much of the ship was missing. The hyperdrive, the doc, what else? The crew housing was a cross section, its floor eighty feet up. Under the floor, all of the kitchen and recycling systems were exposed.

If he could climb that high, hed have his breakfast, and clothing too. He didnt see any obvious route. Maybe there was a stepping disk link? But he couldnt guess where Tunesmith might place a stepping disk, or where it would lead.

The Hindmosts command deck was exposed too. It was three stories tall, with lower ceilings than a Kzin would need. Louis saw how he could climb up to the lowest floor. A protector would have no trouble at all.

Louis shook his head. What must the Hindmost be thinking?

Piersons puppeteers held to a million-year-old philosophy based on cowardice. When the Hindmost built Needle, he had isolated his command deck from any intruders, even from his own alien crew. There were no doors at all, just stepping disks booby-trapped a thousand ways. Now… the puppeteer must feel as naked as Louis.

Louis crouched beneath the edge of some flat-topped mass, maybe the breathing-air system. Leapt, pulled up, and kept climbing. The docs repairs had left him thin, almost gaunt; he wasnt lifting much weight. Fifty feet up, he hung by his fingers for a moment.

This was the lowest floor of the Hindmosts cabin, his most private area. There would be defenses. Tunesmith might have turned them off… or not.

He pulled up and was in forbidden space.

He saw the Hindmost. Then he saw his own droud sitting on a table.

The droud was the connector between any wall socket and Louis Wus brain. Louis had destroyed that… had given it to Chmeee and watched the Kzin batter it to bits.

So, a replacement. Bait for Louis Wu, the current addict, the wirehead. Louiss hand crept into the hair at the back of his head, under the queue. Plug in the droud, let it trickle electric current down into the pleasure center… where was the socket?

Louis laughed wildly. It wasnt there! The autodocs nano machines had rebuilt his skull without a socket for the droud!

Louis thought it over. Then he took the droud. When confused, send a confusing message.

The Hindmost lay like a jeweled footstool, his three legs and both heads tucked protectively beneath his torso. Louiss lips curled. He stepped forward to sink his hand into the jeweled mane and shake the puppeteer out of his funk.

'Touch nothing!'

Louis flinched violently. The voice was a blast of contralto music, the Hindmosts voice with the sound turned up, and it spoke Interworld. 'Whatever you desire,' it said, 'instruct me. Touch nothing.'

The Hindmosts voice — Needles autopilot — knew him, knew his language at least, and hadnt killed him. Louis found his own voice. 'Were you expecting me?'

'Yes. I give you limited freedom in this place. Find a current source next to—'

'No. Breakfast,' Louis said as his belly suddenly screamed that it was empty, dying. 'I need food.'

'There is no kitchen for your kind here.'

A shallow ramp wound round the walls to the upper floors. 'Ill be back,' Louis said.

He walked, then ran up the ramp. He eased around the wall above a drop of eighty feet — not difficult, just scary — and was in crew quarters.

A pit showed where the doc had been removed. Crew quarters were not otherwise changed. The plants were still alive. Louis went to the kitchen wall and dialed cappuccino and a fruit plate. He ate. He dressed, pants and blouse and a vest that was all pockets, the droud bulging one of the pockets. He finished the fruit, then dialed up an omelet, potatoes, another cappuccino, and a waffle.

He thought while he ate. What was his desire?

Wake the Hindmost? He needed the Hindmost to tell him what was going on… but puppeteers were manipulative and secretive, and the balance of power in the Repair Center kept changing. Best learn more first. Get a little leverage before he reached for the truth.

He dumped the breakfast dishes in the recycler toilet. He climbed around the wall, carefully. 'Hindmosts Voice,' he said.

'At your command. You need not risk a fall. Here is a stepping-disk link,' and a cursor arrowhead showed him a spot on the floor of crew quarters.

'Show me the Meteor Defense Room.'

'That term is unknown.' A hologram window popped up in the portside wall. 'Is this the place you mean?'

Meteor Defense beneath the Map of Mars was a vast, dark space. All the stars in the universe ran round an ellipsoidal wall thirty feet high, and the floor and ceiling. Three long swinging booms ended in chairs equipped with lap keyboards, and those stood black-on-black before the wall display.

Past the edge of the pop-up window, under a glare of light, knobby bones had been laid out for study. This was the oldest protector Louis knew of, and Louis had named him Cronus. In the far shadows stood pillars with large plates on top, mechanical mushrooms. Louis pointed into the window. 'What are those?'

'Service stacks,' the Hindmosts Voice said, 'each made from several float plates topped by a stepping disk.'

Louis nodded. The Ringworld engineers had left float plates all through the Repair Center. If you stacked them, theyd lift more. Adding a stepping disk seemed an obvious refinement… if you had them to spare.

Louis saw a boom swing across the starscape. It ended in a knobby, angular shadow.

All protectors look something like medieval armor.

The protector was watching a spray of stars. His cameras would be mounted on the Ringworld itself, maybe on the outside of the rim wall, looking away from the sun. He didnt seem aware that he was being spied on.

Louis knew better than to expect asteroids or worlds. Unknown engineers had cleared all that out of the Ringworld system. This drift of moving lights would be spacecraft held by several species. Now the view focused on a gauzy, fragile Outsider ship; now on a glass needle, a General Products #2 hull, tenant unknown; now a crowbar-shaped ARM warship.

Tunesmiths concentration seemed total. He zoomed on starscape occluded by a foggy lump, a proto-comet. Tiny angular machines drifted around it, marked by blinking cursor circles. A lance of light glared much brighter: some warships fusion drive. Here came another, zipping across the screen. No weapon fired.

The Fringe War is still cold, Louis thought. Hed wondered how long that could last. A formal truce could not hold among so many different minds.

The protectors arms jittered above the keyboard.

In the corner of Louiss eye, sunlight glared down. Louis spun around.

Above Needle the crater in Mons Olympus was sliding open, flooding the cavern