Ringworld's Children

It was jungle all the way, trees and vines that Louis couldnt name, and a species of elbow root growing in chains at sixty-degree angles, big enough to match sequoias.

Louis switched his faceplate display to infrared. Now lights on the ground wove about each other, lurked, charged, merged. Thousands of tiny lights above him must be birds. Larger lights in the trees would be sloth and Hanging People and — Louis swerved to dodge a fifty-pound flying squirrel with a head that was all ears and fangs. It cursed luridly as it passed under him.

Hominid?

Nice day for a float.

Tunesmith settled in a circle of elbow trees. The ground was uneven, humped here and there, and overgrown with a tangle of grass. The Hindmost descended and Louis followed, still seeing nothing… and then an abandoned float plate. How had that gotten here?

His own disk settled. Louis stepped off, and they were surrounded. Weird little men stepped out of the elbow trees and women popped out of the ground. All were armed with short blades. They only stood heart-high. Louis, wearing impact armor, did not feel threatened.

Tunesmith hailed them and began talking rapidly. Louiss translator device had never heard this language; it and he could only listen. But he could see through torn grass into a burrow that ran deep underground. The grass was torn just so in fifty places.

He was standing on a city.

Hominids — descended from the Pak who must have built the Ringworld — had occupied every possible ecological niche, starting half a million years ago with a population already in the trillions (though the numbers were pretty much guesswork.) This group were burrowers. They wore only their own straight brown body hair, and carried animal-skin pouches. They had a streamlined look, like ferrets.

They were looking less defensive now. Some were laughing. Tunesmith spoke and more laughed. One stepped to a rise of ground and pointed.

Tunesmith bowed. He said, 'Acolyte is hunting a daywalk or three to spin of port. Louis, what shall I tell them? They offer rishathra.'

He was tempted for an instant, then embarrassed. 'Louis isnt in season.'

Tunesmith barked. The Burrowing People laughed hysterically, looking at Louis with myopic eyes.

Louis asked, 'What was your excuse?'

'Ive been here. They know about protectors. Board your disk.'

CHAPTER 4 Acolyte

The smells were stunningly rich. Hundreds of varieties of plants, scores of animals. Kzinti could survive in style here, until their numbers grew too great. Acolyte, millions of miles from the nearest Kzinti, did not miss their company; but Acolyte resolved to tell his father about this place.

He sniffed, seeking an elusive smell: anything large or lethal.

It wasnt there. Only the smell of brachiating hominids.

His fathers hunting park had been more dangerous. The danger level of fathers park was as carefully measured as the placement of each bush. Kzinti needed a threat to bring them alive, and to keep their numbers down too.

Pak protectors didnt think like that.

Louis Wu had explained it thus: protectors had spread life across this land in imitation of the life patterns that evolved on Ball Worlds, but they had left out anything that harmed or annoyed Pak breeders, from carnivores down to parasites and bacteria. Whatever attacked todays bewildering variety of hominids had evolved over the million years, the four million falans, that followed.

Of course Louis was guessing. Hed said that too.

So, here was a safe place to play. One day Tunesmith would call, or Louis, and Acolyte would find danger enough. The lights in the night sky were not all stars.

A blotch in infrared, bigger than other blotches, went from perfect stillness to a blur of speed, leapt into a tree, merged with a smaller glow, paused -

Tunesmith yowled.

A returning yowl seemed muffled. Louiss dawdling translator caught up; it said, 'Acolyte!' 'Here. Wait.' Then: 'Louis!'

'Hello, Acolyte!' called Louis.

'Louis! I was worried! How are you?'

'Young. Hungry, antsy, not quite sane.'

'You were forever in the healing box!'

Tunesmith said, 'Acolyte kept bothering me for updates until I had to find work for him elsewhere.'

Louis was touched. Acolyte had worried… thinking that Louis remained in the doc because there was more to be done for him. More likely Tunesmith was just keeping Louis out of the way; or he might have been refining the rejuvenation process, or using Louis as a test subject to study nanotechnology, tanj him. A twelve-year-old should not be forced to such cynical thinking, even a twelve-year-old Kzin.

The massive cat was halfway up a tree trunk, eating, while Hanging People threw hard fruit from a distance. Tunesmith separated his float plates and hovered one next to Acolyte.

Chmeee was a Kzin chosen by the puppeteer Nessus to join his exploration team, decades ago. Acolyte was Chmeees eldest son, cast out by his father and sent to 'learn wisdom' from Louis Wu. He stood seven feet tall, shorter than his father, furred in orange and dark chocolate: dark ears, dark stripes down his back, a smaller chocolate comma down his tail and leg. Three parallel ridges ran down his belly, possibly his fathers legacy; Louis had never asked. On a huge tilted trunk under green-black foliage, he looked utterly at home.

He asked, 'Are we finally ready?'

'Yes,' said Tunesmith.

Acolyte judged the distance above a drop of fifty feet. He had to make a twisting leap. He hit the disk on all fours. The disk dropped under his weight, and Acolyte slid, scrambled, and had his grip.

A Kzins hands were good, but with his claws extended his fingers would have slid off. Anger might have killed him. It was a jest, or a test — and Tunesmith had been dropping past him, ready to catch him.

'I should reclaim my float plate,' Acolyte said. He dropped toward the forest floor and took off through tilted trunks along a path Louis couldnt find.

A float plate floated above a display of huge, gorgeous orange flowers. Acolyte eased the disk he was riding down over the other float plate, and with a magnetic click they locked.

'I left one with the Underpeople, their toy until I need it,' the Kzin said. 'I mass too much. I have to be too careful when its just one floater.'

The double disk took off, Tunesmith followed, and they were racing.

Louis tried to keep up, but it was a hairy ride. They were leaving the Hindmost far behind. Tunesmith called, 'What have you learned?'

The Kzin bellowed, 'Nothing since we spoke. Teelas path ends with the Mechanics, two months after she left Louis and my father. I have dwelt among five civilizations, six species — interesting symbiotic culture, Mechanics, and a variety of Hanging People. None tell any tale of Teela Brown, or Seeker, or weapons that throw light, advanced medicine, famine averted, a flycycle — Whatever I thought of, they never heard of it.'

'Were you lied to?'

'Who would dare? Who would care? Teelas path is discontinuous. I never tracked her through the sky! I only found places where she and Seeker landed. The Mechanics remember her from two or three falans after a floating building passed over, a hundred and fifty falans ago. Have you sought rumors of flying devices? Or assessed conflicting reports?'

'Yes.'