Ringworld's Children r-4 Read online

  "I suppose."

  "Would he come?"

  "You cant get him citizenship. Hes a Kzin. Youre fighting Kzinti, arent you?"

  "There hasnt been a formal war in, oh, four hundred years." She tapped her sleeve and read what appeared. "In sixteen hundred falans. Hed be all right. There are hundreds of thousands of Kzinti citizens in human space."

  "I wouldnt tell him to come. Hes younger than me, you know."

  "Lets get back."

  Louis didnt move. "What about Wembleth? Do we want him?"

  "Yah. Hes a real native, after all. He must know wonderful things, and there are people who would kill to read his genetic pattern." Roxanny stood and semaphored her arms at Claus. "Lets get back."

  A shadow square had blocked all but a sliver of sun. Acolyte was squatting before the library, Claus standing behind him. Nearby, Hanuman picked imaginary parasites, looking solemn. The little protector looked up at Louis and made an urgent twirling motion.

  Claus raised his hand, holding something L-shaped.

  Close behind him Roxanny snapped, "Luis, dont!" Hanuman eeked at the sound. She had one too: a slender flat object like the butt of a handgun, clearly a weapon. Old yogatsu training told Louis she was outside his extreme reach.

  Behind Roxanny, sunrise glowed on the edge of a ridge.

  The light should have grabbed his attention. But Louis was facing Roxanny and Claus and two guns. His mind caught up too slowly. Hidden or not, the sun is always at noon. That couldnt be the sun.

  The ground trembled.

  Acolyte hadnt moved; he must have been warned not to.

  "I think well do better alone," Claus told them, smiling, victorious. "We only need one flycycle, but we need you to tell us how to fly it. You both know how. We only need one of you."

  Louis turned away from the fireball rising above the ridge.

  The flare must have half-blinded Claus. The ground lurched, Louis lurched, Claus lurched, and Hanuman jumped into Clauss arms. Claus tried to move him aside. Acolyte turned as he rose. His claw swept across Claus and hooked him under the throat.

  Louis whipped around and ran two steps. His fist took Roxanny under the jaw. He gave it plenty of follow through. She went down, rolling, and Louis leapt after her, afraid hed hit her too hard, but he had to have that gun. In his peripheral vision, Acolyte hurled Claus into the ground in a spray of blood.

  Louiss foot landed on her gun hand, and he had the gun. "Dont," he said.

  She did. Her foot lashed out and caught him in the gut. Louis moved his hand: the gun missed her when it went off. Dust blasted out of the turf. A sonic weapon. He was still on his feet, trying to back away. Her other foot hooked his knee. He disengaged. She was up. The heel of her hand caught his cheek, and he was sprawling, still trying to avoid firing. Then she had his gun hand, and twisted, and had his gun. She aimed at a rising flycycle. He kicked her off balance. She fired as she fell.

  He was on the ground, screaming. It felt like all the bones of his left hip and leg had shattered. Roxanny fired into the sky, lowered her arm and cursed.

  When his eyes could focus, she was pointing the gun straight at him from four feet away.

  The fireball was dying above the ridge. A spacecraft came out of the glare and began to settle.

  One flycycle was still on the ground. The other wasnt in sight. Hanuman and Acolyte and Wembleth werent either. Claus lay on his back, his head torn nearly off, his entrails displayed.

  Roxanny had him under the gun. "Why dont I just shoot you?" she asked.

  "Roxanny, dont," said Louis Wu, master of sarcasm. He dared not move and he couldnt think. Just as well. A twenty-year-old would break under the fury in her eyes. "Dont shoot me," Luis said. "Ill fly you anywhere you like. Only I cant move."

  Wembleth appeared from behind a tree, saw the gun in Roxannys hand, and ducked back.

  "I dont need your flycycle," Roxanny said. "Weve got a ship. Wembleth! Get aboard and take a seat. Luis, can you stand up?"

  "Futz, no!" Louis said.

  She stooped above him and picked him up in her arms. His leg and hip sagged as if boneless. She nearly dropped him when he screamed. The pain blasted his mind away and he missed the rest.

  Louis was on his back. Some kind of talk show was running on the ceiling, but the voices didnt match. Aha: the sound was turned off. The voices had been speaking for some time, against a noisy background Louis took for a ship of war.

  "I had brothers once." Wembleth sounded drugged. Wembleths translator device sounded crisp and alert. "Stayed with their home turf when Father and I moved to…"

  "…Move often?" A male voice of command, one Louis had never heard.

  Wembleth: "Yes."

  Roxanny had shot him.

  Louis couldnt believe it. How badly was he hurt? His mind was muzzy; hed have trouble keeping a story straight. If they questioned Luis Tamasan, theyd hear far too much. Louis tried to move.

  He couldnt feel much. There was a tickle behind the back of his neck. His eyes could move, and his head, a little. He could just see that he was naked, on his back, immobilized in something like a stretch rack… or the Intensive Care Cavity of a military autodoc. The noisy background suggested a ship of war. He listened to the voices, trying to make them out.

  Male officer: "…brothers?"

  "Chosen brothers. Grew up faster than me… stayed with their own, to find mates."

  "Seen many kinds of human…?"

  Wembleth: "Twenty, thirty species… reshed with…"

  He thought he could guess what had happened up there.

  A ship beneath the Ringworld floor had fired antimatter bullets upward. No need to find an eyestorm already in place. One bullet to tear away the foamed scrith meteor insulation. The next to blast a hole through the scrith floor and the landscape above, big enough for a small troop transport to pass through.

  It was crazy, vicious, simple, and direct. He should have seen it coming instead of making elaborate long-range travel plans.

  Wembleth: "Cant get anywhere if you dont know… reshtra… dont try to guess—"

  Roxannys voice. "War? Do you ever fight—"

  "Seen carnivores fight plant eaters… eaten me too. That what you mean?"

  "Ook."

  Mmm? Turning his head wasnt easy: Louis was restrained in a nest of attachments, and hed lost all sensation below his neck. But there was Hanuman, in a cage big enough to hold a Kzin. They locked eyes in mutual sympathy. Then something blocked Louiss view.

  Roxanny Gauthier hung back behind a burly man, maybe a Jinxian, both wearing falling jumpers with ARM insignia. The man loomed over Louis, judging. He said, "Youd be Luis Tamasan."

  "Yah," said Louis Wu.

  "You attacked one of my people."

  I lived to regret it. "Sorry."

  "Im Tec-Major Schmidt. Youre a civilian prisoner. That gives you certain rights, but youre in futzy poor shape to exercise them. These stunners only stun if youre far enough away, but you were right up against Tec-First Gauthier. Youve got bones broken into shrapnel from your hip to your knee. The doc can heal you if you dont move for a while. Five days."

  "Tanj." Better make nice — "Thank you, sir. I suppose Id be crippled for life without your help."

  The officer grinned. "Oh yah. Now, can I free your arms? It would mean you can eat. Otherwise youre on tubes."

  "I wont try to pull loose," Louis said.

  "You could hurt yourself pretty bad if you did. Stet." The tickle behind his neck moved down his spine — his arms came back to life, the left very tender, bruised from elbow to fingertips — and further, until — "Hiii!" — and back up an inch. Louis could still feel bruises along his ribs, but not that awful shattered shriek of agony that started with his left hip.

  Schmidts hands manipulated a video remote in Louiss peripheral vision. The talk show disappeared; Ringworld jumped into being, spilling off the ceiling, and down the rectangular walls. Schmidt asked, "Where do you come from?"

  "Rota
te it. More. Stet. Sir, thats the Great Ocean. Look along the spinward edge…" Louis began describing the Weaver village hed lived in last year. People, houses, the river, visiting Fishers, the webeye camera the Hindmost ("Chiron") had sprayed across the stone face of a gorge. These ARMs had no way of checking. If they could, Weavers would tell stories of Louis Wu and the Hindmost as Vashneesht having some kind of quarrel.

  But his mind was turning foggy. Louis hadnt been drunk in a long time, but it was like this.

  Schmidt zoomed on the Great Ocean region. "You live there? And your parents? Who else? A Kzin family? This puppeteer you told us about?"

  "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."

  Wemblet
h looked up at the black wall that blocked half the sky. "We are falling."

  "Theres nothing to hit. You get used to this—"

  The protectors were back. Two were pushing a fair-sized mass: the medical cage. They moored it to the cargo grid next to the rescue bubble. There was other cargo to be attached. Then they swarmed away to the cabin, leaving one still on the grid.

  Gray Nurse was whipped away.

  Louis felt no acceleration beyond a kind of flutter, but he felt his hair writhe about him. They must be doing hundreds of gravities. Gray Nurse was just gone. Hed seen nothing like a rocket motor, nor even a thruster.

  Wembleth had his arms over his face.

  The sunfish ship followed the thread of a spillpipe beneath the Ringworlds black underside. A slow hour later, by the watch face in the back of Louiss hand, the spillpipe led them around the rim and up into a glare of sunlight.

  Louis looked down along the inside of the rim wall, a thousand miles down toward a few tiny cones along its base. Beyond was a wide shore — twenty to thirty thousand miles of shore, it must be, given how high they were — and then an infinity of blue water seen from high enough to show the texture of sea bottom, and a few sparse clusters of big flat islands.

  The clustered islands were peculiar. They all looked alike, and there was something else too. Louis had never seen anything like it, and that alone meant that he was looking at the Other Ocean.

  They were dropping toward the rim wall. Theyd been in flight for less than an hour.

  "Wembleth?"

  "Roxanny! Can you talk?"

  She blinked. "Luis? They took you too. Where are we? Who are these — ?"

  "Spill mountain people," Louis said. "There are lots of species. Do you ARMs know about — ?"

  "Down there below us, those are spill mountains," she said. "Theyre bigger than they look. Do you know what they are?"

  "Theyre just the mountains," Louis said, secretly amused.

  The spill mountains had grown larger. Each of the little cones had a few silver threads of river running from its base.