Ringworld's Children Read online

  The sunfish ship was descending toward an island cluster near the Other Ocean's antispinward shore... fifty thousand miles near, maybe. Any distortion was lost in detail as the land rose up to meet them. There were crescents and pools of shadow on the land... but how could they be shadows, with the sun just overhead? They looked almost like pictograms, or writing. A lone mountain near the continent's midpoint glittered. Dwellings? With windows?

  The grainy look of the land became interlocking dots of all sizes, circular features, as if the land had been battered by meteors. They skimmed a forest, slowing now. Louis recognized chains of elbow trees and other familiar vegetation.

  He said, "Most of what's on the Ringworld must have evolved as Pak plants and animals."

  "Good, Luis." A verbal pat on the head.

  Something about these patterns--

  "It's a garden," Roxanny said.

  "Roxanny? This big?" They were still miles high.

  Still, she was right. The landscape wasn't croplands, but it was just as certainly shaped. Variety and color: rainbow ripples that must be thousands of square miles of flower beds; varied stands of trees in all the colors of autumn and more, still seeming no larger than hairs in a dandy's beard. A veldt shadowed with black arcs. Ponds, lakes, seas like silver plates with little central dots of island.

  Roxanny said, "Formal gardens are all rectangles, unless they're supposed to look like wilderness. What kind of garden is all circles, and no two the same size? This is like... right."

  Like the Moon, Louis thought. "Like a war?" All circles, all craters. The Pak homeworld.

  "Vashneesht," Wembleth said positively.

  "Yah, the joker is trying to impress us," Roxanny said. Louis laughed.

  He glimpsed rectilinear outlines peeping through the wild colors. They dropped. There was a thump. Gravity ceased its flutter.

  Chapter 15 -

  Proserpina

  She brought the mag ship down in the garden, six miles downhill from the Penultimate's mainland habitat. As soon as she'd safed the motors, Proserpina rolled out of the cabin and ran aft. A sense of order might help the aliens adjust, but she'd learn less if she gave them too much time.

  Isolated, shorn of her senses, imprisoned in the Isolation Zone for all of these millions of falans--Proserpina had still been able to infer general details of Ringworld history: infighting, dominance games, reshaping of world-sized stretches of topography, shifting alliances, changing genetic patterns...

  There was only one RepairCenter, set halfway around the Ringworld from this, the Isolation Zone. The RepairCenter could be seen as the Ringworld's natural throne room. A Ghoul was in power now, and that was good. He was short of experience, and reckless (not good), and probably male. Males wandered further. Where tree-of-life was scarce, a male would find it first.

  Control was what this was all about. In earlier ages she had seen conspiracy after conspiracy, and had always found a way to stay neutral without being destroyed. There was always a master of creation, and--after one awful early experiment--it was never Proserpina.

  She hop-stepped over the struts of the cargo grid and slid into the rescue bubble.

  The woman spoke. "We need to talk."

  Proserpina perceived 'Tec-First Gauthier's impatience and was amused. The woman was young, though not young for a breeder. Her stance suggested a different gravity; her speech was a bit altered from what Proserpina had heard while eavesdropping on the Ghoul's retinue. Gauthier was one of the invaders. She'd have much to tell, once she stopped refusing to tell it.

  Proserpina's silence made the woman uneasy. "We need to talk to make the translators work," she added.

  Proserpina didn't smile. She couldn't. They'd talked while they hunted Wembleth in the spill mountain village, but they'd said nothing. Nouns, verbs: not enough to cue 'Tec Gauthier's speaking device. Gauthier was keeping secrets.

  So was Proserpina. When she needed to talk, she would.

  The brachiator watched her and did nothing. She'd been expecting subservience. The little protector must serve another, perhaps the Ghoul.

  One of the males made a soft-voiced request. Proserpina didn't know his speech. She'd work it out presently. He stood like a local, a little stooped, but at home with Ringworld spin gravity. He wouldn't have much to tell. What he wanted was clear: he was hungry.

  The other male was injured and immobilized, naked and helpless. He watched. Proserpina was struck by his patience. Though no protector, he was an elder, of the same species as the woman. This would be the Ghoul's breeder servant, Louis Wu of the Ball Worlds.

  "You're all hungry," Proserpina said in Interworld. The men were unsurprised, but Gauthier jumped. "You can all tolerate fruit. We'll work out details of your diet presently. We're all omnivores, I think, except you," looking at the little one. "How are you called?"

  The woman recovered her aplomb. She gestured: "Luis Tamasan. Wembleth. Roxanny Gauthier. Proserpina? How did you learn our language?"

  "I've hacked into a library," Proserpina said. She saw the woman bristle: Gray Nurse's computer! Stolen! "I chose my name from your literature," speaking now to Luis/Louis. Wu and the little protector were keeping secrets too.

  She clapped her hands. "Let's feed you. There's fruit outside, and a stream."

  "I'll have to feed Luis," Roxanny said.

  "You must learn what's edible. Come. Luis, we'll be back soon. Your device is giving you nutrient, but it's best if your digestive systems are exercised."

  "Thank you," he said.

  Roxanny looked dubious, but she went.

  Roxanny followed the protector. Wembleth followed Roxanny, holding Hanuman's hand. The ape scrambled along faster than his little legs were up to.

  From the back the joker looked like a small, scrawny, bald woman. She stood a meter and a half tall. All of her joints were swollen; her back was a column of pebbles. Roxanny knew that she should be afraid of the creature, but she couldn't feel intimidated.

  Proserpina was talking to Wembleth in Interspeak. Wembleth chattered in his own language, and Roxanny listened to his translator with half her attention.

  "Mother abandoned us. I never asked Father about it; he was touchy there, but I listened. They both used to go exploring. One day she was just gone. Some species do that, turn vicious and solitary, like the Swamp Folk. Friendly and curious when they're young, great rishathra, then something triggers, and they bulk up and change attitude and go off into the swamp. I was afraid I'd do the same. Interbreeding is rare, and you don't know what you'll get."

  "Have you rished with Swamp People?"

  "With a Swamp Girl until she mated, and afterward we were friends. Then she got pregnant, and she went off alone to raise the children."

  There were low buildings in the forest. Trees masked them. Trees grew from the roofs, or up the side of a minaret. A huge tree grew through the hollow core of a ring two stories high.

  Shadows ticked at the corners of her vision. Tree shadows wouldn't move in this weird place where it was always noon or night. Roxanny became sure that there were animals in the forest, watching them.

  Proserpina was fast, darting among the trees, plucking and gathering plants in varied colors and shapes. "Try this," she said to Luis's long-armed pet, setting a purple blob in his hands. It resembled an eggplant, but it sprayed red juice when Hanuman bit into it. Hanuman buried his face in it.

  "Here. Here." Proserpina distributed other fruits, and watched for reactions. Roxanny's yellow globe was bitter. She dropped it. A handful of green cherries was edible, but sour around the seeds. Wembleth liked the inner rim of a mottled yellow ring--he had to fit his head inside it--and Hanuman's purple blob.

  "Roxanny, is this place very different from your Ball W
orlds?"

  "Very."

  "How?"

  "I haven't been here long. I'm still looking." Roxanny was reluctant to speak. Sooner or later the protector would be asking questions she shouldn't answer. Still--weren't there things she could learn from a protector?

  So she temporized. "We learned a lot before any ship landed. It's always noon here. I expect that could drive a person nuts. If you ever saw a sunset, it would be the end of the world."

  "And a mining system would hit vacuum. That's not all bad. Industries can sometimes use vacuum."

  "A year ago you were shooting down every ship that came near the Ringworld. Why did you do that? Why did you stop?"

  "There was a protector Vampire in the RepairCenter. He did the shooting. Another replaced him."

  "And now it's a kinder, gentler time?"

  "Not while you're playing with antimatter, dear one! That will have to stop! You could destroy us all, and yourselves too. I think you must be schitz. Roxanny, you flinched."

  "Did I?"

  "Are you schitz? Were you schitz? Were. How were you cured?"

  Roxanny snarled, "I stopped taking the stuff!"

  "Stuff?"

  "The Amalgamated Regional Militia used to draft schitzes for the lower echelons. We've tried to breed that trait out of ourselves, so it's hard to find a real schitz, but there are biochemicals that can imitate the schitz state. You see things, think thoughts, hear voices that a citizen never dreams. I took the stuff during training. I can get a shot during a mission, it makes things easier, but I try to stay off it. I'm not schitz, Proserpina. My genes are clean." Roxanny clamped her lips closed. This was far more personal than anything she'd intended to reveal.

  "Lower echelons? Do any of the top ranks go schitz? No, never mind. Do warriors such as yourselves have children, Roxanny?"

  "No. I can't. I've had my shot."

  Proserpina stared at her. Then she turned away to gather more fruit. "I'll feed your injured one," she said. "Eat. Explore. Enjoy," waving vaguely at the forest and its hidden buildings. "The stream is that way. Follow it back. We'll talk soon."

  Roxanny watched her go. Had she really been left to explore unsupervised? The prospect was terrifying and irresistible. She was in the Garden of Eden. God walked here. Nothing was otherwise harmful.

  The building--

  It was a toroid. One door, no windows. A sequoia-sized tree in the center lifted it two meters off its foundations. While Roxanny hesitated, Wembleth jumped to reach a doorsill, lifted himself, and was in. Roxanny waited a beat, then followed. She wished she had better armaments than the needier in the small of her back.

  Roxanny jogged around the perimeter. It was all one big tubular room, a few degrees tilted. She found nothing worth seeing or stealing. The floor was deep in dirt and rotting leaves. No obvious lighting, barring the transparent roof. No offices. No toilets.

  She asked Wembleth, "Do you know this style of building?"

  "Vashneesht work. Very old. These walls cannot be harmed, but many lifetimes of wind made these corners round. I think servants of the Vashneesht lived here. Look, this was bed."

  The vegetable trash? Roxanny was used to float plates.

  The next building over looked like a pump house nested in a forest of pipes. It was, but it also held toilets, a huge tub for bathing, and dust heaps that must have been towels. Wembleth understood: he knew more primitive means for using wastes for fertilizer. Sewage and wash water flowed into a sprinkler system. It was all powered from the roof, from converted sunlight. Roxanny and Wembleth spent an hour bathing and then investigating the system. The remarkable thing was that it still worked.

  Roxanny led them along the river, in the direction of flow of the shadow squares, antispinward. They came to a wide, white sand beach. Huge combers rolled in from an endless ocean.

  Roxanny tried her mag specs. She knew what she ought to see, but the horizon was a line of haze; the specs only magnified it, or picked out currents of heat. She'd be peering through hundreds of miles of that, to see subcontinents belonging to this same little map. How long would it take to get used to the Ringworld's scale?

  She'd get a better view from the roof of the arcology; but that was not walking distance.

  Proserpina paused at the edge of the garden long enough to instruct her servants. Aliens were not to see them. Aliens were not to be interfered with. Aliens were not barred from the Penultimate's long-abandoned buildings.

  Hanuman was eating and watching her from far up a tall tree. Proserpina gestured him down.

  "Who do you serve?" she asked.

  The brachiator spoke a musical phrase, then translated into Interworld. "Tunesmith. He derives from one of the Night People varieties. His secrets are not mine to give."

  "Why do you conceal your nature from the ARM? Why should I?"

  "A ship of the ARM exploded three days ago. It tore a hole in the world's floor that would have destroyed us all." Hanuman described the location quickly and precisely. "Tunesmith repaired it--"

  "How?"

  "Secret, but his means are limited. Another such event would end everything. You and Tunesmith and I have this in common. To hold ARM ships away from the world is our only hope. Kzinti also must be kept distant. Puppeteers would rule us to make us dependable. They would make the Ringworld safe to a point beyond habitability. Who knows what Outsiders might do? There are other factions. Question 'Tec Gauthier or scan any ARM ship's library. Giving information to any of these invaders would only lure them all here to learn more. To tell them of protectors might scare them witless. Rewarding invaders with valuable data--"

  "Enough of your chatter, I understand you. What of Luis Tamasan?"

  "What sources have you been scanning?"

  "Scan is too large a word. I've barely had time to browse in the libraries of Gray Nurse and Hot Needle of Inquiry."

  "Seek 'Louis Wu'."

  "Gray Nurse has the report he made to the United Nations following the Lying Bastard expedition. Should I hide his identity too?"

  "Please yourself. He plays a frivolous game of mate-and-dominate with the ARM woman."

  "Stet, we will leave all as it is for this little time."

  Hanuman asked, "What is this place? Are my charges endangered?"

  "No, but guard them if you will. This was the domain of the last rebel but one, the Penultimate," Proserpina said. "Will you serve me?"

  "No." No ambiguity, no hesitation.

  "I want to talk to Tunesmith. How may I do this?"

  "Tell me what you want said. Give me a vehicle."

  "I have all of the history of this structure and its regents, all for barter. The RepairCenter is not the Ringworld's only secret. Do you dare withhold my knowledge from Tunesmith?"

  "No. Tunesmith is more intelligent than you or me, but he cannot act without data."

  "Where is he?"

  "Some distance up the arc."

  "You came to investigate the antimatter explosion. You left your vehicle behind when the ARM ship took you." Hanuman didn't react. Proserpina said, "You have no transport. I have only this one mag ship. To make another would delay us for days. Can we spare the time?"

  "I must guide you to Tunesmith."

  Proserpina thought about this. Could she find a way to guard herself? Or was it time to die, if Tunesmith chose to make it so?

  "I'll make things secure here first," she said. "Wait until tomorrow night."

  Louis Wu was not unhappy. He was getting a long rest, prone in the Intensive Care Cavity. Nobody expected anything of him. Let others deal with the Fringe War, antimatter fuel tanks, the dance of protectors. He dozed, and thought, and dozed....

  And he
fell asleep, or was put to sleep. He woke under high, dark trees. His massive ARM autodoc was no longer attached to the sunfish ship. The joker stood above him.

  He tried not to be dismayed that she'd come back alone. Hanuman must be with the others: he'd protect them.

  She asked, "Are you well?"

  "Check the readouts," Louis said.

  She took him at his word. "You're healing. You're getting nourishment and something to calm you." She tapped at a screen. "You wouldn't be getting these inputs if you didn't have internal injuries. They're still healing. This other concoction seems to be brewed from tree-of-life root, or some synthetic analogue, but the machine isn't feeding that to you either."

  "Really? Tree-of-life? The stuff that--"

  "Here, this tube."

  Louis tried to sit up. "I can't see it."

  She sketched a mark in the air. Louis knew that symbol, a trademark half a thousand years old. "Boosterspice."

  "Intended to restore a breeder's age-raddled body? And you don't need it. You're an old man made young. Is boosterspice one of Tunesmith's secrets?"

  Louis blinked. "No. It might be an ARM secret." He'd been told as a child that boosterspice had been made via genetic engineering done on ragweed. It now struck him that the longevity treatment had been introduced, and allegedly changed human nature forever, about two hundred years after an alien ramship reached Sol system. It could fit.

  "You are fertile. I can smell it. Roxanny spoke of shots to make a person sterile."

  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 I'd 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 don't have much habitable territory. Not Jinx! When they need more room, they expand the terraformed regions. I got them to reconnect my vas deferens.