Ringworld's Children r-4 Read online

  The land below Hanuman was only a mask over vacuum. Knowing that in his gut, seeing it in the Ringworlds underside, ridges that were canyons and riverbeds, creases that were mountain ranges, had almost destroyed the newly created protector. Hanuman had never grown used to it. Only now did he begin to feel that he was its master.

  Its master, barring the presence of a greater protector. Proserpina was greater than Hanuman. As a breeder, shed evolved closer to intelligence; the tree-of-life virus had done its work on a bigger brain. She had more experience too. But Tunesmith was brighter than she.

  It was a bribe, letting him fly. Hanuman understood that well. He understood, too, that he was telling secrets with every move he made. Hanuman is a master pilot, and expendable. What has he flown? How much did she see? How much did she already know? She reclined, and watched.

  He circled above land scoured bare and half-hidden beneath tiers of cloud. The hole had closed, but even now the atmosphere had not flowed in to fill the partial vacuum. He told Proserpina, "This would have spewed all the Ringworlds air to the stars. Tunesmith stopped it."

  "How?"

  "I may not tell."

  "Good enough that he has a way. How did you come here? I saw no ship large enough for my sensing devices."

  "I may not tell."

  "Stepping disk. Louis Wu described them for the ARM. We must find one. Show me that wreckage."

  Hanuman skimmed over the vast deflated balloon that had been Tunesmiths meteor plug — shed have found it without his help, of course — then hovered above the ruin of an ARM pressure tent. "Set down?"

  "Yes."

  They donned pressure suits and walked through the wreckage. He saw no reason not to answer her questions. What she asked told him a little of her thoughts and purposes, though Proserpina was learning more than Hanuman was.

  They moored the heavy ARM kitchen doc to the cargo grid, and lifted again.

  The battlefield had been disturbed. Proserpina walked through it, observing first, then asking questions. Hanuman tried to see what she saw. The sonic hadnt left splashed projectiles or scorch marks. There was the ant-covered splash where Claus had died. Hoof prints: small herdbeasts had run through this place afterward. Prints of big hands and feet: scavengers had come to the smell of blood, and found nothing. The ARM lander had taken Clauss corpse.

  The flycycle was upside down, resting on its rack and seat backs. There were more scavenger prints around it and on it. Ghouls had tried to fly it; Tunesmiths locks had held; theyd turned it into a joke.

  Hanuman said, "Tunesmith is smarter than you. Why not let him play? Youve done that for ages."

  "I must still be satisfied as to his fitness. I must speak to him."

  The flycycle was too heavy for the strength of two protectors. Hanuman crawled under it. The vehicle lifted and righted itself. He turned the holoscreen on. Louis must have turned reception off and left the sender going. Now, how to hide the lightspeed delay, to conceal Tunesmiths location?

  Hanuman saw no way. He said openly, "Now you may speak to Tunesmith. He cannot see us yet. Expect a delay of half an hour."

  "Hes on the far side of the Arch? Conversation will be painful. Stet, Ill begin. Tunesmith!" and she howled what Hanuman had given as his true name. "You have been meddling with the basic design of the Ringworld. You must have surmised my existence. Call me—" followed by a decidedly unmusical sound. "I reside in the Isolation Zone. Louis Wu and your pilot are both safe. Louis Wu is injured and healing. We hold Tec Roxanny Gauthier, an ARM, of the Ball People. The Kzin Acolyte is missing. I presume hes with you.

  "I want to trade secrets and promises with you. What I have to offer is some knowledge of the Ringworlds construction and history plus whatever I can get from Roxanny Gauthier. We all want to protect the structure from what Louis calls the Fringe War. Haste seems called for. I beg you to reassure me that you can plug a hole if another antimatter explosion happens. Reassure me that you can outfly these intruders. Hanuman seems skilled and apt, but he is no better than his vehicles. Also my direct lineal descent—"

  Proserpina paused, then said, "I must inquire as to the state of the Map of Earth. Tell me what you can. I give speech over to Hanuman."

  Hanuman chattered at length. Meticulous descriptions of Proserpina, Roxanny, Gray Nurse, and ARM warriors, the sunfish ship, the flight from the rim wall, the continent on the Map of Pak, local vegetation probably imported from Pak, Proserpinas not-quite-hidden servants… Concise as the Ghoulish language was, he spoke for a long time.

  When he stopped, it was not because Proserpina forced him to. He had given away every secret he knew, and Proserpina had not killed him to stop his mouth.

  Proserpina climbed from the flycycle saddle. "How shall we occupy our time?"

  "Lunch."

  "Good."

  They spread fruit on the grass and added a weasel carcass. Proserpina asked, "How do you suppose our guests are getting on?"

  Hanuman ate a dwarf apple. He quoted something hed found in Needles library. " When the cats away, the mice will play. Did you leave them a boat? Anything that flies? No? Then theyll try to reach the Penultimates palace."

  "Theres no access," Proserpina said.

  "Not even for you?"

  "I have mapped hypothetical routes, but I deem the risk unacceptable. The Penultimates inventions are nothing I cant evolve for myself. Hanuman, they are only breeders."

  "They will search."

  "Hello. Bored?"

  "Yah."

  "How are you entertaining yourself?"

  "Counting up mistakes," Louis said. Theres another one. Youths dont remember enough mistakes. Did they? He didnt really recall. It had been too long.

  "Are we still friends?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  She cocked her head, studying him for signs of sarcasm. "Luis, I want you to forgive me for shooting you."

  "Okay."

  "Tanj, youre easy. You could ask me to forgive you for Claus."

  "Claus pretty much killed himself," Louis said.

  "Your friend killed him."

  "First chance he got. Stet, why not? Its a prisoners duty to escape. Why in the name of sanity would Claus hold a Kzin at gunpoint?"

  "Thats war."

  "Who declared war? Roxanny, who decided to imprison me? I could have been conned into going for a ride. Done that way, maybe you could have had Acolyte too."

  "What if you said no?"

  He asked, genuinely curious, "Are you schitz?"

  "What?… Not right now."

  The ARM was manned by schizophrenics and paranoids. Everyone knew it. In real life, any doc could provide chemicals that would keep a schitz sane, but in the ARM, they did without chemicals at least some of the time.

  Louis didnt comment. Roxanny glared at him. "This is pretty personal, isnt it, Luis? Ive been diagnosed not schitz. I didnt join the ARM because I was schitz, I did it for the adventure."

  "Ah."

  "But I can fly on psychomimetics. Im not getting them any more, but they were used in training." She shrugged it off. "Want to go for a walk?"

  "I dont climb out of this thing for another two days."

  "Youre going to love it. This place is the Garden of Eden. Theres nothing harmful, and God walks. Shes just gone away for a bit."

  "Any idea where she went?"

  "Nope. Why did she take the little ape? I thought it might be a pet. Then I thought, maybe it smells like a relative. What do you think?"

  "Not a relative. No more than you or me."

  There was silence. Then, "Luis, are we lovers?"

  He smiled. "In this condition?"

  "I saw her turn off the nerve block. Does it hurt much?"

  "Not much. Aches." He watched her take her clothes off. His own must be back aboard Gray Nurse. Suddenly he felt helpless. He wondered what she would do if he said "No."

  She ran her hands over his feet. "Feel that?"

  "Yah."

  Her hands moved upward, part mass
age, part caress. Where he winced in pain, her touch grew lighter.

  The thrill never went away. Among the Giraffe People hed been too flustered and in too much of a hurry. When she climbed onto the ICC, he said, "You drop all your weight on me, Ill scream my head off."

  "Nobodyll hear, my poor boy. I sent Wembleth to look for anything that flies. Lets see if I can get you interested. Luis, how old are you?"

  "Two hundred and—"

  "Seriously." She squeezed him intimately. "Sometimes you seem older. You know things you shouldnt." Breast tips brushed against his chest hairs as she hovered above him. "How do you know there are whales in the Great Ocean?"

  "My father told me. You can see huge levels of detail underwater from high enough up."

  "Oh."

  "Youve been treating me like a kid, Roxanny. Im not sure I like it. Im not sure I dont. But hey, youre definitely in charge now."

  "Oh, yah. So lets see how agile I am." With a certain dexterity, she fitted them together. "Im over fifty, Luis. This doc is my boosterspice supply for the foreseeable future."

  "Well, dont bounce too hard or youll wreck it."

  She laughed. He felt the ripple in her powerful belly muscles.

  "Roxanny. Did you know… boosterspice is made from tree-of-life?"

  "What? No! Who told you that?"

  "Proserpina. Look at the… implications. If the United Nations was playing with tree-of-life… half a thousand years ago… what else have they done with it? Maybe theres a protector running the ARM."

  Her eyes got big. "I dont believe it. Luis, the ARMs top rank is all paranoid schizophrenics! And they dont take their shots! Cant you—"

  "Keep moving. I thought that was just rumor."

  "Well, everybody says so. Theyd never let a protector rule them. It might take over the Earth!"

  "But if they did let a protector get loose, hed run the ARM. And hed think like a paranoid schizophrenic, wouldnt he? Roxanny, I should stop distracting you."

  "Tanj right you should. Thinking about the ARM is no fun at all. This feel good?"

  "Yah."

  "Youre not ticklish?"

  "Used to be."

  "Not at all?"

  He giggled. "No. Nope." Hed got his tickle reflex under control, long ago.

  Wrong.

  The holoscreen view of Tunesmith matched Proserpinas imagination: elongated jaws, a face bare of beard, knobs at the jaw hinges, flat nostrils, sharp-edged cheekbones: a Ghoul turned protector.

  Tunesmith spoke the Ghoul tongue. Proserpina was only confused for a moment. The heliographs had spread a common language. She knew written Ghoulish, and a version spoken near the spill mountains. She had listened to Hanuman while he spoke into the holoscreen. It was only a matter of pronunciation. "Omnivore plains runner? I have long wondered about you. Your species survives on the Map of Earth, but not unaltered—"

  Proserpina yowled. Hanuman was up a tree and hidden in its puffball top, before his mind quite caught up. But Proserpina was still at the holoscreen, and Tunesmith was still speaking -

  "Local carnivores, transplanted Kzinti, have been selecting among the local hominids for such traits as please them. The exception is an invader who came with the first expedition. Chmeee tends hominids in his little sector of the Map, lets them run wild, and does not eat their meat or allow his servants to harm them. We might solve your problem most easily by giving the Map of Earth to Chmeee. We could deal with him through his son or through his ally Louis Wu.

  "The Fringe War is a more difficult problem. I believe we must meet. You must view the Repair Center, and I must not leave you unwatched.

  "What I know of you leads me to believe that you have learned not to act. Such a degree of self-control is rare in one of our kind. I believe I would be safe in your presence if I can offer reasonable guarantees for your own safety.

  "A guarantee you might accept is your knowledge of what I am. We evolved as intelligent breeders. My own several species survive as eaters of the dead. Thus we normally see harm to any race as bad. Where other hominids survive well, so do we. Wars are not good for us; a battle is a glut followed by famine. Drought is not good, so we guide locals in water and canal management. Deserts are not good; we guide locals in replanting. We teach flood control and fanning. We keep local religions, but we guide them away from messy practices, jihads and human sacrifice and cremation. We keep track through heliographs managed by the people of the rim walls. We control our numbers.

  "If I see no reason to harm you, I will not. If I desire your good will, I will act to your benefit. Learn what you can of me, and decide whether you will come to meet me. I will send a service stack to rendezvous with Hanumans flycycle."

  The face of Tunesmith went away. The picture remained: a background of interstellar space, skeletal black structures in the foreground. Proserpina shouted, "Hanuman!"

  Hanuman climbed down.

  Proserpinas grip had bent the armrests of the skycycles forward chair. She said, "My descendants are being eaten by large orange carnivores."

  "Did you know before last night?"

  "I knew that most of the Ringworld was out of my control and barred to me. This was not nearly the worst of what I imagined, but I knew with my forebrain, Hanuman, not with my glands. Well, what is a service stack?"

  "Float plates topped by a stepping disk. I can guide us through the stepping-disk system."

  "We should look to our guests first. You take the flycycle. Ill take the mag ship home. I have an errand."

  Evening.

  "It isnt the same as rishathra," Louis said. "Cant you feel the difference?"

  "Kid, youve had more experience than I have at that," Roxanny said, "so you say. What are we doing for dinner?"

  "You could go hunting."

  "I feel lazy."

  "Will this system make dole bricks?"

  Roxanny looked it over. "Just soup."

  "Draw me a mug."

  She dialed for two. "Luis, how would you get into the mountain?"

  "I havent even seen it. My daydreams have mostly involved walking erect, not climbing around in an artificial mountain. What are you thinking?"

  Roxanny said, "Wed need transportation. Even on Earth, arcologies are too big to explore on foot. Then Id worry about security. Protectors were very territorial, its said."

  "This is good stuff."

  Roxanny sipped. It was a heavy, grainy soup. "You get tired of it fast."

  "Think about breeders."

  "What?"

  "Breeders. Pak who havent turned protector. Plains apes, adults, and children. They can run alongside an antelope whacking it on the head with a knobbed bone, and not fall over. Keeping their balance may be what got them the big, complicated brain. But they can still climb. If there are booby traps in that futzy great building, theyll be set to leave breeders alone."

  "Well, unless the breeders are kept out by something like, I dont know, a fence?"

  "We should look for a fence," he agreed. "Roxanny? Dont go alone, stet?"

  "Whats that?" Light outside.

  "Flycycle riding lights."

  Roxanny went out to look. She came back holding hands with Hanuman. "That protector sent the flycycle home on automatic."

  "Its got an autopilot. She might have fiddled with it. Where is she?"

  Roxanny shrugged. "Nobody was aboard but the Beast."

  CHAPTER 17

  The Penultimates Citadel

  On the fourth day Roxanny told him to walk.

  "Itll be another day yet," he told her.

  "I know, but the diagnostics say youre nearly cured. Benefits of youth, I guess. Luis, soldiers turn out of the doc when they have to fight, and futz the diagnostics. It doesnt hurt them."

  Louis was tempted, but — "Whats the hurry, Roxanny?"

  "Wembleth says hes found a way in."

  "Ah."

  "Weve got a flycycle. It wont fly without you. Proserpina seems to have got it to fly itself, but I cant. Proserpina has
nt come back—"

  "Wheres Hanuman?"

  "Somewhere in the forest gorging on fruit, I think. Why?"

  "He needs taking care of."

  "No, he doesnt. Luis, I dont know what shes doing, but the joker wont stay away forever!"

  So Louis climbed out of the ICC. He limped with one hand on Roxannys muscular shoulder, out to the flycycle where Wembleth was waiting. There were little sharp pains all through his left leg, hip, ribs.

  Roxanny asked, "Will this thing hold three?"

  "Sure, Wembleth can perch in the middle. Give me the front seat." Louis took his seat, wriggled carefully into a position of minimum pain. Wembleth crawled up between him and Roxanny. It was crowded, and the natives wild pelt brushed Louiss neck and ears.

  He asked, "What did you find, Wembleth?"

  "A path into the fortress," the wrinkled man said.

  "Stet. Point me." Louis took off.

  It wasnt symmetrical, or self-consciously artistic. It looked like a mountain — like the Matterhorn, all tilted planes done in dark stone, with a pervasive glitter from thousands of windows. A broad veldt surrounded the base, ending in a vertical cliff.

  The veldt was a tilted plain of gold and black: lines and arcs of black grass on a field of gold. Louis asked, "What do you make of that?"

  Wembleth said, "The black is dying back."

  "Black isnt unreasonable for a plant," Roxanny said. "Chlorophyll throws away all the green light. What if a plant could use it all? There are some that do, in known space."

  "Yah, but Wembleths right too. This looks like… writing thats been eroded, partly erased. How about this? Genetic engineering. The Penultimate planted it for decoration. Its just not as hardy as the hay, wheat, whatever."

  From a height, the cliff did look artificial. Louis steered the flycycle close, then skimmed along the edge.

  "This would stop plains apes," Roxanny said. "Not a flycycle."