Ringworld's Children (6 page)

Tunesmith stopped to examine massive machinery, then reworked some superconducting circuitry with a spray gun. The mass crept away on sixty or seventy float plates. "Meteor repair kit," he said. "Finished, but now it's got to be moved to the launcher."

Stepping disks were growing in a vat while instruments monitored the metal content of the fluid. Tunesmith used a finished stepping disk to flick them into the Meteor Defense Room.

Louis had no idea where he'd been.

No idea what they were doing.

It seemed to Louis that the protector's mind was like a vast maze, and Louis lost within it. Working with Bram had been no different. The Vampire protector had committed an intolerable crime, and Louis had found him out. Louis had taken steps to replace him with a Ghoul, a Night People. Well and good, but had he expected to suddenly attain freedom?

Protectors themselves didn't have freedom. If Tunesmith could always see the right answer, why would he ever choose otherwise? And all that a poor stupid breeder could do was ride along. But if Louis didn't get some answers soon--

The Fringe War was all laid out on the floor-to-ceiling screen circling the Meteor Defense Room. Ships and bases were marked with blinking cursors in neon colors. Kzinti and human ships were numerous. Others manifested a presence: puppeteers, Outsiders, Trinocs, ships and probes Tunesmith hadn't identified. The Ringworld was of interest to any entity who learned of it.

A Kzinti ship fell through the inner system, rounding the sun without a challenge.

Tunesmith said, "An ARM attempted to talk to me, but I choose not to answer. No other faction has. There were early attempts to invade. The meteor defense stops everything but microprobes, but those must be everywhere. I've intercepted what must be messages between ships, too well encrypted even for me. By
Needle's
database I can identify ships and habitats in the inner comets belonging to ARM, Patriarchy, Trinocs, an Outsider ship, and three Pierson's puppeteers all hanging well outside the system, and thousands of probes of unidentified origin. I had best assume that everyone knows everything that anyone is doing. Even for me, keeping a secret will be tricky."

He zoomed the display. "Louis, what is this?"

A dot was light-amplified to a blurred view of a ghostly torus made of black lace, all intertwining threads, a tiny point-source of yellow-white light at the center, no obvious spacecraft drive. "Thirty-two Ringworld radii distant--"

Louis said, "Another Outsider. They don't always use light sails. We bought hyperdrive technology from them, but they've got something even better. The good news is, they've got no use for liquid water and high gravity, so they've no interest in human worlds."

"And this?" A battered cylinder, flared at the tail, windows glinting about its waist.

"Mmm? The design looks like United Nations work of a long time ago. Maybe a slowboat retrofitted with hyperdrive. It might be from Sheathclaws. Would they try to deal themselves in? That planet was settled by Kzinti telepaths and humans."

"Sheathclaws. A threat?"

"No. They couldn't afford serious weapons."

"Good. Hindmost, did you show him
Diplomat?"

"Yes. We watched your
Probe One
break up a rendezvous between
Diplomat
and
Long Shot. Long Shot
retreated to hyperspace."

"Louis, Acolyte, Hindmost, I need a sanity check," Tunesmith said. "Is this a story you can believe? My
Probe One
frightens
Long Shot
away from a scheduled rendezvous.
Long Shot
jumps in hyperdrive, not far, then observes from a safe distance, a few light minutes away, until the pilot sees no further threat. Now he returns to exchange data and packages with
Diplomat,
but he's late.

"He returns to the Patriarchy still behind schedule and trying to catch up.
Long Shot
must report directly, because who else could? Every other ship is too slow. The Kzinti homeworld is two hundred thirty light years from here. That's three hundred minutes each way. We start with ten hours to play with before
Long Shot's
pilot can return to Ringworld space, and he will still make his next rendezvous in haste. Yes?"

"Kzinti would do that anyway," Louis said. "Charge right in."

Acolyte bristled. "We do not worship clocks and calendars, Tunesmith. This ship
Diplomat
was attacked. They will be wary."

Louis said, "Spaceborn always worship clocks and calendars. Orbits are like that."

"Hindmost?"

The puppeteer asked, "What are you risking on this guesswork?"

"Too much," Tunesmith said, "but I must gamble. Fringe War activity accelerates toward a singularity. My worst move is no move."

"What do you intend?"

"I will capture
Long Shot."

Louis saw that he'd been right: a crazy mission. He pointed out,
"Long Shot
is three thousand times as fast as us in hyperdrive, and never enters the Ringworld singularity."

"They can't use hyperdrive if they're docked with another ship. Follow me." Tunesmith strode forward and was gone. And again, Louis followed.

As best he
could tell,
Probe Two
was a perfect machine. Hanuman continued working on it anyway. Of all the fascinating machines in Tunesmith's domain, this was the one he felt justified in making his own. His own life would ride this ship.

But he could work on
Probe Two.
This was the machine that might kill him. He was hoping to understand it better. Tunesmith
--
as much Hanuman's superior as he was superior to his species' breeders
--
didn't quite understand it either.

They were in the cavern beneath Mons Olympus. Tunesmith strode toward an individual half his height. He said, "Hanuman, these are friends. Folk, this is Hanuman, pilot for
Probe Two."

The stranger's voice was high-pitched but not childish. "Acolyte, Louis Wu, Hindmost. Hello."

Louis said, "A pleasure.
Hanuman?"
Still trying to decide what he was seeing. The stranger wouldn't weigh more than fifty pounds. Three feet tall, with two feet of tail, swollen joints and swollen skull and skin like cured leather pleated in folds. "You'd be a Hanging People protector?"

"Yes. Tunesmith made me and named me. 'Hanuman' is a literary reference from the library in
Hot Needle of Inquiry."
Hanuman switched to another language: Ghoulish, spoken far too fast. As he and Tunesmith chattered, Louis's translator caught a word here and there.

"--haste--"

"--lower that into place."

"A single theory to be tested. If your vehicle survives--"

A cylinder waited beside the linear accelerator. It looked too small for a passenger, but the nose was fully transparent, and the magnet coils behind it--the linear accelerator--were more than a mile across.

Machines had already mounted the rebuilt hyperdrive motor in
Needle's
belly. Now
Needle's
missing hull section crawled forward to rejoin
Needle.

Needle's
sliced-off wall had been breeched. A drum-shaped cylinder ran into and through it. The outer, hull side of the intrusion was opaque, painted with more of that bronze stuff. As the hull section moved to join
Hot Needle of Inquiry,
the intrusion eased into what had once been the garage for
Needle's
lander.

The intrusion was an airlock, Louis saw. A big one, big enough to transfer a dozen humans at a time.

The bronze edges matched. Then the bronze edging oozed away, coiling on the lava like a snake. The bronze splotch on the airlock remained in place.

Louis said, "I can't stand it. What is that bronze stuff?"

Hanuman said, "Glue."

Louis waited.

Tunesmith spoke with a touch of reluctance. "It's more complex than that. Do you know about General Products' hulls? Each variation is a molecule with its interatomic bonding artificially enhanced. It's very strong, but if the molecule is cut, it comes apart. I've engineered a substance to replace the interatomic bonds. It does more than allow me to slice up a hull. I can bond one General Products ship's hull to another. Hanuman, are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Only fulfill your mission, then save yourself if you can. Go."

Hanuman scampered across the stone floor, climbed into the tiny missile, and closed the transparent nose. His ship dropped below floor level.

Hanuman spared a
moment to wonder about Tunesmith's companions. One was a breeder, species unknown, but all three showed their alien state. Starborn, alien to the Ringworld. Hanuman knew a little about them from
Needle
and its computer files.

Probe Two
was ready to launch, and Hanuman had his instructions. But if he survived, he must come to know who to trust.

Hydrogen fuel flooded into
Needle's
tanks.

Tunesmith waved at the tower of rings. "Bram built this to launch meteor defense and repair systems. I've altered it. It will give us higher initial velocity than our fuel and thrusters would buy. Board
Needle
now, don pressure suits, strap down. Hindmost, up front with me. We should launch behind
Probe Two."

Now
Hot Needle of Inquiry
was sliding across the lava. Louis wondered if they'd have to run after the ship, but Tunesmith led them to a stepping disk that flicked them aboard. The Hindmost and Tunesmith moved to the control room; Acolyte and Louis stayed in crew quarters.

While Louis was getting into his suit,
Probe Two
launched in a flare of lightning and was gone into the sky. The launch system was inefficient, Louis thought. Bad for the environment. Tunesmith must have power to throw away.

Needle
sank toward the base of the launcher.

Tunesmith was suited up much faster than the others. "Eat before you close your helmets!" he shouted. "There's time." He raced through some diagnostic programs, then began using stepping disks to flick through the ship, stopping to observe, to fiddle. In two or three minutes he was back.

Needle's
control cabin had been given place for a copilot. Tunesmith's bolted-in seat was a layer of plates that moved to accommodate him. He glanced around at his crew--in place, webbed down, the Hindmost beside him--and launched.

"Another one!" Forrestier
shouted.

'Tec Roxanny Gauthier looked. In the wall display, what was rising past the edge of the Ringworld was no more than a blurred point.
Gray Nurse
was on patrol among the inner comets, far, far away from any Ringworld action.

That,
rising from the same Great Ocean island, was a larger dot, elongated, moving with the same amazing speed as the probe.

"That's
a ship," Roxanny said. Headquarters would have to respond to that!
Gray Nurse
herself would not fight. She was a carrier. She was long and slender, built for spin gravity in emergencies, and she carried twenty fighter-recon ships. Roxanny belonged to the crew of the fighter
Snail Darter.