by Larry Niven
Something had slowed his metamorphosis.
He tried to stand up, already guessing the answer.
He couldnt stand straight. Hed been half-healed when he began to eat yellow root. The injuries were embedded in the regrowth pattern. Hed become a protector, but crippled. His knee, leg, hip, and ribs on the left side were twisted out of true. His body was nearly fat free, the fat burned out of him during too long an estivation.
He limped through the hanging garden, learning how to move all over again. A protector who couldnt fight. He reached for something badger-like and caught its leg only because it was so slow. He ate it in haste, and judged it was enough.
A few ramps below was the scorched and half-melted service stack. He limped down and had a look. It had cooled, of course. He tried to pop the controls open, but melted metal had fused it shut.
He climbed painfully onto the stepping disk. Nothing happened.
His fist slapped the rim hard.
Mars! He twisted and reached up to slap both hands against the inverted stepping disk before he could fall away. A moment later he was in a handstand in a field of high grass. He rolled to his feet quick (where was Tunesmith?) and found himself under a blue hemisphere, in the tree-of-life garden where hed killed Teela Brown.
Tunesmith?
Nowhere.
He popped the stepping-disk controls open and began to play. First things first.
There was a mile-long craft on the Great Ocean. Hidden Patriarch had brought Kzinti to conquer the Map of Earth, centuries ago, and on that ship was a stepping disk. Louis didnt remember its code, but he found it.
Hidden Patriarch. He flicked in wire-tense, ready to fight or die.
Nothing came at him. He could see a bronze fractal spider web looking at him from a rusted iron wall: one of the Hindmosts webeyes. Otherwise the location didnt seem to be guarded.
Hed left Hidden Patriarch almost beneath the Ringworlds starboard rim wall. Such a view could reduce a man to the size of a proton. Mountains as big as Everest lined its base, green with riotous life. Spill mountains were all seabottom muck, all fertilizer.
The librarians hadnt moved the ship. The Hindmost said theyd been returned home. Hidden Patriarch might well be empty.
Louis popped the controls, taking this disk out of the network. Now he was unreachable.
For a few moments now, Louis only thought. His memories were muzzy — a long lifetime of breeder memories. His memories of this last hour were diamond clear.
Long ago, it seemed, hed studied a map of the Hindmosts stepping-disk system. Now he reached back into those memories to find settings and placements for various locations. They were mostly lost… but what he needed was a disk only recently put into service. Thought and memory gave him the code by which the Hindmost designated stepping disks. Wouldnt Tunesmith keep that system? It would give Louis a handful of settings to try.
Hed better have a pressure suit.
He popped aboard Hot Needle of Inquiry and yelled, "Hindmosts Voice! Its Louis!" Despite changes in his throat structure he made himself sound like Louis Wu.
"Dont move. You are not Louis Wu," said a flat voice like the Hindmosts.
Louis didnt move. He was in the crew cabin. For an instant he considered familiar food, a shower, and a change of clothes, but it just didnt matter. He said, "Tell the Hindmost Louis Wu has become a protector. I need to talk to him."
"Louis? I warned you!" said the same voice.
"I knew. Dont tell me where you are. Ive come for a pressure suit. Have you been watching the Fringe War? Has anything happened?"
"An antimatter missile destroyed one of the ramjets on the rim wall," the puppeteers voice said. "Twenty-eight Ringworld days ago. The explosion was tremendous, not just antimatter but kilotonnes of confined plasma under fusion. Spill mountains melted. I couldnt learn what faction did that. I thought chaos would follow. I made ready to depart, but nothing happened."
"Those attitude jets always were too vulnerable. Tunesmith must have set up something else by now." Louiss mind ranged ahead of his words. "The Ringworld builders never did want rim wall ramjets as anything more than a temporary fix and a safety feature. They built the superconductor grid to move the system magnetically, push against the sun. Tunesmith controls that."
"Youre guessing."
"I guess good. Im a protector. Free me, Hindmost, and Ill get off your property."
"Whats it like?" the Hindmost asked.
"I feel confined. Im crippled," Louis said. "I cant fight and cant run. I can think faster than I ever did before. I see more answers. Thats confining too, in a way. If I see the right answer every time, therere no choices.
"Tunesmith has a plan. I wont interfere unless he threatens my N-children, but I should talk to him. Its just that there are things I have to do first. What about you? Do you have a plan?"
"Run away when I see a chance."
"Good. Do you remember where Tunesmith worked cm Needle? Do you have webeye cameras in there?"
"Beneath Mons Olympus."
"Is Long Shot there? Is it functional?"
"He took the ship apart and put it back together. He hasnt tested it since."
"What about Carlos Wus autodoc?"
"It hasnt been touched."
"Its still spread out across the floor?"
"Yes."
"Watch for me to cause a distraction. Then get the autodoc aboard Long Shot in working condition. Can you do it?"
The scream of a demented orchestra. "Why would I even consider committing burglary on a protectors turf!"
"But youll have a protector on your side. Hindmost, we are under a deadline. Tunesmith will not consider your convenience. He will act as soon as he can, because he cant predict when the Fringe War will go to hell. If we cant get off the Ringworld soon, youll lose your home forever, and so will I, and worse."
Into the silence that followed, Louis said, "Youre thinking you could hold me prisoner until you turn me over to Tunesmith. Buy something with that. Shall I tell you why you cant do that? Do you remember three chairs in the Meteor Defense Room, on booms?"
"I remember."
"Tunesmith only needs one."
The Hindmost understood. He was as quick as some protectors. "Triumvirate."
"He let me see that on purpose. Its a message, a promise. Tunesmith, Proserpina, and me. He extrapolated a surviving Pak protector, and he knew he could feed me tree-of-life. He didnt expect me to be running loose. He probably wont mind finding me crippled like an ancient Greek slave. He needs my input. He cant guess what the Fringe War will do as well as I can.
"See, you can sell me to Tunesmith, but youll have to deal with me afterward."
"Youre free to move about the ship," the Hindmost said.
Louis let himself slump into his more natural twisted pose. "Give me access to the stepping-disk master controls. I need to rewrite some instructions."
"To make yourself hard to find? I can help."
"Me and a couple of others. I dont need help."
After he had finished reprogramming the stepping-disk system, Louis flicked into Needles cargo bay. He extruded a pressure suit. It didnt fit him well in his twisted condition, but it would do. He took some gear: a rope, mag specs, a flashlight-laser.
He tapped at stepping-disk controls and flicked out.
He was in orbit. Hed thought that might happen. The settings he wanted were the most recently deployed, and some of those would match orbiting service stacks.
He spent a few moments looking down at the Ringworlds face. This was a region hed never seen in detail, partway between the Great Oceans. There were ochre deserts, and tiny pockmarks of impact craters, and three little knots of cloud: eyestorms.
Tunesmith wasnt making repairs unless he had to. Given what he was doing, Tunesmith might be glad to find places where the landscape was ripped down to the scrith.
Aircraft and spacecraft he saw none. That was better than his predictions. By now the Fringe War might have
worked its way down to the surface. Louis still had time.
But he would have made this side jaunt despite the Fringe War. A protector didnt often have choices. He tapped in another setting.
Still in orbit, but elsewhere. An ARM camera the size of a gnat was looking at him from two meters away.
That tore it! Now they had a verified protector sighting. Or would the pressure suit and his twisted shape hide his nature for long enough? He tapped and flicked out quick.
Might wasnt particularly dark on the Ringworld. Nothing was here but sand and scrub and Tunesmiths service stack, and the calm surface of a sea. Louis prowled about for a bit, but the sand wouldnt hold footprints.
But it held a trace of a scent.
Theyd flicked in here, but they hadnt stayed long. They had a flycycle to play with. Louis walked around the island, using mag specs to study the distant shore. A flycycle ought to stand out.
Nothing. Try again.
Nowhere. He flicked in and was trapped in branches and thorns.
He looked about him, he felt about him, before he tried to move. The thorns didnt do much harm to his leathery skin. Behind his hardshelled face his mind grinned.
Tunesmith had sent a service stack to rendezvous with Louiss flycycle.
Half a year ago. Roxanny, riding the flycycle, might have moved several times before she gave up. Tunesmiths programming would hold: the service stack would follow the flycycle. For all Roxanny knew, it might be covered in sensors and cameras! Finally she must have run it into a jungle and let thorn plants grow over the flycycle and service stack both.
Louis did some careful cutting with the flashlight-laser. The brush started to burn around him. Not a good thing. He crawled down through the thorns, around the edge of the stepping disk, picking up scratches, cutting more brush as he went. Popped the rim and turned off the stepping disk, and lofted the stack of float plates before the fire could roast him.
The forest ran a fair distance, following a river, and hed been in the middle of it. Now he was above it, with a fine view. Where would a pair of strangers go after abandoning their transportation?
Not far. Wembleth would lead Roxanny to the nearest center of civilization: he knew strangers were welcome everywhere. Follow the river downstream and theyd find something.
What Louis found was a convergence of two rivers and a small village. He drifted toward the conical houses. Somewhere a voice shouted, "Vasneesit!" and Louis thought, "Stet."
A fire was growing in the forest. A pillar of smoke to gather attention, right where Roxanny and Wembleth had left their vehicles. Looking toward the fire, theyd see a stack of float plates limned against smoke. And what then? Would they hide, or flee?
Hide. They couldnt run faster than a service stack.
Louis sniffed. Population of a thousand to fifteen hundred, smelling like meat eaters, not many elders, lots of parasites but little disease. And -
There.
He set the stack down in the village square. Locals gathered. They were short, brawny, wolfish-looking men and women. Eyes faced front from deep sockets. Small sharp jaws protruded a little.
An elder tried to speak to him. Louis couldnt understand the language, but he tried to placate the man with body language. When that didnt work, he nipped the elders nose, then knocked him down. A brief shoving match and the man was groveling.
Fair enough. Louis followed the scent. The source had changed houses, but it would have been stronger if theyd moved through open air. Were there tunnels under the village?
A young man popped out of a doorway with Roxannys sonic in his hand.
The buzz just brushed him before Louiss laser beam touched the metal butt. Carefully! The man dropped the sonic and ran inside. He wasnt one of the Wolf People. He was only a few centimeters shorter than Louis, curly brown hair around the face and head, bare skin elsewhere. He was clearly human. Louiss nose knew him.
"Wembleth!" Louis limped after him. "I just want to talk." He moved inside, afraid theyd outrun him, but he was limping faster than they could move. His hand caught metal swinging toward his head, turned and had a wrist and metal bar. "Roxanny."
The fight went out of her. She stared at him in fathomless terror. "What are you?"
"Dont you believe in Vashneesht?" She didnt react. Not funny? "Im Louis Wu," he said. "Your sonic left me twisted, but otherwise Im a protector. You were lucky. You would have eaten tree-of-life if wed gone where you pointed me."
"Louis."
He sniffed: she was carrying a child of his own blood.
She could kill him before he harmed her now. He said, "Do you know — ?"
"Im pregnant. It happens." Roxanny looked him in the eye. "You said you were fertile."
"Its Wembleths child. I can smell."
"Stet. Why were you fertile? Most men use up their birthrights. Didnt Louis Wu?"
"Roxanny, every life is unlikely."
Her smile was a mere flicker. "And why am I fertile? You sure didnt arrange that."
Louis said, "Someone jiggered your med specs. You all used the same doc aboard Gray Nurse, didnt you? Someone wanted to get you pregnant so he turned off your sterility patch." It was the most rational answer.
Roxanny said, "Coroner-First Zinna Hendersdatter. She thinks I took Oliver away from her." She had her aplomb back. "So protectors make mistakes?"
"Theres never enough data. Its why protectors second-guess each other. Roxanny, I just want to talk and then Ill be gone. Wembleth?"
"Dont hurt her."
Wembleths head and arms poked out of a hole in the earthen floor. Hed been there for some time. His beard was brown and somewhat curly, tipped with white. Boosterspice had made him young, and in that state he looked something like Teela Brown and quite a lot like a young Louis Wu. He had a crossbow.
"You dont have to come closer," Louis said. He let go of Roxanny, who backed away. He held still, wondering if Wembleth would fire, wondering if he could catch a crossbow bolt. "Youve been practicing Interworld speech?"
"Yah, Roxanny wants to join the ARM fleet."
How? Louis wondered. If hed seen a way, hed have had to block it.
"Roxanny," he asked, "where did you leave Snail Darters library?"
"I took it aboard Gray Nurse," she said. "Why?"
"My children, their N-children, one or two might have joined the ARM fleet. I have to see the roster. Thered be a current copy in every ship in the fleet."
She laughed. "There are tens of thousands of men and women in the ARM ships! Are you going to scan them all?"
"Yah."
She shrugged. "Maybe Proserpina picked it up."
"Youll have to leave here," Louis said. "I brought the service stack. Ill reprogram it so itll stop following the flycycle. Its very important that you cant be found. I got this close to you by just following the programming in the stepping disks. I followed your scent from the forest, Wembleth."
"With a nose like that, Im not surprised," Wembleth said rudely.
Louis touched his enlarged nose. "Do you know that youre my son?"
Wembleth snorted in disbelief. "I would have thought you might be mine! But youre older than you looked."
"Youre younger. I never saw a human being who hadnt used modern medical techniques. No depilators, no tannin pills, never a dental program. I thought you were another species. But Teela Brown was your mother," Louis said.
Roxanny shook her head. "Shed have had a five-year patch."
"She must have decided she wanted my child. Shed have to have had her sterility treatment reversed before we left Earth. It would have taken both of her birthrights. She never told me."
Wembleth said, "Wait. You mean it? Youre my father?" He seemed horrified.
"Yah—"
"Why did you leave us?"
"Teela left me. I thought then that she left me for Seeker—"
"But what did you do?"
"I didnt protect her." How could he, against her own luck? "She went into an eyestorm and we los
t her. When we found her again, she was with Seeker. Shed have been carrying you when I left them near the Great Ocean, and as for what she did after that, Id be guessing."
"You are Vashneesht," Wembleth said. "Youre good at guessing. Ive never understood. Why did mother leave us?"
Louis knew he should be going. Every second might be precious. Once upon a time Proserpinas people had cleaned the Ringworld system of every menacing rock. Now it was infested with ships…
But in the presence of his son and growing grandchild, Louis was inclined to stay; and Wembleth needed reassurance.
He said, "I left Teela near the Great Ocean. There werent any stepping disks on the Ringworld then. Seeker — the man she left me for — he might have known how to use the transport that runs along the rim wall. Its a magnetic levitation system, Roxanny. They found something to get them there; theres enough Builder technology lying around. They took the maglev system all the way around to the Other Ocean.
"Youd call that crazy unless they were running from something fearsome. Not from me, I think, but maybe it was what she thought Id bring. The Fringe War. Teela might have been afraid of puppeteers. Nessus meddled in her life, pretty well destroyed it, and she didnt want that to happen again. She knew any of us would look where we last saw her.
"So they found a place halfway around the arc, and she settled down and made a life with Seeker and you. I hope she was happy."
"Mother was happy," Wembleth said, "but restless too. She never had any more children—"
"Course not. Seeker wasnt her species."
"She and — Seeker — my father," with a bit of a glare, "took turns exploring. I never knew what they were looking for. One of them had to stay with me. They did more of that after I was older. I was near eighty falans when she disappeared."
"And never came back?"
"Never did," Wembleth said.
"She found tree-of-life." Teelas luck, Louis thought. Poor Teela. If anything, it was her genes that were lucky. He said, "I dont know just how it happened, but that tuber grows on every one of these maps of the Pak world, and most maps once held a protector prisoner. A few prisoners must have found some way to infect roots with tree-of-life virus, just as Proserpina did. I think Teela found the Penultimates garden. It would have got Seeker too if she hadnt been exploring alone. She woke up as a protector. Wembleth, she wouldnt ever leave you unless it was to protect you from some greater danger."