44.04 Ringworld's Children by Larry Niven

Author:Larry Niven
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction - Adventure, Science Fiction - High Tech, Fiction - Science Fiction, High Tech, Space warfare, Fantasy, Space Opera, Ringworld (Imaginary place), Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Life on other planets, General, Explorers
ISBN: 9780765341020
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-03-28T07:45:24+00:00

Chapter 13 -

Gray Nurse

In the morning Louis found himself on a grassy hill. He stood to look about him.

The flycycles hadn't been moved from their place on the river's shore. Acolyte slept between them. Hanuman and the Earth folk were nowhere visible. The Hinsh had departed. Downslope toward the river were melon trees and broken melon shells. A puddle of orange-and-chocolate fur beside the pool had to be Acolyte.

He walked on down.

He expected the Kzin to wake as he approached, but Acolyte didn't move. His sides moved. Good: the Kzin was breathing. Now, what mischief were the ARMs up to?

Louis took a flycycle aloft.

Claus and Roxanny were on the other side of the creek, behind a hill. They were working with the heavy oblong brick she'd stowed in Louis's baggage compartment. It unfolded into something like a holoscreen keypad: the library from their little spacecraft.

Wembleth and Hanuman were peering past them into the hologram display. Roxanny saw Louis and waved. He waved back.

That didn't look like they were keeping secrets. Louis returned to the pool.

Acolyte was sitting up, stretching. He looked around him. "Where is everyone?"

"Across the river. Are you all right?"

"Well fed and well slept out. I found a small deer or something. Louis, nobody told me not to gorge. We should have arranged to stand watch."

Louis stretched. "I wondered if they'd stunned you. Hey, I slept as well as you did. The ARMs are doing something tricky, I think, but Hanuman's watching them. Shall we see?"

They took a flycycle across.

Claus awaited their descent. He said, "Luis, Acolyte, I want to interview both of you as to what you saw at the puncture. Any objection?"

Louis thought of objections, but none that Luis could back up. "Show us how it works," he said.

"Just the Kzin first," Claus said.

"We'll help each other," Louis said, and Acolyte rumbled agreement. Then Wembleth too wanted to participate. That allowed the three to play off each other in an interview that became an animated conversation.

Louis gambled that the ARMs didn't have equipment to detect lies in the tremor of a voice. Gray Nurse or another in the ARM fleet might.

As to what "Luis" had seen, Louis stuck close to the truth. They had been indoors: they'd missed the explosion (and Luis knew nothing of industrial antimatter). As he and Acolyte arrived from... somewhere... a great light had appeared, not much brighter than the sun, but huge. Then a glare-yellow doughnut the size of a mountain range lay blocking the region they had come to see.

He was asked about his background. He invented, but kept it terse. A twenty-year-old wouldn't have centuries of memories; he wouldn't tell stories well, and he'd be a bit shy around elders. Acolyte, who really was only twelve, was able to stick to his own memories, because Chiron (Luis said) had never confronted the half-grown Kzin. Luis speculated aloud whether the puppeteer was afraid.

And the library fascinated all three interviewees.

Protector--1 Adult stage of the Pak species, where the line runs from child to breeder to adult.

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