Part 4 (2/2)
”And it had a raised throne and a wire sculpture of someone's head that was as big as a house! If you could build a Ringworld, would you bother with a sky castle? I don't believe it. I never believed it.”
”Chmeee?”
The kzin said, ”We must accept Louis's judgment on human matters.”
They turned right into a radial corridor. Here were more sleeping rooms. Louis inspected one in detail. The pressure suit was interesting. It was mounted against a wall like a hunter's trophy hide: one piece, crisscrossed with zippers, all open. Instantly accessible in case of vacuum.
The kzin waited impatiently while Louis zipped it shut and stepped back to study the effect.
The joints bulged. Knees and shoulders and elbows like cantaloupes, hands like a fistful of walnuts strung together. The face jutted forward; there were power and air-reserve gauges set below the faceplate.
The kzin growled, ”Well?”
”Nope, I need more proof. Let's go.”
”More proof of what?”
I think I know who built the Ringworld ... and why the natives are so much like humans. But why would they build something they couldn't defend? It doesn't make sense.”
”If we discussed it-”
”Nope, not yet. Come on.”
At the s.h.i.+p's axis they found pay dirt. Half a dozen radial corridors converged, and a tube with a ladder led up and down. There were diagrams covering four sections of wall, with labels that were tiny, detailed pictograms.
”How convenient,” said Louis. ”It's almost as if they had us in mind.”
”Languages change,” said the kzin. ”These people rode the winds of relativity; their crews might be born a century apart. They would have needed such aids. We held our empire together with similar aids, before the Wars With Men. Louis, I find no weaponry section.”
”There was nothing guarding the s.p.a.ceport either. Nothing obvious, anyway.” Louis's finger traced the diagrams. ”Galley, hospital, living area-we're here in the living area. Three control centers; seems excessive.”
”One for the Bussard ramjet and interstellar s.p.a.ce. One for fusion drive and maneuvering in an occupied system, and weapons control, if any. One for life support: this one, that shows wind blowing through a corridor.”
The Hindmost spoke. ”With trans.m.u.tation, they would use a total conversion drive.”
”Oh, not necessarily. A blast of radiation that powerful would play merry h.e.l.l in an inhabited system,” said Louis. ”Hah! There are our access tubes, going to ... ramscoop generators, fusion motor, fuel feed. We want the life-support controls first. Two flights up and that way.”
The control room was small: a padded bench facing three walls of dials and switches. A touchpoint in the doorjamb caused the walls to glow yellow-white, and set the dials glowing too. They were unreadable, of course. Pictograms segregated the controls into cl.u.s.ters governing entertainment, spin, water, sewage, food, air.
Louis began flipping switches. The ones most often used would be large and easy to reach. He stopped when he heard a whistling sound.
The pressure dial at his chin rose gradually.
There was low pressure at 40 percent oxygen. Humidity was low but not absent. No detectable noxious substances.
Chmeee had deflated his suit and was stripping it off. Louis removed his helmet, dropped the backpack, and peeled his suit away, all in unseemly haste. The air was dry and faintly stale.
Chmeee said, ”I think we may start with the access tube to the fuel feed. Shall I lead?”
”Fine.” Louis heard in his voice the tension and eagerness he'd tried to repress. With luck the Hindmost would miss it. Soon, now. He followed the kzin's orange back.
Out the door, turn right into a radius, follow to the s.h.i.+p's axis and down a ladder, and a great furry hand engulfed Louis's upper arm and pulled him into a corridor.
”We must talk,” the kzin rumbled.
”Yeah, and about time too! If he can hear us now, we might as well give up. Listen-”
”The Hindmost will not hear us. Louis, we must capture Hot Needle of Inquiry. Have you given thought to this?”
”I have. It can't be done. You made a nice try, but what the futz were you going to do next? You can't fly Needle. You saw the controls.”
”I can make the Hindmost fly it.”
Louis shook his head. ”Even if you could stand guard over him for two years, I think the life-support system would break down, trying to keep you both alive that long. That's the way he planned it.”
”You would surrender?”
Louis sighed. ”All right, let's look at it in detail. We can offer the Hindmost a credible bribe or a credible threat, or we can kill him if we think we can fly Needle afterward.”
”Yes.”
”We can't bribe him with a magic trans.m.u.tation device. There isn't any.”
”I dreaded that you would blurt out the truth.”
”No way. Once he knows we aren't needed, we're dead. And we don't have any other bribes.” Louis continued, ”We can't get to the flight deck. There may be stepping discs that would take us there, somewhere aboard Needle, but where are they and how do we get the Hindmost to turn them on? We can't attack him either. Projectiles won't go through a GP hull. There's flare s.h.i.+elding on the hull, and probably more flare s.h.i.+elding between our cell and the flight deck. A puppeteer wouldn't have ignored that. So we can't fire a laser at him because the walls would turn mirror-colored and bounce the beam back at us. What's left? Sonics? He just turns off the microphones. Have I left anything out?”
”Antimatter. You need not remind me that we have none.”
”So we can't threaten him, we can't hurt him, and we can't reach the flight deck anyway.”
The kzin clawed thoughtfully at the ruff around his neck.
”It just occurred to me,” Louis said. ”Maybe Needle can't get back to known s.p.a.ce at all.”
”I don't see what you mean.”
”We know too much. We're very bad publicity for the puppeteers. Odds are the Hindmost never planned to take us home. Well, why would he go himself? The place he wants to reach is the Fleet of Worlds, which is twenty or thirty light-years from here by now, in the opposite direction. Even if we could fly Needle, we probably don't have the life support to reach known s.p.a.ce.”
”Shall we steal a Ringworld s.h.i.+p, then? This one?”
Louis shook his head. ”We can look it over. But even if it's in good shape, we probably can't fly it. Halrloprillalar's people took crews of a thousand, and they never went that far, according to Prill ... though the Ringworld engineers probably did.”
The kzin stood peculiarly still, as if afraid to release the energy bottled inside him. Louis began to realize how angry Chmeee was. ”Do you counsel me to surrender, then? Is there not even vengeance for us?”
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