Part 33 (2/2)
”I came to prevent the murder of fifteen hundred thousand million intelligent hominids. I recognized the neutrino exhaust from thrusters built in human s.p.a.ce, and I came to the only feasible scene of the crime. I waited. Here you are.”
”Here we are,” Louis agreed. ”But you know tanj well that we didn't come to commit any murders whatever.”
”You would have.”
”Why?”
”I can't tell you that.”
Yet she showed no inclination to end the conversation. It was a strange game Teela was playing. They would have to guess at the rules. Louis asked, ”Suppose you could save the Ringworld by killing one and a half trillion inhabitants out of thirty trillion. A protector would do that, wouldn't she? Five percent to save 95 percent. It seems so ... efficient.”
”Can you empathize with that many thinking beings, Louis? Or can you only imagine one death a time, with yourself in the starring role?”
He didn't answer.
”Thirty billion people inhabit human s.p.a.ce. Picture all of them dead. Picture fifty times that population dying of, let us say, radiation poisoning. Do you sense their pain, their regrets, their thoughts for each other? From that many? The numbers are too large. Your brain won't handle it. But mine will.”
”Oh.”
”I can't make it happen. I can't let it happen. I knew I must stop you.”
”Teela. Picture a shadow square sweeping down the width of the Ringworld at around seven hundred miles per second. Picture a thousand times the population of human s.p.a.ce dying as the Ringworld disintegrates.”
”I do.”
Louis nodded. Pieces of a puzzle. Teela would give them as many pieces as she could. She couldn't make herself hand them a finished picture. So keep fis.h.i.+ng for pieces. ”Did you say the remaining protector? There were four, and now there's one plus you? What happened to the others?”
”Two protectors left the repair crew at the same time I did. They must have left separately. Perhaps they found the clues that announced your arrival. I felt it necessary to track them down and stop them.”
”Really? If they were protectors, they could no more kill a trillion and a half thinking hominids than you could.”
”They might arrange for it to happen, somehow.”
”Somehow.” Careful with the wording, now. He was glad that n.o.body was trying to interrupt. Not even Chmeee, the soft-spoken diplomat. ”Somehow, let breeders reach the only place on the Ringworld where the crime can be committed. Would that have been their strategy, if you hadn't stopped them?”
”Perhaps.”
”Let these carefully chosen breeders be protected from smelling tree-of-life, somehow.” Pressure suits! That was why Teela had been looking for an interstellar s.p.a.cecraft. ”Let them become aware of the situation, somehow. And somehow a protector has to double-think his way out of killing them before they see the solution and use it, killing astronomical numbers of breeders to save even more. Is that what you think you prevented?”
”Yes.”
”And this is the right place?”
”Why else would I be waiting here?”
”There's one protector left. Will he come after you?”
”No. The Night People protector knows that she alone is left to supervise the evacuation. If she tries to kill me and I kill her, breeders alone might die en route.”
”You do seem to kill very easily,” Louis said bitterly.
”No. I can't kill 5 percent of the Ringworld populace, and I don't know that I can kill you, Louis. You are a breeder of my species. On the Ringworld you are alone in that regard.”
”I thought of ways to save the Ringworld,” said Louis Wu. ”If you know of a large-scale trans.m.u.tation device, we know how to use it.”
”Certainly the Pak had none. That was not your cleverest deduction, Louis.”
”If we could punch a hole under one of the Great Oceans, then control the outflow, we could use the reaction to put the Ringworld back in place.”
”Clever. But you can't make the hole and you can't plug it. Furthermore, there is a solution that does less damage, yet it is too much damage, and I cannot permit it.”
”How would you save the Ringworld?”
The protector said, ”I can't.”
”Where are we? What went on in this part of the Repair Center?”
A long moment pa.s.sed. The protector said, ”I may not tell you more than you know. I don't see how you can escape, but I must consider the possibility.”
”I quit,” said Louis Wu. ”I concede. Tanj on your silly game.”
”All right, Louis. At least you will never die.”
Louis closed his eyes and curled up in free fall. Pious b.i.t.c.h.
”I will keep you company until you must go into stasis,” Teela said. ”I can do little else for your comfort. You, what are your names and where are you from? You are of the species that conquered the Ringworld and the stars.”
Chattering. Why weren't people born with flaps over their ears? Was there a hominid with that trait?
Kawaresksenjajok asked. ”What is a magician's position regarding rishathra?”
”That is important when you meet a new species, isn't it, child? My position is that rishathra is for breeders. But we do love.”
The boy was enjoying himself immensely. His sense of wonder was stretched nowhere near its limits. Teela told of her great journey. Her band of explorers had been trapped by Grogs on the Map of Down, then freed by the odd inhabitants. On Kzin there were hominid animals imported long ago from the Map of Earth, bred for special traits until they differed as thoroughly as dogs do in human s.p.a.ce. Teela's crew had hidden among them. They had stolen a kzinti colony s.h.i.+p. They had killed one of the krill-eating island-beasts for food, freezing the meat in an empty liquid hydrogen tank. It had fed them for months.
Finally he heard her say, ”I must eat now, but I will return soon.” And then there was quiet.
The few minutes of silence ended as blunt teeth closed gently on Louis's wrist. ”Louis, wake. We have no time to indulge you.”
Louis turned over; he killed the sleeping field. He took a moment to savor the interesting sight of a puppeteer standing next to a kzin in the prime of health. ”I thought you were out of it.”
”A valuable illusion that came too near reality. I was tempted to let events take their own course,” said the puppeteer. ”Teela Brown spoke the truth when she said we will not die. Most of the Ringworld will break up and fly free, beyond the cometary halo. We might even be found someday.”
”I'm starting to feel the same way. Ready to give up.”
”The protectors must have been dead for a quarter of a million years. Who told me that?”
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