Ringworld - Larry Niven Page 0,124

I surmise that the other end is simple wire; that the wire broke in the middle when we rammed it with the Liar, but that this end tore loose from a socket on one of the shadow squares. We were lucky to get even one end.”

“Too right. We can trail it behind us. The wire shouldn’t get hung up on anything we can’t cut through.”

“Where do we go from here, Louis?”

“Starboard. Back to the Liar.”

“Of course, Louis. We must return Nessus to the Liar’s medical facilities. And then?”

“We’ll see.”

He left Speaker guarding the teardrop-shaped handle, while he went up for what was left of the electrosetting plastic. They used a double handful of the stuff to stick the handle to a wall—and then there wasn’t any way to run a current. The Slaver weapon could have served, but it had been lost. It was a frustrating emergency, until Louis found that the battery in his lighter would run enough current through the plastic to set it.

That left the wire end of the teardrop exposed and pointing to port.

“I remember the bridge room as facing starboard,” said Speaker. “If not, we must do it over. The wire must trail behind us.”

“It might work,” said Louis. He wasn’t at all sure…but they certainly couldn’t carry the wire. They would simply have to trail it behind them. It probably wouldn’t get hung up on anything it couldn’t cut through.

They found Teela and Seeker in the engine room with Prill, who was working the lifting motors.

“We’re going in different directions,” Teela said bluntly. “This woman says she can edge us up against the floating castle. We should be able to walk through a window straight across into the banquet hall.”

“Then what? You’ll be marooned, unless you can get control of the castle’s lifting motors.”

“Seeker says he has some knowledge of magic. I’m sure he’ll work it out.”

Louis would not try to talk her out of it. He was afraid to thwart Teela Brown, as he would not have tried to stop a charging bandersnatch with his bare hands. He said, “If you have any trouble figuring out the controls, just start pulling and pushing things at random.”

“I’ll remember,” she smiled. Then, more soberly, “Take good care of Nessus.”

When Seeker and Teela debarked from the Improbable twenty minutes later, it was with no more goodbye than that. Louis had thought of things to say, but had not said them. What could he tell her of her own power? She would have to learn by trial and error, while the luck itself kept her alive.

Over the next few hours the puppeteer’s body cooled and became as dead. The lights on the first aid kit remained active, if incomprehensible. Presumably the puppeteer was in some form of suspended animation.

As the Improbable moved away to starboard the shadow square thread trailed behind, alternately taut and slack. Ancient buildings toppled in the city, cut through scores of times by tangled thread. But the knob stayed put in its bed of electrosetting plastic.

The city of the floating castle could not drop below the horizon. In the next few days it became tiny, then vague, then invisible.

Prill sat by Nessus’s side, unable to help him, unwilling to leave him. Visibly, she suffered.

“We’ve got to do something for her,” said Louis. “She’s hooked on the tasp, and now it’s gone and she’s got to go it cold turkey. If she doesn’t kill herself, she’s likely to kill Nessus or me!”

“Louis, you surely don’t want advice from me.”

“No. No, I guess not.”

To help a suffering human being, one plays good listener. Louis tried it; but he didn’t have the language for it, and Prill didn’t want to talk. He gritted his teeth when he was alone; but when he was with Prill he kept trying.

She was always before his eyes. His conscience might have healed if he could have stayed away from her, but she would not leave the bridge.

Gradually he was learning the language, and gradually Prill was beginning to talk. He tried to tell her about Teela, and Nessus, and playing god—

“I did think I was a god,” she said. “I did. Why did I think so? I did not build the Ring. The Ring is much older than I.”

Prill was learning too. She talked a pidgin, a simplified vocabulary of her obsolete language: two tenses, virtually no modifiers, exaggerated pronunciation.

“They told you so,” said Louis.

“But I knew.”

“Everyone wants to be god.” Wants the power without the responsibility; but Louis didn’t