said, must agree to mate with me if I return from the ring.”
“Beautiful. Nice going. Did you get volunteers?”
“One of our sexes is…property. Nonsentient; stupid. I needed only one volunteer. Those-who-lead—”
Teela broke in. “Why don’t you just say leaders?”
“I had tried to translate into your terms,” said the puppeteer. “A more accurate translation of the term would be, those-who-lead-from-behind. There is a selected chairman or speaker-for-all or…the accurate translation of his title is Hindmost.
“It was the Hindmost who accepted me as his mate. He said that he would not ask another to so sacrifice his self-respect.”
Louis whistled. “That’s something. Go ahead and cringe, you deserve it. Better to be scared now, now that it’s all over.”
Nessus stirred, relaxing somewhat.
“That pronoun,” said Louis. “It bugs me. Either I should be calling you she, or I should be calling the Hindmost she.”
“This is indelicate of you, Louis. One does not discuss sex with an alien race.” A head emerged from between Nessus’s legs and focused, disapproving. “You and Teela would not mate in my sight, would you?”
“Oddly enough, the subject did come up once, and Teela said—”
“I am offended,” the puppeteer stated.
“Why?” asked Teela. The puppeteer’s exposed head dived for cover. “Oh, come out of there! I won’t hurt you.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. I mean honest. I think you’re cute.”
The puppeteer unrolled completely. “Did I hear you call me cute?”
“Yah.” She looked up at the orange wall of Speaker-To-Animals and, “You too,” she said generously.
“I do not mean to give offense,” said the kzin. “But do not ever say that again. Ever.”
Teela looked puzzled.
There was a dusty orange hedge, ten feet tall and perfectly straight, equipped with cobalt blue tentacles that hung limp. From the look of them, the hedge had once been carnivorous. It was the border to the park; and Nessus led his little group toward it.
Louis was expecting a gap in the hedge. He was unprepared when Nessus walked straight into it. The hedge parted for the puppeteer and closed after him.
They followed.
They walked out from under a sky-blue sky; but when the hedge had dosed after them, the sky was black and white. Against the black sky of perpetual night, drifting clouds blazed white in the light cast upon their underbellies by miles of city. For the city was there, looming over them.
At first glance it differed from Earthly cities only in degree. The buildings were thicker, blockier, more uniform; and they were higher, terribly high, so that the sky was all lighted windows and lighted balconies with straight hairline cracks of darkness marking the zenith. Here were the right angles denied to puppeteer furniture; here on the buildings where a right angle was far too big to bash a careless knee.
But why had the city not loomed similarly over the park? On Earth there were few buildings more than a mile high. Here, none were less. Louis guessed at light-bending fields around the park’s borders. He never got around to asking. It was the least of the miracles of the puppeteer world.
“Our vehicle is at the other end of the island,” said Nessus. “We can be there in a minute or less, using the stepping discs. I will show you.”
“You feel all right now?”
“Yes, Teela. As Louis says, the worst is over.” The puppeteer pranced lightly ahead of them. “The Hindmost is my love. I need only return from the Ringworld.”
The path was soft. To the eye it was concrete set with iridescent particles, but to the feet it was damp, spongy soil. Presently, after walking a very long block, they came to an intersection. “We must go this way,” said Nessus, nodding ahead of him. “Do not step on the first disc. Follow me.”
At the center of the intersection was a large blue rectangle. Four blue discs surrounded the rectangle, one at the mouth of each walk. “You may step on the rectangle if you wish,” said Nessus, “but not on inappropriate discs. Follow me.” He circled the nearest disc, crossed the intersection, trotted onto the disc on the opposite side, and vanished.
For a stunned moment nobody moved. Then Teela yelled like a banshee and ran at the disc. And was gone.
Speaker-To-Animals snarled and leapt. No tiger could have aimed as accurately. Then Louis was alone.
“By the Mist Demons,” he said wonderingly. “They’ve got open transfer booths.”
And he walked forward.
He was standing on a square at the center of the next intersection, between Nessus and Speaker. “Your mate ran ahead,” said Nessus. “I hope she will wait for us.”
The