about Ringworld plants?”
“They seem very like the life of Earth, as I told you. However, some of the forms seem more specialized than one would expect.”
“More evolved, you mean?”
“Perhaps. Again, perhaps a specialized form has more room to grow, even within its limited environment, here on the Ringworld. The important point is that the plants and insects are similar enough to attack us.”
“And vice versa?”
“Oh, yes. A few forms are edible for me, a few others will fit your own belly. You will have to test them individually, first for poisons and then for taste. But any plant we find can safely be used by the kitchen on your ’cycle.”
“We won’t starve, then.”
“This single advantage hardly compensates for the danger. If only our engineers had thought to pack a starseed lure aboard the Liar! This entire trek would have been unnecessary.”
“A starseed lure?”
“A simple device, invented thousands of years ago. It causes the local sun to emit electromagnetic signals that attract starseeds. Had we such a device, we could lure a starseed to this star, then communicate our problem to any Outsider ship that followed it inward.”
“But starseeds travel at a lot less than lightspeed. It might take years!”
“But think, Louis. However long we waited, we would not have had to leave the safety of the ship!”
“To you this is a full life?” Louis snorted. And he glanced at Speaker, fixed on Speaker, locked eyes with Speaker.
Speaker-To-Animals, curled on the ground some distance away, was staring back at him and grinning like an Alice-in-Wonderland Cheshire Cat. For a long moment they locked eyes; and then the kzin stood up with seeming leisure, sprang, and vanished into the alien bushes.
Louis turned back. Somehow he knew that something important had happened. But what? And why? He shrugged it away.
Straddling the contoured saddle of her ’cycle, Teela seemed braced for acceleration…as if she were still flying. Louis remembered the few times he had been hypnotized by a therapist. It had felt a lot like play-acting. Cushioned in a rosy absence of responsibility, he had known that it was all a game he was playing with the hypnotist. He could break free at any time. But somehow one never did.
Teela’s eyes cleared suddenly. She shook her head, turned and saw them. “Louis! How did we get down?”
“The usual way.”
“Help me down.” She put her arms out like a child on a wall. Louis put his hands on her waist and lifted her from the ’cycle. The touch of her was a thrill along his back and an opening warmth in his groin and solar plexus. He left his hands where they were.
“The last I remember, we were a mile in the air,” Teela said.
“From now on, keep your eyes off the horizon.”
“What did I do, fall asleep at the wheel?” She laughed and tossed her head, so that her hair became a great soft black cloud. “And you all panicked. I’m sorry, Louis. Where’s Speaker?”
“Chasing a rabbit,” said Louis. “Hey, why don’t we get some exercise ourselves, now we’ve got the chance?”
“How about a walk in the woods?”
“Good idea.” He met her eyes and saw that they had read each other’s thoughts. He reached into his ’cycles luggage bin and produced a blanket. “Ready.”
“You amaze me,” said Nessus. “No known sentient species copulates as often as you do. Go, then. Use caution where you sit. Remember that unfamiliar life-forms are about.”
“Did you know,” said Louis, “that naked once meant the same thing as unprotected?”
For it seemed to him that he was removing his safety with his clothes. The Ringworld had a functioning biosphere, ripe, no doubt, with bugs and bacteria and toothy things built to eat protoplasmic meat.
“No,” said Teela. She stood naked on the blanket and stretched her arms to the noon sun. “It feels good. Do you know that I’ve never seen you naked in daylight?”
“Likewise. I might add that you look tanj good that way. Here, let me show you something.” He half-raised a hand to his hairless chest. “Tanjit—”
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s gone. That’s the trouble with boosterspice. No memories. The scars disappear, and after a while…” He traced a line across his chest; but there was nothing under his fingertip.
“A Gummidgy reacher tore a strip off me from shoulder to navel, four inches wide and half an inch deep. His next pass would have split me in two. He decided to swallow what he had of me first. I must have been deadly poison to him, because he curled