Ringworld - Larry Niven Page 0,66
to pass to our children.”
Louis considered. They’d already flown like birds; that trick would not impress twice. What about manna from the kitchen slots? But even Earthborn humans varied in their tolerance of certain food. The difference between food and garbage was mostly cultural. Some ate locusts with honey, others broiled snails; one man’s cheese was another’s rotted milk. Best not chance it. What about the flashlight-laser?
As Louis reached into his ’cycle’s cargo kit, the first edge of a shadow square touched the rim of the sun. Darkness would make his demonstration all the more impressive.
With aperture wide and power low, he turned the light first on the spokesman, then on his four co-rulers, last on the faces of the crowd. If they were impressed, they hid it well. Hiding his disappointment, Louis aimed the implement high.
The figurine which was his target jutted from the tower’s roof. It was like a modernized, surrealistic gargoyle. Louis’s thumb moved, and the gargoyle glowed yellow-white. His index finger shifted, and the beam narrowed to a pencil of green light. The gargoyle sprouted a white-hot navel.
Louis waited for the applause.
“Yon fight with light,” said the man with the tattooed hand. “Surely this is forbidden.”
“—!” the crowd shouted, and was as suddenly silent.
“We did not know it,” said Louis. “We apologize.”
“Did not know it? How could you not know it? Did you not raise the Arch in sign of the Covenant with Man?”
“What arch is that?”
The hairy man’s face was hidden, but his astonishment was evident. “The Arch over the world, O Builder!”
Louis understood then. He started to laugh.
The hairy man punched him unskillfully in the nose.
The blow was light, for the hairy man was slight and his hands were fragile. But it hurt.
Louis was not used to pain. Most people of his century had never felt pain more severe than that of a stubbed toe. Anaesthetics were too prevalent, medical help was too easily available. The pain of a skier’s broken leg usually lasted seconds, not minutes, and the memory was often suppressed as an intolerable trauma. Knowledge of the fighting disciplines, karate, judo, jujitsu, and boxing, had been illegal since long before Louis Wu was born. Louis Wu was a lousy warrior. He could face death, but not pain.
The blow hurt. Louis screamed and dropped his flashlight-laser.
The audience converged. Two hundred infuriated hairy men became a thousand demons; and things weren’t nearly as funny as they had been a minute ago.
The reed-thin spokesman had wrapped both arms around Louis Wu, pinioning him with hysterical strength. Louis, equally hysterical, broke free with one frantic lunge. He was on his ’cycle, his hand was on the lift lever, when reason prevailed.
The other ’cycles were slaved to his. If he took off they would take off, with or without their passengers.
Louis looked about him.
Teela Brown was already in the air. From overhead she watched the fight, her eyebrows puckered in concern. She had not thought of trying to help.
Speaker was in furious motion. He’d already felled half a dozen enemies. As Louis watched, the kzin swung his flashlight-laser and smashed a man’s skull.
The hairy men milled about him in an indecisive circle.
Long-fingered hands were trying to pull Louis from his seat. They were winning, though Louis gripped the saddle with hands and knees. Belatedly he thought to switch on the sonic fold.
The natives shrieked as they were snatched away.
Someone was still on Louis’s back. Louis pulled him away, let him drop, flipped the sonic fold off and then on again to eject him. He scanned the ex-parking lot for Nessus.
Nessus was trying to reach his ’cycle. The natives seemed to fear his alien shape. Only one blocked his way; but that one was armed with a metal rod from some old machine.
As Louis located them, the man swung the rod at the puppeteer’s head.
Nessus snatched his head back. He spun on his forelegs, putting his back to danger, but facing away from his flycycle.
The puppeteer’s own flight reflex had killed him—unless Speaker or Louis could help him in time. Louis opened his mouth to shout, and the Puppeteer completed his motion.
Louis closed his mouth.
The puppeteer turned to his ’cycle. Nobody tried to stop him. His hind hoof left bloody footprints across the hard-packed dirt.
Speaker’s circle of admirers were still out of his reach. The kzin spat at their feet—not a kzinti gesture but a human one—turned and mounted his ’cycle. His flashlight-laser was gory up to the elbow of his left hand.
The native who had tried