To that end they bred us as a biologist breeds stheets, killing the defectives, keeping others. You gloated that this crime was to the benefit of your species. Now you complain. Why?”
Teela, weeping with rage, cut herself out of the intercom.
“A docile kzin,” Speaker repeated. “You sought to produce a docile kzin, Nessus. If you think you have produced a docile kzin, come and rejoin us.”
The puppeteer did not answer. Somewhere far ahead of the fleet, the silver point of his ’cycle had become too small to see.
“You do not wish to rejoin our fleet? But how can I protect you from this unknown land unless you rejoin the fleet? But I do not blame you. You do well to be wary,” said the kzin. His claws were showing, needle-sharp and slightly curved. “Your attempt to produce a lucky human was also a failure.”
“No,” said Nessus via intercom. “We produced lucky humans. I could not contact them for this ill-fated expedition. They were too lucky.”
“You have played god with both our species. Do not attempt to rejoin us.”
“I will remain in intercom contact.”
Speaker’s image disappeared.
“Louis, Speaker has cut me off,” said Nessus. “If I have something to tell him, I must pass it through you.”
“Fine,” said Louis, and cut him off. Almost instantly a tiny light burned where the puppeteer’s ghost-head had been. The puppeteer wanted to talk.
Tanj upon him.
Later that day they crossed a sea the size of the Mediterranean. Louis dipped to investigate, and found that the other ’cycles followed him down. The fleet, then, was still under his guidance, despite the fact that nobody would speak to him.
The shoreline was a single city, and the city was a ruin. Aside from the docks, it did not differ in kind from Zignamuclickclick. Louis did not land. There was nothing to be learned here.
Afterward the land sloped gradually upward, always upward, until ears popped and pressure sensors dropped. The green land became brown scrub, then high desert tundra, then miles and miles of bare rock, then—
Along half a thousand miles of ridgeback mountain peak, the winds had scraped away scrub and sod and rock. Nothing was left but an exposed backbone of ring foundation material, translucent gray and hideous.
Sloppy upkeep. No Ringworld engineer would have permitted such a thing. The Ringworld civilization, then, must have begun to die long ago. The process would have started here, with bare spots poking through the façade in the places where nobody went…
Far ahead of the fleet, in the direction Nessus had gone, was an extensive shiny spot in the landscape. At a guess, it was thirty to fifty thousand miles away. A great shiny spot as big as Australia.
More exposed ring floor? Vast, shiny areas of ring foundation poking through once-fertile soil, soil that dies and dries and blows away when the river systems break down. The fall of Zignamuclickclick, the universal power failure, must have been the last stage of the breakdown.
How long had it taken? Ten thousand years?
Longer?
“Tanjit! I wish I could talk it over with someone. It might be important.” Louis scowled at the landscape.
Time was different when the sun was always straight overhead. Morning and afternoon were identical. Decisions seemed less than permanent. Reality seemed less than real. It was, Louis thought, like the instant of time spent traveling between transfer booths.
That was it. They were between transfer booths, one at the Liar, one at the rim wall. They only dreamed that they flew above flat gray land in a triangle pattern of flycycles.
They flew to port through frozen time.
How long had it been since anyone had spoken to anyone? It had been hours since Louis had signaled Teela that he wanted to talk to her. Not much later he had signaled Speaker. Lights had burned above their dashboards, ignored, as Louis ignored the light above his own.
“Enough of that,” Louis said suddenly. He opened the intercom.
He caught an incredible burst of orchestral music before the puppeteer noticed him. Then—“We must see to it that the expedition is reunited without bloodshed,” said Nessus. “Have you any suggestions, Louis?”
“Yes. It’s not polite to start a conversation in the middle.”
“I apologize, Louis. Thank you for returning my call. How have you been?”
“Lonely and irritated, and it’s all your fault. Nobody wants to talk to me.”
“Can I help?”
“Maybe. Did you have anything to do with changing the Fertility Laws?”
“I headed the project.”
Louis snorted. “That’s the wrong answer. May you be the first victim of retroactive birth control! Teela won’t ever speak