still you sell your honor for profit.”
“My honor is not in danger,” Louis grated.
“I think it is,” said Speaker. And he switched off.
“That’s a handy little gadget, that switch,” Teela observed, with malice. “I knew he’d do that.”
“So did I. But, Lord Finagle! He’s hard to convince.”
Beyond the mountains was an endless expanse of fleecy cloud, graying out at the infinity-horizon. The flycycles seemed to float above white cloud, beneath a bright blue sky in which the Arch was an outline at the threshold of visibility.
The mountains fell behind. Louis felt a twinge of regret for the forest pool with the waterfall. They would never see it again.
A wake followed the ’cycles, a roiling wavefront where three sonic booms touched the cloud cover ahead. Only one detail broke the infinity-horizon. Louis decided that it was either a mountain or a storm, very distant, very large. It was the size of a pinhead held at arm’s length.
Speaker broke the silence. “A rift in the cloud cover, Louis. Ahead and to spinward.”
“I see it.”
“Do you see how the light shines through? Much light is being reflected from the landscape.”
True, the edges of the cloud break glowed brightly. Hmmm…“Could we be flying over Ringworld foundation material? It would be the biggest break yet in the landscaping.”
“I want to look more closely.”
“Good,” said Louis.
He watched the speck that was Speaker’s flycycle curve frantically away to spinward. At Mach 2 Speaker would get no more than a glimpse of the ground…
There was a problem here. Which to watch? The silver fleck that was Speaker’s flycycle, or the small orange cat-face above the dash? One was real, one was detailed. Both offered information, but of different kinds.
In principle, no answer was entirely satisfactory. In practice, Louis naturally watched both.
He saw that Speaker was over the rift…
The intercom echoed Speaker’s yowl. The silver fleck had gone suddenly brighter; and Speaker’s face was a glue of white light. His eyes were closed tight. His mouth was open, screaming.
The image dimmed. Speaker had crossed the rift. One arm was thrown across his face. The fur that covered him was smoking black char.
Beneath the diverging silver speck of Speaker’s flycycle, a bright spot showed on the cloud cover…as if a spotlight followed Speaker from below.
“Speaker!” Teela called. “Can you see?”
Speaker heard and uncovered his face. The orange fur was unburned in a broad band across his eyes. Elsewhere the fur was ash-black. Speaker opened his eyes, closed them tight, opened them again. “I’m blind,” he said.
“Yes, but can you see?”
In his worry over Speaker, Louis hardly noticed the strangeness of that question. But something in him noted her tone of voice: the anxiety, and beneath that, the suggestion that Speaker had given a wrong answer and should be given a second chance.
But there wasn’t time. Louis called, “Speaker! Slave your ’cycle to mine. We’ve got to get to cover.”
Speaker fumbled at the board. “Done. Louis, what kind of cover?” Pain thickened and distorted his voice.
“Back to the mountains.”
“No. We would lose too much time. Louis, I know what attacked me. If I am right, then we are safe as long as we have cloud cover.”
“Oh?”
“You will have to investigate.”
“You need medical attention.”
“I do indeed, but first you must find us a safe place to land. You must descend where the clouds are most dense…”
It was not dark, down here below the clouds. Some light came through, and enough of that was reflected toward Louis Wu. It glared.
The land was an undulating plain. It was not Ring floor material, but soil and vegetation.
Louis dropped lower, squinting against the glare.
…A single species of plant evenly dispersed across the land, from here to the infinity-horizon. Each plant had a single blossom, and each blossom turned to follow Louis Wu as he dropped. A tremendous audience, silent and attentive.
He landed and dismounted beside one of the plants.
The plant stood a foot high on a knobbly green stalk. Its single blossom was as big as a large man’s face. The back of that blossom was stringy, as if laced with veins or tendons; and the inner surface was a smooth concave mirror. From its center protruded a short stalk ending in a dark green bulb.
All the flowers in sight watched him. He was bathed in the glare. Louis knew they were trying to kill him, and he looked up somewhat uneasily; but the cloud cover held.
“You were right,” he said, speaking into the intercom. “They’re Slaver sunflowers. If the cloud cover hadn’t come up, we’d