showing mostly hair. She was unconscious, in an uncontrolled flycycle moving far faster than twice sonic speed. Somebody really ought to do something about that…
“But she was about to die, Louis. Could Nessus have activated a control we don’t know about?”
“No. I’d rather believe that than…no.”
“I think that must be what happened,” said Speaker.
“You saw what happened! She fainted, her head hit the control board, and her ’cycle shot out of that drain like hell wouldn’t have it! She punched the right controls with her forehead!”
“Nonsense.”
“Yah.” Louis wanted to sleep, to stop thinking…
“Consider the probabilities, Louis!” The kzin got it then, and he left his mouth open while he thought about it. His verdict was, “No. Impossible.”
“Yah.”
“She would not have been chosen to join us. If her luck were even partially dependable, Nessus would never have found her. She would have stayed on Earth.”
Lightning sparkled, illuminating the long, long tunnel of churning storm cloud. A straight, narrow line pointed dead ahead: the vapor trail from Teela’s flycycle. But the ’cycle itself was beyond visibility.
“Louis, we would never have crashed on the Ringworld!”
“I’m still wondering about that.”
“Perhaps you had better wonder how to save her life.”
Louis nodded. With no real sense of urgency, he pushed the call button for Nessus—a thing Speaker could not do.
The puppeteer answered instantly, as if he had been waiting for the signal. Louis was surprised to see that Speaker remained on the line. Rapidly he outlined what had happened.
“It appears that we were both wrong about Teela,” said Nessus.
“Yah.”
“She is moving under emergency power. Her forehead would not be enough to activate the proper controls. First she must manipulate the override slot. It is difficult to see how she could do that by accident.”
“Where is it?” And when the puppeteer had shown him, Louis said, “She might have stuck her finger in it, just out of curiosity.”
“Really?”
Speaker interrupted Louis’s answer. “But what can we do?”
“When she wakes up, have her signal me,” Nessus said crisply. “I can show her how to go back on normal thrust, and how to find us afterward.”
“Meanwhile, we can do nothing?”
“That is correct. There is the danger that elements may burn out in the propulsion system. However, her vehicle will avoid obstacles; she will not crash. She is receding from us at ’prox Mach four. The worst danger she faces is anoxia, which can lead to brain damage. I suspect she is safe from that.”
“Why? Anoxia is dangerous.”
“She is too lucky,” said Nessus.
C H A P T E R 18
The Perils of Teela Brown
It was black night when they emerged from the iris of the eye storm. Then were no stars; but faint blue Archlight reached through an occasional break in the cloud cover.
“I have reconsidered,” Speaker said. “Nessus, you may rejoin us if you will.”
“I will,” said the puppeteer.
“We need your alien insights. You have demonstrated great ingenuity. You must understand that I will not forget the crime your species has committed against mine.”
“I would not wish to tamper with your memory, Speaker.”
Louis Wu hardly noticed the triumph of practicality over honor, intelligence over xenophobia. Where the cloud bank met the infinity-horizon, he searched for the mark of Teela’s vapor trail. But it had entirely disappeared.
Teela was still unconscious. Her intercom image stirred restlessly, and Louis shouted, “Teela!” But she did not answer.
“We were wrong about her,” said Nessus. “But I cannot understand why. Why should we have crashed, if her luck is so powerful?”
“Exactly what I have been telling Louis!”
“But,” said the puppeteer, “if her luck has no power, how could she have activated the emergency thruster? I believe I was right from the first. Teela Brown has psychic luck.”
“Then why was she picked in the first place? Why did the Liar crash? Answer me!”
“Stop it,” said Louis.
They ignored him. Nessus was saying, “Her luck is clearly undependable.”
“If her luck had failed her just once, she would be dead.”
“Were she dead or damaged, I would not have selected her. We must allow for coincidence,” said Nessus. “You must remember, Speaker, that the laws of probability do provide for coincidence.”
“But they do not provide for magic. I cannot believe in breeding for luck.”
“You’ll have to,” said Louis.
This time they heard him. He continued, “I should have known much earlier. Not because she kept missing disasters. It was the little things, things in her personality. She’s lucky, Speaker. Believe it.”
“Louis, how can you credit this nonsense?”
“She’s never been hurt. Never.”
“How can you know?”
“I know. She knew all about pleasure, nothing about