"More than one," Louis said. "Manufacture, transport, placement, supervision."
Hesitation again. "Louis, some hominids go in herds or tribes, but my records suggest that protectors do not. I believe *I* could monitor all these activities. So could a protector."
"Mmm. And defense?"
"But a second protector is using the Meteor Defense to destroy invading ships!"
"Stet."
"And what of the unseen creature following the Red Herder?"
"No, I won't give you that one. A Ghoul spying on other Ghouls. Local politics."
"Louis, think. We saw him enter the vampire sanctuary! He must be a protector if the vampire scent doesn't affect him."
"... Stet. What was he doing in there, do you think?"
"Protecting the Red Herder, it seemed. He may be of that species. Our next sight of him would have been the river, I expect."
"Yeah. Self-effacing he was, and you can't do that when you're covered with vampire scent. But we won't see him because your camera is lying in the cargo hold of a --"
"Three protectors, Louis. Six to eight, if your guess is right. War among Pak protectors made a radioactive waste of their own world."
"I see your point," Louis said placidly.
"Protectors of divergent species would leave fragments of the Ringworld falling to interstellar space. Louis, we cannot have two years! I could escape into stasis for the remaining lifespan of the universe. You can't even reach Hot Needle of Inquiry!"
"Maybe they'll cooperate," Louis said. "Ringworld hominids do get along. Different species don't use the same resources, and they *all* cooperate with Ghouls. Once you're in that mode, you can get along with anyone."
"There was war between Red Herders and Grass Giants."
"Futz, Hindmost, they both wanted the grass!"
"I feel the situation is urgent."
Louis stretched. His joints creaked, and tendons were protesting even this afternoon's moderate exercise.
"Tell you what," he said. "Send your refueling probe to where I left Hidden Patriarch. It'll make a nice big target for you. I'll move back downstream and see if our City Builder friends want to join us again. Eight falans, two Earth years, one of yours. Then, if we can come to an agreement, I'll accept your medical attentions."
The Hindmost said, "Agreement?"
"I'll work out a contract."
"You are in a poor position to bargain."
"Let me know if you change your mind," Louis said. He got up and waded back through the river ... waiting for the musical scream behind him. It didn't come.
***
Louis came awake slowly, groggy from lack of sleep. Sawur felt good, moving against him. He asked, "Do Weavers rish at sunglare?"
"By preference, we do."
"Stet." Louis got his arms working and began running his hands through her fur. "Nice."
"Thank you." She stretched along his length. Her fingers caressed his scalp, grooming what hair she could find. They moved easily into rishathra.
It was a wonderful lifestyle, in its way.
Presently Sawur pulled back to look at him. "Tired or not, you seem very relaxed."
"I think I've got him."
***
Night.
"I have formulated a contract," the Hindmost said.
"So have I," Louis Wu said. He held up his translator. "It's in memory, mostly in notes."
"I can't read that. We'll have to work from here." The cliff abruptly glowed with lines of print, black on white, and a virtual keyboard taller than Louis himself.
Their audience murmured appreciatively. Most of the villagers were seated around Louis. Louis wondered what they thought they were seeing.
He'd been making notes toward his own contract all afternoon. To work from the Hindmost's instead of his own would violate a basic principle of negotiation. Louis didn't intend that.
But another principle said that a negotiator should never admit to being under a deadline. Louis asked in Interspeak, "How do I work it?"
"Point," the Hindmost said. "Left for cursor, right to type."
Louis tried it, waving his arms like an ambidextrous orchestra conductor. {Mental patterns may require alteration} -- Louis deleted that and wrote, {Mental patterns must not be altered for any purpose.} The section on {PAYMENT} looked reasonable: he was to be charged for work comparable to treatment in hospitals at Sol system, paid off in service not to exceed twelve years.
*Hold it* -- "Boosterspice and standard tech?"
"By no means."
"What then, puppeteer experiments?"
"I've *tried* to describe what I have available, a modified ARM X-program."
"You can't compute the cost of this thing against fees payable at a Sol hospital! Your system would give me another thirty years of life, roughly speaking, wouldn't it? I'll give you seven years of service following my emergence from the 'doc."
"Twelve! Louis, this system will rewrite you to the age of twenty! You'd get another fifty years with no further medical treatment at all!"
"The risks you'll put me through, I'll be lucky to get fifty good *days*, and you know it. That's why I went on sabbatical in the first place. Seven."
"Stet."
Louis pointed with his left forefinger, the cursor. {Time expended shall be computed only for discrete actions taken at the direction of the Hindmost.} "Now what is this flup? What about consultation time? Travel time? Actions done without consulting you because there's no time? Subconscious problem-solving during sleep?"
"Write it in."
"Your motives are questionable. No honest entity would have tried that."
"This is how negotiation works, Louis."
"You're going to teach me how to negotiate? Stet." Louis erased the offending sentence, then typed one-fingered on the air. {Service period shall terminate seven years after acceptance of this contract.} He ignored the squawk of distress. "Now I need a clause to protect me from being altered into a better servant. I don't see anything in here that will do that."
Text added itself. Louis watched for a bit, then said, "No."
"Write, then."
"No. Can you think of any way to get yourself a copy of my contract?"
"No."
"It'll have to wait for me to reach Hidden Patriarch, then. I'll start tomorrow."
"Wait! Louis, I can easily find you here."
"Hindmost, I think I'll have to insist on your accepting my contract, not yours. If you can't read it, how can you suggest changes?"
"You must read it to me aloud."
"Tomorrow. Now, something else has been bothering me. How long does it take you to shape a plume from the sun and then set off the superthermal laser effect?"
"Two hours, sometimes three. Conditions vary."
"Three ships came through Fist-of-God, near here, and someone blasted them. One landed on the far side of the Ringworld and something blasted it. Did that take *longer*? What with all the fast-forward action, I just couldn't tell."
"I will look."
***
Louis woke late. Sawur and the children were gone. Nothing edible remained from last night. Louis worked near the empty firepit.
{No entity or process shall alter Louis Wu's patterns of thought by medical or chemical means nor by any means save persuasion worked while Louis Wu is fully conscious and in his right mind. No agreements made while he is not fully conscious and in his right mind shall be binding.}
{The period of servitude} -- Louis crossed out "servitude." -- {mutual dependence shall end no more than seven years after acceptance of this contract. Wu shall be entit
led to sleep, meals, and periods of healing as required. Emergencies interrupting these free times shall shorten the period of mutual dependence at triple time. Penalties for violations ... vacation periods mutually agreed upon shall extend the period of mutual dependence ... Louis Wu may refuse any command if in his sole judgment the commission involves undue risk, undue damage to local hominids or their culture or their environment, global damage to the Ringworld, or clear ethical violations.} A few talking points wouldn't hurt.
He'd become ferociously hungry. He knew where to find more roots. Louis rode the cargo stack straight up to seek out a path, and saw children milling in the upland woods across the ShenthyRiver.
Sawur had found two big mushrooms of different species, and the children had killed a land-going crustacean as big as a rabbit. They watched with interest as Louis wrapped them in leaves and then wet clay. He dug his flash out of the lockbox on his cargo stack. With the flash on microwave, wide aperture, medium intensity, he heated the mound of clay until it puffed steam. Then he carefully locked the flash away. A dangerous thing to leave loose.
"Strill, Parald, keep the rest away from the clay. It'll burn you. Sawur? I want to make you a parting gift."
"Louis, are we to part?"
"The Web Dweller sent his refueling probe to spray the cliff. It must be nearby. I expect he could have it here in a few hours." He hopped off the plates. "Let me show you this now. I'm wondering if it should go to you or to the whole village."
The cargo plate controls were depressions on the rims, and they took some strength to move. Protector strength. Louis jabbed with a slender piece of rod held in both hands. The bottommost plate dropped from his stack and floated an inch above the grass.
Sawur asked, "Will you present it tonight? Give it to the village in charge of me and Kidada. I will be as surprised as any. Show him and me how to work it, but none other, and no visitors."
"Stet."
"This is a magnificent gift, Louis."
"Sawur, you've given me my life. I think. Maybe."
"Do you still doubt?"
"Give me a moment." Louis knocked the clay off one end of his mound. The mushrooms looked and smelled done.
They tasted wonderful. He broke open the rest of the mound and found the crawler done, too. Most of the meat was in the spinnerets, and the children shared those around. The tail made one bite each for him and Sawur.
"That's better. I'm not rational when I'm that hungry. Now look." Louis drew a ring in the dirt. "Light takes thirty-two minutes to cross the Ringworld and come back." He heard the translator converting times and distances.
"Really?"
"Trust me. Eight minutes for a beam from the sun to touch the Arch. Sixteen minutes across, thirty-two to cross and come back. If three starships pop up through a hole *here*, near the GreatOcean, and two and a half hours later they're destroyed, and a ship lands *here* and is destroyed *two* hours later, where is the attacker?"
Sawur studied the sketch, then pointed. "*Here*, across the Arch. The first ships, he needed half an hour just to see them."
"But what if it is attacked *three* hours later?"
Sawur said, "That would put the attacker *here* where you drew the GreatOcean."
"Yeah."
***
When shadow touched the sun, Louis had written a contract that ought to protect him, if a puppeteer would honor a contract.
He presented the cargo plate to WeaverTown while dinner was broiling. They acclaimed him as a mighty magician, a vashnesht. Then children wanted to ride the plate while parents were urging caution. Louis showed Kidada the setting that would hold the disk two feet high, low enough to be safe.
He watched Kidada swooping among the houses with Strill whooping in his arms, and hoped that they wouldn't burn the thing out joyriding. One day they'd need it to lift something heavy.
The light was disappearing. Hunters had killed a predator; the meat tasted too much of cat. Weavers took slices and settled to watch the cliff as it came alight. Perched on his stack of cargo plates like a proper wizard, Louis nibbled cooked reeds and a root he'd microwaved in clay.
Puppeteers were dancing in a swirling rainbow. Louis watched with the others, then asked in Interspeak, "Are the pyrotechnics supposed to throw you off?"
"They are for loveliness. Louis, you must come to me."
"How is it with the fearless vampire slayers?"
"I hear only voices. The cruisers have separated. Cruiser Two is gone to starboard with my webeye in the cargo shell. The Red Herders speak of an entity the male calls 'Whisper.' Tegger thinks Whisper has left them. Warvia thinks he dreamed. I think Whisper is our phantom protector. Louis, will you come?"
"We'll have to reach terms --"
"I accept your contract --"
"You haven't seen it!"
"I accept it provided you make no changes from this moment. As you've had no extortionate advantage, you will have written it fairly. My probe will arrive within twelve minutes."
Louis looked at the sky. Nothing was visible yet. "Where will I pop out?"
"In your suite aboard Needle."
Suite? It was one compartment, locked, that he had shared with a Kzin! "Contract pays me triple time during emergencies. Shall I arm myself?"
"Yes."
"Sawur, get the children out of the water. Hindmost, land in the stream. Now, I remember crawling through the disk you mounted for refueling. It was pretty cramped."
"I do learn, Louis! I've mounted a full-sized stepping disk on the side of the probe, big enough for you and your cargo plates, too."
Louis thought, *Fortunately I always keep my feathers numbered for just such emergencies.* It wouldn't have meant anything to a puppeteer. From his safe box he withdrew the flashlight-laser and a variable-knife, two powerful weapons. He set the flash for narrow, short range, high intensity. He extended the blade by two feet, then brought it back to a foot and a half.
Lose your hold on a variable-knife, the wire blade would cut whatever was close.
A violet-white light peeked above the cliff.
The refueling probe settled on fusion flame. The cavity in its nose, that was the refueling system: a filter to pass hydrogen ions, and a one-way stepping disk no wider than Louis's hips. A much larger stepping disk had been mounted on its flank, a circular plate like an afterthought of a wing.
Weavers oohed and ahhed, then shied back from a wave of steam. The flame went out. As Louis glided above the probe, it splashed down on its flared motor, then rolled and toppled into the water.
The water dimpled above the stepping disk.
So: it was on. Louis cut the lift and dropped straight in. His peripheral vision caught a shadow leaping after him.
Part Two -
"Dancing As Fast As I Can"
Chapter 19 -
The Knobby Man
HOT NEEDLE OF INQUIRY, A.D. 2892
Hot Needle of Inquiry had been built around a General Products #3 hull, with interior walls to separate the puppeteer captain from his alien crew. Currently the ship was more dwelling than spacecraft. Needle couldn't exceed lightspeed because Louis Wu had cut the hyperdrive loose from its mountings, eleven years ago, for reasons that seemed good at the time. The ship itself had been embedded in magma during negotiations with the protector who had once been Teela Brown.
During that period and after, the Hindmost had deployed stepping disks through the ship and the RepairCenter and elsewhere, too.
Louis expected to appear in the blocked-off crew quarters. The Hindmost hadn't needed to suggest, maybe hadn't dared to be overheard suggesting, that Louis come in *fast*.
***
The floating plates come down hard. Louis ca
ught the recoil with bent knees, but he was still knocked off balance. He shouted, "Something's --"
*Something's following me! Hindmost --* But there was plenty going on here.
Thousands of Pierson's puppeteers shifted and swirled and kicked, stage left. It might have been distracting, but it wasn't. Louis and Chmeee had learned to ignore that part of the ship. That was the Hindmost's, and the wall wasn't glass. It was the invulnerable stuff a General Products hull was made of.
But one two-headed, three-legged alien, his mane curled and bejeweled in formal fashion, was between the kitchen wall and a coffin as big as a transfer booth lying on its side.
A knobby old man in a floppy vest was running at the Hindmost, knees and elbows pumping.
A hidden stepping disk led to the Hindmost's quarters. The Hindmost must be near or on it, Louis thought. He would be invulnerable there.
Instinct must have been too strong. The Hindmost turned his back instead.
It all happened very fast. Louis was still catching his balance. The Hindmost was spinning around, heads splayed wide apart, looking back, binocular vision with a baseline of three feet. Sighting on his target. His hind leg folded forward and shot straight back as the knobby man attacked.
The Hindmost's kick was good, square on target. Louis heard a clank: the knobby man must have been wearing a chest plate. Armor or no, that kick would have knocked a normal hominid into a coma. The knobby man turned with the impact, feet off the floor, one hand on the Hindmost's ankle to borrow its momentum as the Hindmost pulled back for another kick. The knobby man stepped past the hoof and slammed a fist down hard on the puppeteer's bejeweled mane, where the two necks connected to the torso.
That was the Hindmost's skull.
And Louis was bringing the flash around. Too slow, too clumsy, the stunned puppeteer was in the way. Something whacked his right wrist and sent the flashlight-laser flying. A metal ball? Another knocked the variable-knife spinning.
Louis flinched violently away from the spinning wire blade.
The Hindmost was down, curled into a ball, heads and long necks tucked between his forelegs. The floor was ankle deep in water. The fallen flash was submerged, but it sent a thread of light through Needle's transparent hull and into the lava beyond.