The kzin proved him wrong. "This seems an odd design from the viewpoint of a puppeteer engineer. Nessus, would you not feel safer if the ship were entirely within the hull?"

"I would not. This ship represents a major innovation in design. Come, I will show you." Nessus trotted toward the ship.

The kzin had raised a good point.

General Products, the puppeteer-owned trading company, had sold many diversified wares in known space; but its fortunes had been founded on the General Products hull. There had been four varieties from a globe the size of a basketball to another globe more than a thousand feet in diameter: the #4 hull, the hull of the Long Shot. The #3 hull, a round-ended cylinder with a flattened belly, made a good multicrewed passenger ship. Such a ship had landed them on the puppeteer world a few hours ago. The #2 hull was a wasp-waisted cylinder, narrow and needle-tapered at both ends. Ordinarily it was just roomy enough for one pilot.

The General Products hull was transparent to visible light. To all other forms of electromagnetic energy, and to matter in any form, it was impervious. The company's reputation backed that guarantee, and the guarantee had held for hundreds of years and for millions of ships. A General Products hull was the ultimate in safety.

The vehicle before them was based on a General Products #2 hull.

But … as far as Louis could see, only the life-support system and the hyperdrive shunt were within the hull. Everything else — a pair of flat thruster units aimed downward, two small fusion motors facing forward, larger fusion motors on the wing's trailing edges, and a pair of tremendous pods on the wingtips — pods which must contain detection and communications equipment, since Louis could find no such equipment anywhere else — all this was on the great delta wing!

Half the ship was on the wing, exposed to any danger that could worry a puppeteer. Why not use a #3 hull and put everything inside?

The puppeteer had led them beneath the delta wing, to the tapered stem of the hull section. "Our purpose was to make as few breaks in the hull as possible," said Nessus. "You see?"

Through the glasslike hull Louis saw a conduit as thick as his thigh leading through the hull into the wing section. Things looked complex at that point, until Louis tumbled to the fact that the conduit was designed to slide back into the hull in one section. Then he picked out the motor that did it all, and the metal door that would seal off the opening.

"An ordinary ship," said the puppeteer, "requires many breaks in its hull: for sensors which do not use visible light, for reaction motors if such are used, for apertures leading to fuel tanks. Here we have only two breaks, the conduit and the airlock. One passes passengers and the other passes information. Both can be closed off.

"Our engineers have coated the hull's inner surface with a transparent conductor. When the airlock is closed and the aperture for the wiring conduit is sealed, the interior is an unbroken conducting surface."

"Stasis field," Louis guessed.

"Exactly. If danger threatens, the entire life-support system goes into Slaver-type stasis for a period of several seconds. No time passes in stasis; hence nothing can harm the passengers. We are not so foolish as to trust to the hull alone. Lasers using visible light can penetrate a General Products hull, killing passengers and leaving the ship unharmed. Antimatter can disintegrate a General Products hull entirely."

"I didn't know that."

"It is not widely advertised."

Louis moved back under the delta wing to where Speaker-To-Animals was inspecting the motors. "Why so many motors?"

The kzin snorted. "Surely a human cannot have forgotten the Kzinti Lesson."

"Oh." Naturally any puppeteer who had studied kzinti or human history would know the Kzinti Lesson. A reaction drive is a weapon, powerful in direct ratio to its efficiency. Here were thrusters for peaceful use, and fusion drives for weapons capability.

"Now I know how you learned to handle fusion-drive craft."

"Naturally I have been trained in war, Louis."

"Just in case of another Man-Kzin war."

"Must I demonstrate my skill as a warrior, Louis?"

"You shall," the puppeteer interrupted. "Our engineers intended that this ship be flown by a kzin. Would you care to inspect the controls, Speaker?"

"Shortly. I will also need performance data, test flight records, and so forth. Is the hyperdrive shunt of standard type?"

"Yes. There have been no test flights."

Typical, Louis thought as they walked toward the airlock. They just built the thing and left it here to wait for us. They had to. No puppeteer was willing to test-fly it.

Where was Teela?

He was about to call out when she reappeared on the pentagramic receiver plate. She had been playing with the stepping-discs again, ignoring the ship entirely. She followed them aboard, still looking wistfully back toward the puppeteer city beyond the black water.

Louis waited for her at the inner airlock door. He was ready to blast her for her carelessness. You'd think that after getting lost once she might learn a little caution!

The door opened. Teela was radiant. "Oh, Louis, I'm so glad I came! That city — it's such fun!" She grasped his hands and squeezed, beaming inarticulately. Her smile was like sunlight.

He couldn't do it. "It's been fun," he said, and kissed her hard. He moved toward the control room with his arm around Teela's slim waist, his thumb tracing the rim of her hip.

He was sure now. Teela Brown had never been hurt; had never learned caution; did not understand fear. Her first pain would come as a horrifying surprise. It might destroy her entirely.

She'd be hurt over Louis Wu's dead body.

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.

A General Products #2 hull is twenty feet wide and three hundred feet long, tapering to points fore and aft.

Most of the ship was outside the hull, on the thin, oversized wing. The lifesystem was roomy enough to include three living-bedrooms, a long, narrow lounge, a control cabin, and a bank of lockers, plus kitchen, autodocs, reclaimers, batteries, etc. The control panel was fitted out according to kzinti custom, and was labeled in kzinti. Louis felt he could fly the ship in an emergency, but it would have taken a big emergency to make him try it.

The lockers held an ominous plethora of exploration gear. There was nothing Louis could have pointed to, saying, "That's a weapon." But there were things which could be used as weapons. There were also four flycycles, four flying backpacks (lift belt plus catalytic ramjet), food testers, phials of dietary additives, medkits, air sensors and filters. Someone was sure as tanj convinced that this ship would be landing somewhere.

Well, why not? A species as powerful as the Ringworlders, and as sealed in by their presumed lack of hyperdrive craft, might invite them to land. Perhaps this was what the puppeteers were expecting.

There was nothing aboard that Nessus could not point to and say, "That is not a weapon. That we took aboard for such-and-such a purpose."

There were three species aboard; four, if one thought of male and female human as of different species, which was something a kzin or a puppeteer might well do. (Suppose Nessus and the Hindmost were of the same sex? Why shouldn't it take two males and a nonsentient female to produce a baby?) Then the presumed Ringworlders could see at a glance that many kinds of sentient life could deal amicably with each other.

Yet too many of these items — the flashlight-lasers, the dueling stunners — could be used as weapons.

They took off on reactionless thrusters, to avoid damaging the island. Half an hour later they had left the feeble gravity wells of the puppeteer rosette. It occurred to Louis then that aside from Nessus, whom they had brought with them, and aside from the projected image of the puppeteer Chiron, they had seen not a single puppeteer on the puppeteer world.