"He can aim for the sun," said Teela.

They all turned to look at her.

"If the Ringworlders are afraid that we'll hit them," Teela explained patiently, "then they're probably projecting our course. If our projected course hits the sun, then we're not dangerous. See?"

"That would work," said Speaker.

The puppeteer shuddered. "You are the pilot. Do as you like, but do not forget -"

"I do not intend to fly us through the sun. In due time I will match our course to the shadow squares." And the kzin stomped back into the control room. It is not easy for a kzin to stomp.

Presently the ship turned parallel to the ring. There was little sense of anything happening; the kzin, following orders, was using thrusters only. Speaker killed the ship's orbital velocity, so that the ship was falling toward the sun; and then he swung the nose inward and began to increase velocity.

The Ringworld was a broad blue band marked with ripples and clots of blazing white cloud. It was receding visibly now. Speaker was in a hurry.

Louis dialed two bulbs of mocha and handed one to Teela.

He could understand the kzin's anger. The Ringworld terrified him. He was convinced he would have to land … and desperate to get it over with before he lost his nerve.

Presently Speaker returned to the lounge. "We will reach the shadow square orbit in fourteen hours. Nessus, we warriors of the Patriarchy are taught patience from childhood, but you leaf-eaters have the patience of a corpse."

"We're moving," said Louis, and half rose. For the ship's nose was swinging aside from the sun.

Nessus screamed and leapt the length of the lounge. He was in the air when the Liar lit up like the interior of a flashbulb. The ship lurched -

Discontinuity.

— The ship lurched despite the cabin gravity. Louis snatched at the back of a chair and caught it; Teela fell with incredible accuracy into her own crash couch; the puppeteer was folded into a ball as he struck a wall. All in an intense violet glare. The darkness lasted only an instant, to be replaced by glowing light the color of a UV tube.

It was coming from outside, from all around the hull.

Speaker must have finished aiming the Liar and turned it over to the autopilot. And then, thought Louis, the autopilot must have reviewed Speaker's course, decided that the sun was a meteoroid large enough to be dangerous, and taken steps to avoid it.

The cabin gravity was back to normal. Louis picked himself off the floor. He was unhurt. So, apparently, was Teela. She was standing along the wall, peering steraward through the violet light.

"Half my instrument board is dead," Speaker announced.

"So are half your instruments," said Teela. "The wing's gone."

"Excuse me?"

"The wing's gone."

So it was. So was everything that had been attached to the wing: thrusters, fusion plants, communication equipment pods, landing gear. The hull had been polished clean. Nothing was left of the Liar save what had been protected by the General Products hull.

"We have been fired upon," said Speaker. "We are still being fired upon, probably by X-ray lasers. This ship is now in a state of war. Accordingly I take command."

Nessus was not arguing. He was still curled in a ball. Louis knelt beside him and probed with his hands.

"Finagle knows I'm no doctor for aliens. I can't see that he's been hurt."

"He is merely frightened. He attempts to hide in his own belly. You and Teela will strap him down and leave him."

Louis was not surprised to find himself obeying orders. He was badly shaken. A moment ago this had been a spacecraft. Now it was little more than a glass needle falling toward the sun.

They lifted the puppeteer into the crash couch, his own, and tied him down with the crash web.

"We face no peaceful culture," said the kzin. "An X-ray laser is invariably a weapon of war. Were it not for our invulnerable hull we would be dead."

Louis said, "The Slaver stasis field must have gone on too. No telling how long we were in stasis."

"A few seconds," Teela corrected him. "That violet light has to be the fog of metal from our wing, fluorescing."

"Excited by the laser. Right. It's dissipating, I think." True enough, the glow was already less intense.

"Unfortunate that our automatics are so single-mindedly defensive. Trust a puppeteer to know nothing of attack weapons!" said Speaker. "Even our fusion motors were on the wing. And still the enemy fire on us! But they will learn what it means to attack a kzin."

"You're going to chase them down?"

Speaker did not recognize sarcasm. "I am."

"With what?" Louis exploded. "You know what they left us? A hyperdrive and a lifesystem, that's what they left us! We haven't got so much as a pair of attitude jets. You've got delusions of grandeur if you think we can fight a war in this!"

"So the enemy believes! Little do they know -"

"What enemy?"

"- that in challenging a kzin -"

"Automatics, you dolt! An enemy would have started shooting the moment we came in range!"

"I too have wondered at their unusual strategy."

"Automatics! X-ray lasers for blasting meteors. Programmed to shoot down anything that might hit the ring. The moment our projected freely falling orbit intercepted the ring, pow! Lasers."

"That … is possible." The kzin began closing panels over dead portions of the control board. "But I hope you are wrong."

"Sure. It'd help if you had someone to blame, wouldn't it?"

"It would help if our course did not intercept the ring." The kzin had closed off half the board. He continued to close panels as he talked. "Our velocity is high. It will take us out of the system, beyond the local discontinuity, to where we can use the hyperdrive to return to the puppeteer fleet. But first we must miss the ring."

Louis hadn't thought that far ahead. "You had to be in a hurry, didn't you?" he said bitterly.

"At least we will miss the sun. The automatics will not have fired until our projected course circled the sun."

"The lasers are still on," Teela reported. "I can see stars through the glow, but the glow is still there. That means were still aimed at the ring surface, doesn't it?"

"It does if the lasers are automatic."

"If we hit the ring, will we be killed?"

"Ask Nessus. His race built the Liar. See if you can get him to unroll."

The kzin snorted in disgust. By now he had closed off most of the control board. Only a pitiful few lights still glowed to show that part of the Liar lived on.

Teela Brown bent over the puppeteer, who was still curled into a ball behind the fragile netting of his crash web. Contrary to Louis's prediction, she had shown not the least sign of panic since the beginning of the laser attack. Now she slid her hands along the bases of the puppeteer's necks, scratching gently, as she had seen Louis do once before.

"You're being a silly coward," she rebuked the frightened puppeteer. "Come on and show your heads. Come on, look at me. You'll miss all the excitement!"

Twelve hours later, Nessus was still effectively in catatonia.

"When I try to coax him out, he only curls up tighter," Teela was near tears. They had retired to their room for dinner, but Teela couldn't eat anything. "I'm doing it wrong, Louis. I know it."

"You keep stressing excitement. Nessus isn't after excitement," Louis pointed out. "Forget it. He isn't hurting himself or us. When he's needed he'll uncurl, if only to protect himself. Meanwhile let him hide in his own belly."

Teela paced awkwardly, half-stumbling; she still hadn't completely adjusted to the difference between ship's gravity and Earth's gravity. She started to speak, changed her mind, changed it again, and blurted, "Are you scared?"