"Very indirect reasoning, Louis."

"It worked."

"Yes. And so I will live to see another sunset," the kzin said softly.

Louis felt an electric thrill. "You too?"

"Yes, I watch sunsets on occasion. Let us speak of the Long Shot."

"… What did you say?"

"If I could steal the Long Shot from you, my kind would dominate known space until a stronger species impinged on our expanding sphere. We would forget all we have learned so painfully, regarding cooperation with alien species."

"True," Louis said into the dark. The pull from the stolen shadow square wire was steady now. The Liar must be well on its way up Fist-of-God's ten degree slope.

"We might not get that far, while the luck of many Teela Browns protects Earth. Yet honor would compel me to make the attempt," said Speaker-To-Animals. "How could I lead my species away from the honorable path of war? The kzinti gods would revile me."

"I warned you about playing god. It hurts."

"Fortunately the difficulty does not arise. You have said that I would destroy the Long Shot if I tried to take it. The risk is too great. We will need the puppeteer hyperdrive to escape the wave front from the Core explosion."

"True enough," said Louis. The kzin would back into the nearest gravity well if he tried to take the Long Shot into hyperdrive. Knowing that, Louis asked, "But suppose I were lying?"

"I could not hope to outwit a being of your intelligence."

Sunfire flashed again in Fist-of-God crater.

"Think how short a way we came," said Louis. One hundred and fifty thousand miles in five days, the same distance back in two months. A seventh of the short way across the Ringworld. And Teela and Seeker think they're going the long way round."

"Fools."

"We never saw the rim wall. They will. I wonder what else we missed? If the Ringworld ramships got as far as Earth, they may have picked up some blue whales and sperm whales, before we made them extinct. We never got out onto the ocean.

"The people they'll meet. There's no end to the ways a culture can go. And the room … the Ringworld's so big …"

"We can't go back, Louis."

"No, of course not."

"Not until we can deliver our secret to our respective worlds. And acquire an intact ship."