One bright star was growing brighter above the portward rim wall.

The sky had returned to the Meteor Defense wall display.

Proserpina said, "Well have to find us a sun, stet? And shift the whole Ringworld sideways to get to it. The mag fields are useless without something to push against, so well be using just the attitude jets. Line up with a sun, fall toward it, use the fields to stop ourselves. The seas will shift, Tunesmith."

"I know. Ive found a yellow-white star with nearly our own velocity. There, the bright one, do you see it?"

"Yes. Zoom."

The star expanded, and darkened. "Increased X-ray output in this region," she said. "Well need to boost the ozone layer until we can build a shadow square system."

"Yes."

"Im more worried about tides."

"Yes, there will still be stress on the seas and oceans."

"I thought of letting them freeze, but we cant. We—"

"Of course not, but we can use magnetic effects on the sun itself. Look, I found a way to skew our path so the star comes straight down the axis. Well ring the sun. Well bob a few times stabilizing ourselves; that sends the seas back and forth, not just all in one direction, which would be disastrous."

White hieroglyphs danced across the starscape. "It would work," Proserpina said. "Well lose much of our population, even some species."

"I know."

"I have a request. Tell me if its feasible."

"See if you can describe it."

"Leave the sun bobbing back and forth along the Ringworld axis. Well get tides. Well get seasons, changing weather."

"What, like a Ball World?" Tunesmith laughed. "Like your world, the Pak world. What about breeders? Wont they go crazier yet?"

"Anyone who kept his mind through these last two days will get used to anything," Proserpina said.

CHAPTER 22

Breeder

Louis Wu woke aflame with new life. Cautious in free fall, he waited for the coffin lid to move aside. A hologram Hindmost was looking down at him.

Louis wriggled out. "Nothing hurts."

"Good."

"I was used to it. Oh, futz, Ive lost my mind!"

"Louis, didnt you know the machine would rebuild you as a breeder?"

"Yah, but… my head feels futzy. Full of cotton. I never felt so much myself as when I could think like a protector."

"We could have rebuilt the doc—"

"No. No." Fist against coffin lid. "I remember that much. I have to be a breeder, or dead. If Im a protector, I will track down Wembleth and Roxanny, and Tunesmith and Proserpina will follow me."

"But they would certainly protect your blood line."

"They would, yes. But if Wembleth is loose on the Ringworld, his luck… hey."

"You dont believe in Teela Browns luck."

"I didnt. But when I was a protector… its not good science, stet? Because its not falsifiable. But look at the pattern. He stole my woman, stet? She fell into his lap. The only woman in reach who could make Wembleth young again, and bear his children too. Hes the only survivor of a village that died of asphyxiation, and hed be dead if rescue hadnt fallen on him from interstellar space!"

"Louis! Teela wasnt lucky!"

"Stet, and Wembleth lost all his friends, and ended up a hunted refugee. What if its the genes that are lucky? Teelas genes want to reproduce. You can always argue either way.

"It could still be all moonbeams. Anything that doesnt make predictions that can be disproved isnt science. Maybe Teela was only a statistical fluke until we found her. After that, whatever happens to her, you can always explain it as luckier than something else that might have happened. Read Candide."

"Ill look it up."

"Unfalsifiable. If its wrong, you cant prove it. When I was a protector, I didnt disbelieve. Maybe Teelas children are the Ringworlds luck. If their location is uncertain, they protect the whole Ringworld. Basic quantum mechanics. And its going to need that! Theyve all gone out into the universe at a minute and a quarter per light year—"

"Louis."

"What?"

"We havent moved since you went into the doc, two months ago Earthtime. Were a warm spot on the sky. Sooner or later the Fringe War will notice us. What else has that heterogeneous mob got for entertainment but to track us down and take our ship?"

"Right." Louis climbed back through the maze of access tubes, getting lost once, guided by the puppeteer behind him. He set himself in the pilots chair and jumped to hyperdrive. Radial lines indicating stars edged out of the mass detector, and Louis turned Long Shot toward Home.