"Joining you on a piracy expedition, is that wisdom?"

The puppeteer asked, "Do you need us? Do you trust us? Could you fight alone?"

The protector said, "I must leave someone to fly Hot Needle of Inquiry, or else leave Needle abandoned and adrift among the comets."

The Hindmost immediately said, "I can fly Needle."

"Hindmost, you would run."

"Louis and I will be pleased to—"

"Louis flew Long Shot once before. He will again. You and Acolyte will fly Needle."

"As you will," the Hindmost said.

Tunesmith said, "Louis, you swore an oath. You must protect the Ringworld."

In a mad moment Louis Wu had sworn to save the Ringworld. Hed done that, twelve years ago, when the Ringworld had drifted off center… but Louis only said, "I wont force Acolyte."

"Then I must await developments."

There were long-tailed Hanging People in the jungle. They threw sticks and dung. Louis and the Hindmost rose above the treetops, but Tunesmiths float plates dropped near the forest floor. They heard him whoop and saw him flinging missiles. Stones and sticks flew faster and more accurately than Hanging People could dodge. In less than a minute theyd vanished.

Tunesmith rose to join them. "Tell me again why Ringworld species are always hospitable!"

"Tunesmith, those were apes," Louis said. "Hominids arent always sapient, you know. Is this what you picked to pilot your probe?"

"Yes, made into protectors. Sapience is relative."

Louis wondered if a protector really didnt see the difference between these apes and Louis Wu. A protectors lips and gums hardened into something like a beak; he could not frown, or smile, or sneer, or grin.

It was jungle all the way, trees and vines that Louis couldnt name, and a species of elbow root growing in chains at sixty-degree angles, big enough to match sequoias.

Louis switched his faceplate display to infrared. Now lights on the ground wove about each other, lurked, charged, merged. Thousands of tiny lights above him must be birds. Larger lights in the trees would be sloth and Hanging People and — Louis swerved to dodge a fifty-pound flying squirrel with a head that was all ears and fangs. It cursed luridly as it passed under him.

Hominid?

Nice day for a float.

Tunesmith settled in a circle of elbow trees. The ground was uneven, humped here and there, and overgrown with a tangle of grass. The Hindmost descended and Louis followed, still seeing nothing… and then an abandoned float plate. How had that gotten here?

His own disk settled. Louis stepped off, and they were surrounded. Weird little men stepped out of the elbow trees and women popped out of the ground. All were armed with short blades. They only stood heart-high. Louis, wearing impact armor, did not feel threatened.

Tunesmith hailed them and began talking rapidly. Louiss translator device had never heard this language; it and he could only listen. But he could see through torn grass into a burrow that ran deep underground. The grass was torn just so in fifty places.

He was standing on a city.

Hominids — descended from the Pak who must have built the Ringworld — had occupied every possible ecological niche, starting half a million years ago with a population already in the trillions (though the numbers were pretty much guesswork.) This group were burrowers. They wore only their own straight brown body hair, and carried animal-skin pouches. They had a streamlined look, like ferrets.

They were looking less defensive now. Some were laughing. Tunesmith spoke and more laughed. One stepped to a rise of ground and pointed.

Tunesmith bowed. He said, "Acolyte is hunting a daywalk or three to spin of port. Louis, what shall I tell them? They offer rishathra."

He was tempted for an instant, then embarrassed. "Louis isnt in season."

Tunesmith barked. The Burrowing People laughed hysterically, looking at Louis with myopic eyes.

Louis asked, "What was your excuse?"

"Ive been here. They know about protectors. Board your disk."

CHAPTER 4

Acolyte

The smells were stunningly rich. Hundreds of varieties of plants, scores of animals. Kzinti could survive in style here, until their numbers grew too great. Acolyte, millions of miles from the nearest Kzinti, did not miss their company; but Acolyte resolved to tell his father about this place.

He sniffed, seeking an elusive smell: anything large or lethal.

It wasnt there. Only the smell of brachiating hominids.

His fathers hunting park had been more dangerous. The danger level of fathers park was as carefully measured as the placement of each bush. Kzinti needed a threat to bring them alive, and to keep their numbers down too.

Pak protectors didnt think like that.

Louis Wu had explained it thus: protectors had spread life across this land in imitation of the life patterns that evolved on Ball Worlds, but they had left out anything that harmed or annoyed Pak breeders, from carnivores down to parasites and bacteria. Whatever attacked todays bewildering variety of hominids had evolved over the million years, the four million falans, that followed.

Of course Louis was guessing. Hed said that too.

So, here was a safe place to play. One day Tunesmith would call, or Louis, and Acolyte would find danger enough. The lights in the night sky were not all stars.

A blotch in infrared, bigger than other blotches, went from perfect stillness to a blur of speed, leapt into a tree, merged with a smaller glow, paused -

Tunesmith yowled.

A returning yowl seemed muffled. Louiss dawdling translator caught up; it said, "Acolyte!" "Here. Wait." Then: "Louis!"

"Hello, Acolyte!" called Louis.

"Louis! I was worried! How are you?"

"Young. Hungry, antsy, not quite sane."

"You were forever in the healing box!"

Tunesmith said, "Acolyte kept bothering me for updates until I had to find work for him elsewhere."

Louis was touched. Acolyte had worried… thinking that Louis remained in the doc because there was more to be done for him. More likely Tunesmith was just keeping Louis out of the way; or he might have been refining the rejuvenation process, or using Louis as a test subject to study nanotechnology, tanj him. A twelve-year-old should not be forced to such cynical thinking, even a twelve-year-old Kzin.

The massive cat was halfway up a tree trunk, eating, while Hanging People threw hard fruit from a distance. Tunesmith separated his float plates and hovered one next to Acolyte.

Chmeee was a Kzin chosen by the puppeteer Nessus to join his exploration team, decades ago. Acolyte was Chmeees eldest son, cast out by his father and sent to "learn wisdom" from Louis Wu. He stood seven feet tall, shorter than his father, furred in orange and dark chocolate: dark ears, dark stripes down his back, a smaller chocolate comma down his tail and leg. Three parallel ridges ran down his belly, possibly his fathers legacy; Louis had never asked. On a huge tilted trunk under green-black foliage, he looked utterly at home.

He asked, "Are we finally ready?"

"Yes," said Tunesmith.

Acolyte judged the distance above a drop of fifty feet. He had to make a twisting leap. He hit the disk on all fours. The disk dropped under his weight, and Acolyte slid, scrambled, and had his grip.

A Kzins hands were good, but with his claws extended his fingers would have slid off. Anger might have killed him. It was a jest, or a test — and Tunesmith had been dropping past him, ready to catch him.

"I should reclaim my float plate," Acolyte said. He dropped toward the forest floor and took off through tilted trunks along a path Louis couldnt find.