“Yes.”
“Then pop through just ahead of me. Finicky timing. You needed me for a distraction, and you counted on puppeteer reflexes. That’s interesting, isn’t it, Hindmost? You had an instant to escape, but you used it to kick?”
“That old argument. Very well, I reflexively turned my back to fight-you win.”
Louis grinned. The pain wasn’t so bad now, but he was drunk on endorphins. He said, “Acolyte. This is a protector. Look him over. They all have that knobby look, and they’re all brilliant and dangerous.”
“Looked like just another hominid.” The Kzin shook his great furry head.
“How long did you watch me?” Louis asked.
“Two days now. I thought, learn from you before I show myself.”
“Wisdom?”
“Father spoke of you. He believes he learned what he has of wisdom from you, and so can I. But one of the scavengers saw me.”
“The boy?”
“Yes. You named him Kazarp.”
“I talked to his father, too.”
“The boy and I, we talked. His father was not far, listening, thinking he hides. I spoke what I knew of you. I don’t know secrets worth hiding. I did not speak of the Hindmost.”
“How does he think we got to the Ringworld, then?”
“You mean Arch? I said you brought a ship. I did not speak to Kazarp of instant transportation. Didn’t believe Father. When you linked the transfer booths—”
“Stepping disks. Transfer booths are what we use in known space and the Patriarchy. They’re a lot less sophisticated.”
“-stepping disks. I jumped. Catch Kazarp and his father by surprise. Leave them gaping. Surprise!” the Kzin whispered, and slumped. His eyes closed.
“Hindmost?”
“Ready. Bring him.”
Louis set his shoulder in Acolyte’s armpit and lifted. Acolyte found the strength to stand, wobbled to the surgery well, and toppled in.
Louis pulled his tourniquet loose and straightened the Kzin a bit. He found the Kzin’s severed hand, and the two useless halves of the heavy metal handgun he’d carried. He picked up the half hand.
The Hindmost took it in his mouth. “Close the lid,” he said, and fed the hand into another aperture. Then he folded his legs and tucked his heads between his forelegs.
Going into shock, Louis thought. The knobby man said, “Suicide?”
One head came up. “I demonstrate helplessness. This is surrender,” the Hindmost said.
“Surrender, good.”
The Kzin would likely be in there for days.
Louis might have fainted for an instant.
Agony snapped him awake. The protector’s knobby hands were moving the bones in Louis’s right wrist. Louis’s other hand closed hard on the protector’s arm. He moaned and whimpered. Reality came in waves of pain.
Not before the protector withdrew did Louis think to look for the protector’s weapons. Just as well. The knobby man’s vest bore an amazing variety of pockets, and he saw the shape of the flash in one of those.
Now, what must he do before he fainted again?
Contract. He fished out his notepad and offered it to the puppeteer. “This is what you’ve agreed to. You should read it aloud, given that our companion has bound himself, too.”
The puppeteer took the pad. His other head turned to the knobby man. “Why did you do that?”
“I need allies who are not protectors. Protectors kill each other,” the knobby man said. “I can hold you to a formal promise made for mutual advantage. Read.”
The Hindmost read.
The knobby man-or woman: he was a bit shorter, a bit more slender than Teela Brown had been after she turned protector. The hairless, leathery skin, the swollen joints, the triangular face and bulging skull, all made it difficult to assign him a gender. Louis thought he could make out traces of male genitalia, but he couldn’t swear to that.
Behind the impenetrable wall, a million hologram puppeteers danced. The Hindmost must have thought he’d be back among them before he missed a step.
“…if in his sole judgment the commission involves undue risk-‘ Sole judgment?”
Louis smiled and shrugged.
“-undue damage-clear violations of ethics-‘ Sole judgment?”
The protector asked, “Hindmost, will you bind yourself similarly?”
The Hindmost whistled indignantly. “You speak of enslavement! How can you possibly compensate me? What I offered Louis Wu was his life! Point taken, I accept.”
Louis could hold back no longer. He asked, “Who are you?”
“I have not needed a name. Choose what you like.”
“What’s your species?”
“Vampire.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
Louis was about to faint.
He’d found Teela Brown’s medkit welded to the top cargo plate, long ago. He had to stand up to reach it. Grinding his teeth against the pain, he pushed his swollen right hand into the diagnosis well.
The pain went away. A readout asked him questions. Yes, he wanted to remain awake. No, he couldn’t replenish supplies of various medicines… an ominously long list.
His whole right arm seemed gone and nothing else really hurt. His mind was lucid, free to toy with the pieces of reality and try to put them back together. He had bound himself to serve a protector… hadn’t he? The protector had bound himself to Louis, to limitations on his power over Louis Wu. And the puppeteer had bound himself, and was himself bound to the protector, by Louis’s contract.
He could hear what the others were saying, but the words slipped through his ears and were gone. “Require most urgently… invaders… beyond the Arch.”
“ARM and Patriarchy ships,” Louis said. “Bet.” Political entities would invade: it was their nature. He had described the Ringworld for United Nations records. Chmeee had spoken to the Patriarch. What other organizations would know of the Ringworld? “Fleet of Worlds, too?”
“So poorly designed, so ill-protected?” The puppeteer fluted, “Those are not ours!”
“Are these political entities dangerous?” the knobby man asked.
The puppeteer thought they were endlessly dangerous, and said so. Louis’s head was bubbling with chemicals; he did not contribute.
“Are they likely to give up their plans?”
“No. I can show you where their interstellar transports hide,” the Hindmost said. “Those won’t participate in an invasion. Even your sun-powered superthermal laser won’t reach the farthest targets. The ships that land will be warships carrying no hyperdrive motors.”
“Show me.”
“From my cabin.”
Louis laughed inside his head.
The unmarked stepping disk flicked only to the Hindmost’s cabin, and it wouldn’t pass aliens. The Hindmost would be behind an invulnerable wall. What chance was there that the knobby man would permit that?
Vampire protector. Louis made his mouth work. “What do you eat?”
“I make a vegetable mash. I have not tasted blood in twenty-eight falans,” the knobby man said. “My hunger is no risk to you.”
“Good,” Louis said, and closed his eyes for a moment.
He heard, “Hindmost, you will only break your contract once. Show me all of the invader ships.”
The Hindmost’s answer was a warbling, whistling music with overtones in subsonic bass. Louis’s eyes popped open to see the dancers disappear, replaced by rotating three-space star maps.
The system looked nearly empty save for the Ringworld and its shadow squares. Color-coded lights blazed far from the Ringworld’s arc, and scores of smaller sparks swarmed much nearer. Louis couldn’t see motion on this scale, but they seemed to be taking positions around the system, as if just becoming aware of each other.