“Okay.”

“I asked about long-term weather.”

“Good! Well?”

“The guard is an old man,” Chmeee said. “When he was young and had both legs—before something marred him; the translator said ‘ogre’—the sun was always the same brightness and the days were always the same length. Now the sun seems sometimes brighter and sometimes dimmer, and when the sun is bright, the days seem too short, and vice versa. Louis, he remembers how it started. Twelve falans ago, which would be one hundred and twenty rotations of the constellations, there was a time of dark. Dawn never came for what would have been two or three days. They saw the stars, and a ghost-flame spreading overhead. Then all was as it should be for some falans. When the uneven days came, it was long before they noticed; they don’t have clocks.”

“Seems predictable enough. Except—”

“But the long night, Louis. What does that sound like?”

Louis nodded. “The sun flared up. The shadow square ring closed somehow. Maybe the wire that holds it together can be reeled in by automatics.”

“Then the flare jet pushed the Ringworld off center. Now the days grow more uneven. It frightens all of the races the giants trade with.”

“And well it should.”

“I wish there were something we could do.” The kzin’s tail lashed once. “But we battle sunflowers instead. Did you enjoy yourself this night?”

“Yah.”

“Then you should be smiling.”

“If you really wanted to know, you could have watched. Everyone else did. There aren’t any walls in that big building; they all crowd in together. Anyway, they like watching.”

“I can’t tolerate the smell.”

Louis laughed. “It’s strong. Not bad, just strong. And I had to stand on a stool. And the women were … docile.”

“Females should be docile.”

“Not human females! They’re not even stupid. I couldn’t talk, of course, but I listened.” Louis’s forefinger tapped the knob in his ear. “I listened to Reeth organizing the clean-up squad. She’s good. Hey, you were right, they’re organized just like a herd of cattle! The females are all wives of the king giant. None of the other males ever gets laid, except that sometimes the king giant declares a holiday and then goes away so he won’t have to watch. Fun’s over when he comes back, and officially nothing happened. Everyone’s a little miffed because we brought him back from the raid two days early.”

“What are human females supposed to be like?”

“Oh … orgasm. The males of all the mammals have orgasms. The females generally don’t. But human women do. But the giant women, they just accept. They don’t, ah, participate.”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“Of course I enjoyed it. It’s sex, isn’t it? But it takes a little getting used to, that I couldn’t make Reeth enjoy it like I did, that she can’t.”

“My sympathy is all that it should be,” Chmeee said, “considering that my nearest wife is two hundred light-years away. What must we do next?”

“Wait for the king giant. He may be a little groggy. He spent a lot of last night getting reacquainted with his wives. In fact, the only way he had to tell me how was by demonstration. He’s awesome,” Louis said. “He … serviced? He serviced a dozen women, and I tried like tanj to keep up with him, but it didn’t help my ego that … Skip it.” Now Louis was grinning.

“Louis?”

“My reproductive set isn’t built to the same scale.”

“The guard said that the females of other species stand in awe of the giant males. The males practice rishathra whenever they can. They enjoy peace conferences immensely. The guard was annoyed that Louis did not make you female.”

“Louis was in a hurry,” Wu said, and he went in.

Last night the gatherers’ big bags had disgorged a great heap of cut grass some distance from the longhouse. Guards and the king giant had eaten most of the pile; the gatherers must have been eating as they worked. Now Louis watched as the king giant, loping toward the lander, stopped to finish the pile off.

Herbivores spent too much of their lives eating, Louis mused. How had the humanoids kept their intelligence? Chmeee was right—you didn’t need intelligence to sneak up on a blade of grass. Maybe it took intelligence to avoid being eaten. Or … it took considerable cunning to sneak up on a sunflower.

Louis felt himself being watched.

He turned. Nothing.

It would be embarrassing at best if the king giant learned he’d been duped. Yet Louis was all alone on the flight deck, if you ignored the Hindmost’s spy-eyes. Why this tingling at the back of his neck? He turned again, and who was he kidding? It was the droud. The black plastic case was staring at him from the stepping disc.

A touch of the wire would really make him feel like a god. It would really louse up his act, too! He remembered that Chmeee had seen him under the wire. “Like a mindless marine plant …” He turned away.

The king giant came without armor today. As he and Chmeee entered the rec room the kzin raised his hands to the ceiling, palms together, and intoned, “Louis.” The giant imitated him.

“Find me one of the repulser plates,” Louis said without preamble. “Set it out on the floor. Good. Now get some of the superconductor cloth. It’s three doors down, the big locker. Good. Wrap the cloth around the repulser plate. Cover it completely, but leave a fold so you can reach the settings. Chmeee, how strong is that cloth?”

“A moment, Louis … See, it cuts with a knife. I don’t think I could rip it.”

“Good. Now get me twenty miles of the superconducting wire. Wrap one end around the repulser plate. Tie it well; use a lot of loops. Be lavish. Good enough. Now coil the rest of the wire so it won’t tangle when you let it out. I need the other end. Chmeee, you do that. King of the Grass Eaters, I need the biggest rock you can carry. You know this territory. Find it and bring it.”

The king giant stared … and dropped his eyes and went. Chmeee said, “It sours my stomach to take your orders so meekly.”

“But you thought of it, and besides that, you’re dying to find out what I’m planning. But—”

“I could make you tell.”

“I can make you a better offer than that. Come up here, please.”

Chmeee bounded up through the hatch. Louis asked, “What do you see on the stepping disc?”

Chmeee picked up the droud.

Louis’s voice was jagged in his throat. “Break it.”

The kzin instantly stiff-armed the small instrument into a wall. It didn’t dent. He pried at the casing, got it open, and jabbed at the inside with the hullmetal blade of the knife he’d been using. At last he said, “It’s beyond repair.”

“Good.”

“I will wait below.”

“No, I’ll come with you. I want to check your work. And I want breakfast.” He was feeling twitchy. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Rishathra hadn’t quite lived up to his expectations, and the pure joy of the wire was over forever. But … cheese fondue? Right. And freedom, and pride. In a couple of hours he was going to wipe out a sunflower invasion and shock tanj out of Chmeee. Louis Wu, ex-wirehead, whose brain hopefully had not turned to oatmeal after all.

The king giant came back hugging a boulder and moving very slowly. Chmeee started to take it from him, hesitated an instant as he saw its size, and finished the motion. He turned with it in his arms and, with strain just showing in his voice, said, “What must I do with it, Louis?”

It was tempting. Oh, there are so many possibilities … Give me a minute to think it over … But gods don’t dither, and he couldn’t let Chmeee drop it with the giant watching.

“Set it on superconductor cloth and wrap it up. Tie it with superconductor wire. Take a lot of turns around the rock, and be lavish with the knots, too. Okay, now I want some stronger wire that’ll stand up to heat.”