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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. He'd done that, twelve years ago, when the Ringworld had drifted off center... but Louis only said, "I won't 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 Tunesmith's 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 they'd vanished.
    Tunesmith rose to join them. "Tell me again why Ringworld species are always hospitable!"
    "Tunesmith, those were apes," Louis said. "Hominids aren't 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 didn't see the difference between these apes and Louis Wu. A protector's 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 couldn't 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. Louis's 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 isn't in season."
    Tunesmith barked. The Burrowing People laughed hysterically, looking at Louis with myopic eyes.
    Louis asked, "What was your excuse?"
    "I've been here. They know about protectors. Board your disk."
     

Chapter 4
    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