Ringworld's Children by Larry Niven Page B

describe is mostly your imagination," said the Hindmost. "Much of a war goes unseen. That larger ship, I have identified it. Lure of Far Lands Limited, the Kdatlyno and Jinx business alliance. They won't fight, they will only observe. Here is Acolyte. Louis, go eat. Bathe."
     
    Louis jerked awake. Something had disturbed him... a flash of light from the screen?
    Acolyte and the Hindmost were asleep, sprawled far apart on the hard floor beneath the Meteor Defense Room walls. It was good to be clean; he'd eaten like an army; sleeping plates would be good too. But anyone who slept aboard Needle would miss something.
    Louis sat up. Nothing hurt! He grinned, remembering what an older woman had told him at his two hundredth birthday party. "Dearest, if you can wake in the morning with no pain in your joints and muscles, it's a sure sign that you have died in the night."
    The Hindmost had reset the wraparound screen. It showed a skyscape with windows in it, views of an eyestorm and the Other Ocean. Around the windows stars moved uneasily: ships of the Fringe War. All views were quiet now.
    It did bother him, that he couldn't think of anything to do except watch. He was trying to outthink a protector. What chance would he have later if he couldn't find an angle now, while Tunesmith was being hunted across the system?
    On the Ringworld were millions of seas. Louis couldn't guess where the Hindmost had put Hot Needle of Inquiry. He could get there by a stepping-disk setting. The first pair of ARM ships hadn't found it, and now they were too busy maneuvering. The war above the eyestorm had been quiet for hours, but ships continued to shift position.
    Sudden light splashed around the Farland ship: antimatter bullets intercepted in transit. The Farland ship was accelerating away from the action. Its new course would miss the Ringworld. A ruby laser lit it brilliantly, but diffused, its attacker already deep in atmosphere. Ships tens of millions of miles apart had some chance to defend themselves.
    But the war above the eyestorm was getting too tight.
    Fire burst into the clouds where two ARM ships were hiding. Louis cried, "Wake up! Wake up! You're missing action!"
    The others stirred.
    Tunesmith's deep-radar window showed one ARM ship diving through the puncture hole--leaving hard-won turf abandoned, but safeguarding data from its explorations, unless some ambush waited beneath the Ringworld floor. The other accelerated hard, running down the storm's axis in a channel of clear air, the pupil of the eye.
    Kzinti had deep-radar too. Two lens ships were diving. Fire followed them down.
    The eyestorm flashed to a blue-white glare.
    The Hindmost killed the zoom window before it could blind them. On a less expanded view--Tunesmith must have a camera on one of the shadow squares--a star glared near the Other Ocean, as big as... too big... far too big.
    The puppeteer said, "I believe one of the ARM ships exploded. Antimatter. We'll have a hole the size of..." The Hindmost thought it through, then folded into himself and was silent.
    The eyestorm was gone, blasted apart. Cloud patterns showed an expanding ring of shock wave crossing seas and gray-green land. A hemisphere of cloud enveloped a dimming fireball.
    "What has happened here?"
    Tunesmith and the little chimp-protector were on the stepping disk: a sorcerer confronting wayward apprentices, demanding explanations. Louis's throat closed on him. It felt like he should have stopped this. It felt like Tunesmith would, should blame him.
    "Antimatter explosion," Acolyte said.
    "Is there a hole under that cloud?"
    The question was already silly: the dome of cloud was dimpled in the center. It was being sucked into interstellar space. When Acolyte didn't answer, Louis said, "There was already a hole--"
    "Of course. We have to move fast," Tunesmith said. "Come." He had the lip of the stepping disk up and was redirecting it.
    Louis found his voice. "Sure, now's a good time to move fast. You've