Ringworld's Children by Larry Niven Page B

could hear a thin whine in the sonic fold. He could see a lacework of water vapor around the other flycycle. His own shock waves were barely visible.
    Tunesmith spoke suddenly in his earphones. "Your mission is to seek out a crashed ship. Louis, guide them. Report to me at every step. Watch for more than one ship down. The crash grooves they carve would be close together and parallel.
    "I want to know the species and what to expect of them. Don't throw your life away to find out. Don't kill any LE if you can avoid it, but if you must, leave no sign. If possible, negotiate. I'll make any guests glad they met me.
    "I worry for what I might forget to tell you.
    "Louis, remember that information storage is easy. All of human knowledge is probably stored aboard every ARM spacecraft, with blocks to restrict secrets. The right officer will know the right passwords. Acolyte, if you find a Patriarchy ship instead, give up. The knowledge may be there, but no hero will give it to you--"
    Louis said, "A telepath might," but Tunesmith's monologue droned on.
    I worry for what I might forget to tell you... that it's a three hundred million mile walk home, and the stepping disk is orbiting beyond your reach, and the Hindmost will be in the 'doc. So you can't count on him for an ally, and you can't use the 'doc to rejuvenate, Louis. In the fullness of time, I'll make you a protector.... Not likely that Tunesmith would say any of that. Louis concentrated on flying.
     
    Far behind them was the low wall of fog. The ship they were tracking had skipped across a sea, a river, another river. A ridge showed a glittering notch of bare scrith where the ship must have bounced aloft. The arrow-straight canyon resumed further on, scrith rimmed with splashed lava. Following it was easy. It ran across forest, a white sand beach, a long, long stretch of veldt... there...
    So small a thing to have wrought so much damage.
    Against another ridge lay an elegantly contoured half-cylinder, flat along one side, no cabins, no windows, no breaks in the reflective surface, except near one end. Louis zoomed his faceplate.
    "Is that an ARM ship?" Acolyte asked. "Or Patriarchy? Smooth as it is, it might be puppeteer. But they'd use a General Products' hull, wouldn't they?"
    Closing now at several mach. The protrusion at one end looked like a bee's stinger.
    "It's a drop tank," Louis said.
    "Explain," Hanuman rapped.
    "It's not a spacecraft. It's part of a spacecraft, the part that carries extra fuel, the part you can throw away." He was furious with himself, and then, suddenly, elated. "The ship whapped down in stasis. After the stasis field collapsed, they still had a working spacecraft."
    Working spacecraft!
    Keep talking. Somehow he held his voice steady. "They drop the tank when they want agility or longer range. I'd say they were getting ready for a dogfight."
    But a working spacecraft!
    Hanuman said, "Flup. We have to find that ship. Were you expecting this?"
    "No. Lying Bastard was a different design. After we hit, we were grounded. Now what?"
    "Possibilities suggest themselves," Hanuman said. "First, I'm linked to Tunesmith. Tunesmith, you have Louis's assessment. Shall we wait for the ship to return for its fuel? Is it ARM or Kzinti or something else? Must we negotiate or challenge?"
    Louis said, "ARM." Kzinti would have marked their property. Pierin or Kdat or Trinocs wouldn't challenge Kzinti or men; Kzinti had owned them. Puppeteers wouldn't directly challenge anything. Outsiders wouldn't get this close to a star. "Might be some other human branch, or Kzinti bandits, or Trinocs... but call it ARM.
    "That's a little tank, so we're looking for a little ship. A fighter won't carry antimatter fuel. Energy stored in a battery. Water for reaction mass because it's easy to store and pump. They might have antimatter weapons. It's surprising that a little ship would have a stasis field. Maybe the UN is getting better at building them."
    Any part of a warcraft would