Ringworld's Children by Larry Niven Page B

streaming colors Louis remembered, and a deep violet dot expanding into a tadpole shape. Tunesmith said, "This explains why we didn't travel far. Too close to the sun's mass--"
    "Inside the singularity," Louis said.
    "Louis, I don't think there's a mathematical singularity here at all. I found reference to a mass pointer in the Hindmost's library. Have you used a mass pointer?"
    "There's one in front of you. It only works in hyperdrive."
    "This?" A crystal sphere, inert now. "What do you think you see with it?"
    "Stars."
    "Starlight?"
    "...No. A mass pointer is a psionics device. You perceive, but it's not with your usual senses. Stars look bigger than they should, as if you're seeing a whole solar system."
    "You've been perceiving this." Tunesmith waved into a recorded view of neon paint streaming through oil. "Dark matter. The missing mass. Instruments in Einstein space can't find it, but it huddles close around suns in this other domain you've been calling hyperspace. Dark matter makes galaxies more massive, changes their spin--"
    "We rammed through that?"
    "Wrong picture, Louis. My instruments didn't record any resistance. We'll test that later. It might have been different if this had reached us." A deep violet comma-shaped shadow. "We find life everywhere we look in this universe. Would it be surprising if an ecology has grown up within dark matter? And predators?"
    Maybe Tunesmith was mad. Louis asked, "Are you suggesting that ships that use hyperdrive near a star are eaten?"
    Tunesmith said, "Yes."
    Crazy. But... the Hindmost continued his work with the recordings and Needle's instruments. He hadn't flinched at the notion of predators eating spacecraft.
    The puppeteer already knew.
    "I only held us in hyperdrive for a moment," Tunesmith said, "but these hypothetical predators only have one speed, Louis, and it's fast. 'Singularity' is a mathematical term. Certainly there are mathematics involved, but they may be more complex than just places where an equation gives infinities. Inside this morass of dark matter, the characteristic speed may be drastically lowered. The proof is that we live."
    "We are being observed," the Hindmost said. "I sense ranging beams from ARM and Patriarchy telescopes and neutrino detectors. Ships begin to accelerate inward. The ship from Sheathclaws houses telepaths of both species, though they can't reach us yet. I've found the comet cluster that hides the Kzinti flagship Diplomat. It's across the solar system, seven light-hours away and receding behind us. Tunesmith, do you have a plan?"
    The Ghoul protector said, "I have the simple part. We will observe the Fringe War as we coast outward. Let our velocity carry us beyond the danger zone, the dark matter zone where predators lurk. Then swing around the system in hyperdrive. Approach Diplomat from the other side of the system. Await developments."
     
    Hours passed. The Fringe War made no further test of Needle's defenses. When the sun was only a bright point and the Ringworld was barely more than that, Tunesmith asked, "Hindmost, can you perceive hyperspace directly?"
    "Yes."
    "I can't. But if you can't fly for terror, I must fly Needle"
    The puppeteer uncoiled. He took Needle's controls. "Where shall I fly?"
    "Take us ten light-minutes outward from Diplomat's last position."
     
    Human beings can't look into the Blind Spot. Most would go mad. Some can use a mass pointer to steer through hyperspace and keep their sanity too. Some Kzinti can perceive hyperspace directly; their female kin have mated into the family of the Patriarch for half a thousand years.
    This time there was nothing. Not darkness, not featureless gray, not even the memory of sight. Louis fumbled until he could opaque the hull in crew quarters.
    Acolyte said, "I don't know enough to ask intelligent questions, Louis."
    "We're okay. I understand this. This is hyperdrive the way I'm used to seeing it. We're outside the... borderline," Louis said. "Even if I have to unlearn