The Ringworld Engineers Part 38

HUMAN s.p.a.cE: The cl.u.s.ter of stellar systems inhabited by mankind.

KNOWN s.p.a.cE: The stellar region known to humanity through the explorations of human or other species.

LANDER: General term for a ground-to-orbit craft.

LONG SHOT: See QUANTUM II HYPERDRIVE.

MAKE HIS (HER) DAY: Use a tasp on him (her), especially from concealment.

OUTSIDER: Intelligent life form whose biochemistry is based on liquid helium and the thermoelectric effect. Outsider ships roam the stars at sublight speeds, trading in information.

OUTSIDER HYPERDRIVE: Faster-than-light drive never used by the Outsiders themselves, but used extensively by the star-traveling species of known s.p.a.ce.

PORT: To the left as one faces spinward.

QUANTUM II HYPERDRIVE: Developed by Pierson's puppeteers, a mode of travel [that] is enormously faster than the Outsider hyperdrive. Long Shot was the prototype s.p.a.cecraft, the first to visit the galactic core.

REPAIR CENTER: (Hypothetical) Center of Ringworld maintenance and controls.

RISHATHRA: s.e.x practices outside of one's own species (but within the hominids).

SCRITH: Ringworld structural material. Scrith underlies all of the terraformed and contoured inner surface of the Ringworld. The rim walls are also of scrith. Very dense, with a tensile strength on the order of the force that holds atomic nuclei together.

STEPPING DISKS: Teleportation system used on the Fleet of Worlds. (Other known races use a less sophisticated method, the enclosed transfer booths.) SPILL MOUNTAINS: Mountains standing against the rim wall. They have their own ecology. One stage in the circulation of flup.

SPAGHETTI PLANT: Ringworld plant, description obvious. Edible.

SPINWARD: In the direction of rotation of the Ringworld.

STARBOARD: To the right as one faces spinward.

STASIS: A condition in which time pa.s.ses very slowly. Ratios can be as high as half a billion years of real time to a few seconds in stasis. An object in stasis is very nearly invulnerable.

TANJ: Slang acronym formed from "There Ain't No Justice." Used as an expletive.

TASP: A hand-held device to tickle the pleasure center of a human brain from a distance.

TERRAFORM: Operate on an environment to render it Earthlike.

THRUSTER: Reactionless drive; has generally replaced fusion rockets on all s.p.a.cecraft save warcraft.

WEENIE PLANT: Ringworld plant similar to melons or cuc.u.mbers, but growing in links. Cl.u.s.ters of roots spring from the nodes. Grows in damp areas. Edible.

About the Author.

Larry Niven was born on April 30, 1938, in Los Angeles, California. In 1956, he entered the California Inst.i.tute of Technology, only to flunk out a year and a half later after discovering a bookstore jammed with used science-fiction magazines. He graduated with a B.A. in mathematics (minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Kansas, in 1962, and completed one year of graduate work in mathematics at UCLA before dropping out to write. His first published story, "The Coldest Place," appeared in the December 1964 issue of Worlds of If.

Larry Niven's interests include backpacking with the Boy Scouts, science-fiction conventions, supporting the conquest of s.p.a.ce, the AAAS meetings and other gatherings of people at the cutting edge of the sciences.

He won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1966 for "Neutron Star," and in 1974 for "The Hole Man." The 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novelette was given to "The Borderland of Sol." His novel Ringworld won the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1972 Ditmars, an Australian award for Best International Science Fiction. With Jerry Pournelle he has written Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall, both national bestsellers.