However, when her luck turns and the expedition runs into trouble, she also experiences pain for the first time and so has an opportunity to grow. She also has pretty good problem-solving instincts that prove helpful, and Louis is constantly reminding himself that he underestimates her intelligence. That is the reason Nessus wants her to join, even though she has no other qualification. But it turns out (spoiler here) that the Puppeteers have been interfering with human evolution by breeding people with the trait of being exceptionally lucky.
Teela Brown is a beautiful twenty year-old who becomes Louis Wu’s lover and is so attached to him that she wants to join the expedition. And kzin have a heroic code of conduct which often leads Speaker to challenge anyone to fight for even minor insults. Speaker-to-Animals, as this kzin is called, is a cat-like creature who stands on two legs, is eight feet tall, and has fangs, claws and a roar so fearsome as to make him a walking terror.
One is a kzin, an aggressive, carnivorous alien species that has fought a long series of wars with humans. Louis Wu accepts but reluctantly, especially when he finds out who the other two crew members will be. If Wu accepts the offer, without knowing anything else about the destination, he will be able to keep the starship, which has profound implications for humanity. This ship is powered by engines that are not merely FTL but can cover a light year in 1.25 minutes.
Nessus is organizing a small crew to fly to his home world and from there to take a faster-than-light spaceship to explore a mysterious star system. Puppeteers are herbivorous and timid by nature, and Nessus often wraps himself up into a ball when danger is present. He meets Nessus, a Pierson’s Puppeteer, that is, a three-legged alien with two snake-like heads on stalks who speaks a language that sounds like orchestral music, though he also speaks the Interworld language that all the other characters use. Although he first appears in a sort of Fu Manchu costume with long white hair in a queue down his back and chrome yellow skin (I almost stopped right there), it soon becomes clear that his real appearance is a blend of all races. The story begins on Louis Wu’s 200th birthday party in 2850 CE, an event made possible by his consumption of boosterspice that keeps him relatively youthful. That adds up to a considerable achievement but doesn’t make up for the absence of character development and the abominable presentation of the story’s two female characters. The alien species Niven created are among the most interesting I’ve seen, and the adventure is well told and fairly satisfying. The basic story about exploring a megastructure, a giant ringworld surrounding a star, is compelling, and the characters have to come up with one intriguing idea after another to get themselves out of near-fatal encounters.
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