Chapter 1, Louis Wu Summary

In Ringworld, 200-year-old human Louis Wu is recruited by a two-headed alien named Nessus to join him, a catlike warrior alien named Speaker, and the infinitely lucky human Teela Brown to explore an alien artifact. They find a Ringworld, a ribbon millions of miles long built around a distant sun. The civilization has fallen into savagery, though, and after crashing into the Ringworld, Louis must come up with a clever plan to get back to known space, hundreds of light years away.

The story begins on Louis Wu's 200th birthday, and he's left his daylong party just before midnight to hop through time zones in general-address transfer booths, which are public teleportation devices. Louis moves from time zone to time zone to stretch out his 200th birthday, leaving each zone just before midnight. He travels to Beirut, where he...