The artifact is a vast circular ribbon of matter, some 180 million miles across, with a sun at its center. Pierson's puppeteers--strange, three-legged, two-headed aliens--discovered this "Ringworld" in a hitherto unexplored part of the galaxy. Curious about the immense structure, but frightened by the prospect of meeting the builders, they set about assembling a team to explore it. The party's expedition, however, goes disastrously wrong when their ship crash-lands and its motley crew faces a daunting trek across thousands of miles of Ringworld territory.
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