Free The World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven

eye was faced with nothing but rectangular prisms, with here and there a yellow rectangular field or a flattish building with a strangely curved roof. The streets couldn't decide whether to be crooked or straight. Cars zipped by, buzzing like flying pests. The drone from the fans of his own car rasped on his nerves, until he learned to ignore it.
    But where was he? He must have missed F124 somehow, and hit here. The driver knew that his planet-- Earth? had space travel, and therefore might know how to find F124. And the eighth planet of its system.
    For it was already obvious that he would need the second suit. These slaves outnumbered him seventeen billion to one. They could destroy him at any time. And would, when they knew what he was. He had to get the control helmet to make himself safe. Then he would have to find a thrintun planet; and he might need a better spaceship than the humans had produced so far. They must be made to produce better ships.
    The buildings were getting lower, and there were even gaps between them. Had poor transportation made these slaves crowd together in clumps? Someday he must spend the time to find out more about them. After all, they were his now.
    But what a story this would make someday! How his grandchildren would listen and admire! When the time came he must buy balladeerg; pruntaquilun balladeers, for only these had the proper gift of language.
    The spaceport was drawing near.
    ***
    There was no apparent need to be subtle. Once Kzanol/Greenberg had Masney fully under, he simply ordered Masney to take him to the spaceport. It took about fifteen minutes to reach the gate.
    At first he couldn't guess why Masney was landing. Shouldn't he simply fly over the fence? Masney wasn't giving away information. His mind would have been nearly normal by now, and it was normal for a hypnotized person. Masney "knew" that he wasn't really hypnotized; he was only going along with it for a joke. Any time now he would snap out of it and surprise Greenberg. Meanwhile he was calm and happy and free from the necessity for making decisions. He had been told to go to the spaceport. Here he was at the spaceport. His passenger let him lead.
    Not until they were down did Kzancl/Greenberg realize that Masney was waiting to be passed through by the guards. He asked, "Will the guards let us through?"
    "No," said Masney.
    Coosth, another setback. "Would they have let me through with--" he thought, "Garner?"
    "Yes. Garner's an Arm."
    "Well, turn around and go back for Garner."
    The car whirred. "Wait a minute," said Kzanol/Greenberg. "Sleep." Where were the guards?
    Across a tremendous flat expanse of concrete, painted with large red targets in a hexagonal array, he could see the spaceships. There were twenty or thirty ramjet rocket orbital craft, some fitted out to lift other spaceczaft to orbit. A linear accelerator ran down the entire south side of the field: a quarter mile of wide, closely set metal hoops. Fusion-drive military rockets lay on their sides in docks, ready to be loaded onto the flat triangular ramjet-rockets. They all looked like motor scooters beside two truly gigantic craft.
    One thing like a monstrous tin of tuna, a circular flying wing resting on its blunt trailing edge, was the reentry, cargo, and lifesupport system of the Lazy Eight III. Anyone would have recognized her, even without the blue human's sign of infinity on her flank. She was 320 feet in diameter, 360 in height. The other, far to the right, was a passenger ship as big as the ancient *Queen Mary*, one of the twin luxury transports which served the Titan Hotel. And even at this distance it was apparent that everybody, everybody was clustered around her entrance port.
    Listening as hard as he could, Kzanol/Greenberg still couldn't find out what they were doing there; but he recognized the flavor of those far-too-calm thoughts. Those were tame slaves, slaves under orders.
    The other thrint was here. But why wasn't he taking his own ship?