The Ringworld Throne r-3 Read online

  Kay said, “That tale’s true.”

  The Thurl continued, “Then I’d say they’re gone.”

  Nobody spoke.

  The Thurl boomed, “Beedj!”

  “Thurl!” A male trotted up: mature, bigger than most, eager, indecently energetic.

  “With me, Beedj. Tarun, you’ll circle and meet us on the other side. If you’re not there I’ll assume you found a fight.”

  “Yes.”

  Beedj and the Thurl went one way, the rest of the Giants went the other. Vala dithered, then followed the Thurl.

  ***

  The Thurl noticed her. He slowed and let her catch up. Beedj would have waited, too, but the Thurl’s gesture sent him on.

  The Thurl said, “We won’t find live vampires hiding in the grass. Grass grows straight up. Night slides across the sun, but the sun never moves, not anymore. Where can a vampire hide from sunlight?”

  Vala asked, “Do you remember when the sun moved?”

  “I was a child. A frightening time.” He didn’t seem frightened enough, Vala thought. Louis Wu had been among these people; but what Louis had told Valavirgillin, he didn’t seem to have told them.

  It’s a ring, he said. The Arch is the part of the ring you’re not standing on. The sun has started to wobble because the ring is off center. In several falans the ring will brush the sun. But I swear I will stop it, or die trying.

  Later the sun had stopped wobbling.

  Beedj was still jogging, stopping here and there to examine bodies; swinging his sword to cut a swath of grass to see what it hid; eating what he cut as he resumed his patrol. He was burning more energy than the Thurl. Vala had seen no challenge between them—easy command and easy submission—but she became sure that she was watching the next Thurl.

  She nerved herself to ask, “Thurl, did an unknown hominid come among you claiming to be from a place in the sky?”

  The Thurl stared. “In the sky?”

  He could hardly have forgotten, but he might hide secrets. “A male wizard. Bald narrow face, bronze skin, straight black scalp hair, taller than my kind and narrow in the shoulders and hip.” Fingertips lifted and stretched the corners of her eyes. “Eyes like this. He boiled a sea hereabouts, to end a plague of mirror-flowers.”

  The Thurl was nodding. “It was done by the old Thurl, with this Louis Wu’s help. But how do you come to know about that?”

  “Louis Wu and I traveled together, far to port of here. Without sunlight the mirror-flowers couldn’t defend themselves, he said. The clouds, though, they never went away?”

  “They never did. We seeded our grass, just as the wizard told us. Smeerps and other burrowers moved in well ahead of us. Wherever we went, we found mirror-flowers eaten at the roots. Grass doesn’t grow well in this murk, so at first we had to eat mirror-flowers.

  “The Reds who fed their herds from our grass in my father’s time, and fought us when we objected, they followed us into new grassland. Gleaners hunted the burrowers. Water People moved back up the rivers that the mirror-flowers had taken.”

  “What of the vampires?”

  “It seems they did well, too.”

  Vala grimaced.

  The Thurl said, “There was a region we all avoided. Vampires need refuge from daylight, a cave system, trees, anything. When the clouds came, they feared the sun less. They traveled farther from their lair. We know no more than that.”

  “We should ask the Ghouls.”

  “Do you Machine People talk to Ghouls?” The Thurl didn’t quite like that idea.

  “They keep their own company. But Ghouls know where the dead have fallen. They must know where the vampires hunt, and where they hide during the day.”

  “Ghouls only act at night. I would not know how to talk to a Ghoul.”

  “It’s done.” Vala was trying to remember, but her mind wasn’t working well. Tired. “It’s done. A new religion pops up, or an old priest dies, and then it’s a rite of ordeal for the new shaman. The Ghouls must know and accept what rites he demands for the dead.”

  The Bull nodded. Ghouls would carry out funeral rites for any religion, within obvious limits. “How, then?”

  “You have to get their attention. Court them. Anything works, but they’re coy. That’s a test, too. A new priest won’t be taken seriously until he’s dealt with the Ghouls.”

  The Bull was bristling. “Court them?”

  “My people came here as merchants, Thurl. The Ghouls have something we want: knowledge. What do we have that the Ghouls want? Not much. Ghouls own the world, Arch and all, just ask them.”

  “Court them.” It grated. “How?”

  What had she heard? Tales told at night; not much in the way of business dealings. But she’d seen and talked to Ghouls. “Ghouls work the shadow farm under a cluster of floating buildings, far to port. We pay them in tools, and the City Builders give them library privileges. They’ll deal for information.”

  “We don’t know anything.”

  “Nearly true.”

  “What else have we got?” The Thurl said, “Oh, Valavirgillin, this is nasty stuff.”

  “What?”

  The Thurl waved about him. In view were nearly a hundred vampire corpses, all lying near the wall, and half as many Grass Giant dead scattered from the crossbow limit to the uncut grass.

  Beedj was examining a smaller corpse. He saw he had her attention, and he lifted the head so that Vala could see its face. It was Himapertharee, of Anthrantillin’s crew.

  A shudder rippled along Vala’s spine. But the Thurl was right. She sad, “Ghouls must feed. More than that: if these thousand corpses were left to lie, there would be plague. All would blame the Ghouls. The Ghouls must come to clean up.”

  “But why will they listen to me?”

  Vala shook her head. It felt stuffed with cotton.

  “What then, after we know where the vampires lair? Attack them ourselves?”

  “The Ghouls might tell us that, too—”

  The Thurl broke into a run. Vala saw Beedj waving, holding—what? At that moment he shook it violently, then flung it away, and hurled himself in the other direction. Where it fell, it writhed and went quiet, though Beedj was howling.

  It was a living vampire.

  Beedj called, “Thurl, I’m sorry. It was alive, wounded, just the bolt through its hip. I thought we might talk to it, examine it—anything—but—but the smell!”

  “Calm yourself, Beedj. Was the smell sudden? You attack, it defends?”

  “What, like a fart? Sometimes controlled, sometimes not? … Thurl, I’m not sure.”

  “Resume your patrol.”

  Beedj’s sword slashed viciously at the grass. The Thurl walked on.

  Vala had been thinking. She said, “You must set a delegation among the dead. A tent, a few of your men—”

  “We’d find them sucked empty in the morning!”

  “No, I think it’s safe for tonight and tomorrow night. The vampires have hunted this area out, and they’d smell their own dead. Even so, arm your people and, mmm, send men and women together.”

  “Valavirgillin—”

  “I know your custom, but if the vampires sing, best your people mate with each other.” Should she be saying this? She surely would not have spoken thus before other Grass Giants.

  The Bull snarled, but—“Yes. Yes, and what the Thurl does not see did not happen. So.” The Thurl beckoned at Beedj. He asked Vala, “Will Farsight Trading join us?”

  “We should support you. Two species in need will speak louder than one.” Farsight Trading could roll away from most problems, but not this. They’d poured most of their fuel into towels.

  “Three species, then. Many Gleaners died the night before last. The Gleaners will wait with us. Should we be more yet? Vampires must have hunted among the Reds.”

  “Worth a try.”

  Beedj came up. The Thurl began talking much faster than Vala could follow. Beedj tried to argue, then acquiesced.

  “We
should sleep during the day,” Vala said. Her body was crying for sleep.

  ***

  Something closed on her wrist. “Boss?”

  She jerked awake. Her squeak was intended as a scream. She rolled away and sat up and—it was only Kaywerbrimmis.

  “Boss, what have you been telling the Bull?”

  She was still groggy. She needed a drink and a bath or—that rattle, was it rain? And a flash and boom that was certainly thunder.

  She’d pulled off her filthy clothing before she slept. She slid out of the blankets, out of the payload shell, into the cool rain. Kay watched from the gun room as she danced in the rain.

  Consequences. Traders didn’t mate. They shared rishathra with the species they met, but mating was something else. You didn’t get a business partner pregnant, and you didn’t engage in sexual dominance games, and you didn’t fall in love.

  But in far realms, among strange hominids, you couldn’t shun each other, either.

  She beckoned and shouted, “Wash with me. What time is it?”

  “Coming on dusk. We slept a long time.” Kay was pulling off his clothes in something like relief. “I thought we’d need this time to arm against vampires.”

  “We’ll do that. How’s Barok?”

  “Don’t know.”

  They drank, washed each other, dried each other, and were reassured: the mating urge could be resisted.

  The rain stopped. You could see wind driving the last flurries across the stubble. Swaths of navy-blue sky showed through blowing broken clouds, and a sudden narrow vertical line of blue-white dashes.

  Vala gaped. She hadn’t seen the Arch in four rotations.

  By glow of Archlight she could see patterns in the grass stubble. An arc of pale rectangles. A tent erected within the arc. Grass Giants moved back and forth, and a handful of much smaller hominids moved with them. On the rectangles … sheets? They were laying out bodies.

  “Did you tell them to do that?”

  “No. Not a bad idea, though,” Vala said.

  In Anthrantillin’s deserted cruiser they found Barok with a woman twice his size. He seemed abnormally subdued, but he was smiling. “Wemb, my partners Valavirgillin and Kaywerbrimmis. Folk, this is Wemb.”

  Kay started to say, “I would have thought—”

  Barok’s laugh was not quite sane. “Yes, and you would’ve been right, if you would have thought we slept!”

  Wemb cut in. “Sleeping here, together, protects each against intent of the rest, against yet more rishathra. We were lucky in each other.”

  Groping through his exhausted mind, Barok found another thought. “Forn. You never found Foranayeedli?”

  Vala said, “She’s gone.”

  Barok’s body rippled, an uncontrollable shudder. His hand closed on Vala’s wrist. “I shouted down at her. ‘Load!’ Nothing. She was gone. I stepped out to look for her, to stop her if she followed the singing. Stepped out and my mind turned off. I was at the foot of the wall and the rain was hammering me into the ground. Someone stumbled into me. Knocked me in the mud. Wemb. We, rishathra isn’t a strong enough word.”

  Wemb took him by the shoulder and turned him toward her. “Shared love, or even mated, but we must say rishathra, Barok. Truly we must.”

  “—Tore our clothes away and rished and rished, and our minds seeped back to us with not a heartbeat to spare. A half circle of those pale things was closing on us. The rain must have washed away some of the scent. I saw crossbows lying all around us. Grass Giant warriors have been stumbling down the wall all night long, dropping crossbows and anything else they’re carrying—”

  “We picked up crossbows,” the Grass Giant woman cut in. “I saw Makee lying dead with a vampire in his arms and a bolt through both of them, and his quiver dropped beside him. Picked up the quiver and dumped it and pushed a handful of bolts at Barok and shot the nearest vampire. Then the next.”

  “At first I couldn’t cock the crossbow.”

  “Then the next. Is that why you were screaming? We never talked till after.”

  “Scream and pull. Scream for strength,” Barok said. “Your cursed tools aren’t built for tiny little Machine People.”

  Vala asked, “You were out there all night?”

  Wemb nodded. Barok said, “When the rain started to slack off, I got us towels. There were heaps of towels.” His grip was painful. “Kay, Vala, we saw why.”

  “Warriors walked past us,” Wemb said. “I shot Heerst in the leg, but he just kept walking, following the singing. Vampires came up to him and pulled the towel off his face and led him away. He’s my son.”

  “If something is covering your face, they pull it off! Heerst was using fuel in his towel. Rain washes it out. We looked for towels that had—Wemb?”

  “Pepperleek. Minch.”

  “Yes, those kept their scent. They kept us alive, the towels and the rishathra. Any time it was too much for us, we rished. And crossbow bolts. The guards were dropping their swords and crossbows but not their quivers. We had to go looking. Rob the dead.”

  “I saw what I didn’t understand,” Wemb said. “I should tell the Thurl. Vampires rished with some of us, then led them away into the high grass and farther. Why keep them alive? Are they still alive?”

  Vala said, “The Ghouls might know.”

  “Ghouls keep Ghoul secrets,” Wemb said.

  The clouds had closed again. In the dark Barok said, “I shot the vampire who was leading Anth away. It took two bolts. Another picked up the song, and I shot her. Anth followed a third woman, and by that time he was out of range. They led him into the grass. I never saw him again. Should I have shot him?”

  They only looked at him.

  “I can’t keep vigil with you,” Barok said. “I can’t face rishathra now. My head is too—I don’t know if I can make you see—”

  They squeezed his arms and tried to assure him that they understood. They left him there.

  Chapter 3

  The Gathering Storm

  The tent huddled beneath the walk but faced outward into an arc of gray sheets.

  The corpses were laid head-to-head, two giants to a sheet, or four vampires. Giants had found Anthrantillin and his crewman Himapertharee and laid them out on one sheet. Taratarafasht and Foranayeedli must be still missing. Another sheet held six tiny Gleaner dead.

  The giants had nearly finished making their patterns. Tiny hominids moved about them, not helping much, but carrying food or light loads. All wore sheets with holes in them for the head to poke through.

  A Grass Giant could lift a vampire with no difficulty. It took two to carry a dead giant.

  But Beedj was carrying a dead Grass Giant woman across his back. He rolled the woman off his shoulders to slump across a sheet, perfectly placed. He took her hand and spoke to her sadly. Vala changed her mind about disturbing him.

  Two women finished laying out more vampire dead. One approached. “We rubbed pepperleek along the rims of the sheets. Stop small scavengers,” Moonwa said to the three Machine People. “Big scavengers we can crossbow. Ghouls won’t have to fight for what’s theirs.”

  “A polite notion,” Valavirgillin said. Tables would have raised the dead out of a scavenger’s reach; but where would Grass Giants find wood?

  “What can I do for you?” Moonwa asked.

  “We’ve come to keep vigil with you.”

  “The battle cost you too much. No Ghouls come on the first night. Rest.”

  Vala said, “But it was my idea, after all.”

  “Thurl’s idea,” Moonwa informed her.

  Vala nodded and carefully didn’t smile. It was a social convention, as in Louis Wu helped the Thurl boil a sea. She waved toward the little hominids. “Who are these?”

  Moonwa called, “Perilack, Silack, Manack, Coriack—” Four small heads lifted. “—these are more allies: Kaywerbrimmis, Valavirgillin, Whandernothtee.”

  The Gleaners smiled and bobbed their heads, but they didn’t come up at once. They moved
off to where Grass Giants were carefully stripping their sheets off inside out, well away from the dead and the tent, then picking up scythes and crossbows. The Gleaners stripped off their contaminated sheets, then hung slender swords behind their backs.

  Beedj approached, sheetless and armed. “Towels under the tent. We rubbed minch on them,” he said. “Welcome to all.”

  Gleaners stood armpit-high to Machine People, navel-high to Beedj and Moonwa. Their faces were hairless and pointed; their smiles were wide and toothy, a bit much. They wore tunics of cured smeerpskin with the beige fur left on, lavishly decorated with feathers. On the women, Perilack and Coriack, the feather patterns formed smallish wings. The women had to walk with some care to protect them. Manack and Silack looked much like the women. Their clothing showed greater differences; feathered, but with arms free to swing. Or fight.

  Rain spattered down, just enough to send the Machine People into the tent. Vala saw grass piled thickly on the floor. Grass for bedding and to feed the Grass Giants. She stopped her companions until they had taken off their sandals.

  Already it was dark enough that Vala could barely see faces. Rishathra was best begun in the night.

  But not on a battlefield.

  “This is a bad business,” Perilack said.

  Whandernothtee asked, “How many have you lost?”

  “Nearly two hundred by now.”

  “We were only ten. Four are gone. Sopashintay and Chitakumishad we left on guard above us with the cannon. Barok is recovering from a night in hell.”

  “Our queen’s man went with the Thurl’s woman to bring other hominids to bargain. If the—” The little woman’s eyes flickered about her. “—lords of the night do not speak, other voices will join ours tomorrow.”

  Legend told that the Ghouls heard any word spoken of them, unless—some said—during broad daylight. The Ghouls might be all about them even now.

  Kay asked, “Would your queen’s man truly rish with his traveling companions?”

  The four Gleaners tittered. Beedj and Moonwa boomed their laughter. A little woman—Perilack—said to Kay, “If the Grass Giant women would notice. Size matters. But you, you and we might make something happen.”