The Ringworld Throne r-3 Read online

  The Reds weren’t unfriendly. They might be a little stiff around the Thurl himself, but around others they were relaxed and talkative. Spash and three Reds were trading stories now. The Reds had considerable experience with hominids, despite their handicap.

  Vala listened idly. The Reds were guided by their diet. They ate live meat, and they were herder-gourmets. Herding one life-form, rarely two, was easier than trying to keep several types of meatbeast together. The Red tribes mapped their routes to cross each others’ paths, to trade feasts.

  They traded stories, too, and met hominids in a variety of environments. Now they were speaking of two types of Water People, apparently not the same two Vala was familiar with.

  The fourth Red, Tegger, was on watch with Chit.

  The Thurl was asleep in full armor. He clearly wasn’t interested in rishathra, or Ghouls, either, Vala thought.

  Sopashintay lay propped against a tent pole. “I wonder what it’s like inside the wall tonight,” she said.

  Vala considered. “The Thurl’s out here. Beedj is in there, on defense. ‘What the Thurl does not see did not happen.’ ”

  Spash came up on an elbow. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From the Thurl. The beta males are doing a lot of mating, I expect, and some fighting, too. I suppose we’re missing all the fun—”

  “Again, in my case,” Spash said.

  “—but they wouldn’t rish anyway if they can mate. And I can use the rest.”

  “So can the Thurl. He sleeps like a near-dormant volcano,” Spash said.

  Chit looked at the women and smiled, and stepped lightly out of the tent. A dense mist cloaked the night. Chit picked up a bone from dinner and threw it. Vala heard a tiny muffled tock.

  A silver bulk was at her shoulders, sensed but never heard. The Thurl sniffed, while his hands cocked a crossbow without sound or effort. He said, “They are not near, vampires or Night People. Chitakumishad, did you see anything? Smell anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  The Thurl seemed exceedingly alert for one who had been sleeping moments ago. He pulled his helm closed and stepped out. A Grass Giant guard, Tarun, followed him.

  Spash said, “I had it wrong, didn’t I? But why—”

  Vala whispered, “Reds. They’re the ancient enemy, and they’re all around him. That’s why he kept his armor on, and that’s why he pretends to sleep. Bet on it.”

  ***

  In the morning there were no dead between the wall and the tall grass, save for those that lay on sheets. The Ghouls had taken Vala at her word, it seemed.

  Chaychind asked of nobody in particular, “Where shall we turn the hakarrch loose?”

  Coriak [sic—should be “Coriack”] looked at Manack. The Gleaner female said, “Just short of the tall grass, but let me tell my companions first. Vala, will your people hunt, too?”

  “I think not, but I’ll ask.”

  She spoke to the others. None were eager. Machine People did eat meat, but predator meat generally had a rank flavor. But Kay said, “We’ll look timid if someone doesn’t join the hunt.”

  “Ask some questions,” she told him. “That thing looked dangerous. The more you know, the less often you get killed.”

  He’d never heard the proverb. He stared, laughed, then said, “We want to bring it to less than once?”

  “Yes.”

  She slept through the hunt. At midday she woke to share in the meal. Kaywerbrimmis bore a single slash along his forearm, the fool. Vala bound it with a fuel-soaked towel. Hakarrch meat had a flavor of cat.

  The dead were fewer, but the stench of them hovered about the tent, and the dreadful night was coming.

  The Ghouls would take her at her word, she thought. The bodies we guarded from vermin, the lords of the night will take last. Tonight.

  Chapter 4

  The People of the Night

  When shadow had nearly covered the sun, Vala found the Gleaners and Reds around a fire. The Gleaners were eating; they offered to share. The Reds had eaten their kills as they were made.

  A fine rain began to sizzle on the coals. The negotiators retreated into the tent: Valavirgillin, Chitakumishad, and Sopashintay for the Machine People, three of the Reds, the four Gleaners. Anakrin hooki-Wanhurhur [sic—should be “hooki-Whanhurhur”] and the Thurl and a woman Vala didn’t know were already inside.

  Stale grass had been replaced with fresh.

  The Thurl spoke, his powerful voice cutting through all conversation. “Folk, meet my negotiator Waast, who has a tale to tell.”

  Waast stood gracefully for so large a woman. “Paroom and I went to starboard two days ago, on foot,” she said. “Paroom returned with these Reds of Ginjerofer’s folk. I followed on foot with a guard of Red warriors, to speak to the Muddy River People. The Muddy River People cannot join us here, but they may speak of our sorrows to the Night People.”

  “They’ll have the same trouble we did,” Coriack said.

  (Something was tickling at Vala’s attention.)

  Waast sat. To the Reds she said, “You cannot practice rishathra. But mating?”

  “It is not my time,” Warvia said primly. Anakrin and Chaychind were grinning. Tegger seemed angry.

  (The wind.)

  Many hominid species were monogamous, exclusive of rishathra, of course. Tegger and Warvia must be mates. And the Thurl was saying, “I must wear my armor. We know not what might visit us.”

  Too bad. They might have gotten some entertainment going.

  (Music?)

  Spash asked uneasily, “Do you hear music? That isn’t vampire music.”

  The sound was still soft, but growing louder, almost painfully near the upper end of her hearing range. Vala felt the hair stir on her neck and down her spine. She was hearing a wind instrument, and strings, and a thuttering percussion instrument. No voices.

  The Thurl lowered his helm and stepped out. A crossbow was in his hand, pointed at the sky. Chit and Silack stayed at either side of the door, their weapons readied. Others in the tent were arming themselves.

  Tiny Silack walked backward into the tent. The smell came with him. Carrion and wet fur.

  Two big hominid shapes followed, and then the much bigger Thurl. “We have guests,” he boomed.

  In the tent it was almost totally dark. Vala could make out the gleam of the Ghouls’ eyes and teeth, and two black silhouettes against a scarcely brighter glow, Archlight seeping through clouds. But her eyes were adjusting, picking out detail:

  There were two, a man and a woman. Hair covered them almost everywhere. It was black and straight and slick with the rain. Their mouths were overly wide grins showing big spade teeth. They wore pouches on straps, and were otherwise naked. Their big blunt hands were empty. They were not eating. Vala was terribly relieved, even as she resisted the impulse to shy back.

  Likely enough, none but Valavirgillin had ever seen one of these. Some were reacting badly. Chit remained in the door, on guard, facing away. Spash was on her feet, not cringing, but it seemed the limit of her self-control. Silack of the Gleaners, Tegger, and Chaychind all cringed away with wide eyes and open mouths.

  She had to do something. She stood and bowed. “Welcome. I am Valavirgillin of the Machine People. We’ve waited to beg your help. These are Anakrin and Warvia of the Red Herders, Perilack and Manack of the Gleaners, Chitakumishad and Sopashintay of the Machine People—” picking them out as and when she thought they had recovered their aplomb.

  The Ghoul male didn’t wait. “We know your various kinds. I am—” something breathy. His lips didn’t close completely. Otherwise he was fluent in the trade dialect, his accent more like Kay’s than Vala’s. “But call me Harpster, for the instrument I play. My mate is—” something breathy and whistling, not unlike the music that was still playing outside. “Grieving Tube. How do you practice rishathra?”

  Tegger had been cowering. Now he was beside his mate, instantly. “We cannot,” he said.

  The Ghoul woman half
hid a laugh. Harpster said, “We know. Be at ease.”

  The Thurl spoke directly to Grieving Tube. “These are under my protection. My armor may come off, if you can speak for our safety. After that, you need only have care for my size.” And Waast only smiled at Harpster, but Vala could admire her for the nerve that took.

  The Gleaners were in a line, all four standing tall. “Our kind does practice rishathra,” Coriack said.

  Vala longed for her home. Somewhere she would have found food for her mate and children, and as for her love of adventure, a person could set that aside for a time … too late now. “Rishathra binds our Empire,” Valavirgillin told the lords of the night.

  Harpster said, “Truth was that rishathra bound the City Builders’ empire. Fuel binds yours. We do practice rishathra, but not tonight, I think, because we can guess how it would disturb the Red Herders—”

  “We are not so fragile,” Warvia said.

  “—and for another reason,” Harpster said. “Do you have a request to make of us?”

  They all tried to speak at once. “Vampires—”

  “You see the terror—”

  “The deaths—”

  The Thurl had a voice to cut through all that. “Vampires have devastated all species in a territory ten daywalks across. Help us to end their menace.”

  “Two or three daywalks, no more,” Harpster said. “Vampires need to reach shelter after a raid. Still, a large territory, housing more than a ten of hominid species—”

  “But they feed us well,” Grieving Tube said gently, her voice pitched a little higher than her companion’s. “The problem you face is that we have no problem. What is good for any of you is good also for the People of the Night. The vampires feed us as surely as the lust for alcohol among your client species, Valavirgillin. But if you can conquer the vampires, that serves us, too.”

  Did they realize how much they had revealed in a few breaths of speech? But too many others were speaking at once, and Vala held silence.

  “For your understanding,” Grieving Tube said, “consider. Manack, what if your queen had a quarrel with the Thurl’s people? You might persuade us not to touch any dead who lie near the Thurl’s walls. Soon he must surrender.”

  Manack protested, “But we and the Grass Giants—we would never—”

  “Of course not. But Warvia, you and the old Thurl were at war fifty falans ago. Suppose your leader Ginjerofer had begged us to tear apart any Grass Giants who came to kill their cattle?”

  Warvia said, “Very well, we understand.”

  “Do you? We must not side with any hominid against any other. You all depend on us. Without the People of the Night, your corpses lie where they fall, diseases form and spread, your water becomes polluted,” the Ghoul woman sang in her high, pitched breathy voice.

  She had made this speech before. “We forbid cremation, but suppose we did not? What if every species had the fuel to burn their dead? Clouds still lid this sky forty-three falans after a sea was boiled. What if that were the smoke of the burned dead, a stench growing richer every falan? Do you know how many hominids of every species die in a falan? We do.”

  “We cannot choose sides.”

  Chaychind hooki-Karashk had been flushing a darker red. “How can you speak of siding with vampires? With animals!”

  “They don’t think,” said Harpster, “and you do. But can you always say that so surely? We know of hominids just at the edge of thinking, several just along this arc of the Arch. Some use fire if they find it, or form packs when prey is large and formidable. One strips branches into spears. One lives in water; they cannot use fire, but they flake rocks for knives. How do you judge? Where do you draw the line?”

  “Vampires don’t use tools or fire!”

  “Not fire, but tools. Under this endless rain vampires have learned to wear clothing stripped from their prey. When they are dry, they leave it like garbage.”

  The Ghoul woman said, “You see why we should not rish with you, if we must refuse your other desires.” Grieving Tube did not see, chose not to see, the mixed emotions that statement generated.

  Well, she must try something. Vala said, “Your help would be of immense value, if you had reason to give it. Already you have told us the reach of vampire depredations, and that they must return to their lair, that they have one single lair. What else could you tell us?”

  Harpster shrugged, and Vala winced. His shoulders were terribly loose, like unconnected bones rolling freely under his skin.

  She continued stubbornly, “I have heard a rumor, a story, a fable. The Machine People hear it where vampires are known. You must understand that to our client species far from Center City, there’s no real explanation of how all these vampires appeared so suddenly.”

  “They have a high breeding rate,” Harpster noted.

  Grieving Tube said, “Yes, and clusters of them split from the main body to find other refuges. Ten daywalks was not too large a guess.”

  The others, even Chaychind, were letting Vala speak. Vala said, “But a less sensible explanation spreads, too. The victim of a vampire will rise from the dead to become a vampire himself.”

  “That,” said Harpster, “is purest nonsense!”

  And of course it was. “Of course it is, but it explains how the plague spreads so rapidly. See it from the viewpoint of a—” Careful now. “—Hanging Person widow and mother.” Hanging People were everywhere. Vala set one hand on the beam overhead, lifted her feet to hang, and said, “What is to be done, lest my poor dead Vaynya become my enemy in the night? The lords of the night forbid us to burn the dead. But sometimes they permit it—”

  “Never,” said Grieving Tube.

  Vala said, “Starboard-spin from Center City by twelve daywalks, there are memories of a plague—”

  “Long ago and far away,” Harpster snapped. “We designed the crematorium ourselves, taught them how to use it, then moved away. Years later we returned. The plague was beaten. The Digging People still cremated, but we persuaded them to leave their dead again. It was easily done. Firewood was scarce.

  “You see the danger,” Vala said. “I don’t believe locals have started burning vampire victims yet—”

  “No. We would see plumes of smoke.”

  “—but if one client species begins, the rest might follow.”

  Grieving Tube said sadly, “Then of course we’d have to do a deal of killing.”

  Valavirgillin throttled a shudder. She bowed low and answered, “Why not begin now, with vampires?”

  Grieving Tube mulled it. “Not so easy, that. They, too, command the night …”

  And Vala’s eyes closed for an instant. Now it’s a problem, a challenge, and lesser species must see you solve it. Now I have you.

  ***

  The Ghouls had cleared the grass away from a sizable section of tent floor. They were drawing in the dark, tweetling at each other in their own high-pitched language. They argued over some feature none other could see, and settled that, and Harpster stood up.

  “When the shadow withdraws, you may examine these maps,” Harpster said. “For now let me only describe what you would see. Here, spin by port by two and a half daywalks, the ancient structure of an industrial center floats two tens of manheights above the ground.”

  “I know of a floating city,” Vala said.

  “Of course, near your Center City, a collection of free buildings linked. Floaters are rare enough these days. We think this one made machinery for the City Builders. Later it was abandoned.

  “Vampires have lived beneath the Floater for many generations, for hundreds of falans. The perpetual shadow is perfect for vampires. Locals moved out of their reach long ago. Peaceful travelers and migrations were warned to avoid it. Warriors must look to themselves in that regard.

  “This range of mountains to port and antispin of the Shadow Nest stands between there and here. It formed a barrier for the mirror-flowers. Hominids on the far side came to call it the Barrier of Flame, for
the fire they could sometimes see playing along the crest.

  “The flowers would ultimately have crossed the crest and burned out the Shadow Nest in their usual fashion. Vampires wouldn’t be safe from horizontal beams of light. But then the clouds came.”

  Heads nodded in the dark. Harpster said, “The vampires’ range expanded by a daywalk. Grieving Tube is right, the damage is worse than that. Their population has grown, and hunger drives families of vampires into other domains.”

  Valavirgillin asked, “Can you blow away the clouds?”

  Both Ghouls hooted laughter. Grieving Tube said, “You want us to move clouds?”

  “We beg.”

  “Why do you think we could do such a thing as move clouds?”

  Over the rising sounds of throttled laughter Valavirgillin said, “Louis Wu did that.”

  Harpster said, “Omnivore Tinker. Not odd as hominids go, but from off the Arch, from the stars. He had tools to prove what he said he was, but we do not know that he made clouds.”

  The Thurl spoke. “He did! He and the old Thurl boiled a sea to make these clouds above us—”

  “Then go to him.”

  “Louis Wu is gone. The old Thurl is gone.”

  “We cannot move clouds. Our embarrassment is great.” Harpster laughed. “What can we do that you cannot do yourselves?”

  The Thurl said, “We will use your maps, much thanks to you. I will lead an army of whatever species will fight. We will destroy this nest of vampires.”

  “Thurl, you cannot go,” Grieving Tube said.

  Harpster questioned. Grieving Tube began to explain, but the Thurl would not wait. “I am protector to my people! When we fight, I fight at the head—”

  “In armor,” the Ghoul woman pointed out.

  “Of course!”

  “You must not wear armor. Your armor keeps your smell. You, all who fight, you must wear nothing. Bathe where you find water. Wash every surface of your cruisers and wagons. Can’t you see that the vampires must not smell you?”