The Ringworld Throne (24 page)

Directly below was paving similar to the stuff the Machine People used for roads.

“You see, there’s quite a lot of light,” Grieving Tube said cheerfully.

“I wanted to wait for a wind,” Harpster complained.

A wind, yes. Vala felt madness bubbling in her blood. The rich smell of pepperleek had become no more than a spice for the rutting scent. Wind would have blown that away. There must be tens of thousands of them down there, she thought, and they were starting to look up.

Warvia was breathing through her mouth in great gasps. Warvia knew her will could be broken. Kay was edging away from Vala: no distractions needed
now
. The others looked all right. Try to concentrate! That center structure ...

The fountain was many things. There were windows in the side that faced the ramp, and small balconies without railings, and outside stairways: probably offices rather than domiciles.

Partway around, a flat space faced rising concentric arcs, something like the steps in the feeding dome. Seats. That had to be a stage! Piles of rotting stuff at the corners might have been a curtain; collapsing flat structures must be props; a flimsy wall, fallen, showed a honeycomb of backstage structure. Valavirgillin wondered if others would recognize it for what it was.

Water poured from above, a waterfall surrounded by shadowy giants, and wound through and around every part of the structure. Standing statues of City Builder Folk poured water from great bowls. Water flowed down the back of the stage, a permanent backdrop. Thus watered, vividly hued mushrooms still grew behind the office structures. It all flowed down through a maze of pipes and channels to meet the Homeflow.

Forn was right. That mountain of masonry was as big as a civic center. It wouldn’t support the mass of a floating factory, maybe, but it would stand against any mass of water this group could collect.

“All right. All right. We can’t lower the factory on them,” Perilack said. “What if we move it sideways? Something’s holding it here. What if we could set it loose? Let it slide away with the vampires all running after it. Wouldn’t they make great targets?”

Grieving Tube said, “She’s at least partly right. Something holds it here, some—“ She went off into her own language, and so did Harpster. Vala turned back. Even the Ghouls might not be able to set a floating city adrift.

Harpster dropped back into the Tongue. “—like at the bottom of a bowl, a low spot in the realm of magnetic power. We could
tow
the floater out of it if we had enough power, but with two steam cruisers? Flup, I wish you people had never heard of Louis Wu.”

Statuary, lines of windows, a stage, a sculpted flow of water. “What’s missing?” Vala asked herself.

Grieving Tube heard. “Boss?”

Vala said, “Tell me what you see.”

The Ghoul woman obliged. “Offices. Public affairs, I bet. They put it all down here so they wouldn’t have to invite political entities topside. The stage is for speeches and conferences, but it’s a stage, too. This was a social center.”

Harpster said, “I’d like to see around the other side.”

“What do you think you’d find?” Vala asked.

“I think ... a podium. This one’s for plays, it’s not really right for speeches, or music for that matter. I bet somebody got an award for the way he worked the fountain into it all. Think how beautiful it would be if we could clear the vampires out.”

“*Got* it,” Vala shouted. “*Lights*!”

The Ghouls’ eyes glowed at her.

“Lights! Plays, music, speeches, bureaus of this and that, award-winning sculpture?” Vampire song rose high at the sound of Valavirgillin’s shout, but her warriors were listening, too. “Nobody but a Ghoul would expect all that to be played in the dark! Warvia, Tegger must know where the lights are.”

Warvia was fully awake now. “He’d have turned them on.”

“Flup.”

“Boss, the switches might be down here.”

“Flup. That’d be nasty.”

Harpster said, “I see it.” He was pointing up. “Warvia, that group of statues right at the top? City Builder warriors three manheights tall. They’re all carrying spears ...”

Vala could see vague hominid shapes up there, but nothing more. The ring of daylight didn’t reach that high.

“It’s just one great black spot to me,” Warvia said.

“They’re there,” Grieving Tube said. “That top one—“

“Bigger than the rest. Spear as thick as my leg, and it doesn’t have a point, it just goes right up into the roof. It’s a pipe for the power. Sorry, Boss.”

“Flup! Not water pipes? Of course not, they’ve got infinite water. All right. But we’ll search topside first because it’s easier. Get Tegger to show us what he found. Then look where he didn’t.”

Warvia refused to let them wake Tegger. “Boss, he showed you everything he knows!”

Harpster and Grieving Tube dropped out early. Nobody could expect Ghouls to guess where an alien hominid would put light switches!

The rest of the warriors spread through the city. Valavirgillin cut a sheet of Louis’s cloth, once a priceless secret, into strips and gave them away like confetti. They played with the boxes and switches Tegger had showed them, and presently had the city blazing to rival the cloudy daylight.

Thin strips of glittery gray ran from the glittery-gray rooftop patches, down the sides of buildings. Several of the party followed those lines to where they converged. When Twuk brought Valavirgillin to see, she found a hole near the city’s center that was as wide as a Ghoul’s leg. She stirred traces of dust she found inside, and sniffed her finger. She couldn’t be sure that it was ruined superconductor; but Vala didn’t doubt what they’d found.

She hated what had to come next, but there was no help for it. The channel could be two tens of manheights high. Vala cut all of her remaining sheets of Louis Wu’s cloth into strips, knotted them together, tied the resulting rope to a chunk of wall and lowered it into the hole until it went slack.

What was it touching, down there at the bottom of a statue’s spear haft? It
might
be an unbroken line of power. She’d done what she could. Now she used torn branches to move the top end of her toe to where all the channels of silver-gray joined. That patch was flat. There was nothing to tie her line to, but she could weight it with a block of rubble only three Grass Giants could lift.

The clouds darkened and presently sent forth a steady rain. The explorers bore what they could of that, then came trickling back to the dock area. Each looked into Ramp Street. The Grass Giants were the last to give up. The others told them what they’d found, but the Grass Giants had to look, too. The Shadow Nest remained in shadow.

A shadow crossed the light, falling on his closed eyelids. Tegger was just close enough to waking to enjoy the warmth, the relaxation, the sense of Warvia’s back against his chest and belly, the smell of her hair. If he let himself wake further, he’d be thinking of hunger.

Hunger. How was he to feed Warvia? The carrion birds had fled from noise and alcohol fumes and heroes. There were vampires—he shied from a sick memory—but what was here for carnivore Reds?

Drive the vampires away. Descend. Hunt.

In daylight all shadows were vertical. Night must have fallen, and these must be dockyard lights. Who would be moving past at night? Tegger opened his eyes.

Two furry backs moved in and out of the light, moved away down Rim Street.

Tegger slid away from Warvia. He found a blanket and covered her. Harpster and Grieving Tube were turning into Stair Street. Tegger followed, stalking.

Ghouls were a secretive bunch. They had the right to their secrets; but Reds were stalkers.

The Night People moved in a glare of artificial light. The rest of Vala’s crew had found switches Tegger missed. Night was their element, but tonight it was the Ghouls who were half blind. Would it bother them? Ghouls must depend a good deal on scent.

The houses along Stair Street were staggered. There was plenty of cover. Tegger hid behind solid masses, trees and walls, staying well back. Where were the Ghouls?

Coming out of a shattered window, softly complaining in their own speech. Tegger had found a whole family of skeletons in that house. Were the Ghouls sniffing out carrion? They’d find nothing but bones.

At the top of Stair Street they moved into the bubble-shaped banquet hall. Nothing for them there, either, Tegger remembered. He waited in an empty pool, his eyes just above the rim.

They came out, and continued up into shadow. The City’s apex, the chimney, was still dark. Would they climb it to view their domain? But as Tegger eeled up crooked Stair Street, he did not see shadows rising against the sky. He grew more cautious still.

The sound he heard then was loud. Metal was being tormented.

He climbed a ladder and peered over the top of a chemical storage tank, his shadow lost in a maze of pipes.

The Ghouls were at the base of the chimney. It was still too dark to see what they were doing. He heard brick being cut in rhythmic fashion, cut by a saw. He dropped from the ladder and began weaving closer.

It wasn’t food they were seeking. What, then? He edged from behind a radiator wall, and Grieving Tube took him by the wrist.

He most carefully didn’t reach for his sword. He whispered, “It’s Tegger.”

Grieving Tube called, “It’s Tegger!” She grinned into his face and said, “You slept through some of this. Valavirgillin is sure there must be lamps focused on the structure below us. Only need to be turned on. We think so, too, but switches are down there.”

“What, in the fountain?”

“Fountain, stage, mid-stage command offices, speaking platform. They would want to command the light themselves. Valavirgillin has restored the cable that carries the sunpower.”

“They’d want some way of getting down there, too,” Harpster said. He had come up quite silently. Ghouls could teach Red Herders how to stalk prey. “I thought we might find a stairway, something for people, for visitors. The ramp isn’t it—“

“The ramp is for vehicles. People would feel menaced,” Grieving Tube said.

“So we looked for a stairway along the chimney, because we already know it goes pretty far down, but Grieving Tube has a better idea.”

Tegger said, “That chimney goes down to a furnace.”

“It goes to furnaces all over the city. Channels off to all sides, down inside. We looked.” Harpster grinned with great square teeth. “Coming? Or would you prefer to stalk us?”

Tegger said, “There’s not much entertainment up here, and not much distraction to a hungry Red.”

Harpster said, “You solved that one. You ate—“

“Come, then,” Grieving Tube said hastily, “we will divert you.” She walked downstep toward the dining place, away from the chimney. Her hand was on Tegger’s wrist, her grip unbreakably strong.

“I know what I ate,” Tegger said.

“Yes, but who would you tell? Your mate?”

“Yes.”

Grieving Tube stopped in the door. “Truly?”

“Of course I must tell Warvia.”

Harpster said, “Four vampires on the ramp. You killed three. The remaining woman, you knocked out all her teeth and rished with her, then hacked off a segment of muscle meat. It seems clear you must have eaten it.”

Tegger said, “I could see the cruisers below me, running into shadow. I had to get into the ramp to give the drivers light. The smell maddened me, and my hunger maddened me, and I did mad things. But I still dropped the torches and the fuel.”

In the end it was Harpster who turned away.

A table or two fell over as they climbed the giant steps. The Ghouls weren’t dexterous here. “After the Boss said that about lights,” Grieving Tube said, “I got to thinking what else they’d want down there. I thought, food.”

Harpster pushed through and waited for the others to follow him.

The big room was stifling hot. “Don’t touch anything,” Tegger said. “I should have turned those off.”

“If you can remember which ones aren’t lights,” Grieving Tube said.

Tegger nodded. He began plucking Vala-cloth twists from between pairs of knobs, snatching them free in a jolt and sparkle of sunpower.

“People working down below us, in offices,” Harpster said. “People sitting in arcs around a stage. People just watching water fall. Would they get hungry? Omnivores get hungry a lot.”

“Maybe not just omnivores. Other hominids, too,” said Grieving Tube. “Diplomatic relations, it may be.”

“It seems the long way around,” Tegger said. “Catch food down there on the surface, raise it, grow it, ship it in from farms. What then? Char it, cut it up, mix it with flavorings? Fine. But why carry it up here just to send it back down?”

Grieving Tube sighed. “The Red’s got a point.”

“Yes, and
we
didn’t find anything, but the lighting is fluppy awful in here,” Harpster said. “See what you can see, Tegger.” He opened another door.

It was the storage chamber Tegger had explored earlier. Lights glowed in the ceiling. Tegger had found doors and drawers at every level, doors an armlength high and smaller, but he hadn’t left them open like this. Vala’s whole caravan must have been through here.