The Ringworld Engineers

Chapter 18

The Shadow Farm

They began to pass other vehicles: large or small windowed boxes, each with a smaller box at the rear. The road widened and became smoother. Now the fueling stations were more frequent and were of sturdy, square Machine People architecture. There were more and more boxy vehicles, and Vala had to slow. Louis felt conspicuous.

The road topped a rise, and the city was beyond. Vala played tour director as they drove downhill through growing traffic.

River’s Return had first seen life as a string of docks along the spinward shore of the broad brown Serpent River. That core region now had the look of a slum. The city had jumped the river via several bridges, and expanded into a circle with a piece bitten out of it. That missing piece was the shadow of the City Builders’ floating city.

Moving boxes surrounded them now. The air was scented with alcohol. Vala slowed to a crawl. Louis hunched low. Other drivers had ample opportunity to peer in at the strangely built man from the stars.

But they didn’t. They saw neither Louis nor each other; they seemed to see only other vehicles. And Vala drove on, into the center of town.

Here the houses crowded each other. Three and four stories tall, the houses were narrow, with no space between them. They pushed out above the street, cutting into the daylight. In marked contrast, public buildings were all low and sprawling and massive, situated on ample grounds. They competed for ground, not for height: never for height, with the floating city hovering over all.

Vala pointed out the merchants’ school, a wide complex of prosperous stone buildings. A block later she pointed down a cross-street. “My home is that way, in pink poured stone. See?”

“Any point in going there?”

She shook her head. “I thought hard on this. No. My father would never believe you. He thinks that even the City Builders’ claims are mostly boastful lies. I thought so too, once, but from what you tell me of this … Halrloprillalar …”

Louis laughed. “She was a liar. But her people did rule the Ringworld.”

They left River’s Return and continued to port. Vala drove several miles farther before crossing the last of the bridges. On the far, portward side of the great shadow, she left an almost invisible side road and parked.

They stepped out into too-bright sunlight. They worked almost in silence. Louis used the flying belt to lift a fair-sized boulder. Valavirgillin dug a pit where it had been. Into the pit went most of Louis’s share of the fine black cloth. The dirt went back into the pit, and Louis lowered the boulder on it.

He put the flying belt into Vala’s backpack and shouldered it. The pack already held his impact suit, vest, binoculars, flashlight-laser, and the flask of nectar. It was lumpy and heavy. Louis set the pack down, adjusted the flying belt to give him some lift. He set the translator box just under the cover and shouldered the pack again.

He was wearing a pair of Vala’s shorts, with a length of rope to hold them up. They were too big for him. His depilated face would be taken as natural to his race. Nothing about him now suggested the star traveler, except the earplug for his translator. He’d risk that.

He could see almost nothing of where they were going. The day was too bright; the shadow, too extensive and too dark.

They walked from day into night.

Vala seemed to have no trouble picking her path. Louis followed her. His eyes adjusted, and he saw that there were narrow paths among the growths.

The fungi ranged from button-size to asymmetrical shapes as tall as Louis’s head, with stalks as thick as his waist. Some were mushroom-shaped, some had no shape at all. A hint of corruption was in the air. Gaps in the sprawl of buildings overhead let through vertical pillars of sunlight, so bright that they looked solid.

Frilly yellow fungus fringed in scarlet half smothered an outcropping of gray slate. Medieval lances stood upright, white tipped with blood. Orange and yellow and black fur covered a dead log.

The people were almost as various as the fungi. Here were Ru

There, a score of people were spreading manure and well-decayed garbage; Louis could smell it from a fair distance away. Were those of Vala’s species? Yes, they were Machine People, but two stood aside and watched, and they held guns. “Who are those? Prisoners?”

“Prisoners convicted of minor crimes. For twenty or fifty falans they serve society in this—” She stopped. One of the guards was coming to meet them.

He greeted Vala. “Lady, you should not be here. These shit-handlers may find you too good a hostage.”

Vala sounded exhausted. “My car died. I have to go to the school and tell them what happened. Please, may I cross the shadow farm? We were all killed. All killed by vampires. They have to know. Please.”

The guard hesitated. “Cross, then, but let me give you an escort.” He whistled a short snatch of music, then turned to Louis. “What of you?”

Vala answered for Louis. “I borrowed him to carry my pack.”

The guard spoke slowly and distinctly. “You. Go with the lady as far as she likes, but stay in the shadow farm. Then go back to what you were doing. What were you doing?”

Louis was mute without the translator. He thought of the flashlight-laser buried in his pack. Somewhat at random he laid his hand on a lavender-fringed shelf fungus, then pointed to a sledge stacked with similar fungi.

“All right.” The guard looked past Louis’s shoulder. “Ah.”

The smell told Louis before he turned. He waited, docile, while the guard instructed a pair of ghouls: “Take the lady and her porter to the far edge of the shadow farm. Guard them from harm.”

They walked single file along the paths, tending toward the center of the shadow farm. The male ghoul led, the female trailed. The smell of corruption grew riper. Sledges of fertilizer passed them on other paths.

Blood and tanj! How was he going to get rid of the ghouls?

Louis looked back. The ghoul woman gri

They reached a broad arc of cleared dirt. Beyond was a pit. Mist stood above the pit, hiding the far side. A pipe poured sewage into the pit. Louis’s eyes followed the pipe up, up into the black, textured sky.

The ghoul woman spoke in his ear, and Louis jumped. She was using the Machine People speech. “What would the king giant think if he knew that Louis and Wu were one?”

Louis stared.

“Are you mute without your little box? Never mind. We are at your service.”

The ghoul man was talking to Valavirgillin. She nodded. They moved off the path. Louis and the woman followed them around an extensive white shelf fungus, to huddle under its far lip.

Vala was edgy. The smell might be getting to her; it was certainly getting to Louis. “Kyeref says this is fresh sewage. In a falan it’ll be ripe and they’ll move the pipe and start hauling it away for fertilizer. Meanwhile nobody comes here.”

She took the pack off Louis’s back and spilled it out. Louis reached for the translator (the ghouls’ ears came sharply alert as his hand neared the flashlight-laser) and turned up the volume. He asked, “How much do the Night People know?”