The Ringworld Throne

Sawur barely stirred when he crawled into the tent. He fell asleep at once.

Chapter 10

Stair Street

A whiff of corruption pulled her half awake. Pointed fingernails pressing hard into her elbow pulled her the rest of the way. Vala sat up with a yelp. Harpster ducked below the gun she managed not to fire.

“Valavirgillin, come and see.”

Flup. “Are we attacked?”

“You would smell vampires. I’m surprised they haven’t come to look at us. Perhaps they’re distracted.”

Vala stepped out onto the ru

Rain was falling in fat drops. The awning kept her half dry, but visibility was low. Lightning played to antispin-starboard, the direction of the vampires’ stronghold. Lightning and something else. Downslope, toward the river, a steady white light.

After all their talk, had Tegger lit a fire? But fire wasn’t quite that color, and fire would have flickered.

Grieving Tube was above them on the rock, on sentry duty. Harpster said, “Will you wake Warvia?”

“Yes.” Vala slipped into the payload shell. No point in waking anyone else, but Warvia could see details; she might even see something that would tell her this was Tegger. “Warvia?”

“I’m awake.”

“Come and look.”

Rain came and went at random, permitting glimpses of the light. The glow wasn’t a dot, she saw presently; it was a tilted line.

The light blinked off, then on again. Warvia said, “Tegger likes to fiddle with things.”

“Is it him?”

“How would I know?” the Red woman snapped.

They watched. By and by Harpster said, “Light could keep away the vampires, if it’s bright enough.”

Warvia was slumped against a rock, asleep. Vala said, “Wake me if something changes. I’ll be out here, but I want a blanket.” She started to climb into the payload shell, thinking, Get two. One for Warvia.

The light began to jitter. Vala paused to watch.

Then a bright dot separated from the tilted line and went straight up.

The hauler was shuddering, shaking, trying to tear itself apart. Tegger clung to the seat as he would have clung to Warvia. Could he free a hand to pluck the strip of Vala-cloth away from the contacts?

Did he want to? The shaking wasn’t killing him, only jarring his teeth.

What was doing this? Some half-ruined motor? Or else a motor doing just what it was told to, trying to lift a cargo hauler, along with the riverbed it was buried in.

And while his mind toyed with such notions, Tegger’s fingers toyed with toggles.

Flup, that was the lights again. That one didn’t do anything, nor that one. That one turned the wind off, then back on. An ominous grating sound from somewhere below had been the response to this one, but now it did nothing.

Something protruded from the shadowed recess where the skeleton’s knees would have gone. A big two-pronged handle … that didn’t move under his hand.

Tegger gritted his vibrating teeth, gripped the chair with his knees and the handle with both hands and pulled.

Nothing. Fine. Push.

Push and twist.

It lurched under his hands, and his head banged hard into the controls. He was being hurled into the sky.

The twist of cloth! Get it out of there—

He dared not let go of the chair, and perhaps that was a good thing. Dark as the night was, he could see the riverbed dwindle. A fall from this high would kill him.

If he could free a hand or a toe from its death-grip on the chair … there must be a way to steer this … bubble. As the river wheeled past him he glimpsed a half-buried square plate with a notch missing at the high corner. He’d torn the control bubble loose from the hauler.

Then he was falling. He felt it in his belly. Falling, falling, surge, twenty to thirty manheights above the river and moving inland. Moving toward the City.

A way to take control, there must be a way—

Did he trust Whisper?

Whisper had led him to the cargo hauler. Whisper had put Vala-cloth into his hands. What would Whisper have done if Tegger hadn’t experimented on his own? But Whisper had never suggested he steer the hauler—or its ripped-away control bubble, either—anywhere but where he was going now. The damaged machine was going home to its aerial dock.

So, Whisper’s minimal guidance was taking him where he wanted to go. To trust Whisper was to let it happen. But he didn’t know Whisper’s nature and had never known Whisper’s motives …

Rain ru

Could vampires fly? But even in the rainy dark he knew them. Bluebelly makaways, no different from the makaways of his own turf. Wingspread greater than his spread arms; good gliding ability; raptor beaks. Maks were meat eaters, big enough to carry off a herder boy. He’d never seen so many together.

He couldn’t navigate through that. He kept his hands where they were, gripping the chair back.

The birds withdrew to a wheeling pattern.

The window bubble had come to rest, still in midair.

Plainsman that he was, Tegger had once boarded a barge to trade stock with another tribe. He was familiar with docks. He was floating a manheight from the edge of what might have been a riverside dock hung in midair. Floating boats would ride against this buffer rim. Those cables hanging over the rim would tether them. Cargo in those big buildings, behind those vast doors …

The birds were losing interest, returning to roost. Makaways weren’t nightbirds.

The bubble’s doorway was facing out from the dock. Was there at least a way to turn it around? Maybe if he twisted something … Tegger was reluctant to experiment this high in the air.

What should be happening here? The hauler might be waiting for the City’s signal to land. Might be sending a signal of its own. Maybe one of those cables was supposed to reach out and secure the hauler, pull it in. But none of it was going to happen, because the dock was as dead as anything else that had died in the Fall of the Cities.

The door hung loose, as he’d found it.

Pack. Sword.

Tegger eased out into a light rain, feet on the hanging door’s wobbly rim, jump to the bubble’s slippery top, flatten and cling. The birds wheeled closer, looking him over.

Tegger crept forward on his belly, down the slope of the bubble. A little farther, hands and knees now, a bit more, knees forward, feet braced, slipping, jump.

He landed flat, banging his chin, his legs kicking in open air.

The dock felt like soft wood.

He’d have stayed but for the shrieking of the birds as they dropped toward him. He rolled over, pulled his sword and waited. When one came close enough, he slashed.

“He must have found some City Builder thing, something like an old car. Made it work. He’s up there.” Warvia stared fiercely at the light that blazed at the edge of the floating factory.

Her faith was stronger than Vala’s. Vala asked, “What do you see?”

“I can’t see past the light. There are big birds wheeling around it. I think I saw him jump—”

The light sank. Faster. Flashed painfully bright and was gone.

“He jumped,” Warvia said positively. Vala, I’m about to fall over. I’ll give you a better description come daylight.”

“Can we do anything?”

“Vala, I’d do anything to reach him.”

“Grieving Tube, any thoughts?”

The Ghoul shook her head.

“We’ll have to wait. I don’t know any safer spot for the cruisers, and the view is lovely. Dig in here, wait and watch.”

Makaways preferred live prey, but they would eat carrion. Makaway meat had a nasty taste.