The Ringworld Throne

Most of what he saw, he still didn’t understand. But …

Cisterns. Sixteen huge cylindrical tanks were open to the sky, evenly spaced about the City. He had to guess that those tanks were intended to hold water. The houses and window-dome, at least, would need water. But the cisterns were empty, every one of them. Like the pools along Stair Street. All empty.

After the Fall of the Cities, citizens would have nothing to carry them down. Some must have gone down the ramp. When the vampires moved in, that option closed. They were marooned.

They would need water. There was the river; there must be pumps. Why else position a factory above a river? But the pumps had likely stopped working, and the rain hadn’t started yet.

But they’d drained the City’s water. Why had they done that? Were they already crazy?

Whisper was gone, and his own mind wasn’t enough. He had to get the cruisers up here, somehow.

He slept in the window-dome that night, on one of the steps. It seemed safe, and he loved the view.

At halfnight several hundred vampires streamed away from the Shadow Nest, up the Homeflow and into the mountains. As the last edge of sun disappeared, their numbers rose into the thousands.

Vala’s people reacted variously to that many vampires passing that closely. The Gleaners simply missed it: they had to sleep at night. Vala rapidly realized that she couldn’t use Grass Giant sentries at night. Anyone could see their courage, but anyone could smell their fear …

Except Beedj. How did they train a budding Thurl? Was it something she could use, too? She sent the rest to bed and relied thenceforth on her own people and the Ghouls.

Whatever their frustrations, they were learning a great deal about vampires.

The second night was ending; and now, in driving rain, beneath a black lid of cloud, the vampires straggled home. Their numbers were thi

The Ghouls reported structures in the Shadow Nest. There were huts or storage shacks; many had fallen down. Something mountainous stood in mid-river. The Ghouls couldn’t see the top of it; their angle was too high.

They could see no way up save for the spiral ramp.

There was a midden, a garbage dump off to port-antispin of the Shadow Nest. It must have been growing for ages, a mountain of vampire and prisoner corpses, until even Vala could see it once it was pointed out. It was too close to the Shadow Nest to be of use to Ghouls.

There was no place beneath the floating factory that the vampires didn’t go.

It was full light now, and the procession of vampires had become a trickle. “When that stops, we’re going back to the river,” Vala said.

“We need our sleep,” Harpster said.

“I know. You stay here.”

“We’re ripe for bathing and we need to learn. We’ll sleep under the awning. Wake us at the river.”

Valavirgillin rolled the cruiser along the riverbank. There was no way to hide anything so large, and she didn’t try.

Flashes of daylight came and went, and flurries of rain. The Shadow Nest loomed ahead, too near. None of her companions could see into the blackness below the ancient hulk; but when the shifting black clouds closed their own lid over the land, Vala could see motion around the shadow’s edges. Some vampires, at least, were active.

It was midday. Valavirgillin kept a wary eye on the weather. If it got too dark, the vampires would be out and hunting.

The tilted plate loomed across the sluggish brown water. It looked hard to reach. Vampires seemed safely distant. Vala stepped out onto the river mud.

Two black heads surfaced well out into the water and swam toward them.

It was best to introduce oneself repeatedly to aliens who might not see differences in individuals. “I am Valavirgillin—”

“Rooballabl, Fudghabladl. The river is shallow here. Your cruiser might safely roll as far as the island. It would be more difficult to attack you.”

“—Warvia, Manack, Beedj.” Barok and Waast were tending the ca

“The Red companion you asked us to look for, we have seen him. We could not come near, but we saw him fight and we saw him fly. Fudghabladl says that he had a companion. I never saw one—”

Warvia burst out, “Companion? Where would Tegger find a companion? Was it a vampire?”

“I saw no companion, no kind. Fudghabladl’s sight fails. Tegger talked to himself from time to time. He came to look at this tilted flying thing. Six vampires jumped him. They did no courting, they simply attacked.”

Rooballabl sounded petulant, as if the vampires had broken a rule. Vala nodded. Worth knowing.

Beyond that, the River Folk had seen not much more than Warvia had seen from the cruisers. When the tale was told, Vala asked, “Are you safe here?”

“We believe so. We learn, too. Do you know that prisoners live in the Shadow Nest?”

“We saw prisoners brought through the pass,” Warvia said.

“Some roam free,” Rooballabl said. “We did not come near those, but we watched. Never were more than two or three loose at once.”

“What species?”

“Two big ones went to eat river grass, then back under the shadow. Grass Giants, I think. Many vampires came to meet them. The vampires fought. Some ran away and the rest fed upon the Grass Giants. The Grass Giants did not survive. But we saw Farmers of the Spin Delta region pull up roots and boil and eat them, and return alive.”

Fudghabladl spoke. The River Folk chatted a bit, then Rooballabl translated in spurts. “Fudghabladl watched a Red woman. She spent half a day hunting, but badly. She had no patience. She came back again and again to the shadow and her vampire. He would send her again. Late in the day she caught a leaperbuck drinking, jumped it and broke its neck. Pulled it back to the shadow. Three vampires shooed the rest off. These three drank the beast’s blood, then they rished with the Red, then the Red ate of the leaperbuck. She was very hungry.”

Vala tried not to see the hot rage and shame in Warvia’s face. She asked Rooballabl, “Did you see any of my species?”

More River Folk chatter. Then, “One, a young woman, goes guarded by a vampire male. Valavirgillin, what success for you?”

“We’ve seen Tegger waving at us. He’s up there, alive and active. I still don’t see how we can get ourselves up. I don’t see how else we can do anything.”

“What did you expect?”

Warvia half snarled, “The Ghouls had a plan. The ramp they want doesn’t go all the way down.”

Vala half expected angry comments from under the awning, but the Night People held their peace.

“It must have reached the ground once,” Rooballabl said. “What else could it be for?”

When the city worked, there had been flying cargo craft, but rolling craft must have been cheaper, and surely there were cargoes too heavy to float. “I expect the Fall of the Cities brought the vampires,” Vala said.

Beedj asked, “How?”

With her eyes on the misty outline of the Shadow Nest, Valavirgillin let her mind roam and her tongue follow. “A center of industry could hardly permit vampires to nest in their basement. So, somehow they kept the vampires out, but when the cities fell, it stopped working. Vampires look for shadows. They moved in. One night the vampires went up the ramp. They didn’t get everyone, so by the next night the refugees had pulled up the ramp—”

Again Beedj asked, “How?”

Vala shrugged.

Rooballabl’s voice was like bubbles popping in mud. “Ask instead, why? They built a tremendous hanging road for cargoes too big even for this great floating plate. Why would anyone build it to move, to lift? Such a—vertical bridge—would be difficult to build, and easily damaged if it also had to lift. We understand weight and mass a little, I think.”