The Ringworld Throne

Chapter 14

Invasion

Pointed claws rested on her wrist. She whispered, “Grieving Tube?”

“Harpster. My mate wakes others. Valavirgillin, you must see.”

It seemed she’d only just closed her eyes. Vala rolled out of her blanket. She didn’t say, “This had best be important.” Other species had their priorities; traders had to learn them.

Black night and rain. The Shadow Nest was a blurred constellation. Harpster had returned to the cruiser. Waast and Beedj came out, then Barok. Barok asked, “What is it, Boss?”

“I can’t see anything.”

Warvia came up beside them. “It’s murky down there, Valavirgillin.”

“I know.”

“The ramp. Vala, you really can’t see? It isn’t just the ramp. The whole city has settled a little. Flup, Manack was right! “

The folk in Cruiser Two spilled out all at once, gaping, chattering. They saw no more than Vala did. But Harpster was at Warvia’s side, saying, “Not our imagination. The vampires are trying to jump to the ramp. It’s still too high for them—”

“They’ll have it in not too many breaths.”

“It’s Tegger!” Warvia screamed. “He did it!”

“But they’ll be pouring up the ramp!” Vala wondered, Is this real? Nobody could see the change but Warvia and the Ghouls, and even they wouldn’t claim that the ramp was down.

“Board!” Valavirgillin bellowed. “Anyone not aboard gets left! Board your vehicles and arm yourselves! We’re going up!”

Tegger lay on his belly, looking over the edge of the dock. He didn’t see many vampires. It wasn’t good hunting territory for them. Their only prey were the besotted prisoners under the shadow. A few starving rogues hunted out here, vampires desperate enough to try to trap animals for their blood.

It was dark down there and rain blurred the view, but the cruisers were unmistakable. They rolled slowly. Mud and sand sucked at their huge wheels.

Four vampires swarmed onto the first cruiser, quick as Gleaners, and climbed toward the driving bench.

Gleaners dropped from the turret, towels across their mouths, swords in hand. Paroom stepped from aft, swinging some kind of mace. In a moment the invaders became imploring suitors. Another moment and two were dead, the others in flight, and Paroom’s long mace caught one in midair …

A shock traveled lightly up Tegger’s spine. He had been waiting for that.

He’d spent most of the day finding circuitry panels, opening them, testing what their circuits did. He’d learned to recognize the styles of panel that controlled lighting. Here was the panel that controlled the dockside lights. He’d already placed twists of Vala’s cloth. He flicked two switches and the dock lit up like daylight.

With his eyes tightly closed, Tegger felt his way to Ramp Street and into the darkness. He paused for a bit to get his night vision back. Then he looked over.

He’d felt the shock as the ramp touched bottom.

Vampires were moving up the successive turns of the ramp. There weren’t many. Perhaps their noses told them how little awaited them: one little lone Red Herder, and no other prey at all.

Tegger set to the patient work of lighting a torch. When he had it flickering, he set it aside and looked down again.

Roughly thirty young adults and adolescent children were climbing toward him in no great hurry. What were they thinking? Here’s a road where no road was, but there’s no scent of prey. Follow it, but best not be first. Light, oh my, it hurts— They were piling up a level below him, their arms hiding their faces. Tegger wondered if the dockyard lights would hold them.

The scent billowed into his face.

Reflex said Do something! And reflex called him down, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t. He whipped the torch around his head and hurled the fireball a level below. All the pale faces ducked away, and most of them were ru

Tegger fled.

At the dock’s edge he leaned over empty space and sucked great lungfuls of clean air.

The cruisers were close now, two or three hundred breaths away.

Vampires were harrying them, more with every breath that passed. Warriors lined the ru

No gunfire? Had Valavirgillin ordered silence to delay alerting the nest? But the vampires’ numbers were growing; the nest was waking to an invasion.

The river flowed into darkness, and the cruisers followed.

Darkness. It was black as sin below him. Vampires would see just fine. Ghouls on the driving benches might be able to shout directions, but the rest would be blind.

There was something he could do. He’d need nerve. And his sword.

Valavirgillin drove with a hand for the tiller and another for her gun. Barok rode the bench with her, facing backward. She was breathing pepperleek through a towel. The Thurl had been right from the first: herbs were more effective than fuel.

A white face popped up and she fired two-handed, and had the tiller again before the cruiser could veer. Other guns began firing. Barok took her gun and handed her another, loaded.

The noise drove the vampires back, and the cruisers rolled into darkness.

The floating factory glowed above her like a constellation. She could see little below its edge, but she knew where the ramp was, and she aimed for that.

How well would these reject vampires fight now that only they could see? She was driving into a black stench like all the graveyards under the Arch. Disgust should be a defense, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t. As always, the real enemy here was a growing urge to mate in the middle of a war.

Harpster interrupted his eerie music to shout, “Boss! Left! Left, then hook around right and onto the ramp. Boss, there are vampires on the ramp!”

Vala turned left, into blackness.

The cruisers were holding their own. The shadows they fought were children, maimed and halt, elderly, pregnant: all who hadn’t departed in the stream of hunters. In the dead of night they were at their peak of alertness. Vala had considered waiting for dawn. But dawn would have brought the hunters back, however exhausted, in all their strength and numbers; and these she fought now would have had half the night to reach Tegger.

Meteors fell ahead of her.

Vampires, crouched waiting between Vala and the ramp, skreeked and rolled aside. Fireballs fell—torches—and some went out, but six still burned. Tegger’s gift.

She was on the ramp, and Cruiser Two right behind her, and vampires coming from all sides. One popped up on the bench. Vala blasted it away and set the gun aside. The ca

Behind her, light suddenly blazed as if the sun had fallen from the Arch. In the terrible glare, vampires hid their eyes and froze, sitting birds. Guns and crossbows banged and twanged all around her.

The bench shook. Vala whirled around with vampire scent driving her crazy and only her empty gun for defense. A distorted Machine People face looked back at her. Foranayeedli, looking quite crazy, gripped the bench with all four limbs and her teeth.

Vala kept driving.

Round and round. A shadow in the light semaphored both arms. One hand brandished a sword. She drove into the light.

Red Tegger—naked: why?—stepped aside to let the cruisers past.

She saw Warvia leap from the cruiser. The shock when she impacted Tegger sent his sword flying. Warvia’s tunic flew after it. Vala hardly needed to hear the shouts of her companions: it was celebration time, rishathra time.