The Ringworld Throne

Someone must keep her wits long enough to guard them.

Vala pulled up in the white light of the dock. She heard fighting. Vampire? No, she heard speech …

Foranayeedli had found her father. They were screaming mortal insults at each other.

Vala tried to judge if they would kill each other. There was a moment in which they paused for breath. Vala touched their shoulders—get their attention, back up fast, talk fast–“Forn, no, Barok, really, it was my fault. Our fault. Any of us could see what would happen. Can’t we share the blame?”

Father and daughter looked at her, shocked.

“You should not have been together when vampires came. I should have parted you. I was wrong. Don’t you understand, we all mated. We couldn’t help it. Chit and Kay are pregnant. Barok, they still don’t know about you and Forn, do they?”

Barok mumbled, “Don’t think so.”

“But we can’t go home!” Forn waited.

“Rish with someone,” Vala said.

“Boss, don’t you see—”

“Now, silly girl. Paroom looks distractable. Get it out of your blood so you can think. Go!”

Forn suddenly laughed. “What about you, Boss?”

“I’ve got to button this up. Barok, find Waast—” But that was Waast’s voice. Waast had been found, and by more than one male. “—or someone. Go.” She pushed them in opposite directions, and they went.

Next? The Reds seemed reconciled. That might even last. Tegger must know the power of the vampire scent by now. The scent still fizzed through Vala’s brain and blood, but she’d known it far stronger, and resisted. Well, not resisted, exactly …

A pale child stood before her, half her size, squinting, mutely beseeching.

She stepped toward it.

A crossbow bolt sprouted in its chest. It squawled and ran wobbling into shadow.

Vala turned. It was Paroom. She said, “I thought I’d use the gun butt. It was too young to put out a scent.”

The Grass Giant accepted that. “We may have brought more than one rider. I haven’t seen any but that child.”

“Check the tu

“I found four vampires dead by blade. Tegger’s prey, I think.”

“That’ll help.”

“One of them had all her teeth knocked out. And … what did you say? That’s right, vampires don’t like the stink of their own dead. They won’t go past.”

“Then … we made it. We’re safe.”

“Good enough,” Paroom said, and folded her in his arms.

The party was ending.

Vala didn’t want to notice. She was wrapped in sexual congress with Kaywerbrimmis. It should be safe. She’d be doing it anyway, but after what he’d been through this past halfnight, she thought, no male could still make a child.

The sun was a blurred silver in the gray-white clouds. All four Gleaners were asleep in a pile. The Ghouls had dropped out early and crawled under an awning. The Grass Giants had begun exploring each other, outside the rishathra pattern—as she and Kay were—and Tegger and, Warvia were talking, just talking.

Kaywerbrimmis relaxed in her arms and was fast asleep.

Vala disengaged herself, rolled Kay’s tunic and pushed it under his head. She strolled—limped—down the dock toward the Reds, alert for body language; but they didn’t seem unwelcoming.

She said, “Tell it, Tegger. How do you lower a floating factory?”

Tegger gri

Vala waited.

“City Builders were stranded here after the Fall of the Cities. I’ve seen their bones. We know vampires moved into the shadow. They must have come up the ramp. What would you have done?”

“We talked about lifting the ramp somehow.”

Tegger nodded happily. “Every cistern empty. But the Fall of the Cities came long before Louis Wu boiled a sea. They had to have a water supply, but the vampires scared them more. So they let all that mass of water run out, and the city went up.”

“So you plugged all the cisterns—”

“There were some big metal sheets at the dock. I used them for plugs.”

“—and waited for the rain to fill them up, and the city went down.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for the light.”

Tegger laughed. “Heh, I thought you’d like that. I lit all my torches and dropped them over. Then I poured a canteen’s worth of fuel down on the fire.”

“And now what?”

Tegger said, “Now we’re where we can do something, and now I’ve got fifteen bright friends to work something out.”

Vala nodded. Tegger didn’t have an answer, but he’d done miracles already.

Chapter 15

Power

In the blaze of full day, Tegger led them up Stair Street to show them his discoveries.

He found it frustrating. Warvia would dive into houses, jungles of ornamental plants, and half-filled swimming pools, then rush back with questions. Tegger couldn’t follow her; he must keep to the pace of the rest. Gleaners were even faster than she was, and they got into places no Red would fit, then came sprinting back to chatter at the Grass Giants.

“Here, these grasses ought to serve you,” Tegger told Waast, while she was the only Grass Giant handy. She took the handful, smiled at him and, chewing, followed Perilack and Silack into a collapsing house. “I haven’t seen any plant eaters,” he told Coriack. “I looked for droppings. Nothing. Oh, we’ll find something to eat. There’re webspi

Vala asked, “Carrion?”

He guessed her meaning. “Old dry bones. The Ghouls won’t eat until we starve. But I did find these. Pomes, a whole line of pome trees. Here.”

Vala broke a pome apart and began to eat. They’d feed Machine People, yes, for a while. “Tegger, what do these factories make?”

“I found a warehouse full of cloth. Maybe they make that here. Vala, I haven’t really looked yet.”

Vala was interested in the factories. With her pack full of Louis Wu’s magic cloth, she might get some motors working. Even if she couldn’t, if everything had deteriorated too far, she might still find wonders made before the Fall of the Cities, stacked in factories or warehouses, still waiting to be shipped.

But Tegger himself must be starving. Her people had to be fed now. Look for profit later. After she found some way down!

The little party trickled up Stair Street to the bubble at its top, and in.

What Tegger found mysterious was clear enough to Machine People. Barok smiled and led them up the giant stairs and into the back. “Banquet hall,” he pronounced. “City Builders are omnivores who cook. They like a lot of variety. Look at all this equipment!”

Tegger said, “It’s all boxes and surfaces that get hot.”

“Yes, and a table for chopping stuff.”

Above Stair Street was only the chimney and its spiral stair. Warvia was on the rim of the chimney, kicking her heels in space, looking down on the floating factory city and the lands beyond. She seemed indecently happy.

“I can see our River Folk waving. Rooballabl! Hey, any of you, come up here and show them we made it! They’ll think I’m just Tegger.”

Vala climbed the spiral stair to meet her, past a bronze web clinging to the stone. The women edged around the rim to leave room for those who followed: Coriack, Manak [sic—should be “Manack”], Paroom, Barok. Tegger stopped to study the web, then climbed to join them.

There is something about being at the top of … well, anything … that puts one in command.

Practically speaking, Vala could see nothing of what was most interesting: vampires swarming in the Shadow Nest below and the regions nearby. But far into the mountains, sluggish pale streams flowed through the passes. Flowing along the Homeflow they became individual dots: vampires returning in their thousands.