The Ringworld Throne

“So we looked for a stairway along the chimney, because we already know it goes pretty far down, but Grieving Tube has a better idea.”

Tegger said, “That chimney goes down to a furnace.”

“It goes to furnaces all over the city. Cha

Tegger said, “There’s not much entertainment up here, and not much distraction to a hungry Red.”

Harpster said, “You solved that one. You ate—”

“Come, then,” Grieving Tube said hastily, “we will divert you.” She walked downstep toward the dining place, away from the chimney. Her hand was on Tegger’s wrist, her grip unbreakably strong.

“I know what I ate,” Tegger said.

“Yes, but who would you tell? Your mate?”

“Yes.”

Grieving Tube stopped in the door. “Truly?”

“Of course I must tell Warvia.”

Harpster said, “Four vampires on the ramp. You killed three. The remaining woman, you knocked out all her teeth and rished with her, then hacked off a segment of muscle meat. It seems clear you must have eaten it.”

Tegger said, “I could see the cruisers below me, ru

In the end it was Harpster who turned away.

A table or two fell over as they climbed the giant steps. The Ghouls weren’t dexterous here. “After the Boss said that about lights,” Grieving Tube said, “I got to thinking what else they’d want down there. I thought, food.”

Harpster pushed through and waited for the others to follow him.

The big room was stifling hot. “Don’t touch anything,” Tegger said. “I should have turned those off.”

“If you can remember which ones aren’t lights,” Grieving Tube said.

Tegger nodded. He began plucking Vala-cloth twists from between pairs of knobs, snatching them free in a jolt and sparkle of sunpower.

“People working down below us, in offices,” Harpster said. “People sitting in arcs around a stage. People just watching water fall. Would they get hungry? Omnivores get hungry a lot.”

“Maybe not just omnivores. Other hominids, too,” said Grieving Tube. “Diplomatic relations, it may be.”

“It seems the long way around,” Tegger said. “Catch food down there on the surface, raise it, grow it, ship it in from farms. What then? Char it, cut it up, mix it with flavorings? Fine. But why carry it up here just to send it back down?”

Grieving Tube sighed. “The Red’s got a point.”

“Yes, and we didn’t find anything, but the lighting is fluppy awful in here,” Harpster said. “See what you can see, Tegger.” He opened another door.

It was the storage chamber Tegger had explored earlier. Lights glowed in the ceiling. Tegger had found doors and drawers at every level, doors an armlength high and smaller, but he hadn’t left them open like this. Vala’s whole caravan must have been through here.

Storage areas behind the doors, and not much in the storage areas. Dried plants, various kinds, some covered with fungus …

Harpster said, “Gleaners and Grass Giants found some dried roots here, not much else. But these lights are blinding, and if we turn them off it’s like being buried.”

“Harpster? Can’t you see in the dark?”

“Night People can see at night. By Archlight. Even in a rainstorm it’s not black.”

None of these cupboard doors was even big enough for a Gleaner. “Did you find any more doors?”

“Nothing man-sized.”

A cheery voice called, “What about Hanging People?”

Tegger jumped. That was Warvia!

She was looking down at him from above a wall of boxes. “Warvia! Where have you been?” he cried.

She laughed, flattered. “Behind you as you left the dock. When your prey stopped, I bathed in a pool so I could get closer still.”

Harpster said, “Prudent. Our sense of smell is better than you might guess. So, shall we invite you into our puzzle?”

She jumped down. On her back was one of Valavirgillin’s alcohol flamers. “I heard most of it and solved some of it. Come and look?”

“We follow.”

Warvia led them back into the heat. “You know,” she said, “the raw foodstuffs probably come up from the docks, up the alleys. Whatever they do to it here, there’s probably some chemistry involved, things none of us would do to food. But it’s food going down that has to be in small clumps.”

Grieving Tube asked, “Truly? Why?”

Warvia moved among the tables and hot surfaces and doors. “You’re watching a play. Or you’re playing dominance games for high stakes, water and grazing rights. Or your Thurl is speaking your tribe’s future. Down comes your di

She’s worked this out after she had the answer, Tegger thought. She was enjoying herself greatly.

“You fight for your share. Or you try to cut it evenly, but maybe six of you are all trying, too. You forget the play or the shouting match or the speech. The actors grow enraged, or the Thurl. But if individual portions come down, nobody needs to fight,” Warvia said.

Here was a little door set into a wall, a thick door with a window in it, showing two shelves in a box. Warvia opened the door and put her hand in—

Tegger shouted, “Hot!”

“I touched the door first, love.” She pushed against the back of the box, and the box wiggled. “Watch this.” She closed the door and flipped a switch down.

The box dropped away, leaving an empty space behind.

“The door won’t open now, “ she said, and showed them.

Harpster asked, “How far down does it go?”

“It should go to where food’s wanted. What you were saying, I never could see why people had to go down with the food. So I touched every door, and opened doors that weren’t hot, and this was what was loose. Then I had to find someplace to put a strip of Vala-cloth.”

Harpster flipped the switch to its middle position, then up. “That box wouldn’t hold a man.”

“It’ll hold me, if we take the shelves out.”

It would hold Tegger as easily. Tegger didn’t bother offering. Warvia’s puzzle, Warvia’s choice. Red Herders are territorial.

The shelves came up and out easily. Maybe the old City Builders did sometimes send down a whole burnt weebler or whatever. Warvia tried to crawl into the resulting space and couldn’t.

The Night People lifted her bodily into place. On her side, her legs and arms sprawled past the door. On her back, on her face … but her legs wouldn’t fold that far. Tegger thought of tearing the top off the box, to see if there was room above it. What he finally said was, “Even major surgery won’t get you in there with weapons too.”

“I’d go naked!”

“You don’t fit,” Grieving Tube said. “This is a box for a Gleaner. Try all you like, Warvia. We are not hurried. Harpster my love, our part here is over. Gleaners don’t wake until full day.”

The Night People chatted as they walked back to the docks. Harpster said, “We should send something down ahead of our emissary. A bottle of fuel? Balanced to spill over? In case there are vampires between him and the fuse box. A quick fireball, poomf.”

Tegger didn’t feel like talking, and Warvia spoke not at all. They crawled under their awning and watched Grieving Tube and Harpster slink away.

Then Warvia took Tegger’s hand and slid out the other side of the awning. They ran softly to where the docks narrowed to become Rim Street. “We explored while you slept,” Warvia whispered. “Follow me.”

Tegger said, “I have to tell you about something.”

“On the ramp? I heard. You went mad. I went mad. We’re still mates. But, love, I do not see how we can go home.”