The Ringworld Throne

They panted out puffs of frost as they worked. Red hands and brown hands gripped the fuzzy edges of the window, and the view wobbled.

The Hindmost said, “The probe will be well past before we can slow. Shall I bring it back for another view?”

Bram said, “Why? We have our view. Hindmost, we’re closing on the near end of the rim wall transport rail, and possible witnesses. Take the probe over the rim when you can.”

“Aye aye. Twelve minutes.”

The probe was in full daylight now, leaving the village far aft. The dismounted webeye was in jerky motion, carried along footholds and handholds chopped in stone. Windows overlaid on windows.

Bram asked, “Where have you been?”

Louis answered. “The time to check a pressure suit—”

“Yes. Report.”

“—is before you’re breathing vacuum—”

“You used a checklist. I use my mind.”

“And your first mistake will be memorable.”

“Report.”

“I can’t speak for a puppeteer’s suit. Ours will keep us alive for two falans. We refilled and recharged everything fillable and chargeable. The Hindmost still has six stepping disks not in use, and we can recycle some of what we’re using now. We can put webeyes anywhere. There aren’t any weapons in the lander bay. I assume you’ve stored them somewhere. You decide what you want us to be carrying. We couldn’t think of anything else to check.”

Bram said nothing.

Hidden Patriarch’s crow’s nest showed no change, and the Hindmost whistle-bonged that window off. The refueling probe ran along a rim wall touched with violet. The next window over rolled wobbling along a path that had become more than a rock climb, downhill toward rectangular patches of snow.

The Hindmost said, “You were dying.”

“Did you see … never mind,” Louis said. “Show me that medical report.”

The puppeteer chimed. Louis Wu’s medical record partly blocked both windows. “There, it’s in Interspeak.”

Chemical … major restructure … diverticulosis … tanj. “You can get used to what age does to you, Hindmost. Old people used to say, ‘If you can wake up in the morning with nothing hurting anywhere, it’s a sign that you have died in the night.’ ”

“Not fu

“But even an idiot might guess something’s wrong when he starts pissing gas with his urine.”

“I would have thought it rude to observe you at such a time.”

“I am much relieved. Even so, would you have noticed?” Louis read further. “Diverticulosis, that’s little blowout patches on your colon—my colon. Diverticuli [sic—should be “Diverticula”] can hurt you lots of ways. Mine seems to have extended far enough to attach itself to my bladder. Then it got infected and blew through. That left a tube co

“What did you think?”

“I had the medkit. It was giving me antibiotics. For a couple of days I hoped … well, bacteria can get into a human bladder and make gas, but antibiotics would have cleared that up. So I knew I needed a plumber.”

Acolyte didn’t usually stare directly into anyone’s eyes, but he did now. His ears were folded out of sight. “You were dying? Dying when you refused the Hindmost’s offers?”

“Yes. Hindmost, if you’d known, would you have accepted my contract?”

“Not a serious question. Louis, I’m expressing admiration. You are a scary negotiator.”

“Thank you.”

Bram said, “Please restore our view from the probe … Thank you. In six minutes we’ll move up the rim wall and cross to the outside. I trust we won’t lose the signal, Hindmost?”

“Scrith stops a percentage of neutrinos. Implied is some kind of nuclear reaction ongoing in the Ringworld floor, but the signal will dwindle predictably and I can compensate.”

Bram said, “Good. Is my suit in order?”

“It’s my spare, after all,” Louis said. “Take whichever suit feels lucky to you. I’ll take the other.”

The probe was slowing, slowing.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Chapter 26

The Dockyard

The cruiser and its cargo plate rose through the night. Warvia and Tegger clung to each other in the payload shell. Fear of heights was a terrible thing. They both shrieked when they felt the bump, then laughed because they were still alive.

Leaving the protection of the payload shell was an ordeal. They gasped and shivered in the thin, cold air. The sun was just peeping around a shadow square.

The Ghouls blinked in the growing daylight and crawled into the payload shell to sleep.

Harpster had brought them down at the higher of two orange-splashed cliffs, alongside another floating plate and three baskets attached to collapsed balloons.

The village was stirring. Downslope and to the sides, furred shapes moved out from snow-roofed houses to forage in the tilted lands beyond.

Even to a nomad like Tegger, this wasn’t a large village. Then again, it was nearly invisible. The roofs were rectangles of snow on a snowfield; you picked them out by their shadows.

Five locals were trudging uphill to meet the visitors from below. A raptor-beaked bird circled about them. The Red Herders watched them come, but they couldn’t see anything inside their furs. They carried water bags and more furs.

The water was heated. It tasted wonderful. Warvia and Tegger struggled into furs in frantic haste, pulling them closed until only their noses showed. That and their gasping seemed to amuse the Spill Mountain People.

“Na, na, it’s lovely day!” Saron sang in a nearly impenetrable accent. “You walk in blizzard. Teach you respect mountain!”

They walked around the wood and iron cruiser, paying no attention to the floating plate it rode on.

The five Spill Mountain People looked like barrels sheathed in layers of white– and-gray-striped fur. Saron’s fur was different: striped white and greenish-brown, with a hood that had been some ferocious creature’s head. Her rank must be distinctive, Tegger thought, and decided that Saron was a woman. She was the smallest of the five. Her voice gave no clue and her furs hid all details.

Saron was studying the bronze spi

Warvia said, “Yes. Saron, we don’t know what to do next.”

“We were told Night People would come. Where are they?”

“Sleeping. It isn’t night yet.”

Saron laughed. “My mother told me it was only a way of speaking. They come out at night?”

The Reds nodded.

The bird hovered above them, riding the wind, then suddenly dropped far downslope. It struck talons first, and rose with something struggling in its beak.

Deb asked, “What must the eye see?”

Tegger and Warvia had no idea. This must have been obvious, and Deb answered herself. “The mirror and the passage. Take the eye with us. Does it talk?”

“No.”

“How do you know it sees?”

“Ask Harpster and Grieving Tube.”

Warvia said, “I’m going to cover them. They could freeze to death up here.”

“Good,” Je

Harreed and Barraye were at work dismounting the bronze web and its backing. Tegger had decided they were men. Though they peered out of their hoods in frank astonishment at the Red Herders, they were silent. It seemed the women did all the talking.

Tegger tried to help them. As he scuttled sideways carrying one edge of the stone-backed web, he found himself gasping, suffocating. Deb and Je

“You’re feeble,” Saron decided.

Tegger tried to quiet his gasping. “We can walk.”

“Your lungs don’t find enough air. You will be stronger tomorrow. Today you must rest.”

The four picked up the web and began to climb, angling downhill, toward the snow-roofed houses. Saron walked ahead to point out footholds to Warvia and Tegger, ready to steady them if they slipped.