The Ringworld Throne

Deb said, “Many of us went to hunt, or were caught out. One of every three died. Odd and feeble children were born after. All the mountains about tell the same tale, and only we and the mountains nearby had vishnishtee to give warning. Flatland vishnishtee are not wholly evil.”

Tegger asked, “Death Light?”

But none of the High Pointers chose to hear, and Tegger didn’t ask again. Saron said, “High Point vishnishtee serve the flatland vishnishtee to keep us safe. But they will not tell the flatland vishnishtee where we have the mirror, and those will not learn of themselves. They are good at knowing secrets, but the mountains are not theirs.”

Warvia sighed. “The Night People will be very glad of your answers. We’ve traveled vastly to find them. No doubt they’ll have better questions.”

“And Louis Wu,” Deb said. “Or is he only a tale?”

“Where did you hear it?”

“From message mirrors and from Teela.”

Tegger said, “Louis Wu boiled an ocean. The City Builder Halrloprillalar traded and rished with him. Louis Wu is real, but is he on the other side of that spi

Warvia said, “Yes!”

Je

“We worked through the night. Breathing is labor,” Warvia said.

“Let them sleep now,” Saron ordered. “We go. Teegr, Wairbeea, will you wake when the Night People do?”

Tegger could hardly keep his thoughts together or his eyes apart. “We may hope.”

“Food behind that door. Flup, we forgot! What do you eat?”

“Freshly killed meat,” Warvia said.

“Behind those little doors—no, never mind. Skreepu will find you something. Sleep well.” The High Point People filed out.

They had to look behind the little doors, and that let half the heat out of the house. Opening the little doors revealed food—visitor food, plants and old meat, not Red Herder food—and snowscape seen through wooden slats. Bars to keep away predators, and the great outside to keep food cold.

Warvia and Tegger curled together, fur beneath them, fur above. They’d set their clothes aside to air. They were warm enough, but Tegger could feel the cold at his nose. He could hear knocking behind the wall as the High Pointers do

He was near sleep when Warvia said, “Whisper would have better questions.”

He said, “Whisper was only my madness.”

“Mine, too. Whisper taught me things—”

“What?”

Warvia whispered in his ear. “She was with us on the air sled, beneath the cruiser. She taught me about speed so that our speed would not drive me mad. She keeps herself a secret, Tegger. I don’t want the web to hear us.”

They’d propped the web upright against a wall. Tegger looked at the web, propped against a wall with a view of the whole room, and laughed. “If the web is no more than a slice of stone—”

“We will all seem great fools.”

“What does Whisper look like?”

“I never saw. Perhaps a wayspirit with no body at all.”

“What did she teach? No, don’t tell me now. We should sleep.”

“Why did you say we ca

“No. They’re no stranger than Sand People. My mind saw me in Je

Warvia laughed deliciously against his ear.

“Then I remembered that they talk with—talk for–the Ghoul empire. We would be famous. Did you want to settle somewhere, someday, where no Red Herder has heard of Red Herders who rish with every species under the Arch?”

“We never did that!”

“Tales grow in the telling. They are mighty tellers, the Ghoul empire, and these Spill Mountain People speak their words for them, and you and I destroyed the biggest nest of vampires beneath the Arch.”

“Yes.”

“You were thinking—”

“They are new to this. They have only rished with peoples very like them. Love, would you like to teach rishathra, if only once?”

They slept.

Chapter 27

Lovecraft

The probe tilted over and rose at ten gravities straight up, closing on the rim wall. The blue highlight converged, then went out. The probe coasted, rising.

The Ringworld’s edge was narrow. The probe rose a few hundred feet higher, and arced over. A puff of fusion flame halted its fall and set it drifting toward the shadowed back of a black wall that seemed to reach to the heavens.

It slowed. Hovered. The probe spat.

A window popped up to overlay the others. It showed the probe hovering on indigo flame; then the probe dropped away and it showed only starlight.

The Hindmost said, “I give you a webeye window beyond the rim wall.”

“We need a view from the underside. Get us that,” Bram commanded.

“Aye aye.” But the Hindmost was doing nothing.

“Hindmost!”

“The probe already has my instructions. Motors off. Rotate. I want a view.”

The probe was turning as it fell. The view turned: black rim wall, sunglare, starscape … a silver thread was shining against the star-spattered black below the falling probe.

“That!” Louis said. “See it? You need a burn or we’ll hit it.”

“Burn, aye aye.” A burst of woodwinds, then, “What is it?”

“Not a spaceport ledge, it’s too narrow.”

They waited through the lightspeed delay. The silver thread was growing larger, clearer. Now it seemed banded, like a silver earthworm. Eleven minutes …

The probe’s spin stopped. Window displays tremored: the probe was thrusting, flaring in X-ray light.

Nova light blasted through the hologram window.

Louis, with his arms thrown over his eyes, heard music from hell, then a voice that had lost all human traits. “My fuel source is destroyed!”

Bram’s voice was cool. “My concern is for the enemy that fired on us.”

“We are challenged! Arm me and send me through!” A bestial bellow, all madness. Acolyte’s idea of a distraction? Or are we locked in with a mad Kzin?

“Let me through to my cabin,” the Hindmost pleaded. “I must see what is still working.”

“What could be working? Your probe is destroyed and we are attacked, we are known. Could an invader react so quickly, or was that a protector?”

“The stepping disk at least should be safe.”

Louis opened his eyes. “Why?”

“I’m not a fool!” the Hindmost bleated. “I opened a stepping disk link as we crossed the rim. A plasma blast, kinetic weapons, any threat should go straight through.”

“Straight through to what?” Louis blinked. He was still seeing spots.

“I linked it to the stepping disk at the map of Mons Olympus.”

Louis laughed. It was probably too much to hope for, that a thousand Martians were setting a new trap when the stepping disk sprayed star-hot plasma over them, but heyyy …

Big claws closed on his shoulders; warm red meat breathed in his face. “We are at war, Louis Wu! This is not a time for distractions!”

Distractions. Stet. “Acolyte, go suit up. Get my suit, and a webeye sprayer, too, and my cargo disk stack, wherever Bram—Bram?”

“Dining hall aboard Hidden Patriarch,” Bram said.

“Hindmost, route him there first. Bram, get him some weapons. If we have a working stepping disk on the probe, we should use it.”

Bram said, “Go.”

The Hindmost rattled / chimed / bonged. Acolyte stepped and flicked out. The Hindmost stepped where the granite block had been and was gone, was in his cabin, his tongues licking out at what looked like an alien chess set but must be a virtual keyboard. One head rose to say, “We have a link. The stepping disk still operates.”

“Try the webeye sprayer,” Bram ordered.

“Spray what?”

“Vacuum.”

Eleven minutes later the blacked-out window lit again: a revolving starscape with a slow ripple to it. Louis could picture a webeye falling free through vacuum, spi