The Ringworld Throne

“Of two kinds they are. Protectors of our own kind would keep us safe, but they obey flatland protectors—”

“May we speak to a High Point protector?”

“I think not keeping secrets from flatland protectors is near impossible, and protectors are conspicuous. I can ask.”

The puppeteer asked, “Will Whisper speak to us?”

Huh?

The Red Herders looked at each other. The woman said firmly, “Whisper will not.”

“What can you tell us of Whisper?”

“Nothing.”

“What lies beyond the passage?”

Barraye said, “Poison, we think.”

Je

The red woman said, “Louis Wu, it was the massed might of the Night People that moved the eye here. Come night, you may speak to them.”

“How long until night?”

Je

The voice of Louis Wu said, “We wait,” and sang like a bass string quartet.

Bram asked, “Did you hear, Louis?”

“Some of it. Good act, Hindmost, but you need better makeup.”

“Louis Wu is vashnesht. Wizard. He remains out of sight,” the Hindmost said, “while his weird servitors speak for him.”

“Stet. Who’s Whisper?”

“A

“ ‘Whisper’ fits her,” Louis said.

The Hindmost turned from the window. “Louis, what do you think? Where is Whisper? Will she interfere?”

Louis was watching the people in the window. There wasn’t quite enough anesthetic in him to knock him out. “Bram, you’re the only one who might guess what she wants.”

“Yes.”

“I’m too groggy to think. I think I want my voice back.”

“As you will,” said the Hindmost.

Warvia stripped the gwill with a knife. Tegger said, “Red Herders have to eat meat freshly killed. Watching may distress you.”

Warvia tore the gwill apart and gave part to Tegger. They ate. The High Point couple seemed fascinated and appalled. Tegger wondered why they were still here, now that the window was only a bronze web again.

Bones only. Tegger looked the question; Barraye pointed to a receptacle.

Je

Ah.

“Our people mate once, for life,” Warvia said, and looked at her mate. Something passed between them, and she added, “A thing happened to us, to change us. But we don’t need rishathra. What changed was only that we have a choice.”

Tegger had thought it through. “Barraye, Je

The High Pointers looked at each other.

“You saw the Night People, Je

Barraye nodded. “They would think to resh with us. How curious are we, my mate?”

She was whacking his massive shoulder, lightly and open-handed, and laughing. Tegger suspected that was a no. “Not their shape alone. Their smell!”

Barraye patted her rump reassuringly. “Well, then, must keep yet another secret.”

Fun stuff. Louis watched in passive prurience. A show like this would be a success, he thought, on pay cha

Somewhere in there he fell asleep.

Hours later, it seemed, he woke and stared in astonishment at himself looming above him.

No: at his pressure suit, angular like fractured bones where a human would be smooth. Bram tipped the helmet back and asked, “Are you well?”

“I’m pretty sore.” The medkit was dripping stuff into him, but he could feel where the pain was waiting.

“Two ribs were out of place. I set them. No bones are broken. You’ve abused muscles, torn ligaments and mesenteries, slipped a spinal disk that I reset. You would heal with no more than your own defenses and the portable medkit.”

“Why are you wearing my suit?”

“Reasons of strategy.”

“Too complex for my tiny mind? All right, Bram. You’ll notice that we have more visitors. If you’ll disco

The Hindmost and Bram waited to either side of Louis and a little behind. On the other side of the webeye window, the Reds huddled under a fur, letting the Ghouls take center stage.

The Ghouls were shivering. The lanky woman said, “It’s cold out there! Well, I am Grieving Tube, this is Harpster. Is your box making sense of my voice?”

“Yes, it’s fine. How did you know about my translator?”

“Your companion Tunesmith seems to have departed, but his son Kazarp spoke of your visit to Weaver Town.”

“My regards to Kazarp. Grieving Tube, why did you move two manweight of poured stone over such a distance if you could have spoken to me through Tunesmith?”

The Ghouls laughed, showing way too much teeth. “Spoken, yes, but what would we say? The rim wall is in the wrong hands? We don’t know that. You, are you a vashnesht?” Protector, the translator said.

Bram said, “Yes.”

Tegger started to get up; Warvia held him back. The Ghouls, too, had flinched, but Harpster made himself speak to the protector. “We know enough to know our helplessness. These are vampire protectors. They take the High Point Folk as meat from a herd. Some return as protectors. Many simply disappear.”

Bram said, “They are repairing the Arch.”

“Do they do more good than harm?”

“Yes. There are too many, and they’ll fight when the repairs are done. We hope we can improve the balance.”

“How do you expect to help?”

“We must know more. Tell us what you can.”

Harpster shrugged hugely. “You know what we know. High Point will show us more, come dawn.”

The Hindmost fluted. The window shrank to background size.

“We wait,” he said. “Louis, we recorded earlier conversation. They know much of protectors and something of Teela Brown. Or shall we serenade you?”

Bram was reaching for the instrument package he’d brought from Hidden Patriarch.

“A little di

Louis was trying to do some stretching. Lifting Acolyte had pulled some serious muscles and tendons. Bram’s attentions had helped, but he had to move carefully.

Many hours had passed. Now the window at High Point was rotating bumpily across night-darkened mountainscape. A mixed bag of hominids were rolling the stolen webeye like a wheel over the worn paths of the village. When they left the village and began moving uphill over rock, the motion began to jar his stomach.

Louis turned his back on the display, trusting the others to alert him when the webeye got somewhere interesting. What was taking the Kzin so long? Anyplace in known space, he could at least have used a ’doc! The medkit wouldn’t do anything for him except inject chemicals, and he’d need it again in a few minutes.

Four High Point People carried the web and its backing. They climbed uphill in the charcoal night. Saron moved ahead of the Red Herders and Night People to point out footholds for them.

The Ghouls had tried to help carry, but they were doing well just to catch their breath.

“Sunlight soon,” Warvia said to the Ghoul woman. “What will you do then?”