The Ringworld Throne

The Thurl was nodding. “It was done by the old Thurl, with this Louis Wu’s help. But how do you come to know about that?”

“Louis Wu and I traveled together, far to port of here. Without sunlight the mirror-flowers couldn’t defend themselves, he said. The clouds, though, they never went away?”

“They never did. We seeded our grass, just as the wizard told us. Smeerps and other burrowers moved in well ahead of us. Wherever we went, we found mirror-flowers eaten at the roots. Grass doesn’t grow well in this murk, so at first we had to eat mirror-flowers.

“The Reds who fed their herds from our grass in my father’s time, and fought us when we objected, they followed us into new grassland. Gleaners hunted the burrowers. Water People moved back up the rivers that the mirror-flowers had taken.”

“What of the vampires?”

“It seems they did well, too.”

Vala grimaced.

The Thurl said, “There was a region we all avoided. Vampires need refuge from daylight, a cave system, trees, anything. When the clouds came, they feared the sun less. They traveled farther from their lair. We know no more than that.”

“We should ask the Ghouls.”

“Do you Machine People talk to Ghouls?” The Thurl didn’t quite like that idea.

“They keep their own company. But Ghouls know where the dead have fallen. They must know where the vampires hunt, and where they hide during the day.”

“Ghouls only act at night. I would not know how to talk to a Ghoul.”

“It’s done.” Vala was trying to remember, but her mind wasn’t working well. Tired. “It’s done. A new religion pops up, or an old priest dies, and then it’s a rite of ordeal for the new shaman. The Ghouls must know and accept what rites he demands for the dead.”

The Bull nodded. Ghouls would carry out funeral rites for any religion, within obvious limits. “How, then?”

“You have to get their attention. Court them. Anything works, but they’re coy. That’s a test, too. A new priest won’t be taken seriously until he’s dealt with the Ghouls.”

The Bull was bristling. “Court them?”

“My people came here as merchants, Thurl. The Ghouls have something we want: knowledge. What do we have that the Ghouls want? Not much. Ghouls own the world, Arch and all, just ask them.”

“Court them.” It grated. “How?”

What had she heard? Tales told at night; not much in the way of business dealings. But she’d seen and talked to Ghouls. “Ghouls work the shadow farm under a cluster of floating buildings, far to port. We pay them in tools, and the City Builders give them library privileges. They’ll deal for information.”

“We don’t know anything.”

“Nearly true.”

“What else have we got?” The Thurl said, “Oh, Valavirgillin, this is nasty stuff.”

“What?”

The Thurl waved about him. In view were nearly a hundred vampire corpses, all lying near the wall, and half as many Grass Giant dead scattered from the crossbow limit to the uncut grass.

Beedj was examining a smaller corpse. He saw he had her attention, and he lifted the head so that Vala could see its face. It was Himapertharee, of Anthrantillin’s crew.

A shudder rippled along Vala’s spine. But the Thurl was right. She sad, “Ghouls must feed. More than that: if these thousand corpses were left to lie, there would be plague. All would blame the Ghouls. The Ghouls must come to clean up.”

“But why will they listen to me?”

Vala shook her head. It felt stuffed with cotton.

“What then, after we know where the vampires lair? Attack them ourselves?”

“The Ghouls might tell us that, too—”

The Thurl broke into a run. Vala saw Beedj waving, holding—what? At that moment he shook it violently, then flung it away, and hurled himself in the other direction. Where it fell, it writhed and went quiet, though Beedj was howling.

It was a living vampire.

Beedj called, “Thurl, I’m sorry. It was alive, wounded, just the bolt through its hip. I thought we might talk to it, examine it—anything—but—but the smell!”

“Calm yourself, Beedj. Was the smell sudden? You attack, it defends?”

“What, like a fart? Sometimes controlled, sometimes not? … Thurl, I’m not sure.”

“Resume your patrol.”

Beedj’s sword slashed viciously at the grass. The Thurl walked on.

Vala had been thinking. She said, “You must set a delegation among the dead. A tent, a few of your men—”

“We’d find them sucked empty in the morning!”

“No, I think it’s safe for tonight and tomorrow night. The vampires have hunted this area out, and they’d smell their own dead. Even so, arm your people and, mmm, send men and women together.”

“Valavirgillin—”

“I know your custom, but if the vampires sing, best your people mate with each other.” Should she be saying this? She surely would not have spoken thus before other Grass Giants.

The Bull snarled, but—“Yes. Yes, and what the Thurl does not see did not happen. So.” The Thurl beckoned at Beedj. He asked Vala, “Will Farsight Trading join us?”

“We should support you. Two species in need will speak louder than one.” Farsight Trading could roll away from most problems, but not this. They’d poured most of their fuel into towels.

“Three species, then. Many Gleaners died the night before last. The Gleaners will wait with us. Should we be more yet? Vampires must have hunted among the Reds.”

“Worth a try.”

Beedj came up. The Thurl began talking much faster than Vala could follow. Beedj tried to argue, then acquiesced.

“We should sleep during the day,” Vala said. Her body was crying for sleep.

Something closed on her wrist. “Boss?”

She jerked awake. Her squeak was intended as a scream. She rolled away and sat up and—it was only Kaywerbrimmis.

“Boss, what have you been telling the Bull?”

She was still groggy. She needed a drink and a bath or—that rattle, was it rain? And a flash and boom that was certainly thunder.

She’d pulled off her filthy clothing before she slept. She slid out of the blankets, out of the payload shell, into the cool rain. Kay watched from the gun room as she danced in the rain.

Consequences. Traders didn’t mate. They shared rishathra with the species they met, but mating was something else. You didn’t get a business partner pregnant, and you didn’t engage in sexual dominance games, and you didn’t fall in love.

But in far realms, among strange hominids, you couldn’t shun each other, either.

She beckoned and shouted, “Wash with me. What time is it?”

“Coming on dusk. We slept a long time.” Kay was pulling off his clothes in something like relief. “I thought we’d need this time to arm against vampires.”

“We’ll do that. How’s Barok?”

“Don’t know.”

They drank, washed each other, dried each other, and were reassured: the mating urge could be resisted.

The rain stopped. You could see wind driving the last flurries across the stubble. Swaths of navy-blue sky showed through blowing broken clouds, and a sudden narrow vertical line of blue-white dashes.

Vala gaped. She hadn’t seen the Arch in four rotations.

By glow of Archlight she could see patterns in the grass stubble. An arc of pale rectangles. A tent erected within the arc. Grass Giants moved back and forth, and a handful of much smaller hominids moved with them. On the rectangles … sheets? They were laying out bodies.

“Did you tell them to do that?”

“No. Not a bad idea, though,” Vala said.

In Anthrantillin’s deserted cruiser they found Barok with a woman twice his size. He seemed abnormally subdued, but he was smiling. “Wemb, my partners Valavirgillin and Kaywerbrimmis. Folk, this is Wemb.”

Kay started to say, “I would have thought—”

Barok’s laugh was not quite sane. “Yes, and you would’ve been right, if you would have thought we slept!”

Wemb cut in. “Sleeping here, together, protects each against intent of the rest, against yet more rishathra. We were lucky in each other.”