The Ringworld Throne (8 page)

They had brought a gift of their own, a sizable ceramic jug of a strong, dark beer. Not bad at all. Vala saw Kay react, too.
Let’s see how Kay handles it.

Kay exclaimed, “Do you make this yourselves? Do you make a lot?”

“Yes. Do you think of trade?”

“Chaychind, it might be worth moving if it’s cheap enough—“

“Tales of the Machine People are not exaggerated.”

Kay looked flustered. Too bad, but Vala had better step in. “Kaywerbrimmis means that if we can distill enough of this, we would have fuel for our cruisers. Our cruisers carry weapons and can carry much more. They move faster than loadbeasts, but they cannot move without fuel.”

“A gift you want?” Chaychind asked, while Tegger exclaimed, “You would boil our beer for fuel?”

“Gifts for the war. All must contribute. Grass Giant fighters, Gleaner spies, your fuel—“

“Our eyes.”

“Ah?”

“We know of no species that can see as far as any Red Herder.”

“Your eyes. Our cruisers, our cannon, our flamers. Can you contribute three hundred manweights of beer to the war against the vampires? It would distill to thirty manweights of fuel. We carry a distilling system simple enough to be copied.”

Warvia exclaimed, “That’s enough to souse whole civilizations!”

But Tegger asked, “What size of manweights?”

Hah!
Vala said, “Your size.” Tegger had asked the obvious question, but it implied agreement ... and a Machine People manweight would have been a sixth higher. “I’m thinking of taking two cruisers. Leave the third here. Let the Thurl fuel the third cruiser.”

“Whand and Chit can supervise that,” Kay said.

“Oh?” She’d wondered why both were absent.

“They’ve had enough, Boss. Spash is wavering, too. So’s Barok.”

“Any foray would be to murder selves,” red Warvia said, “unless we can know our enemy. Have the Ghouls spoken?”

The Thurl said, “Some bodies are gone,” and shrugged.

“We’re paying for our good manners,” Vala said. A trader must know how to project her voice on demand. “The bodies we guarded from vermin, the lords of the night will take last. They took our Gleaner dead because they died a day earlier.” The night would hear her.

Tonight Kay and Whand were on the wall with Barok, watching over them with the cannon. Spash and Chit had traded places with them.

This night looked to be less exhausting, but less joyful, too. The Gleaners and Machine People and an undersized Grass Giant woman named Twuk tried to get something going. The Thurl kept his armor on. The four Red Herders watched gleefully from beyond touching distance, and chattered in their own language, and it all sort of fell apart.

The Reds weren’t unfriendly. They might be a little stiff around the Thurl himself, but around others they were relaxed and talkative. Spash and three Reds were trading stories now. The Reds had considerable experience with hominids, despite their handicap.

Vala listened idly. The Reds were guided by their diet. They ate live meat, and they were herder-gourmets. Herding one life-form, rarely two, was easier than trying to keep several types of meatbeast together. The Red tribes mapped their routes to cross each others’ paths, to trade feasts.

They traded stories, too, and met hominids in a variety of environments. Now they were speaking of two types of Water People, apparently not the same two Vala was familiar with.

The fourth Red, Tegger, was on watch with Chit.

The Thurl was asleep in full armor. He clearly wasn’t interested in rishathra, or Ghouls, either, Vala thought.

Sopashintay lay propped against a tent pole. “I wonder what it’s like inside the wall tonight,” she said.

Vala considered. “The Thurl’s out here. Beedj is in there, on defense. ‘What the Thurl does not see did not happen.’”

Spash came up on an elbow. “Where did you hear that?”

“From the Thurl. The beta males are doing a lot of mating, I expect, and some fighting, too. I suppose we’re missing all the fun—“

“Again, in my case,” Spash said.

“—but they wouldn’t rish anyway if they can mate. And I can use the rest.”

“So can the Thurl. He sleeps like a near-dormant volcano,” Spash said.

Chit looked at the women and smiled, and stepped lightly out of the tent. A dense mist cloaked the night. Chit picked up a bone from dinner and threw it. Vala heard a tiny muffled
tock
.

A silver bulk was at her shoulders, sensed but never heard. The Thurl sniffed, while his hands cocked a crossbow without sound or effort. He said, “They are not near, vampires or Night People. Chitakumishad, did you see anything? Smell anything?”

“Nothing.”

The Thurl seemed exceedingly alert for one who had been sleeping moments ago. He pulled his helm closed and stepped out. A Grass Giant guard, Tarun, followed him.

Spash said, “I had it wrong, didn’t I? But why—“

Vala whispered, “Reds. They’re the ancient enemy, and they’re all around him. That’s why he kept his armor on, and that’s why he pretends to sleep. Bet on it.”

In the morning there were no dead between the wall and the tall grass, save for those that lay on sheets. The Ghouls had taken Vala at her word, it seemed.

Chaychind asked of nobody in particular, “Where shall we turn the hakarrch loose?”

Coriak [sic—should be “Coriack”] looked at Manack. The Gleaner female said, “Just short of the tall grass, but let me tell my companions first. Vala, will your people hunt, too?”

“I think not, but I’ll ask.”

She spoke to the others. None were eager. Machine People did eat meat, but predator meat generally had a rank flavor. But Kay said, “We’ll look timid if someone doesn’t join the hunt.”

“Ask some questions,” she told him. “That thing looked dangerous. The more you know, the less often you get killed.”

He’d never heard the proverb. He stared, laughed, then said, “We want to bring it to less than
once
?”

“Yes.”

She slept through the hunt. At midday she woke to share in the meal. Kaywerbrimmis bore a single slash along his forearm, the fool. Vala bound it with a fuel-soaked towel. Hakarrch meat had a flavor of cat.

The dead were fewer, but the stench of them hovered about the tent, and the dreadful night was coming.

The Ghouls would take her at her word, she thought. The bodies we guarded from vermin, the lords of the night will take last. Tonight.

When shadow had nearly covered the sun, Vala found the Gleaners and Reds around a fire. The Gleaners were eating; they offered to share. The Reds had eaten their kills as they were made.

A fine rain began to sizzle on the coals. The negotiators retreated into the tent: Valavirgillin, Chitakumishad, and Sopashintay for the Machine People, three of the Reds, the four Gleaners. Anakrin hooki-Wanhurhur [sic—should be “hooki-Whanhurhur”] and the Thurl and a woman Vala didn’t know were already inside.

Stale grass had been replaced with fresh.

The Thurl spoke, his powerful voice cutting through all conversation. “Folk, meet my negotiator Waast, who has a tale to tell.”

Waast stood gracefully for so large a woman. “Paroom and I went to starboard two days ago, on foot,” she said. “Paroom returned with these Reds of Ginjerofer’s folk. I followed on foot with a guard of Red warriors, to speak to the Muddy River People. The Muddy River People cannot join us here, but they may speak of our sorrows to the Night People.”

“They’ll have the same trouble we did,” Coriack said.

(Something was tickling at Vala’s attention.)

Waast sat. To the Reds she said, “You cannot practice rishathra. But mating?”

“It is not my time,” Warvia said primly. Anakrin and Chaychind were grinning. Tegger seemed angry.

(The wind.)

Many hominid species were monogamous, exclusive of rishathra, of course. Tegger and Warvia must be mates. And the Thurl was saying, “I must wear my armor. We know not what might visit us.”

Too bad. They might have gotten some entertainment going.

(Music?)

Spash asked uneasily, “Do you hear music? That isn’t vampire music.”

The sound was still soft, but growing louder, almost painfully near the upper end of her hearing range. Vala felt the hair stir on her neck and down her spine. She was hearing a wind instrument, and strings, and a thuttering percussion instrument. No voices.

The Thurl lowered his helm and stepped out. A crossbow was in his hand, pointed at the sky. Chit and Silack stayed at either side of the door, their weapons readied. Others in the tent were arming themselves.

Tiny Silack walked backward into the tent. The smell came with him. Carrion and wet fur.

Two big hominid shapes followed, and then the much bigger Thurl. “We have guests,” he boomed.

In the tent it was almost totally dark. Vala could make out the gleam of the Ghouls’ eyes and teeth, and two black silhouettes against a scarcely brighter glow, Archlight seeping through clouds. But her eyes were adjusting, picking out detail:

There were two, a man and a woman. Hair covered them almost everywhere. It was black and straight and slick with the rain. Their mouths were overly wide grins showing big spade teeth. They wore pouches on straps, and were otherwise naked. Their big blunt hands were empty. They were not eating. Vala was terribly relieved, even as she resisted the impulse to shy back.

Likely enough, none but Valavirgillin had ever seen one of these. Some were reacting badly. Chit remained in the door, on guard, facing away. Spash was on her feet, not cringing, but it seemed the limit of her self-control. Silack of the Gleaners, Tegger, and Chaychind all cringed away with wide eyes and open mouths.

She had to do something. She stood and bowed. “Welcome. I am Valavirgillin of the Machine People. We’ve waited to beg your help. These are Anakrin and Warvia of the Red Herders, Perilack and Manack of the Gleaners, Chitakumishad and Sopashintay of the Machine People—“ picking them out as and when she thought they had recovered their aplomb.

The Ghoul male didn’t wait. “We know your various kinds. I am—“ something breathy. His lips didn’t close completely. Otherwise he was fluent in the trade dialect, his accent more like Kay’s than Vala’s. “But call me Harpster, for the instrument I play. My mate is—“ something breathy and whistling, not unlike the music that was still playing outside. “Grieving Tube. How do you practice rishathra?”

Tegger had been cowering. Now he was beside his mate, instantly. “We cannot,” he said.

The Ghoul woman half hid a laugh. Harpster said, “We know. Be at ease.”

The Thurl spoke directly to Grieving Tube. “These are under my protection. My armor may come off, if you can speak for our safety. After that, you need only have care for my size.” And Waast only smiled at Harpster, but Vala could admire her for the nerve that took.

The Gleaners were in a line, all four standing tall. “Our kind does practice rishathra,” Coriack said.

Vala longed for her home. Somewhere she would have found food for her mate and children, and as for her love of adventure, a person could set that aside for a time ... too late now. “Rishathra binds our Empire,” Valavirgillin told the lords of the night.

Harpster said, “Truth was that rishathra bound the City Builders’ empire. Fuel binds yours. We do practice rishathra, but not tonight, I think, because we can guess how it would disturb the Red Herders—“

“We are not so fragile,” Warvia said.

“—and for another reason,” Harpster said. “Do you have a request to make of us?”

They all tried to speak at once. “Vampires—“

“You see the terror—“

“The deaths—“

The Thurl had a voice to cut through all that. “Vampires have devastated all species in a territory ten daywalks across. Help us to end their menace.”

“Two or three daywalks, no more,” Harpster said. “Vampires need to reach shelter after a raid. Still, a large territory, housing more than a ten of hominid species—“

“But they feed us well,” Grieving Tube said gently, her voice pitched a little higher than her companion’s. “The problem you face is that
we
have no problem. What is good for any of you is good also for the People of the Night. The vampires feed us as surely as the lust for alcohol among your client species, Valavirgillin. But if you can conquer the vampires, that serves us, too.”

Did they realize how much they had revealed in a few breaths of speech? But too many others were speaking at once, and Vala held silence.

“For your understanding,” Grieving Tube said, “consider. Manack, what if your queen had a quarrel with the Thurl’s people? You might persuade us not to touch any dead who lie near the Thurl’s walls. Soon he must surrender.”

Manack protested, “But we and the Grass Giants—we would never—“

“Of course not. But Warvia, you and the old Thurl were at war fifty falans ago. Suppose your leader Ginjerofer had begged us to tear apart any Grass Giants who came to kill their cattle?”