The Ringworld Engineers Part 18

Vala seemed to have no trouble picking her path. Louis followed her. His eyes adjusted, and he saw that there were narrow paths among the growths.

The fungi ranged from b.u.t.ton-size to asymmetrical shapes as tall as Louis's head, with stalks as thick as his waist. Some were mushroom-shaped, some had no shape at all. A hint of corruption was in the air. Gaps in the sprawl of buildings overhead let through vertical pillars of sunlight, so bright that they looked solid.

Frilly yellow fungus fringed in scarlet half smothered an outcropping of gray slate. Medieval lances stood upright, white tipped with blood. Orange and yellow and black fur covered a dead log.

The people were almost as various as the fungi. Here were Runners using a two-handed saw to cut down a great elliptical mushroom fringed in orange. There, small, broad-faced people with big hands were filling baskets with white b.u.t.tons. Gra.s.s giants carried the big baskets away. Vala kept up a whispered commentary. "Most species prefer to hire themselves in groups, to protect against culture shock. We keep separate housing."

There, a score of people were spreading manure and well-decayed garbage; Louis could smell it from a fair distance away. Were those of Vala's species? Yes, they were Machine People, but two stood aside and watched, and they held guns. "Who are those? Prisoners?"

"Prisoners convicted of minor crimes. For twenty or fifty falans they serve society in this-" She stopped. One of the guards was coming to meet them.

He greeted Vala. "Lady, you should not be here. These s.h.i.+t-handlers may find you too good a hostage."

Vala sounded exhausted. "My car died. I have to go to the school and tell them what happened. Please, may I cross the shadow farm? We were all killed. All killed by vampires. They have to know. Please."

The guard hesitated. "Cross, then, but let me give you an escort." He whistled a short s.n.a.t.c.h of music, then turned to Louis. "What of you?"

Vala answered for Louis. "I borrowed him to carry my pack."

The guard spoke slowly and distinctly. "You. Go with the lady as far as she likes, but stay in the shadow farm. Then go back to what you were doing. What were you doing?"

Louis was mute without the translator. He thought of the flashlight-laser buried in his pack. Somewhat at random he laid his hand on a lavender-fringed shelf fungus, then pointed to a sledge stacked with similar fungi.

"All right." The guard looked past Louis's shoulder. "Ah."

The smell told Louis before he turned. He waited, docile, while the guard instructed a pair of ghouls: "Take the lady and her porter to the far edge of the shadow farm. Guard them from harm."

They walked single file along the paths, tending toward the center of the shadow farm. The male ghoul led, the female trailed. The smell of corruption grew riper. Sledges of fertilizer pa.s.sed them on other paths.

Blood and tanj! How was he going to get rid of the ghouls?

Louis looked back. The ghoul woman grinned at him. She certainly didn't mind the smell. Her teeth were big triangles, well designed for ripping, and her goblin ears were erect, alert. Like her mate, she wore a big purse on a shoulder strap, and nothing else; thick hair covered most of their bodies.

They reached a broad arc of cleared dirt. Beyond was a pit. Mist stood above the pit, hiding the far side. A pipe poured sewage into the pit. Louis's eyes followed the pipe up, up into the black, textured sky.

The ghoul woman spoke in his ear, and Louis jumped. She was using the Machine People speech. "What would the king giant think if he knew that Louis and Wu were one?"

Louis stared.

"Are you mute without your little box? Never mind. We are at your service."

The ghoul man was talking to Valavirgillin. She nodded. They moved off the path. Louis and the woman followed them around an extensive white shelf fungus, to huddle under its far lip.

Vala was edgy. The smell might be getting to her; it was certainly getting to Louis. "Kyeref says this is fresh sewage. In a falan it'll be ripe and they'll move the pipe and start hauling it away for fertilizer. Meanwhile n.o.body comes here."

She took the pack off Louis's back and spilled it out. Louis reached for the translator (the ghouls' ears came sharply alert as his hand neared the flashlight-laser) and turned up the volume. He asked, "How much do the Night People know?"

"More than we ever thought." Vala looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn't.

The male answered. "The world is doomed to fiery destruction in not many falans. Only Louis Wu can save us." He smiled, showed a daunting expanse of white wedge-shaped teeth. His breath was that of a basilisk.

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic," Louis said. "Do you believe me?"

"Strange events can spark an urge to prophecy in the insane. We know that you carry tools not known elsewhere. Your race is not known either. But the world is large, and we do not know all of it. Your furry friend's race is stranger yet."

"That's not an answer."

"Save us! We dare not interfere." The ghoul lost a little of his grin, though his lips still didn't meet. (That would take a conscious effort. Those big teeth ... ) "Why should we care if you are insane? The activities of other species rarely interfere with our own lives. In the end they all belong to us."

"I wonder if you aren't the real rulers of the world." Louis said that for diplomatic relations, then wondered uneasily if it might be true.

The woman answered. "Many species may claim to rule the world, or their own part of it. Would we lay claim to the forest tops of the Hanging People? Or to the airless heights of the Spill Mountain People? And what species would want our domain?" She was laughing at him, that was certain.

Louis said, "There's a Repair Center for the world somewhere. Do you know where?"

"No doubt you are right," the male said, "but we do not know where it might be."

"What do you know about the rim wall? And the Great Oceans?"

"There are too many seas. I know not which you mean. There was activity along the rim wall before the great flames first appeared."

"*Was* there! What kind of activity?"

"Many lifting devices raised equipment beyond even the level of the Spill Mountain People. There were City Builders and Spill Mountain People in great number, many other species in lesser number. They worked right at the upper edge of the world. Perhaps you can tell us the meaning of it all."

Louis was dazed. "Tanj dammit. They must have been ..." Remounting the att.i.tude jets, and he probably didn't want to say so. So much power and ambition, so close, could be bad for a puppeteer's nerves. "That's a long way for carrion-eaters to pa.s.s messages."

"Light travels farther than that. Does this news affect your predictions of doom?"

"I'm afraid not." There might well be a repair crew in action somewhere, but they had almost run out of Bussard ramjets to be remounted. "But with the great flames acting, we should have more than the seven or eight falans I thought we had."

"Good news. What will you do now?"

For a moment Louis was tempted to abandon the floating city and deal strictly with the ghouls. But he'd come too far, and after all, there were ghouls everywhere. "I'll wait for night and then go up. Vala, your share of the cloth is in the vehicle. I'd be obliged if you don't show it to anyone or tell anyone about me for ... a couple of turns should do it. My share you can dig up in a falan if n.o.body comes for it. And I've got this." He patted a vest pocket, where a square yard of superconductor was folded into the bulk of a handkerchief.

"I wish you wouldn't take it to the city," Vala said.

"After all, they'll think its just cloth unless I tell them different," Louis said. It was almost a lie. Louis intended to use the superconductor.

The ghouls stared when he took off his shorts-adding detail to his description, no doubt, to help them find his species' home on the Ringworld. He donned impact armor.

The female suddenly asked, "How did you convince a Machine People woman that you were sane?"

Vala told her, while Louis donned vest and goggles and pocketed the flashlight-laser. The ghouls almost lost their smiles. The woman asked, "Can you save the world?"

"Don't count on me. Try to find the Repair Center. Spread the word. Try questioning the banders.n.a.t.c.hi-the great white beasts who live in the great swamp to spinward."

"We know of them."

"Good. Vala-"

"I go now to tell how my companions died. We may not meet again, Louis." Valavirgillin picked up the empty pack and walked quickly away.

"We should escort her," the female ghoul said. They left.

They hadn't said good luck. Why? The way they lived ... they might all be fatalists. Luck would mean nothing to them.

Louis scanned the textured sky. He was tempted to go now, immediately. Better to wait for night. He spoke into the translator: "Hindmost, are you there?"

Apparently the puppeteer wasn't.

Louis stretched out under the shelf fungus. The air seemed cleaner near the ground. He sipped meditatively at the fuel-and-nectar bottle Vala had left him.

What were the ghouls? Their position in the ecology seemed very secure. How had they kept their intelligence? Why would they need intelligence? Perhaps they had to fight for their prerogatives on occasion. Or for respect. Complying with a thousand local religions could also require considerable verbal facility.

More to the point: how could they help him? Was there a ghoulish enclave somewhere that remembered the source of the immortality drug? Which, by hypothesis, was made from Pak tree-of-life root ...

One thing at a time. Try the city first.

The pillars of light thinned, then faded out. Other lights appeared in the solid sky: hundreds of lighted windows. None showed directly above him. Who would occupy a bas.e.m.e.nt above a garbage dump? (Someone who couldn't afford lighting?) The shadow farm seemed deserted. Louis heard only the wind. Standing on the shelf fungus gave him a glimpse of distant windows flickering as if with firelight: housing for the farmers around the perimeter.

Louis touched the lift k.n.o.b on his flying belt and went up.

Chapter 19 -.

The Floating City At something over a thousand feet the smell of fresh air became more p.r.o.nounced, and the floating city was around him. He circled the blunt tip of an inverted tower: four levels of dark windows, and a garage below that. The big garage door was closed and locked. Louis circled, looking for a broken window. There weren't any.

These windows must have survived for eleven hundred years. Probably he couldn't break one if he tried. He didn't want to enter the city as a burglar anyway.

Instead, he let himself rise along the sewer pipe, hoping to gain privacy that way. There were ramps around him now, but no street lights anywhere. He guided himself to a walkway and settled on it. Now he felt less conspicuous.

There was n.o.body in sight. The broad ribbon of poured stone curved away among the buildings, left and right, up and down, putting out pseudopods at random. With a thousand feet of empty s.p.a.ce below, there were no guardrails. Halrloprillalar's people must be closer to their brachiating past than Earth's people. Louis strolled toward the lights, keeping nervously to the center of the walk.

Where was everybody? The city had an insular look, Louis thought. There was housing in plenty, and ramps between the housing areas, but where were the shopping centers, the playhouses, the bars, the malls, parks, sidewalk caf's [cafes]? Nothing advertised itself, and everything was behind walls.

Either he should find someone to introduce himself to, or he should be hiding. What about that gla.s.s slab with the dark windows? If he entered from above, he could make certain it was deserted.

Someone came down the walk toward him.

Louis called, "Can you understand me?" and heard his words translated into the Machine People tongue.

The stranger answered in the same language. "You should not walk about the city in darkness. You might fall." He was closer now. His eyes were huge; he was not of the City Builder species. He carried a slender staff as long as himself. With the light behind him, Louis could see no more of him. "Show your arm," he said.

Louis bared his left arm. Of course it bore no tattoos. He said what he had planned to say from the beginning. "I can repair your water condensers."

The staff slashed at him.

It rapped his head glancingly as Louis threw himself backward. He rolled and was on his feet, crouching, trained reflexes working fine, with his arms coming up just too late to block the staff. It cracked against his skull. Lights flared behind his eyes and went out.

He was in free fall. Wind roared past him. Even to a man nearly unconscious, the connection was obvious. Louis thrashed in panic in the dark. Blowout in a s.p.a.cecraft! Where am I? Where are the meteor patches? My pressure suit? The alarm switch?

Switch -- He half remembered. His hands leaped to his chest, found flying-belt controls, twisted the lift k.n.o.b hard over.

The belt lifted savagely and swung him around, feet down. Louis tried to shake the mists out of his head. He looked up. Through a gap in darkness he saw the solar corona glowing around a shadow square; he saw hard darkness descending to smash him. He twisted the lift k.n.o.b to stop his rapid rise.

Safe.

His belly was churning and his head hurt. He needed time to think. Clearly his approach had been wrong.

But if the guard had rolled him off the walk ... Louis patted his pockets; everything was there. Why hadn't the guard robbed him first?

Louis half remembered the answer: he'd jumped, missed the guard, rolled. And pa.s.sed out in midair. That put a different face on the matter. It might even have been best to wait. Too late now.

So try the other approach.

He swam beneath the city, outward toward the rim. Not too far. There were too many lights along the perimeter. But near the center was a double cone with no lights showing at all. The lower tip was blunt: a carport with a poured-stone ledge protruding. Louis floated into the opening.

He raised the amplification of his goggles. It worried him that he hadn't done that earlier. Had the blow to his head left him stupid?

Prill's people, the City Builders, had had flying cars, he remembered. There was no car here. He found a rusted metal track along the floor, and a crude, armless chair at the far end, and bleachers: three rows of raised benches on either side of the track. The wood had aged, the metal was crumbly with rust.

He had to examine the chair before he understood. It was built to run down the track and to flop forward at the end. Louis had found an execution chamber, with provision for an audience.

Would he find courtrooms above? And a jail? Louis had about decided to try his luck elsewhere when a gravelly voice spoke out of the dark, in a speech he hadn't heard in twenty-three years. "Intruder, show your arm. Move slowly."

Again Louis said, "I can make your water condensers work," and heard his translator speak in Halrloprillalar's tongue. It must have been already in the translator, in storage.

The other stood in a doorway at the top of a flight of stairs. He was Louis's height, and his eyes glowed. He carried a weapon like Valavirgillin's. "Your arm is bare. How did you come here? You must have flown."

"Yes."

"Impressive. Is that a weapon?"

He must mean the flashlight-laser. "Yes. You see very well in the dark. What are you?"

"I am Mar Korssil, a female of the Night Hunters. Set down your weapon."

"I won't."

"I am reluctant to kill you. Your claim might be true-"

"It is."