by Larry Niven
They had left the threat of bandits behind. Louis rode in front, beside Vala. Noise was as much a problem as the bumping; they had to raise their voices. Louis shouted, “Rishathra?”
“Not now, I’m driving.” Vala showed a wide expanse of teeth. “The City Builders are very good at rishathra. They can deal with almost any race. It helped them hold their ancient empire. We use rishathra for trading and for not having children until we want to mate and settle down, but the City Builders never give it up.”
“Do you know anyone who could get me invited up as a guest? Say, because of my machines.”
“Only my father. He wouldn’t.”
“Then I’ll have to fly up. Okay, what’s under the city? Can I just stroll underneath and float up?”
“Underneath is the shadow farm. You might pass for a farmer if you leave your tools behind. The farmers are of all races. It is a dirty job. The city sewer outlet is above, and sewage must be spread for the plants. The plants are all cave life, plants that grow in darkness.”
“But … Oh, sure, I see it now. The sun never moves, so it’s always dark under the city. Cave life, huh? Mushrooms?”
She was staring at him. “Louis, how can you expect the sun to move?”
“I forgot where I was.” He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“How can the sun move?”
“Well, of course it’s the planet that moves. Our worlds are spinning balls, right? If you live on one point, the sun seems to go up one side of the sky and down the other; then there’s night till it rises again. Why did you think the Ringworld engineers put up the shadow squares?”
The car began to weave. Vala was shaking, her face pale. Gently Louis asked, “Too much strangeness for you?”
“Not that.” She made an odd barking sound. Agonized laughter? “The shadow squares. Obvious to the stupidest of people. The shadow squares mock the day and night cycle for spherical worlds. Louis, I really hoped you were mad. Louis, what can we do?”
He had to give her some kind of answer. He said, “I thought of punching a hole under one of the Great Oceans, just before it reaches the point closest to the sun. Let several Earth-masses of water spew into space. The reaction would push the Ringworld back where it belongs. Hindmost, are you listening?”
The too-perfect contralto said, “It does not seem feasible.”
“Of course it’s not feasible. For one thing, how would we plug the hole afterward? For another, the Ringworld would wobble. A wobble that big would probably kill everything on the Ringworld, and lose the atmosphere too. But I’m trying. Vala, I’m trying.”
She made that odd barking sound and shook her head hard. “At least you do not think too small!”
“What would the Ringworld engineers have done?
“What if some enemy shot away most of the attitude jets? They wouldn’t have built the Ringworld without planning for something like this. I need to know more about them. Get me into the floating city, Vala!”
Chapter 18
The Shadow Farm
They began to pass other vehicles: large or small windowed boxes, each with a smaller box at the rear. The road widened and became smoother. Now the fueling stations were more frequent and were of sturdy, square Machine People architecture. There were more and more boxy vehicles, and Vala had to slow. Louis felt conspicuous.
The road topped a rise, and the city was beyond. Vala played tour director as they drove downhill through growing traffic.
River’s Return had first seen life as a string of docks along the spinward shore of the broad brown Serpent River. That core region now had the look of a slum. The city had jumped the river via several bridges, and expanded into a circle with a piece bitten out of it. That missing piece was the shadow of the City Builders’ floating city.
Moving boxes surrounded them now. The air was scented with alcohol. Vala slowed to a crawl. Louis hunched low. Other drivers had ample opportunity to peer in at the strangely built man from the stars.
But they didn’t. They saw neither Louis nor each other; they seemed to see only other vehicles. And Vala drove on, into the center of town.
Here the houses crowded each other. Three and four stories tall, the houses were narrow, with no space between them. They pushed out above the street, cutting into the daylight. In marked contrast, public buildings were all low and sprawling and massive, situated on ample grounds. They competed for ground, not for height: never for height, with the floating city hovering over all.
Vala pointed out the merchants’ school, a wide complex of prosperous stone buildings. A block later she pointed down a cross-street. “My home is that way, in pink poured stone. See?”
“Any point in going there?”
She shook her head. “I thought hard on this. No. My father would never believe you. He thinks that even the City Builders’ claims are mostly boastful lies. I thought so too, once, but from what you tell me of this … Halrloprillalar …”
Louis laughed. “She was a liar. But her people did rule the Ringworld.”
They left River’s Return and continued to port. Vala drove several miles farther before crossing the last of the bridges. On the far, portward side of the great shadow, she left an almost invisible side road and parked.
They stepped out into too-bright sunlight. They worked almost in silence. Louis used the flying belt to lift a fair-sized boulder. Valavirgillin dug a pit where it had been. Into the pit went most of Louis’s share of the fine black cloth. The dirt went back into the pit, and Louis lowered the boulder on it.
He put the flying belt into Vala’s backpack and shouldered it. The pack already held his impact suit, vest, binoculars, flashlight-laser, and the flask of nectar. It was lumpy and heavy. Louis set the pack down, adjusted the flying belt to give him some lift. He set the translator box just under the cover and shouldered the pack again.
He was wearing a pair of Vala’s shorts, with a length of rope to hold them up. They were too big for him. His depilated face would be taken as natural to his race. Nothing about him now suggested the star traveler, except the earplug for his translator. He’d risk that.
He could see almost nothing of where they were going. The day was too bright; the shadow, too extensive and too dark.
They walked from day into night.
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 button-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 buttons. Grass 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 shit-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 ki
lled. 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 snatch 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 passed 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 nobody 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 attitude 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 pass 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 nobody 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 bandersnatchi—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 basement 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 knob 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 pronounced, 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 nobody 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 space 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 cafés? 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 glass slab with the dark windows? If he entered from above, he could make certain it was deserted.