by Larry Niven
She climbed the ladder to the cannon. No sign of Tegger.
Kaywerbrimmis touched her ankle. She half sobbed, “Oh flup, oh flup, I was so sure we’d find everything covered with blood! Tegger must have guessed, and how could Warvia lie to him? Warvia!”
Warvia’s feet dangled listless before the cannon slot. Vala pulled herself half through the opening. “Warvia, where is he?”
Warvia made no answer.
“Well, how’s he taking it?”
Warvia spoke. “Dead inside.”
“Warvia, cherished ally, nobody really thought you’d be immune to vampire scent.”
“I thought he’d kill me,” Warvia said. “It never even crossed his mind.”
“Can we do anything for him?”
“He wants to be alone, I guess.”
“For you?”
“So do I.”
Vala slid down the ladder.
“He can’t lose us,” Kaywerbrimmis said. “He can follow the river, follow the wheel ruts. Maybe he just wants some time to digest what’s happened. Rethink.”
She nodded in the gloom.
“Vala, we should get the wagons moving.”
“I’ll take the tail position.” While the rest got Cruiser One ready to roll, maybe she could search out Tegger. She didn’t believe it. “Keep a close eye on Warvia. Or shall I take her?”
“Take her. You’re the boss, and she’s got the best eyes—”
“That isn’t—”
“It’s a decent excuse. But she might talk to you because …” He stalled.
“Because she hasn’t rished with anyone in Cruiser One.”
“Just so.”
“You’re a male, Kay—”
“Boss, I just can’t guess how Tegger’s feeling now. This doesn’t happen to Reds.”
***
Tegger dropped silently from the cannon mount. No living thing was in his sight, and he jumped when a voice whispered from far too close to his ear. “Do you have what you need to travel?”
Tegger remained crouched. He whispered, “Towels and a pepperleek. Soap. Clean clothes. My sword. I’m following the river, so I won’t need the canteen, so I filled it with fuel. That can be useful stuff.”
“Not for drinking, I hope.”
“Fuel burns.” None of your business!
“Is it random killing you [sic—should be “your”] plan? Or something more organized?”
“I don’t know anything. They live under a factory city, a big floating structure. Whisper, if we—”
“If you.”
“If I can’t destroy their refuge, I accomplish nothing. If I don’t … if I can’t do something … large?”
“For your honor?”
“Yes. What Warvia did—I am nothing now. I must make myself something.”
“Wish.”
“To destroy the Shadow Nest.”
“You shall.”
“Make it fall. Crush them underneath.”
“That could be difficult.”
“Difficult?” Tegger shouldered his pack. He noticed three naked Machine People entering Cruiser Two. That was harmless, but they might search the other cruiser next. Tegger eased away into the bush.
He spoke to himself, or to the empty air. “Difficult. It’s impossible! I can’t invade a vampire nest. If I could get above them, onto that floating factory—but I’d have to fly.”
Whisper: “What is Valavirgillin hiding?”
Huh? “Machine People have their secrets,” Tegger said.
Whisper: “She knew that you and Warvia would succumb to the vampire lure. Still, she hopes that her little army can win. Does she know something that nobody else does?”
Tegger’s mind was trying to shut down; the moan was rising in his throat. They’d hear him. Find him. His mind, he must not lose his mind to his body’s hysterics. Think.
His first coherent thought in some time was that he had just heard Whisper’s first real command, however phrased.
Louis Wu of the Ball People had visited Ginjerofer’s tribe. Valavirgillin knew him, too … knew him better, since rishathra was among her skills. Had Louis Wu revealed something to her?
And he’d seen her naked, moments ago.
“She must have left her pack with her clothes. Whisper, where are Valavirgillin’s clothes?”
“Look along the shore … there. The pack is on the mud flat but you could reach it with a stick.”
“Whisper, I’m not a thief. I only want to look.”
The voice whispered, “What if Valavirgillin hides knowledge that would help her companions?”
“Information is property.”
Silence answered.
“Am I mad?” he asked himself. This wayspirit had done nothing Tegger’s own mind couldn’t do. What had happened to him might drive anyone mad. Was there a Whisper?
Warvia had suffered a shattering shock. What was she feeling? The horrifying truth was that she might be as crazy as him.
And Tegger was creeping through the brush like some predator, his prey a leather pack that didn’t belong to him.
Stop, listen for rustling brush, for Whisper or for his companions. Nothing.
He must already be lunatic, to suspect the Machine People woman. This was truly Valavirgillin’s war. She had involved the Ghouls, where a megalomaniac would have kept command for herself. Valavirgillin’s weaponry was worth their lives …
But here was her clothing, washed and tossed over bushes, and her backpack hung here, too. He could look.
He need not show himself. His blade had the reach. He slid its point under the strap and fished the strap to him, and slid backward on his belly into the bushes.
The pack opened out flat, like many he’d seen, but unlike those, this had a good many pockets. Leather on the outside; some very finely woven stuff as a lining. Her firestarter was as good as his own, traded from some distance away. Blanket, fancy canteen (empty), a box containing damp soap, bullets and an empty handgun.
The gun: for Tegger it might be the difference between life and death. Between thief and—there was no word for what he and Warvia were now, but every hominid knew the word thief.
“Lunatic,” he said. He was trying to put things back as he’d found them. Could he get the pack back without being suspected?
He whispered into the silence. “I do not hold title to Machine People gunpowder. Stealing that secret would be stealing,” and he rolled the pack closed, and open again. Something had felt cold.
The lining: it was cold, the cold fading under his touch.
He rubbed it in his fingers. Its weave was too fine to see at any distance. It had layers, several layers.
He separated a layer out and pulled. Threads of a less robust material separated, and the layer detached.
It was filmy stuff, very fine. He could see no way to put it back. What was it?
What was Whisper’s interest?
He stuffed it into his kilt. That was less likely to be searched than his pack. He wrapped Valavirgillin’s pack. His blade set it back on a branch, perhaps the right branch.
His erstwhile companions were all up and down the beach and into the bush. Maybe they were hunting him. He’d best be on his way.
***
Tegger knee-walked through brush until the brush petered out. Then he ran on bare mud, hidden in a mist growing gradually denser.
The river was broadening, and so was the mud-flat shore. The cruisers were out of sight.
Tegger wasn’t worried about River Folk. Folk whose eyes must see through air and water both would have trouble identifying him. They couldn’t swim as fast as he could run, and they could hardly walk at all. How would they inform the cruisers? He was outrunning the news of himself.
Tegger was on his own.
The knowledge was a tearing in his chest. Though four alien species had been his allies and friends, he gave them little thought. His grief was for Warvia. Never since their mating, never since his childhood or hers, had they
been separated for more than a few days.
The world must change before he could ever face her again.
The cover changed as he ran. Sand. Pebbles. A stand of trees dug in all over a bare rock cliff, nearly to the water. Narrow rapids here, and he had to climb a cliff side to get around them. Three vampires and an infant, huddled in the meager shadow of an overhanging cliff across the river, watched him run away from them and didn’t give chase.
As the day passed, he ran.
Chapter 8
For Not Being Warvia
It had been raining since midday. Valavirgillin tried to find paths over bare rock, but there was mud everywhere. Tilting, skidding, never quite toppling over, the wagons moved downstream toward the Shadow Nest.
When night bit an edge from the sun, Vala already had the military high ground picked out.
The river was four hundred paces wide here. Rooballabl and Fudghabladl should be safe enough. The cruisers filled their water tanks, then rolled up toward the crest. These nearer mountains were foothills to the Barrier of Flame, but that highest one would do.
The cruisers slipped and tried to slide off cliffs. Would rain slow vampires the way it was slowing her? She should have camped earlier.
But they still had daylight when they reached her chosen position.
She set the cruisers back-to-back, not too close, cannon facing out. Those who must cook their food, cooked under an awning while they still had light. Warvia had shot some creature big enough to share with the Machine People. In the last light they washed, then piled their towels a distance from the cruisers.
The Gleaners retired. They didn’t like rain and they needed their sleep. The rest talked or slept or merely waited.
Vala would have welcomed the Ghouls’ advice. They were perched on a bare granite peak overlooking the Shadow Nest, talking in their own tongue, with their backs to the doused fire and the company. Valavirgillin saw two only, but she seemed to hear several voices.
The other hominids were letting the Machine People do most of the talking. So be it. Vala said, “Any vampires that get this far should be exhausted from the trek uphill. Our smell is all on the towels. It’ll distract them. They’ll be easy meat.”
Give me your thoughts. What have I missed?
Barok said, “Vampires would be coming back from where they hunt. They won’t expect to hunt this close to their nest. There’s no prey left.”
“We’ll see.”
Chit said, “When they come, they come in hordes.”
“Reminds me,” Kay said. “I scooped up three barrels of river gravel, Vala. Want some? We still have to use powder, but we can save our shot.”
“Good.”
“How’s Warvia?”
Warvia said, “Warvia hooki-Murf Thandarthal can speak for herself, Kaywerbrimmis. Warvia is in health. Have you seen sign of Tegger?”
Vala said, “I found some things missing. Survival stuff, enough to fill a backpack, all from Cruiser One. Tegger must be the quickest thief alive.” Her backpack had been disturbed too, but nothing seemed to be missing. That, she didn’t mention.
“Next question. What do we do tomorrow? Harpster? Grieving Tube?”
“Come and see,” said Grieving Tube.
Vala climbed the rock. It was nearly flat on top, and cold to the touch. She saw that Warvia had followed her; she reached down and pulled the Red woman after her.
Downstream, the Homeflow split and split again. Her gaze followed the main channel to where it dipped into shadow. The floating factory was ominously close, and huge.
Grieving Tube was almost scentless, smelling only of wet fur. She said, “Valavirgillin, can you see beneath the Floater? Do you see dangling loops, near side, right of center?”
It was as Tegger had described it, a disk that bulged upward in the middle. Beneath … beneath was shadow, and a sense of restless motion about the edges.
“No,” Vala said.
“Yes,” said Warvia. “I’ll sketch it, come day.”
The Ghoul said, “Warvia, that dangling helix is a ramp wide enough for heavy machinery. There are cogs along one edge, so that machines need not slip, and stairs along the other. No eyes have seen these things in many generations. The description you hear is more than twenty lifespans old, stored in a library far to spin, given me some days ago at the Thurl’s fort.”
Given how? But communication was a Ghoul’s secret, and what Vala cared about was—“You have maps of the floating thing?”
“Yes, from before the Fall of the Cities, before so many things stopped working. Details only reached me yesterday, while we were above the clouds.”
“That’s—”
“It doesn’t touch the ground,” Warvia said.
Grieving Tube said, “I was afraid of that.”
Harpster said, “None of us have been this close in a very long time. There was no point before Louis Wu boiled a sea, and after it was too dangerous—”
Vala broke in. “Warvia? The ramp doesn’t touch?”
“I’m having trouble with distances, Valavirgillin, but it’s hanging in midair. The bottom of the ramp straightens out flat like a shovel blade, but twice as high as those vampires around it.”
“We did not expect this,” Grieving Tube said. “Our chosen path would have been to force a way onto the Floater. Then vampires would have to come to us along a narrow way. They prefer to swarm. They might even have to face raw daylight, that high.”
Vala was holding tight to her temper. Long practice made that surprisingly easy. “I see. But we can’t reach it?”
“I see no way,” Harpster said, “but there are more minds here than ours. Let us set them thinking.”
***
Running through fog and mist, running from his life, his eyes always where his feet would fall, Tegger would not have seen any threat. But he smelled it, gasped it in, as if the memory of Warvia punched him in the face. He stopped, caught his balance, reached over his shoulder and was armed.
Fingers brushed his face. He slashed waist high, forward and back, before ears and eyes caught up.
Her song peaked in a squeak of agony. He poked out at throat level. The song ended. Tegger clapped his hands over his ears and ran.
And ran.
He knew that smell! She was behind him, dying, but with her scent in his nose he saw her more clearly than his pounding feet. The leather cloak she wore was too big for her, and in tatters, and she spread it like wings to show her nakedness. Her song was piercingly sweet. She was slender and very pate, perhaps adolescent, her hair thick and white, the points of her canine teeth visible past her red lips.
Vampire! Night after night they sang outside the Thurl’s wall. Tegger was stronger than their lures. He’d said so over and over. But that drifting scent was older yet, for it was Warvia’s scent during the friendliest part of her cycle; only stronger. His heaving breath was driving it out of his nose, out of his mind, and he ran—out of the mist, and slowed to a stop.
For most of a falan he’d studied the map, the relief map they’d shaped and fired outside the Thurl’s compound. Now it was as if he were an ant viewing it at eye level.
He crept uphill to put a boulder between himself and the creatures around the Floater, before he looked again.
An ant looking at an anthill. It was far away still, but a Red’s eyes are good. Those were human shapes interacting in what seemed human patterns. They moved as if at work or gathered in little social groups. Some carried burdens that their posture said were babies. They moved in and out of the black shadow that lay beneath a huge disk, a mass like a full-sized city floating above them.
The Ghouls had called it a factory complex, but Tegger couldn’t help but think of it as a City Builder city. A vampire city, now.
He could see no more than twenty vampires, even including the few down at the river, but there must be thousands in the shadow of the Floater. If it fell, it would crush most of them. Shrapnel spraying horizontally would take out most of th
e rest, Tegger thought.
He could see something hanging down, like an unsupported spiral staircase. He couldn’t see the bottom. Maybe he could climb that.
How to reach it? As best he could judge through the drifting fog, the floating city was twelve hundred paces downstream along a wide mud flat that the Homeflow had carved into multiple channels. The main channel flowed under the city, but many channels went around. Here and there along the river vampires had come into daylight to drink.
Too close to the Shadow Nest, channels flowed around both sides of some tremendous thing, a tilted square plate obtrusively artificial and half buried in the mud. Some relic from the Fall of the Cities, no doubt. Vampires nearby didn’t seem to be avoiding it.
A pity he couldn’t swim. Could he hide beneath the water and move downstream that way? Or would he freeze? Or were there vampires too close, and would the smell be too much for him? For the vampire woman’s scent was still in his mind if not his nose.
Were there River People about? He was willing to ask for help.
Mist blew across his view, a fine rain washed him, and a voice in the mist whispered in his ear. “So you really were as strong as you thought.”
Tegger snorted. An unarmed woman: no challenge, mere murder. His mind shied from what the dying vampire had taught him of himself, and fastened on another puzzle. “How did you get ahead of me, Whisper?”
Silence.
Tegger was coming to believe that Whisper was a machine, something left over from before the Fall of the Cities. Or else a wayspirit who had dreadful secrets. Whisper didn’t answer questions about Whisper.
Ask instead—“Is there a way to make the Floater fall on the Shadow Nest?”
The whisperer said, “I know of none.”
“My father told me. The City Builders made lightning to flow through silver threads for their power. We could turn it off! Find the threads, rip them out!”
Whisper said, “Floater plates don’t use power to float, though power was needed to make them. They were made to repel the scrith, the floor of the Arch, and that is what they do.”
It was impossible, then. It had always been impossible. In some bitterness Tegger said, “You know so much. You hide so much. Are you a Ghoul?”