and Barok were cooking dinner together. If they shied from body contact, it was hard to tell.
Grieving Tube and Harpster were kneeling twenty manlengths away, and a good thing, because they were eating. The Ghouls had found a hominid of the Farming Folk, perhaps a vampire’s captive fallen on the trek to the Shadow Nest. They’d stopped short of actually dragging the carrion into camp.
Vampires still dotted the passes. The excitement around the Shadow Nest drew them. Eventually, Vala knew, she would have to get past that.
Gradually, perhaps only from hunger, Vala’s mood darkened. An antic whim set her walking toward the Ghouls.
Grieving Tube saw her coming. She came over to stand not too close. “You haven’t eaten yet,” she said.
“Soon.”
“Your mood will improve. We’ve escaped, Valavirgillin. We’re free, with a tale to tell that no hominid can match.”
“Grieving Tube, what have we accomplished here?”
“I don’t grasp your point.”
“We came. We found our way up. We used up most of Louis Wu’s magic cloth. We found our way down. We killed some vampires and drove the rest out into the rain. We’ve lost one cruiser, and Paroom, and what else can I brag about?”
“We rescued Foranayeedli. You loaded ten manweights of wonderfully preserved ancient cloth into your cruiser.”
Vala shrugged. Indeed, she’d reap a profit from what she’d collected from the docks, and not just the cloth. And Forn… yes.
The Ghoul woman dropped a stripped rib and walked closer. “Boss, we’ve ended the vampire infestation.”
“Oh, Grieving Tube. We drove them out. Now they’ll spread to every land around us. The vampire infestation is going to get
“They’ll be far fewer in a generation,” the Ghoul woman said placidly, “in forty to fifty falans. Brag now. Await vindication.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Valavirgillin, you’ve felt the pull of the vampire musk. No hominid can stand against it, not even a Red Herder. Does it not strike you that they also secrete that scent to lure a mate?”
“What?”
“Vampires secrete their musk when prey is about. When food is to be had, that is a time to breed. When they’ve found a cave for refuge, that too is a time to breed, and a cave concentrates the musk. It was their mating scent when their ancestors were like ours, and it is their mating scent now. But we’ve taken away their refuge and driven them into the rain, the same rain that hasn’t stopped since Louis Wu boiled a sea, Boss. The rain is washing off their mating scent.”
Valavirgillin thought it over until she believed it. Then she stood up and whooped. “They’ll stop breeding!”
Day was near its end. Before night the cruisers must be where vampires couldn’t reach them. Come morning she would siphon the fuel from Cruiser Two to move Cruiser One home.
She said, “And you, you’ve got the bronze web.”
“Somewhere beneath the Arch, Louis Wu can look and hear through that pattern. There is something we must show the wizard… if the wizard still lives and cares to look, if the web is still a window.”
“You’ll have to find your fuel somewhere else,” she told Grieving Tube.
The woman nodded placidly. “We’ll make our needs known. Night People will set fuel dumps all the way to the rim wall. I suppose Tegger and Warvia told you, they’ll travel with us.”
“Not a bad notion. There are Reds everywhere. They’ll find a home.”
“Yes.”
“How do you propose to buy a trading cruiser?”
She blinked. “Ah, the legendary greed of the Machine People. Valavirgillin, we need Cruiser Two to end a threat that endangers all who live beneath the Arch. You know enough to take my words seriously.”
“Seriously, yes, but moving your massive spying thing formed no part of our agreements.” Valavirgillin smiled, remembering the negotiations outside the Thurl’s wall. The
“You went to some effort to get Louis Wu’s spy thing. You thought to keep that secret from me, I expect, but
A Ghoul’s shrug looked like she’d disjointed both shoulders. “How were we to know we couldn’t just peel the web off and roll it up and walk off? But it’s embedded in the brick, and so we must reveal our need. Valavirgillin, we will buy your cruiser.” She named a sum. “Payable in Center City, by any local Night People concern, when you return.”
“Sold.” The money was at the low end of reasonable, and so what? Long before she could return to get it, Grieving Tube would have fuel to simply
“Your associates may learn as much as I will reveal to you tonight. Some secrets we keep. But let us gorge first, Boss. Isn’t your meal prepared yet?”
Foranayeedli bellowed two words in Vala’s Center City tongue. “Boss! Eat!”
Hunger sank sharp teeth into Valavirgillin’s belly. “That’s my secret name,” she told Grieving Tube; and she went.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — COSTS AND SCHEDULES
Even the Sailing People had retired. Now only a pair of heat shadows in grass, and Louis Wu, remained to watch the Hindmost’s dance.
The pace was brisk now, but the Hindmost never seemed to run short of breath. “This isn’t over, Louis. I heard some of what they told the Red Herders. They spoke of spill mountains and problems with a scrith surface.”
“Use the webeye. Ask them where they’re going.”
“No, I will reserve that one secret. Let them struggle for a time before I speak. Let me see how urgently they want your attention.”
“Mine?”
“Louis Wu who boiled an ocean, O Subtlest One. They know nothing of the Hindmost. Louis, you’re showing marked signs of deterioration. Do you want medical attention?”
“Yes,” Louis Wu said.
The Hindmost said, “Very well. My risk and effort involved in sending you my refueling probe must be compensated. You’ve had a free hand—”
Louis waved it off. “Don’t risk your probe, you might need it. I’ll go back the way I came, back down the Shenthy River valley. There are mistakes I don’t need to make twice, so it’ll go a little faster. I was eleven years coming, I’d be nine years returning, maybe less. It’ll give you time to move your ‘doc to crew quarters.”
“Louis, I have mounted a stepping disk on my refueling probe. In one turn of the Ringworld it can reach you. In an instant you’ll be aboard.”
“That probe is your fuel source, Hindmost, and I—”
“I have refueled Hot Needle of Inquiry, which in any case is still embedded in cooled lava.”
“-and I dare not think what price you would ask for its use. Anyway, you’ll want to move your ‘doc into crew quarters or the lander bay—”
