The Ringworld Throne

“How far are you going?” Tegger asked.

“Oh, easily farther than the rumors you’re fleeing.” Harpster grinned.

Grieving Tube strode around the bulk of the wagon. “Is this Barok’s work? He did well. Tegger, Warvia, we’re going as far as the rim wall. We can drop you off at the next stop if you like, or you can come along and then leave us coming back.”

Tegger laughed incredulously. “You’ll be dead of old age before you get to the rim wall!”

“Next stop, then,” Harpster said agreeably.

Grieving Tube chitter-whistled angrily. Harpster laughed and chittered back, whistling ribald-sounding comments through his teeth.

“Grieving Tube wants you,” he told the Red Herders. “She thinks we should travel with people who can look daylight in the face.”

“We only need to be outside Machine People turf,” Tegger said.

“Leave us when you like. But think! It’s serious work we’re doing. We’re going up the spill mountains and farther yet. No Red Herder has ever done anything so big. You’ll have so much to tell when you finally settle that you’ll never remember to speak of rishathra.”

The desert slid smoothly past. Warvia asked, “What are we riding?”

“It’s a Builder thing. I’ve only heard about them. None of the Night People would use an air sled unless the need was dire, but we have permission and directions.”

“How fast does it go?” The landscape was moving faster yet. The receding dockyard had become a dot. A sound was rising, as of wind heard through a sturdy stone wall.

“Fast. We’ll be below the spill mountains in five days.”

“No.”

“So I was told. But the first stop is only three days away.”

“I’m frightened.” Watching the world zip past was beginning to hurt Warvia’s eyes.

“Warvia, there are lines under the land. In drawings they took like a honeycomb, and they lift and move Builder things. We can only stop where the lines come together.”

“Three days,” Grieving Tube repeated.

Far across the desert, a caravan of hominids and beasts popped up and was gone so quickly that Warvia couldn’t even identify the species. The air sled was still accelerating.

The payload shell smelled of Ghouls. It hummed. Warvia huddled against Tegger in the dark and didn’t speak of what was happening outside. They mated with an intensity backed by fear, and for that time Warvia entirely forgot where she was. But then the whisper of motion was back, and Tegger’s voice in the darkness to drown it out.

“What was Karker like?”

“Strong. Strange to hold: strangely shaped.”

“Down here…?”

“No, not here. His body was broad, shoulders and belly and hips. I think every man is alike here. And he was very eager to talk, to try his skill at trade language.”

“You only talked?”

Warvia giggled. “We rished. It was his first time. Imagine, Tegger! I was his teacher!”

“Did you tell him—”

“Of course. The only Red Herder woman who ever engaged in rishathra, and all his for the night. He loved it. Who were you with?”

“Hen-no, Hansheerv. I made sure I got her name right. She was the tall one, almost my size?” Warvia laughed at that, and he said, “The old leader’s widow, though she’s about my age. Of course we couldn’t talk. We tried to rish in the dark, but we couldn’t gesture that way, so we went outside and did it by Archlight.”

“I wonder if the Night People were watching.”

“I wondered, too,” Tegger said. And then the whisper of uncanny speed was in their ears and souls.

They dozed. When each knew that the other couldn’t sleep, they mated again. And tried to sleep again. When the outline of the door was a white glow, Warvia asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes. Are you going out?

“No.”

The door opened on halfdawn light. The Ghouls shambled in. The door closed. “We’re moving well along,” Harpster said, and Tegger heard relief and fatigue in his voice. “Warvia, Tegger, are you all right?”

“Scared,” Warvia said.

Tegger asked, “Shouldn’t someone be steering?”

Grieving Tube said, “The air sled rides lines buried in the scrith. We can’t get lost.”

Tegger said, “If the air sled went astray, it would kill us so fast that we’d barely know it.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“How do you know?”

Harpster growled. Grieving Tube said, “Let us sleep.”

Since they’d left the vampires behind, the Night People had been sleeping in the payload shell. The smell was rich. Warvia huddled against her mate and tried not to think of the smell of Ghouls, or her hunger, or the vibration in the iron around her.

She uncurled and stood up. “I’m going to hunt up a meal. Shall I bring you back something?”

“Yes.”

They had left the eternal clouds far behind. The day was ablaze. The land streamed past, pulling Warvia’s eyes with it. Warvia dropped from the cruiser and loped over to the piled sand, keeping her gaze always toward her feet.

No shrieker guards came.

Warvia found an entrance hole and tickled it with a stick. A fat shrieker popped out and screamed at her. She snatched it, broke its neck and ate voraciously.

She couldn’t keep from looking. The land had become a vast forest. The tops of huge trees were all far below, all converging and disappearing behind the sky sled. The motion threw her balance off, making her dizzy.

She made herself circle the cargo tray and tickle another opening. When a defender appeared, she snatched it and wrapped it in her skirt.

She was stepping onto the running board when she heard a voice speak her name.

The shrieker fell and scampered free. Warvia jumped straight backward, her spear poised to kill. That wasn’t Tegger, and the Ghouls were fast asleep…

The deck was clear. Whatever had spoken must be aboard the cruiser.

Or under it? The space under there was black. Warvia adjusted her stance, a bit farther from the cruiser. Had she imagined…?

“Show yourself!”

“Warvia, I dare not. It’s Whisper.”

Whisper? “Tegger called you a wayspirit. He thought he imagined you.”

The voice said, “I will not speak to Tegger again. Warvia, I hope you will not babble of me to Tegger nor to the Night People. I could be killed and the Arch itself may fall if anyone takes notice of me.”

“Yes, my mate said you were secretive. Whisper? Why tell me?”

“May we talk a little?”

“I’d rather be inside.”

“I know. Warvia, we’re traveling at just under the speed of sound. That’s not very fast at all. When an object strikes the world from outside, it moves three hundred times as fast, with ninety thousand times the energy.”

“Really.” The thought was shattering. But why? Had she thought the speed of sound was instantaneous?

“Light travels much faster than sound. You’ve seen that yourself Lightning, then thunder,” the voice said.