by Larry Niven
Five locals were trudging uphill to meet the visitors from below. A raptor-beaked bird circled about them. The Red Herders watched them come, but they couldn’t see anything inside their furs. They carried water bags and more furs.
The water was heated. It tasted wonderful. Warvia and Tegger struggled into furs in frantic haste, pulling them closed until only their noses showed. That and their gasping seemed to amuse the Spill Mountain People.
“Na, na, it’s lovely day!” Saron sang in a nearly impenetrable accent. “You walk in blizzard. Teach you respect mountain!”
They walked around the wood and iron cruiser, paying no attention to the floating plate it rode on.
The five Spill Mountain People looked like barrels sheathed in layers of white– and-gray-striped fur. Saron’s fur was different: striped white and greenish-brown, with a hood that had been some ferocious creature’s head. Her rank must be distinctive, Tegger thought, and decided that Saron was a woman. She was the smallest of the five. Her voice gave no clue and her furs hid all details.
Saron was studying the bronze spinnerweb and its stone backing. She asked, “Is this the eye?”
Warvia said, “Yes. Saron, we don’t know what to do next.”
“We were told Night People would come. Where are they?”
“Sleeping. It isn’t night yet.”
Saron laughed. “My mother told me it was only a way of speaking. They come out at night?”
The Reds nodded.
The bird hovered above them, riding the wind, then suddenly dropped far downslope. It struck talons first, and rose with something struggling in its beak.
Deb asked, “What must the eye see?”
Tegger and Warvia had no idea. This must have been obvious, and Deb answered herself. “The mirror and the passage. Take the eye with us. Does it talk?”
“No.”
“How do you know it sees?”
“Ask Harpster and Grieving Tube.”
Warvia said, “I’m going to cover them. They could freeze to death up here.”
“Good,” Jennawil said, and they carried furs into the payload shell.
Harreed and Barraye were at work dismounting the bronze web and its backing. Tegger had decided they were men. Though they peered out of their hoods in frank astonishment at the Red Herders, they were silent. It seemed the women did all the talking.
Tegger tried to help them. As he scuttled sideways carrying one edge of the stone-backed web, he found himself gasping, suffocating. Deb and Jennawil moved in to help. Tegger got out of their way, fighting for breath.
“You’re feeble,” Saron decided.
Tegger tried to quiet his gasping. “We can walk.”
“Your lungs don’t find enough air. You will be stronger tomorrow. Today you must rest.”
The four picked up the web and began to climb, angling downhill, toward the snow-roofed houses. Saron walked ahead to point out footholds to Warvia and Tegger, ready to steady them if they slipped.
The bird dropped onto the leather pad that crossed Deb’s shoulders. Deb staggered and swore at it in some alien language, and it rose again.
Spill Mountain People seemed incredibly surefooted.
Tegger and Warvia walked with their arms around each other, trying to stay upright. They’d been in motion too long. The mountain seemed to sway beneath them. The wind searched out every tiniest gap in their furs. Tegger peeped out of his hood through slitted eyes, blinking away tears.
He had some of his breath back. He asked Deb, “That was your own tongue, yes? How did you learn the trade speech?”
Deb’s vowels and consonants were distorted. He had to catch the sense above the shrilling of the wind. “Night People say, tell you everything. But you, you tell the flatland vishnishtee nothing. Keep our secrets. Yes?”
Tegger didn’t know the word, but Warvia caught it. She told him, “Vashnesht,” enunciating it properly, and told the others, “Yes.”
Vashnesht: protectors. Keep secrets from the protectors from below the spill mountains. “Yes,” said Tegger.
Deb said, “Teela came from below, from the flats. A strange person, all knobs, could not resh. You understand, reshtra? Could not. Nothing there. She let us look.
“She taught us to speak. We knew the speech of the mirrors, but we spoke it wrong. Teela taught us, then told us teach the people who ride the balloons.
“Then she went through the passage. Came back seventy falans later, no change in her. We thought she was a vishnishtee, but now we knew.”
They were passing houses now: rectilinear houses made of wood that must have been imported from the forest below. They’d picked up an entourage of curious children: eyes peeking out from fur hoods, and chattering that came in puffs of fog. Warvia was trying to answer them.
Tegger asked, “May we speak to this Teela?”
“Teela went below again, since forty falans or more,” Deb said.
“More,” Saron said flatly.
Jennawil asked, “What do you know of reshtra?”
Tegger looked at Warvia. Warvia temporized. “How can you know of rishathra? Do you have other visitors from below?”
The locals laughed, even the men. Deb said, “Not from below, but from sideways! Folk visit from nearby mountains—”
“But they’re all Spill Mountain People, aren’t they?”
“Wairbeea, the people of the mountains are not all one kind. We are High Point. Saron—”
Here, a door. Tegger eased Warvia in ahead of him. The bird settled on Deb’s shoulder as she entered.
This narrow space was not the house proper, only a tiny anteroom supported by wooden beams and lines with hooks for furs. Doors at the far end opened opposite each other.
Now the furs started to come off. The two species stared at one another, fiercely curious.
High Point People were broad through the torso, broad across the face, with wide mouths and deep-set eyes. Their hair and—on the men—beards were curly and dark. Beneath their furs was cloth enclosing their torsos to the elbows and knees, and below the cuffs, a good deal of curly hair.
Deb was a strong woman in middle age. The bird, Skreepu, belonged to Deb. So did the identical-looking young men, Harreed and Barraye: they were her sons. Jennawil was a young woman mated to Barraye.
And Saron was a woman, deep of voice, old and deeply wrinkled. Something about her jaw, her hands: Warvia asked, “Are you of High Point?”
“No, from Two Peaks. A balloon carried us to High Point, far past Short One, where we wanted to visit. The wind blows wrong here. We could not return. The rest flew on, exploring, but I found my man Makray persuasive. He cannot have more children, I have had mine, why not?”
While Deb removed her fur and hung it, Skreepu clung to the leather patch. When Saron led the rest into the main house, the great bird lifted and followed them.
The ceiling was high. Furniture was minimal. There was a high perch for the bird, two low tables, no chairs. This was half of the visitors’ house, divided from the other half by the long anteroom. Tegger wondered if he would meet whatever visitors were living on the other side.
The men propped the bronze web against the wall. Then the High Pointers settled cross-legged in a circle that left space for their visitors.
“This is your place, the visitors’ house,” Saron said. “It is warm enough for most who come, but you may want to sleep in fur.”
Jennawil waved about her. “We are High Point. Next spinward call themselves Eagle Folk. Noses like beaks. They’re smaller than we are and not as strong, but their balloons are best we have seen, and they sell balloons to other folk. We can get children with them, but so rarely that we resh with little risk.
“To antispin are Ice People. They live higher and the cold hurts them less. Mazarestch got a boy by an Ice People man. The way she tells it, their exertion moved mountain. The boy Jarth can forage higher than any of his peers.
“Visitors come from far spin and antispin. We welcome th
em all and resh with them, too, but we get no children together. They tell us it is the same for them. Reshtra is for different kinds, mating is between two of a kind. Folk of near mountains can mate, those from too far cannot. Teela told us that our foreparents must have traveled from mountain to mountain, changing as we went.
“And you?”
Warvia was laughing too hard to speak, less amused than embarrassed, Tegger thought. He tried to put an answer together. “On the flat land travel is easy. We have all species mixed. We see every possible way of rishathra. We Red Herders travel with the animals we tend, for all of our lives. We cannot rish. We only mate once.”
He could not tell how they were reacting to that: their faces were too unfamiliar. He said, “But some kinds rish for pleasure, some for trade contracts or to end a war or to postpone a child. We hear of Weed Gatherers, near mindless, who rish very nicely, convenient for ones who won’t take the time to—to court. Water People will rish with anyone who can hold his or her breath for long enough, but few there are—”
“Water People?”
“Live under liquid water, Barraye. I guess you don’t have many of those.”
Laughter. Jennawil asked Warvia, “You don’t rish, but only you listen?”
“What else is there for my kind when visitors come? But you’ll want to speak to the Night People when they wake.”
Tegger saw Jennawil trying to keep a straight face.
“Please understand,” Saron said, “we have only resh with species from near mountains. Spill mountain species, all of us, all very like each other even if we cannot get children. You …” She searched for words and found none.
A bit strange? Very queer? Demons from below? Before the silence could grow yet less comfortable, Warvia said, “We hear that protectors can pierce any secret. How can you hope to hide anything?”
“From flatland vishnishtee,” Deb said.
Saron explained. “Vishnishtee are a danger. Teela told us so, the Night People tell us, and the legends tell us, too. But the passage belongs to High Point. The passage is of interest to vishnishtee. The passage pierces the rim wall. They can go out of the world through the passage if they wear their balloon suits and helms with windows. The Night People don’t like to draw attention from vishnishtee.”
“You have protectors here?”
It seemed clear that Saron was speaking for the bronze web as well as Tegger and Warvia. “Three flatland vishnishtee rule the passage. More: they have taken some of us away, older ones, and some of those come back to us as vishnishtee.
“When the Death Light shone, the flatland vishnishtee showed us how to hide. Sod or rock is enough to stop the light that shines through fur and flesh, but better was to hide in the passage itself. Makray was hunting when the Death Light shone,” Saron said. “Half a day from shelter, and no vishnishtee to tell him he wanted it.”
Deb said, “Many of us went to hunt, or were caught out. One of every three died. Odd and feeble children were born after. All the mountains about tell the same tale, and only we and the mountains nearby had vishnishtee to give warning. Flatland vishnishtee are not wholly evil.”
Tegger asked, “Death Light?”
But none of the High Pointers chose to hear, and Tegger didn’t ask again. Saron said, “High Point vishnishtee serve the flatland vishnishtee to keep us safe. But they will not tell the flatland vishnishtee where we have the mirror, and those will not learn of themselves. They are good at knowing secrets, but the mountains are not theirs.”
Warvia sighed. “The Night People will be very glad of your answers. We’ve traveled vastly to find them. No doubt they’ll have better questions.”
“And Louis Wu,” Deb said. “Or is he only a tale?”
“Where did you hear it?”
“From message mirrors and from Teela.”
Tegger said, “Louis Wu boiled an ocean. The City Builder Halrloprillalar traded and rished with him. Louis Wu is real, but is he on the other side of that spinnerweb? Deb, I need sleep.”
Warvia said, “Yes!”
Jennawil expressed the others’ surprise. “It is the middle of the day.”
“We worked through the night. Breathing is labor,” Warvia said.
“Let them sleep now,” Saron ordered. “We go. Teegr, Wairbeea, will you wake when the Night People do?”
Tegger could hardly keep his thoughts together or his eyes apart. “We may hope.”
“Food behind that door. Flup, we forgot! What do you eat?”
“Freshly killed meat,” Warvia said.
“Behind those little doors—no, never mind. Skreepu will find you something. Sleep well.” The High Point People filed out.
***
They had to look behind the little doors, and that let half the heat out of the house. Opening the little doors revealed food—visitor food, plants and old meat, not Red Herder food—and snowscape seen through wooden slats. Bars to keep away predators, and the great outside to keep food cold.
Warvia and Tegger curled together, fur beneath them, fur above. They’d set their clothes aside to air. They were warm enough, but Tegger could feel the cold at his nose. He could hear knocking behind the wall as the High Pointers donned their furs.
He was near sleep when Warvia said, “Whisper would have better questions.”
He said, “Whisper was only my madness.”
“Mine, too. Whisper taught me things—”
“What?”
Warvia whispered in his ear. “She was with us on the air sled, beneath the cruiser. She taught me about speed so that our speed would not drive me mad. She keeps herself a secret, Tegger. I don’t want the web to hear us.”
They’d propped the web upright against a wall. Tegger looked at the web, propped against a wall with a view of the whole room, and laughed. “If the web is no more than a slice of stone—”
“We will all seem great fools.”
“What does Whisper look like?”
“I never saw. Perhaps a wayspirit with no body at all.”
“What did she teach? No, don’t tell me now. We should sleep.”
“Why did you say we cannot rish? Was it the way they look?”
“No. They’re no stranger than Sand People. My mind saw me in Jennawil’s arms, gasping like a beached fish—”
Warvia laughed deliciously against his ear.
“Then I remembered that they talk with—talk for–the Ghoul empire. We would be famous. Did you want to settle somewhere, someday, where no Red Herder has heard of Red Herders who rish with every species under the Arch?”
“We never did that!”
“Tales grow in the telling. They are mighty tellers, the Ghoul empire, and these Spill Mountain People speak their words for them, and you and I destroyed the biggest nest of vampires beneath the Arch.”
“Yes.”
“You were thinking—”
“They are new to this. They have only rished with peoples very like them. Love, would you like to teach rishathra, if only once?”
They slept.
Chapter 27
Lovecraft
The probe tilted over and rose at ten gravities straight up, closing on the rim wall. The blue highlight converged, then went out. The probe coasted, rising.
The Ringworld’s edge was narrow. The probe rose a few hundred feet higher, and arced over. A puff of fusion flame halted its fall and set it drifting toward the shadowed back of a black wall that seemed to reach to the heavens.
It slowed. Hovered. The probe spat.
A window popped up to overlay the others. It showed the probe hovering on indigo flame; then the probe dropped away and it showed only starlight.
The Hindmost said, “I give you a webeye window beyond the rim wall.”
“We need a view from the underside. Get us that,” Bram commanded.
“Aye aye.” But the Hindmost was doing nothing.
“Hindmost!”
“The probe already has my instructions. Motors off. Rotate
. I want a view.”
The probe was turning as it fell. The view turned: black rim wall, sunglare, starscape … a silver thread was shining against the star-spattered black below the falling probe.
“That!” Louis said. “See it? You need a burn or we’ll hit it.”
“Burn, aye aye.” A burst of woodwinds, then, “What is it?”
“Not a spaceport ledge, it’s too narrow.”
They waited through the lightspeed delay. The silver thread was growing larger, clearer. Now it seemed banded, like a silver earthworm. Eleven minutes …
The probe’s spin stopped. Window displays tremored: the probe was thrusting, flaring in X-ray light.
Nova light blasted through the hologram window.
Louis, with his arms thrown over his eyes, heard music from hell, then a voice that had lost all human traits. “My fuel source is destroyed!”
Bram’s voice was cool. “My concern is for the enemy that fired on us.”
“We are challenged! Arm me and send me through!” A bestial bellow, all madness. Acolyte’s idea of a distraction? Or are we locked in with a mad Kzin?
“Let me through to my cabin,” the Hindmost pleaded. “I must see what is still working.”
“What could be working? Your probe is destroyed and we are attacked, we are known. Could an invader react so quickly, or was that a protector?”
“The stepping disk at least should be safe.”
Louis opened his eyes. “Why?”
“I’m not a fool!” the Hindmost bleated. “I opened a stepping disk link as we crossed the rim. A plasma blast, kinetic weapons, any threat should go straight through.”
“Straight through to what?” Louis blinked. He was still seeing spots.
“I linked it to the stepping disk at the map of Mons Olympus.”
Louis laughed. It was probably too much to hope for, that a thousand Martians were setting a new trap when the stepping disk sprayed star-hot plasma over them, but heyyy …
Big claws closed on his shoulders; warm red meat breathed in his face. “We are at war, Louis Wu! This is not a time for distractions!”
