An ancient road half covered with sand rose to the axis of the platform. Three arms splayed out from the center section at 120-degree angles. The arms were wedge-shaped platforms that floated unsupported.
The center section was a forest of mooring posts, metal rails, pulleys, and ropes. The roofed buildings on this structure looked like afterthoughts. They were empty and sandblasted by time: warehouses, a banquet hall, an inn. Running through the axis was a deep well with clean water at the bottom.
On one of the wide paths between buildings, the Sand People had laid out their dead. It looked as if they had been doing that for generations. There were hundreds of skeletons. A double handful at the hub end were more mummy than bone. A few were more recent yet.
“Just as Karker said,” said Sabarokaresh. “Warvia, did Karker tell you…?”
Warvia said, “Karker told me how to find a shrieker village. Sand People don’t eat shriekers, but I told him we could.”
“You were guessing?”
“Well, what choice? Antispin of the funeral place…” Warvia waved to antispin, and then looked again. Not thirty paces paces [sic-should be a single “paces”] away, the smooth plains became a jumble of mounds. It looked like a crumbling city in miniature.
“We won’t wake the Ghouls,” Sabarokaresh decided. “Let them wake and follow their noses.”
So they set their wagon on the cemetery heights, not too close to the array of corpses, and went out to look over the shrieker village.
It was not the strangest thing Warvia had seen, yet it was strange enough.
Here on the flat plain were hundreds of squared-off mounds. It looked like a half-melted city as built by people a foot high. Every mound had a door in it. Every door faced out from the center of the city.
When the vampire killers walked toward the mounds, an army poured out of the holes and took up station.
The shriekers were of a size to make a day’s meal, Warvia thought. Their faces were blunt. They came out on all fours, then stood upright to display outsize claws intended more for digging than fighting, and shrieked. The high pitch hurt Warvia’s ears.
“Sticks,” Forn suggested.
Tegger waved it off. “If we just wade in and start clubbing them, they’ll swarm us. There’s a forest of ropes where we left the wagon. Didn’t I see a net there?”
The guard took station again to defend their city. Barok and Tegger threw the net. It was of strong, coarse weave, intended to lift cargo. Most of the guard crawled out and attacked. The Reds and Machine People ran then, pulling the net behind them, and paused to flip it over, to trap the few remaining guards. The other shriekers stopped, shrieked at the invaders, and returned to their stations.
Four big ones remained caught.
The Reds had eaten, and the Machine People were cooking their catch, before shadow crossed the sun. The Night People emerged, looked about them, and followed their noses. Warvia and Tegger crawled into the payload shell to sleep.
“Mummified, most of them,” Harpster told them at the following halfdawn. “Too far gone even to carry as hardship rations. Most of them died old. Sand People seem to lead a good, healthy life. Never mind, there was a…”
“Herder,” Grieving Tube finished for him. “Killed by his own beasts, I expect. We rarely starve.”
“Good,” Warvia said.
The sliver of sun was already too bright for the Night People. They sat under an awning while the others soaked up sunlight and waited for the morning to warm.
“We asked the Sand People about this place,” Foranayeedli said. “They grow up in its shadow, but they know nothing of it except as a burial place.”
“It’s much more,” Harpster said. “Our need now is to mount the cruiser and moor it tight. We’ll need food for five days for all four of you—”
Sabarokaresh said, “We leave you here.”
Warvia and Tegger had known this was coming. Warvia said, “We thank you for staying so long. We would have looked peculiar, Red Herders driving a Machine People cruiser. Have your plans changed?”
“We return to port at our own pace. We’ll buy our passage with stories and lore. We’ll teach the tribes we pass among to make fuel.” Barok squeezed his daughter’s arm. “When finally we reach Machine People again, we’ll have enough of bounties to make Forn a dowry.”
“For the lessons also, thank you,” Tegger said carefully.
The girl favored him with a lecherous smile. “You were easy to teach!” She glanced at her father. “Oh, there were things we never yet spoke of—”
“Courting,” Barok said.
“Yes. Remember how to court,” Foranayeedli said. “Most hominids have courting rituals. Don’t try to guess what they are. Stick to your own. It keeps you comfortable, keeps them amused. Can you remember courting?”
Warvia said, “A little.”
Tegger said, “We court briefly and negotiate first. I suppose other hominids consider us shy or cold.”
“Hmm, yes—”
Grieving Tube said firmly, “Time runs short. We must mount the wagon. Barok, Forn, you’ll help before you leave?”
“We will. We’ve found livestock, too. What do you intend?”
“The wagon must sit solidly on the vehicle at the end of the starboard platform.”
“Is that a vehicle?”
It was one of three long floating platforms. Tegger might have taken it for a covered dance floor, tournament field, shooting range… The roof was transparent. The floor was flat, and five times as big as the cruiser’s wheelbase. Sturdy aluminum loops as big as his torso were recessed into the floor.
They centered the cruiser on the platform. Harpster and Grieving Tube supervised from under the awning while the rest threaded rope through aluminum loops and over and around the iron payload shell. They used pulleys to put tension on the ropes, until it seemed no force beneath the Arch would cause the wagon to shift.
They were done by midday. Barok and Forn began to gear up for their own journey.
“You’ll need food,” Tegger said. “Shall we smoke some shriekers?”
“Good. And I noticed something,” Barok said. He led them to his find: a shallow tray three manheights long by two wide, with lines trailing from holes at the corners. He lifted it effortlessly.
Warvia grinned. “Brilliant! You can tow it!”
“Yes. But first…”
The shrieker guard emerged to form rank.
First, the nets. They scooped up most of the guard, twisted the net and threw it aside.
Then the four dipped the edge of their tray into the loose sandy dirt and pushed and wiggled and pushed until the tray slid in and under. When they pulled at the ropes, the corners of the tray came up. They had a section of shrieker city on a tray.
The guard had been working their way free. What they saw maddened them. A swarm of them dug straight into the section of city on the tray, frantic lest it escape. The rest formed a crescent and screamed.
Lifting it took all the strength of all four, but they only had to carry it thirty paces. Then ropes and pulleys lifted it to the cemetery heights, and sliding posts on rails took it the rest of the way. They set it down aft of the cruiser, and slid the tray out from under the dirt.
Four shriekers still struggling in the net were pulled loose, killed, cleaned, and smoked over wood Barok pulled from a collapsed building. The Machine People drank as they worked, as much water as their bellies could carry. They left before halfnight.
Warvia and Tegger talked to the Night People while they inspected the work.
“Truly, we thought you, too, would leave us before now,” Harpster said. He was looking to spinward of port, where Foranayeedli and Sabarokaresh were tiny shadows.