Bram’s temper was under tight control. “You were needed. I feared the probe would pass before you returned. Can you see why that might be a concern?”
“Not… yes.”
Then Louis saw, too. Three bright silver squares: three of the oversized cargo plates. One was bare; one was loaded with cargo, hard to see for what it was. The third, a brown square with a bright rim: the Machine People cruiser still riding its cargo plate. It was tethered at the upper dock next to a naked rock cliff painted bright orange, and two patches of yellow and orange and cobalt blue: deflated balloons.
“That was a quick ride,” Louis said.
Daylight swept upon them at 770 miles per second. The view flashed bright, then dimmed to truer colors.
Acolyte reminded them: “They have their own webeye.”
The Hindmost popped up a window next to the probe’s-four now. They were now seeing through the bow of the cruiser.
Here were Red Herders muffled in lovely furs striped gray and white. Louis only glimpsed red hands in long loose sleeves, flat noses and dark eyes deep within hoods, but who else could they be? The Fearless Vampire Slayers. Several larger furry shapes must be Spill Mountain People. Their hands were broad, with thick, stubby fingers. Glimpses of faces inside hoods were silver-gray, like the hands.
They panted out puffs of frost as they worked. Red hands and brown hands gripped the fuzzy edges of the window, and the view wobbled.
The Hindmost said, “The probe will be well past before we can slow. Shall I bring it back for another view?”
Bram said, “Why? We have our view. Hindmost, we’re closing on the near end of the rim wall transport rail, and possible witnesses. Take the probe over the rim when you can.”
“Aye aye. Twelve minutes.”
The probe was in full daylight now, leaving the village far aft. The dismounted webeye was in jerky motion, carried along footholds and handholds chopped in stone. Windows overlaid on windows.
Bram asked, “Where have you been?”
Louis answered. “The time to check a pressure suit—”
“Yes. Report.”
“—is before you’re breathing vacuum—”
“You used a checklist. I use my mind.”
“And your first mistake will be memorable.”
“Report.”
“I can’t speak for a puppeteer’s suit. Ours will keep us alive for two falans. We refilled and recharged everything fillable and chargeable. The Hindmost still has six stepping disks not in use, and we can recycle some of what we’re using now. We can put webeyes anywhere. There aren’t any weapons in the lander bay. I assume you’ve stored them somewhere. You decide what you want us to be carrying. We couldn’t think of anything else to check.”
Bram said nothing.
Hidden Patriarch’s crow’s nest showed no change, and the Hindmost whistle-bonged that window off. The refueling probe ran along a rim wall touched with violet. The next window over rolled wobbling along a path that had become more than a rock climb, downhill toward rectangular patches of snow.
The Hindmost said, “You were dying.”
“Did you see… never mind,” Louis said. “Show me that medical report.”
The puppeteer chimed. Louis Wu’s medical record partly blocked both windows. “There, it’s in Interspeak.”
Chemical… major restructure… diverticulosis… tanj. “You can get used to what age does to you, Hindmost. Old people used to say, ‘If you can wake up in the morning with nothing hurting anywhere, it’s a sign that you have died in the night.’”
“Not funny.”
“But even an idiot might guess something’s wrong when he starts pissing gas with his urine.”
“I would have thought it rude to observe you at such a time.”
“I am much relieved. Even so, would you have noticed?” Louis read further. “Diverticulosis, that’s little blowout patches on your colon-my colon. Diverticuli [sic-should be “Diverticula”] can hurt you lots of ways. Mine seems to have extended far enough to attach itself to my bladder. Then it got infected and blew through. That left a tube connecting my colon and my bladder. A fistula.”
“What did you think?”
“I had the medkit. It was giving me antibiotics. For a couple of days I hoped… well, bacteria can get into a human bladder and make gas, but antibiotics would have cleared that up. So I knew I needed a plumber.”
Acolyte didn’t usually stare directly into anyone’s eyes, but he did now. His ears were folded out of sight. “You were dying? Dying when you refused the Hindmost’s offers?”
“Yes. Hindmost, if you’d known, would you have accepted my contract?”
“Not a serious question. Louis, I’m expressing admiration. You are a scary negotiator.”
“Thank you.”
Bram said, “Please restore our view from the probe… Thank you. In six minutes we’ll move up the rim wall and cross to the outside. I trust we won’t lose the signal, Hindmost?”
“Scrith stops a percentage of neutrinos. Implied is some kind of nuclear reaction ongoing in the Ringworld floor, but the signal will dwindle predictably and I can compensate.”
Bram said, “Good. Is my suit in order?”
“It’s my spare, after all,” Louis said. “Take whichever suit feels lucky to you. I’ll take the other.”
The probe was slowing, slowing.
“Now?”
“Now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX — THE DOCKYARD
The cruiser and its cargo plate rose through the night. Warvia and Tegger clung to each other in the payload shell. Fear of heights was a terrible thing. They both shrieked when they felt the bump, then laughed because they were still alive.
Leaving the protection of the payload shell was an ordeal. They gasped and shivered in the thin, cold air. The sun was just peeping around a shadow square.
The Ghouls blinked in the growing daylight and crawled into the payload shell to sleep.
Harpster had brought them down at the higher of two orange-splashed cliffs, alongside another floating plate and three baskets attached to collapsed balloons.
The village was stirring. Downslope and to the sides, furred shapes moved out from snow-roofed houses to forage in the tilted lands beyond.
Even to a nomad like Tegger, this wasn’t a large village. Then again, it was nearly invisible. The roofs were rectangles of snow on a snowfield; you picked them out by their shadows.
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?”