The Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven Read Free Book Online Page A

wood?
    “What can I do for you?” Moonwa asked.
    “We’ve come to keep vigil with you.”
    “The battle cost you too much. No Ghouls come on the first night. Rest.”
    Vala said, “But it was my idea, after all.”
    “Thurl’s idea,” Moonwa informed her.
    Vala nodded and carefully didn’t smile. It was a social convention, as in Louis Wu helped the Thurl boil a sea . She waved toward the little hominids. “Who are these?”
    Moonwa called, “Perilack, Silack, Manack, Coriack—“ Four small heads lifted. “—these are more allies: Kaywerbrimmis, Valavirgillin, Whandernothtee.”
    The Gleaners smiled and bobbed their heads, but they didn’t come up at once. They moved off to where Grass Giants were carefully stripping their sheets off inside out, well away from the dead and the tent, then picking up scythes and crossbows. The Gleaners stripped off their contaminated sheets, then hung slender swords behind their backs.
    Beedj approached, sheetless and armed. “Towels under the tent. We rubbed minch on them,” he said. “Welcome to all.”
    Gleaners stood armpit-high to Machine People, navel-high to Beedj and Moonwa. Their faces were hairless and pointed; their smiles were wide and toothy, a bit much. They wore tunics of cured smeerpskin with the beige fur left on, lavishly decorated with feathers. On the women, Perilack and Coriack, the feather patterns formed smallish wings. The women had to walk with some care to protect them. Manack and Silack looked much like the women. Their clothing showed greater differences; feathered, but with arms free to swing. Or fight.
    Rain spattered down, just enough to send the Machine People into the tent. Vala saw grass piled thickly on the floor. Grass for bedding and to feed the Grass Giants. She stopped her companions until they had taken off their sandals.
    Already it was dark enough that Vala could barely see faces. Rishathra was best begun in the night.
    But not on a battlefield.
    “This is a bad business,” Perilack said.
    Whandernothtee asked, “How many have you lost?”
    “Nearly two hundred by now.”
    “We were only ten. Four are gone. Sopashintay and Chitakumishad we left on guard above us with the cannon. Barok is recovering from a night in hell.”
    “Our queen’s man went with the Thurl’s woman to bring other hominids to bargain. If the—“ The little woman’s eyes flickered about her. “—lords of the night do not speak, other voices will join ours tomorrow.”
    Legend told that the Ghouls heard any word spoken of them, unless—some said—during broad daylight. The Ghouls might be all about them even now.
    Kay asked, “Would your queen’s man truly rish with his traveling companions?”
    The four Gleaners tittered. Beedj and Moonwa boomed their laughter. A little woman—Perilack—said to Kay, “If the Grass Giant women would notice. Size matters. But you, you and we might make something happen.”
    Perilack and Kaywerbrimmis looked at each other as if both taken by the same notion. The little woman took Kay’s elbow; Kay’s arm brushed the Gleaner’s feathers. He suggested, “I expect you accumulate these faster than you can use them?”
    She said, “No, the skins spoil quickly. We can trade a few, not many.”
    “What if we could find a way to delay the spoilage?”
    From time to time Valavirgillin would catch a foul whiff of battlefield stench and snort it out. But the smells weren’t reaching Kaywerbrimmis. Not him! Kay was into trader mode. His mind was in a place where win and lose were a matter of numbers, where discomfort was an embarrassment one could not afford, where an empire survived because one hominid’s trash was another’s ore bed.
    Full night had fallen. But by the faint flash of an arc of daylit Arch, she saw Beedj’s broad grin. She asked the Grass Giant, “Have you watched bargaining sessions?”
    “Some. Louis Wu came when I was a child, but agreements were all between him and the old Thurl. The Reds made