The Ringworld Throne Read Online Free PDF Page A

look at her. He wouldn’t insult an alien guest. So: Valavirgillin has not spoken.
    She didn’t have time for games. “Point me toward the Thurl.”
    “Give me the cloth.”
    She threw it to him underhand. He snorted in disgust, but he was tying it around his neck. He pointed then, but she’d already seen the shine of the Bull’s armor.
    The Bull looked at the cloth in her hands even as he backed away from the stink. “But why?”
    “You don’t know about vampires?”
    “Stories come to us. Vampires die easily enough, and they don’t think . As for the rest ... should the cloth cover our ears?”
    “Why, Thurl?”
    “So that they cannot sing us to our deaths.”
    “Not sound. Smell!”
    “Smell?”
    Grass Giants weren’t idiots, but ... they’d been unlucky. First somebody has to live through a vampire attack. Even if a child survives, he won’t know why the adults all went away. She, Kay, someone should have raised this subject, no matter the rush.
    “Vampires put out a mating scent, Thurl. Your lust rises and your brain turns off and you go .”
    “The stink of your fuel, it cures the problem? But isn’t there another problem? We hear of you Machine People and your empire of fuel. You persuade other hominid species to make alcohol for your wagons. They learn to drink it. They lose interest in work and play and life itself, anything but the fuel, and they die young.”
    Vala laughed. “Vampire scent does all of that before you can take a hundred breaths.” Still, the Thurl had a point. Do we want crossbowmen drunk while vampires circle the wall?
    “Is fuel better? Try strong herbs?”
    “When can you pick these herbs? I have fuel now, not tomorrow.”
    The Bull turned from her and began bellowing orders. Most of the males were on the wall now, but women began running. Bales of cloth appeared. Women climbed up the wall and along the top to the cruisers. Vala waited with what patience she could muster.
    The Bull roared, “Come!” He entered an earthen building, the second largest.
    It was fabric stretched over the top of a dirt wall and one central pole. Here were tall heaps of dried grass, but other plants too, a thousand scents. The Bull crushed leaves under her nose. She shied back. A different leaf; she sniffed gingerly. Another.
    She said, “Try all of those, but try fuel too. We’ll find out what works best. Why do you store these?”
    The Bull laughed. “Flavoring, these, pepperleek and minch. Woman eats this, makes her milk better. Did you think we eat only grass? Wilted or sour grass needs something for taste.”
    The Bull gathered armfuls of plants and strode out bellowing. She could have heard his roar in Center City, she thought. His voice and the women’s, and presently the scuff of their big feet as they climbed.
    Vala retrieved her fuel bottle and climbed after.
    From the top she watched the big shadows, warriors motionless, women moving among them distributing impregnated towels. Vala intercepted a big, mature woman. “Moonwa?”
    “Valavirgillin. They kill by smell ?”
    “They do. We don’t know what smell protects best. Some men already have alcohol-scented towels. Leave them those, give the Thurl’s plants to the rest. We’ll see.”
    “See who dies, eh?”
    Vala walked on. The alcohol fumes were making her a little giddy. She could handle it, and for that matter her towel was nearly dry.
    This morning Vala had been thinking that Forn was mature enough to practice rishathra, or perhaps to mate straight off. Forn had beaten that prediction. She could hardly be remembering the smell of vampires. She’d recognized the scent of a lover!
    That old scent of lust and death was into Valavirgillin’s nose and nibbling on her brain.
    The Grass Giant warriors were still shadows amid the moving shadows of women. But ... they were fewer.
    The Grass Giant women had noticed, too. Breathy screams of rage and fear; then two, four, ran down the embankment shouting for the Thurl. Another