Larry Niven - The Ringworld Engineers

Fortaralisplyar was dressed in yellow and scarlet robes of what appeared to be vegetable fiber: coarse by Louis’s standards, but grand from a distance. Louis followed him into Orlry, into a large reception area. There was light, but it flickered: scores of alcohol lamps burning near the ceiling.

Eleven City Builder types of both sexes waited for them. They were dressed almost identically, in loose pants with tight cuffs and brightly colored capes. The edges of the capes were cut elaborately and without symmetry. Badges of rank? The white-haired man who came smiling to greet them wore the most elaborately cut cape and a shoulder gun.

He spoke to Fortaralisplyar. “I had to see him for myself, this being who can give us water from machinery five thousand falans dead.”

The handgun in his worn plastic shoulder holster was small, with clean, efficient lines; but even a gun couldn’t make Filistranorlry look warlike. His small features showed happy curiosity as he examined Louis Wu. “He seems unusual enough, but… well. You have paid. We shall see.” He gestured to the soldiers.

They searched Fortaralisplyar, then Louis. They found his flashlight, tested it, gave it back. They puzzled over his translator until Louis said, “That speaks for me.”

Filistranorlry jumped. “So it does! Will you sell that?” He was speaking to Fortaralisplyar, who answered, “It is not mine.”

Louis said, “I would be mute without it.” Orlry’s master seemed to accept this.

The water condenser was a dip in the center of Orlry’s broad roof. The access tubes below were too small for Louis. Even if he took off his armor he wouldn’t fit, and he didn’t intend to do that. “What do you use for repairmen? Mice?”

“Hanging People,” Filistranorlry said. “We must rent their services. Chilb Building was to have sent them by now. Do you see any other problems?”

“Yes.” By now the machinery was familiar enough; Louis had repaired three buildings and failed at a fourth. He could see what ought to be a pair of contacts. He looked for the dust below them, and it wasn’t there. “Were there earlier attempts at repair?”

“I assume so. How would we know, after five thousand falans?”

“We’ll wait for the repairmen. I hope they can follow orders.” Tanj! Somebody long dead had neatened things up by blowing the telltale dust tracks away. But Louis was sure he could get his arms in there…

Filistranorlry asked, “Would you care to see our museum? You’ve bought that right.”

Louis had never been a weapons buff. He recognized some of the principles, if not the forms, behind the killing tools in the glass cases and behind the glass walls. Most of them used projectiles or explosions or both. Some would throw strings of tiny bullets that exploded like small firecrackers in enemy flesh. The few lasers were massive and cumbersome. Once they must have been mounted on tractors or floating platforms, but those had been scavenged for use elsewhere.

A City Builder arrived with half a dozen workmen. The Hanging People stood as high as Louis’s floating ribs. Their heads seemed too large for their bodies; their toes were long and dexterous, and their fingers nearly brushed the floor. “This is probably a waste of time,” one said.

“Do it right and you’ll be paid anyway,” Louis told him. The little man sneered.

They wore armless gowns covered in pockets, the pockets heavy with tools. When the soldiers wanted to search them, they stripped off the gowns and let the soldiers search those. Perhaps they didn’t like to be touched.

So small. Louis whispered to Fortaralisplyar, “Does your species do rishathra with those?”

The City Builder chuckled. “Yes, but carefully.”

The Hanging People clustered around Louis Wu’s shoulders, peering, as he reached into the access tube. He wore the insulated gloves he’d borrowed from Mar Korssil. “These are what the contacts look like. Fasten the cloth strip thus… and thus. You should find six pairs of contacts. There may be a worm track of dust below.”

After they had disappeared around the curve of the access tube, he told the masters of Orlry and Lyar, “We’ll never know it if they make a mistake. I wish we could inspect their work.” But he did not mention his other fear.

The Hanging People presently emerged. They all trooped up onto the roof: workers, soldiers, masters, and Louis Wu. There they watched as mist formed and condensed and water ran toward the center of the dip.

And six Hanging People now knew how to repair water condensers with strips of black cloth.

“I want to buy that black cloth,” Filistranorlry said.

The Hanging People and their City Builder master were already disappearing down the stairwell. Filistranorlry and ten soldiers blocked Louis and Fortaralisplyar from that escape route.

“I don’t intend to sell,” Louis said.

The silver-haired soldier said, “I hope to keep you here until I can persuade you to sell. If pressed, I will insist that you sell the talking box too.”

Louis had half expected this. “Fortaralisplyar, would Orlry Building keep you here by force?”

Lyar’s master looked Orlry’s master in the eye as he said, “No, Louis. The complications would be unpleasant. The lesser buildings would join to free me. The Ten would become the Nine rather than face a boycott on guests.”

Filistranorlry laughed. “The lesser buildings would grow thirsty… ” and his smile vanished as Fortaralisplyar’s grew. Lyar Building now had water to give away.

“You could not hold me. Guests would be pushed from the ramps. The dramas in Chkar and the facilities in Panth would be closed to you—”

“Go, then.”

“I take Louis.”

“You do not.”

Louis said, “Take the money and go. It’ll make things easier for all concerned.” His hand was in his pocket, on the flashlight-laser.

Filistranorlry held out a small bag. Fortaralisplyar took it, counted the contents. He walked through the soldiers and descended the stairway. When he was out of sight, Louis pulled the hood of the impact suit over his head.

“I offer a high price. Twelve -- “ something untranslated. “You would not be cheated,” Filistranorlry was saying. But Louis backed toward the edge of the roof. He saw Filistranorlry signal to the soldiers, and he ran.

The edge of the roof was a chest-high fence: zigzag iron spokes, carved to resemble elbow root. The shadow farm was far below. Louis ran along the fence toward the walkway. The soldiers were close, but Filistranorlry was standing back and firing his pistol. The roar was disconcerting, even terrifying. A slug slammed into Louis’s ankle; the suit went rigid, and he rolled like a tumbled statue, picked himself up, and ran again. As two soldiers threw themselves at him, he swung over the fence and dropped.

Fortaralisplyar was on the walkway. He turned, startled.

Louis landed flat on his face, in an impact suit gone rigid as steel. The form-fitting coffin supported him, but he was still stunned. Hands helped him to his feet before he really wanted to get up. Fortaralisplyar put his shoulder under Louis’s armpit and began walking them away.

“Get away. They might shoot,” Louis gasped.

“They would not dare. Are you hurt? Your nose is bleeding.”

“It was worth it.”

They entered the Library via a small vestibule in the bottom of the cone, the tip.

Behind a wide, massive desk, two librarians worked at reading screens: bulky machines, styled like a cluster of boxes, that used book tapes rolling through a reader. The librarians looked like a priest and priestess in identical blue robes with jaggedly cut collars. It was some minutes before the woman looked up.