Ringworld - Larry Niven Page 0,87
priest looked very like the wire-portrait in the banquet hall.
“My blood is of no concern to you,” Louis said, shelving the problem. “We are on our way to the rim of the world. What can you tell us about our route?”
The priest was transparently puzzled. “You ask information from me? You, an Engineer?”
“I’m not an Engineer.” Louis held his hand ready to activate the sonic fold.
But the priest only looked more bewildered. “Then why are you half-hairless? How do you fly? Have you stolen secrets from Heaven? What do you want here? Have you come to steal my congregation?”
The last question seemed the important one. “We’re on our way to the rim. All we need here is information.”
“Surely your answers are in Heaven.”
“Don’t be flippant with me,” Louis said evenly.
“But you came directly from Heaven! I saw you!”
“Oh, the castle! We’ve gone through the castle, but it didn’t tell us much. For instance, were the Engineers really hairless?”
“I have sometimes thought that they only shave, as I do. Yet your own chin seems naturally hairless.”
“I depilate.” Louis looked about him, at the sea of reverent golden flower-faces. “What do they believe? They don’t seem to share your doubts.”
“They see us talking as equals, in the language of the Engineers. I would have this continue, if it please you.” Now the priest’s manner seemed conspiratorial rather than hostile.
“Would that improve your standing with them? I suppose it would,” said Louis. The priest really had feared to lose his congregation—as any priest might, if his god came to life and tried to take over. “Can’t they understand us?”
“Perhaps one word in ten.”
At this point Louis had cause to regret the efficiency of his translator disc. He could not tell if the priest was speaking the language of Zignamuclickclick. Knowing that, knowing how far the two languages had diverged since the breakdown in communications, he might have been able to date the fall of civilization.
“What was this castle called Heaven?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“The legends speak of Zrillir,” said the priest, “and of how he ruled all the lands under Heaven. On this pedestal stood Zrillir’s statue, which was life-sized. The lands supplied Heaven with delicacies which I could name if you like, as we learn their names by rote; but in these days they do not grow. Shall I—?”
“No thanks. What happened?”
A singsong quality had crept into the man’s voice. He must have heard this tale many times, and told it many times…
“Heaven was made when the Engineers made the world and the Arch. He who rules Heaven rules the land from edge to edge. So Zrillir ruled, for many lifetimes, throwing sunfire from Heaven when he was displeased. Then it was suspected that Zrillir could no longer throw sunfire.
“The people no longer obeyed him. They did not send food. They pulled down the statue. When Zrillir’s angels dropped rocks from the heights, the people dodged and laughed.
“There came a day when the people tried to take Heaven by way of the rising stairway. But Zrillir caused the stairway to fall. Then his angels left Heaven in flying cars.
“Later it was regretted that we had lost Zrillir. The sky was always overcast; crops grew stunted. We have prayed for Zrillir’s return—”
“How accurate is all this, do you think?”
“I would have denied it all until this morning, when you came flying down from Heaven. You make me terribly uneasy, O Engineer. Perhaps Zrillir does indeed intend to return, and sends his bastard ahead to clear the way of false priests.”
“I could shave my scalp. Would that help?”
“No. Never mind; ask your questions.”
“What can you tell me about the fall of Ringworld civilization?”
The priest looked still more uneasy. “Is civilization about to fall?”
Louis sighed and—for the first time—turned to consider the altar.
The altar occupied the center of the pedestal on which they stood. It was of dark wood. Its flat rectangular surface had been carved into a relief map, with hills and rivers and a single lake, and two upward-turning edges. The other pair of edges, the short edges, were the bases of a golden paraboloid arch.
The gold of that arch was tarnished. But from the curve of its apex a small golden ball hung by a thread; and that gold was highly polished.
“Is civilization in danger? So much has happened. The sunwire, your own coming—is it sunwire? Is the sun falling on us?”
“I strongly doubt it. You mean the wire that’s been falling all morning?”
“Yes. In our religious training we were taught