Free The Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven

where they fall, diseases form and spread, your water becomes polluted,” the Ghoul woman sang in her high, pitched breathy voice.
    She had made this speech before. “We forbid cremation, but suppose we did not? What if every species had the fuel to burn their dead? Clouds still lid this sky forty-three falans after a sea was boiled. What if that were the smoke of the burned dead, a stench growing richer every falan? Do you know how many hominids of every species die in a falan? We do.
    “We cannot choose sides.”
    Chaychind hooki-Karashk had been flushing a darker red. “How can you speak of siding with vampires? With animals!”
    “They don’t think,” said Harpster, “and you do. But can you always say that so surely? We know of hominids just at the edge of thinking, several just along this arc of the Arch. Some use fire if they find it, or form packs when prey is large and formidable. One strips branches into spears. One lives in water; they cannot use fire, but they flake rocks for knives. How do you judge? Where do you draw the line?”
    “Vampires don’t use tools or fire!”
    “Not fire, but tools. Under this endless rain vampires have learned to wear clothing stripped from their prey. When they are dry, they leave it like garbage.”
    The Ghoul woman said, “You see why we should not rish with you, if we must refuse your other desires.” Grieving Tube did not see, chose not to see, the mixed emotions that statement generated.
    Well, she must try something. Vala said, “Your help would be of immense value, if you had reason to give it. Already you have told us the reach of vampire depredations, and that they must return to their lair, that they have one single lair. What else could you tell us?”
    Harpster shrugged, and Vala winced. His shoulders were terribly loose, like unconnected bones rolling freely under his skin.
    She continued stubbornly, “I have heard a rumor, a story, a fable. The Machine People hear it where vampires are known. You must understand that to our client species far from Center City, there’s no real explanation of how all these vampires appeared so suddenly.”
    “They have a high breeding rate,” Harpster noted.
    Grieving Tube said, “Yes, and clusters of them split from the main body to find other refuges. Ten daywalks was not too large a guess.”
    The others, even Chaychind, were letting Vala speak. Vala said, “But a less sensible explanation spreads, too. The victim of a vampire will rise from the dead to become a vampire himself.”
    “That,” said Harpster, “is purest nonsense!”
    And of course it was. “Of course it is, but it explains how the plague spreads so rapidly. See it from the viewpoint of a—“ Careful now. “—Hanging Person widow and mother.” Hanging People were everywhere. Vala set one hand on the beam overhead, lifted her feet to hang, and said, “What is to be done, lest my poor dead Vaynya become my enemy in the night? The lords of the night forbid us to burn the dead. But sometimes they permit it—“
    “Never,” said Grieving Tube.
    Vala said, “Starboard-spin from Center City by twelve daywalks, there are memories of a plague—“
    “Long ago and far away,” Harpster snapped. “We designed the crematorium ourselves, taught them how to use it, then moved away. Years later we returned. The plague was beaten. The Digging People still cremated, but we persuaded them to leave their dead again. It was easily done. Firewood was scarce.
    “You see the danger,” Vala said. “I don’t believe locals have started burning vampire victims yet—“
    “No. We would see plumes of smoke.”
    “—but if one client species begins, the rest might follow.”
    Grieving Tube said sadly, “Then of course we’d have to do a deal of killing.”
    Valavirgillin throttled a shudder. She bowed low and answered, “Why not begin now, with vampires?”
    Grieving Tube mulled it. “Not so easy, that. They, too, command the night ...”
    And