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abdicate or wholly die, Vendacious would be the next Lord of Council. Many
thought that might be the best that could be made of such a disaster --
though Vendacious's pompous speeches were already the bane of the Council.
That was the public's view of Vendacious. Anyone who understood the
ways of security would also guess that the chamberlain managed Woodcarver's
spies. No doubt he had dozens of informants in the mills and on the docks.
But now Scriber knew that even that was just a cover. Imagine -- having
agents in the Flenser inner circle, knowing the Flenser plans, their fears,
their weaknesses, and being able to manipulate them! Vendacious was simply
incredible. Ruefully, Scriber must acknowledge the other's stark genius.
And yet ... this knowledge did not guarantee victory. Not all the
Flenser schemes could be directly managed from the top. Some of the enemy's
low-level operations might proceed unknown and quite successfully ... and it
would only take a single arrow to totally kill Johanna Olsndot.
Here was where Scriber Jaqueramaphan could prove his value.
He asked to move into the castle curtain, on the third floor. No
problem getting permission; his new quarters were smaller, the walls rudely
quilted. A single arrow loop gave an uninspired view across the castle
grounds. For Scriber's new purpose, the room was perfect. Over the next few
days, he took to lurking in the promenades. The main walls were laced with
tunnels, fifteen inches wide by thirty tall. Scriber could get almost
anywhere in the curtain without being seen from outside. He padded single
file from one tunnel to the next, emerging for a few moments on a rampart to
flit from merlon to embrasure to merlon, a head poking out here, a head
poking out there.
Of course he ran into guards, but Jaqueramaphan was cleared to be in
the walls ... and he had studied the guards' routine. They knew he was
around, but Scriber was confident they had no idea of the extent of his
effort. It was hard, cold work, but worth the effort. Scriber's great goal
in life was to do something spectacular and valuable. The problem was, most
of his ideas were so deep that other packs -- even people he respected
immensely -- didn't understand. That had been the problem with Johanna.
Well, after a few more days he could go to Vendacious and then....
As he peeked around corners and through arrow slots, two of Scriber's
members huddled down, taking notes. After ten days, he had enough to impress
even Vendacious.
Vendacious's official residence was surrounded by rooms for assistants
and guards. It was not the place to make a secret offer. Besides, Scriber
had had bad luck with the direct approach before. You could wait days for an
appointment, and the more patient you were, the more you followed the rules,
the more the bureaucrats considered you a nonentity.
But Vendacious was sometimes alone. There was this turret on the old
wall, on the forest side of the castle.... Late on the eleventh day of his
investigation, Scriber stationed himself on that turret and waited. An hour
passed. The wind eased. Heavy fog washed in from the harbor. It oozed up the
old wall like slow-moving sea foam. Everything became very, very quiet --
the way it always does in a thick fog. Scriber nosed moodily around the
turret platform; it really was decrepit. The mortar crumbled under his
claws. It felt like you could pull some of the stones right out of the wall.
Damn. Maybe Vendacious was going to break the pattern and not come up here
today.
But Scriber waited another half hour ... and his patience paid off. He
heard the click of steel on the spiral stairs. There was no sound of
thought; it was just too foggy for that. A minute passed. The trapdoor
popped up and a head stuck through.
Even in the fog, Vendacious's surprise was a fierce hiss.
"Peace, sir! It is only I, loyal Jaqueramaphan."
The head came further out. "What would a loyal citizen be doing up
here?"
"Why, I am here to see you," Scriber said, laughing, "at this, your
secret office. Come on up, sir. With this fog, there is enough room for both
of us."
One after another, Vendacious's members hoisted themselves through the
trapdoor. Some barely made it, their knives and jewelry catching on the door
frame; Vendacious was not the slimmest of packs. The security chief ranged
himself along the far side of the turret, a posture that bespoke suspicion.
He was nothing like the pompous, patronizing pack of their public
encounters. Scriber grinned to himself. He certainly had the other's
attention.
"Well?" Vendacious said in a flat voice.
"Sir. I wish to offer my services. I believe that my very presence here
shows I can be of value to Woodcarver's security. Who but a talented
professional could have determined that you use this place as your secret
den?"
Vendacious seemed to untense a little. He smiled wryly. "Who indeed? I
come here precisely because this part of the old wall can't be seen from
anywhere in the castle. Here I can ... commune with the hills, and be free
of bureaucratic trivia."
Jaqueramaphan nodded. "I understand, sir. But you are wrong in one
detail." He pointed past the security chief. "You can't see it through all
this fog, but on the harbor side of the castle there is a single spot that
has a line of sight on your turret."
"So? Who could see much from -- ah, the eye-tools you brought from the
Republic!"
"Exactly." Scriber reached into a pocket and brought out a telescope.
"Even from across the yard, I could recognize you." The eye-tools could have
made Scriber famous. Woodcarver and Scrupilo had been enchanted by them.
Unfortunately, honesty had required to him to admit that he bought the
devices from an inventor in Rangathir. Never mind that it was he who
recognized the value of the invention, that it was he who used it to help
rescue Johanna. When they discovered that he did not know quite how the
lenses worked, they had accepted his gift of one ... and turned to their own
glass makers. Oh well, he was still the best eye-tool user in this part of
the world.
"It's not just you I've been watching, my lord. That's been the
smallest part of my investigation. Over the last ten days I've spent many
hours on the castle walks."
Vendacious's lips quirked. "Indeed."
"I daresay not many noticed me, and I was very careful that no one saw
me using the eye-tool. In any case," he pulled his book from another pocket,
"I've compiled extensive notes. I know who goes where and when during almost
all the hours of light. You can imagine the power of my technique during the
summer!" He set the book on the floor and slid it toward Vendacious. After a
moment, the other reached a member forward and dragged it toward himself. He
didn't seem very enthusiastic.
"Please understand, sir. I know that you tell Woodcarver what goes on
in the highest Flenser councils. Without your sources we would be helpless
against those lords, but -- "
"Who told you such things?"
Scriber gulped. Brazen it out. He grinned weakly. "No one had to tell
me. I'm a professional, like yourself; and I know how to keep a secret. But
think: there may be others of my ability within the castle, and some might
be traitors. You might never hear of them from your high-placed sources.
Think of the damage they could do. You need my help. With my approach, you
can keep track of everyone. I would be happy to train a corps of
investigators. We could even operate in the city, watching from the market
towers."
The security chief sidled around the parapet; he kicked idly at stones
in the rotted mortar. "The idea has its attractions. Mind you, I think we
have all Flenser's agents identified; we feed them well ... with lies. It's
interesting to hear the lies come back from our sources up there." He
laughed shortly, and glanced over the parapet, thinking. "But you're right.
If we are missing anyone with access to the Two-legs or Dataset ... it could
be disastrous." He turned more heads at Scriber. "You've got a deal. I can
get you four or five people to, ah, train in your methods."
Scriber couldn't control his expression; he almost bounced in
enthusiasm, all eyes on Vendacious. "You won't regret this, sir!"
Vendacious shrugged. "Probably not. Now, how many others have you told
about your investigation? We'll want to bring them in, swear them to
secrecy."
Scriber drew himself up. "My Lord! I told you that I am a professional.
I have kept this completely to myself, waiting for this conversation."
Vendacious smiled and relaxed to an almost genial posture. "Excellent.
Then we can begin."
Maybe it was Vendacious's voice -- a trifle too loud -- or maybe it was
some small sound behind him. Whatever the reason, Scriber turned a head from
the other and saw swift shadows coming over the forest side of the parapet.
Too late he heard the attacker's mind noise.
Arrows hissed, and fire burned through his Phan's throat. He gagged,
but kept himself together and raced around the turret toward Vendacious.
"Help me!" The scream was a waste of speech. Scriber knew, even before the
other drew his knives and backed away.
Vendacious stood clear as his assassin jumped into Scriber's midst.
Rational thought dimmed in a frenzy of noise and slashing pain. Tell
Peregrine! Tell Johanna! The butchering continued for timeless instants and
then --
Part of him was drowning in sticky red. Part of him was blinded.
Jaquerama's thought came in ragged fragments. At least one of him was dead:
Phan lay beheaded in a spreading pool of blood. It steamed in the cold air.
Pain and cold and ... drowning, choking ... tell Johanna.
The assassin and his boss had retreated from him. Vendacious. Security
chief. Traitor-in-chief. Tell Johanna. They stood quietly ... watching him
bleed to death. Too prissy to mess their thoughts with his. They'd wait.
They'd wait ... till his mind noise dimmed, then finish the job.
Quiet. So quiet. The killers' distant thoughts. Sounds of gagging,
moaning. No one would ever know....
Almost all gone. Ja stared dumbly at the two strange packs. One came
toward him, steel claws on its feet, blades in its mouth. No! Ja jumped up,
slipping and skidding on the wet. The pack lunged, but Ja was already
standing on the parapet. He leaped backwards and fell and fell...
... and shattered on rocks far below. Ja pulled himself away from the
wall. There was pain across his back, then numbness. Where am I? Where am I?
Fog everywhere. High above him there were muttering voices. Memories of
knives and tines floated in his small mind, all jumbled. Tell Johanna! He
remembered ... something ... from before. A hidden trail through deep brush.
If he went that way far enough, he would find Johanna.
Ja dragged himself slowly up the path. Something was wrong with his
rear legs; he couldn't feel them. Tell Johanna.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
Johanna coughed; things just seemed to go from bad to worse around
here. She'd had a sore throat and sniffles the last three days. She didn't
know whether to be frightened or not. Diseases were an everyday thing in
medieval times. Yeah, and lots of people died of them, too! She wiped her
nose and tried to concentrate on what Woodcarver was saying.
"Scrupilo has already made some gunpowder. It works just as Dataset
predicted. Unfortunately, he nearly lost a member trying to use it in a
wooden cannon. If we can't make cannon, I'm afraid -- "
A week ago, Woodcarver wouldn't have been welcome here; all their
meetings had been down in the castle halls. But then Johanna got sick -- it
was a "cold", she was sure -- and hadn't felt like running around out of
doors. Besides, Scriber's visit had kind of ... shamed her. Some of the
packs were decent enough. She had decided to try and get along with
Woodcarver -- and Pompous Clown too, if he'd ever come around again. As long
as creatures like Scarbutt stayed out of her way.... Johanna leaned a little
closer to the fire and waved away Woodcarver's objections; sometimes this
pack seemed like her eldest grandmother. "Assume we can make them. We have
lots of time till summer. Tell Scrupilo to study the dataset more carefully,
and quit trying shortcuts. The question is, how to use them to rescue my
star ship."
Woodcarver brightened. The drooler broke off wiping its muzzle to join
the others in a head bob. "I've talked about this with Peregr -- with
several people, especially Vendacious. Ordinarily, getting an army to Hidden
Island would be a terrible problem. Going by sea is fast, but there are some
deadly choke points along way. Going through the forest is slow, and the
other side would have plenty of warning. But great good luck: Vendacious has
found some safe trails. We may be able to sneak -- "
Someone was scratching at the door.
Woodcarver cocked a pair of heads. "That's strange," she said.
"Why?" Johanna asked absently. She hiked the quilt around her shoulders
and stood. Two of Woodcarver went with her to the door.
Johanna opened the door and looked into the fog. Suddenly Woodcarver
was talking loudly, all gobble. Their visitor had retreated. Something was
strange, and for an instant she couldn't figure what it was. This was the
first time she had seen a dogthing all by itself. The point barely
registered when most of Woodcarver spilled past her, out the doorway. Then
Johanna's servant, up in the loft, began screaming. The sound jabbed pain
through Johanna's ears.
The lone Tine twisted awkwardly on its rear and tried to drag itself
away, but Woodcarver had it surrounded. She shouted something and the
screeching in the loft stopped. There was the thump of paws on wooden
stairs, and the servant bounded into the open, its crossbows cocked. From
down the hill, she heard the rattle of weapons as guards raced toward them.
Johanna ran to Woodcarver, ready to add her fists to any defense. But
the pack was nuzzling the stranger, licking its neck. After a moment,
Woodcarver caught the Tine by its jacket. "Help me carry him inside, Johanna
please."
The girl lifted the Tine's flanks. The fur was damp with mist ... and
sticky with blood.
Then they were through the doorway and laying the member on a pillow by
the fire. The creature was making that breathy whistling, the sound of
ultimate pain. It looked up at her, its eyes so wide she could see the white
all around. For an instant she thought it was terrified of her, but when she
stepped back, it just made the sound louder and stretched its neck toward
her. She knelt beside the pillow. It lay its muzzle on her hand.
"W-what is it?" She looked back along its body, past the padded jacket.
The Tine's haunches were twisted at an odd angle, one legged dangling near
the fire.
"Don't you know -- " began Woodcarver. "This is part of Jaqueramaphan."
She pushed a nose under the dangling leg, and raised it onto the pillow.
There was loud talk between the guards and Johanna's servant. Through
the door she saw members holding torches; they rested their forepaws on
their fellows shoulders, and held the lights high. No one tried to come in;
there'd be no room.
Johanna looked back at the injured Tine. Scriber? Then she recognized
the jacket. The creature looked back at her, still wheezing its pain. "Can't
you get a doctor!"
Woodcarver was all around her. She answered, "I am a doctor, Johanna."
She nodded at the dataset and continued softly, "At least, what passes for
one here."
Johanna wiped blood from the creature's neck. More kept oozing. "Well,
can you save him?"
"This fragment maybe, but -- " One of Woodcarver went to the door and
talked to the packs beyond. "My people are searching for the rest of him....
I think he is mostly murdered, Johanna. If there were others ... well, even
fragments stick together."
"Has he said anything?" It was another voice, speaking Samnorsk.
Scarbutt. His big ugly snout was stuck through the doorway.
"No," said Woodcarver. "And his mind noise is a complete jumble."
"Let me listen to him," said Scarbutt.
"You stay back, you!" Johanna's voice was a scream; the creature in her
arms twitched.
"Johanna! This is Scriber's friend. Let him help." As the Scarbutt pack
sidled into the room, Woodcarver climbed into the loft, giving him room.
Johanna eased her arm from under the injured Tine and moved aside,
ending up at the doorway herself. There were lots more packs outside than
she had imagined, and they were standing closer than she had ever seen.
Their torches glowed like soft fluorescents in the foggy dark.
Her gaze snapped back to the fire pit. "I'm watching you!"
Scarbutt's members clustered around the pillow. The big one lay its
head next to the injured Tine's. For a moment the Tine continued its breathy
whistling. Scarbutt gobbled at it. The reply was a steady warbling, almost
beautiful. From up in the loft, Woodcarver said something. She and Scarbutt
talked back and forth.
"Well?" said Johanna.
"Ja -- the fragment -- is not a 'talker'," came Woodcarver's voice.
"Worse," said Scarbutt. "For now at least, I can't match his mind
sounds. I'm not getting sense or image from him; I can't tell who murdered
Scriber."
Johanna stepped back into the room, and walked slowly to the pillow.
Scarbutt moved aside, but did not leave the wounded Tine. She knelt between
two of him and petted the long, bloodied neck. "Will Ja" -- she spoke the
sound as best she could -- "live?"
Scarbutt ran three noses down the length of the body. They pressed
gently at the wounds. Ja twisted and whistled ... except when Scarbutt
pressed his haunches. "I don't know. Most of this blood is just splatter,
probably from the other members. But his spine is broken. Even if the
fragment lives, he'll have only two usable legs."
Johanna thought for a moment, trying to see things from a Tinish
perspective. She didn't like the view. It might not make sense, but to her,
this "Ja" was still Scriber -- at least in potential. To Scarbutt, the
creature was a fragment, an organ from a fresh corpse. A damaged one at
that. She looked at Scarbutt, at the big, killer member. "So what does your
kind do with such ... garbage?"
Three of his heads turned toward her, and she could see his hackles
rise. His synthetic voice became high-pitched and staccato. "Scriber was a
good friend. We could build a two-wheel cart for Ja's rear; he'd be able to
move around some. The hard part will be finding a pack for him. You know
we're looking for other fragments; we may be able to patch something up. If
not ... well, I have only four members. I will try to adopt him." As he
spoke one head patted the wounded member. "I'm not sure it will work.
Scriber was not a loose-souled person, not in any way a pilgrim. And right
now, I don't match him at all."
Johanna slumped back. Scarbutt wasn't responsible for everything that
went wrong in the universe.
"Woodcarver has excellent brood kenners. Maybe some other match can be
found. But understand ... it's hard for adult members to remerge, especially
non-talkers. Single fragments like Ja often die of their own accord; they
just stop eating. Or sometimes.... Go down to the harbor sometime, look at
the workers. You'll see some big packs there ... but with the minds of
idiots. They can't hold together; the smallest problem and they run in all
directions. That's how the unlucky repacks end...." Scarbutt's voice traded
back and forth between two of his members, and dribbled into silence. All
his heads turned to Ja. The member had closed his eyes. Sleeping? He was
still breathing, but it sounded kind of burbly.
Johanna looked across the room at the trapdoor to the loft. Woodcarver
had stuck a single head down through the hole. The upside-down face looked
back at Johanna. Another time, her appearance would have been comical.
"Unless a miracle happens, Scriber died today. Understand that, Johanna. But
if the fragment lives, even a short time, we'll likely find the murderer."
"How, if he can't communicate?"
"Yes, but he can still show us. I've ordered Vendacious's men to
confine the staff to quarters. When Ja is calmer, we'll march every pack in
the castle past him. The fragment certainly remembers what happened to
Scriber, and wants to tell us. If any of the killers are our own people,
he'll see them."
"And he'll make a fuss." Just like a dog.
"Right. So the main thing is to provide him with security right now ...
and hope our doctors can save him."
They found the rest of Scriber a couple of hours later, on a turret of
the old wall. Vendacious said it looked like one or two packs had come out
of the forest and climbed the turret, perhaps in an attempt to see onto the
grounds. It had all the markings of an incompetent, first-time probe:
nothing of value could be seen from that turret, even on a clear day. But
for Scriber it had been fatally bad luck. Apparently he had surprised the
intruders. Five of his members had been variously arrowed, hacked,
decapitated. The sixth -- Ja -- had broken his back on the sloping stonework
at the base of the wall. Johanna walked out to the turret the next day. Even
from the ground she could see brownish stains on the parapet. She was glad
she couldn't go to the top.
Ja died during the night, though not from any further enemy action; he
was under Vendacious's protection the whole time.
Johanna went the next few days without saying much. At night she cried
a little. God damn their "doctoring". A broken back they could diagnose, but
hidden injuries, internal bleeding -- of such they were completely ignorant.
Apparently, Woodcarver was famous for her theory that the heart pumped the
blood around the body. Give her another thousand years and maybe she could
do better than a butcher!
For a while she hated them all: Scarbutt for all the old reasons,
Woodcarver for her ignorance, Vendacious for letting Flenserists get so
close to the castle ... and Johanna Olsndot for rejecting Scriber when he
had tried to be a friend.
What would Scriber say now? He had wanted her to trust them. He said
that Scarbutt and the others were good people. One night, about a week
later, she came close to making peace with herself. She was lying on her
pallet, the quilt heavy and warm upon her. The designs painted on the walls
glimmered dim in the emberlight. All right, Scriber. For you ... I will
trust them.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Pham Nuwen remembered almost nothing of the first days after dying,
after the pain of the Old One's ending. Ghostly figures, anonymous words.
Someone said he'd been kept alive in the ship's surgeon. He remembered none
of it. Why they kept the body breathing was a mystery and an affront.
Eventually the animal reflexes had revived. The body began breathing of its
own accord. The eyes opened. No brain damage, Greenstalk(?) said, a full
recovery. The husk that had been a living being spoke no contradiction.
What was left of Pham Nuwen spent a lot of time on the OOB's bridge.
From before, the ship reminded him of a fat sowbug. The bugs had been common
in the straw laid across the floor of the Great Hall of this father's castle
on Canberra. The little kids had played with them. The critters didn't have
real legs, just a dozen feathery spines sticking out from a chitinous
thorax. No matter how you tumbled them, those spines/antennas would twitch
the bug around and it would scuttle on its way, unmindful that it might be
upside down from before. Yes, the OOB's ultradrive spines looked a lot like
a sowbug's, though not as articulate. And the body itself was fat and sleek,
slightly narrowed in the middle.
So Pham Nuwen had ended inside of a sowbug. How fitting for a dead man.
And now he sat on the bridge. The woman brought him here often; she
seemed to know it should fascinate him. The walls were displays, better than
he had ever seen in merchantman days. When the windows looked out the ship's
exterior cameras, the view was as good as from any crystal-canopy bridge in
the Qeng Ho fleet.
It was like something out of the crudest fantasy -- or a graphics
simulation. If he sat long enough, he could actually see the stars move in
the sky. The ship was doing about ten hyperjumps per second: jump, recompute
and jump again. In this part of The Beyond they could go a thousandth of a
light-year on each jump -- farther, but then the recompute time would be
substantially worse. At ten per second that added up to more than thirty
light-years per hour. The jumps themselves were imperceptible to human
senses, and between the jumps the were in free fall, carrying the same
intrinsic velocity they'd had on departing Relay. So there was none of the
doppler shifting of relativistic flight; the stars were as pure as seen from
some desert sky, or in low-speed transit. Without any fuss, they simply slid
across the sky, the closer ones the faster. In half an hour he went farther
than he had in half a century with the Qeng Ho.
Greenstalk drifted onto the bridge one day, began changing the windows.
As usual she spoke to Pham as she did so, chatting almost as if there were a
real person here to listen:
"See. The center window is an ultrawave map of the region directly
behind us." Greenstalk waved a tendril over the controls. The multicolored
pictures appeared on the other walls. "Similarly for the other five points
of direction."
The words were noise in Pham's ears, understood but of no interest. The
Rider paused, then continued with something like the futile persistence of
the Ravna woman.
"When ships make a jump ... when they reenter, there's a kind of an
ultrawave splash. I'm checking if we're being followed."
Colors on the windows all around, even in front of Pham's eyes. There
were smooth gradations, no bright spots, no linear features.
"I know, I know," she said, making up both sides of the conversation.
"The ship's analyzers are still massaging the data. But if anyone's pacing
us closer than one hundred light-years, we'll see them. And if they're
farther than that -- well, then they probably can't detect us."
It doesn't matter. Pham almost shut the question out of his mind. But
there were no stars to look at; he stared at the glowing colors and actually
thought about the problem. Thought. A joke: no one Down Here ever really
thought about anything. Perhaps ten thousand starships had escaped the Fall
of Relay. Most likely, the Enemy had not cataloged those departures. The
attack on Relay had been a minor adjunct to the murder of Old One. Most
likely, the OOB had escaped unnoticed. Why should the Enemy care where the
last of Old One's memories might be hiding? Why should it care about where
their little ship might be bound?
A tremor passed through his body; animal reflex, surely.
Panic was slowly rising in Ravna Bergsndot, every day a little
stronger. It was not any particular disaster, just the slow dying of hope.
She tried to be near Pham Nuwen part of every day, to talk to him, to hold
his hand. He never responded, not even -- except perhaps by accident -- to
look at her. Greenstalk tried too. Alien though Greenstalk was, the Pham of
before had seemed truly attracted to the Riders. He was off all medical
support now, but he might as well have been a vegetable.
And all the while their descent was slowing, always a little worse than
what Blueshell had predicted.
And when she turned to the News ... in some ways that was the most
horrifying of all. The "death race" theory was getting popular. More and
more, there were folk who seemed to think that the human race was spreading
the Blight:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five
polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of
existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group Date: 17.95 days since Fall of Relay Text of message:
So far we've processed half a million messages about this creature's
video, and read a goodly fraction of them. Most of you are missing the
point. The principle of the "Helper's" operation is clear. This is a
Transcendent Power using ultralight communication to operate through a race
in the Beyond. It would be fairly easy to do in the Transcend -- there are a
number of stories about thralls of Powers there. But for such communication
to be effective within the Beyond, truly extensive design changes must be
made in the minds of the controlled race. It could not have happened
naturally, and it can not be quickly done to new races -- no matter what the
Blight says.
We've watched the Homo Sapiens interest group since the first
appearance of the Blight. Where is this "Earth" the humans claim to be from?
"Half way around the galaxy," they say, and deep in the Slow Zone. Even
their proximate origin, Nyjora, is conveniently in the Slowness. We see an
alternative theory: Sometime, maybe further back than the last consistent
archives, there was a battle between Powers. The blueprint for this "human
race" was written, complete with communication interfaces. Long after the
original contestants and their stories had vanished, this race happened to
get in position where it could Transcend. And that Transcending was
tailor-made, too, re-establishing the Power that had set the trap to begin
with.
We're not sure of the details, but a scenario such as this is
inevitable. What we must do is also clear. Straumli Realm is at the heart of
the Blight, obviously beyond all attack. But there are other human colonies.
We ask the Net to help in identifying all of them. We ourselves are not a
large civilization, but we would be happy to coordinate the information
gathering, and the military action that is required to prevent the Blight's
spread in the Middle Beyond.
For nearly seventeen weeks, we've been calling for action. Had you
listened in the beginning, a concerted strike might have been sufficient to
destroy the Straumli Realm. Isn't the Fall of Relay enough to wake you up?
Friends, if we act together we still have a chance.
Death to vermin.
The bastards even played on humanity's foundling nature. Foundling
races were rare, but scarcely unknown. Now these Death-to-Vermin creatures
were turning the Miracle of Nyjora into something deadly evil.
Death to Vermin were the only ones to call for pogroms, but even
respected posters were saying things that indirectly might support such
action:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo [A known military
corporation of the High Beyond. If this is a masquerade, somebody is living
dangerously.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse subthread
Key phrases: limits on the Blight; the Blight is searching something
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Close-coupled Automation Interest Group, War Trackers Interest Group
Date: 11.94 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
The Blight admits that it is a Power that tele-operates sophonts in the
Beyond. But consider how difficult it is to have a close- coupled automation
with time lags of more than a few milliseconds. The Known Net is a perfect
illustration of this: Lags range between five milliseconds for systems that
are a couple of light-years apart -- to (at least) several hundred seconds
when messages must pass through intermediate nodes. This, combined with the
low bandwidth available across interstellar distances, makes the Known Net a
loose forum for the exchange of information and lies. And these restrictions
are inherent in the nature of the Beyond, part of the same restrictions that
make it impossible for the Powers to exist down here.
We conclude that even the Blight can't attain close-coupled control
except in the High Beyond. At the Top, the Blight's sophont agents are
literally its limbs. In the Middle Beyond, we believe mental "possession" is
possible but that considerable preprocessing must be done in the controlled
mind. Furthermore, considerable external equipment (the bulky items
characteristic of those depths) is needed to support the communication.
Direct, millisecond-by-millisecond, control is normally impractical in the
Middle Beyond. Combat at this level would involve hierarchical control.
Long-term operations would also use intimidation, fraud, and traitors.
These are the threats that you of the Middle and Low Beyond should
recognize.
These are the Blight's tools in the Middle and Low Beyond, and what you
should guard against for the immediate future. We don't see imperial
takeovers; there's no profit [sustenance] in it. Even the destruction of
Relay was probably just a byplay to the murder it was simultaneously
committing in the Transcend. The greatest tragedies will continue to be at
the Top and in the Low Transcend. But we know that the Blight is searching
for something; it has attacked at great distances where major archives were
the target. Beware of traitors and spies.
Even some of humanity's supporters sent a chill through Ravna:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Alliance for the Defense subthread
Key phrases: Death Race Theory
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 18.29 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
I have obtained specimens from the human worlds in our volume. Detailed
analysis is available in the Homo sapiens interest group archive. My
conclusions: previous (but less intensive) analysis of human phys/psych is
correct. The race has no built-in structures to support remote control.
Experiments with living subjects showed no special inclination toward
submission. I found little or no evidence of artificial optimization. (There
was evidence of DNA surgery to improve disease resistance: drift timing
dated the hackwork at two thousand years Before Present. The blood of
Straumli Realm subjects carried an optigens, Thirault [a cheap medical
recipe that can be tailored across a wide mammalian range].) This race -- as
represented by our specimens -- looks like something that arrived from the
Slow Zone quite recently, probably from a single origin world.
Has anyone done such retesting on more distant human worlds?
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five
polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of
existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse 1
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 19.43 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
Who is this "Hanse?" It makes objective, tough-sounding noises about
testing human specimens, but it keeps its own nature secret. Don't be fooled
by humans telling you about themselves! In fact, we have no way of testing
the creatures that dwell in Straumli Realm; their protector will see to
that.
Death to vermin.
And there was a little boy trapped at the bottom of the well. Some
days, no communication was possible. Other days, when the OOB antenna swarm
was tuned in exactly the right direction and when the vagaries of the zone
favored it -- then Ravna could hear his ship. Even then the signal was so
faint, so distorted, that the effective transmission rate was just a few
bits per second.
Jefri and his problems might be only the smallest footnote to the story
of the Blight (less than that, since no one knew of him), but to Ravna
Bergsndot these conversations were the only bright thing in her life just
now.
The kid was very lonely, but less so now, she thought. She learned
about his friend Amdi, about the stern Tyrathect and the heroic Mr. Steel
and the proud Tines. Ravna smiled to herself, at herself. The walls of her
cabin displayed a flat mural of jungle. Deep in the drippy murk lay regular
shadows -- a castle built in the roots of a giant mangrove tree. The mural
was a famous one; the original had been an analog work from three thousand
years ago. It showed life at an even further remove, during the Dark Ages on
Nyjora. She and Lynne had spent much of their childhood imagining that they
were transported to such a time. Little Jefri was trapped in the real thing.
Woodcarver's butchers were no interstellar threat, but they were a deadly
horror to those around them. Thank goodness Jefri had not seen the killing.
This was a real medieval world. A tough and unforgiving place, even if
Jefri had fallen in with fair-minded people. And the Nyjoran comparison was
only vaguely appropriate. These Tines were pack minds; even old Grondr
'Kalir had been surprised at that.
All through Jefri's mail, Ravna could see the panic among Steel's
people:
Mister Steel asked me again if theres any way we can make our ship to
fly even a little. I dont know. We almost crashed, I think. We need guns.
That would save us, at least till you get here. They have bows and arrows
just like in Nyjoran days, but no guns. Hes asking me, can you teach us to
make guns?
Woodcarver's raiders would return, and this time in enough force to
overrun Steel's little kingdom. Back when they thought OOB's flight would be
only thirty or forty days, that had not seemed great a risk, but now ....
Ravna might arrive to find Woodcarver's murdering complete.
Oh Pham, dear Pham. If you ever really were, please come back now. Pham
Nuwen of medieval Canberra. Pham Nuwen, trader from the Slowness.... What
would someone such as you make of this? Hmm.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Ravna knew that -- under his bluster -- Blueshell was at least as much
a worrier as she. Worse, he was a nitpicker. The next time Ravna asked him
about their progress, he retreated into technicalities.
Finally Ravna broke in, "Look. The kid is sitting on something that
just might blow the Blight sky high, and all he has are bows and arrows. How
the long will it be till we get down there, Blueshell?"
Blueshell rolled nervously back and forth across the ceiling. The
Skroderiders had reaction jets; they could maneuver in free fall more
adroitly than most humans. Instead they used stick-patches, and rolled
around on the walls. In a way, it was kind of cute. Just now, it was
irritating.
At least they could talk; she glanced across the bridge to where Pham
Nuwen sat facing the bridge's main display. As usual, all his attention was
fixed on the slowly moving stars. He was unshaven, his reddish beard bright
on his skin; his long hair floated snarled and uncombed. Physically he was
cured of his injuries. Ship's surgeon had even replaced the muscle mass that
Old One's communication equipment had usurped. Pham could dress and feed
himself now, but he still lived in a private dreamworld.
The two riders twittered at each other. It was Greenstalk who finally
answered her question: "Truly, we're not sure how long. The quality of the
Beyond changes as we descend. Each jump is taking us a fraction longer than
the one before."
"I know that. We're moving toward the Slow Zone. But the ship is
designed for that; it should be an easy matter to extrapolate the slowing."
Blueshell extended a tendril from ceiling to floor. He diddled with the
matte corrugations for a second and then his voder made a sound of human
embarrassment. "Ordinarily you would be correct, my lady Ravna. But this is
a special case.... For one thing, it appears that the zones themselves are
in flux."
"What?"
"It's not that unheard of. Small shifts are going on all the time.
That's a major purpose for bottom-lugger ships: to track the changes. We're
having the bad luck to run through the middle of the uncertainty."
Actually, Ravna had known that interface turbulence was high at the
Bottom below here. She just didn't think of it in grandiose terms like "zone
shifting"; she also hadn't realized it was serious enough to affect them
yet.
"Okay. How bad can it get then? How much can it slow us?"
"Oh my." Blueshell rolled to the far wall; he was standing on starry
sky now. "It would be nice to be a Low Skroderider. So many problems my high
calling brings me. I wish I could be deep in surf right now, thinking on
olden memories." Of other days in the surf.
Greenstalk carried on for him: "It's not 'the tide, how high can it
rise?' It's 'this storm, how bad can it get?' Right now it is worse than
anything in this region during the last thousand years. However, we have
been following the local news; most agree that the storm has peaked. If our
other problem gets no worse, we should arrive in about one hundred and
twenty days."
Our other problem. Ravna drifted to the center of the bridge and
strapped onto a saddle. "You're talking about the damage we took getting out
of Relay. The ultradrive spines, right? How are they holding up?"
"Quite well, apparently. We've not tried to jump faster than eighty
percent of design max. On the other hand, we lack good diagnostics. It's
conceivable that serious degradation might happen rather suddenly."
"Conceivable, but unlikely," put in Greenstalk.
Ravna nodded. Considering all their other problems, there was no point
in contemplating possibilities beyond their control. Back on Relay, this had
looked like a thirty or forty day trip. Now ... the boy in the well might
have to be brave for a long time yet, no matter how much she wished
otherwise. Hmm. Time for Plan B then. Time for what someone like Pham Nuwen
might suggest. She pushed off the floor and settled by Greenstalk. "Okay, so
the best we can plan on is one hundred and twenty days. If the Zone surge
gets worse or if we have to get repairs..." Get repairs where? That might be
only a delay, not an impossibility. The rebuilt OOB was supposed to be to
repairable even in the Low Beyond. "Maybe even two hundred days." She
glanced at Blueshell, but he didn't interrupt with his usual amendments and
qualifications. "You've both read the messages we're getting from the boy.
He says the locals are going to be overrun, probably in less than one
hundred days. Somehow, we have to help him ... before we actually arrive
there."
Greenstalk rattled her fronds in a way Ravna took for puzzlement.
She looked across the deck at Pham, and raised her voice a trifle. Hey
you, you should be an expert on this! "You Skroderiders may not recognize
it, but this is a problem that's been seen a million times in the Slow Zone:
civilizations are separated by years -- centuries -- of travel time. They
fall into dark ages. They become just as primitive as the pack creatures,
these 'Tines'. Then they get visited from outside. In a short time, they
have technology back again." Pham's head did not turn; he just looked out
across the starscape.
The Skroderiders rattled at each other, then:
"But how can that help us? Doesn't rebuilding a civilization take
dozens of years?"
"And besides, there's nothing to rebuild on the Tines' world. According
to the child, this is a race without antecedents. How long does it take to
found a civilization?"
Ravna waved a hand at the objections. Don't stop me, I'm on a roll.
thought that might be the best that could be made of such a disaster --
though Vendacious's pompous speeches were already the bane of the Council.
That was the public's view of Vendacious. Anyone who understood the
ways of security would also guess that the chamberlain managed Woodcarver's
spies. No doubt he had dozens of informants in the mills and on the docks.
But now Scriber knew that even that was just a cover. Imagine -- having
agents in the Flenser inner circle, knowing the Flenser plans, their fears,
their weaknesses, and being able to manipulate them! Vendacious was simply
incredible. Ruefully, Scriber must acknowledge the other's stark genius.
And yet ... this knowledge did not guarantee victory. Not all the
Flenser schemes could be directly managed from the top. Some of the enemy's
low-level operations might proceed unknown and quite successfully ... and it
would only take a single arrow to totally kill Johanna Olsndot.
Here was where Scriber Jaqueramaphan could prove his value.
He asked to move into the castle curtain, on the third floor. No
problem getting permission; his new quarters were smaller, the walls rudely
quilted. A single arrow loop gave an uninspired view across the castle
grounds. For Scriber's new purpose, the room was perfect. Over the next few
days, he took to lurking in the promenades. The main walls were laced with
tunnels, fifteen inches wide by thirty tall. Scriber could get almost
anywhere in the curtain without being seen from outside. He padded single
file from one tunnel to the next, emerging for a few moments on a rampart to
flit from merlon to embrasure to merlon, a head poking out here, a head
poking out there.
Of course he ran into guards, but Jaqueramaphan was cleared to be in
the walls ... and he had studied the guards' routine. They knew he was
around, but Scriber was confident they had no idea of the extent of his
effort. It was hard, cold work, but worth the effort. Scriber's great goal
in life was to do something spectacular and valuable. The problem was, most
of his ideas were so deep that other packs -- even people he respected
immensely -- didn't understand. That had been the problem with Johanna.
Well, after a few more days he could go to Vendacious and then....
As he peeked around corners and through arrow slots, two of Scriber's
members huddled down, taking notes. After ten days, he had enough to impress
even Vendacious.
Vendacious's official residence was surrounded by rooms for assistants
and guards. It was not the place to make a secret offer. Besides, Scriber
had had bad luck with the direct approach before. You could wait days for an
appointment, and the more patient you were, the more you followed the rules,
the more the bureaucrats considered you a nonentity.
But Vendacious was sometimes alone. There was this turret on the old
wall, on the forest side of the castle.... Late on the eleventh day of his
investigation, Scriber stationed himself on that turret and waited. An hour
passed. The wind eased. Heavy fog washed in from the harbor. It oozed up the
old wall like slow-moving sea foam. Everything became very, very quiet --
the way it always does in a thick fog. Scriber nosed moodily around the
turret platform; it really was decrepit. The mortar crumbled under his
claws. It felt like you could pull some of the stones right out of the wall.
Damn. Maybe Vendacious was going to break the pattern and not come up here
today.
But Scriber waited another half hour ... and his patience paid off. He
heard the click of steel on the spiral stairs. There was no sound of
thought; it was just too foggy for that. A minute passed. The trapdoor
popped up and a head stuck through.
Even in the fog, Vendacious's surprise was a fierce hiss.
"Peace, sir! It is only I, loyal Jaqueramaphan."
The head came further out. "What would a loyal citizen be doing up
here?"
"Why, I am here to see you," Scriber said, laughing, "at this, your
secret office. Come on up, sir. With this fog, there is enough room for both
of us."
One after another, Vendacious's members hoisted themselves through the
trapdoor. Some barely made it, their knives and jewelry catching on the door
frame; Vendacious was not the slimmest of packs. The security chief ranged
himself along the far side of the turret, a posture that bespoke suspicion.
He was nothing like the pompous, patronizing pack of their public
encounters. Scriber grinned to himself. He certainly had the other's
attention.
"Well?" Vendacious said in a flat voice.
"Sir. I wish to offer my services. I believe that my very presence here
shows I can be of value to Woodcarver's security. Who but a talented
professional could have determined that you use this place as your secret
den?"
Vendacious seemed to untense a little. He smiled wryly. "Who indeed? I
come here precisely because this part of the old wall can't be seen from
anywhere in the castle. Here I can ... commune with the hills, and be free
of bureaucratic trivia."
Jaqueramaphan nodded. "I understand, sir. But you are wrong in one
detail." He pointed past the security chief. "You can't see it through all
this fog, but on the harbor side of the castle there is a single spot that
has a line of sight on your turret."
"So? Who could see much from -- ah, the eye-tools you brought from the
Republic!"
"Exactly." Scriber reached into a pocket and brought out a telescope.
"Even from across the yard, I could recognize you." The eye-tools could have
made Scriber famous. Woodcarver and Scrupilo had been enchanted by them.
Unfortunately, honesty had required to him to admit that he bought the
devices from an inventor in Rangathir. Never mind that it was he who
recognized the value of the invention, that it was he who used it to help
rescue Johanna. When they discovered that he did not know quite how the
lenses worked, they had accepted his gift of one ... and turned to their own
glass makers. Oh well, he was still the best eye-tool user in this part of
the world.
"It's not just you I've been watching, my lord. That's been the
smallest part of my investigation. Over the last ten days I've spent many
hours on the castle walks."
Vendacious's lips quirked. "Indeed."
"I daresay not many noticed me, and I was very careful that no one saw
me using the eye-tool. In any case," he pulled his book from another pocket,
"I've compiled extensive notes. I know who goes where and when during almost
all the hours of light. You can imagine the power of my technique during the
summer!" He set the book on the floor and slid it toward Vendacious. After a
moment, the other reached a member forward and dragged it toward himself. He
didn't seem very enthusiastic.
"Please understand, sir. I know that you tell Woodcarver what goes on
in the highest Flenser councils. Without your sources we would be helpless
against those lords, but -- "
"Who told you such things?"
Scriber gulped. Brazen it out. He grinned weakly. "No one had to tell
me. I'm a professional, like yourself; and I know how to keep a secret. But
think: there may be others of my ability within the castle, and some might
be traitors. You might never hear of them from your high-placed sources.
Think of the damage they could do. You need my help. With my approach, you
can keep track of everyone. I would be happy to train a corps of
investigators. We could even operate in the city, watching from the market
towers."
The security chief sidled around the parapet; he kicked idly at stones
in the rotted mortar. "The idea has its attractions. Mind you, I think we
have all Flenser's agents identified; we feed them well ... with lies. It's
interesting to hear the lies come back from our sources up there." He
laughed shortly, and glanced over the parapet, thinking. "But you're right.
If we are missing anyone with access to the Two-legs or Dataset ... it could
be disastrous." He turned more heads at Scriber. "You've got a deal. I can
get you four or five people to, ah, train in your methods."
Scriber couldn't control his expression; he almost bounced in
enthusiasm, all eyes on Vendacious. "You won't regret this, sir!"
Vendacious shrugged. "Probably not. Now, how many others have you told
about your investigation? We'll want to bring them in, swear them to
secrecy."
Scriber drew himself up. "My Lord! I told you that I am a professional.
I have kept this completely to myself, waiting for this conversation."
Vendacious smiled and relaxed to an almost genial posture. "Excellent.
Then we can begin."
Maybe it was Vendacious's voice -- a trifle too loud -- or maybe it was
some small sound behind him. Whatever the reason, Scriber turned a head from
the other and saw swift shadows coming over the forest side of the parapet.
Too late he heard the attacker's mind noise.
Arrows hissed, and fire burned through his Phan's throat. He gagged,
but kept himself together and raced around the turret toward Vendacious.
"Help me!" The scream was a waste of speech. Scriber knew, even before the
other drew his knives and backed away.
Vendacious stood clear as his assassin jumped into Scriber's midst.
Rational thought dimmed in a frenzy of noise and slashing pain. Tell
Peregrine! Tell Johanna! The butchering continued for timeless instants and
then --
Part of him was drowning in sticky red. Part of him was blinded.
Jaquerama's thought came in ragged fragments. At least one of him was dead:
Phan lay beheaded in a spreading pool of blood. It steamed in the cold air.
Pain and cold and ... drowning, choking ... tell Johanna.
The assassin and his boss had retreated from him. Vendacious. Security
chief. Traitor-in-chief. Tell Johanna. They stood quietly ... watching him
bleed to death. Too prissy to mess their thoughts with his. They'd wait.
They'd wait ... till his mind noise dimmed, then finish the job.
Quiet. So quiet. The killers' distant thoughts. Sounds of gagging,
moaning. No one would ever know....
Almost all gone. Ja stared dumbly at the two strange packs. One came
toward him, steel claws on its feet, blades in its mouth. No! Ja jumped up,
slipping and skidding on the wet. The pack lunged, but Ja was already
standing on the parapet. He leaped backwards and fell and fell...
... and shattered on rocks far below. Ja pulled himself away from the
wall. There was pain across his back, then numbness. Where am I? Where am I?
Fog everywhere. High above him there were muttering voices. Memories of
knives and tines floated in his small mind, all jumbled. Tell Johanna! He
remembered ... something ... from before. A hidden trail through deep brush.
If he went that way far enough, he would find Johanna.
Ja dragged himself slowly up the path. Something was wrong with his
rear legs; he couldn't feel them. Tell Johanna.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
Johanna coughed; things just seemed to go from bad to worse around
here. She'd had a sore throat and sniffles the last three days. She didn't
know whether to be frightened or not. Diseases were an everyday thing in
medieval times. Yeah, and lots of people died of them, too! She wiped her
nose and tried to concentrate on what Woodcarver was saying.
"Scrupilo has already made some gunpowder. It works just as Dataset
predicted. Unfortunately, he nearly lost a member trying to use it in a
wooden cannon. If we can't make cannon, I'm afraid -- "
A week ago, Woodcarver wouldn't have been welcome here; all their
meetings had been down in the castle halls. But then Johanna got sick -- it
was a "cold", she was sure -- and hadn't felt like running around out of
doors. Besides, Scriber's visit had kind of ... shamed her. Some of the
packs were decent enough. She had decided to try and get along with
Woodcarver -- and Pompous Clown too, if he'd ever come around again. As long
as creatures like Scarbutt stayed out of her way.... Johanna leaned a little
closer to the fire and waved away Woodcarver's objections; sometimes this
pack seemed like her eldest grandmother. "Assume we can make them. We have
lots of time till summer. Tell Scrupilo to study the dataset more carefully,
and quit trying shortcuts. The question is, how to use them to rescue my
star ship."
Woodcarver brightened. The drooler broke off wiping its muzzle to join
the others in a head bob. "I've talked about this with Peregr -- with
several people, especially Vendacious. Ordinarily, getting an army to Hidden
Island would be a terrible problem. Going by sea is fast, but there are some
deadly choke points along way. Going through the forest is slow, and the
other side would have plenty of warning. But great good luck: Vendacious has
found some safe trails. We may be able to sneak -- "
Someone was scratching at the door.
Woodcarver cocked a pair of heads. "That's strange," she said.
"Why?" Johanna asked absently. She hiked the quilt around her shoulders
and stood. Two of Woodcarver went with her to the door.
Johanna opened the door and looked into the fog. Suddenly Woodcarver
was talking loudly, all gobble. Their visitor had retreated. Something was
strange, and for an instant she couldn't figure what it was. This was the
first time she had seen a dogthing all by itself. The point barely
registered when most of Woodcarver spilled past her, out the doorway. Then
Johanna's servant, up in the loft, began screaming. The sound jabbed pain
through Johanna's ears.
The lone Tine twisted awkwardly on its rear and tried to drag itself
away, but Woodcarver had it surrounded. She shouted something and the
screeching in the loft stopped. There was the thump of paws on wooden
stairs, and the servant bounded into the open, its crossbows cocked. From
down the hill, she heard the rattle of weapons as guards raced toward them.
Johanna ran to Woodcarver, ready to add her fists to any defense. But
the pack was nuzzling the stranger, licking its neck. After a moment,
Woodcarver caught the Tine by its jacket. "Help me carry him inside, Johanna
please."
The girl lifted the Tine's flanks. The fur was damp with mist ... and
sticky with blood.
Then they were through the doorway and laying the member on a pillow by
the fire. The creature was making that breathy whistling, the sound of
ultimate pain. It looked up at her, its eyes so wide she could see the white
all around. For an instant she thought it was terrified of her, but when she
stepped back, it just made the sound louder and stretched its neck toward
her. She knelt beside the pillow. It lay its muzzle on her hand.
"W-what is it?" She looked back along its body, past the padded jacket.
The Tine's haunches were twisted at an odd angle, one legged dangling near
the fire.
"Don't you know -- " began Woodcarver. "This is part of Jaqueramaphan."
She pushed a nose under the dangling leg, and raised it onto the pillow.
There was loud talk between the guards and Johanna's servant. Through
the door she saw members holding torches; they rested their forepaws on
their fellows shoulders, and held the lights high. No one tried to come in;
there'd be no room.
Johanna looked back at the injured Tine. Scriber? Then she recognized
the jacket. The creature looked back at her, still wheezing its pain. "Can't
you get a doctor!"
Woodcarver was all around her. She answered, "I am a doctor, Johanna."
She nodded at the dataset and continued softly, "At least, what passes for
one here."
Johanna wiped blood from the creature's neck. More kept oozing. "Well,
can you save him?"
"This fragment maybe, but -- " One of Woodcarver went to the door and
talked to the packs beyond. "My people are searching for the rest of him....
I think he is mostly murdered, Johanna. If there were others ... well, even
fragments stick together."
"Has he said anything?" It was another voice, speaking Samnorsk.
Scarbutt. His big ugly snout was stuck through the doorway.
"No," said Woodcarver. "And his mind noise is a complete jumble."
"Let me listen to him," said Scarbutt.
"You stay back, you!" Johanna's voice was a scream; the creature in her
arms twitched.
"Johanna! This is Scriber's friend. Let him help." As the Scarbutt pack
sidled into the room, Woodcarver climbed into the loft, giving him room.
Johanna eased her arm from under the injured Tine and moved aside,
ending up at the doorway herself. There were lots more packs outside than
she had imagined, and they were standing closer than she had ever seen.
Their torches glowed like soft fluorescents in the foggy dark.
Her gaze snapped back to the fire pit. "I'm watching you!"
Scarbutt's members clustered around the pillow. The big one lay its
head next to the injured Tine's. For a moment the Tine continued its breathy
whistling. Scarbutt gobbled at it. The reply was a steady warbling, almost
beautiful. From up in the loft, Woodcarver said something. She and Scarbutt
talked back and forth.
"Well?" said Johanna.
"Ja -- the fragment -- is not a 'talker'," came Woodcarver's voice.
"Worse," said Scarbutt. "For now at least, I can't match his mind
sounds. I'm not getting sense or image from him; I can't tell who murdered
Scriber."
Johanna stepped back into the room, and walked slowly to the pillow.
Scarbutt moved aside, but did not leave the wounded Tine. She knelt between
two of him and petted the long, bloodied neck. "Will Ja" -- she spoke the
sound as best she could -- "live?"
Scarbutt ran three noses down the length of the body. They pressed
gently at the wounds. Ja twisted and whistled ... except when Scarbutt
pressed his haunches. "I don't know. Most of this blood is just splatter,
probably from the other members. But his spine is broken. Even if the
fragment lives, he'll have only two usable legs."
Johanna thought for a moment, trying to see things from a Tinish
perspective. She didn't like the view. It might not make sense, but to her,
this "Ja" was still Scriber -- at least in potential. To Scarbutt, the
creature was a fragment, an organ from a fresh corpse. A damaged one at
that. She looked at Scarbutt, at the big, killer member. "So what does your
kind do with such ... garbage?"
Three of his heads turned toward her, and she could see his hackles
rise. His synthetic voice became high-pitched and staccato. "Scriber was a
good friend. We could build a two-wheel cart for Ja's rear; he'd be able to
move around some. The hard part will be finding a pack for him. You know
we're looking for other fragments; we may be able to patch something up. If
not ... well, I have only four members. I will try to adopt him." As he
spoke one head patted the wounded member. "I'm not sure it will work.
Scriber was not a loose-souled person, not in any way a pilgrim. And right
now, I don't match him at all."
Johanna slumped back. Scarbutt wasn't responsible for everything that
went wrong in the universe.
"Woodcarver has excellent brood kenners. Maybe some other match can be
found. But understand ... it's hard for adult members to remerge, especially
non-talkers. Single fragments like Ja often die of their own accord; they
just stop eating. Or sometimes.... Go down to the harbor sometime, look at
the workers. You'll see some big packs there ... but with the minds of
idiots. They can't hold together; the smallest problem and they run in all
directions. That's how the unlucky repacks end...." Scarbutt's voice traded
back and forth between two of his members, and dribbled into silence. All
his heads turned to Ja. The member had closed his eyes. Sleeping? He was
still breathing, but it sounded kind of burbly.
Johanna looked across the room at the trapdoor to the loft. Woodcarver
had stuck a single head down through the hole. The upside-down face looked
back at Johanna. Another time, her appearance would have been comical.
"Unless a miracle happens, Scriber died today. Understand that, Johanna. But
if the fragment lives, even a short time, we'll likely find the murderer."
"How, if he can't communicate?"
"Yes, but he can still show us. I've ordered Vendacious's men to
confine the staff to quarters. When Ja is calmer, we'll march every pack in
the castle past him. The fragment certainly remembers what happened to
Scriber, and wants to tell us. If any of the killers are our own people,
he'll see them."
"And he'll make a fuss." Just like a dog.
"Right. So the main thing is to provide him with security right now ...
and hope our doctors can save him."
They found the rest of Scriber a couple of hours later, on a turret of
the old wall. Vendacious said it looked like one or two packs had come out
of the forest and climbed the turret, perhaps in an attempt to see onto the
grounds. It had all the markings of an incompetent, first-time probe:
nothing of value could be seen from that turret, even on a clear day. But
for Scriber it had been fatally bad luck. Apparently he had surprised the
intruders. Five of his members had been variously arrowed, hacked,
decapitated. The sixth -- Ja -- had broken his back on the sloping stonework
at the base of the wall. Johanna walked out to the turret the next day. Even
from the ground she could see brownish stains on the parapet. She was glad
she couldn't go to the top.
Ja died during the night, though not from any further enemy action; he
was under Vendacious's protection the whole time.
Johanna went the next few days without saying much. At night she cried
a little. God damn their "doctoring". A broken back they could diagnose, but
hidden injuries, internal bleeding -- of such they were completely ignorant.
Apparently, Woodcarver was famous for her theory that the heart pumped the
blood around the body. Give her another thousand years and maybe she could
do better than a butcher!
For a while she hated them all: Scarbutt for all the old reasons,
Woodcarver for her ignorance, Vendacious for letting Flenserists get so
close to the castle ... and Johanna Olsndot for rejecting Scriber when he
had tried to be a friend.
What would Scriber say now? He had wanted her to trust them. He said
that Scarbutt and the others were good people. One night, about a week
later, she came close to making peace with herself. She was lying on her
pallet, the quilt heavy and warm upon her. The designs painted on the walls
glimmered dim in the emberlight. All right, Scriber. For you ... I will
trust them.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Pham Nuwen remembered almost nothing of the first days after dying,
after the pain of the Old One's ending. Ghostly figures, anonymous words.
Someone said he'd been kept alive in the ship's surgeon. He remembered none
of it. Why they kept the body breathing was a mystery and an affront.
Eventually the animal reflexes had revived. The body began breathing of its
own accord. The eyes opened. No brain damage, Greenstalk(?) said, a full
recovery. The husk that had been a living being spoke no contradiction.
What was left of Pham Nuwen spent a lot of time on the OOB's bridge.
From before, the ship reminded him of a fat sowbug. The bugs had been common
in the straw laid across the floor of the Great Hall of this father's castle
on Canberra. The little kids had played with them. The critters didn't have
real legs, just a dozen feathery spines sticking out from a chitinous
thorax. No matter how you tumbled them, those spines/antennas would twitch
the bug around and it would scuttle on its way, unmindful that it might be
upside down from before. Yes, the OOB's ultradrive spines looked a lot like
a sowbug's, though not as articulate. And the body itself was fat and sleek,
slightly narrowed in the middle.
So Pham Nuwen had ended inside of a sowbug. How fitting for a dead man.
And now he sat on the bridge. The woman brought him here often; she
seemed to know it should fascinate him. The walls were displays, better than
he had ever seen in merchantman days. When the windows looked out the ship's
exterior cameras, the view was as good as from any crystal-canopy bridge in
the Qeng Ho fleet.
It was like something out of the crudest fantasy -- or a graphics
simulation. If he sat long enough, he could actually see the stars move in
the sky. The ship was doing about ten hyperjumps per second: jump, recompute
and jump again. In this part of The Beyond they could go a thousandth of a
light-year on each jump -- farther, but then the recompute time would be
substantially worse. At ten per second that added up to more than thirty
light-years per hour. The jumps themselves were imperceptible to human
senses, and between the jumps the were in free fall, carrying the same
intrinsic velocity they'd had on departing Relay. So there was none of the
doppler shifting of relativistic flight; the stars were as pure as seen from
some desert sky, or in low-speed transit. Without any fuss, they simply slid
across the sky, the closer ones the faster. In half an hour he went farther
than he had in half a century with the Qeng Ho.
Greenstalk drifted onto the bridge one day, began changing the windows.
As usual she spoke to Pham as she did so, chatting almost as if there were a
real person here to listen:
"See. The center window is an ultrawave map of the region directly
behind us." Greenstalk waved a tendril over the controls. The multicolored
pictures appeared on the other walls. "Similarly for the other five points
of direction."
The words were noise in Pham's ears, understood but of no interest. The
Rider paused, then continued with something like the futile persistence of
the Ravna woman.
"When ships make a jump ... when they reenter, there's a kind of an
ultrawave splash. I'm checking if we're being followed."
Colors on the windows all around, even in front of Pham's eyes. There
were smooth gradations, no bright spots, no linear features.
"I know, I know," she said, making up both sides of the conversation.
"The ship's analyzers are still massaging the data. But if anyone's pacing
us closer than one hundred light-years, we'll see them. And if they're
farther than that -- well, then they probably can't detect us."
It doesn't matter. Pham almost shut the question out of his mind. But
there were no stars to look at; he stared at the glowing colors and actually
thought about the problem. Thought. A joke: no one Down Here ever really
thought about anything. Perhaps ten thousand starships had escaped the Fall
of Relay. Most likely, the Enemy had not cataloged those departures. The
attack on Relay had been a minor adjunct to the murder of Old One. Most
likely, the OOB had escaped unnoticed. Why should the Enemy care where the
last of Old One's memories might be hiding? Why should it care about where
their little ship might be bound?
A tremor passed through his body; animal reflex, surely.
Panic was slowly rising in Ravna Bergsndot, every day a little
stronger. It was not any particular disaster, just the slow dying of hope.
She tried to be near Pham Nuwen part of every day, to talk to him, to hold
his hand. He never responded, not even -- except perhaps by accident -- to
look at her. Greenstalk tried too. Alien though Greenstalk was, the Pham of
before had seemed truly attracted to the Riders. He was off all medical
support now, but he might as well have been a vegetable.
And all the while their descent was slowing, always a little worse than
what Blueshell had predicted.
And when she turned to the News ... in some ways that was the most
horrifying of all. The "death race" theory was getting popular. More and
more, there were folk who seemed to think that the human race was spreading
the Blight:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five
polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of
existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group Date: 17.95 days since Fall of Relay Text of message:
So far we've processed half a million messages about this creature's
video, and read a goodly fraction of them. Most of you are missing the
point. The principle of the "Helper's" operation is clear. This is a
Transcendent Power using ultralight communication to operate through a race
in the Beyond. It would be fairly easy to do in the Transcend -- there are a
number of stories about thralls of Powers there. But for such communication
to be effective within the Beyond, truly extensive design changes must be
made in the minds of the controlled race. It could not have happened
naturally, and it can not be quickly done to new races -- no matter what the
Blight says.
We've watched the Homo Sapiens interest group since the first
appearance of the Blight. Where is this "Earth" the humans claim to be from?
"Half way around the galaxy," they say, and deep in the Slow Zone. Even
their proximate origin, Nyjora, is conveniently in the Slowness. We see an
alternative theory: Sometime, maybe further back than the last consistent
archives, there was a battle between Powers. The blueprint for this "human
race" was written, complete with communication interfaces. Long after the
original contestants and their stories had vanished, this race happened to
get in position where it could Transcend. And that Transcending was
tailor-made, too, re-establishing the Power that had set the trap to begin
with.
We're not sure of the details, but a scenario such as this is
inevitable. What we must do is also clear. Straumli Realm is at the heart of
the Blight, obviously beyond all attack. But there are other human colonies.
We ask the Net to help in identifying all of them. We ourselves are not a
large civilization, but we would be happy to coordinate the information
gathering, and the military action that is required to prevent the Blight's
spread in the Middle Beyond.
For nearly seventeen weeks, we've been calling for action. Had you
listened in the beginning, a concerted strike might have been sufficient to
destroy the Straumli Realm. Isn't the Fall of Relay enough to wake you up?
Friends, if we act together we still have a chance.
Death to vermin.
The bastards even played on humanity's foundling nature. Foundling
races were rare, but scarcely unknown. Now these Death-to-Vermin creatures
were turning the Miracle of Nyjora into something deadly evil.
Death to Vermin were the only ones to call for pogroms, but even
respected posters were saying things that indirectly might support such
action:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo [A known military
corporation of the High Beyond. If this is a masquerade, somebody is living
dangerously.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse subthread
Key phrases: limits on the Blight; the Blight is searching something
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Close-coupled Automation Interest Group, War Trackers Interest Group
Date: 11.94 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
The Blight admits that it is a Power that tele-operates sophonts in the
Beyond. But consider how difficult it is to have a close- coupled automation
with time lags of more than a few milliseconds. The Known Net is a perfect
illustration of this: Lags range between five milliseconds for systems that
are a couple of light-years apart -- to (at least) several hundred seconds
when messages must pass through intermediate nodes. This, combined with the
low bandwidth available across interstellar distances, makes the Known Net a
loose forum for the exchange of information and lies. And these restrictions
are inherent in the nature of the Beyond, part of the same restrictions that
make it impossible for the Powers to exist down here.
We conclude that even the Blight can't attain close-coupled control
except in the High Beyond. At the Top, the Blight's sophont agents are
literally its limbs. In the Middle Beyond, we believe mental "possession" is
possible but that considerable preprocessing must be done in the controlled
mind. Furthermore, considerable external equipment (the bulky items
characteristic of those depths) is needed to support the communication.
Direct, millisecond-by-millisecond, control is normally impractical in the
Middle Beyond. Combat at this level would involve hierarchical control.
Long-term operations would also use intimidation, fraud, and traitors.
These are the threats that you of the Middle and Low Beyond should
recognize.
These are the Blight's tools in the Middle and Low Beyond, and what you
should guard against for the immediate future. We don't see imperial
takeovers; there's no profit [sustenance] in it. Even the destruction of
Relay was probably just a byplay to the murder it was simultaneously
committing in the Transcend. The greatest tragedies will continue to be at
the Top and in the Low Transcend. But we know that the Blight is searching
for something; it has attacked at great distances where major archives were
the target. Beware of traitors and spies.
Even some of humanity's supporters sent a chill through Ravna:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Alliance for the Defense subthread
Key phrases: Death Race Theory
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 18.29 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
I have obtained specimens from the human worlds in our volume. Detailed
analysis is available in the Homo sapiens interest group archive. My
conclusions: previous (but less intensive) analysis of human phys/psych is
correct. The race has no built-in structures to support remote control.
Experiments with living subjects showed no special inclination toward
submission. I found little or no evidence of artificial optimization. (There
was evidence of DNA surgery to improve disease resistance: drift timing
dated the hackwork at two thousand years Before Present. The blood of
Straumli Realm subjects carried an optigens, Thirault [a cheap medical
recipe that can be tailored across a wide mammalian range].) This race -- as
represented by our specimens -- looks like something that arrived from the
Slow Zone quite recently, probably from a single origin world.
Has anyone done such retesting on more distant human worlds?
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five
polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of
existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse 1
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 19.43 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
Who is this "Hanse?" It makes objective, tough-sounding noises about
testing human specimens, but it keeps its own nature secret. Don't be fooled
by humans telling you about themselves! In fact, we have no way of testing
the creatures that dwell in Straumli Realm; their protector will see to
that.
Death to vermin.
And there was a little boy trapped at the bottom of the well. Some
days, no communication was possible. Other days, when the OOB antenna swarm
was tuned in exactly the right direction and when the vagaries of the zone
favored it -- then Ravna could hear his ship. Even then the signal was so
faint, so distorted, that the effective transmission rate was just a few
bits per second.
Jefri and his problems might be only the smallest footnote to the story
of the Blight (less than that, since no one knew of him), but to Ravna
Bergsndot these conversations were the only bright thing in her life just
now.
The kid was very lonely, but less so now, she thought. She learned
about his friend Amdi, about the stern Tyrathect and the heroic Mr. Steel
and the proud Tines. Ravna smiled to herself, at herself. The walls of her
cabin displayed a flat mural of jungle. Deep in the drippy murk lay regular
shadows -- a castle built in the roots of a giant mangrove tree. The mural
was a famous one; the original had been an analog work from three thousand
years ago. It showed life at an even further remove, during the Dark Ages on
Nyjora. She and Lynne had spent much of their childhood imagining that they
were transported to such a time. Little Jefri was trapped in the real thing.
Woodcarver's butchers were no interstellar threat, but they were a deadly
horror to those around them. Thank goodness Jefri had not seen the killing.
This was a real medieval world. A tough and unforgiving place, even if
Jefri had fallen in with fair-minded people. And the Nyjoran comparison was
only vaguely appropriate. These Tines were pack minds; even old Grondr
'Kalir had been surprised at that.
All through Jefri's mail, Ravna could see the panic among Steel's
people:
Mister Steel asked me again if theres any way we can make our ship to
fly even a little. I dont know. We almost crashed, I think. We need guns.
That would save us, at least till you get here. They have bows and arrows
just like in Nyjoran days, but no guns. Hes asking me, can you teach us to
make guns?
Woodcarver's raiders would return, and this time in enough force to
overrun Steel's little kingdom. Back when they thought OOB's flight would be
only thirty or forty days, that had not seemed great a risk, but now ....
Ravna might arrive to find Woodcarver's murdering complete.
Oh Pham, dear Pham. If you ever really were, please come back now. Pham
Nuwen of medieval Canberra. Pham Nuwen, trader from the Slowness.... What
would someone such as you make of this? Hmm.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Ravna knew that -- under his bluster -- Blueshell was at least as much
a worrier as she. Worse, he was a nitpicker. The next time Ravna asked him
about their progress, he retreated into technicalities.
Finally Ravna broke in, "Look. The kid is sitting on something that
just might blow the Blight sky high, and all he has are bows and arrows. How
the long will it be till we get down there, Blueshell?"
Blueshell rolled nervously back and forth across the ceiling. The
Skroderiders had reaction jets; they could maneuver in free fall more
adroitly than most humans. Instead they used stick-patches, and rolled
around on the walls. In a way, it was kind of cute. Just now, it was
irritating.
At least they could talk; she glanced across the bridge to where Pham
Nuwen sat facing the bridge's main display. As usual, all his attention was
fixed on the slowly moving stars. He was unshaven, his reddish beard bright
on his skin; his long hair floated snarled and uncombed. Physically he was
cured of his injuries. Ship's surgeon had even replaced the muscle mass that
Old One's communication equipment had usurped. Pham could dress and feed
himself now, but he still lived in a private dreamworld.
The two riders twittered at each other. It was Greenstalk who finally
answered her question: "Truly, we're not sure how long. The quality of the
Beyond changes as we descend. Each jump is taking us a fraction longer than
the one before."
"I know that. We're moving toward the Slow Zone. But the ship is
designed for that; it should be an easy matter to extrapolate the slowing."
Blueshell extended a tendril from ceiling to floor. He diddled with the
matte corrugations for a second and then his voder made a sound of human
embarrassment. "Ordinarily you would be correct, my lady Ravna. But this is
a special case.... For one thing, it appears that the zones themselves are
in flux."
"What?"
"It's not that unheard of. Small shifts are going on all the time.
That's a major purpose for bottom-lugger ships: to track the changes. We're
having the bad luck to run through the middle of the uncertainty."
Actually, Ravna had known that interface turbulence was high at the
Bottom below here. She just didn't think of it in grandiose terms like "zone
shifting"; she also hadn't realized it was serious enough to affect them
yet.
"Okay. How bad can it get then? How much can it slow us?"
"Oh my." Blueshell rolled to the far wall; he was standing on starry
sky now. "It would be nice to be a Low Skroderider. So many problems my high
calling brings me. I wish I could be deep in surf right now, thinking on
olden memories." Of other days in the surf.
Greenstalk carried on for him: "It's not 'the tide, how high can it
rise?' It's 'this storm, how bad can it get?' Right now it is worse than
anything in this region during the last thousand years. However, we have
been following the local news; most agree that the storm has peaked. If our
other problem gets no worse, we should arrive in about one hundred and
twenty days."
Our other problem. Ravna drifted to the center of the bridge and
strapped onto a saddle. "You're talking about the damage we took getting out
of Relay. The ultradrive spines, right? How are they holding up?"
"Quite well, apparently. We've not tried to jump faster than eighty
percent of design max. On the other hand, we lack good diagnostics. It's
conceivable that serious degradation might happen rather suddenly."
"Conceivable, but unlikely," put in Greenstalk.
Ravna nodded. Considering all their other problems, there was no point
in contemplating possibilities beyond their control. Back on Relay, this had
looked like a thirty or forty day trip. Now ... the boy in the well might
have to be brave for a long time yet, no matter how much she wished
otherwise. Hmm. Time for Plan B then. Time for what someone like Pham Nuwen
might suggest. She pushed off the floor and settled by Greenstalk. "Okay, so
the best we can plan on is one hundred and twenty days. If the Zone surge
gets worse or if we have to get repairs..." Get repairs where? That might be
only a delay, not an impossibility. The rebuilt OOB was supposed to be to
repairable even in the Low Beyond. "Maybe even two hundred days." She
glanced at Blueshell, but he didn't interrupt with his usual amendments and
qualifications. "You've both read the messages we're getting from the boy.
He says the locals are going to be overrun, probably in less than one
hundred days. Somehow, we have to help him ... before we actually arrive
there."
Greenstalk rattled her fronds in a way Ravna took for puzzlement.
She looked across the deck at Pham, and raised her voice a trifle. Hey
you, you should be an expert on this! "You Skroderiders may not recognize
it, but this is a problem that's been seen a million times in the Slow Zone:
civilizations are separated by years -- centuries -- of travel time. They
fall into dark ages. They become just as primitive as the pack creatures,
these 'Tines'. Then they get visited from outside. In a short time, they
have technology back again." Pham's head did not turn; he just looked out
across the starscape.
The Skroderiders rattled at each other, then:
"But how can that help us? Doesn't rebuilding a civilization take
dozens of years?"
"And besides, there's nothing to rebuild on the Tines' world. According
to the child, this is a race without antecedents. How long does it take to
found a civilization?"
Ravna waved a hand at the objections. Don't stop me, I'm on a roll.