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Samnorsk were low-pitched sound -- they would scarcely be affected. She
stopped, holding all her breath. She could hear birds and the sounds of
timber being sawn somewhere on the far side of the inner yard. Yet Steel was
only thirty feet from her. His thought noise should have been a loud
intrusion, even confusing. She strained to hear.... There was nothing but
her own thoughts and a stickety buzzing noise that seemed to come from all
directions.
"And we thought this would just give us control in battle," she said,
wonderingly. All of her turned and walked toward Amdi. He was twenty feet
away, ten feet. Still no thought noise. Amdi's eyes were wide. The puppies
held their ground; in fact all eight of him seemed to lean toward her. "You
knew about this all along, didn't you?" Tyrathect said.
"I hoped. Oh, I hoped." He stepped closer. Five feet. The eight of him
looked at the five of her from a distance of inches. He extended a nose,
brushing muzzles with Tyrathect. His thought sounds came only faintly
through the cloak, no louder than if he were fifty feet away. For a moment
they looked at each other in stark astonishment. Nose to nose, and they both
could still think! Amdi gave a whoop of glee and bounded in among Tyrathect,
rubbing back and forth across her legs. "See, Jefri," he shouted in
Samnorsk. "It works. It works!"
Tyrathect wobbled under the assault, almost lost hold of her thoughts.
What had just happened.... In all the history of the world there had never
been such a thing. If thinking packs could work paw by jowl.... There were
consequences and consequences, and she got dizzy all over again.
Steel moved a little closer and suffered a flying hug from Jefri
Olsndot. Steel was trying his best to join the celebration, but he wasn't
quite sure what had happened. He hadn't lived the consequences like
Tyrathect. "Wonderful progress for the first try," he said. "But it must be
painful even so." Two of him looked sharply at her. "We should get that gear
off you, and give you a rest."
"No!" Tyrathect and Amdi said almost together. She smiled back at
Steel. "We haven't really tested it yet, have we? The whole purpose was
long-distance communications." We thought that was the purpose, anyway. In
fact, even if it had no better range than talk sounds, it was already a
towering success in Tyrathect's mind.
"Oh." Steel smiled weakly at Amdi and glared hidden faces at Tyrathect.
Jefri was still hanging on two of his necks. Steel was a picture of barely
concealed anguish. "Well, go slowly then. We don't know what might happen if
you run out of range."
Tyrathect disentangled two of herself from Amdi and stepped a few feet
away. Thought was as clear -- and as potentially confusing -- as before. By
now she was beginning to get the feel of it though. She had very little
trouble keeping her balance. She walked the two another thirty feet, about
the maximum range a pack could coordinate in the quietest conditions. "It's
like I'm still heads-together," she said wonderingly. Ordinarily at thirty
feet, thoughts were faint and the time lag so bad that coordination was
difficult.
"How far can I go?" She murmured the question to Amdi.
He made a human giggling sound and slid a head close to hers. "I'm not
sure. It should be good at least to the outer walls."
"Well," she said in a normal voice, for Steel, "let's see if I can
spread a little bit further." The two of her walked another ten yards. She
was more than sixty feet across!
Steel was wide-eyed. "And now?"
Tyrathect laughed. "My thought's as crisp as before." She turned her
two and walked away.
"Wait!" roared Steel, bounding to his feet. "That's far -- " then he
remembered his audience, and his fury became more a frightened concern for
her welfare. "That's far too dangerous for the first experiment. Come back!"
From where she sat with Amdi, Tyrathect smiled brightly. "But Steel, I
never left," she said in Samnorsk.
Amdijefri laughed and laughed.
She was one hundred fifty feet across. Her two broke into a careful
trot -- and she watched Steel swallow back foam. Her thought still had the
sharp, abrupt quality of closer than heads-together. How fast is this radio
thing?
She passed close by Shreck and the guards posted at the edge of the
field. "Hey, hey, Shreck! What do you say?" one of her said at his stupefied
faces. Back with Amdi and the rest of her, Steel was shouting at Shreck,
telling him to follow her.
Her trot became an easy run. She split, one going north of the inner
yard, the other south. Shreck and company followed, clumsy with shock. The
dome of the inner keep was between her, a sweeping hulk of stone. Her radio
thoughts faded into the stickety buzzing.
"Can't think," she mumbled to Amdi.
"Pull on the mouth straps. Make your thoughts louder."
Tyrathect pulled, and the buzzing faded. She regained her balance and
raced around the starship. One of her was in a construction area now.
Artisans looked up in shock. A loose member usually meant a fatal accident
or a pack run amok. In either case the singleton must be restrained. But
Tyrathect's member was wearing a greatcloak that sparkled here and there of
gold. And behind her, Shreck and his guards were shouting for everyone to
stand back.
She turned a head to Steel, and her voice was joy. "I soar!" She ran
through the cowering workers, ran toward the south and the west walls. She
was everywhere, spreading and spreading. These seconds would make memories
that would outlast her soul, that would be legends in the minds of her
descendants a thousand years from now.
Steel hunkered down. Things were totally out of his control now;
Shreck's people were all on the far side of inner keep. All that he and
Amdijefri could know came from Tyrathect -- and the clamor of alarums.
Amdi bounced around her. "Where are you now? Where?"
"Almost to the outer wall."
"Don't go beyond that," Steel said quietly.
Tyrathect scarcely heard. For a few more seconds she would drink this
glorious power. She charged up the inside stairs. Guards scuttled back, some
members jumping back into the yard. Shreck still followed, shouting for her
safety.
One of her reached the parapet, then the other.
She gasped.
"Are you all right?" said Amdi.
"I -- " Tyrathect looked about her. From her places on the south wall
she could see herselves back in the castle yard: a tiny clump of gold and
black that was her three and Amdi. Beyond the northeast walls stretched
forest and valleys, the trails up into the Icefang mountains. To the west
was Hidden Island and the misty inner waters. These were things she had seen
a thousand times as Flenser. How he had loved them, his domain. But now ...
she was seeing as if in a dream. Her eyes were so far apart. Her pack was
almost as wide as the castle itself. The parallax view made Hidden Island
seem just a few paces away. Newcastle was like a model spread out around
her. Almighty Pack of packs -- this was God's view.
Shreck's troopers were edging closer. He had sent a couple of packs
back to get directions. "A couple of minutes. I'll come down in a couple of
minutes." She spoke the words to the troopers on the palisade and to Steel
back in the yard. Then she turned to survey her domain.
She had only extended two of herself across less than a quarter of a
mile. But there was no perceptible time lag; coordination had the same
abrupt feel it did when she was all together. And there was plenty more pull
in the braid-bone straps. What if all five of her spread out, moved miles
apart? All of the northland would be her private room.
And Flenser? Ah, Flenser. Where was he? The memories were still there,
but.... Tyrathect remembered the loss of consciousness right when the radios
began working. It took a special skill of coordination to think in the face
of such terrible speed. Perhaps Lord Flenser had never walked between close
cliffs when he was new. Tyrathect smiled. Perhaps only her mindset could
hold when using the radios. In that case.... Tyrathect looked again across
the landscape. Flenser had made a great empire. If these new developments
were managed properly, then the coming victories could make it infinitely
grander.
He turned to Shreck's troopers. "Very well, I'm ready to return to Lord
Steel."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
It was high summer when Woodcarver's army left for the north. The
preparations had been frantic, with Vendacious driving himself and everyone
else to the point of exhaustion. There had been cannons to make -- Scrupilo
cast seventy tubes before getting thirty that would fire reliably. There had
been cannoneers to train -- and safe methods of firing to discover. There
had been wagons to build and kherhogs to buy.
Surely word of the preparations had long ago filtered north.
Woodcarvers was a port city; they could not close down the commerce that
moved through it. Vendacious warned them of this in more than one inner
council meeting: Steel knew they were coming. The trick was in keeping the
Flenserists uncertain as to numbers and timing and exact purpose. "We have
one great advantage over the enemy," he said. "We have agents in his highest
councils. We know what he knows of us." They couldn't disguise the obvious
from the spies, but the details were a different matter.
The army departed along inland routes, a dozen wagons here, a few
squads there. In all there were a thousand packs in the expedition, but they
would never be together till they reached deep forest. It would have been
easier to take the first part of the trip by sea, but the Flenserists had
spotters hidden high in the fjordlands. Any ship movement -- even deep in
Woodcarver territory -- would be known in the north. So they traveled on
forest paths, through areas that Vendacious had cleared of enemy agents.
At first the going was very easy, at least for those with the wagons.
Johanna rode in one of the rear ones with Woodcarver and Dataset. Even I'm
beginning to treat the thing like an oracle, thought Johanna. Too bad it
couldn't really predict the future.
The weather was as beautiful as Johanna had ever seen it on Tines
world, an endless afternoon. It was strange that such unending fairness
should make her so nervous, but she couldn't help it. This was so much like
her first time on this world, when everything had ... gone wrong.
During the first dayarounds of the journey, while they were still in
home territory, Woodcarver pointed out every peak that came into view and
tried to translate its name into Samnorsk for her. After six hundred years
the Queen knew her land well. Even the patches of snow -- the ones that
lasted all through the summer -- were known to her. She showed Johanna a
sketchbook she had brought along. Each page was from a different year, and
showed her special snowpatches as they had appeared on the same day of the
summer. Riffling through the leaves, it was almost like a crude piece of
animation. Johanna could see the patches moving, growing over a period of
decades, then retreating. "Most packs don't live long enough to feel it,"
said Woodcarver, "but to me, the patches that last all summer are like
living things. See how they move? They are like wolves, held off from our
lands by our fire that is the sun. They circle about, grow. Sometimes they
link together and a new glacier starts toward the sea."
Johanna had laughed a little nervously. "Are they winning?"
"For the last four centuries, no. The summers have often been hot and
windy. In the long run? I don't know. And it doesn't matter quite so much to
me anymore." She rocked her two little puppies for a moment and laughed
gently. "Peregrine's little ones are not even thinking yet, and I'm already
losing my long view!"
Johanna reached out to stroke her neck. "But they are your puppies
too."
"I know. Most of my pups have been with other packs, but these are the
first that I have kept to be me." Her blind one nuzzled at one of the
puppies. It wriggled and made a sound that warbled at the top of Johanna's
hearing. Johanna held the other on her lap. Tine pups looked more like baby
sea'mals than dogs. Their necks were so long compared to their bodies. And
they seemed to develop much more slowly than the puppy she and Jefri had
raised. Even now they seemed to have trouble focusing. She moved her fingers
slowly back and forth in front of one puppy's head; its efforts to track
were comical.
And after sixty days, Woodcarver's pups couldn't really walk. The Queen
wore two special jackets with carrying pouches on the sides. Most of the
waking day, her little ones stayed there, suckling through the fur on her
tummy. In some ways, Woodcarver treated her offspring as a human would. She
was very nervous when they were taken from her sight. She liked to cuddle
them and play little games of coordination with them. Often she would lay
both of them on their backs and pat their paws in a sequence of eight, then
abruptly tap the one or the other on the belly. The two wriggled furiously
at the attack, their little legs waving in all directions. "I nibble the one
whose paw was last touched. Peregrine is worthy of me. These two are already
thinking a little. See?" She pointed to the puppy that had convulsed into a
ball, avoiding most of her surprise tickle.
In other ways Tinish parenting was alien, almost scary. Neither
Woodcarver nor Peregrine ever talked to their pups in audible tones, but
their ultrasonic "thoughts" seemed to be constantly probing the little ones.
Some of it was so simple and regular that it set sympathetic vibrations
through the walls of the little wagon. The wood buzzed under Johanna's
hands. It was like a mother humming a lullaby, but she could see it had
another purpose. The little creatures responded to the sounds, twitching in
complicated rhythms. Peregrine said it would be another thirty days before
the pups could contribute conscious thought to the pack, but they were
already being trained and exercised for the function.
They camped part of each dayaround, the troops standing turns as sentry
lines. Even during the traveling part of the day, they stopped numerous
times, to clear the trail, or await the return of scouts, or simply to rest.
At one such stop, Johanna sat with Peregrine in the shade of a tree that
looked like pine but smelled of honey. Pilgrim played with his young ones,
helping them to stand up and walk a few steps. She could tell by the buzzing
in her head that he was thinking at the pups. And suddenly they seemed more
like marionettes than children to her. "Why don't you let them play by
themselves, or with their -- " Brothers? Sisters? What do you call siblings
born to the other pack? "-- with Woodcarver's pups?"
Even more than Woodcarver, the pilgrim had tried to learn human
customs. He was by far the most flexible pack she knew ... after all, if you
can accommodate a murderer in your own mind, you must be flexible. But
Pilgrim was visibly startled by her question. The buzzing in her head
stopped abruptly. He laughed weakly. It was a very human laugh, though a bit
theatrical. Peregrine had spent hours at interactive comedy on Dataset --
whether for entertainment or insight, she didn't know. "Play? By themselves?
Yes ... I see how natural that would seem to you. To us, it would be a kind
of perversion.... No, worse than that, since perversions are at least fun
for some people some of the time. But if a pup were raised a singleton, or
even a duo -- it would be making an animal of what could be sturdy member."
"You mean that pups never have life of their own?"
Peregrine cocked his heads and scrunched close to the ground. One of
him continued to nose around the puppies, but Johanna had his attention. He
loved to puzzle over human exotica. "Well, sometimes there is a tragedy --
an orphan pup left to itself. Often there is no cure for it; the creature
becomes too independent to meld with any pack. In any case, it is a very
lonely, empty life. I have personal memories of just how unpleasant."
"You're missing a lot. I know you've watched children's stories on
Dataset. It's sad you can never be young and foolish."
"Hei! I never said that. I've been young and foolish lots; it's my way
of life. And most packs are that way when they have several young members by
different parents." As they talked, one of Peregrine's pups had struggled to
the edge of the blanket they sat on. Now it awkwardly extended its neck into
the flowers that grew from the roots of a nearby tree. As it scruffed around
in the green and purple, Johanna felt the buzzing begin again. The pup's
movement became a tad more organized. "Wow! I can smell the flowers with
him. I bet we'll be seeing through each other's eyes well before we get to
Flenser's Hidden Island." The pup backed up, and the two did a little dance
on the blanket. Peregrine's heads bobbed in time with the movement. "They
are such bright little ones!" He grinned. "Oh, we are not so different from
you, Johanna. I know humans are proud of their young ones. Both Woodcarver
and I wonder what ours will become. She is so brilliant, and I am -- well, a
bit mad. Will these two make me a scientific genius? Will Woodcarver's turn
her into an adventurer? Heh, heh. Woodcarver's a great brood kenner, but
even she's not sure what our new souls will be like. Oh, I can't wait to be
six again!"
It had taken Scriber and Pilgrim and Johanna only three days to sail
from Flenser's Domain to the harbor at Woodcarver's. It would take this army
almost thirty days to walk back to where Johanna's adventure began. On the
map it had looked a tortuous path, wiggling this way and that through the
fjordland. Yet the first ten days were amazingly easy. The weather stayed
dry and warm. It was like the day of the ambush stretched out forever and
ever. A dry winds summer, Woodcarver called it. There should be occasional
storms, at least cloudiness. Instead the sun circled endlessly above the
forest canopy, and when they broke into the open (never for long, and then
only when Vendacious was sure that it was safe), the sky was clear and
almost cloudless.
In fact, there was already uneasiness about the weather. At noon it
could get downright hot. The wind was constant, drying. The forest itself
was drying out; they must be careful with fire. And with the sun always up
and no clouds, they might be seen by lookouts many kilometers away. Scrupilo
was especially bothered. He hadn't expected to fire the cannons en route,
but he had wanted to drill "his" troops more in the open.
Officially Strupilo was a council member and the Queen's chief
engineer. Since his experiment with the cannon, he had insisted on the title
"Commander of Cannoneers". To Johanna, the engineer had always seemed curt
and impatient. His members were almost always moving, and with jerky
abruptness. He spent almost as much time with the Dataset as the Queen or
Peregrine Wickwrackscar, yet he had very little interest in people-oriented
subjects. "He has a blindness for all but machines," Woodcarver once said of
him, "but that's how I made him. He's invented much, even before you came."
Scrupilo had fallen in love with the cannons. For most packs, firing
the things was a painful experience. Since that first test, Scrupilo had
fired the things again and again, trying to improve the tubes, the powder,
and the explosive rounds. His fur was scored with dozens of powder burns. He
claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind -- but most everybody else
agreed it made you daft.
During rest stops Scrup was a familiar figure, strutting up and down
the line, haranguing his cannoneers. He claimed even the shortest stop was
an opportunity for training, since in real combat speed would be essential.
He had designed special epaulets, based on Nyjoran gunners' ear muffs. They
didn't cover his low-sound ears at all, but instead the forehead and
shoulder tympana of his trigger member. Actually tying the muffs down was a
mind-numbing thing to do, but for the moments right around firing it was
worth it. Scrupilo wore his own muffs all the time, but unsnugged. They
looked like silly little wings sticking out from his head and shoulders. He
obviously thought the effect was raffish -- and in fact, his gunner crews
also made a big thing of wearing the gear at all times. After a while, even
Johanna could see that the drill was paying off. At least, they could swing
the gun tubes around at an instant's notice, stuff them with fake powder and
ball, and shout the Tinish equivalent of "BANG!".
The army carried much more gunpowder than food. The packs were to live
off the forest. Johanna had little experience with camping in an atmosphere.
Were forests usually this rich? It was certainly nothing like the urban
forests of Straum, where you needed a special license to walk off marked
paths, and most of the wild life were mechanical imitations of Nyjoran
originals. This place was wilder than even the stories of Nyjora. After all,
that world had been well settled before it fell to medievalism. The Tines'
had never been civilized, had never spread cities across continents. Pilgrim
guessed there were fewer than thirty million packs in all the world. The
Northwest was only beginning to be settled. Game was everywhere. In their
hunting, the Tines were like animals. Troopers raced through the
underforest. The favorite hunt was one of sheer endurance, where the prey
was chased until it dropped. That was rarely practical here, but they got
almost as much pleasure from chasing the unwary into ambushes.
Johanna didn't like it. Was this a medieval perversion or a peculiarly
Tinish one? If allowed the time, the troops didn't use their bows and
knives. The pleasure of the hunt included slashing at throats and bellies
with teeth and claws. Not that the forest creatures were without defenses:
for millions of years threat and counterthreat had evolved here. Almost
every animal could generate ultrasonic screeching that totally drowned the
thought of any nearby pack. There were parts of the forest that seemed
silent to Johanna, but through which the army drove at a cautious gallop,
troops and drivers writhing in agony from the unseen assault.
Some of the forest animals were more sophisticated....
Twenty-five days out, the army was stuck trying to get across the
biggest valley yet. In the middle -- mostly hidden by the forest -- a river
flowed down to the western sea. The walls of these valleys were like nothing
Johanna had seen in the parks of Straum: If you took a cross-section at
right angles to the river, the walls made a "U" shape. They were cliff-like
steep at the high edges, then became slopes and finally a gentle plain where
the river ran. "That's how the ice gouges it," explained Woodcarver. "There
are places further up where I've actually watched it happen," and she showed
Johanna explanations in the Dataset. That was happening more and more;
Pilgrim and Woodcarver and sometimes even Scrupilo seemed to know more of a
child's modern education than Johanna.
They had already been across a number of smaller valleys. Getting down
the steep parts was always tedious, but so far the paths had been good.
Vendacious took them to the edge this latest valley.
Woodcarver and staff stood under the forest cover just short of the
dropoff. Some meters back, Johanna sat surrounded by Peregrine
Wickwrackscar. The trees at this elevation reminded Johanna a little of
pines. The leaves were narrow and sharp and lasted all year. But the bark
was blistered white and the wood itself was pale blond. Strangest of all
were the flowers. They sprouted purple and violet from the exposed roots of
the trees. Tines' world had no analog of honeybees, but there was constant
motion among the flowers as thumb-sized mammals climbed from plant to plant.
There were thousands of them, but they seemed to have no interest in
anything except the flowers and the sweetness that oozed from them. She
leaned back among the flowers and admired the view while the Queen gobbled
with Vendacious. How many kilometers could you see from here? The air was as
clear as she had even known it on Tines' world. East and west the valley
seemed to stretch forever. The river was a silver thread where it
occasionally showed through the forest of the valley floor.
Pilgrim nudged her with a nose and nodded toward the Queen. Woodcarver
was pointing this way and that over the dropoff. "Argument is in the air.
You want a translation?"
"Yeah."
"Woodcarver doesn't like this path," Pilgrim's voice changed to the
tone the Queen used when speaking Samnorsk: "The path is completely exposed.
Anyone on the other side can sit and count our every wagon. Even from miles
away. [A mile is a fat kilometer.]"
Vendacious whipped his heads around in that indignant way of his. He
gobbled something that Johanna knew was angry. Pilgrim chuckled and changed
his voice to imitate the security chief's: "Your Majesty! My scouts have
scoured the valley and far wall. There is no threat."
"You've done miracles, I know, but do you seriously claim to have
covered that entire north face? That's five miles away, and I know from my
youth that there are dozens of cavelets -- you have those memories
yourself."
"That stopped him!" said Pilgrim, laughing.
"C'mon. Just translate." She was quite capable of interpreting body
language and tone by now. Sometimes even the Tinish chords made sense.
"Hmph. Okay."
The Queen hiked her baby packs around and sat down. Her tone became
conciliatory. "If this weather weren't so clear, or if there were night
times, we might try it, but -- You remember the old path? Twenty miles
inland from here? That should be overgrown by now. And the road coming back
is -- "
Gobble-hiss from Vendacious, angry. "I tell you, this is safe! We'll
lose days on the other path. If we arrive late at Flenser's, all my work
will be for nothing. You must go forward here."
"Oops," Pilgrim whispered, unable to resist a little editorializing,
"Ol' Vendacious may have gone too far with that." The Queen's heads arched
back. Pilgrim's imitation of her human voice said, "I understand your
anxiety, pack of my blood. But we go forward where I say. If that is
intolerable to you, I will regretfully accept your resignation."
"But you need me!"
"Not that much."
Johanna suddenly realized that the whole mission could fall apart right
here, without even a shot being fired. Where would we be without Vendacious?
She held her breath and watched the two packs. Parts of Vendacious walked in
quick circles, stopping for angry instants to stare at Woodcarver. Finally
all his necks drooped. "Um. My apologies, Your Majesty. As long as you find
me of use, I beg to continue in your service."
Now Woodcarver relaxed, too. She reached to pet her puppies. They had
responded with her mood, thrashing in their carriers and hissing. "Forgiven.
I want your independent advice, Vendacious. It has been miraculously good."
Vendacious smiled weakly.
"I didn't think the jerk had it in him," Pilgrim said near Johanna's
ear.
It took two dayarounds to reach the old path. As Woodcarver had
predicted, it was overgrown. More: In places there was no sign of the path
at all, just young trees growing from slumped earth. It would take days to
get down the valley side this way. If Woodcarver had any misgivings about
the decision, she didn't mention them to Johanna. The Queen was six hundred
years old; she talked often enough about the inflexibility of age. Now
Johanna was getting a clear example of what that meant.
When they came to a washout, trees were cut down and a bridge
constructed on the spot. It took a day to get by each such spot. But
progress was agonizingly slow even where the path was still in place. No one
rode in the carts now. The edge of the path had worn away, and the cart
wheels sometimes turned on nothingness. On Johanna's right she could look
down at tree crowns that were a few meters from her feet.
They ran into the wolves six days along the detour, when they had
almost reached the valley floor. Wolves. That's what Pilgrim called them
anyway; what Johanna saw looked like gerbils.
They had just completed a kilometer stretch of easy going. Even under
the trees they could feel the wind, dry and warm and moving ceaselessly down
the valley. The last patches of snow between the trees were being sucked to
nothingness, and there was a haze of smoke beyond the north wall of the
valley.
Johanna was walking alongside Woodcarver's cart. Pilgrim was about ten
meters behind, chatting occasionally with them. (The Queen herself had been
very quiet these last days.) Suddenly there was a screech of Tinish alarm
from above them.
A second later Vendacious shouted from a hundred meters ahead. Through
gaps in the trees, Johanna could see troopers on the next switchback above
them unlimbering crossbows, firing into the hillside above them. The
sunlight came dappled through the forest cover, bringing plenty of light but
in splotches that broke and moved as the soldiers hustled about. Chaos, but
... there were things up there that weren't Tines! Small, brown or gray,
they flitted through the shadows and the splotches of light. They swept up
the hillside coming upon the soldiers from the opposite direction that they
were shooting.
"Turn around! Turn around." Johanna screamed, but her voice was lost in
the turmoil. Besides, who there could understand her? All of Woodcarver was
peering up at the battle. She grabbed Johanna's sleeve. "You see something
up there? Where?"
Johanna stuttered an explanation, but now Pilgrim had seen something
too. His gobbled shouting came loud over the battle. He raced back up the
trail to where Scrupilo was trying to get a cannon unlimbered. "Johanna!
Help me."
Woodcarver hesitated, then said, "Yes. It may be that bad. Help with
the cannon, Johanna."
It was only fifty meters to the gun cart, but uphill. She ran.
Something heavy smashed into the path just behind her. Part of a soldier! It
twisted and screamed. Half a dozen gerbil-sized hunks of fur were attached
to the body, and its pelt was streaked with red. Another member fell past
her. Another. Johanna stumbled but kept running.
Wickwrackscar was standing heads-together, just a few meters from
Scrupilo. He was armed in every adult member -- mouth knives and steel
tines. He waved Johanna down next to him. "We run on a nest of, of wolves."
His speech was awkward, slurred. "Must be between here and path above. A
lump, like a l'il castle tower. Gotta kill nest. Can you see?" Evidently he
could not; he was looking all over. Johanna looked back up the hillside.
There seemed to be less fighting now, just sounds of Tinish agony.
Johanna pointed. "You mean there, that dark thing?"
Pilgrim didn't answer. His members were twitching, his mouth knives
waving randomly. She leaped away from the flashing metal. He had already cut
himself. Sound attack. She looked back along the path. She'd had more than a
year to know the packs, and what she was seeing now was ... madness. Some
packs were exploding, racing in all directions to distances where thought
couldn't possibly be sustained. Others -- Woodcarver on her cart -- huddled
in heaps, with scarcely a head showing.
Just beyond the nearest uphill trees she could see a gray tide. The
wolves. Each furry lump looked innocent enough. All together ... Johanna
froze for an instant, watching them tear out the throat of a trooper's
member.
Johanna was the only sane person left, and all it would mean is she
would know she was dying.
Kill the nest.
On the gun cart beside her only one of Scrupilo was left, old White
Head. Daffy as ever, it had pulled down its gunner's muffs and was nosing
around under the gun tube. Kill the nest. Maybe not so daffy after all!
Johanna jumped up on the wagon. It rolled back toward the dropoff,
banging against a tree; she scarcely noticed. She pulled up the gun barrel,
just as she had seen in all the drills. The white headed one pulled at the
powder bag, but with just his one pair of jaws he couldn't handle it.
Without the rest of its pack it had neither hands nor brains. It looked up
at her, its eyes wide and desperate.
She grabbed the other end of the bag, and the two of them got the
powder into the barrel. White Head dived back into the equipment, nosing
around for a cannon ball. Smarter than a dog, and trained. Between them,
maybe they had a chance!
Just half a meter beneath her feet, the wolves were running by. One or
two she could have fought off herself. But there were dozens down there,
worrying and tearing at random members. Three of Pilgrim were standing
around Scarbutt and the pups, but their defense was unthinking slashing. The
pack had dropped its mouth knives and tines.
She and White Head got the round down the barrel. White Head whipped
back to the rear, began playing with the little wick-lighter the gunners
used. It was something that could be held in a single mouth, since only one
member actually fired the weapon.
"Wait, you idiot!" Johanna kicked him back. "We gotta aim this thing!"
White Head looked hurt for an instant. The complaint wasn't completely
clear to him. He had dropped the standoff wand, but still held the lighter.
He flicked on the flame, and circled determinedly back, tried to worm past
Johanna's legs. She pushed him back again, and looked uphill. The dark
thing. That must be the nest. She tilted the gun tube on its mounting and
sighted down the top. Her face ended up just centimeters from the persistent
White Head and his flame. His muffed head darted forward, and the flame
touched the fire-hole.
The blast almost knocked Johanna off the cart. For a moment she could
think of nothing but the pain that stabbed into her ears. She rolled to a
sitting position, coughing in the smoke. She couldn't hear anything beyond a
high-pitched ringing that went on and on. Their little wagon was teetering,
one wheel hanging over the dropoff. White Head was flopping around under the
butt of the cannon. She pushed it off him and patted the muffed head. He was
bleeding -- or she was. She just sat dazed for a few seconds, mystified by
the blood, trying to imagine how she had ever ended up here.
A voice somewhere in the back of her head was screaming. No time, no
time. She forced herself to her knees and looked around, memories coming
back painfully slow.
There were splintered trees uphill of them; the blond wood glinted
among the leaves. Beyond them, where the nest had been, she saw a splash of
fresh turned earth. They had "killed" it, but ... the fighting continued.
There were still wolves on the path, but now they were the ones running
in all directions. As she watched, dozens of them catapulted off the edge of
trail into the trees and rocks below. And the Tines were actually fighting
now. Pilgrim had picked up his knives. The blades and his muzzles dripped
red as he slashed. Something gray and bleeding flew over the edge of the
cart and landed by Johanna's leg. The "wolf" couldn't have been more than
twenty centimeters long, its hair dirty gray brown. It really did look like
a pet, but the tiny jaws clicked with murderous intent at her ankles.
Johanna dropped a cannon ball on it.
During the next three days, while Woodcarver's people struggled to
bring their equipment and themselves back together, Johanna learned quite a
bit about the wolves. What she and Scrupilo's White Head did with cannon had
stopped the attack cold. Without doubt, knocking out the nest had saved a
lot of lives and the expedition itself. The "wolves" were a type of hive
creature, only a little like the packs. The Tines race used group thought to
reach high intelligence; Johanna had never seen a rational pack of more than
six members. The wolf nests didn't care about high intelligence. Woodcarver
claimed that a nest might have thousands of members -- certainly the one
they'd tripped over was huge. Such a mob couldn't be as smart as a human. In
terms of raw reasoning power, it probably wasn't much brighter than a single
pack member. On the other hand, it could be a lot more flexible. Wolves
could operate alone at great distances. When within a hundred meters of the
home nest they were appendages of the "queen" members of the nest, and no
one doubted their canniness then. Pilgrim had legends of nests with almost
packish intelligence, of foresters who made treaties with nearby nests for
protection in return for food. As long as the high-powered noises in the
nest lived, the worker wolves could coordinate almost like Tine members. But
kill the nest, and the creature fell apart like some cheap, star-topology
network.
Certainly this nest had done a number on Woodcarver's army. It had
waited quietly until the troopers were within its inner loudness. Then
outlying wolves had used synchronized mimicry to create sonic "ghosts",
tricking the packs into turning from the nest and shooting uselessly into
the trees. And when the ambush actually began, the nest had screamed
concentrated confusion down on the Tines. That attack had been a far more
powerful thing than the "stink noise" they'd encountered in other parts of
the forest. To the Tines, the stinkers had been painfully loud and sometimes
even frightening, but not the mind-destroying chaos of the wolf-nest attack.
More than one hundred packs had been knocked out in the ambush. Some,
mostly packs with pups, had huddled. Others, like Scrupilo, had been
"blasted apart". In the hours following the attack, many of these fragments
straggled back and reassembled. The resulting Tines were shaken but
unharmed. Intact troops hunted up and down the forested cliffs for injured
members of their comrades. There were places along the dropoff that were
more than twenty meters deep. Where their fall wasn't cushioned by tree
boughs, members landed on naked rock. Five dead ones were eventually found,
and another twenty seriously injured. Two carts had fallen. They were
kindling, and their kherhogs were too badly injured to survive. By great
good luck, the gunshot had not started a forest fire.
Three times the sun made its vast, tilted course around the sky.
Woodcarver's army recovered in a camp in the depths of the valley forest, by
the river. Vendacious had posted lookouts with signaling mirrors on the
northern valley wall. This place was about as safe as any they could find so
far north. It was certainly one of the most beautiful. It didn't have the
view of the high forest, but there was the sound of the river nearby, so
loud it drowned the sighing of the dry wind. The lowland trees didn't have
root flowers, but they were still different from what Johanna had known.
There was no underbrush, just a soft, bluish "moss" that Pilgrim claimed was
actually part of the trees. It stretched like mown parkland to the edge of
the river.
On the last day of their rest, the Queen called a meeting of all the
packs not at guard or lookout. It was the largest collection of Tines
Johanna had seen in one place since her family was killed. Only these ones
weren't fighting. As far as Johanna could see across the bluish moss, there
were packs, each at least eight meters from its nearest neighbor. For an
absurd instant she was reminded of Settlers Park at Overby: Families
picnicking on the grass, each with its own traditional blanket and food
lockers. But these "families" were each a pack, and this was a military
formation. The rows were gently curving arcs all facing toward the Queen.
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was ten meters behind her, in shadow; being Queen's
consort didn't count for anything official. On Woodcarver's left lay the
living casualties of the ambush, members with bandages and splints. In some
ways, such visible damage wasn't the most horrifying. There were also what
Pilgrim called the "walking wounded". These were singletons and duos and
trios that were all that was left of whole packs. Some of these tried to
maintain a posture of attention, but others mooned about, occasionally
breaking into the Queen's speech with aimless words. It was like Scriber
Jaqueramaphan all over again, but most of these would live. Some were
already melding, trying to make new individuals. Some of these might even
work out, as Peregrine Wickwrackscar had done. For most, it would be a long
time before they were fully people again.
Johanna sat with Scrupilo in the first rank of troopers before the
Queen. The Commander of Cannoneers stood at Tinish parade rest: rumps on the
ground, chest high, most heads facing front. Scrup had come through it
without serious damage. His white head had a few more scorch marks, and one
of the other members had sprained a shoulder falling off the path. He wore
his flying cannoneer muffs as flamboyantly as always, but there was
something subdued about him -- maybe it was just the military formation and
getting a medal for heroism.
The Queen was wearing her special jackets. Each head looked out at a
different section of her audience. Johanna still couldn't understand Tinish,
and would certainly never speak it without mechanical assistance. But the
sounds were mostly within her range of hearing -- the "low" frequencies
carried a lot better than higher ones. Even without memory aides and grammar
generators she was learning a little. She could recognize emotional tone
easily, and things like the raucous ark ark ark that passed for applause
around here. As for individual words -- well, they were more like chords,
single syllables that had meaning. Nowadays, if she listened really
carefully (and Pilgrim weren't nearby to give a running translation) she
could even recognize some of those.
... Just now, for instance, Woodcarver was saying good things about her
audience. Approving ark ark's came from all directions. They sounded like a
bunch of sea'mals. One of the Queen's heads dipped into a bowl, came up with
a small carven doodad in its mouth. She spoke a pack's name, a multichord
tumptititum that if Johanna heard often enough she might be able to repeat
as "Jaqueramaphan" -- or even see meaning in, as "Wickwrackscar".
From the front rank of the audience, a single member trotted toward the
Queen. It stopped practically nose to nose with the Queen's nearest member.
Woodcarver said something about bravery, and then two of her fastened the
wooden -- broach? -- to the member's jacket. It turned smartly and returned
to its pack.
Woodcarver picked out another decoration, and called on another pack.
Johanna leaned over toward Scrupilo. "What's going on?" she said
wonderingly. "Why are single members getting medals?" And how can they stand
to get so near another pack?
Scrupilo had been standing more stiffly at attention than most packs,
and was pretty much ignoring her. Now he turned one head in her direction.
"Shh!" He started to turn back, but she grabbed him by one of his jackets.
"Foolish one," he finally replied. "The award is for the whole pack. One
member is extended to accept. More would be madness."
Hmm. One after another, three more packs "extended a member" to take
their decorations. Some were full of precision, like human soldiers in
stories. Others started out smartly, then became timid and confused as they
approached Woodcarver.
Finally Johanna said, "Ssst. Scrupilo! When do we get ours?"
This time he didn't even look at her; all his heads faced rigidly
toward the Queen. "Last, of course. You and I killed the nest, and saved
Woodcarver herself." His bodies were almost shaking with the intensity of
their brace. He's scared witless. And suddenly Johanna guessed why.
Apparently Woodcarver had no problem maintaining her mind with one outside
stopped, holding all her breath. She could hear birds and the sounds of
timber being sawn somewhere on the far side of the inner yard. Yet Steel was
only thirty feet from her. His thought noise should have been a loud
intrusion, even confusing. She strained to hear.... There was nothing but
her own thoughts and a stickety buzzing noise that seemed to come from all
directions.
"And we thought this would just give us control in battle," she said,
wonderingly. All of her turned and walked toward Amdi. He was twenty feet
away, ten feet. Still no thought noise. Amdi's eyes were wide. The puppies
held their ground; in fact all eight of him seemed to lean toward her. "You
knew about this all along, didn't you?" Tyrathect said.
"I hoped. Oh, I hoped." He stepped closer. Five feet. The eight of him
looked at the five of her from a distance of inches. He extended a nose,
brushing muzzles with Tyrathect. His thought sounds came only faintly
through the cloak, no louder than if he were fifty feet away. For a moment
they looked at each other in stark astonishment. Nose to nose, and they both
could still think! Amdi gave a whoop of glee and bounded in among Tyrathect,
rubbing back and forth across her legs. "See, Jefri," he shouted in
Samnorsk. "It works. It works!"
Tyrathect wobbled under the assault, almost lost hold of her thoughts.
What had just happened.... In all the history of the world there had never
been such a thing. If thinking packs could work paw by jowl.... There were
consequences and consequences, and she got dizzy all over again.
Steel moved a little closer and suffered a flying hug from Jefri
Olsndot. Steel was trying his best to join the celebration, but he wasn't
quite sure what had happened. He hadn't lived the consequences like
Tyrathect. "Wonderful progress for the first try," he said. "But it must be
painful even so." Two of him looked sharply at her. "We should get that gear
off you, and give you a rest."
"No!" Tyrathect and Amdi said almost together. She smiled back at
Steel. "We haven't really tested it yet, have we? The whole purpose was
long-distance communications." We thought that was the purpose, anyway. In
fact, even if it had no better range than talk sounds, it was already a
towering success in Tyrathect's mind.
"Oh." Steel smiled weakly at Amdi and glared hidden faces at Tyrathect.
Jefri was still hanging on two of his necks. Steel was a picture of barely
concealed anguish. "Well, go slowly then. We don't know what might happen if
you run out of range."
Tyrathect disentangled two of herself from Amdi and stepped a few feet
away. Thought was as clear -- and as potentially confusing -- as before. By
now she was beginning to get the feel of it though. She had very little
trouble keeping her balance. She walked the two another thirty feet, about
the maximum range a pack could coordinate in the quietest conditions. "It's
like I'm still heads-together," she said wonderingly. Ordinarily at thirty
feet, thoughts were faint and the time lag so bad that coordination was
difficult.
"How far can I go?" She murmured the question to Amdi.
He made a human giggling sound and slid a head close to hers. "I'm not
sure. It should be good at least to the outer walls."
"Well," she said in a normal voice, for Steel, "let's see if I can
spread a little bit further." The two of her walked another ten yards. She
was more than sixty feet across!
Steel was wide-eyed. "And now?"
Tyrathect laughed. "My thought's as crisp as before." She turned her
two and walked away.
"Wait!" roared Steel, bounding to his feet. "That's far -- " then he
remembered his audience, and his fury became more a frightened concern for
her welfare. "That's far too dangerous for the first experiment. Come back!"
From where she sat with Amdi, Tyrathect smiled brightly. "But Steel, I
never left," she said in Samnorsk.
Amdijefri laughed and laughed.
She was one hundred fifty feet across. Her two broke into a careful
trot -- and she watched Steel swallow back foam. Her thought still had the
sharp, abrupt quality of closer than heads-together. How fast is this radio
thing?
She passed close by Shreck and the guards posted at the edge of the
field. "Hey, hey, Shreck! What do you say?" one of her said at his stupefied
faces. Back with Amdi and the rest of her, Steel was shouting at Shreck,
telling him to follow her.
Her trot became an easy run. She split, one going north of the inner
yard, the other south. Shreck and company followed, clumsy with shock. The
dome of the inner keep was between her, a sweeping hulk of stone. Her radio
thoughts faded into the stickety buzzing.
"Can't think," she mumbled to Amdi.
"Pull on the mouth straps. Make your thoughts louder."
Tyrathect pulled, and the buzzing faded. She regained her balance and
raced around the starship. One of her was in a construction area now.
Artisans looked up in shock. A loose member usually meant a fatal accident
or a pack run amok. In either case the singleton must be restrained. But
Tyrathect's member was wearing a greatcloak that sparkled here and there of
gold. And behind her, Shreck and his guards were shouting for everyone to
stand back.
She turned a head to Steel, and her voice was joy. "I soar!" She ran
through the cowering workers, ran toward the south and the west walls. She
was everywhere, spreading and spreading. These seconds would make memories
that would outlast her soul, that would be legends in the minds of her
descendants a thousand years from now.
Steel hunkered down. Things were totally out of his control now;
Shreck's people were all on the far side of inner keep. All that he and
Amdijefri could know came from Tyrathect -- and the clamor of alarums.
Amdi bounced around her. "Where are you now? Where?"
"Almost to the outer wall."
"Don't go beyond that," Steel said quietly.
Tyrathect scarcely heard. For a few more seconds she would drink this
glorious power. She charged up the inside stairs. Guards scuttled back, some
members jumping back into the yard. Shreck still followed, shouting for her
safety.
One of her reached the parapet, then the other.
She gasped.
"Are you all right?" said Amdi.
"I -- " Tyrathect looked about her. From her places on the south wall
she could see herselves back in the castle yard: a tiny clump of gold and
black that was her three and Amdi. Beyond the northeast walls stretched
forest and valleys, the trails up into the Icefang mountains. To the west
was Hidden Island and the misty inner waters. These were things she had seen
a thousand times as Flenser. How he had loved them, his domain. But now ...
she was seeing as if in a dream. Her eyes were so far apart. Her pack was
almost as wide as the castle itself. The parallax view made Hidden Island
seem just a few paces away. Newcastle was like a model spread out around
her. Almighty Pack of packs -- this was God's view.
Shreck's troopers were edging closer. He had sent a couple of packs
back to get directions. "A couple of minutes. I'll come down in a couple of
minutes." She spoke the words to the troopers on the palisade and to Steel
back in the yard. Then she turned to survey her domain.
She had only extended two of herself across less than a quarter of a
mile. But there was no perceptible time lag; coordination had the same
abrupt feel it did when she was all together. And there was plenty more pull
in the braid-bone straps. What if all five of her spread out, moved miles
apart? All of the northland would be her private room.
And Flenser? Ah, Flenser. Where was he? The memories were still there,
but.... Tyrathect remembered the loss of consciousness right when the radios
began working. It took a special skill of coordination to think in the face
of such terrible speed. Perhaps Lord Flenser had never walked between close
cliffs when he was new. Tyrathect smiled. Perhaps only her mindset could
hold when using the radios. In that case.... Tyrathect looked again across
the landscape. Flenser had made a great empire. If these new developments
were managed properly, then the coming victories could make it infinitely
grander.
He turned to Shreck's troopers. "Very well, I'm ready to return to Lord
Steel."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
It was high summer when Woodcarver's army left for the north. The
preparations had been frantic, with Vendacious driving himself and everyone
else to the point of exhaustion. There had been cannons to make -- Scrupilo
cast seventy tubes before getting thirty that would fire reliably. There had
been cannoneers to train -- and safe methods of firing to discover. There
had been wagons to build and kherhogs to buy.
Surely word of the preparations had long ago filtered north.
Woodcarvers was a port city; they could not close down the commerce that
moved through it. Vendacious warned them of this in more than one inner
council meeting: Steel knew they were coming. The trick was in keeping the
Flenserists uncertain as to numbers and timing and exact purpose. "We have
one great advantage over the enemy," he said. "We have agents in his highest
councils. We know what he knows of us." They couldn't disguise the obvious
from the spies, but the details were a different matter.
The army departed along inland routes, a dozen wagons here, a few
squads there. In all there were a thousand packs in the expedition, but they
would never be together till they reached deep forest. It would have been
easier to take the first part of the trip by sea, but the Flenserists had
spotters hidden high in the fjordlands. Any ship movement -- even deep in
Woodcarver territory -- would be known in the north. So they traveled on
forest paths, through areas that Vendacious had cleared of enemy agents.
At first the going was very easy, at least for those with the wagons.
Johanna rode in one of the rear ones with Woodcarver and Dataset. Even I'm
beginning to treat the thing like an oracle, thought Johanna. Too bad it
couldn't really predict the future.
The weather was as beautiful as Johanna had ever seen it on Tines
world, an endless afternoon. It was strange that such unending fairness
should make her so nervous, but she couldn't help it. This was so much like
her first time on this world, when everything had ... gone wrong.
During the first dayarounds of the journey, while they were still in
home territory, Woodcarver pointed out every peak that came into view and
tried to translate its name into Samnorsk for her. After six hundred years
the Queen knew her land well. Even the patches of snow -- the ones that
lasted all through the summer -- were known to her. She showed Johanna a
sketchbook she had brought along. Each page was from a different year, and
showed her special snowpatches as they had appeared on the same day of the
summer. Riffling through the leaves, it was almost like a crude piece of
animation. Johanna could see the patches moving, growing over a period of
decades, then retreating. "Most packs don't live long enough to feel it,"
said Woodcarver, "but to me, the patches that last all summer are like
living things. See how they move? They are like wolves, held off from our
lands by our fire that is the sun. They circle about, grow. Sometimes they
link together and a new glacier starts toward the sea."
Johanna had laughed a little nervously. "Are they winning?"
"For the last four centuries, no. The summers have often been hot and
windy. In the long run? I don't know. And it doesn't matter quite so much to
me anymore." She rocked her two little puppies for a moment and laughed
gently. "Peregrine's little ones are not even thinking yet, and I'm already
losing my long view!"
Johanna reached out to stroke her neck. "But they are your puppies
too."
"I know. Most of my pups have been with other packs, but these are the
first that I have kept to be me." Her blind one nuzzled at one of the
puppies. It wriggled and made a sound that warbled at the top of Johanna's
hearing. Johanna held the other on her lap. Tine pups looked more like baby
sea'mals than dogs. Their necks were so long compared to their bodies. And
they seemed to develop much more slowly than the puppy she and Jefri had
raised. Even now they seemed to have trouble focusing. She moved her fingers
slowly back and forth in front of one puppy's head; its efforts to track
were comical.
And after sixty days, Woodcarver's pups couldn't really walk. The Queen
wore two special jackets with carrying pouches on the sides. Most of the
waking day, her little ones stayed there, suckling through the fur on her
tummy. In some ways, Woodcarver treated her offspring as a human would. She
was very nervous when they were taken from her sight. She liked to cuddle
them and play little games of coordination with them. Often she would lay
both of them on their backs and pat their paws in a sequence of eight, then
abruptly tap the one or the other on the belly. The two wriggled furiously
at the attack, their little legs waving in all directions. "I nibble the one
whose paw was last touched. Peregrine is worthy of me. These two are already
thinking a little. See?" She pointed to the puppy that had convulsed into a
ball, avoiding most of her surprise tickle.
In other ways Tinish parenting was alien, almost scary. Neither
Woodcarver nor Peregrine ever talked to their pups in audible tones, but
their ultrasonic "thoughts" seemed to be constantly probing the little ones.
Some of it was so simple and regular that it set sympathetic vibrations
through the walls of the little wagon. The wood buzzed under Johanna's
hands. It was like a mother humming a lullaby, but she could see it had
another purpose. The little creatures responded to the sounds, twitching in
complicated rhythms. Peregrine said it would be another thirty days before
the pups could contribute conscious thought to the pack, but they were
already being trained and exercised for the function.
They camped part of each dayaround, the troops standing turns as sentry
lines. Even during the traveling part of the day, they stopped numerous
times, to clear the trail, or await the return of scouts, or simply to rest.
At one such stop, Johanna sat with Peregrine in the shade of a tree that
looked like pine but smelled of honey. Pilgrim played with his young ones,
helping them to stand up and walk a few steps. She could tell by the buzzing
in her head that he was thinking at the pups. And suddenly they seemed more
like marionettes than children to her. "Why don't you let them play by
themselves, or with their -- " Brothers? Sisters? What do you call siblings
born to the other pack? "-- with Woodcarver's pups?"
Even more than Woodcarver, the pilgrim had tried to learn human
customs. He was by far the most flexible pack she knew ... after all, if you
can accommodate a murderer in your own mind, you must be flexible. But
Pilgrim was visibly startled by her question. The buzzing in her head
stopped abruptly. He laughed weakly. It was a very human laugh, though a bit
theatrical. Peregrine had spent hours at interactive comedy on Dataset --
whether for entertainment or insight, she didn't know. "Play? By themselves?
Yes ... I see how natural that would seem to you. To us, it would be a kind
of perversion.... No, worse than that, since perversions are at least fun
for some people some of the time. But if a pup were raised a singleton, or
even a duo -- it would be making an animal of what could be sturdy member."
"You mean that pups never have life of their own?"
Peregrine cocked his heads and scrunched close to the ground. One of
him continued to nose around the puppies, but Johanna had his attention. He
loved to puzzle over human exotica. "Well, sometimes there is a tragedy --
an orphan pup left to itself. Often there is no cure for it; the creature
becomes too independent to meld with any pack. In any case, it is a very
lonely, empty life. I have personal memories of just how unpleasant."
"You're missing a lot. I know you've watched children's stories on
Dataset. It's sad you can never be young and foolish."
"Hei! I never said that. I've been young and foolish lots; it's my way
of life. And most packs are that way when they have several young members by
different parents." As they talked, one of Peregrine's pups had struggled to
the edge of the blanket they sat on. Now it awkwardly extended its neck into
the flowers that grew from the roots of a nearby tree. As it scruffed around
in the green and purple, Johanna felt the buzzing begin again. The pup's
movement became a tad more organized. "Wow! I can smell the flowers with
him. I bet we'll be seeing through each other's eyes well before we get to
Flenser's Hidden Island." The pup backed up, and the two did a little dance
on the blanket. Peregrine's heads bobbed in time with the movement. "They
are such bright little ones!" He grinned. "Oh, we are not so different from
you, Johanna. I know humans are proud of their young ones. Both Woodcarver
and I wonder what ours will become. She is so brilliant, and I am -- well, a
bit mad. Will these two make me a scientific genius? Will Woodcarver's turn
her into an adventurer? Heh, heh. Woodcarver's a great brood kenner, but
even she's not sure what our new souls will be like. Oh, I can't wait to be
six again!"
It had taken Scriber and Pilgrim and Johanna only three days to sail
from Flenser's Domain to the harbor at Woodcarver's. It would take this army
almost thirty days to walk back to where Johanna's adventure began. On the
map it had looked a tortuous path, wiggling this way and that through the
fjordland. Yet the first ten days were amazingly easy. The weather stayed
dry and warm. It was like the day of the ambush stretched out forever and
ever. A dry winds summer, Woodcarver called it. There should be occasional
storms, at least cloudiness. Instead the sun circled endlessly above the
forest canopy, and when they broke into the open (never for long, and then
only when Vendacious was sure that it was safe), the sky was clear and
almost cloudless.
In fact, there was already uneasiness about the weather. At noon it
could get downright hot. The wind was constant, drying. The forest itself
was drying out; they must be careful with fire. And with the sun always up
and no clouds, they might be seen by lookouts many kilometers away. Scrupilo
was especially bothered. He hadn't expected to fire the cannons en route,
but he had wanted to drill "his" troops more in the open.
Officially Strupilo was a council member and the Queen's chief
engineer. Since his experiment with the cannon, he had insisted on the title
"Commander of Cannoneers". To Johanna, the engineer had always seemed curt
and impatient. His members were almost always moving, and with jerky
abruptness. He spent almost as much time with the Dataset as the Queen or
Peregrine Wickwrackscar, yet he had very little interest in people-oriented
subjects. "He has a blindness for all but machines," Woodcarver once said of
him, "but that's how I made him. He's invented much, even before you came."
Scrupilo had fallen in love with the cannons. For most packs, firing
the things was a painful experience. Since that first test, Scrupilo had
fired the things again and again, trying to improve the tubes, the powder,
and the explosive rounds. His fur was scored with dozens of powder burns. He
claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind -- but most everybody else
agreed it made you daft.
During rest stops Scrup was a familiar figure, strutting up and down
the line, haranguing his cannoneers. He claimed even the shortest stop was
an opportunity for training, since in real combat speed would be essential.
He had designed special epaulets, based on Nyjoran gunners' ear muffs. They
didn't cover his low-sound ears at all, but instead the forehead and
shoulder tympana of his trigger member. Actually tying the muffs down was a
mind-numbing thing to do, but for the moments right around firing it was
worth it. Scrupilo wore his own muffs all the time, but unsnugged. They
looked like silly little wings sticking out from his head and shoulders. He
obviously thought the effect was raffish -- and in fact, his gunner crews
also made a big thing of wearing the gear at all times. After a while, even
Johanna could see that the drill was paying off. At least, they could swing
the gun tubes around at an instant's notice, stuff them with fake powder and
ball, and shout the Tinish equivalent of "BANG!".
The army carried much more gunpowder than food. The packs were to live
off the forest. Johanna had little experience with camping in an atmosphere.
Were forests usually this rich? It was certainly nothing like the urban
forests of Straum, where you needed a special license to walk off marked
paths, and most of the wild life were mechanical imitations of Nyjoran
originals. This place was wilder than even the stories of Nyjora. After all,
that world had been well settled before it fell to medievalism. The Tines'
had never been civilized, had never spread cities across continents. Pilgrim
guessed there were fewer than thirty million packs in all the world. The
Northwest was only beginning to be settled. Game was everywhere. In their
hunting, the Tines were like animals. Troopers raced through the
underforest. The favorite hunt was one of sheer endurance, where the prey
was chased until it dropped. That was rarely practical here, but they got
almost as much pleasure from chasing the unwary into ambushes.
Johanna didn't like it. Was this a medieval perversion or a peculiarly
Tinish one? If allowed the time, the troops didn't use their bows and
knives. The pleasure of the hunt included slashing at throats and bellies
with teeth and claws. Not that the forest creatures were without defenses:
for millions of years threat and counterthreat had evolved here. Almost
every animal could generate ultrasonic screeching that totally drowned the
thought of any nearby pack. There were parts of the forest that seemed
silent to Johanna, but through which the army drove at a cautious gallop,
troops and drivers writhing in agony from the unseen assault.
Some of the forest animals were more sophisticated....
Twenty-five days out, the army was stuck trying to get across the
biggest valley yet. In the middle -- mostly hidden by the forest -- a river
flowed down to the western sea. The walls of these valleys were like nothing
Johanna had seen in the parks of Straum: If you took a cross-section at
right angles to the river, the walls made a "U" shape. They were cliff-like
steep at the high edges, then became slopes and finally a gentle plain where
the river ran. "That's how the ice gouges it," explained Woodcarver. "There
are places further up where I've actually watched it happen," and she showed
Johanna explanations in the Dataset. That was happening more and more;
Pilgrim and Woodcarver and sometimes even Scrupilo seemed to know more of a
child's modern education than Johanna.
They had already been across a number of smaller valleys. Getting down
the steep parts was always tedious, but so far the paths had been good.
Vendacious took them to the edge this latest valley.
Woodcarver and staff stood under the forest cover just short of the
dropoff. Some meters back, Johanna sat surrounded by Peregrine
Wickwrackscar. The trees at this elevation reminded Johanna a little of
pines. The leaves were narrow and sharp and lasted all year. But the bark
was blistered white and the wood itself was pale blond. Strangest of all
were the flowers. They sprouted purple and violet from the exposed roots of
the trees. Tines' world had no analog of honeybees, but there was constant
motion among the flowers as thumb-sized mammals climbed from plant to plant.
There were thousands of them, but they seemed to have no interest in
anything except the flowers and the sweetness that oozed from them. She
leaned back among the flowers and admired the view while the Queen gobbled
with Vendacious. How many kilometers could you see from here? The air was as
clear as she had even known it on Tines' world. East and west the valley
seemed to stretch forever. The river was a silver thread where it
occasionally showed through the forest of the valley floor.
Pilgrim nudged her with a nose and nodded toward the Queen. Woodcarver
was pointing this way and that over the dropoff. "Argument is in the air.
You want a translation?"
"Yeah."
"Woodcarver doesn't like this path," Pilgrim's voice changed to the
tone the Queen used when speaking Samnorsk: "The path is completely exposed.
Anyone on the other side can sit and count our every wagon. Even from miles
away. [A mile is a fat kilometer.]"
Vendacious whipped his heads around in that indignant way of his. He
gobbled something that Johanna knew was angry. Pilgrim chuckled and changed
his voice to imitate the security chief's: "Your Majesty! My scouts have
scoured the valley and far wall. There is no threat."
"You've done miracles, I know, but do you seriously claim to have
covered that entire north face? That's five miles away, and I know from my
youth that there are dozens of cavelets -- you have those memories
yourself."
"That stopped him!" said Pilgrim, laughing.
"C'mon. Just translate." She was quite capable of interpreting body
language and tone by now. Sometimes even the Tinish chords made sense.
"Hmph. Okay."
The Queen hiked her baby packs around and sat down. Her tone became
conciliatory. "If this weather weren't so clear, or if there were night
times, we might try it, but -- You remember the old path? Twenty miles
inland from here? That should be overgrown by now. And the road coming back
is -- "
Gobble-hiss from Vendacious, angry. "I tell you, this is safe! We'll
lose days on the other path. If we arrive late at Flenser's, all my work
will be for nothing. You must go forward here."
"Oops," Pilgrim whispered, unable to resist a little editorializing,
"Ol' Vendacious may have gone too far with that." The Queen's heads arched
back. Pilgrim's imitation of her human voice said, "I understand your
anxiety, pack of my blood. But we go forward where I say. If that is
intolerable to you, I will regretfully accept your resignation."
"But you need me!"
"Not that much."
Johanna suddenly realized that the whole mission could fall apart right
here, without even a shot being fired. Where would we be without Vendacious?
She held her breath and watched the two packs. Parts of Vendacious walked in
quick circles, stopping for angry instants to stare at Woodcarver. Finally
all his necks drooped. "Um. My apologies, Your Majesty. As long as you find
me of use, I beg to continue in your service."
Now Woodcarver relaxed, too. She reached to pet her puppies. They had
responded with her mood, thrashing in their carriers and hissing. "Forgiven.
I want your independent advice, Vendacious. It has been miraculously good."
Vendacious smiled weakly.
"I didn't think the jerk had it in him," Pilgrim said near Johanna's
ear.
It took two dayarounds to reach the old path. As Woodcarver had
predicted, it was overgrown. More: In places there was no sign of the path
at all, just young trees growing from slumped earth. It would take days to
get down the valley side this way. If Woodcarver had any misgivings about
the decision, she didn't mention them to Johanna. The Queen was six hundred
years old; she talked often enough about the inflexibility of age. Now
Johanna was getting a clear example of what that meant.
When they came to a washout, trees were cut down and a bridge
constructed on the spot. It took a day to get by each such spot. But
progress was agonizingly slow even where the path was still in place. No one
rode in the carts now. The edge of the path had worn away, and the cart
wheels sometimes turned on nothingness. On Johanna's right she could look
down at tree crowns that were a few meters from her feet.
They ran into the wolves six days along the detour, when they had
almost reached the valley floor. Wolves. That's what Pilgrim called them
anyway; what Johanna saw looked like gerbils.
They had just completed a kilometer stretch of easy going. Even under
the trees they could feel the wind, dry and warm and moving ceaselessly down
the valley. The last patches of snow between the trees were being sucked to
nothingness, and there was a haze of smoke beyond the north wall of the
valley.
Johanna was walking alongside Woodcarver's cart. Pilgrim was about ten
meters behind, chatting occasionally with them. (The Queen herself had been
very quiet these last days.) Suddenly there was a screech of Tinish alarm
from above them.
A second later Vendacious shouted from a hundred meters ahead. Through
gaps in the trees, Johanna could see troopers on the next switchback above
them unlimbering crossbows, firing into the hillside above them. The
sunlight came dappled through the forest cover, bringing plenty of light but
in splotches that broke and moved as the soldiers hustled about. Chaos, but
... there were things up there that weren't Tines! Small, brown or gray,
they flitted through the shadows and the splotches of light. They swept up
the hillside coming upon the soldiers from the opposite direction that they
were shooting.
"Turn around! Turn around." Johanna screamed, but her voice was lost in
the turmoil. Besides, who there could understand her? All of Woodcarver was
peering up at the battle. She grabbed Johanna's sleeve. "You see something
up there? Where?"
Johanna stuttered an explanation, but now Pilgrim had seen something
too. His gobbled shouting came loud over the battle. He raced back up the
trail to where Scrupilo was trying to get a cannon unlimbered. "Johanna!
Help me."
Woodcarver hesitated, then said, "Yes. It may be that bad. Help with
the cannon, Johanna."
It was only fifty meters to the gun cart, but uphill. She ran.
Something heavy smashed into the path just behind her. Part of a soldier! It
twisted and screamed. Half a dozen gerbil-sized hunks of fur were attached
to the body, and its pelt was streaked with red. Another member fell past
her. Another. Johanna stumbled but kept running.
Wickwrackscar was standing heads-together, just a few meters from
Scrupilo. He was armed in every adult member -- mouth knives and steel
tines. He waved Johanna down next to him. "We run on a nest of, of wolves."
His speech was awkward, slurred. "Must be between here and path above. A
lump, like a l'il castle tower. Gotta kill nest. Can you see?" Evidently he
could not; he was looking all over. Johanna looked back up the hillside.
There seemed to be less fighting now, just sounds of Tinish agony.
Johanna pointed. "You mean there, that dark thing?"
Pilgrim didn't answer. His members were twitching, his mouth knives
waving randomly. She leaped away from the flashing metal. He had already cut
himself. Sound attack. She looked back along the path. She'd had more than a
year to know the packs, and what she was seeing now was ... madness. Some
packs were exploding, racing in all directions to distances where thought
couldn't possibly be sustained. Others -- Woodcarver on her cart -- huddled
in heaps, with scarcely a head showing.
Just beyond the nearest uphill trees she could see a gray tide. The
wolves. Each furry lump looked innocent enough. All together ... Johanna
froze for an instant, watching them tear out the throat of a trooper's
member.
Johanna was the only sane person left, and all it would mean is she
would know she was dying.
Kill the nest.
On the gun cart beside her only one of Scrupilo was left, old White
Head. Daffy as ever, it had pulled down its gunner's muffs and was nosing
around under the gun tube. Kill the nest. Maybe not so daffy after all!
Johanna jumped up on the wagon. It rolled back toward the dropoff,
banging against a tree; she scarcely noticed. She pulled up the gun barrel,
just as she had seen in all the drills. The white headed one pulled at the
powder bag, but with just his one pair of jaws he couldn't handle it.
Without the rest of its pack it had neither hands nor brains. It looked up
at her, its eyes wide and desperate.
She grabbed the other end of the bag, and the two of them got the
powder into the barrel. White Head dived back into the equipment, nosing
around for a cannon ball. Smarter than a dog, and trained. Between them,
maybe they had a chance!
Just half a meter beneath her feet, the wolves were running by. One or
two she could have fought off herself. But there were dozens down there,
worrying and tearing at random members. Three of Pilgrim were standing
around Scarbutt and the pups, but their defense was unthinking slashing. The
pack had dropped its mouth knives and tines.
She and White Head got the round down the barrel. White Head whipped
back to the rear, began playing with the little wick-lighter the gunners
used. It was something that could be held in a single mouth, since only one
member actually fired the weapon.
"Wait, you idiot!" Johanna kicked him back. "We gotta aim this thing!"
White Head looked hurt for an instant. The complaint wasn't completely
clear to him. He had dropped the standoff wand, but still held the lighter.
He flicked on the flame, and circled determinedly back, tried to worm past
Johanna's legs. She pushed him back again, and looked uphill. The dark
thing. That must be the nest. She tilted the gun tube on its mounting and
sighted down the top. Her face ended up just centimeters from the persistent
White Head and his flame. His muffed head darted forward, and the flame
touched the fire-hole.
The blast almost knocked Johanna off the cart. For a moment she could
think of nothing but the pain that stabbed into her ears. She rolled to a
sitting position, coughing in the smoke. She couldn't hear anything beyond a
high-pitched ringing that went on and on. Their little wagon was teetering,
one wheel hanging over the dropoff. White Head was flopping around under the
butt of the cannon. She pushed it off him and patted the muffed head. He was
bleeding -- or she was. She just sat dazed for a few seconds, mystified by
the blood, trying to imagine how she had ever ended up here.
A voice somewhere in the back of her head was screaming. No time, no
time. She forced herself to her knees and looked around, memories coming
back painfully slow.
There were splintered trees uphill of them; the blond wood glinted
among the leaves. Beyond them, where the nest had been, she saw a splash of
fresh turned earth. They had "killed" it, but ... the fighting continued.
There were still wolves on the path, but now they were the ones running
in all directions. As she watched, dozens of them catapulted off the edge of
trail into the trees and rocks below. And the Tines were actually fighting
now. Pilgrim had picked up his knives. The blades and his muzzles dripped
red as he slashed. Something gray and bleeding flew over the edge of the
cart and landed by Johanna's leg. The "wolf" couldn't have been more than
twenty centimeters long, its hair dirty gray brown. It really did look like
a pet, but the tiny jaws clicked with murderous intent at her ankles.
Johanna dropped a cannon ball on it.
During the next three days, while Woodcarver's people struggled to
bring their equipment and themselves back together, Johanna learned quite a
bit about the wolves. What she and Scrupilo's White Head did with cannon had
stopped the attack cold. Without doubt, knocking out the nest had saved a
lot of lives and the expedition itself. The "wolves" were a type of hive
creature, only a little like the packs. The Tines race used group thought to
reach high intelligence; Johanna had never seen a rational pack of more than
six members. The wolf nests didn't care about high intelligence. Woodcarver
claimed that a nest might have thousands of members -- certainly the one
they'd tripped over was huge. Such a mob couldn't be as smart as a human. In
terms of raw reasoning power, it probably wasn't much brighter than a single
pack member. On the other hand, it could be a lot more flexible. Wolves
could operate alone at great distances. When within a hundred meters of the
home nest they were appendages of the "queen" members of the nest, and no
one doubted their canniness then. Pilgrim had legends of nests with almost
packish intelligence, of foresters who made treaties with nearby nests for
protection in return for food. As long as the high-powered noises in the
nest lived, the worker wolves could coordinate almost like Tine members. But
kill the nest, and the creature fell apart like some cheap, star-topology
network.
Certainly this nest had done a number on Woodcarver's army. It had
waited quietly until the troopers were within its inner loudness. Then
outlying wolves had used synchronized mimicry to create sonic "ghosts",
tricking the packs into turning from the nest and shooting uselessly into
the trees. And when the ambush actually began, the nest had screamed
concentrated confusion down on the Tines. That attack had been a far more
powerful thing than the "stink noise" they'd encountered in other parts of
the forest. To the Tines, the stinkers had been painfully loud and sometimes
even frightening, but not the mind-destroying chaos of the wolf-nest attack.
More than one hundred packs had been knocked out in the ambush. Some,
mostly packs with pups, had huddled. Others, like Scrupilo, had been
"blasted apart". In the hours following the attack, many of these fragments
straggled back and reassembled. The resulting Tines were shaken but
unharmed. Intact troops hunted up and down the forested cliffs for injured
members of their comrades. There were places along the dropoff that were
more than twenty meters deep. Where their fall wasn't cushioned by tree
boughs, members landed on naked rock. Five dead ones were eventually found,
and another twenty seriously injured. Two carts had fallen. They were
kindling, and their kherhogs were too badly injured to survive. By great
good luck, the gunshot had not started a forest fire.
Three times the sun made its vast, tilted course around the sky.
Woodcarver's army recovered in a camp in the depths of the valley forest, by
the river. Vendacious had posted lookouts with signaling mirrors on the
northern valley wall. This place was about as safe as any they could find so
far north. It was certainly one of the most beautiful. It didn't have the
view of the high forest, but there was the sound of the river nearby, so
loud it drowned the sighing of the dry wind. The lowland trees didn't have
root flowers, but they were still different from what Johanna had known.
There was no underbrush, just a soft, bluish "moss" that Pilgrim claimed was
actually part of the trees. It stretched like mown parkland to the edge of
the river.
On the last day of their rest, the Queen called a meeting of all the
packs not at guard or lookout. It was the largest collection of Tines
Johanna had seen in one place since her family was killed. Only these ones
weren't fighting. As far as Johanna could see across the bluish moss, there
were packs, each at least eight meters from its nearest neighbor. For an
absurd instant she was reminded of Settlers Park at Overby: Families
picnicking on the grass, each with its own traditional blanket and food
lockers. But these "families" were each a pack, and this was a military
formation. The rows were gently curving arcs all facing toward the Queen.
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was ten meters behind her, in shadow; being Queen's
consort didn't count for anything official. On Woodcarver's left lay the
living casualties of the ambush, members with bandages and splints. In some
ways, such visible damage wasn't the most horrifying. There were also what
Pilgrim called the "walking wounded". These were singletons and duos and
trios that were all that was left of whole packs. Some of these tried to
maintain a posture of attention, but others mooned about, occasionally
breaking into the Queen's speech with aimless words. It was like Scriber
Jaqueramaphan all over again, but most of these would live. Some were
already melding, trying to make new individuals. Some of these might even
work out, as Peregrine Wickwrackscar had done. For most, it would be a long
time before they were fully people again.
Johanna sat with Scrupilo in the first rank of troopers before the
Queen. The Commander of Cannoneers stood at Tinish parade rest: rumps on the
ground, chest high, most heads facing front. Scrup had come through it
without serious damage. His white head had a few more scorch marks, and one
of the other members had sprained a shoulder falling off the path. He wore
his flying cannoneer muffs as flamboyantly as always, but there was
something subdued about him -- maybe it was just the military formation and
getting a medal for heroism.
The Queen was wearing her special jackets. Each head looked out at a
different section of her audience. Johanna still couldn't understand Tinish,
and would certainly never speak it without mechanical assistance. But the
sounds were mostly within her range of hearing -- the "low" frequencies
carried a lot better than higher ones. Even without memory aides and grammar
generators she was learning a little. She could recognize emotional tone
easily, and things like the raucous ark ark ark that passed for applause
around here. As for individual words -- well, they were more like chords,
single syllables that had meaning. Nowadays, if she listened really
carefully (and Pilgrim weren't nearby to give a running translation) she
could even recognize some of those.
... Just now, for instance, Woodcarver was saying good things about her
audience. Approving ark ark's came from all directions. They sounded like a
bunch of sea'mals. One of the Queen's heads dipped into a bowl, came up with
a small carven doodad in its mouth. She spoke a pack's name, a multichord
tumptititum that if Johanna heard often enough she might be able to repeat
as "Jaqueramaphan" -- or even see meaning in, as "Wickwrackscar".
From the front rank of the audience, a single member trotted toward the
Queen. It stopped practically nose to nose with the Queen's nearest member.
Woodcarver said something about bravery, and then two of her fastened the
wooden -- broach? -- to the member's jacket. It turned smartly and returned
to its pack.
Woodcarver picked out another decoration, and called on another pack.
Johanna leaned over toward Scrupilo. "What's going on?" she said
wonderingly. "Why are single members getting medals?" And how can they stand
to get so near another pack?
Scrupilo had been standing more stiffly at attention than most packs,
and was pretty much ignoring her. Now he turned one head in her direction.
"Shh!" He started to turn back, but she grabbed him by one of his jackets.
"Foolish one," he finally replied. "The award is for the whole pack. One
member is extended to accept. More would be madness."
Hmm. One after another, three more packs "extended a member" to take
their decorations. Some were full of precision, like human soldiers in
stories. Others started out smartly, then became timid and confused as they
approached Woodcarver.
Finally Johanna said, "Ssst. Scrupilo! When do we get ours?"
This time he didn't even look at her; all his heads faced rigidly
toward the Queen. "Last, of course. You and I killed the nest, and saved
Woodcarver herself." His bodies were almost shaking with the intensity of
their brace. He's scared witless. And suddenly Johanna guessed why.
Apparently Woodcarver had no problem maintaining her mind with one outside