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member nearby. But the reverse would not be true. Sending one of yourself
into another pack meant losing some consciousness and placing trust in that
other pack. Looking at it that way ... well, it reminded Johanna of the
historical novels she used to play. On Nyjora during the Dark Age, ladies
traditionally gave their sword to their queen when granted audience, and
then knelt. It was a way to swear loyalty. Same thing here, except that
looking at Scrupilo, Johanna realized that even as a matter of form, the
ceremony might be damn frightening.
Three more medals bestowed, and then Woodcarver gobbled the chords that
were Scrupilo's name. The Commander of Cannoneers went absolutely rigid,
made faint whistling noises through his mouths. "Johanna Olsndot," said
Woodcarver, then more Tinish, something about coming forward.
Johanna stood up, but not one of Scrupilo moved.
The Queen made a human laugh. She was holding two polished broaches.
"I'll explain all in Samnorsk later, Johanna. Just come forward with one of
Scrupilo. Scrupilo?"
Suddenly they were the center of attention, with thousands of eyes
watching. There was no more arking or background chatter. Johanna hadn't
felt so exposed since she played First Colonist in her school's Landing
Play. She leaned down so that her head was close to one of Scrupilo's. "Come
on, guy. We're the big heroes."
The eyes that looked back at her were wide. "I can't." The words were
almost inaudible. For all his jaunty cannoneer muffs and standoffish manner,
Scrupilo was terrified. But for him it wasn't stage fright. "I can't tear me
apart so soon. I can't."
There was murmured gobbling in the ranks behind them, Scrupilo's own
cannoneers. By all the Powers, would they hold this against him? Welcome to
the middle ages. Stupid people. Even cut to pieces, Scrupilo had saved their
behinds, and now --
She put her hands on two of his shoulders. "We did it before, you and
I. Remember?"
The heads nodded. "Some. That one part of me alone ... could never have
done it."
"Right. And neither could I. But together we killed a wolf-nest."
Scrupilo stared at her a second, eyes wavering. "Yes, we really did."
He came to his feet, frisked his heads so the cannoneer muffs flapped.
"Yes!" And he moved his white-headed one closer to her.
Johanna straightened. She and White Head walked out into the open
space. Four meters. Six. She kept the fingertips of one hand lightly on his
neck. When they were about twelve meters from the rest of Scrupilo, White
Head's pace faltered. He looked sideways, up at Johanna, then continued more
slowly.
Johanna didn't remember much of the ceremony, so much of her attention
was on White Head. Woodcarver said something long and unintelligible.
Somehow they both ended up with intricately carven decorations on their
collars, and were headed back toward the rest of Scrupilo. Then she was
aware of the crowd once more. They stretched as far as she could see under
the forest canopy -- and every one of them seemed to be cheering, Scrup's
cannoneers loudest of all.
Midnight. Here at the bottom of the valley there were three or four
hours of the dayaround when the sun dipped behind the high north wall. It
didn't much feel like night, or even twilight. The smoke from the fires to
the north seemed to getting worse. She could smell it now.
Johanna walked back from the cannoneers section toward the center of
camp, and Woodcarver's tent. It was quiet; she could hear little creatures
scritching in the root bushes. The celebrating might have gone on longer,
except that everyone knew that in another few hours they would be preparing
for the climb up the valley's north wall. So now there was only occasional
laughter, an occasional pack walking about. Johanna walked barefoot, her
shoes slung over her shoulders. Even in the dry weather, the moss was
wonderfully soft between her toes. Above her the forest canopy was shifting
green and patches of hazy sky. She could almost forget what had gone before,
and what lay ahead.
The guards around Woodcarver's tent didn't challenge her, just called
softly ahead. After all, there weren't that many humans running around. The
Queen stuck out a head, "Come inside, Johanna."
Inside, she was sitting in her usual circle, the puppies protected in
the middle. It was quite dark, the only light being what came through the
entrance. Johanna flopped down on the pillows where she usually slept. Ever
since this afternoon, the big award thing, she had been planning to give
Woodcarver a piece of her mind. Now ... well the party at the cannoneers had
been a happy thing. It seemed kind of a shame to break the mood.
Woodcarver cocked a head at her. Simultaneously, the two puppies
duplicated the gesture. "I saw you at the party. You are a sober one. You
eat most of our foods now, but none of the beer."
Johanna shrugged. Yes, why? "Kids aren't supposed to drink before
they're eighteen years old." That was the custom, and her parents had agreed
with it. Johanna had turned fourteen a couple of months ago; Dataset had
reminded her of the exact hour. She wondered. If none of this had happened,
if she were still back at the High Lab or Straumli Realm: would she be
sneaking out with friends to try such forbidden things? Probably. Yet here,
where she was entirely on her own, where she was currently a big hero, she
hadn't tried a drop.... Maybe it was because Mom and Dad weren't here, and
following their wishes seemed to keep them closer. She felt tears coming to
her eyes.
"Hmm." Woodcarver didn't seem to notice. "That's what Pilgrim said was
the reason." She tapped at her puppies and smiled. "I guess it makes sense.
These two don't get beer till they're older -- though I know they got some
second-hand partying from me tonight." There was a hint of beer breath in
the tent.
Johanna wiped roughly at her face. She really did not want to talk
about being a teenager just now. "You know, that was kind of a mean trick
you pulled on Scrupilo this afternoon."
"I -- Yes. I talked to him about it beforehand. He didn't want it, but
I thought he was just being ... is stiff-necked the word? If I had known how
upset he was, well -- "
"He practically fell apart out there in front of everybody. If I
understand how things work, that would have been his disgrace, right?"
"... Yes. Exchanging honor for loyalty in front of peers, it's an
important thing. At least the way I run things; I'm sure Pilgrim or Dataset
can say a dozen other ways to lead. Look Johanna, I needed that Exchange,
and I needed you and Scrupilo to be there."
"Yeah, I know. 'We two saved the day.'"
"Silence!" Her voice was suddenly edged, and Johanna remembered that
this was a medieval queen. "We are two hundred miles north of my borders,
almost to the heart of the Flenser Domain. In a few days we will meet the
enemy, and more of us will die for we-know-not-quite-what."
The bottom dropped out of Johanna's stomach. If she couldn't get back
to the ship, couldn't finish what Mom and Dad had started... "Please,
Woodcarver! It is worth it!"
"I know that. Pilgrim knows it. The majority of my council agrees,
though grudgingly. But we of the council have talked with Dataset. We've
seen your worlds and what your science can do. On the other hand, most of my
people here," she waved a head at the camp beyond the tent, "are here on
faith, and out of loyalty to me. For them, the situation is deadly and the
goal is vague." She paused, though her two pups continued gesturing
forcefully for a second. "Now I don't know how you would persuade your kind
to take such risks. Dataset talks of military conscription."
"That was Nyjora, long ago."
"Never mind. The point is, my troops are here out of loyalty, mostly to
me personally. For six hundred years, I have protected my people well; their
memories and legends are clear on it. More than once, I was the only one who
saw a peril, and it was my advice that saved all those who heeded it. That
is what keeps most of the soldiers, most of the cannoneers going. Each of
them is free to turn back. So. What should they think when our first
'combat' is to fall like ignorant ... tourists ... onto a nest of wolves?
Without the great good luck of you and part of Scrupilo being at the right
place and alert, I would have been killed. Pilgrim would have been killed.
Perhaps a third of the soldiers would have died."
"If not us, perhaps someone else," Johanna said in a small voice.
"Perhaps. I don't think anyone else came close to firing on the nest.
You see the effect on my people? 'If bad luck in the forest can kill our
Queen and destroy our marvelous weapons, what will it be like when we face a
thinking enemy?' That was the question in many minds. Unless I could answer
it, we'd never make it out of this valley -- at least not going northward."
"So you gave the medals. Loyalty for honor."
"Yes. You missed the sense of it, not understanding Tinish. I made a
big thing of how well they had done. I gave silverwood accolades to packs
who showed any competence during the ambush. That helped some. I repeated my
reasons for this expedition -- the wonders that Dataset describes and how
much we lose if Steel gets his way. But they've heard all that before, and
it points to far away things they can scarcely imagine. The new thing I
showed them today was you and Scrupilo."
"Us?"
"I praised you beyond the skies. Singletons often do brave things.
Sometimes they are halfway clever, or talk as though they are. But alone,
Scrupilo's fragment wouldn't be much more than a good knife fighter. He knew
about using the cannon, but he didn't have the paws or mouths to do anything
with it. And by himself, he would never have figured out where to shoot it.
You, on the other hand, are a Two Legs. In many ways you are helpless. The
only way you can think is by yourself, but you can do it without interfering
with those around you. Together you did what no pack could do in the middle
of a wolf-nest attack. So I told my army what a team our two races could
become, how each makes up for the age-long failings of the other. Together,
we are one step closer to being the Pack of Packs. How is Scrupilo?"
Johanna smiled faintly. "Things turned out okay. Once he was able to
get out there and accept his medal," she fingered the broach that was pinned
to her own collar; it was a beautiful thing, a landscape of Woodcarver's
city, "once he'd done that, he was totally changed. You should have seen him
with the cannoneers afterwards. They did their own loyalty/honor thing, and
then they drank a lot of beer. Scrupilo was telling them all about what we
were doing. He even had me help demonstrate.... You really think the army
bought what you said about humans and Tines?"
"I think so. In my own language, I can be very eloquent. I've bred
myself to be." Woodcarver was silent for a moment. Her puppies scrambled
across the carpet, and patted their muzzles at Johanna's hands. "Besides ...
it may even be true. Pilgrim is sure of it. You can sleep in this same tent
with me and still think. That's something that he and I can't do; in our own
ways, we've each lived a long time and I think we are each at least as smart
as the humans and other creatures that Dataset talks about in the Beyond.
But you singleton creatures can stand next to each other, and think and
build. Compared to us, I'll bet singleton races developed the sciences very
fast. But now, with your help, maybe things will change fast for us, too."
The two puppies retreated, and Woodcarver lowered heads to paws. "That's
what I told my people, anyway.... You should try to get some sleep now."
On the ground beyond the tent's entrance there were already splashes of
sunlight. "Okay." Johanna slipped off her outer clothes. She lay down and
dragged a light quilt across herself. Most of Woodcarver already looked
asleep. As usual, one or two pairs of eyes were open, but their intelligence
would be limited -- and just now, even they looked tired. Funny, Woodcarver
had worked with Dataset so much, her human voice had come to capture emotion
as well as pronunciation. Just now she had sounded so tired, so sad.
Johanna reached out from under her quilt to brush the neck of
Woodcarver's nearest, the blind one. "Do you believe what you told
everyone?" she said softly.
One of the "sentry" heads looked at her, and a very human sigh seemed
to come from all directions. Woodcarver's voice was very faint. "Yes ... but
I am very afraid that it doesn't matter any more. For six hundred years, I
have had proper confidence in myself. But what happened on the south wall
... should not have happened. It would not if I had followed Vendacious's
advice, and come down on the New Road."
"But we might have been seen -- "
"Yes. A failure either way, don't you see? Vendacious has precise
information from the highest councils of the Flenser. But he's something of
a careless fool in everyday matters. I knew that, and thought I could
compensate. But the Old Road was in far worse condition than I remembered;
the wolf-nest could never have settled by it if there had been any traffic
during the last few years. If Vendacious had managed his patrols properly,
or if I had been managing him properly, we would never have been surprised.
Instead we were nearly overrun ... and my only remaining talent appears to
be in fooling those who trust me into thinking I still know what I'm doing."
She opened another pair of eyes and made the smile gesture. "Strange. I
haven't said these things even to Pilgrim. Is this another 'advantage' of
human relations?"
Johanna patted the blind one's neck. "Maybe."
"Anyway, I believe what I said about things that could be, but I fear
the my soul may not be strong enough to make them so. Perhaps I should turn
things over to Pilgrim or Vendacious; that's something I must think on."
Woodcarver shhed Johanna's surprised protests.
"Now sleep please."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
There was a time when Ravna thought their tiny ship might fly all the
way to the Bottom unnoticed. Along with everything else, that had changed.
At the moment, Out of Band II might be the most famous star ship known to
the Net. A million races watched the chase. In the Middle Beyond there were
vast antenna swarms beaming in their direction and listening to the news --
mostly lies -- sent from ships that pursued the OOB. She couldn't hear those
lies directly, of course, but the transmissions from beyond were as clear as
if they were on a main trunk.
Ravna spent part of each day reading the News, trying to find hope,
trying to prove to herself that she was doing the right thing. By now, she
was pretty sure what was chasing them. No doubt even Pham and Blueshell
would have agreed on that. Why they were being chased, and what they might
find at the end was now the subject of endless speculation on the Net. As
usual, whatever the truth might be was well hidden among the lies.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse [No references prior to the fall of Relay. No probable
source. This is someone being very cautious.]
Subject: Alliance for the Defense fraudulent?
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 5.80 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Fools' errand, unnecessary genocide
Text of message:
Earlier I speculated that there had been no destruction at Sjandra Kei.
Apologies. That was based on a catalog identification error. I agree with
the messages (13123 as of a few seconds ago) assuring me that the
habitations of Sjandra Kei suffered collisional damage within the last six
days.
So apparently the "Alliance for the Defense" has taken the military
action they claimed earlier. And apparently, they are powerful enough to
destroy small civilizations in the Middle Beyond. The question still
remains: "Why?" I have already posted arguments showing it unlikely that
Homo sapiens is especially controllable by the Blight (though they were
stupid enough to create that entity). Even the Alliance's own reports admit
that less than half of Sjandra Kei's sophonts were of that race.
Now a large part of the Alliance fleet is chasing into the Bottom of
the Beyond after a single ship. What conceivable damage can the Alliance do
to the Blight down there? The Blight is a great threat, perhaps the most
novel and threatening in well-recorded history. Nevertheless, Alliance
behavior appears destructive and pointless. Now that the Alliance has
revealed some of its sponsoring organizations (see messages [id numbers]), I
think we know its real motives. I see connections between the Alliance and
the old Aprahant Hegemony. A thousand years ago, that group had a similar
jihad, grabbing real estate left vacant by recent Transcendences. Stopping
the Hegemony was an exciting bit of action in that part of the galaxy. I
think these people are back, taking advantage of the general panic attending
the Blight (which is admittedly a much greater threat).
My advice: Beware of the Alliance and its claims of heroic efforts.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Schirachene->Rondralip->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Harmonious Repose Communications Synod
Subject: Encounter with agents of the Perversion
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
Date: 6.37 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Hanse fraudulent?
Text of message:
We have no special inclination toward any of the posters on this
thread. Nevertheless, it's remarkable that an entity that has not revealed
its location or special interests -- namely "Hanse" -- should be smearing
the efforts of the Alliance for the Defense. The Alliance kept its
constituents secret only during that period when its forces were being
gathered, when a single stroke of the Perversion's power might destroy it
entirely. Since that time, it has been quite open in its efforts.
Hanse wonders how a single starship could be worth the Alliance's
attention. As Harmonious Repose was the site of the latest turn of events,
we are in a position to give some explanation. The ship in question, the Out
of Band II, is clearly designed for operations at the Bottom of the Beyond
-- and is even capable of limited operations within the Slow Zone. The ship
presented itself as a special zonographic flight commissioned to study the
recent turbulence at the Bottom. In fact, this ship's mission is a very
different one. In the aftermath of its violent departure, we have pieced
together some extraordinary facts:
At least one of the ship's crew was human. Though they made great
efforts to stay out of view and used Skroderider traders as intermediaries,
we have recordings. A biosequence of one individual was obtained, and it
matches the patterns maintained by two out of three of the Homo sapiens
archives. (It's well known that the third archive, on Sneerot Down, is in
the control of Human sympathizers.) Some might say this deception was
founded in fear. After all, these events happened after the destruction of
Sjandra Kei. We think otherwise: The ship's initial contact with us occurred
before the Sjandra Kei incident.
We have since made a careful analysis of the repair work our yards
performed on this vessel. Ultradrive automation is a deep and complex thing;
even the cleverest of cloaking cannot mask all the memories in it. We now
know that the Out of Band II was from the Relay system and that it left
there after the Perversion's attack. Think what this means.
The crew of the Out of Band II brought weapons into a habitat, kill
several local sophonts, and escaped before our musicians [harmonizers?
police?] were properly notified. We have good reason to wish them ill.
Yet our misfortune is a small thing compared to the unmasking of this
secret mission. We are very grateful that the Alliance is willing to risk so
much in following this lead.
There's more than the usual number of unsubstantiated assertions
floating around on this news thread. We hope our facts will wake some people
up. In particular, consider what "Hanse" may really be. The Perversion is
very visible in the High Beyond, where it has great power and can speak with
its own voice. Down here, it is more likely that deception and covert
propaganda will be its tools. Think on this when you read postings from
unidentified entities such as "Hanse"!
Ravna gritted her teeth. The hell of it was, the facts in the posting
were correct. It was the inferences that were vicious and false. And she
couldn't guess if this were some shade of black propaganda or simply Saint
Rihndell expressing honest conclusions (though Rihndell had never seemed so
trusting of the butterflies).
One thing all the News seemed to agree on: Much more than the Alliance
fleet was chasing the OOB. The swarm of ultradrive traces could be seen by
anyone within a thousand light-years. The best guess was that three fleets
pursued the OOB. Three! The Alliance for the Defense, still loud and
boastful, even though suspected (by some) of being opportunistic genocides.
Behind them, Sjandra Kei ... and what was left of Ravna's motherland; in all
the universe perhaps the only folk she could trust. And just behind them,
the silent fleet. Diverse news posters claimed it was from the High Beyond.
That fleet might have problems at the Bottom, but for now it was gaining.
Few doubted that it was the Perversion's child. More than anything, it
convinced the universe that the OOB or its destination was cosmically
important. Just why it was important was the big question. Speculation was
drifting in at the rate of five thousand messages per hour. A million
different viewpoints were considering the mystery. Some of those viewpoints
were so alien that they made Skroderiders and Humans look like the same
species. At least five participants on this News thread were gaseous
inhabitants of stellar coronas. There were one or two others that Ravna
suspected were uncataloged races, beings so shy that this might be their
first active use of the Net ever.
The OOB's computer was a lot dumber than it had been in the Middle
Beyond. She couldn't ask it to sift through the messages looking for nuance
and insight. In fact, if an incoming message didn't have a Triskweline text,
it was often unreadable. The ship's translator programs still worked fairly
well with the major trade languages, but even there the translation was slow
and full of alternative meanings and jabberwocky. It was just another sign
that they were approaching the Bottom of the Beyond. Effective translation
of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator
program.
Nevertheless, with proper design, things might have been better. The
automation might have degraded gracefully under the restrictions imposed by
their depth. Instead, gear just stopped working; what remained was slow and
error-prone. If only the refitting had been completed before the Fall of
Relay. And just how many times have I wished for that? She hoped things were
as bad aboard the pursuing ships.
So Ravna used the ship to do light culling on the Threats newsgroup.
Much of what was left was inane, as from people who see "portents in the
weather" --
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Arbwyth->Trade24->Cherguelen->Triskweline, SjK
units
From: Twirlip of the Mists [Perhaps an organization of cloud fliers in
a single jovian system. Very sparse priors before this thread began. Appears
to be seriously out of touch. Program recommendation: delete this poster
from presentation.]
Subject: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation
Date: 4.54 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key
insight
Text of message:
Apologies first if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway
onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. I think
that anyone following both Great Secrets of Creation and Threat of the
Blight would see an important pattern. Since the events reported by
Harmonious Repose information service, most agree that something important
to the Perversion exists at the Bottom of the Beyond in region [...]. I see
a possible connection here with the Great Secrets. During the last two
hundred and twenty days, there have been increasing reports of zone
interface instability in the region below Harmonious Repose. As the Blight
threat has grown and its attacks against advanced races and other Powers
continued, this instability has increased. Could there not be some
connection? I urge all to consult their information on the Great Secrets (or
the nearest archive maintained by that group). Events such as this prove
once again that the universe is all ronzelle between.
Some of the postings were tantalizing --
[Light gloss]
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Wobblings->Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Cricketsong under the High Willow [Cricketsong is a synthetic
race created as a jape/ experiment/instrument by the High Willow upon its
Transcendence. Cricketsong has been on the Net for more than ten thousand
years. Apparently it is a fanatical studier of paths to Transcendence. For
eight thousand years it has been the heaviest poster on "Where are they now"
and related groups. There is no evidence that any Cricketsong settlement has
itself Transcended. Cricketsong is sufficiently peculiar that there is a
large news group for speculation concerning the race itself. Consensus is
that Cricketsong was designed by High Willow as a probe back into the
Beyond, that the race is somehow incapable of attempting its own
Transcendence.]
Subject: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Special Interest Group, Where are they now Special Interest Group
Date: 5.12 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: On becoming Transcendent
Text of message:
Contrary to other postings, there are a number of reasons why a Power
might install artifacts at the Bottom of the Beyond. The Abselor's message
on this thread cites some: some Powers have documented curiosity about the
Slow Zone and, even more, about the Unthinking Depths. In rare cases,
expeditions have been dispatched (though any return from the Depths would
occur long after the dispatching Power lost interest in all local
questions).
However, none of these motives are likely here. To those who are
familiar with Fast Burn transcendence, it is clear that the Blight is a
creature seeking stasis. Its interest in the Bottom is very sudden,
provoked, we think, by the revelations at Harmonious Repose. There is
something at the Bottom that is critical to the Perversion's welfare.
Consider the notion of ablative dissonance (see the Where Are They Now
group archive): No one knows what set-up procedures the humans of Straumli
Realm were using. The Fast Burn may itself have had Transcendent
intelligence. What if it became dissatisfied with the direction of the
channedring? In that case it might try to hide the jumpoff birthinghel. The
Bottom would not be a place where the algorithm itself could normally
execute, but avatars might still be created from it and briefly run.
Up to a point, Ravna could almost make sense of it; ablative dissonance
was a commonplace of Applied Theology. But then, like one of those dreams
where the secret of life is about to be revealed, the posting just drifted
into nonsense.
There were postings that were neither asinine nor obscure. As usual,
Sandor at the Zoo had a lot of things dead right:
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: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Key phrases: Sudden change in Blight's tactics
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 8.15 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Text of message:
In case you don't know, Sandor Intelligence has a number of different
Net feeds. We can collect messages on paths that have no intermediate nodes
in common. Thus we can be fairly confident that news we receive has not been
tampered with en route. (There remain the lies and misunderstandings that
were present to begin with, but that's something that makes the intelligence
business interesting.)
The Blight has been our top priority since its instantiation a year
ago. This is not just because of the Blight's obvious strength, the
destruction and the deicides it has committed. We fear that all this is the
lesser part of the Threat. There have been perversions almost as powerful in
the recorded past. What truly distinguishes this one is its stability. We
see no evidence of internal evolution; in some ways it is less than a Power.
It may never lose interest in controlling the High Beyond. We may be
witnessing a massive and permanent change in the nature of things. Imagine:
a stable necrosis, where the only sentience in the High Beyond is the
Blight.
Thus, studying the Blight has been a matter of life and death for us
(even though we are powerful and widely distributed). We've reached a number
of conclusions. Some of these may be obvious to you, others may sound like
flagrant speculation. All take on a new coloring with the events reported
from Harmonious Repose:
Almost from the beginning, the Blight has been searching for something.
This search has extended far beyond its aggressive physical expansion. Its
automatic agents have tried to penetrate virtually every node in the Top of
the Beyond; the High Network is in shambles, reduced to protocols scarcely
more efficient than those known below. At the same time, the Blight has
physically stolen several archives. We have evidence of very large fleets
searching for off-Net archives at the Top and in the Low Transcend. At least
three Powers have been murdered in this rampage.
And now, suddenly, this assault has ended. The Blight's physical
expansion continues, with no end in sight, but it no longer searches the
High Beyond. As near as we can tell, the change occurred about two thousand
seconds before the escape of the human vessel from Harmonious Repose. Less
than six hours later, we saw the beginnings of the silent fleet that so many
are now speculating about. That fleet is indeed the creature of the Blight.
In other times, the destruction of Sjandra Kei and the motives of the
Alliance for the Defense would all be important issues (and our organization
might have interest in doing business with those affected). But all that is
dwarfed by the fact of this fleet and the ship it pursues. And we disagree
with the analysis [implication?] from Harmonious Repose: it is obvious to us
that the Blight did not know of the Out of Band II until its discovery at
Harmonious Repose.
That ship is not a tool of the Blight, but it contains or is bound for
something of enormous importance to the Blight. And what might that be? Here
we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those
powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.
If the Blight has the potential for taking over all the Top in a permanent
stability, then why has this not happened before? Our guess is that the
Blight has been instantiated before (with such dire consequence that the
event marks the beginning of recorded time), but it has its own peculiar
natural enemy.
The order of events even suggests a particular scenario, one familiar
from network security. Once upon a time (very long ago), there was another
instance of the Blight. A successful defense was mounted, and all known
copies of the Blight's recipe were destroyed. Of course, on a wide net, one
can never be sure that all copies of a badness are gone. No doubt, the
defense was distributed in enormous numbers. But even if a harboring archive
were reached by such a distribution, there might be no effect if the Blight
were not currently active there.
The luckless humans of Straumli Realm chanced on such an archive, no
doubt a ruin long off the Net. They instantiated the Blight and incidentally
-- perhaps a little later -- the defense program. Somehow that Blight's
enemy escaped destruction. And the Blight has been searching for it ever
since -- in all the wrong places. In its weakness, the new instance of the
defense retreated to depths no Power would think of penetrating, whence it
could never return without outside help. Speculation on top of speculation:
we can't guess the nature of this defense, except that its retreat is a
discouraging sign. And now even that sacrifice has gone for naught, since
the Blight has seen through the deception.
The Blight's fleet is clearly an ad hoc thing, hastily thrown together
from forces that happened to be closest to the discovery. Without such
haste, the quarry might have been lost to it. Thus the chase equipment is
probably ill-suited to the depths, and its performance will degrade as the
descent progresses. However, we estimate that it will remain stronger than
any force that can reach the scene in the near future.
We may learn more after the Blight reaches the Out of Band II's
destination. If it destroys that destination immediately, we'll know that
something truly dangerous to the Blight existed there (and may exist
elsewhere, at least in recipe form). If it does not, then perhaps the Blight
was looking for something that will make it even more dangerous than before.
Ravna sat back, stared at the display for some time. Sandor Arbitration
Intelligence was one of the sharpest posters in this newsgroup.... But now
even their predictions were just different flavors of doom. And all so damn
cool they were, so analytical. She knew that Sandor was polyspecific, with
branch offices scattered through the High Beyond. But they were no Power. If
the Perversion could knock over Relay and kill Old One, then all of Sandor's
resources wouldn't help it if the enemy decided to gobble them up. Their
analysis had the tone of the pilot of a crashing ship, intent on
understanding the danger, not taking time out for terror.
Oh Pham, how I wish I could talk to you like before! She curled gently
in on herself, the way you can in zero gee. The sobs came softly, but
without hope. They had not exchanged a hundred words in the last five days.
They lived as if with guns at each others' heads. And that was the literal
truth -- she had made it so. When she and he and the Skroderiders had been
together, at least the danger had been a shared burden. Now they were split
apart and their enemies were slowly gaining on them. What good could Pham's
godshatter be against a thousand enemy ships and the Blight behind them?
She floated for a timeless while, the sobs fading into despairing
silence. And again she wondered if what she'd done could possibly be right.
She had threatened Pham's life to protect Blueshell and Greenstalk and their
kind. In doing so, she had kept secret what might be the greatest treachery
in the history of the Known Net. Can one person make such a decision? Pham
had asked her that, and she had answered yes but....
The question toyed with her every day. And every day she tried to see
some way out. She wiped her face silently. She didn't doubt what Pham had
discovered.
There were some smug posters on the Net who argued that something as
vast as the Blight was simply a tragic disaster, and not an evil. Evil, they
argued, could only have meaning on smaller scales, in the hurt that one
sophont does to another. Before RIP, the argument had seemed a frivolous
playing with words. Now she saw that it was meaningful -- and dead wrong.
The Blight had created the Riders, a marvelous and peaceful race. Their
presence on a billion worlds had been a good. And behind it all was the
potential for converting the sovereign minds of friends into monsters. When
she thought of Blueshell and Greenstalk, and the fear welled up and she knew
the poison that was there -- even though they were good people -- then she
knew she'd glimpsed evil on the Transcendent scale.
She had gotten Blueshell and Greenstalk into this mission; they had not
asked for it. They were friends and allies, and she would not harm them
because of what they could become.
Maybe it was the latest news items. Maybe it was confronting the same
impossibilities for the n'th time: Ravna gradually straightened, looking at
those last messages. So. She believed Pham about the Skroderider threat. She
also believed these two were only enemies in potential. She had thrown away
everything to save them and their kind. Maybe it was a mistake, but take
what advantage there is in it. If they are to be saved because you think
they are allies, then treat them as allies. Treat them as the friends they
are. We are all pawns together.
Ravna pushed gently toward her cabin's doorway.
The Skroderiders' cabin was just behind the command deck. Since the
debacle at RIP, the two had not left it. As she drifted down the passage
toward their door, Ravna half-expected to see Pham's handiwork lurking in
the shadows. She knew he was doing his best to "protect himself". Yet there
was nothing unusual. What will he think of my visiting them?
She announced herself. After a moment Blueshell appeared. His skrode
was wiped clean of cosmetic stripes, and the room behind him was a jumble.
He waved her in with quick jerks of his fronds.
"My lady."
"Blueshell," she nodded at him. Half the time she cursed herself for
trusting the Riders; the other half, she was mortally embarrassed for having
left them alone. "H-how is Greenstalk?"
Surprisingly, Blueshell's fronds snapped together in a smile. "You
guessed? This is the first day with her new skrode.... I will show you, if
you'd like."
He threaded around equipment that was scattered in a lattice across the
room. It was similar to the shop equipment Pham had used to build his
powered armor. And if Pham had seen it, he might have lost all self-control.
"I've worked on it every minute since ... Pham locked us in here."
Greenstalk was in the other room. Her stalk and fronds rose from a
silver pot. There were no wheels. It looked nothing like a traditional
skrode. Blueshell rolled across the ceiling and extended a frond down to his
mate. He rustled something at her, and after a moment, she replied.
"The skrodeling is very limited, no mobility, no redundant power
supplies. I copied it off a Lesser Skroderider design, a simple thing
designed by Dirokimes. It's not meant for more than sitting in one place,
facing in one direction. But it provides her with short-term memory support,
and attention focusers.... She is back with me." He fussed around her, some
fronds caressing hers, others pointing to the gadget he had built for her.
"She herself was not badly injured. Sometimes I wonder -- whatever Pham
says, maybe at the last second he could not kill her."
He spoke nervously, as though afraid of what Ravna might say.
"The first few days I was very worried. But the surgeon is good. It
gave her plenty of time to stand in strong surf. To think slowly. Since I've
added on this skrodeling, she has practiced the calisthenics of memory,
repeating what the surgeon or I say to her. With the skrodeling, she can
hold on to a new memory for almost five hundred seconds. That's usually long
enough for her natural mind to commit a thought to long-term memory."
Ravna drifted close. There were some new creases in Greenstalk's
fronds. Those would be scars healing. Her visual surfaces followed Ravna's
approach. The Rider knew she was here; her whole posture was friendly.
"Can she talk Trisk, Blueshell? Do you have a voder hooked up?"
"What?" Buzz. He was forgetful or nervous, Ravna couldn't tell which.
"Yes, yes. Just give me a minute.... There was no need before. No one wanted
to talk to us." He fiddled with something on the home-made skrode.
After a moment, "Hello, Ravna. I ... recognize you." Her fronds rustled
in time with the words.
"I know you, too. We, I am glad that you are back."
The voder voice was faint, wistful? "Yes. It's hard for me to tell. I
do want to talk, but I'm not sure ... am I'm making sense?"
Out of Greenstalk's sight, Blueshell flicked a long tendril, a gesture:
say yes.
"Yes, I understand you, Greenstalk." And Ravna resolved never again to
get angry with Greenstalk about not remembering.
"Good." Her fronds straightened and she didn't say anything more.
"See?" came Blueshell's voder voice. "I am brightly cheerful. Even now,
Greenstalk is committing this conversation to long-term memory. It goes
slowly for now, but I am improving the skrodeling. I'm sure her slowness is
mainly emotional shock." He continued to brush at Greenstalk's fronds, but
she didn't say anything more. Ravna wondered just how brightly cheerful he
could be.
Behind the Riders were a set of display windows, customized now for the
Rider outlook. "You've been following the News?" Ravna asked.
"Yes, indeed."
"I-I feel so helpless." I feel so foolish, saying that to you.
But Blueshell didn't take offense. He seemed grateful for the change of
topic, preferring the gloom at a distance. "Yes. We certainly are famous
now. Three fleets chasing us down, my lady. Ha ha."
"They don't seem to be gaining very fast."
Frond shrug. "Sir Pham has turned out to be a competent ship's master.
I'm afraid things will change as we descend. The ship's higher automation
will gradually fail. What you call 'manual control' will become very
important. OOB was designed for my race, my lady. No matter what Sir Pham
thinks of us, at bottom we can fly it better than any. So bit by bit the
others will gain -- at least those who truly understand their own ships."
It was something she hadn't guessed, certainly something she would
never have found reading the Net. Too bad it's also bad news. "S-surely Pham
must know this?"
"I think he must. But he is trapped in his own fears. What can he do?
If not for you, My Lady Ravna, he might have killed us already. Maybe when
the choice comes down to dying in the next hour against trusting us, maybe
then there will be a chance."
"By then it will be too late. Look, even if he doesn't trust -- even
though he believes the worst of Riders -- there must still be a way." And it
came to her that sometimes you don't have to change the way people think, or
even whom they may hate. "Pham wants to get to the Bottom, to recover this
Countermeasure. He thinks you may be from the Blight, and after the same
thing. But up to a point -- " up to a point he can cooperate, postpone the
showdown he imagines till perhaps it won't matter.
Even as she started to say it, Blueshell was already shouting back at
her. "I'm am not of the Blight! Greenstalk is not! The Rider race is not!"
He swept around his mate, rolled across the ceiling till his fronds rattled
right before Ravna's face.
"I'm sorry. It's just the potential -- "
"Nonsense!" His voder buzzed off scale. "We ran in to an evil few.
Every race has such, people who will kill for trade. They forced Greenstalk,
substituted data at her voder. Pham Nuwen would kill our billions for the
into another pack meant losing some consciousness and placing trust in that
other pack. Looking at it that way ... well, it reminded Johanna of the
historical novels she used to play. On Nyjora during the Dark Age, ladies
traditionally gave their sword to their queen when granted audience, and
then knelt. It was a way to swear loyalty. Same thing here, except that
looking at Scrupilo, Johanna realized that even as a matter of form, the
ceremony might be damn frightening.
Three more medals bestowed, and then Woodcarver gobbled the chords that
were Scrupilo's name. The Commander of Cannoneers went absolutely rigid,
made faint whistling noises through his mouths. "Johanna Olsndot," said
Woodcarver, then more Tinish, something about coming forward.
Johanna stood up, but not one of Scrupilo moved.
The Queen made a human laugh. She was holding two polished broaches.
"I'll explain all in Samnorsk later, Johanna. Just come forward with one of
Scrupilo. Scrupilo?"
Suddenly they were the center of attention, with thousands of eyes
watching. There was no more arking or background chatter. Johanna hadn't
felt so exposed since she played First Colonist in her school's Landing
Play. She leaned down so that her head was close to one of Scrupilo's. "Come
on, guy. We're the big heroes."
The eyes that looked back at her were wide. "I can't." The words were
almost inaudible. For all his jaunty cannoneer muffs and standoffish manner,
Scrupilo was terrified. But for him it wasn't stage fright. "I can't tear me
apart so soon. I can't."
There was murmured gobbling in the ranks behind them, Scrupilo's own
cannoneers. By all the Powers, would they hold this against him? Welcome to
the middle ages. Stupid people. Even cut to pieces, Scrupilo had saved their
behinds, and now --
She put her hands on two of his shoulders. "We did it before, you and
I. Remember?"
The heads nodded. "Some. That one part of me alone ... could never have
done it."
"Right. And neither could I. But together we killed a wolf-nest."
Scrupilo stared at her a second, eyes wavering. "Yes, we really did."
He came to his feet, frisked his heads so the cannoneer muffs flapped.
"Yes!" And he moved his white-headed one closer to her.
Johanna straightened. She and White Head walked out into the open
space. Four meters. Six. She kept the fingertips of one hand lightly on his
neck. When they were about twelve meters from the rest of Scrupilo, White
Head's pace faltered. He looked sideways, up at Johanna, then continued more
slowly.
Johanna didn't remember much of the ceremony, so much of her attention
was on White Head. Woodcarver said something long and unintelligible.
Somehow they both ended up with intricately carven decorations on their
collars, and were headed back toward the rest of Scrupilo. Then she was
aware of the crowd once more. They stretched as far as she could see under
the forest canopy -- and every one of them seemed to be cheering, Scrup's
cannoneers loudest of all.
Midnight. Here at the bottom of the valley there were three or four
hours of the dayaround when the sun dipped behind the high north wall. It
didn't much feel like night, or even twilight. The smoke from the fires to
the north seemed to getting worse. She could smell it now.
Johanna walked back from the cannoneers section toward the center of
camp, and Woodcarver's tent. It was quiet; she could hear little creatures
scritching in the root bushes. The celebrating might have gone on longer,
except that everyone knew that in another few hours they would be preparing
for the climb up the valley's north wall. So now there was only occasional
laughter, an occasional pack walking about. Johanna walked barefoot, her
shoes slung over her shoulders. Even in the dry weather, the moss was
wonderfully soft between her toes. Above her the forest canopy was shifting
green and patches of hazy sky. She could almost forget what had gone before,
and what lay ahead.
The guards around Woodcarver's tent didn't challenge her, just called
softly ahead. After all, there weren't that many humans running around. The
Queen stuck out a head, "Come inside, Johanna."
Inside, she was sitting in her usual circle, the puppies protected in
the middle. It was quite dark, the only light being what came through the
entrance. Johanna flopped down on the pillows where she usually slept. Ever
since this afternoon, the big award thing, she had been planning to give
Woodcarver a piece of her mind. Now ... well the party at the cannoneers had
been a happy thing. It seemed kind of a shame to break the mood.
Woodcarver cocked a head at her. Simultaneously, the two puppies
duplicated the gesture. "I saw you at the party. You are a sober one. You
eat most of our foods now, but none of the beer."
Johanna shrugged. Yes, why? "Kids aren't supposed to drink before
they're eighteen years old." That was the custom, and her parents had agreed
with it. Johanna had turned fourteen a couple of months ago; Dataset had
reminded her of the exact hour. She wondered. If none of this had happened,
if she were still back at the High Lab or Straumli Realm: would she be
sneaking out with friends to try such forbidden things? Probably. Yet here,
where she was entirely on her own, where she was currently a big hero, she
hadn't tried a drop.... Maybe it was because Mom and Dad weren't here, and
following their wishes seemed to keep them closer. She felt tears coming to
her eyes.
"Hmm." Woodcarver didn't seem to notice. "That's what Pilgrim said was
the reason." She tapped at her puppies and smiled. "I guess it makes sense.
These two don't get beer till they're older -- though I know they got some
second-hand partying from me tonight." There was a hint of beer breath in
the tent.
Johanna wiped roughly at her face. She really did not want to talk
about being a teenager just now. "You know, that was kind of a mean trick
you pulled on Scrupilo this afternoon."
"I -- Yes. I talked to him about it beforehand. He didn't want it, but
I thought he was just being ... is stiff-necked the word? If I had known how
upset he was, well -- "
"He practically fell apart out there in front of everybody. If I
understand how things work, that would have been his disgrace, right?"
"... Yes. Exchanging honor for loyalty in front of peers, it's an
important thing. At least the way I run things; I'm sure Pilgrim or Dataset
can say a dozen other ways to lead. Look Johanna, I needed that Exchange,
and I needed you and Scrupilo to be there."
"Yeah, I know. 'We two saved the day.'"
"Silence!" Her voice was suddenly edged, and Johanna remembered that
this was a medieval queen. "We are two hundred miles north of my borders,
almost to the heart of the Flenser Domain. In a few days we will meet the
enemy, and more of us will die for we-know-not-quite-what."
The bottom dropped out of Johanna's stomach. If she couldn't get back
to the ship, couldn't finish what Mom and Dad had started... "Please,
Woodcarver! It is worth it!"
"I know that. Pilgrim knows it. The majority of my council agrees,
though grudgingly. But we of the council have talked with Dataset. We've
seen your worlds and what your science can do. On the other hand, most of my
people here," she waved a head at the camp beyond the tent, "are here on
faith, and out of loyalty to me. For them, the situation is deadly and the
goal is vague." She paused, though her two pups continued gesturing
forcefully for a second. "Now I don't know how you would persuade your kind
to take such risks. Dataset talks of military conscription."
"That was Nyjora, long ago."
"Never mind. The point is, my troops are here out of loyalty, mostly to
me personally. For six hundred years, I have protected my people well; their
memories and legends are clear on it. More than once, I was the only one who
saw a peril, and it was my advice that saved all those who heeded it. That
is what keeps most of the soldiers, most of the cannoneers going. Each of
them is free to turn back. So. What should they think when our first
'combat' is to fall like ignorant ... tourists ... onto a nest of wolves?
Without the great good luck of you and part of Scrupilo being at the right
place and alert, I would have been killed. Pilgrim would have been killed.
Perhaps a third of the soldiers would have died."
"If not us, perhaps someone else," Johanna said in a small voice.
"Perhaps. I don't think anyone else came close to firing on the nest.
You see the effect on my people? 'If bad luck in the forest can kill our
Queen and destroy our marvelous weapons, what will it be like when we face a
thinking enemy?' That was the question in many minds. Unless I could answer
it, we'd never make it out of this valley -- at least not going northward."
"So you gave the medals. Loyalty for honor."
"Yes. You missed the sense of it, not understanding Tinish. I made a
big thing of how well they had done. I gave silverwood accolades to packs
who showed any competence during the ambush. That helped some. I repeated my
reasons for this expedition -- the wonders that Dataset describes and how
much we lose if Steel gets his way. But they've heard all that before, and
it points to far away things they can scarcely imagine. The new thing I
showed them today was you and Scrupilo."
"Us?"
"I praised you beyond the skies. Singletons often do brave things.
Sometimes they are halfway clever, or talk as though they are. But alone,
Scrupilo's fragment wouldn't be much more than a good knife fighter. He knew
about using the cannon, but he didn't have the paws or mouths to do anything
with it. And by himself, he would never have figured out where to shoot it.
You, on the other hand, are a Two Legs. In many ways you are helpless. The
only way you can think is by yourself, but you can do it without interfering
with those around you. Together you did what no pack could do in the middle
of a wolf-nest attack. So I told my army what a team our two races could
become, how each makes up for the age-long failings of the other. Together,
we are one step closer to being the Pack of Packs. How is Scrupilo?"
Johanna smiled faintly. "Things turned out okay. Once he was able to
get out there and accept his medal," she fingered the broach that was pinned
to her own collar; it was a beautiful thing, a landscape of Woodcarver's
city, "once he'd done that, he was totally changed. You should have seen him
with the cannoneers afterwards. They did their own loyalty/honor thing, and
then they drank a lot of beer. Scrupilo was telling them all about what we
were doing. He even had me help demonstrate.... You really think the army
bought what you said about humans and Tines?"
"I think so. In my own language, I can be very eloquent. I've bred
myself to be." Woodcarver was silent for a moment. Her puppies scrambled
across the carpet, and patted their muzzles at Johanna's hands. "Besides ...
it may even be true. Pilgrim is sure of it. You can sleep in this same tent
with me and still think. That's something that he and I can't do; in our own
ways, we've each lived a long time and I think we are each at least as smart
as the humans and other creatures that Dataset talks about in the Beyond.
But you singleton creatures can stand next to each other, and think and
build. Compared to us, I'll bet singleton races developed the sciences very
fast. But now, with your help, maybe things will change fast for us, too."
The two puppies retreated, and Woodcarver lowered heads to paws. "That's
what I told my people, anyway.... You should try to get some sleep now."
On the ground beyond the tent's entrance there were already splashes of
sunlight. "Okay." Johanna slipped off her outer clothes. She lay down and
dragged a light quilt across herself. Most of Woodcarver already looked
asleep. As usual, one or two pairs of eyes were open, but their intelligence
would be limited -- and just now, even they looked tired. Funny, Woodcarver
had worked with Dataset so much, her human voice had come to capture emotion
as well as pronunciation. Just now she had sounded so tired, so sad.
Johanna reached out from under her quilt to brush the neck of
Woodcarver's nearest, the blind one. "Do you believe what you told
everyone?" she said softly.
One of the "sentry" heads looked at her, and a very human sigh seemed
to come from all directions. Woodcarver's voice was very faint. "Yes ... but
I am very afraid that it doesn't matter any more. For six hundred years, I
have had proper confidence in myself. But what happened on the south wall
... should not have happened. It would not if I had followed Vendacious's
advice, and come down on the New Road."
"But we might have been seen -- "
"Yes. A failure either way, don't you see? Vendacious has precise
information from the highest councils of the Flenser. But he's something of
a careless fool in everyday matters. I knew that, and thought I could
compensate. But the Old Road was in far worse condition than I remembered;
the wolf-nest could never have settled by it if there had been any traffic
during the last few years. If Vendacious had managed his patrols properly,
or if I had been managing him properly, we would never have been surprised.
Instead we were nearly overrun ... and my only remaining talent appears to
be in fooling those who trust me into thinking I still know what I'm doing."
She opened another pair of eyes and made the smile gesture. "Strange. I
haven't said these things even to Pilgrim. Is this another 'advantage' of
human relations?"
Johanna patted the blind one's neck. "Maybe."
"Anyway, I believe what I said about things that could be, but I fear
the my soul may not be strong enough to make them so. Perhaps I should turn
things over to Pilgrim or Vendacious; that's something I must think on."
Woodcarver shhed Johanna's surprised protests.
"Now sleep please."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
There was a time when Ravna thought their tiny ship might fly all the
way to the Bottom unnoticed. Along with everything else, that had changed.
At the moment, Out of Band II might be the most famous star ship known to
the Net. A million races watched the chase. In the Middle Beyond there were
vast antenna swarms beaming in their direction and listening to the news --
mostly lies -- sent from ships that pursued the OOB. She couldn't hear those
lies directly, of course, but the transmissions from beyond were as clear as
if they were on a main trunk.
Ravna spent part of each day reading the News, trying to find hope,
trying to prove to herself that she was doing the right thing. By now, she
was pretty sure what was chasing them. No doubt even Pham and Blueshell
would have agreed on that. Why they were being chased, and what they might
find at the end was now the subject of endless speculation on the Net. As
usual, whatever the truth might be was well hidden among the lies.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse [No references prior to the fall of Relay. No probable
source. This is someone being very cautious.]
Subject: Alliance for the Defense fraudulent?
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 5.80 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Fools' errand, unnecessary genocide
Text of message:
Earlier I speculated that there had been no destruction at Sjandra Kei.
Apologies. That was based on a catalog identification error. I agree with
the messages (13123 as of a few seconds ago) assuring me that the
habitations of Sjandra Kei suffered collisional damage within the last six
days.
So apparently the "Alliance for the Defense" has taken the military
action they claimed earlier. And apparently, they are powerful enough to
destroy small civilizations in the Middle Beyond. The question still
remains: "Why?" I have already posted arguments showing it unlikely that
Homo sapiens is especially controllable by the Blight (though they were
stupid enough to create that entity). Even the Alliance's own reports admit
that less than half of Sjandra Kei's sophonts were of that race.
Now a large part of the Alliance fleet is chasing into the Bottom of
the Beyond after a single ship. What conceivable damage can the Alliance do
to the Blight down there? The Blight is a great threat, perhaps the most
novel and threatening in well-recorded history. Nevertheless, Alliance
behavior appears destructive and pointless. Now that the Alliance has
revealed some of its sponsoring organizations (see messages [id numbers]), I
think we know its real motives. I see connections between the Alliance and
the old Aprahant Hegemony. A thousand years ago, that group had a similar
jihad, grabbing real estate left vacant by recent Transcendences. Stopping
the Hegemony was an exciting bit of action in that part of the galaxy. I
think these people are back, taking advantage of the general panic attending
the Blight (which is admittedly a much greater threat).
My advice: Beware of the Alliance and its claims of heroic efforts.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Schirachene->Rondralip->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Harmonious Repose Communications Synod
Subject: Encounter with agents of the Perversion
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
Date: 6.37 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Hanse fraudulent?
Text of message:
We have no special inclination toward any of the posters on this
thread. Nevertheless, it's remarkable that an entity that has not revealed
its location or special interests -- namely "Hanse" -- should be smearing
the efforts of the Alliance for the Defense. The Alliance kept its
constituents secret only during that period when its forces were being
gathered, when a single stroke of the Perversion's power might destroy it
entirely. Since that time, it has been quite open in its efforts.
Hanse wonders how a single starship could be worth the Alliance's
attention. As Harmonious Repose was the site of the latest turn of events,
we are in a position to give some explanation. The ship in question, the Out
of Band II, is clearly designed for operations at the Bottom of the Beyond
-- and is even capable of limited operations within the Slow Zone. The ship
presented itself as a special zonographic flight commissioned to study the
recent turbulence at the Bottom. In fact, this ship's mission is a very
different one. In the aftermath of its violent departure, we have pieced
together some extraordinary facts:
At least one of the ship's crew was human. Though they made great
efforts to stay out of view and used Skroderider traders as intermediaries,
we have recordings. A biosequence of one individual was obtained, and it
matches the patterns maintained by two out of three of the Homo sapiens
archives. (It's well known that the third archive, on Sneerot Down, is in
the control of Human sympathizers.) Some might say this deception was
founded in fear. After all, these events happened after the destruction of
Sjandra Kei. We think otherwise: The ship's initial contact with us occurred
before the Sjandra Kei incident.
We have since made a careful analysis of the repair work our yards
performed on this vessel. Ultradrive automation is a deep and complex thing;
even the cleverest of cloaking cannot mask all the memories in it. We now
know that the Out of Band II was from the Relay system and that it left
there after the Perversion's attack. Think what this means.
The crew of the Out of Band II brought weapons into a habitat, kill
several local sophonts, and escaped before our musicians [harmonizers?
police?] were properly notified. We have good reason to wish them ill.
Yet our misfortune is a small thing compared to the unmasking of this
secret mission. We are very grateful that the Alliance is willing to risk so
much in following this lead.
There's more than the usual number of unsubstantiated assertions
floating around on this news thread. We hope our facts will wake some people
up. In particular, consider what "Hanse" may really be. The Perversion is
very visible in the High Beyond, where it has great power and can speak with
its own voice. Down here, it is more likely that deception and covert
propaganda will be its tools. Think on this when you read postings from
unidentified entities such as "Hanse"!
Ravna gritted her teeth. The hell of it was, the facts in the posting
were correct. It was the inferences that were vicious and false. And she
couldn't guess if this were some shade of black propaganda or simply Saint
Rihndell expressing honest conclusions (though Rihndell had never seemed so
trusting of the butterflies).
One thing all the News seemed to agree on: Much more than the Alliance
fleet was chasing the OOB. The swarm of ultradrive traces could be seen by
anyone within a thousand light-years. The best guess was that three fleets
pursued the OOB. Three! The Alliance for the Defense, still loud and
boastful, even though suspected (by some) of being opportunistic genocides.
Behind them, Sjandra Kei ... and what was left of Ravna's motherland; in all
the universe perhaps the only folk she could trust. And just behind them,
the silent fleet. Diverse news posters claimed it was from the High Beyond.
That fleet might have problems at the Bottom, but for now it was gaining.
Few doubted that it was the Perversion's child. More than anything, it
convinced the universe that the OOB or its destination was cosmically
important. Just why it was important was the big question. Speculation was
drifting in at the rate of five thousand messages per hour. A million
different viewpoints were considering the mystery. Some of those viewpoints
were so alien that they made Skroderiders and Humans look like the same
species. At least five participants on this News thread were gaseous
inhabitants of stellar coronas. There were one or two others that Ravna
suspected were uncataloged races, beings so shy that this might be their
first active use of the Net ever.
The OOB's computer was a lot dumber than it had been in the Middle
Beyond. She couldn't ask it to sift through the messages looking for nuance
and insight. In fact, if an incoming message didn't have a Triskweline text,
it was often unreadable. The ship's translator programs still worked fairly
well with the major trade languages, but even there the translation was slow
and full of alternative meanings and jabberwocky. It was just another sign
that they were approaching the Bottom of the Beyond. Effective translation
of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator
program.
Nevertheless, with proper design, things might have been better. The
automation might have degraded gracefully under the restrictions imposed by
their depth. Instead, gear just stopped working; what remained was slow and
error-prone. If only the refitting had been completed before the Fall of
Relay. And just how many times have I wished for that? She hoped things were
as bad aboard the pursuing ships.
So Ravna used the ship to do light culling on the Threats newsgroup.
Much of what was left was inane, as from people who see "portents in the
weather" --
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Arbwyth->Trade24->Cherguelen->Triskweline, SjK
units
From: Twirlip of the Mists [Perhaps an organization of cloud fliers in
a single jovian system. Very sparse priors before this thread began. Appears
to be seriously out of touch. Program recommendation: delete this poster
from presentation.]
Subject: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation
Date: 4.54 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key
insight
Text of message:
Apologies first if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway
onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. I think
that anyone following both Great Secrets of Creation and Threat of the
Blight would see an important pattern. Since the events reported by
Harmonious Repose information service, most agree that something important
to the Perversion exists at the Bottom of the Beyond in region [...]. I see
a possible connection here with the Great Secrets. During the last two
hundred and twenty days, there have been increasing reports of zone
interface instability in the region below Harmonious Repose. As the Blight
threat has grown and its attacks against advanced races and other Powers
continued, this instability has increased. Could there not be some
connection? I urge all to consult their information on the Great Secrets (or
the nearest archive maintained by that group). Events such as this prove
once again that the universe is all ronzelle between.
Some of the postings were tantalizing --
[Light gloss]
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Wobblings->Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Cricketsong under the High Willow [Cricketsong is a synthetic
race created as a jape/ experiment/instrument by the High Willow upon its
Transcendence. Cricketsong has been on the Net for more than ten thousand
years. Apparently it is a fanatical studier of paths to Transcendence. For
eight thousand years it has been the heaviest poster on "Where are they now"
and related groups. There is no evidence that any Cricketsong settlement has
itself Transcended. Cricketsong is sufficiently peculiar that there is a
large news group for speculation concerning the race itself. Consensus is
that Cricketsong was designed by High Willow as a probe back into the
Beyond, that the race is somehow incapable of attempting its own
Transcendence.]
Subject: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Special Interest Group, Where are they now Special Interest Group
Date: 5.12 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: On becoming Transcendent
Text of message:
Contrary to other postings, there are a number of reasons why a Power
might install artifacts at the Bottom of the Beyond. The Abselor's message
on this thread cites some: some Powers have documented curiosity about the
Slow Zone and, even more, about the Unthinking Depths. In rare cases,
expeditions have been dispatched (though any return from the Depths would
occur long after the dispatching Power lost interest in all local
questions).
However, none of these motives are likely here. To those who are
familiar with Fast Burn transcendence, it is clear that the Blight is a
creature seeking stasis. Its interest in the Bottom is very sudden,
provoked, we think, by the revelations at Harmonious Repose. There is
something at the Bottom that is critical to the Perversion's welfare.
Consider the notion of ablative dissonance (see the Where Are They Now
group archive): No one knows what set-up procedures the humans of Straumli
Realm were using. The Fast Burn may itself have had Transcendent
intelligence. What if it became dissatisfied with the direction of the
channedring? In that case it might try to hide the jumpoff birthinghel. The
Bottom would not be a place where the algorithm itself could normally
execute, but avatars might still be created from it and briefly run.
Up to a point, Ravna could almost make sense of it; ablative dissonance
was a commonplace of Applied Theology. But then, like one of those dreams
where the secret of life is about to be revealed, the posting just drifted
into nonsense.
There were postings that were neither asinine nor obscure. As usual,
Sandor at the Zoo had a lot of things dead right:
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: The Blight's goal at the Bottom
Key phrases: Sudden change in Blight's tactics
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 8.15 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Text of message:
In case you don't know, Sandor Intelligence has a number of different
Net feeds. We can collect messages on paths that have no intermediate nodes
in common. Thus we can be fairly confident that news we receive has not been
tampered with en route. (There remain the lies and misunderstandings that
were present to begin with, but that's something that makes the intelligence
business interesting.)
The Blight has been our top priority since its instantiation a year
ago. This is not just because of the Blight's obvious strength, the
destruction and the deicides it has committed. We fear that all this is the
lesser part of the Threat. There have been perversions almost as powerful in
the recorded past. What truly distinguishes this one is its stability. We
see no evidence of internal evolution; in some ways it is less than a Power.
It may never lose interest in controlling the High Beyond. We may be
witnessing a massive and permanent change in the nature of things. Imagine:
a stable necrosis, where the only sentience in the High Beyond is the
Blight.
Thus, studying the Blight has been a matter of life and death for us
(even though we are powerful and widely distributed). We've reached a number
of conclusions. Some of these may be obvious to you, others may sound like
flagrant speculation. All take on a new coloring with the events reported
from Harmonious Repose:
Almost from the beginning, the Blight has been searching for something.
This search has extended far beyond its aggressive physical expansion. Its
automatic agents have tried to penetrate virtually every node in the Top of
the Beyond; the High Network is in shambles, reduced to protocols scarcely
more efficient than those known below. At the same time, the Blight has
physically stolen several archives. We have evidence of very large fleets
searching for off-Net archives at the Top and in the Low Transcend. At least
three Powers have been murdered in this rampage.
And now, suddenly, this assault has ended. The Blight's physical
expansion continues, with no end in sight, but it no longer searches the
High Beyond. As near as we can tell, the change occurred about two thousand
seconds before the escape of the human vessel from Harmonious Repose. Less
than six hours later, we saw the beginnings of the silent fleet that so many
are now speculating about. That fleet is indeed the creature of the Blight.
In other times, the destruction of Sjandra Kei and the motives of the
Alliance for the Defense would all be important issues (and our organization
might have interest in doing business with those affected). But all that is
dwarfed by the fact of this fleet and the ship it pursues. And we disagree
with the analysis [implication?] from Harmonious Repose: it is obvious to us
that the Blight did not know of the Out of Band II until its discovery at
Harmonious Repose.
That ship is not a tool of the Blight, but it contains or is bound for
something of enormous importance to the Blight. And what might that be? Here
we begin frank speculation. And since we are speculating, we'll use those
powerful pseudo-laws, the Principles of Mediocrity and Minimal Assumption.
If the Blight has the potential for taking over all the Top in a permanent
stability, then why has this not happened before? Our guess is that the
Blight has been instantiated before (with such dire consequence that the
event marks the beginning of recorded time), but it has its own peculiar
natural enemy.
The order of events even suggests a particular scenario, one familiar
from network security. Once upon a time (very long ago), there was another
instance of the Blight. A successful defense was mounted, and all known
copies of the Blight's recipe were destroyed. Of course, on a wide net, one
can never be sure that all copies of a badness are gone. No doubt, the
defense was distributed in enormous numbers. But even if a harboring archive
were reached by such a distribution, there might be no effect if the Blight
were not currently active there.
The luckless humans of Straumli Realm chanced on such an archive, no
doubt a ruin long off the Net. They instantiated the Blight and incidentally
-- perhaps a little later -- the defense program. Somehow that Blight's
enemy escaped destruction. And the Blight has been searching for it ever
since -- in all the wrong places. In its weakness, the new instance of the
defense retreated to depths no Power would think of penetrating, whence it
could never return without outside help. Speculation on top of speculation:
we can't guess the nature of this defense, except that its retreat is a
discouraging sign. And now even that sacrifice has gone for naught, since
the Blight has seen through the deception.
The Blight's fleet is clearly an ad hoc thing, hastily thrown together
from forces that happened to be closest to the discovery. Without such
haste, the quarry might have been lost to it. Thus the chase equipment is
probably ill-suited to the depths, and its performance will degrade as the
descent progresses. However, we estimate that it will remain stronger than
any force that can reach the scene in the near future.
We may learn more after the Blight reaches the Out of Band II's
destination. If it destroys that destination immediately, we'll know that
something truly dangerous to the Blight existed there (and may exist
elsewhere, at least in recipe form). If it does not, then perhaps the Blight
was looking for something that will make it even more dangerous than before.
Ravna sat back, stared at the display for some time. Sandor Arbitration
Intelligence was one of the sharpest posters in this newsgroup.... But now
even their predictions were just different flavors of doom. And all so damn
cool they were, so analytical. She knew that Sandor was polyspecific, with
branch offices scattered through the High Beyond. But they were no Power. If
the Perversion could knock over Relay and kill Old One, then all of Sandor's
resources wouldn't help it if the enemy decided to gobble them up. Their
analysis had the tone of the pilot of a crashing ship, intent on
understanding the danger, not taking time out for terror.
Oh Pham, how I wish I could talk to you like before! She curled gently
in on herself, the way you can in zero gee. The sobs came softly, but
without hope. They had not exchanged a hundred words in the last five days.
They lived as if with guns at each others' heads. And that was the literal
truth -- she had made it so. When she and he and the Skroderiders had been
together, at least the danger had been a shared burden. Now they were split
apart and their enemies were slowly gaining on them. What good could Pham's
godshatter be against a thousand enemy ships and the Blight behind them?
She floated for a timeless while, the sobs fading into despairing
silence. And again she wondered if what she'd done could possibly be right.
She had threatened Pham's life to protect Blueshell and Greenstalk and their
kind. In doing so, she had kept secret what might be the greatest treachery
in the history of the Known Net. Can one person make such a decision? Pham
had asked her that, and she had answered yes but....
The question toyed with her every day. And every day she tried to see
some way out. She wiped her face silently. She didn't doubt what Pham had
discovered.
There were some smug posters on the Net who argued that something as
vast as the Blight was simply a tragic disaster, and not an evil. Evil, they
argued, could only have meaning on smaller scales, in the hurt that one
sophont does to another. Before RIP, the argument had seemed a frivolous
playing with words. Now she saw that it was meaningful -- and dead wrong.
The Blight had created the Riders, a marvelous and peaceful race. Their
presence on a billion worlds had been a good. And behind it all was the
potential for converting the sovereign minds of friends into monsters. When
she thought of Blueshell and Greenstalk, and the fear welled up and she knew
the poison that was there -- even though they were good people -- then she
knew she'd glimpsed evil on the Transcendent scale.
She had gotten Blueshell and Greenstalk into this mission; they had not
asked for it. They were friends and allies, and she would not harm them
because of what they could become.
Maybe it was the latest news items. Maybe it was confronting the same
impossibilities for the n'th time: Ravna gradually straightened, looking at
those last messages. So. She believed Pham about the Skroderider threat. She
also believed these two were only enemies in potential. She had thrown away
everything to save them and their kind. Maybe it was a mistake, but take
what advantage there is in it. If they are to be saved because you think
they are allies, then treat them as allies. Treat them as the friends they
are. We are all pawns together.
Ravna pushed gently toward her cabin's doorway.
The Skroderiders' cabin was just behind the command deck. Since the
debacle at RIP, the two had not left it. As she drifted down the passage
toward their door, Ravna half-expected to see Pham's handiwork lurking in
the shadows. She knew he was doing his best to "protect himself". Yet there
was nothing unusual. What will he think of my visiting them?
She announced herself. After a moment Blueshell appeared. His skrode
was wiped clean of cosmetic stripes, and the room behind him was a jumble.
He waved her in with quick jerks of his fronds.
"My lady."
"Blueshell," she nodded at him. Half the time she cursed herself for
trusting the Riders; the other half, she was mortally embarrassed for having
left them alone. "H-how is Greenstalk?"
Surprisingly, Blueshell's fronds snapped together in a smile. "You
guessed? This is the first day with her new skrode.... I will show you, if
you'd like."
He threaded around equipment that was scattered in a lattice across the
room. It was similar to the shop equipment Pham had used to build his
powered armor. And if Pham had seen it, he might have lost all self-control.
"I've worked on it every minute since ... Pham locked us in here."
Greenstalk was in the other room. Her stalk and fronds rose from a
silver pot. There were no wheels. It looked nothing like a traditional
skrode. Blueshell rolled across the ceiling and extended a frond down to his
mate. He rustled something at her, and after a moment, she replied.
"The skrodeling is very limited, no mobility, no redundant power
supplies. I copied it off a Lesser Skroderider design, a simple thing
designed by Dirokimes. It's not meant for more than sitting in one place,
facing in one direction. But it provides her with short-term memory support,
and attention focusers.... She is back with me." He fussed around her, some
fronds caressing hers, others pointing to the gadget he had built for her.
"She herself was not badly injured. Sometimes I wonder -- whatever Pham
says, maybe at the last second he could not kill her."
He spoke nervously, as though afraid of what Ravna might say.
"The first few days I was very worried. But the surgeon is good. It
gave her plenty of time to stand in strong surf. To think slowly. Since I've
added on this skrodeling, she has practiced the calisthenics of memory,
repeating what the surgeon or I say to her. With the skrodeling, she can
hold on to a new memory for almost five hundred seconds. That's usually long
enough for her natural mind to commit a thought to long-term memory."
Ravna drifted close. There were some new creases in Greenstalk's
fronds. Those would be scars healing. Her visual surfaces followed Ravna's
approach. The Rider knew she was here; her whole posture was friendly.
"Can she talk Trisk, Blueshell? Do you have a voder hooked up?"
"What?" Buzz. He was forgetful or nervous, Ravna couldn't tell which.
"Yes, yes. Just give me a minute.... There was no need before. No one wanted
to talk to us." He fiddled with something on the home-made skrode.
After a moment, "Hello, Ravna. I ... recognize you." Her fronds rustled
in time with the words.
"I know you, too. We, I am glad that you are back."
The voder voice was faint, wistful? "Yes. It's hard for me to tell. I
do want to talk, but I'm not sure ... am I'm making sense?"
Out of Greenstalk's sight, Blueshell flicked a long tendril, a gesture:
say yes.
"Yes, I understand you, Greenstalk." And Ravna resolved never again to
get angry with Greenstalk about not remembering.
"Good." Her fronds straightened and she didn't say anything more.
"See?" came Blueshell's voder voice. "I am brightly cheerful. Even now,
Greenstalk is committing this conversation to long-term memory. It goes
slowly for now, but I am improving the skrodeling. I'm sure her slowness is
mainly emotional shock." He continued to brush at Greenstalk's fronds, but
she didn't say anything more. Ravna wondered just how brightly cheerful he
could be.
Behind the Riders were a set of display windows, customized now for the
Rider outlook. "You've been following the News?" Ravna asked.
"Yes, indeed."
"I-I feel so helpless." I feel so foolish, saying that to you.
But Blueshell didn't take offense. He seemed grateful for the change of
topic, preferring the gloom at a distance. "Yes. We certainly are famous
now. Three fleets chasing us down, my lady. Ha ha."
"They don't seem to be gaining very fast."
Frond shrug. "Sir Pham has turned out to be a competent ship's master.
I'm afraid things will change as we descend. The ship's higher automation
will gradually fail. What you call 'manual control' will become very
important. OOB was designed for my race, my lady. No matter what Sir Pham
thinks of us, at bottom we can fly it better than any. So bit by bit the
others will gain -- at least those who truly understand their own ships."
It was something she hadn't guessed, certainly something she would
never have found reading the Net. Too bad it's also bad news. "S-surely Pham
must know this?"
"I think he must. But he is trapped in his own fears. What can he do?
If not for you, My Lady Ravna, he might have killed us already. Maybe when
the choice comes down to dying in the next hour against trusting us, maybe
then there will be a chance."
"By then it will be too late. Look, even if he doesn't trust -- even
though he believes the worst of Riders -- there must still be a way." And it
came to her that sometimes you don't have to change the way people think, or
even whom they may hate. "Pham wants to get to the Bottom, to recover this
Countermeasure. He thinks you may be from the Blight, and after the same
thing. But up to a point -- " up to a point he can cooperate, postpone the
showdown he imagines till perhaps it won't matter.
Even as she started to say it, Blueshell was already shouting back at
her. "I'm am not of the Blight! Greenstalk is not! The Rider race is not!"
He swept around his mate, rolled across the ceiling till his fronds rattled
right before Ravna's face.
"I'm sorry. It's just the potential -- "
"Nonsense!" His voder buzzed off scale. "We ran in to an evil few.
Every race has such, people who will kill for trade. They forced Greenstalk,
substituted data at her voder. Pham Nuwen would kill our billions for the