Страница:
learned -- " his voice broke into dischords. Two of Vendacious jumped up to
join the one already at the window slits. Softly by her ear, the voice
continued, "It's the Pilgrim, still far away, but coming toward us.... I
don't know. You would be much better safely dead. One deep wound, all out of
sight." The knife slide further down. Johanna arched futilely back from the
point. Then the blade withdrew, the point poised gently against her skin.
"Let's hear what Pilgrim has to say. No point in killing you this instant if
he doesn't insist on seeing you." He pushed a cloth into her mouth and tied
it tight.
There was a moment of silence, maybe the crunch of paws in the brush
right around the cabin. Then she heard a pack warble loud from beyond the
timbered walls. Johanna doubted that she would ever learn to recognize packs
by their voices, but ... her mind stumbled through the sounds, trying to
decode the Tinish chords that were words piled on top of one another:
"Johanna
something interrogative
screech safe."
Vendacious gobbled back,
"Hail Peregrine Wrickwrackscar
Johanna trill
not visible hurts
sad uncertain squeak."
And the traitor murmured in her ear: "Now he'll ask if I need medical
help, and if he insists ... our chat will have an early end."
But the only reply Pilgrim made was a chorus of sympathetic worry.
"Damn assholes are just sitting down out there," came Vendacious's irritated
whisper.
The silence stretched on a moment, and then Peregrine's human voice,
the Joker from Dataset, said in clear Samnorsk. "Don't do anything foolish,
Vendacious, old man."
Vendacious made a sound of polite surprise -- and tensed around her.
His knife jabbed a centimeter deep between Johanna's ribs, a thorn of pain.
She could feel the blade trembling, could feel his member's breath on her
bloody skin.
Pilgrim's voice continued, confident and knowing: "I mean we know what
you're up to. Your pack at the hospital has gone completely to pieces,
confessed what little he knew to Woodcarver. Do you think your lies can get
by her? If Johanna is dead, you'll be bloody shreds." He hummed an ominous
tune from Dataset. "I know her well, the Queen. She seems such a gracious
pack ... but where do you think Flenser got his gruesome creativity? Kill
Johanna and you'll find just how far her genius in that exceeds Flenser's."
The knife pulled back. One more of Vendacious leaped to the window
slits, and the two by Johanna loosened their grip. He stroked the blade
gently across her skin. Thinking? Is Woodcarver really that fearsome? The
four at the windows were looking in all directions; no doubt Vendacious was
counting guard packs and planning furiously. When he finally replied, it was
in Samnorsk: "The threat would be more credible if it were not at second
hand."
Pilgrim chuckled. "True. But we guessed what would happen if she
approached. You're a cautious fellow; you'd have killed Johanna instantly,
and been full of lying explanation before you even heard what the Queen
knows. But seeing a poor pilgrim amble over ... I know you think me a fool,
only one step better than Scriber Jaqueramaphan." Peregrine stumbled on the
name, and for an instant lost his flippant tone. "Anyway, now you know the
situation. If you doubt, send your guards beyond the brush; look at what the
Queen has surrounding you. Johanna dead only kills you. Speaking of which, I
assume this conversation has some point?"
"Yes. She lives." Vendacious slipped the gag from Johanna's mouth. She
turned her head, choking. There were tears running down the sides of her
face. "Pilgrim, oh Pilgrim!" The words were scarcely more than a whisper.
She drew a painful breath, concentrated on making noise. Bright spots danced
before her eyes. "Hei Pilgrim!"
"Hei Johanna. Has he hurt you?"
"Some, I -- "
"That's enough. She's alive, Pilgrim, but that's easily corrected."
Vendacious didn't jam the gag back in her mouth. Johanna could see him
rubbing heads nervously as he paced round and round the ledge. He trilled
something about "stalemated game".
Peregrine replied, "Speak Samnorsk, Vendacious. I want Johanna to
understand -- and you can't talk quite as slick as in pack talk."
"Whatever." The traitor's voice was unconcerned, but his members kept
up their nervous pacing. "The Queen must realize we have a standoff here.
Certainly I'll kill Johanna if I'm not treated properly. But even then,
Woodcarver could not afford to hurt me. Do you realize the trap Steel has
set on Margrum Climb? I'm the only one who knows how to avoid it."
"Big deal. I never wanted to go up Margrum anyway."
"Yes, but you don't count, Pilgrim. You're a mongrel patchwork.
Woodcarver will understand how dangerous this situation is. Steel's forces
are everything I said they weren't, and I've been sending them every secret
I could write down from my investigations of Dataset."
"My brother is alive, Pilgrim," Johanna said.
"Oh.... You're kind of a record setter for treason aren't you,
Vendacious? Everything to us was a lie, while Steel learned all the truth
about us. You figure that means we daren't kill you now?"
Laughter, and Vendacious's pacing stopped. He sees control coming back
to him. "More, you need my full-membered cooperation. See, I exaggerated the
number of enemy agents in Woodcarver's troops, but I do have a few -- and
maybe Steel has planted others I don't know about. If you even arrest me,
word will get back to the Flenser armies. Much of what I know will be
useless -- and you'll face an immediate, overwhelming attack. You see? The
Queen needs me."
"And how do we know this is not more lies?"
"That is a problem, isn't it? Matched only by how I can be guaranteed
safety once I've saved the expedition. No doubt it's beyond your mongrel
mind. Woodcarver and I must have a talk, someplace mutually safe and unseen.
Carry that message back to her. She can't have this traitor's hides, but if
she cooperates she may be able to save her own!"
There was silence from outside, punctuated by the squeaking of animals
in the nearer trees. Finally, surprisingly, Pilgrim laughed. "Mongrel mind,
eh? Well, you have me in one thing, Vendacious. I've been all the world
round, and I remember back half a thousand years
-- but of all the villains and traitors and geniuses, you take the
record for bald impudence!"
Vendacious gave a Tinish chord, untranslatable but as a sign of smug
pleasure. "I'm honored."
"Very well, I'll take your points back to the Queen. I hope the two of
you are clever enough to work something out.... One thing more: the Queen
requires that Johanna come with me."
"The Queen requires? That sounds more like your mongrel sentiment to
me."
"Perhaps. But it will prove you are serious in your confidence. View it
as my price for cooperation."
Vendacious turned all his heads toward Johanna, silently regarding.
Then he scanned out all the windows one last time. "Very well, you may have
her." Two jumped down to the cabin's hatch while another pair pulled her
toward it. His voice was soft and near her ear. "Damn Pilgrim. Alive, you're
just going to cause me trouble with the Queen." His knife slid across her
field of view. "Don't oppose me with her. I am going to survive this affair
still powerful."
He lifted back the hatch and daylight spilled blindingly across her
face. She squinted; there was a sweep of branches and the side of the hut.
Vendacious pushed and pulled her cot onto the forest floor, and the same
time gobbling at his guards to keep their positions. He and Peregrine
chatted politely, agreeing on when the pilgrim would return.
One by one, Vendacious trotted back through the cabin's hatch. Pilgrim
advanced and grabbed the handles at the front of the cot. One of his pups
reached out from his jacket to nuzzled her face. "You okay?"
"I'm not sure. I got bashed in the head ... and it seems kind of hard
to breathe."
He loosened the blankets from around her chest as the rest of him
dragged the cot away from the hut. The forest shade was peaceful and deep
... and Vendacious's guards were stationed here and there about the area.
How many were really in on the treason? Two hours ago, Johanna had looked to
them for protection. Now their every glance sent a shiver through her. She
rolled back to the center of the cot, dizzy again, and stared up into the
branches and leaves and patches of smoke-stained sky. Things like Straumli
tree squigglies chased each other back and forth, chittering in seeming
debate.
Funny. Almost a year ago Pilgrim and Scriber were dragging me around,
and I was even worse hurt, and terrified of everything -- including them.
And now ... she had never been so glad to see another person. Even Scarbutt
was a reassuring strength, walking beside her.
The waves of terror slowly subsided. What was left was an anger as
intense, though more reasoning, than the year before. She knew what had
happened here; the players were not strangers, the betrayal was not random
murder. After all Vendacious's treachery, after all his murders, and his
planning to kill them all ... he was going to go free! Pilgrim and
Woodcarver were just going to overlook that, "He killed Scriber, Pilgrim. He
killed Scriber...." He cut Scriber to pieces, then chased down what was left
and killed that right out of our arms. "And Woodcarver is going to let him
go free? How can she do it? How can you do it?" The tears were coming again.
"Sh, sh." Two of Pilgrim's heads came into view. They looked down at
her, then swiveled around almost nervously. She reached out, touching the
short plush fur. Pilgrim was shivering! One of him dipped close; his voice
didn't sound jaunty at all. "I don't know what the Queen will do, Johanna.
She doesn't know about any of this."
"Wha -- "
"Sh." And his voice became scarcely a buzzing through her hand. "His
people can still see us. He could still figure things out.... Only you and I
know, Johanna. I don't think anyone else suspects."
"But the pack that confessed ...?"
"Bluff, all bluff. I've done some crazy things in my life but next to
following Scriber down to your starship, this takes the prize.... After
Vendacious took you away, I began to think. You weren't that badly injured.
It was all too much like what happened to Jaqueramaphan, but I had no
proof."
"And you haven't told anyone?"
"No. Foolish as poor Scriber, aren't I?" His heads looked in all
directions. "If I was right, he'd be silly not to kill you immediately. I
was so afraid I was already too late...."
You would have been, if Vendacious weren't quite the monster I know he
is.
"Anyway, I learned the truth just like poor Scriber -- almost by
accident. But if we can get another seventy meters away, we won't die like
him. And everything I claimed to Vendacious will be true."
She patted his nearest shoulder, and looked back. The tiny cabin and
its ring of guards disappeared behind the forest brush.
...and Jefri lives!
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Crypto: 0 [95 encrypted packets have been discarded]
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Tredeschk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Zonograph Eidolon [Co-op (or religious order) in Middle Beyond
maintained by subscription of several thousand Low Beyond civilizations, in
particular those threatened by immersion]
Subject: Surge Bulletin Update and Ping
Distribution:
Zonograph Eidolon Subscribers, Zonometric Interest Group, Threats Interest Group, subgroup: navigational, Ping participants
Date: 1087892301 seconds since Calibration Event 239011, Eidolon Frame
[66.91 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei]
Key phrases: galactic scale event, superluminal, charitable emergency
announcement
Text of message:
(Please include accurate local time in any ping responses.)
If you receive this, you know that the monster surge has receded. The
new zone surface appears to be a stable froth of low dimensionality (between
2.1 and 2.3). At least five civilizations are trapped in the new
configuration. Thirty virgin solar systems have achieved the Beyond.
(Subscribers may find specifics in the encrypted data that follow this
bulletin.)
The change corresponds to what is seen in a normal period of two years
across the whole galaxy's Slow Zone surface. Yet this surge happened in less
than a two hundred hours and less than one thousandth of that surface.
Even these numbers do not show the scale of the event. (The following
can only be estimates, since so many sites were destroyed, and no
instruments were calibrated for this size event.) At its maximum, the surge
reached 1000 light-years above Zone Surface Standard. Surge rates of more
than thirty million times lightspeed (about one light-year per second) were
sustained for periods of more than 100 seconds. Reports from subscribers
show more than ten billion normalized sophont deaths directly attributable
to the Surge (local network failures, failures leading to environment
collapse, medical collapse, vehicle crashes, security failures). Posted
economic damage is much greater.
The important question now is what can we expect in aftersurges. Our
predictions are based on instrumented sites and zonometric surveys, combined
with historical data from our archives. Except for long-term trends,
predicting zone changes has never been a science, but we have served our
subscribers well in advising of aftersurges and in identifying available new
worlds. The present situation makes all previous work almost useless. We
have precise documentation going back ten million years. Faster than light
surges happen about every twenty thousand years (usually with speeds under
7.0c). Nothing like this monster is on file. The surge just seen is the kind
described at third-hand in old and glutted databases: Sculptor had one this
size fifty million years ago. The [Perseus Arm] in our galaxy probably
suffered something like this half a billion years ago.
This uncertainty makes our Mission nearly impossible, and is an
important reason for this public message to the Zonometry newsgroup and
others: Everyone interested in zonometry and navigation must pool resources
on this problem. Ideas, archive access, algorithms -- all these things could
help. We pledge significant contributions to non-subscribers, and
one-for-one trades to those with important information. Note: We are also
addressing this message to the Swndwp oracle, and direct beaming it to
points in the Transcend thought to be inhabited. Surely an event such as
this must be of interest even there? We appeal to the Powers Above: Let us
send you what we know. Give us some hint if you have ideas about this event.
To demonstrate our good faith, here are the estimates we have
currently. These are based on naive scale-up of well-documented surges in
this region. Details are in the non-crypted appendix to this sending. Over
the next year there will be five or six aftersurges, of diminishing speed
and range. During this time at least two more civilizations (see risk list)
will likely be permanently immersed. Zone storm conditions will prevail even
when aftersurges are not in progress. Navigation in the the volume
[coordinate specification] will be extremely dangerous during this period;
we recommend that shipping in the volume be suspended. The time line is
probably too short to admit feasible rescue plans for the civilizations at
risk. Our long-range prediction (probably the least uncertain of all): The
million-year-scale secular shrinkage will not be affected at all. The next
hundred thousand years will however show a retardation in the shrinkage of
the Slow Zone boundary in this portion of the galaxy.
Finally, a philosophical note. We of Zonographic Eidolon watch the zone
boundary and the orbits of border stars. For the most part, the zone changes
are very slow: 700 meters per second in the case of the long-term secular
shrinkage. Yet these changes together with orbital motion affect billions of
lives each year. Just as the glaciers and droughts of a pretechnical world
must affect a people, so must we accept these long-term changes. Storms and
surges are obvious tragedies, near-instant death for some civilizations. Yet
these are as far beyond our control as the slower movements. Over the last
few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets,
of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such -- and those living
more peaceably around them -- we say: Look out on the universe. It does not
care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not
avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort
from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to
villainy or good, but which simply is.
-=*=-
Crypto: 0
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Arbwyth->Trade24->Cherguelen->Triskweline, SjK
units
From: Twirlip of the Mists [Who knows what this is, though probably not
a propaganda voice. Very sparse priors.]
Subject: The cause of the recent Great Surge
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation, Zonometric Interest Group
Date: 66.47 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key
insight
Text of message:
Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto
the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. The Great
Surge now in progress appears by all accounts to be an event of cosmic scope
and rarity. Furthermore, the other posters put its epicenter less than 6,000
light-years from recent warfare related to the Blight. Can this be mere
coincidence? As has long been theorized [citations from various sources,
three known to Ølvira; the theories cited are of long standing and
nondisprovable] the Zones themselves may be an artifact, perhaps created by
something beyond Transcendence for the protection of lesser forms, or
[hypothetical] sentient gas clouds in galactic cores.
Now for the first time in Net history we have a Transcendent form, the
Blight, that can effectively dominate the Beyond. Many on the Net [cites
Hanse and Sandor at the Zoo] believe that it is searching for an artifact
near the Bottom. Is it no wonder that this could upset the Natural Balance
and provoke the recent Event?
Please write to me and tell me what you think. I don't get much mail.
-=*=-
Crypto: 0
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed union of five empires below
Straumli Realm. No references prior to the Fall of the Straumli Realm.
Numerous counter claims (including from Out of Band II) that this Alliance
is a front for the old Aprahant Hegemony. Cf, Butterfly Terror.]
Subject: Courageous Mission Accomplished
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 67.07 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Action, not talk
Text of message:
Subsequent to our action against the human nest at [Sjandra Kei] a part
of our fleet pursued human and other Blight-controlled forces toward the
Bottom of the Beyond. Evidently, the Perversion hoped to protect these
forces by putting them in an environment too dangerous to challenge. That
thinking did not count on the courage of Alliance commanders and crews. We
can now report the substantial destruction of those escaping forces.
The first major operation of your Alliance has been an enormous
success. With the extermination of their most important supporters, Blight
encroachment on the Middle Beyond has been brought to a standstill. Yet much
remains to be done:
The Alliance Fleet is returning to the Middle Beyond. We've suffered
some casualties and need substantial reprovisioning. We know that there are
still scattered pockets of humanity in the Beyond, and we've identified
secondary races that are aiding humanity. The defense of the Middle Beyond
must be the goal of every sophont of good will. Elements of your Alliance
Fleet will soon visit systems in the volume [parameter specification]. We
ask for your aid and support against what is left of this terrible enemy.
Death to vermin.
-=*=-
Kjet Svensndot was alone on Ølvira's bridge when the Surge
passed. They had long since done all the preparations that were meaningful,
and the ship had no realistic means of propulsion in the Slowness that
surrounded it. Yet the Group Captain spent much of his time up here, trying
to program some sort of responsiveness into the automation that remained.
Half- assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to
the beginning of the human experience.
Of course, the actual transition out of Slowness would have been
totally unnoticed if not for all the alarms he and the Dirokimes had
installed. As it was, the noise and lights blew him out of a half-drowse
into hair-raised wakefulness. He punched the ship's comm: "Glimfrelle!
Tirolle! Get your tails up here."
By the time the brothers reached the command deck, preliminary nav
displays had been computed, and a jump sequence was awaiting confirmation.
The two were grinning from ear to ear as they bounced in, and strapped
themselves down at action posts. For a few moments there was little
chitchat, only an occasional whistle of pleasure from the Dirokimes. They
had rehearsed this over and over during the last hundred plus hours, and
with the poor automation there was a lot for them to do. Gradually the view
from the deck's windows sharpened. Where at first there had only been vague
blurs, the ultrawave sensors were posting individual traces with steadily
improving information on range and rates. The communication window showed
the queue of fleet comm messages getting longer and longer.
Tirolle looked up from his work "Hei, Boss, these jump figures look
okay -- at least as a first cut."
"Good. Commit and allow autocommit." In the hours after the Surge, they
had decided that their initial priority should be to continue with the
pursuit. What they did then ... they had talked long on that, and Group
Captain Svensndot had thought even longer. Nothing was routine any more.
"Yes, sir!" The Dirokime's longfingers danced across the controls, and
'Rolle added some verbal control. "Bingo!"
Status showed five jumps completed, ten. Kjet stared out the true-view
window for a few seconds. No change, no change ... then he noticed that one
of the brightest stars in the field had moved, was sliding imperceptibly
across the sky. Like a juggler getting her pace, Ølvira was coming up
to speed.
"Hei, hei!" Glimfrelle leaned over to see his brother's work. "We're
making 1.2 light-years per hour. That's better than before the Surge."
"Good. Comm and Surveillance?" Where was everybody else and what were
they up to?
"Yup. Yup. I'm on it." Glimfrelle bent his slender frame back to the
console. For some seconds, he was almost silent. Svensndot began paging
through the mail. There was nothing yet from Owner Limmende. Twenty-five
years Kjet had worked for Limmende and SjK Commercial Security. Could he
mutiny? And if he did, would any follow?
"Okay. Here's the situation, Boss." Glimfrelle shifted the main window
to show his interpretation of the ship's reports. "It's like we guessed,
maybe a little more extreme." They had realized almost from the beginning
that the surge was bigger than anything in recorded history; that's not what
the Dirokime meant by "extreme". He swept his shortfingers down, making a
hazy blue line across the window. "We guessed that the leading edge of the
Surge moved normal to this line. That would account for it taking Boss
Limmende out four hundred seconds before it hit the Out of Band, and hitting
us ten seconds after that.... Now if the trailing edge were similar to
ordinary surges" -- upgraded a million times -- "then we, and then the rest
of the pursuing fleets should come out well before Out of Band." He pointed
at a single glowing dot that represented the Ølvira. Around and just
ahead of it dozens of points of light were popping into existence as the
ship's detectors reported seeing the initiation of ultradrive jumps. It was
like a cold fire sweeping away from them into the darkness. Eventually
Limmende and the heart of the anonymous fleet would all be back in business.
"Our pickup log shows that's about what happened. Most all the pursuing
fleets will be out of the surge before the Out of Band."
"Hm. So it'll lose part of its lead."
"Yup. But if it's going where we think -- " a G-star eighty light-years
ahead "-- it'll still get there before they kill it." He paused, pointed at
a haze that was spreading sideways from the growing knot of light. "Not
everybody is still chasing."
"Yeah...." Svensndot had been reading the News even as he listened to
'Frelle's summary. "... according to the Net, that's the Alliance for the
Defense departing the battle field, victorious."
"Say what?" Tirolle twisted abruptly in his harness. His large, dark
eyes held none of their usual humor.
"You heard me." Kjet put the item where the brothers could see it. The
two read rapidly, 'Frelle mumbling phrases aloud, "... courage of Alliance
commanders.... substantial destruction of escaping forces...."
Glimfrelle shuddered, all flippancy departed. "They don't even mention
the Surge. Everything they say is a cowardly lie!" His voice shifted up to
its normal speaking range and he continued in his own language. Kjet could
understand parts of it. The Dirokimes that left their dream habitats were
normally light-hearted folk, full of whimsy and gentle sarcasm. Glimfrelle
sounded almost that way now, except for the high edges to his whistling and
the insults more colorful than Svensndot had ever heard from them: "... get
from a verminous cow-pie ... killers of innocent dreams ..." even in
Samnorsk the words were strong, but in Dirokime "verminous cow-pie" was
drenched in explicit imagery that almost brought the smell of such a thing
into the room. Glimfrelle's voice went higher and higher, then beyond the
human register. Abruptly, he collapsed, shuddering and moaning low.
Dirokimes could cry, though Svensndot had never seen such a thing before.
Glimfrelle rocked in his brother's arms.
Tirolle looked over Glimfrelle's shoulder at Kjet. "Where does revenge
take us now, Group Captain?"
For a moment, Kjet looked back silently. "I'll let you know,
Lieutenant." He looked at the displays. Listen and watch a little longer,
and maybe we'll know. "Meantime, get us nearer the center of pursuit," he
said gently.
"Aye, sir." Tirolle patted his brother's back gently and turned back to
the console.
During the next five hours, Ølvira's crew watched the Alliance
fleet race helter-skelter for the higher spaces. It could not even be called
a retreat, more a panicked dissolution. Great opportunists, they had not
hesitated to kill by treachery, and to give chase when they thought there
might be treasure at the end. Now that they were confronted with the
possibility of being trapped in the Slowness, of dying between the stars,
they raced for their separate safety. Their bulletins to the newsgroups were
full of bravado, but their maneuver couldn't be disguised. Former neutrals
pointed to the discrepancy; more and more it was accepted that the Alliance
was built around the Aprahanti Hegemony and perhaps had other motives than
altruistic opposition to the Blight. There was nervous speculation about who
might next receive Alliance attention.
Major transceivers still targeted the fleets. They might as well have
been on a network trunk. The news traffic was a vast waterfall, totally
beyond Ølvira's present ability to receive. Nevertheless, Svensndot
kept an eye on it. Somewhere there might be some clue, some insight.... The
majority of War Trackers and Threats seemed to have little interest in the
Alliance or the death of Sjandra Kei, per se. Most were terrified of the
Blight that was still spreading through the Top of the Beyond. None of the
Highest had successfully resisted, and there were rumors that two more
interfering Powers had been destroyed. There were some (secret mouths of the
Blight?) who welcomed the new stability at the Top, even one based on
permanent parasitization.
In fact, the chase down here at the Bottom, the flight of the Out of
Band and its pursuers, seemed the only place where the Blight was not
completely triumphant. No wonder they were the subject of 10,000 messages an
hour.
The geometry of emergence was enormously favorable to Ølvira.
They had been on the outskirts of the action, but now they had hours
headstart on the main fleets. Glimfrelle and Tirolle were busier than they
had ever been in their lives, monitoring the fleets' emergence and
establishing Ølvira's identity with the other vessels of Commercial
Security. Until Scrits and Limmende emerged from the Slowness, Kjet
Svensndot was the ranking officer of the organization. Furthermore, he was
personally known to most of the commanders. Kjet had never been the admiral
type; his Group Captaincy had been a reward for piloting skills, in a
Sjandra Kei at peace. He had always been content to defer to his employers.
But now...
The Group Captain used his ranking status. The Alliance vessels were
not pursued. ("Wait till we can all act together," ordered Svensndot.)
Possible game plans bounced back and forth across the emerging fleet,
including schemes that assumed HQ was destroyed. With certain commanders,
Kjet hinted that this last might be the case, that Limmende's flag ship was
in enemy hands, and that the Alliance was somehow just a side effect of that
true enemy. Very soon, Kjet would be committed to the "treason" he planned.
The Limmende flag ships and the core of the Blighter fleet came out of
the Slowness almost simultaneously. Comm alarms went off across
Ølvira's deck as priority mail arrived and passed through the ship's
crypto. "Source: Limmende at HQ. Star Breaker Priority," said the ship's
voice.
Glimfrelle put the message on the main window, and Svensndot felt a
chill certainty spread up his neck.
... All units are to pursue fleeing vessels. These are the enemy, the
killers of our people. WARNING: Masquerades suspected. Destroy any vessels
countermanding these orders. Order of Battle and validation codes follow....
Order of Battle was simple, even by Commercial Security standards.
Limmende wanted them to split up and be gone, staying only long enough to
destroy "masqueraders". Kjet said to Glimfrelle, "How about the validation
codes?"
The Dirokime seemed his usual self again: "They're clean. We wouldn't
be receiving the message at all unless the sender had today's one-time
pad.... We're beginning to receive queries from the others, Boss. Audio and
video channels. They want to know what to do."
If he hadn't prepared the ground during the last few hours, Kjet's
mutiny wouldn't have had a chance. If Commercial Security had been a real
military organization, the Limmende order might have been obeyed without
question. As it was, the other commanders pondered the questions that
Svensndot had raised: At these ranges, video communication was easy and the
fleet had one-time ciphers large enough to support enormous amounts of it.
Yet "Limmende" had chosen printed mail for her priority message. It made
perfect military sense given that the encryption was correct, but it was
also what Svensndot had predicted: The supposed HQ was not quite willing to
show its face down here where perfect visual masquerades were not possible.
Their commands would be by mail, or evocations that a sharp observer might
suspect.
Such a slender thread of reason Kjet and his friends were hanging from.
Kjet eyed the knot of light that represented the Blighter fleet. It was
suffering from no indecision. None of its vessels were straggling back
toward safer heights. Whatever commanded there had discipline beyond most
human militaries. It would sacrifice everything in its single-minded pursuit
of one small starship. What next, Group Captain?
Just ahead of that cold smear of light, a single tiny gleam appeared.
"The Out of Band!" said Glimfrelle. "Sixty-five light-years out now."
"I'm getting encrypted video from them, Boss. The same half-crocked xor
pad as before." He put the signal on the main window without waiting for
Kjet's direction.
It was Ravna Bergsndot. The background was a jumble of motion and
shouting, the strange human and a Skroderider arguing. Bergsndot was facing
away from the pickup, and doing her share of shouting. Things looked even
worse than Kjet's recollection of the first moments of his ship's emergence.
"It doesn't matter just now, I tell you! Let him be. We've got to
contact -- " she must have seen the signal Glimfrelle was sending back to
her. "They're here! By the Powers, Pham, please -- " She waved her hand
angrily and turned to the camera. "Group Captain. We're -- "
"I know. We've been out of the surge for hours. We're near the center
of the pursuit now."
She caught her breath. Even with a hundred hours of planning, events
were moving too fast for her. And for me too. "That's something," she said
after an instant. "Everything we said before holds, Group Captain. We need
your help. That's the Blight that's coming behind us. Please!"
Svensndot noticed a telltale by the window. Sassy Glimfrelle was
retransmitting this to all the fleet they could trust. Good. He had talked
about the situation with the others these last hours, but it meant something
more to see Ravna Bergsndot on the comm, to see someone from Sjandra Kei who
still survived and needed their help. You can spend the rest of your life
chasing revenge in the Middle Beyond, but all you kill will be the vultures.
What's chasing Ravna Bergsndot may be the first cause.
The Butterflies were long gone, still singing their courage across the
Net. Less than one percent of Commercial Security had followed "Limmende's"
order to chase after them. Those were not the problem: it was the ten
percent that stayed behind and arrayed themselves with the Blight's forces
that bothered Kjet Svensndot. Some of those ships might not be subverted,
might simply be loyal to orders they believed. It would be very hard to fire
on them.
And there would be fighting, no doubt of that. Maneuvering for conflict
while under ultradrive was difficult -- if the other side attempted to
evade. But Blight's fleet was unwavering in its pursuit of the Out of Band.
Slowly, slowly the two fleets were coming to occupy the same volume. At
present they were scattered across cubic light-years, but with every jump,
the Group Captain's Aniara fleet was more finely tuned to the stutter of
their quarries' drives. Some ships were actually within a few hundred
million kilometers of the enemy -- or where the enemy had been or would be.
Targeting tactics were set. First fire was only a few hundred seconds away.
"With the Aprahanti gone, we have numerical superiority. A normal enemy
would back off now -- "
"But of course, that is one thing the Blight fleet is not." It was the
red-haired guy who was doing the talking now. It was a good thing Glimfrelle
hadn't relayed his face to the rest of Svensndot's fleet. The guy acted edgy
and alien most of the time. Just now, he seemed intent on bashing every idea
Svensndot advanced. "The Blight doesn't care what its losses are as long as
it arrives with the upper hand."
Svensndot shrugged. "Look, we'll do our best. First fire is seventy
seconds off. If they don't have any secret advantage, we may win this one."
He looked sharply at the other. "Or is that your point? Could the Blight --
" Stories were still coming down about the Blight's progress across the Top
of the Beyond. Without a doubt, it was a transhuman intelligence. An unarmed
man might be outnumbered by a pack of dogs, yet still defeat them. So might
the Blight...?
Pham Nuwen shook his head. "No, no, no. The Blight's tactics down here
will probably be inferior to yours. Its great advantage is at the Top, where
it can control its slaves like fingers on a hand. Its creatures down here
are like badly-synched waldoes." Nuwen frowned at something off camera. "No,
what we have to fear is its strategic cleverness." His voice suddenly had a
detached quality that was more unsettling than the earlier impatience. It
wasn't the calm of someone facing up to a threat; it was more the calm of
the demented. "One hundred seconds to contact.... Group Captain, we have a
chance, if you concentrate your forces on the right points." Ravna floated
down from the top of the picture, put one hand on the red-head's shoulder.
Godshatter, she said he was, their secret edge against the enemy.
Godshatter, a Power's dying message; garbage or treasure, who really knew?
Damn. If the other guys are badly-synched waldoes, what does following
Pham Nuwen make us? But he motioned Tirolle to mark the targets Nuwen was
saying. Ninety seconds. Decision time. Kjet pointed at the red marks Tirolle
had scattered through the enemy fleet. "Anything special about those
targets, 'Rolle?"
The Dirokime whistled for a moment. Correlations popped up agonizingly
slowly on the windows before him. "The ships he's targeting aren't the
biggest or the fastest. It's gonna take extra time to position on them."
Command vessels? "One other thing. Some of 'em show high real velocities,
not natural residuals at all." Ships with ram drives? Planet busters?
"Hm." Svensndot looked at the display just a second more. Thirty
seconds and Jo Haugen's ship Lynsnar would be in contact, but not with one
of Nuwen's targets. "Get on the comm, Glimfrelle. Tell Lynsnar to back off,
retarget." Retarget everything.
The lights that were Aniara fleet slid slowly around the core of the
Blighter fleet, searching for their new targets. Twenty minutes passed, and
not a few arguments with the other captains. Commercial Security was not
built for military combat. What had made Kjet Svensndot's appeal successful
was also the cause of constant questioning and countersuggestions. And then
there were the threats that came from Owner Limmende's channel: kill the
mutineers, death to all those disloyal to the company. The encryption was
valid but the tone was totally alien to the mild, profit-oriented Giske
Limmende. Everyone could now see that disbelieving Limmende was one correct
decision, anyway.
Johanna Haugen was the first to achieve synch with the new targets.
Glimfrelle opened the main window on the Lynsnar's data stream: The view was
almost natural, a night sky of slowly shifting stars. The target was less
than thirty million kilometers from Lynsnar, but about a millisecond out of
synch. Haugen was arriving just before or just after the other had jumped.
"Drones away," Haugen's voice said. Now they had a true view of Lynsnar
from a few meters away, from a camera aboard one of the first weapons drones
launched. The ship was barely visible, a darkness obscuring the stars beyond
-- a great fish in the depths of an endless sea. A fish that was now giving
spawn. The picture flickered, Lynsnar disappearing, reappearing, as the
drone lost synch momentarily. A swarm of blue lights spilled from the ship's
hold. Weapon drones. The swarm hung by Lynsnar, calibrating itself,
orienting on the enemy.
The light faded from around Lynsnar as the drones moving fractionally
out of synch in space and time. Tirolle opened a window on a hundred-million
klick sphere centered at Lynsnar. The target vessel was a red dot that
flickered around the sphere like a maddened insect. Lynsnar was stalking
prey at eight thousand times the speed of light. Sometimes the target
disappeared for a second, synch almost lost; other times Lynsnar and the
target merged for an instant as the two craft spent a tenth of a second at
less than a million kilometers remove. What could not be accurately
displayed was the disposition of the drones. The spawn diffused on a myriad
trajectories, their sensors extended for sign of the enemy ship.
"What about the target, is it swarming back? Do you need back up?" said
Svensndot. Tirolle gave a Dirokime shrug. What they were watching was three
light-years away. No way he could know.
But Jo Haugen replied, "I don't think my bogie is swarming. I've lost
only five drones, no more'n you'd expect from fratricide. We'll see -- " She
paused, but Lynsnar's trace and signal remained strong. Kjet looked out the
other windows. Five of Aniara were already engaged and three had completed
swarm deploy. Nuwen looked on silently from Out of Band. The godshatter had
had its way, and now Kjet and his people were committed.
And now good news and bad came in very fast:
"Got him!" from Jo Haugen. The red dot in Lynsnar's swarm was no more.
It had passed within a few thousand kilometers of one of the drones. In the
milliseconds necessary to compute a new jump, the drone had discovered its
presence and detonated. Even that would not have been fatal if the target
had jumped before the blast front hit it; there had been several near misses
in earlier seconds. This time the jump did not reach commit in time. A
mini-star was born, one whose light would be years in reaching the rest of
the battle volume.
Glimfrelle gave a rasping whistle, an untranslatable curse, "We just
lost Ablsndot and Holder, Boss. Their target must have counter-swarmed."
"Send in Gliwing and Trance." Something in the back of his head curled
up in horror. These were his friends who were dying. Kjet had seen death
before, but never like this. In police action, no one took lethal chances
except in a rescue. And yet... he turned from the field summary to order
more ships on a target that had acquired defending vessels. Tirolle was
moving in others on his own. Ganging up on a few nonessential targets might
lose in the long run, but in the short term ... the enemy was being hurt.
For the first time since the fall of Sjandra Kei, Commercial Security was
hurting someone back.
Haugen: "Powers, that guy was moving! Secondary drone got EM spectrum
on the kill. Target was going 15000 kps true speed." A rocket bomb ramping
up? Damn. They should be postponing those till after they controlled the
battlefield.
Tirolle: "More kills, far side of battle volume. The enemy is
repositioning. Somehow they've guessed which we're after -- "
Glimfrelle: Triumph whistle. "Get 'em, get 'em -- oops. Boss, I think
Limmende has figured we're coordinating things -- "
A new window had opened over Tirolle's post. It showed the five million
kilometers around Ølvira. Two other ships were there now: the window
identified them as Limmende's flag and one of the vessels that had not
responded to Svensndot's recruiting.
There was an instant of stillness on Ølvira's command deck. The
voices of triumph and panic coming from the rest of the fleet seemed
suddenly far away. Svensndot and his crew were looking at death close up.
"Tirolle! How long till swarm -- "
"They're on us already -- just missed a drone by ten milliseconds."
"Tirolle! Finish running current engagements. Glimfrelle, tell Lynsnar
and Trance to chain command if we lose contact." Those ships had already
spent their drones, and Jo Haugen was known to all the other captains.
join the one already at the window slits. Softly by her ear, the voice
continued, "It's the Pilgrim, still far away, but coming toward us.... I
don't know. You would be much better safely dead. One deep wound, all out of
sight." The knife slide further down. Johanna arched futilely back from the
point. Then the blade withdrew, the point poised gently against her skin.
"Let's hear what Pilgrim has to say. No point in killing you this instant if
he doesn't insist on seeing you." He pushed a cloth into her mouth and tied
it tight.
There was a moment of silence, maybe the crunch of paws in the brush
right around the cabin. Then she heard a pack warble loud from beyond the
timbered walls. Johanna doubted that she would ever learn to recognize packs
by their voices, but ... her mind stumbled through the sounds, trying to
decode the Tinish chords that were words piled on top of one another:
"Johanna
something interrogative
screech safe."
Vendacious gobbled back,
"Hail Peregrine Wrickwrackscar
Johanna trill
not visible hurts
sad uncertain squeak."
And the traitor murmured in her ear: "Now he'll ask if I need medical
help, and if he insists ... our chat will have an early end."
But the only reply Pilgrim made was a chorus of sympathetic worry.
"Damn assholes are just sitting down out there," came Vendacious's irritated
whisper.
The silence stretched on a moment, and then Peregrine's human voice,
the Joker from Dataset, said in clear Samnorsk. "Don't do anything foolish,
Vendacious, old man."
Vendacious made a sound of polite surprise -- and tensed around her.
His knife jabbed a centimeter deep between Johanna's ribs, a thorn of pain.
She could feel the blade trembling, could feel his member's breath on her
bloody skin.
Pilgrim's voice continued, confident and knowing: "I mean we know what
you're up to. Your pack at the hospital has gone completely to pieces,
confessed what little he knew to Woodcarver. Do you think your lies can get
by her? If Johanna is dead, you'll be bloody shreds." He hummed an ominous
tune from Dataset. "I know her well, the Queen. She seems such a gracious
pack ... but where do you think Flenser got his gruesome creativity? Kill
Johanna and you'll find just how far her genius in that exceeds Flenser's."
The knife pulled back. One more of Vendacious leaped to the window
slits, and the two by Johanna loosened their grip. He stroked the blade
gently across her skin. Thinking? Is Woodcarver really that fearsome? The
four at the windows were looking in all directions; no doubt Vendacious was
counting guard packs and planning furiously. When he finally replied, it was
in Samnorsk: "The threat would be more credible if it were not at second
hand."
Pilgrim chuckled. "True. But we guessed what would happen if she
approached. You're a cautious fellow; you'd have killed Johanna instantly,
and been full of lying explanation before you even heard what the Queen
knows. But seeing a poor pilgrim amble over ... I know you think me a fool,
only one step better than Scriber Jaqueramaphan." Peregrine stumbled on the
name, and for an instant lost his flippant tone. "Anyway, now you know the
situation. If you doubt, send your guards beyond the brush; look at what the
Queen has surrounding you. Johanna dead only kills you. Speaking of which, I
assume this conversation has some point?"
"Yes. She lives." Vendacious slipped the gag from Johanna's mouth. She
turned her head, choking. There were tears running down the sides of her
face. "Pilgrim, oh Pilgrim!" The words were scarcely more than a whisper.
She drew a painful breath, concentrated on making noise. Bright spots danced
before her eyes. "Hei Pilgrim!"
"Hei Johanna. Has he hurt you?"
"Some, I -- "
"That's enough. She's alive, Pilgrim, but that's easily corrected."
Vendacious didn't jam the gag back in her mouth. Johanna could see him
rubbing heads nervously as he paced round and round the ledge. He trilled
something about "stalemated game".
Peregrine replied, "Speak Samnorsk, Vendacious. I want Johanna to
understand -- and you can't talk quite as slick as in pack talk."
"Whatever." The traitor's voice was unconcerned, but his members kept
up their nervous pacing. "The Queen must realize we have a standoff here.
Certainly I'll kill Johanna if I'm not treated properly. But even then,
Woodcarver could not afford to hurt me. Do you realize the trap Steel has
set on Margrum Climb? I'm the only one who knows how to avoid it."
"Big deal. I never wanted to go up Margrum anyway."
"Yes, but you don't count, Pilgrim. You're a mongrel patchwork.
Woodcarver will understand how dangerous this situation is. Steel's forces
are everything I said they weren't, and I've been sending them every secret
I could write down from my investigations of Dataset."
"My brother is alive, Pilgrim," Johanna said.
"Oh.... You're kind of a record setter for treason aren't you,
Vendacious? Everything to us was a lie, while Steel learned all the truth
about us. You figure that means we daren't kill you now?"
Laughter, and Vendacious's pacing stopped. He sees control coming back
to him. "More, you need my full-membered cooperation. See, I exaggerated the
number of enemy agents in Woodcarver's troops, but I do have a few -- and
maybe Steel has planted others I don't know about. If you even arrest me,
word will get back to the Flenser armies. Much of what I know will be
useless -- and you'll face an immediate, overwhelming attack. You see? The
Queen needs me."
"And how do we know this is not more lies?"
"That is a problem, isn't it? Matched only by how I can be guaranteed
safety once I've saved the expedition. No doubt it's beyond your mongrel
mind. Woodcarver and I must have a talk, someplace mutually safe and unseen.
Carry that message back to her. She can't have this traitor's hides, but if
she cooperates she may be able to save her own!"
There was silence from outside, punctuated by the squeaking of animals
in the nearer trees. Finally, surprisingly, Pilgrim laughed. "Mongrel mind,
eh? Well, you have me in one thing, Vendacious. I've been all the world
round, and I remember back half a thousand years
-- but of all the villains and traitors and geniuses, you take the
record for bald impudence!"
Vendacious gave a Tinish chord, untranslatable but as a sign of smug
pleasure. "I'm honored."
"Very well, I'll take your points back to the Queen. I hope the two of
you are clever enough to work something out.... One thing more: the Queen
requires that Johanna come with me."
"The Queen requires? That sounds more like your mongrel sentiment to
me."
"Perhaps. But it will prove you are serious in your confidence. View it
as my price for cooperation."
Vendacious turned all his heads toward Johanna, silently regarding.
Then he scanned out all the windows one last time. "Very well, you may have
her." Two jumped down to the cabin's hatch while another pair pulled her
toward it. His voice was soft and near her ear. "Damn Pilgrim. Alive, you're
just going to cause me trouble with the Queen." His knife slid across her
field of view. "Don't oppose me with her. I am going to survive this affair
still powerful."
He lifted back the hatch and daylight spilled blindingly across her
face. She squinted; there was a sweep of branches and the side of the hut.
Vendacious pushed and pulled her cot onto the forest floor, and the same
time gobbling at his guards to keep their positions. He and Peregrine
chatted politely, agreeing on when the pilgrim would return.
One by one, Vendacious trotted back through the cabin's hatch. Pilgrim
advanced and grabbed the handles at the front of the cot. One of his pups
reached out from his jacket to nuzzled her face. "You okay?"
"I'm not sure. I got bashed in the head ... and it seems kind of hard
to breathe."
He loosened the blankets from around her chest as the rest of him
dragged the cot away from the hut. The forest shade was peaceful and deep
... and Vendacious's guards were stationed here and there about the area.
How many were really in on the treason? Two hours ago, Johanna had looked to
them for protection. Now their every glance sent a shiver through her. She
rolled back to the center of the cot, dizzy again, and stared up into the
branches and leaves and patches of smoke-stained sky. Things like Straumli
tree squigglies chased each other back and forth, chittering in seeming
debate.
Funny. Almost a year ago Pilgrim and Scriber were dragging me around,
and I was even worse hurt, and terrified of everything -- including them.
And now ... she had never been so glad to see another person. Even Scarbutt
was a reassuring strength, walking beside her.
The waves of terror slowly subsided. What was left was an anger as
intense, though more reasoning, than the year before. She knew what had
happened here; the players were not strangers, the betrayal was not random
murder. After all Vendacious's treachery, after all his murders, and his
planning to kill them all ... he was going to go free! Pilgrim and
Woodcarver were just going to overlook that, "He killed Scriber, Pilgrim. He
killed Scriber...." He cut Scriber to pieces, then chased down what was left
and killed that right out of our arms. "And Woodcarver is going to let him
go free? How can she do it? How can you do it?" The tears were coming again.
"Sh, sh." Two of Pilgrim's heads came into view. They looked down at
her, then swiveled around almost nervously. She reached out, touching the
short plush fur. Pilgrim was shivering! One of him dipped close; his voice
didn't sound jaunty at all. "I don't know what the Queen will do, Johanna.
She doesn't know about any of this."
"Wha -- "
"Sh." And his voice became scarcely a buzzing through her hand. "His
people can still see us. He could still figure things out.... Only you and I
know, Johanna. I don't think anyone else suspects."
"But the pack that confessed ...?"
"Bluff, all bluff. I've done some crazy things in my life but next to
following Scriber down to your starship, this takes the prize.... After
Vendacious took you away, I began to think. You weren't that badly injured.
It was all too much like what happened to Jaqueramaphan, but I had no
proof."
"And you haven't told anyone?"
"No. Foolish as poor Scriber, aren't I?" His heads looked in all
directions. "If I was right, he'd be silly not to kill you immediately. I
was so afraid I was already too late...."
You would have been, if Vendacious weren't quite the monster I know he
is.
"Anyway, I learned the truth just like poor Scriber -- almost by
accident. But if we can get another seventy meters away, we won't die like
him. And everything I claimed to Vendacious will be true."
She patted his nearest shoulder, and looked back. The tiny cabin and
its ring of guards disappeared behind the forest brush.
...and Jefri lives!
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Crypto: 0 [95 encrypted packets have been discarded]
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Tredeschk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Zonograph Eidolon [Co-op (or religious order) in Middle Beyond
maintained by subscription of several thousand Low Beyond civilizations, in
particular those threatened by immersion]
Subject: Surge Bulletin Update and Ping
Distribution:
Zonograph Eidolon Subscribers, Zonometric Interest Group, Threats Interest Group, subgroup: navigational, Ping participants
Date: 1087892301 seconds since Calibration Event 239011, Eidolon Frame
[66.91 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei]
Key phrases: galactic scale event, superluminal, charitable emergency
announcement
Text of message:
(Please include accurate local time in any ping responses.)
If you receive this, you know that the monster surge has receded. The
new zone surface appears to be a stable froth of low dimensionality (between
2.1 and 2.3). At least five civilizations are trapped in the new
configuration. Thirty virgin solar systems have achieved the Beyond.
(Subscribers may find specifics in the encrypted data that follow this
bulletin.)
The change corresponds to what is seen in a normal period of two years
across the whole galaxy's Slow Zone surface. Yet this surge happened in less
than a two hundred hours and less than one thousandth of that surface.
Even these numbers do not show the scale of the event. (The following
can only be estimates, since so many sites were destroyed, and no
instruments were calibrated for this size event.) At its maximum, the surge
reached 1000 light-years above Zone Surface Standard. Surge rates of more
than thirty million times lightspeed (about one light-year per second) were
sustained for periods of more than 100 seconds. Reports from subscribers
show more than ten billion normalized sophont deaths directly attributable
to the Surge (local network failures, failures leading to environment
collapse, medical collapse, vehicle crashes, security failures). Posted
economic damage is much greater.
The important question now is what can we expect in aftersurges. Our
predictions are based on instrumented sites and zonometric surveys, combined
with historical data from our archives. Except for long-term trends,
predicting zone changes has never been a science, but we have served our
subscribers well in advising of aftersurges and in identifying available new
worlds. The present situation makes all previous work almost useless. We
have precise documentation going back ten million years. Faster than light
surges happen about every twenty thousand years (usually with speeds under
7.0c). Nothing like this monster is on file. The surge just seen is the kind
described at third-hand in old and glutted databases: Sculptor had one this
size fifty million years ago. The [Perseus Arm] in our galaxy probably
suffered something like this half a billion years ago.
This uncertainty makes our Mission nearly impossible, and is an
important reason for this public message to the Zonometry newsgroup and
others: Everyone interested in zonometry and navigation must pool resources
on this problem. Ideas, archive access, algorithms -- all these things could
help. We pledge significant contributions to non-subscribers, and
one-for-one trades to those with important information. Note: We are also
addressing this message to the Swndwp oracle, and direct beaming it to
points in the Transcend thought to be inhabited. Surely an event such as
this must be of interest even there? We appeal to the Powers Above: Let us
send you what we know. Give us some hint if you have ideas about this event.
To demonstrate our good faith, here are the estimates we have
currently. These are based on naive scale-up of well-documented surges in
this region. Details are in the non-crypted appendix to this sending. Over
the next year there will be five or six aftersurges, of diminishing speed
and range. During this time at least two more civilizations (see risk list)
will likely be permanently immersed. Zone storm conditions will prevail even
when aftersurges are not in progress. Navigation in the the volume
[coordinate specification] will be extremely dangerous during this period;
we recommend that shipping in the volume be suspended. The time line is
probably too short to admit feasible rescue plans for the civilizations at
risk. Our long-range prediction (probably the least uncertain of all): The
million-year-scale secular shrinkage will not be affected at all. The next
hundred thousand years will however show a retardation in the shrinkage of
the Slow Zone boundary in this portion of the galaxy.
Finally, a philosophical note. We of Zonographic Eidolon watch the zone
boundary and the orbits of border stars. For the most part, the zone changes
are very slow: 700 meters per second in the case of the long-term secular
shrinkage. Yet these changes together with orbital motion affect billions of
lives each year. Just as the glaciers and droughts of a pretechnical world
must affect a people, so must we accept these long-term changes. Storms and
surges are obvious tragedies, near-instant death for some civilizations. Yet
these are as far beyond our control as the slower movements. Over the last
few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets,
of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such -- and those living
more peaceably around them -- we say: Look out on the universe. It does not
care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not
avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort
from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to
villainy or good, but which simply is.
-=*=-
Crypto: 0
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Arbwyth->Trade24->Cherguelen->Triskweline, SjK
units
From: Twirlip of the Mists [Who knows what this is, though probably not
a propaganda voice. Very sparse priors.]
Subject: The cause of the recent Great Surge
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation, Zonometric Interest Group
Date: 66.47 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key
insight
Text of message:
Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto
the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. The Great
Surge now in progress appears by all accounts to be an event of cosmic scope
and rarity. Furthermore, the other posters put its epicenter less than 6,000
light-years from recent warfare related to the Blight. Can this be mere
coincidence? As has long been theorized [citations from various sources,
three known to Ølvira; the theories cited are of long standing and
nondisprovable] the Zones themselves may be an artifact, perhaps created by
something beyond Transcendence for the protection of lesser forms, or
[hypothetical] sentient gas clouds in galactic cores.
Now for the first time in Net history we have a Transcendent form, the
Blight, that can effectively dominate the Beyond. Many on the Net [cites
Hanse and Sandor at the Zoo] believe that it is searching for an artifact
near the Bottom. Is it no wonder that this could upset the Natural Balance
and provoke the recent Event?
Please write to me and tell me what you think. I don't get much mail.
-=*=-
Crypto: 0
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed union of five empires below
Straumli Realm. No references prior to the Fall of the Straumli Realm.
Numerous counter claims (including from Out of Band II) that this Alliance
is a front for the old Aprahant Hegemony. Cf, Butterfly Terror.]
Subject: Courageous Mission Accomplished
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 67.07 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Action, not talk
Text of message:
Subsequent to our action against the human nest at [Sjandra Kei] a part
of our fleet pursued human and other Blight-controlled forces toward the
Bottom of the Beyond. Evidently, the Perversion hoped to protect these
forces by putting them in an environment too dangerous to challenge. That
thinking did not count on the courage of Alliance commanders and crews. We
can now report the substantial destruction of those escaping forces.
The first major operation of your Alliance has been an enormous
success. With the extermination of their most important supporters, Blight
encroachment on the Middle Beyond has been brought to a standstill. Yet much
remains to be done:
The Alliance Fleet is returning to the Middle Beyond. We've suffered
some casualties and need substantial reprovisioning. We know that there are
still scattered pockets of humanity in the Beyond, and we've identified
secondary races that are aiding humanity. The defense of the Middle Beyond
must be the goal of every sophont of good will. Elements of your Alliance
Fleet will soon visit systems in the volume [parameter specification]. We
ask for your aid and support against what is left of this terrible enemy.
Death to vermin.
-=*=-
Kjet Svensndot was alone on Ølvira's bridge when the Surge
passed. They had long since done all the preparations that were meaningful,
and the ship had no realistic means of propulsion in the Slowness that
surrounded it. Yet the Group Captain spent much of his time up here, trying
to program some sort of responsiveness into the automation that remained.
Half- assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to
the beginning of the human experience.
Of course, the actual transition out of Slowness would have been
totally unnoticed if not for all the alarms he and the Dirokimes had
installed. As it was, the noise and lights blew him out of a half-drowse
into hair-raised wakefulness. He punched the ship's comm: "Glimfrelle!
Tirolle! Get your tails up here."
By the time the brothers reached the command deck, preliminary nav
displays had been computed, and a jump sequence was awaiting confirmation.
The two were grinning from ear to ear as they bounced in, and strapped
themselves down at action posts. For a few moments there was little
chitchat, only an occasional whistle of pleasure from the Dirokimes. They
had rehearsed this over and over during the last hundred plus hours, and
with the poor automation there was a lot for them to do. Gradually the view
from the deck's windows sharpened. Where at first there had only been vague
blurs, the ultrawave sensors were posting individual traces with steadily
improving information on range and rates. The communication window showed
the queue of fleet comm messages getting longer and longer.
Tirolle looked up from his work "Hei, Boss, these jump figures look
okay -- at least as a first cut."
"Good. Commit and allow autocommit." In the hours after the Surge, they
had decided that their initial priority should be to continue with the
pursuit. What they did then ... they had talked long on that, and Group
Captain Svensndot had thought even longer. Nothing was routine any more.
"Yes, sir!" The Dirokime's longfingers danced across the controls, and
'Rolle added some verbal control. "Bingo!"
Status showed five jumps completed, ten. Kjet stared out the true-view
window for a few seconds. No change, no change ... then he noticed that one
of the brightest stars in the field had moved, was sliding imperceptibly
across the sky. Like a juggler getting her pace, Ølvira was coming up
to speed.
"Hei, hei!" Glimfrelle leaned over to see his brother's work. "We're
making 1.2 light-years per hour. That's better than before the Surge."
"Good. Comm and Surveillance?" Where was everybody else and what were
they up to?
"Yup. Yup. I'm on it." Glimfrelle bent his slender frame back to the
console. For some seconds, he was almost silent. Svensndot began paging
through the mail. There was nothing yet from Owner Limmende. Twenty-five
years Kjet had worked for Limmende and SjK Commercial Security. Could he
mutiny? And if he did, would any follow?
"Okay. Here's the situation, Boss." Glimfrelle shifted the main window
to show his interpretation of the ship's reports. "It's like we guessed,
maybe a little more extreme." They had realized almost from the beginning
that the surge was bigger than anything in recorded history; that's not what
the Dirokime meant by "extreme". He swept his shortfingers down, making a
hazy blue line across the window. "We guessed that the leading edge of the
Surge moved normal to this line. That would account for it taking Boss
Limmende out four hundred seconds before it hit the Out of Band, and hitting
us ten seconds after that.... Now if the trailing edge were similar to
ordinary surges" -- upgraded a million times -- "then we, and then the rest
of the pursuing fleets should come out well before Out of Band." He pointed
at a single glowing dot that represented the Ølvira. Around and just
ahead of it dozens of points of light were popping into existence as the
ship's detectors reported seeing the initiation of ultradrive jumps. It was
like a cold fire sweeping away from them into the darkness. Eventually
Limmende and the heart of the anonymous fleet would all be back in business.
"Our pickup log shows that's about what happened. Most all the pursuing
fleets will be out of the surge before the Out of Band."
"Hm. So it'll lose part of its lead."
"Yup. But if it's going where we think -- " a G-star eighty light-years
ahead "-- it'll still get there before they kill it." He paused, pointed at
a haze that was spreading sideways from the growing knot of light. "Not
everybody is still chasing."
"Yeah...." Svensndot had been reading the News even as he listened to
'Frelle's summary. "... according to the Net, that's the Alliance for the
Defense departing the battle field, victorious."
"Say what?" Tirolle twisted abruptly in his harness. His large, dark
eyes held none of their usual humor.
"You heard me." Kjet put the item where the brothers could see it. The
two read rapidly, 'Frelle mumbling phrases aloud, "... courage of Alliance
commanders.... substantial destruction of escaping forces...."
Glimfrelle shuddered, all flippancy departed. "They don't even mention
the Surge. Everything they say is a cowardly lie!" His voice shifted up to
its normal speaking range and he continued in his own language. Kjet could
understand parts of it. The Dirokimes that left their dream habitats were
normally light-hearted folk, full of whimsy and gentle sarcasm. Glimfrelle
sounded almost that way now, except for the high edges to his whistling and
the insults more colorful than Svensndot had ever heard from them: "... get
from a verminous cow-pie ... killers of innocent dreams ..." even in
Samnorsk the words were strong, but in Dirokime "verminous cow-pie" was
drenched in explicit imagery that almost brought the smell of such a thing
into the room. Glimfrelle's voice went higher and higher, then beyond the
human register. Abruptly, he collapsed, shuddering and moaning low.
Dirokimes could cry, though Svensndot had never seen such a thing before.
Glimfrelle rocked in his brother's arms.
Tirolle looked over Glimfrelle's shoulder at Kjet. "Where does revenge
take us now, Group Captain?"
For a moment, Kjet looked back silently. "I'll let you know,
Lieutenant." He looked at the displays. Listen and watch a little longer,
and maybe we'll know. "Meantime, get us nearer the center of pursuit," he
said gently.
"Aye, sir." Tirolle patted his brother's back gently and turned back to
the console.
During the next five hours, Ølvira's crew watched the Alliance
fleet race helter-skelter for the higher spaces. It could not even be called
a retreat, more a panicked dissolution. Great opportunists, they had not
hesitated to kill by treachery, and to give chase when they thought there
might be treasure at the end. Now that they were confronted with the
possibility of being trapped in the Slowness, of dying between the stars,
they raced for their separate safety. Their bulletins to the newsgroups were
full of bravado, but their maneuver couldn't be disguised. Former neutrals
pointed to the discrepancy; more and more it was accepted that the Alliance
was built around the Aprahanti Hegemony and perhaps had other motives than
altruistic opposition to the Blight. There was nervous speculation about who
might next receive Alliance attention.
Major transceivers still targeted the fleets. They might as well have
been on a network trunk. The news traffic was a vast waterfall, totally
beyond Ølvira's present ability to receive. Nevertheless, Svensndot
kept an eye on it. Somewhere there might be some clue, some insight.... The
majority of War Trackers and Threats seemed to have little interest in the
Alliance or the death of Sjandra Kei, per se. Most were terrified of the
Blight that was still spreading through the Top of the Beyond. None of the
Highest had successfully resisted, and there were rumors that two more
interfering Powers had been destroyed. There were some (secret mouths of the
Blight?) who welcomed the new stability at the Top, even one based on
permanent parasitization.
In fact, the chase down here at the Bottom, the flight of the Out of
Band and its pursuers, seemed the only place where the Blight was not
completely triumphant. No wonder they were the subject of 10,000 messages an
hour.
The geometry of emergence was enormously favorable to Ølvira.
They had been on the outskirts of the action, but now they had hours
headstart on the main fleets. Glimfrelle and Tirolle were busier than they
had ever been in their lives, monitoring the fleets' emergence and
establishing Ølvira's identity with the other vessels of Commercial
Security. Until Scrits and Limmende emerged from the Slowness, Kjet
Svensndot was the ranking officer of the organization. Furthermore, he was
personally known to most of the commanders. Kjet had never been the admiral
type; his Group Captaincy had been a reward for piloting skills, in a
Sjandra Kei at peace. He had always been content to defer to his employers.
But now...
The Group Captain used his ranking status. The Alliance vessels were
not pursued. ("Wait till we can all act together," ordered Svensndot.)
Possible game plans bounced back and forth across the emerging fleet,
including schemes that assumed HQ was destroyed. With certain commanders,
Kjet hinted that this last might be the case, that Limmende's flag ship was
in enemy hands, and that the Alliance was somehow just a side effect of that
true enemy. Very soon, Kjet would be committed to the "treason" he planned.
The Limmende flag ships and the core of the Blighter fleet came out of
the Slowness almost simultaneously. Comm alarms went off across
Ølvira's deck as priority mail arrived and passed through the ship's
crypto. "Source: Limmende at HQ. Star Breaker Priority," said the ship's
voice.
Glimfrelle put the message on the main window, and Svensndot felt a
chill certainty spread up his neck.
... All units are to pursue fleeing vessels. These are the enemy, the
killers of our people. WARNING: Masquerades suspected. Destroy any vessels
countermanding these orders. Order of Battle and validation codes follow....
Order of Battle was simple, even by Commercial Security standards.
Limmende wanted them to split up and be gone, staying only long enough to
destroy "masqueraders". Kjet said to Glimfrelle, "How about the validation
codes?"
The Dirokime seemed his usual self again: "They're clean. We wouldn't
be receiving the message at all unless the sender had today's one-time
pad.... We're beginning to receive queries from the others, Boss. Audio and
video channels. They want to know what to do."
If he hadn't prepared the ground during the last few hours, Kjet's
mutiny wouldn't have had a chance. If Commercial Security had been a real
military organization, the Limmende order might have been obeyed without
question. As it was, the other commanders pondered the questions that
Svensndot had raised: At these ranges, video communication was easy and the
fleet had one-time ciphers large enough to support enormous amounts of it.
Yet "Limmende" had chosen printed mail for her priority message. It made
perfect military sense given that the encryption was correct, but it was
also what Svensndot had predicted: The supposed HQ was not quite willing to
show its face down here where perfect visual masquerades were not possible.
Their commands would be by mail, or evocations that a sharp observer might
suspect.
Such a slender thread of reason Kjet and his friends were hanging from.
Kjet eyed the knot of light that represented the Blighter fleet. It was
suffering from no indecision. None of its vessels were straggling back
toward safer heights. Whatever commanded there had discipline beyond most
human militaries. It would sacrifice everything in its single-minded pursuit
of one small starship. What next, Group Captain?
Just ahead of that cold smear of light, a single tiny gleam appeared.
"The Out of Band!" said Glimfrelle. "Sixty-five light-years out now."
"I'm getting encrypted video from them, Boss. The same half-crocked xor
pad as before." He put the signal on the main window without waiting for
Kjet's direction.
It was Ravna Bergsndot. The background was a jumble of motion and
shouting, the strange human and a Skroderider arguing. Bergsndot was facing
away from the pickup, and doing her share of shouting. Things looked even
worse than Kjet's recollection of the first moments of his ship's emergence.
"It doesn't matter just now, I tell you! Let him be. We've got to
contact -- " she must have seen the signal Glimfrelle was sending back to
her. "They're here! By the Powers, Pham, please -- " She waved her hand
angrily and turned to the camera. "Group Captain. We're -- "
"I know. We've been out of the surge for hours. We're near the center
of the pursuit now."
She caught her breath. Even with a hundred hours of planning, events
were moving too fast for her. And for me too. "That's something," she said
after an instant. "Everything we said before holds, Group Captain. We need
your help. That's the Blight that's coming behind us. Please!"
Svensndot noticed a telltale by the window. Sassy Glimfrelle was
retransmitting this to all the fleet they could trust. Good. He had talked
about the situation with the others these last hours, but it meant something
more to see Ravna Bergsndot on the comm, to see someone from Sjandra Kei who
still survived and needed their help. You can spend the rest of your life
chasing revenge in the Middle Beyond, but all you kill will be the vultures.
What's chasing Ravna Bergsndot may be the first cause.
The Butterflies were long gone, still singing their courage across the
Net. Less than one percent of Commercial Security had followed "Limmende's"
order to chase after them. Those were not the problem: it was the ten
percent that stayed behind and arrayed themselves with the Blight's forces
that bothered Kjet Svensndot. Some of those ships might not be subverted,
might simply be loyal to orders they believed. It would be very hard to fire
on them.
And there would be fighting, no doubt of that. Maneuvering for conflict
while under ultradrive was difficult -- if the other side attempted to
evade. But Blight's fleet was unwavering in its pursuit of the Out of Band.
Slowly, slowly the two fleets were coming to occupy the same volume. At
present they were scattered across cubic light-years, but with every jump,
the Group Captain's Aniara fleet was more finely tuned to the stutter of
their quarries' drives. Some ships were actually within a few hundred
million kilometers of the enemy -- or where the enemy had been or would be.
Targeting tactics were set. First fire was only a few hundred seconds away.
"With the Aprahanti gone, we have numerical superiority. A normal enemy
would back off now -- "
"But of course, that is one thing the Blight fleet is not." It was the
red-haired guy who was doing the talking now. It was a good thing Glimfrelle
hadn't relayed his face to the rest of Svensndot's fleet. The guy acted edgy
and alien most of the time. Just now, he seemed intent on bashing every idea
Svensndot advanced. "The Blight doesn't care what its losses are as long as
it arrives with the upper hand."
Svensndot shrugged. "Look, we'll do our best. First fire is seventy
seconds off. If they don't have any secret advantage, we may win this one."
He looked sharply at the other. "Or is that your point? Could the Blight --
" Stories were still coming down about the Blight's progress across the Top
of the Beyond. Without a doubt, it was a transhuman intelligence. An unarmed
man might be outnumbered by a pack of dogs, yet still defeat them. So might
the Blight...?
Pham Nuwen shook his head. "No, no, no. The Blight's tactics down here
will probably be inferior to yours. Its great advantage is at the Top, where
it can control its slaves like fingers on a hand. Its creatures down here
are like badly-synched waldoes." Nuwen frowned at something off camera. "No,
what we have to fear is its strategic cleverness." His voice suddenly had a
detached quality that was more unsettling than the earlier impatience. It
wasn't the calm of someone facing up to a threat; it was more the calm of
the demented. "One hundred seconds to contact.... Group Captain, we have a
chance, if you concentrate your forces on the right points." Ravna floated
down from the top of the picture, put one hand on the red-head's shoulder.
Godshatter, she said he was, their secret edge against the enemy.
Godshatter, a Power's dying message; garbage or treasure, who really knew?
Damn. If the other guys are badly-synched waldoes, what does following
Pham Nuwen make us? But he motioned Tirolle to mark the targets Nuwen was
saying. Ninety seconds. Decision time. Kjet pointed at the red marks Tirolle
had scattered through the enemy fleet. "Anything special about those
targets, 'Rolle?"
The Dirokime whistled for a moment. Correlations popped up agonizingly
slowly on the windows before him. "The ships he's targeting aren't the
biggest or the fastest. It's gonna take extra time to position on them."
Command vessels? "One other thing. Some of 'em show high real velocities,
not natural residuals at all." Ships with ram drives? Planet busters?
"Hm." Svensndot looked at the display just a second more. Thirty
seconds and Jo Haugen's ship Lynsnar would be in contact, but not with one
of Nuwen's targets. "Get on the comm, Glimfrelle. Tell Lynsnar to back off,
retarget." Retarget everything.
The lights that were Aniara fleet slid slowly around the core of the
Blighter fleet, searching for their new targets. Twenty minutes passed, and
not a few arguments with the other captains. Commercial Security was not
built for military combat. What had made Kjet Svensndot's appeal successful
was also the cause of constant questioning and countersuggestions. And then
there were the threats that came from Owner Limmende's channel: kill the
mutineers, death to all those disloyal to the company. The encryption was
valid but the tone was totally alien to the mild, profit-oriented Giske
Limmende. Everyone could now see that disbelieving Limmende was one correct
decision, anyway.
Johanna Haugen was the first to achieve synch with the new targets.
Glimfrelle opened the main window on the Lynsnar's data stream: The view was
almost natural, a night sky of slowly shifting stars. The target was less
than thirty million kilometers from Lynsnar, but about a millisecond out of
synch. Haugen was arriving just before or just after the other had jumped.
"Drones away," Haugen's voice said. Now they had a true view of Lynsnar
from a few meters away, from a camera aboard one of the first weapons drones
launched. The ship was barely visible, a darkness obscuring the stars beyond
-- a great fish in the depths of an endless sea. A fish that was now giving
spawn. The picture flickered, Lynsnar disappearing, reappearing, as the
drone lost synch momentarily. A swarm of blue lights spilled from the ship's
hold. Weapon drones. The swarm hung by Lynsnar, calibrating itself,
orienting on the enemy.
The light faded from around Lynsnar as the drones moving fractionally
out of synch in space and time. Tirolle opened a window on a hundred-million
klick sphere centered at Lynsnar. The target vessel was a red dot that
flickered around the sphere like a maddened insect. Lynsnar was stalking
prey at eight thousand times the speed of light. Sometimes the target
disappeared for a second, synch almost lost; other times Lynsnar and the
target merged for an instant as the two craft spent a tenth of a second at
less than a million kilometers remove. What could not be accurately
displayed was the disposition of the drones. The spawn diffused on a myriad
trajectories, their sensors extended for sign of the enemy ship.
"What about the target, is it swarming back? Do you need back up?" said
Svensndot. Tirolle gave a Dirokime shrug. What they were watching was three
light-years away. No way he could know.
But Jo Haugen replied, "I don't think my bogie is swarming. I've lost
only five drones, no more'n you'd expect from fratricide. We'll see -- " She
paused, but Lynsnar's trace and signal remained strong. Kjet looked out the
other windows. Five of Aniara were already engaged and three had completed
swarm deploy. Nuwen looked on silently from Out of Band. The godshatter had
had its way, and now Kjet and his people were committed.
And now good news and bad came in very fast:
"Got him!" from Jo Haugen. The red dot in Lynsnar's swarm was no more.
It had passed within a few thousand kilometers of one of the drones. In the
milliseconds necessary to compute a new jump, the drone had discovered its
presence and detonated. Even that would not have been fatal if the target
had jumped before the blast front hit it; there had been several near misses
in earlier seconds. This time the jump did not reach commit in time. A
mini-star was born, one whose light would be years in reaching the rest of
the battle volume.
Glimfrelle gave a rasping whistle, an untranslatable curse, "We just
lost Ablsndot and Holder, Boss. Their target must have counter-swarmed."
"Send in Gliwing and Trance." Something in the back of his head curled
up in horror. These were his friends who were dying. Kjet had seen death
before, but never like this. In police action, no one took lethal chances
except in a rescue. And yet... he turned from the field summary to order
more ships on a target that had acquired defending vessels. Tirolle was
moving in others on his own. Ganging up on a few nonessential targets might
lose in the long run, but in the short term ... the enemy was being hurt.
For the first time since the fall of Sjandra Kei, Commercial Security was
hurting someone back.
Haugen: "Powers, that guy was moving! Secondary drone got EM spectrum
on the kill. Target was going 15000 kps true speed." A rocket bomb ramping
up? Damn. They should be postponing those till after they controlled the
battlefield.
Tirolle: "More kills, far side of battle volume. The enemy is
repositioning. Somehow they've guessed which we're after -- "
Glimfrelle: Triumph whistle. "Get 'em, get 'em -- oops. Boss, I think
Limmende has figured we're coordinating things -- "
A new window had opened over Tirolle's post. It showed the five million
kilometers around Ølvira. Two other ships were there now: the window
identified them as Limmende's flag and one of the vessels that had not
responded to Svensndot's recruiting.
There was an instant of stillness on Ølvira's command deck. The
voices of triumph and panic coming from the rest of the fleet seemed
suddenly far away. Svensndot and his crew were looking at death close up.
"Tirolle! How long till swarm -- "
"They're on us already -- just missed a drone by ten milliseconds."
"Tirolle! Finish running current engagements. Glimfrelle, tell Lynsnar
and Trance to chain command if we lose contact." Those ships had already
spent their drones, and Jo Haugen was known to all the other captains.