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Tines' World! At last, a wondrously accurate jump, almost as good as the
shocker of five hours before: Twenty thousand kilometers away hung a vast
narrow crescent, the edge of planetary daylight. The rest was a dark blot
against the stars, except where the auroral ring hung a faint green glow
around the south pole. Jefri Olsndot was on the other side of the world from
them, in the arctic day. They wouldn't have radio communication until they
arrived -- and she hadn't figured out how to recalibrate the ultrawave for
shortrange transmission.
She turned back from the view. Pham still stared upward into the sky
behind her. "... Pham, what good is forty-eight hours? Will we just destroy
the Countermeasure?" What of Jefri and Mr. Steel's folk?
"Maybe. But there are other possibilities. There must be." That last
softly. "I've been chased before. I've been in bigger jams before." His eyes
avoided hers.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
Jefri hadn't seen the sky for more than an hour in the last two days.
He and Amdi were safe enough in the great stone dome that sheltered the
refugee ship, but there was no way to see outside. If it weren't for Amdi, I
couldn't have stood it a minute. In some ways it was worse even than his
first days on Hidden Island. The ones who killed Mom and Dad and Johanna
were just a few kilometers away. They captured some of Mr. Steel's guns and
the last few days the explosions had gone on for hours, a booming that shook
the ground beneath them and sometimes even smashed at the walls of the dome.
Their food was brought in to them, and when they weren't sitting in the
ship's command cabin, the two wandered outside the ship, to the rooms with
the sleeping children. Jefri had kept up with the simple maintenance
procedures he remembered, but looking through the chill transp of the
coldsleep coffins, he was terribly afraid. Some of them weren't breathing
very much. The inside temperature seemed too high. And he and Amdi didn't
know how to help.
Nothing had changed here, but now there was joy. Ravna's long silence
had ended. Amdijefri and Mr. Steel had actually talked to her in voice!
Three more hours and her ship would be here! Even the bombardment had ended,
almost as if Woodcarver realized that her time was near to ending.
Three more hours. Left to himself, Jefri would have spent the time in a
state of wall-climbing anxiety. After all, he was nine years old now, a
grown-up with grown up problems. But then there was Amdi. The pack was much
smarter than Jefri in some ways, but he was such a little kid -- about five
years old, as near as Amdijefri could figure it. Except when he was into
heavy thinking, he could not stay still. After the call from Ravna, Jefri
wanted to sit down for serious worrying, but Amdi began chasing himself
around the pylons. He shouted back and forth in Jefri's voice and Ravna's,
and bumped into the boy accidentally on purpose. Jefri hopped up and glared
at the careening puppies. Just a little kid. And suddenly, happy and so sad
all at once: Is this how Johanna saw me? And so he had responsibilities now
too. Like being patient. As one of Amdi came rushing past his knees, Jefri
swept down to grab the wriggling form. He raised it to shoulder level as the
rest of the pack converged gleefully, pounding on him from all directions.
They fell to the dry moss and wrestled for a few seconds. "Let's
explore, let's explore!"
"We have to be here for Ravna and Mr. Steel."
"Don't worry. We'll remember when."
"Okay." Where was there really to go?
The two walked through the torchlit dimness to the clerestory that
ringed the inner edge of the dome. As far as Jefri could see, they were
alone. That was not unusual. Mr. Steel was very worried that Woodcarver
spies might get into the ship. Even his own soldiers rarely came here.
Amdijefri had investigated the inside wall before. Behind the quilts,
the stone felt cool and damp. There were some holes to the outside -- for
ventilation -- but they were almost ten meters up where the wall was already
curving inwards toward the apex of the dome. The stone was rough cut, not
yet polished. Mr. Steel's workers had been in a frantic hurry to complete
the protection before Woodcarver's army arrived. Nothing was polished, and
the quilts were undecorated.
Ahead and behind him, Amdi was sniffing at the cracks and fresh mortar.
The one in Jefri's arms gave a concerted wiggle. "Ha! Up ahead. I knew that
mortar was coming loose," the pack said. Jefri let all of his friend rush
forward to a nook in the wall. It didn't look any different than before, but
Amdi was scratching with five pairs of paws.
"Even if you can get it loose, what good does it do you?" Jefri had
seen these blocks as they were lowered into place. They were almost fifty
centimeters across, laid in alternating rows. Getting past one would just
bring them to more stone.
"Heh heh, I don't know. I've been saving this up till we had some time
to kill... Yech. This mortar burns my lips." More scratching, and the pack
passed back a fragment as big as Jefri's head. There really was a hole
between the blocks, and it was big enough for Amdi. One of him darted into
the tiny cave.
"Satisfied?" Jefri plunked himself down by the hole and tried to look
in.
"Guess what!" Amdi's shrill came from a member right by his ear.
"There's a tunnel back here, not just another layer of stone!" A member
wriggled past Jefri and disappeared into the dark. Secret tunnels? That was
too much like a Nyjoran fairy tale. "These are big enough for a full-grown
member, Jefri. You could get through these on hands 'n' knees." Two more of
Amdi disappeared into the hole.
The tunnel he had discovered might be large enough for a human child,
but the entrance hole was a tight fit even for the puppies. Jefri had
nothing to do but stare into the darkness. The parts of Amdi that remained
at the entrance talked about what he had found. "-- Goes on for a long, long
way. I've doubled back a couple of times. The top of me is about five meters
up, way over your head. This is kooky. I'm getting all strung out." Amdi
sounded even sillier than his normal playfulness. Two more of him went into
the hole. This was developing into serious adventure -- that Jefri could
have no part of.
"Don't go too far; it might be dangerous."
One of the pair that remained looked up at him. "Don't worry. Don't
worry. The tunnel isn't an accident. It feels like it was cut as grooves in
the stones when they were laid. This is some special escape route Mister
Steel made. I'm all right. I'm all right. Ha ha, hoohooo." One more
disappeared into the hole. After a moment the last remaining one ran in, but
stayed near enough to the entrance so Amdi could still talk to Jefri. The
pack was having a high old time, singing and screeching to itself. Jefri
knew exactly what the other was up to; it was another of the games he could
never play. In this posture, Amdi's thoughts would be the weirdest rippling
things. Darn. Now that he was playing within stone, it must be even neater
than before, since he was totally cut off from all thoughts except from
member to adjacent member.
The stupid singing went on a little longer, and then Amdi spoke in an
almost reasonable tone. "Hei, this tunnel actually splits off in places. The
front of me has come to a fork. One side is heading down.... Wish I had
enough members to go both ways!"
"Well, you don't!"
"Hei ho, I'll take the upper tunnel today." A few seconds of silence.
"There's a little door here! Like a member-size room door. Not locked." Amdi
relayed the sounds of stone scritching against stone. "Ha! I can see light!
Up just a few more meters, it opens onto a window. Hear the wind." He
relayed wind sound and the keening of the sea birds that soared up from
Hidden Island. It sounded wonderful. "Oh oh, this is stretching things, but
I wanna look out.... Jefri, I can see the sun! I'm outdoors, sitting way up
on the side of the dome. I can see all round to the south. Boy, it's smoky
down there."
"What about the hillside?" Jefri asked the nearest member; its
white-splotched pelt was barely visible through the entrance hole. At least
Amdi was staying in touch.
"A little browner than last tenday. I don't see any soldiers out
there." Relayed sound of a cannon firing. "Yipes. We're shooting though....
It hit just on this side of the crest. There's someone out there, just below
my line of sight." Woodcarver, come at last. Jefri shivered, angry that he
couldn't see, frightened of what might be seen. He often had nightmares
about what Woodcarver must truly be, how she had done it to Mom and Dad and
Johanna. Images never fully formed ... yet almost memories. Mister Steel
will get Woodcarver.
"Oh, oh. Old Tyrathect is coming across the castle yard this way."
Thumping sounds came from the hole as Amdi blundered back down. No point in
letting Tyrathect know that there was a tunnel hidden in the wall. He'd
probably just order them to stay away from it. One, two, three, four -- half
of Amdi popped out of the wall. The four wandered around a little dazedly.
Jefri couldn't tell if it was because of their stretched-out experience or
if they were temporarily split from the other half of the pack. "Act
natural. Act natural."
Then the other four arrived, and Amdi began to settle down. He led
Jefri away from the wall at a fast trot. "Let's get the commset. We'll
pretend we've been trying to raise Ravna with it." Amdi knew well that the
starship couldn't be back for another thirty minutes or so. In fact, he had
been the one who verified the math for Mister Steel. Nevertheless, he chased
up the ship's steps and dragged down the radio. The two were already
plugging the antenna into a signal booster when the public doors on the west
side of the dome were unlatched. Silhouetted against the daylight were parts
of a guard pack, and a single member of Tyrathect. The guard retired,
sliding the doors shut, and the Cloak walked slowly across the moss towards
them.
Amdi rushed over and chattered about their attempts to use the radio.
It was a little forced, Jefri thought. The puppies were still confused by
their trip through the walls.
The singleton looked at the powdering of mortar dust on Amdi's pelt.
"You've been climbing in the walls, haven't you?"
"What?" Amdi looked himself over, noticed the dust. Usually he was more
clever. "Yes," he said shamefacedly. He brushed the powder away. "You won't
tell, will you?"
Fat chance he'll help us, thought Jefri. Mr. Tyrathect had learned
Samnorsk even better than Mr. Steel, and besides Steel was the only one who
had much time to talk with them. But even before the radio cloaks, he'd been
a short-tempered, bossy sort. Jefri had had baby-sitters like him. Tyrathect
was nice up to a point, and then would get sarcastic or say something mean.
Lately that had improved, but Jefri still didn't like him much.
But Mr. Tyrathect didn't say anything right away. He sat down slowly,
as if his rump hurt. "... No, I won't tell."
Jefri exchanged a surprised glance with one of Amdi. "What is the
tunnel for?" he asked timidly.
"All castles have hidden tunnels, especially in my ... in the domain of
Mr. Steel. You want ways to escape, ways to spy on your enemies." The
singleton shook its head. "Never mind. Is your radio properly receiving,
Amdijefri?"
Amdi cocked a head at the comm's display. "I think so, but there's
nothing yet to receive. See, Ravna's ship had to decelerate and um, I could
show you the arithmetic...?" But Mr. Tyrathect was obviously not interested
in playing with chalk boards. "... well, depending on their luck with the
ultradrive, we should have radio with them real soon."
But the little window on the comm showed no incoming signal. They
watched it for several minutes. Mr. Tyrathect lowered his muzzle and seemed
to sleep. Every few seconds his body twitched as with a dream. Jefri
wondered what the rest of him was doing.
Then the comm window was glowing green. There was a garble of sound as
it tried to sort signal from background noise. "... over you in five
minutes," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri? Are you listening?"
"Yes! We're here."
"Let me talk to Mr. Steel, please."
Mr. Tyrathect stepped nearer to the comm. "He is not here now, Ravna."
"Who is this?"
Tyrathect's laugh was a giggle; he had never heard any other kind. "I?"
He made the Tinish chord that sounded like "Tyrathect" to Jefri. "Or do you
mean a taken name, like Steel? I don't know the exact word. You may call me
... Mr. Skinner." Tyrathect laughed again. "For now, I can speak for Steel."
"Jefri, are you all right?"
"Yes, yes. Listen to Mr. Skinner." What a strange name.
The sounds from the comm became muffled. There was a male voice,
arguing. Then Ravna was back, her voice kind of tight, like Mom when she was
mad. "Jefri ... what's the volume of a ball ten centimeters across?"
Amdi had been fidgeting impatiently through the conversation. All
through the last year he had been hearing stories of humans from Jefri, and
dreaming what Ravna might really be like. Now he had a chance to show off.
He jumped for the comm, and grinned at Jefri. "That's easy, Ravna." His
voice was perfect Jefri -- and completely fluent. "It's 523.598 cubic
centimeters ... or do you want more digits?"
Muffled conversation. "...No, that's fine. Okay, Mr. Skinner. We have
pictures from our earlier pass and a general radio fix. Where exactly are
you?"
"Under the castle dome at top of Starship Hill. It's right at the coast
by a -- "
A man's voice cut in. Pham? He had a funny accent. "I got it on the
map. We still can't see you direct. Too much haze."
"That's smoke," said the Cloak. "The enemy is almost upon us from the
south. We need your help immediately -- " The singleton lowered its head
from the commset. Its eyes closed and opened a couple of times. Thinking?
"Hmm, yes. Without your help, we and Jefri and this ship are lost. Please
land within the castle courtyard. You know we've specially reinforced it for
your arrival. Once down we can use your weapons to -- "
"No way," the guy replied immediately. "Just separate the friendlies
from the bad guys and let us take care of things."
Tyrathect's voice took on a wheedling tone, like a little kid
complaining. He really has been studying us. "No, no, didn't mean to be
impolite. Certainly, do it your own way. About the enemy force: everyone
close to the castle on the south side of the hill are enemy. A single pass
with your ship's ... um, torch ... would send them running."
"I can't fly that torch inside an atmosphere. Did your Pop really land
with the main jet, Jefri? No agrav?"
"Yes, sir. All we had was the jet."
"He was a lucky genius."
Ravna: "Maybe we could just float across, a few thousand meters up.
That might scare them away."
Tyrathect began, "Yes, that might -- "
The public doors on the north side of the dome slid open. Mr. Steel
stood silhouetted against the daylight beyond. "Let me talk to them," he
said.
The goal of all their voyaging lay just twenty kilometers below OOB.
They were so close, yet those twenty thousand meters might be as hard to
bridge as the twenty thousand light-years they had come so far.
They floated on agrav directly over "Starship Hill". OOB's
multispectral wasn't working very well, but where smoke did not obscure, the
ship's optics could count the needles on the trees below. Ravna could see
the forces of "Woodcarver" ranged across the slopes south of the castle.
There were other troops, and apparently cannon, hidden in the forests that
lined the fjord south of that. Given a little more time they would be able
to locate them too. Time was the one thing they did not have.
Time and trust.
"Forty-eight hours, Pham. Then the fleet will be here, all around us."
Maybe, maybe godshatter could work a miracle; they'd never know stewing
about it up here. Try: "You've got to trust somebody, Pham."
Pham glared back at her, and for an instant she feared he might go
completely to pieces. "You'd land in the middle of that castle? Medieval
villains are just as smart as any you've seen in the Beyond, Rav. They could
teach the Butterflies a thing or two. An arrow in the head will kill you as
sure as an antimatter bomb."
More fake memories? But Pham was right on this: She thought about the
just-concluded conversation. The second pack -- Steel -- had been a bit too
insistent. He had been good to Jefri, but he was clearly desperate. And she
believed him when he said that a high fly-by wouldn't scare the Woodcarvers
off. They needed to come down near the ground with firepower. Just now,
about all the firepower they had was Pham's beam gun. "Okay, then! Do what
you and Steel talked about. Fly the lander past Woodcarver's lines, laser
blast them."
"God damn it, you know I can't fly that. The landing boat is like
nothing either of us know, and without the automation I -- "
Softly: "Without the automation, you need Blueshell, Pham." There was
horror on Pham's face. She reached out to him. He was silent for a long
moment, not seeming to notice.
"Yeah." His voice was low, strangled. Then: "Blueshell! Get up here."
OOB's lander had more than enough room for the Skroderider and Pham
Nuwen. The craft had been built specifically for Rider use. With higher
automation working, it would have been easy for Pham -- for even a child --
to fly. Now, the craft could not provide stable flight, and the "manual"
controls were something that gave even Blueshell a hard time. Damn
automation. Damn optimization. For most of his adult life Pham had lived in
the Slowness. All those decades, he had managed spacecraft and weapons that
could have reduced the feudal empire below to slag. Yet now, with equipment
that should have been enormously more powerful, he couldn't even fly a damn
landing boat.
Across the crew compartment, Blueshell was at the pilot's position. His
fronds stretched across a web of supports and controls. He had turned off
all display automation; only the main window was alive, a natural view from
the boat's bow camera. OOB floated some hundred meters ahead, drifting up
and out of view as their craft slid backwards and down.
Blueshell's fidgety nervousness -- furtiveness, it seemed to Pham --
had disappeared as he got into piloting the craft. His voder voice became
terse and preoccupied, and the edges of his fronds writhed across the
controls, an exercise that would have been impossible to Pham even if he had
a lifetime of experience with the gear. "Thank you, Sir Pham.... I'll prove
you can trust...." The nose lurched downwards and they were staring almost
straight into the fjord-carven coastline twenty kilometers below. They fell
free for half a minute while the rider's fronds writhed on their supports.
Hot piloting? No: "Sorry, sorry." Acceleration, and Pham sank into his
restraints under a grav load that wobbled between a tenth gee and an
intolerable crush. The landscape rotated and they had a brief glimpse of
OOB, now like a tiny moth above them.
"Is it necessary to kill, Sir Pham? Perhaps simply our appearance over
the battle...."
Nuwen gritted his teeth. "Just get us down." The Steel creature had
been adamant that they fry the entire hillside. Despite all Pham's
suspicions, the pack might be right on that. They were up against a crew of
murderers that had not hesitated to ambush a starship; the Woodcarvers
needed a real demonstration.
Their boat fluttered down the kilometers. Steel's fortifications were
clearly visible even in the natural view: the rough polygon that guarded the
refugee ship, the much larger structure that rambled across an island
several kilometers westward. I wonder if this is how my Father's castle
looked to the Qeng Ho landers? Those walls were high and unsloping. Clearly
the Tines had had no idea of gunpowder till Ravna had clued them to it.
The valley south of the castle was a blot of dark smoke smoothly
streaming toward the sea. Even without data enhancement, he could see hot
spots, fringes of orange edging the black.
"You're at two thousand meters," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri says he can
see you."
"Patch me through to them."
"I will try, Sir Pham." Blueshell fiddled, his lack of attention
spinning the boat through a complete loop. Pham had seen falling leaves with
more control.
A child's piping voice: "A-are you okay? Don't crash!"
And then the Steel pack's hybrid of Ravna and the kid: "South to go!
South to go! Use fire gun. Burn them quick."
Blueshell was entirely too cooperative to this direction. He had them
down in the smoke already. For seconds they were flying blind. A break in
the smoke showed the hillside less than two hundred meters off, coming up
fast. Before Pham could curse at Blueshell, the Rider had turned them around
and floated the boat into clearer air. Then he pitched over so they might
see directly down.
After thirty weeks of talk and planning, Pham had his first glimpse of
the Tines. Even from here, it was obvious they were different from any
sophonts Pham had encountered: Clusters of four or five or six members hung
together so close they seemed a single spiderlike being. And each pack stood
separated from the others by ten or fifteen meters.
A cannon flashed in the murk. The pack crewing it moved like a single,
coordinated hand to rock the barrel back and ram another charge down the
muzzle.
"But if these are the enemy, Sir Pham, where did they get the guns?"
"They stole 'em." But muzzle loaders? He didn't have time to pursue the
thought.
"You're right over them, Pham! I can see you in and out of the smoke.
You're drifting south at fifteen meters per second, losing altitude." It was
the kid, speaking with his usual incredible precision.
"Kill them! Kill them!"
Pham wriggled out of his restraints and crawled back to the hatch where
they had mounted his beam gun. It was about the only thing salvaged from the
workshop fire, but by God this was something he could operate.
"Keep us steady, Blueshell. Bounce me around and I'll fry you as likely
as anything!" He pushed open the hatch, and gagged on spicy smoke. Then
Blueshell's agravs wafted them into a clear space and Pham lined the beamer
down the ranks of packfolk.
Originally Woodcarver had demanded Johanna stay at the base camp.
Johanna's response had been explosive. Even now the girl was a little
surprised at herself. Not since the first days on Tines world had she come
so close to attacking a pack. No way was anyone going to keep her from
finding out about Jefri. In the end they had compromised: Johanna would
accept Pilgrim as her guard. She could follow the army into the field, as
long as she obeyed his direction.
Johanna looked up through the drifting smoke. Damn. Pilgrim was always
such a carefree joker. By his own telling, he had gotten himself killed over
and over again through the years. And now he wouldn't even let her up to
Scrupilo's cannons. The two of them paced across a terrace in the hillside.
The brush fire had swept through here hours before, and the spicy smell of
moss ash was thick around them. And with that smell came the bright memory
of horror, of a year ago, right here....
Trusted guard packs paced their course twenty meters on either side.
This area was supposedly safe from infiltration, and there had been no
artillery fire from the Flenserists for hours. But Peregrine absolutely
refused to let her get any closer.
It's nothing like last year. Then all had been sunny blue skies and
clean air -- and her parents' murder. Now she and Pilgrim had returned, and
the blue sky was yellow-gray and the sweeps of mossy hillside were black.
And now the packs around her were fighting with her. And now there was a
chance....
"Lemme closer, damn it! Woodcarver will have the Oliphaunt no matter
what happens to me."
Peregrine shook himself, a Tinish negative. One of his puppies reached
out from a jacket pouch to catch at her sleeve. "A little longer," Pilgrim
said for the tenth time. "Wait for Woodcarver's messenger. Then we can -- "
"I want to be up there! I'm the only one who knows the ship!" Jefri,
Jefri. If only Vendacious was right about you....
She was twisting about to slap at Scarbutt when it happened: A glare of
heat on her back, and the smoke flashed bright. Again. Again. And then the
impact of rapid thunder.
Pilgrim shuddered against her. "That's not gunfire!" he shouted. "Two
of me are almost blinded. C'mon." He surrounded her, almost knocking her off
her feet as he pushed/dragged her down the hill.
For a second Johanna went along, more dazed than cooperative. Somehow
they had lost their escort.
From up the hill the shouts of battle had stopped. The sharp thunder
had silenced all. Where the smoke thinned she could see one of Scrupilo's
cannons, the barrel extending from a puddle of melted steel. The cannoneer
had been blown to bits. Not gunfire. Johanna spasmed out of Pilgrim's grip.
Not gunfire.
"Spacers! Pilgrim, that must be a drive torch."
Peregrine grabbed her, continuing down the hill. "Not a drive torch!
That I've heard. This is quieter -- and somebody's aiming it."
There had been a long stutter of separate blasts. How many of
Woodcarver's people had just died? "They must think we're attacking the
ship, Pilgrim. If we don't do something, they'll wipe out everyone."
His jaws eased their grip on her sleeves and pants. "What can we do?
Hanging around here will just get us killed."
Johanna stared into the sky. No sign of fliers, but there was so much
smoke. The sun was a dull bloody ball. If only the rescuers knew they were
killing her friends. If only they could see. She dug her feet into the
ground. "Let go of me, Pilgrim! I'm going uphill, out of the smoke."
He'd stopped moving but his grip was fiercely tight. Four adult faces
and two puppy ones looked up at her, and indecision was in every look.
"Please, Pilgrim. It's the only way." Packs were straggling down, some
bleeding, some in fragments.
His frightened eyes stared at her an instant longer. Then he let go and
touched her hand with a nose. "I guess this hill will always be the death of
me. First Scriber, now you -- you're all crazy." The old Pilgrim smile
flickered across his members. "Okay. Let's try it!" The two without puppies
went up the hillside, scouting for the safest route.
Johanna and the rest of him followed. They were moving across a sloping
terrace. The summer drought had drained the chill swamp water she remembered
from the landing, and the blackened moss was firm under her. The going
should have been easy, but Peregrine wound through the deepest hummocks,
hunkering down every few seconds to look in all directions. They reached the
end of the terrace and began climbing. There were places so steep she had to
grab the epaulet stirrups on two of Peregrine and let him hoist her up. They
passed the nearest cannon, what was left of it. Johanna had never seen
weapons fired except in stories, but the splash of metal and the carbonized
flesh could only mean some kind of beam weapon. Running across the hill were
similar craters, destruction punched into the already burned land.
Johanna leaned against a smooth rounding of rock. "Just pull over this
one and we're on the next terrace," Pilgrim's voice came in her ear. "Hurry,
I hear shouting." He leaned two of himself down, tilting his epaulets toward
her hands. She grabbed them, and jumped. For a moment she and the pack
teetered over a four- meter fall, and then she was lying on brownish,
unburned moss. Pilgrim clustered around her, hiding her. She peeked out
between his legs. The outermost walls of Steel's castle were visible from
here. Tinish archers stood boldly on the ramparts, taking advantage of the
chaos among Woodcarver's troops. In fact, the Queen's force had not lost
many packs in the air attack, but even the unwounded were milling around.
The Queen's soldiers were no cowards -- Johanna knew that by now -- but they
had just been confronted by force beyond all defense.
Overhead the smoke faded into blue. The battlefield ahead of her lay
under clear sky. In the years before the High Lab, Johanna and her mother
had often gone on nature trips over Bigby Marsh at Straum. With the sensors
on their camper packs they'd had no trouble watching the skyggwings there:
even if this flier's automation was not specifically looking for a human on
the ground, it should notice her. "Do you see anything?"
The four adult heads angled back and forth in coordinated pairs. "No.
The flier must be very far away or behind the smoke."
Nuts. Johanna came off her knees, trotted toward the castle walls. They
must be watching there!
"Woodcarver's not going to like this."
Two of the Queen's soldiers were already running toward them, attracted
by their purposeful movement or the sight of Johanna. Pilgrim waved them
back.
Alone on an open field less than two hundred meters from the castle
wall. Even with normal vision, how could they be overlooked? In fact, they
were noticed: There was a soft hissing, and a meter-long arrow thunked into
the turf on their left. Scarbutt grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to a
crouch. The puppies shifted his shields into position: Pilgrim made a
barricade of himself on the castle side and started back out of range. Back
into the smoke.
"No! Run parallel! I want to be seen."
"Okay, okay." Soft sounds of death whispered down. Johanna kept one
hand on his shoulder as they ran across the field. She felt Scarbutt falter.
The arrow had caught him in the thick of his shoulder, centimeters from a
tympanum. "I'm okay! Stay down, stay down."
The front line of Woodcarver's force was rallying toward them now, a
dozen packs racing across the terrace. Pilgrim bounced up and down, shouting
with a voice that punched like physical force. Something about staying back,
and danger from the sky. It didn't stop their advance. "They want you away
from the arrows."
And suddenly they noticed that the fire from the castle had stopped.
Pilgrim scanned the sky, "It's back! Coming from the east, maybe a kilometer
out."
She looked in the direction he was pointing. It was a lumpy thing,
probably space-based though it had no ultradrive spines. It bobbled and
staggered. There was no sign of jets. Some kind of agrav? Nonhumans? The
thoughts skittered through her mind, alongside the joy.
Pale light flickered from a mast on its belly and dirt geysered around
the troops who were racing to protect her. Again the stuttering thunder,
only now the light was marching right across her friends toward her.
Amdijefri was on the battlements. Steel hid his glares from the two.
There simply was no help for it; Ravna had demanded Jefri be by the radio to
guide the strike. The human was not completely stupid. It shouldn't make any
difference. An army looks like an army whether it is foe or friend. Very
soon the army beyond these walls would cease to exist.
"How did the first run go?" Ravna's voice came clearly from the
commset. But it wasn't Jefri who answered: all eight of Amdiranifani was
poking around the battlements, some of him sitting on the crenellations
practicing stereo vision, others eyeing Steel and the radio. Telling him to
stay back had no effect. Now Amdi answered the question with Jefri's voice.
"Okay. I counted fifteen pulses. Only ten hit anything. I bet I could shoot
better than that."
"Damn it, that's the best I can do with this [unknown words]." The
voice was not Ravna's. Steel heard the irritation in it. Everybody can find
something to hate in these pups. The thought warmed him.
"Please," said Steel. "Fire again. Again." He looked over the
stonework. The air attack had taken out a band of enemy by the edge of the
near terrace. It was spectacular destruction, like enormous cannon blows, or
the separate landing of twenty starships. And all from a little craft that
fluttered like a falling leaf. The enemy front line was dissolving in panic.
Up and down the ramparts, his own troops danced about their stations. Things
had been bleak since their cannon were knocked out; they needed something to
cheer about. "The archers, Shreck! Shoot upon the survivors." Then,
continuing in Samnorsk: "The front ranks are still coming. They are -- they
are -- " Damn, what's the word for "confident"? "They will kill us without
more help."
The human child looked at Steel in puzzlement. If he called that a lie,
then.... A moment later Ravna said. "I don't know. They're well back from
your walls, at least all that I can see. I don't want to butcher...." Rapid
fire conversation with the human in the flier, perhaps not even in Samnorsk.
The gunner did not sound pleased. "Pham will pull back a few kilometers,"
she said. "We can come back instantly if your enemy advances."
"Ssssst!" Shreck's Hightalk hiss was like a physical jab. Steel
wheeled, glaring. How dare -- But his lieutenant was wide-eyed, pointing
toward the center of the battlefield. Of course Steel had had a pair of eyes
on that direction, but he hadn't been paying attention: The other Two-Legs!
The mantis figure dropped behind an accompanying pack, mercifully
before Amdijefri noticed. Thank the Pack of Packs that puppies are
near-sighted. Steel swept forward, surrounding some of Amdi, shouting at the
others to get off the parapet. Both of Tyrathect ran in close, physically
grabbing for the disobedient wretches. "Get below!" Steel screamed in
Tinish. For a second all was confusion, as his own mind sounds mixed with
the puppies'. Amdi tumbled away from him, thoroughly distracted by the noise
and the rough handling. And then in Samnorsk Steel said, "There are more
cannons out there. Get below before you're hurt!"
Jefri started for the parapet. "But I don't see -- " And fortunately
there was nothing special to see. Now. The other Two-Legs was still crouched
behind one of Woodcarver's packs. Shreck took the human child in paw and
jaw. He and one of Tyrathect hustled the protesting children down the
stairs. As they departed, Tyrathect was already embellishing on Steel's
story, reporting on the troops it could see from below the crest of the
hill.
"Blow up the lesser powder dump," Steel hissed at the departing Shreck.
That dump was near empty, but its destruction might persuade the spacers
where words could not.
After they were gone, Steel stood for an instant, silent and shivering.
He had never seen disaster so narrowly avoided. Along the ramparts, his
archers were showering arrows upon the enemy pack and the Two-Legs. Damn.
They were almost out of range.
In the castle yard, Shreck detonated the lesser dump. The explosion was
a satisfying one, much louder than an artillery hit. One of the inner towers
was blown apart. Flying rock showered the yard, the smallest pieces reaching
all the way to where Steel stood on the ramparts.
Ravna's voice was shouting in swift Samnorsk, too fast for Steel to
understand. Now all the planning, all the hopes, all balanced on a knife
edge. He must bet everything: Steel leaned a shoulder close to the comm and
said, "Sorry. Things go fast here. Many more Woodcarver come up under smoke.
Can you kill all on hillside?" Could the mantises see through smoke? That
was part of the gamble.
The gunner's voice came back, "I can try. Watch this."
A third voice, thready and narrow even by human standards: "It will be
fifty seconds more, Sir Steel. We're having trouble turning."
Good. Concentrate on your flying and your killing. Don't look at your
victims too carefully. The archers had driven the human back, part way under
the cover of smoke. Other packs were rushing out to protect her. By the time
the Visitors circled back, there would be lots of targets, the human lost
among them.
Two of him caught sight of the spacer floating down through the haze.
The Visitors would have no clear view of what they were shooting at. Pale
light flickered from beneath the craft. A scythe swept across the hillside
toward Woodcarver's troops.
Pham was bounced around his perch as Blueshell turned the boat back to
the target. They weren't moving fast; the airstream couldn't have been more
than thirty meters per second. But every second was full of the damnedest
jerks and tumbles. At one point Pham's grip on the gun mount was all that
kept him indoors. Forty some hours from now the deadliest thing in the
universe is going to arrive, and I'm taking potshots at dogs.
How to take out the hillside? Steel's whiny voice still echoed in his
ears. And Ravna wasn't sure what OOB was seeing beneath all the smoke. We
might do better without automation than with this bastard mix. At least his
beamer had a manual control. Pham embraced the barrel with one arm while he
reached with the other. At wide dispersion the beam was useless against
armor, but could burst eyes and set skin and hair afire -- and the beam
width would be dozens of meters across at ground level.
"Fifteen seconds, Sir Pham," Blueshell's voice came in his ear.
They were low this time. Gaps in the smoke flickered past like
stop-action art. Most of the ground was burned-over black, but there were
precipices of naked rock and even sooty patches of snow trapped in crannies
and shadowed pits.... Here and there was a pile of doggy bodies, an
occasional gun tube.
"There's a crowd of them ahead, Sir Pham. Running near the castle."
Pham leaned down and looked forward. The mob was about four hundred
meters ahead. They were running parallel to the castle walls, through a
field that was a spinehide of arrowshafts. He pressed the firing stud, swept
the beam out from below the boat. There was plenty of water under that dried
cover; it exploded in steam as the beam passed over it.... But further out,
the wide dispersion wasn't doing much. It would be another few seconds
before he'd have a good shot at the hapless packs.
Time for the little suspicions. So how come the enemy had
muzzle-loading cannon? Those they must have made themselves -- in a world
with no evidence of firearms. Steel was the classic medieval manipulator;
Pham had spotted the type from a thousand light-years out. They were doing
the critter's dirty work, that was obvious. Shut up. Deal with Steel later.
Slanting in on the packs, Pham fired again, sweeping through living
flesh this time. He fired ahead of them and on the castle side; maybe they
wouldn't all die. He stuck his head further into the slipstream, trying for
a better view. Ahead of the packs was a hundred meters of open field, a
single pack of four and -- a human figure, black-haired and slim, jumping
and waving.
Pham smashed the barrel up against the hull, safing it at the same
time. The back flash was a surge of heat that crisped his eyebrows.
"Blueshell! Get us down! Get us down!"
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
"A bad understanding. She was lied to."
Ravna tried to read something behind the voice. Steel's Samnorsk was as
creaky as ever, the tones childish and whiny. He sounded no different than
before. But his story was stretched very thin by what had just happened. He
was either a galaxy master of impudence -- or his story was actually true.
"The human must have been hurt, then lied to by Woodcarver. This
explains a lot, Ravna. Without her, Woodcarver could not attack. Without
her, all may be safe."
Pham's voice came to Ravna on a private channel. "The girl was
unconscious during part of the ambush, Rav. But she practically scratched my
eyes out when I suggested she might be wrong about Steel and Woodcarver. And
the pack with her is a lot more convincing than Steel."
Ravna looked questioningly across the deck at Greenstalk. Pham didn't
know she was here. Tough. Greenstalk was an island of sanity amidst the
madness -- and she knew the OOB infinitely better than Ravna.
Steel spoke into her hesitation: "See now, nothing has changed, except
for the better. One more human lives. How can you doubt us? Speak to Jefri;
he understands. We have done the best for the children in ..." a gobbling
noise, and (another?) voice said, "coldsleep."
"Certainly, we must speak to him again, Steel. He's our best proof of
your good intentions."
"Okay. In a few minutes, Ravna. But see, he is also my good protection
against treachery from you. I know how powerful you Visitors are. I ... fear
you. We need to -- " gobbling consultation "-- accommodate each other in our
fears."
"Um. We'll work something out. Just let us speak to Jefri now."
"Yes."
Ravna switched channels. "What do you think, Pham?"
"There's no question in my mind. This Johanna is not a naive kid like
Jefri. We've always known Steel was a tough critter. We just had some other
facts wrong. The landing site is in the middle of his territory. He's the
killer." Pham's voice became quieter, almost a whisper. "Hell of it is, this
may not change anything. Steel does have the ship. I've got to get in
there."
"It will be another ambush."
"... I know. But does it matter? If we can get me time with the
Countermeasure, it could be -- it will be -- worth it." What matter a
suicide mission within a suicide mission?
"I'm not sure, Pham. If we give him everything, he'll kill us before we
ever get near the ship."
"He'll try. Look, just keep him talking. Maybe we can get a directional
on his radio, blow the bastard away." He did not sound optimistic.
Tyrathect didn't take them back to the ship, or to their rooms. They
descended stairs within the outer walls, part of Amdi first, then Jefri with
the rest of Amdi, then the singleton from Tyrathect.
Amdi was still complaining. "I don't understand, I don't understand. We
can help."
Jefri: "I didn't see any enemy cannons."
The singleton was full of explanations, though it sounded even more
preoccupied than usual. "I saw them from one of my other members, out in the
valley. We're pulling in all our soldiers. We must make a stand, or none of
us will be alive to be rescued. For now, this is the best place for you to
be."
"How do you know?" said Jefri. "Can you talk to Steel right now?"
"Yes, one of me is still up there with him."
"Well, tell him we have to help. We can talk better Samnorsk even than
you."
"I'll tell him right now," was the Cloak's quick reply.
There were no more window slots cut in the walls. The only light came
from wick torches set every ten meters along the tunnel. The air was cool
and musty; wetness glistened on unquilted stone. The tiny doors were not of
polished wood. Instead there were bars, and darkness beyond. Where are we
going? Jefri was suddenly reminded of the dungeons in stories, the treachery
that befell the Greater Two and the Countess of the Lake. Amdi didn't seem
to feel it. For all his mischievous nature, Puppies was basically trusting;
he had always depended on Mr. Steel. But Jefri's parents had never acted
quite like this, even during the escape from High Lab. Mr. Steel suddenly
seemed so different, as if he couldn't be bothered pretending to be nice
anymore. And Jefri had never really trusted the sullen Tyrathect; now that
one was acting downright sneaky.
There had been no new threat on the hillside.
Fear and stubbornness and suspicion all came together: Jefri spun
around, confronting the Cloak. "We're not going any farther. This isn't
where we're supposed to go. We want to talk to Ravna and Mr. Steel." A
sudden, liberating realization: "And you're not big enough to stop us!"
The singleton backed up abruptly, then sat down. It lowered its head,
shocker of five hours before: Twenty thousand kilometers away hung a vast
narrow crescent, the edge of planetary daylight. The rest was a dark blot
against the stars, except where the auroral ring hung a faint green glow
around the south pole. Jefri Olsndot was on the other side of the world from
them, in the arctic day. They wouldn't have radio communication until they
arrived -- and she hadn't figured out how to recalibrate the ultrawave for
shortrange transmission.
She turned back from the view. Pham still stared upward into the sky
behind her. "... Pham, what good is forty-eight hours? Will we just destroy
the Countermeasure?" What of Jefri and Mr. Steel's folk?
"Maybe. But there are other possibilities. There must be." That last
softly. "I've been chased before. I've been in bigger jams before." His eyes
avoided hers.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
Jefri hadn't seen the sky for more than an hour in the last two days.
He and Amdi were safe enough in the great stone dome that sheltered the
refugee ship, but there was no way to see outside. If it weren't for Amdi, I
couldn't have stood it a minute. In some ways it was worse even than his
first days on Hidden Island. The ones who killed Mom and Dad and Johanna
were just a few kilometers away. They captured some of Mr. Steel's guns and
the last few days the explosions had gone on for hours, a booming that shook
the ground beneath them and sometimes even smashed at the walls of the dome.
Their food was brought in to them, and when they weren't sitting in the
ship's command cabin, the two wandered outside the ship, to the rooms with
the sleeping children. Jefri had kept up with the simple maintenance
procedures he remembered, but looking through the chill transp of the
coldsleep coffins, he was terribly afraid. Some of them weren't breathing
very much. The inside temperature seemed too high. And he and Amdi didn't
know how to help.
Nothing had changed here, but now there was joy. Ravna's long silence
had ended. Amdijefri and Mr. Steel had actually talked to her in voice!
Three more hours and her ship would be here! Even the bombardment had ended,
almost as if Woodcarver realized that her time was near to ending.
Three more hours. Left to himself, Jefri would have spent the time in a
state of wall-climbing anxiety. After all, he was nine years old now, a
grown-up with grown up problems. But then there was Amdi. The pack was much
smarter than Jefri in some ways, but he was such a little kid -- about five
years old, as near as Amdijefri could figure it. Except when he was into
heavy thinking, he could not stay still. After the call from Ravna, Jefri
wanted to sit down for serious worrying, but Amdi began chasing himself
around the pylons. He shouted back and forth in Jefri's voice and Ravna's,
and bumped into the boy accidentally on purpose. Jefri hopped up and glared
at the careening puppies. Just a little kid. And suddenly, happy and so sad
all at once: Is this how Johanna saw me? And so he had responsibilities now
too. Like being patient. As one of Amdi came rushing past his knees, Jefri
swept down to grab the wriggling form. He raised it to shoulder level as the
rest of the pack converged gleefully, pounding on him from all directions.
They fell to the dry moss and wrestled for a few seconds. "Let's
explore, let's explore!"
"We have to be here for Ravna and Mr. Steel."
"Don't worry. We'll remember when."
"Okay." Where was there really to go?
The two walked through the torchlit dimness to the clerestory that
ringed the inner edge of the dome. As far as Jefri could see, they were
alone. That was not unusual. Mr. Steel was very worried that Woodcarver
spies might get into the ship. Even his own soldiers rarely came here.
Amdijefri had investigated the inside wall before. Behind the quilts,
the stone felt cool and damp. There were some holes to the outside -- for
ventilation -- but they were almost ten meters up where the wall was already
curving inwards toward the apex of the dome. The stone was rough cut, not
yet polished. Mr. Steel's workers had been in a frantic hurry to complete
the protection before Woodcarver's army arrived. Nothing was polished, and
the quilts were undecorated.
Ahead and behind him, Amdi was sniffing at the cracks and fresh mortar.
The one in Jefri's arms gave a concerted wiggle. "Ha! Up ahead. I knew that
mortar was coming loose," the pack said. Jefri let all of his friend rush
forward to a nook in the wall. It didn't look any different than before, but
Amdi was scratching with five pairs of paws.
"Even if you can get it loose, what good does it do you?" Jefri had
seen these blocks as they were lowered into place. They were almost fifty
centimeters across, laid in alternating rows. Getting past one would just
bring them to more stone.
"Heh heh, I don't know. I've been saving this up till we had some time
to kill... Yech. This mortar burns my lips." More scratching, and the pack
passed back a fragment as big as Jefri's head. There really was a hole
between the blocks, and it was big enough for Amdi. One of him darted into
the tiny cave.
"Satisfied?" Jefri plunked himself down by the hole and tried to look
in.
"Guess what!" Amdi's shrill came from a member right by his ear.
"There's a tunnel back here, not just another layer of stone!" A member
wriggled past Jefri and disappeared into the dark. Secret tunnels? That was
too much like a Nyjoran fairy tale. "These are big enough for a full-grown
member, Jefri. You could get through these on hands 'n' knees." Two more of
Amdi disappeared into the hole.
The tunnel he had discovered might be large enough for a human child,
but the entrance hole was a tight fit even for the puppies. Jefri had
nothing to do but stare into the darkness. The parts of Amdi that remained
at the entrance talked about what he had found. "-- Goes on for a long, long
way. I've doubled back a couple of times. The top of me is about five meters
up, way over your head. This is kooky. I'm getting all strung out." Amdi
sounded even sillier than his normal playfulness. Two more of him went into
the hole. This was developing into serious adventure -- that Jefri could
have no part of.
"Don't go too far; it might be dangerous."
One of the pair that remained looked up at him. "Don't worry. Don't
worry. The tunnel isn't an accident. It feels like it was cut as grooves in
the stones when they were laid. This is some special escape route Mister
Steel made. I'm all right. I'm all right. Ha ha, hoohooo." One more
disappeared into the hole. After a moment the last remaining one ran in, but
stayed near enough to the entrance so Amdi could still talk to Jefri. The
pack was having a high old time, singing and screeching to itself. Jefri
knew exactly what the other was up to; it was another of the games he could
never play. In this posture, Amdi's thoughts would be the weirdest rippling
things. Darn. Now that he was playing within stone, it must be even neater
than before, since he was totally cut off from all thoughts except from
member to adjacent member.
The stupid singing went on a little longer, and then Amdi spoke in an
almost reasonable tone. "Hei, this tunnel actually splits off in places. The
front of me has come to a fork. One side is heading down.... Wish I had
enough members to go both ways!"
"Well, you don't!"
"Hei ho, I'll take the upper tunnel today." A few seconds of silence.
"There's a little door here! Like a member-size room door. Not locked." Amdi
relayed the sounds of stone scritching against stone. "Ha! I can see light!
Up just a few more meters, it opens onto a window. Hear the wind." He
relayed wind sound and the keening of the sea birds that soared up from
Hidden Island. It sounded wonderful. "Oh oh, this is stretching things, but
I wanna look out.... Jefri, I can see the sun! I'm outdoors, sitting way up
on the side of the dome. I can see all round to the south. Boy, it's smoky
down there."
"What about the hillside?" Jefri asked the nearest member; its
white-splotched pelt was barely visible through the entrance hole. At least
Amdi was staying in touch.
"A little browner than last tenday. I don't see any soldiers out
there." Relayed sound of a cannon firing. "Yipes. We're shooting though....
It hit just on this side of the crest. There's someone out there, just below
my line of sight." Woodcarver, come at last. Jefri shivered, angry that he
couldn't see, frightened of what might be seen. He often had nightmares
about what Woodcarver must truly be, how she had done it to Mom and Dad and
Johanna. Images never fully formed ... yet almost memories. Mister Steel
will get Woodcarver.
"Oh, oh. Old Tyrathect is coming across the castle yard this way."
Thumping sounds came from the hole as Amdi blundered back down. No point in
letting Tyrathect know that there was a tunnel hidden in the wall. He'd
probably just order them to stay away from it. One, two, three, four -- half
of Amdi popped out of the wall. The four wandered around a little dazedly.
Jefri couldn't tell if it was because of their stretched-out experience or
if they were temporarily split from the other half of the pack. "Act
natural. Act natural."
Then the other four arrived, and Amdi began to settle down. He led
Jefri away from the wall at a fast trot. "Let's get the commset. We'll
pretend we've been trying to raise Ravna with it." Amdi knew well that the
starship couldn't be back for another thirty minutes or so. In fact, he had
been the one who verified the math for Mister Steel. Nevertheless, he chased
up the ship's steps and dragged down the radio. The two were already
plugging the antenna into a signal booster when the public doors on the west
side of the dome were unlatched. Silhouetted against the daylight were parts
of a guard pack, and a single member of Tyrathect. The guard retired,
sliding the doors shut, and the Cloak walked slowly across the moss towards
them.
Amdi rushed over and chattered about their attempts to use the radio.
It was a little forced, Jefri thought. The puppies were still confused by
their trip through the walls.
The singleton looked at the powdering of mortar dust on Amdi's pelt.
"You've been climbing in the walls, haven't you?"
"What?" Amdi looked himself over, noticed the dust. Usually he was more
clever. "Yes," he said shamefacedly. He brushed the powder away. "You won't
tell, will you?"
Fat chance he'll help us, thought Jefri. Mr. Tyrathect had learned
Samnorsk even better than Mr. Steel, and besides Steel was the only one who
had much time to talk with them. But even before the radio cloaks, he'd been
a short-tempered, bossy sort. Jefri had had baby-sitters like him. Tyrathect
was nice up to a point, and then would get sarcastic or say something mean.
Lately that had improved, but Jefri still didn't like him much.
But Mr. Tyrathect didn't say anything right away. He sat down slowly,
as if his rump hurt. "... No, I won't tell."
Jefri exchanged a surprised glance with one of Amdi. "What is the
tunnel for?" he asked timidly.
"All castles have hidden tunnels, especially in my ... in the domain of
Mr. Steel. You want ways to escape, ways to spy on your enemies." The
singleton shook its head. "Never mind. Is your radio properly receiving,
Amdijefri?"
Amdi cocked a head at the comm's display. "I think so, but there's
nothing yet to receive. See, Ravna's ship had to decelerate and um, I could
show you the arithmetic...?" But Mr. Tyrathect was obviously not interested
in playing with chalk boards. "... well, depending on their luck with the
ultradrive, we should have radio with them real soon."
But the little window on the comm showed no incoming signal. They
watched it for several minutes. Mr. Tyrathect lowered his muzzle and seemed
to sleep. Every few seconds his body twitched as with a dream. Jefri
wondered what the rest of him was doing.
Then the comm window was glowing green. There was a garble of sound as
it tried to sort signal from background noise. "... over you in five
minutes," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri? Are you listening?"
"Yes! We're here."
"Let me talk to Mr. Steel, please."
Mr. Tyrathect stepped nearer to the comm. "He is not here now, Ravna."
"Who is this?"
Tyrathect's laugh was a giggle; he had never heard any other kind. "I?"
He made the Tinish chord that sounded like "Tyrathect" to Jefri. "Or do you
mean a taken name, like Steel? I don't know the exact word. You may call me
... Mr. Skinner." Tyrathect laughed again. "For now, I can speak for Steel."
"Jefri, are you all right?"
"Yes, yes. Listen to Mr. Skinner." What a strange name.
The sounds from the comm became muffled. There was a male voice,
arguing. Then Ravna was back, her voice kind of tight, like Mom when she was
mad. "Jefri ... what's the volume of a ball ten centimeters across?"
Amdi had been fidgeting impatiently through the conversation. All
through the last year he had been hearing stories of humans from Jefri, and
dreaming what Ravna might really be like. Now he had a chance to show off.
He jumped for the comm, and grinned at Jefri. "That's easy, Ravna." His
voice was perfect Jefri -- and completely fluent. "It's 523.598 cubic
centimeters ... or do you want more digits?"
Muffled conversation. "...No, that's fine. Okay, Mr. Skinner. We have
pictures from our earlier pass and a general radio fix. Where exactly are
you?"
"Under the castle dome at top of Starship Hill. It's right at the coast
by a -- "
A man's voice cut in. Pham? He had a funny accent. "I got it on the
map. We still can't see you direct. Too much haze."
"That's smoke," said the Cloak. "The enemy is almost upon us from the
south. We need your help immediately -- " The singleton lowered its head
from the commset. Its eyes closed and opened a couple of times. Thinking?
"Hmm, yes. Without your help, we and Jefri and this ship are lost. Please
land within the castle courtyard. You know we've specially reinforced it for
your arrival. Once down we can use your weapons to -- "
"No way," the guy replied immediately. "Just separate the friendlies
from the bad guys and let us take care of things."
Tyrathect's voice took on a wheedling tone, like a little kid
complaining. He really has been studying us. "No, no, didn't mean to be
impolite. Certainly, do it your own way. About the enemy force: everyone
close to the castle on the south side of the hill are enemy. A single pass
with your ship's ... um, torch ... would send them running."
"I can't fly that torch inside an atmosphere. Did your Pop really land
with the main jet, Jefri? No agrav?"
"Yes, sir. All we had was the jet."
"He was a lucky genius."
Ravna: "Maybe we could just float across, a few thousand meters up.
That might scare them away."
Tyrathect began, "Yes, that might -- "
The public doors on the north side of the dome slid open. Mr. Steel
stood silhouetted against the daylight beyond. "Let me talk to them," he
said.
The goal of all their voyaging lay just twenty kilometers below OOB.
They were so close, yet those twenty thousand meters might be as hard to
bridge as the twenty thousand light-years they had come so far.
They floated on agrav directly over "Starship Hill". OOB's
multispectral wasn't working very well, but where smoke did not obscure, the
ship's optics could count the needles on the trees below. Ravna could see
the forces of "Woodcarver" ranged across the slopes south of the castle.
There were other troops, and apparently cannon, hidden in the forests that
lined the fjord south of that. Given a little more time they would be able
to locate them too. Time was the one thing they did not have.
Time and trust.
"Forty-eight hours, Pham. Then the fleet will be here, all around us."
Maybe, maybe godshatter could work a miracle; they'd never know stewing
about it up here. Try: "You've got to trust somebody, Pham."
Pham glared back at her, and for an instant she feared he might go
completely to pieces. "You'd land in the middle of that castle? Medieval
villains are just as smart as any you've seen in the Beyond, Rav. They could
teach the Butterflies a thing or two. An arrow in the head will kill you as
sure as an antimatter bomb."
More fake memories? But Pham was right on this: She thought about the
just-concluded conversation. The second pack -- Steel -- had been a bit too
insistent. He had been good to Jefri, but he was clearly desperate. And she
believed him when he said that a high fly-by wouldn't scare the Woodcarvers
off. They needed to come down near the ground with firepower. Just now,
about all the firepower they had was Pham's beam gun. "Okay, then! Do what
you and Steel talked about. Fly the lander past Woodcarver's lines, laser
blast them."
"God damn it, you know I can't fly that. The landing boat is like
nothing either of us know, and without the automation I -- "
Softly: "Without the automation, you need Blueshell, Pham." There was
horror on Pham's face. She reached out to him. He was silent for a long
moment, not seeming to notice.
"Yeah." His voice was low, strangled. Then: "Blueshell! Get up here."
OOB's lander had more than enough room for the Skroderider and Pham
Nuwen. The craft had been built specifically for Rider use. With higher
automation working, it would have been easy for Pham -- for even a child --
to fly. Now, the craft could not provide stable flight, and the "manual"
controls were something that gave even Blueshell a hard time. Damn
automation. Damn optimization. For most of his adult life Pham had lived in
the Slowness. All those decades, he had managed spacecraft and weapons that
could have reduced the feudal empire below to slag. Yet now, with equipment
that should have been enormously more powerful, he couldn't even fly a damn
landing boat.
Across the crew compartment, Blueshell was at the pilot's position. His
fronds stretched across a web of supports and controls. He had turned off
all display automation; only the main window was alive, a natural view from
the boat's bow camera. OOB floated some hundred meters ahead, drifting up
and out of view as their craft slid backwards and down.
Blueshell's fidgety nervousness -- furtiveness, it seemed to Pham --
had disappeared as he got into piloting the craft. His voder voice became
terse and preoccupied, and the edges of his fronds writhed across the
controls, an exercise that would have been impossible to Pham even if he had
a lifetime of experience with the gear. "Thank you, Sir Pham.... I'll prove
you can trust...." The nose lurched downwards and they were staring almost
straight into the fjord-carven coastline twenty kilometers below. They fell
free for half a minute while the rider's fronds writhed on their supports.
Hot piloting? No: "Sorry, sorry." Acceleration, and Pham sank into his
restraints under a grav load that wobbled between a tenth gee and an
intolerable crush. The landscape rotated and they had a brief glimpse of
OOB, now like a tiny moth above them.
"Is it necessary to kill, Sir Pham? Perhaps simply our appearance over
the battle...."
Nuwen gritted his teeth. "Just get us down." The Steel creature had
been adamant that they fry the entire hillside. Despite all Pham's
suspicions, the pack might be right on that. They were up against a crew of
murderers that had not hesitated to ambush a starship; the Woodcarvers
needed a real demonstration.
Their boat fluttered down the kilometers. Steel's fortifications were
clearly visible even in the natural view: the rough polygon that guarded the
refugee ship, the much larger structure that rambled across an island
several kilometers westward. I wonder if this is how my Father's castle
looked to the Qeng Ho landers? Those walls were high and unsloping. Clearly
the Tines had had no idea of gunpowder till Ravna had clued them to it.
The valley south of the castle was a blot of dark smoke smoothly
streaming toward the sea. Even without data enhancement, he could see hot
spots, fringes of orange edging the black.
"You're at two thousand meters," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri says he can
see you."
"Patch me through to them."
"I will try, Sir Pham." Blueshell fiddled, his lack of attention
spinning the boat through a complete loop. Pham had seen falling leaves with
more control.
A child's piping voice: "A-are you okay? Don't crash!"
And then the Steel pack's hybrid of Ravna and the kid: "South to go!
South to go! Use fire gun. Burn them quick."
Blueshell was entirely too cooperative to this direction. He had them
down in the smoke already. For seconds they were flying blind. A break in
the smoke showed the hillside less than two hundred meters off, coming up
fast. Before Pham could curse at Blueshell, the Rider had turned them around
and floated the boat into clearer air. Then he pitched over so they might
see directly down.
After thirty weeks of talk and planning, Pham had his first glimpse of
the Tines. Even from here, it was obvious they were different from any
sophonts Pham had encountered: Clusters of four or five or six members hung
together so close they seemed a single spiderlike being. And each pack stood
separated from the others by ten or fifteen meters.
A cannon flashed in the murk. The pack crewing it moved like a single,
coordinated hand to rock the barrel back and ram another charge down the
muzzle.
"But if these are the enemy, Sir Pham, where did they get the guns?"
"They stole 'em." But muzzle loaders? He didn't have time to pursue the
thought.
"You're right over them, Pham! I can see you in and out of the smoke.
You're drifting south at fifteen meters per second, losing altitude." It was
the kid, speaking with his usual incredible precision.
"Kill them! Kill them!"
Pham wriggled out of his restraints and crawled back to the hatch where
they had mounted his beam gun. It was about the only thing salvaged from the
workshop fire, but by God this was something he could operate.
"Keep us steady, Blueshell. Bounce me around and I'll fry you as likely
as anything!" He pushed open the hatch, and gagged on spicy smoke. Then
Blueshell's agravs wafted them into a clear space and Pham lined the beamer
down the ranks of packfolk.
Originally Woodcarver had demanded Johanna stay at the base camp.
Johanna's response had been explosive. Even now the girl was a little
surprised at herself. Not since the first days on Tines world had she come
so close to attacking a pack. No way was anyone going to keep her from
finding out about Jefri. In the end they had compromised: Johanna would
accept Pilgrim as her guard. She could follow the army into the field, as
long as she obeyed his direction.
Johanna looked up through the drifting smoke. Damn. Pilgrim was always
such a carefree joker. By his own telling, he had gotten himself killed over
and over again through the years. And now he wouldn't even let her up to
Scrupilo's cannons. The two of them paced across a terrace in the hillside.
The brush fire had swept through here hours before, and the spicy smell of
moss ash was thick around them. And with that smell came the bright memory
of horror, of a year ago, right here....
Trusted guard packs paced their course twenty meters on either side.
This area was supposedly safe from infiltration, and there had been no
artillery fire from the Flenserists for hours. But Peregrine absolutely
refused to let her get any closer.
It's nothing like last year. Then all had been sunny blue skies and
clean air -- and her parents' murder. Now she and Pilgrim had returned, and
the blue sky was yellow-gray and the sweeps of mossy hillside were black.
And now the packs around her were fighting with her. And now there was a
chance....
"Lemme closer, damn it! Woodcarver will have the Oliphaunt no matter
what happens to me."
Peregrine shook himself, a Tinish negative. One of his puppies reached
out from a jacket pouch to catch at her sleeve. "A little longer," Pilgrim
said for the tenth time. "Wait for Woodcarver's messenger. Then we can -- "
"I want to be up there! I'm the only one who knows the ship!" Jefri,
Jefri. If only Vendacious was right about you....
She was twisting about to slap at Scarbutt when it happened: A glare of
heat on her back, and the smoke flashed bright. Again. Again. And then the
impact of rapid thunder.
Pilgrim shuddered against her. "That's not gunfire!" he shouted. "Two
of me are almost blinded. C'mon." He surrounded her, almost knocking her off
her feet as he pushed/dragged her down the hill.
For a second Johanna went along, more dazed than cooperative. Somehow
they had lost their escort.
From up the hill the shouts of battle had stopped. The sharp thunder
had silenced all. Where the smoke thinned she could see one of Scrupilo's
cannons, the barrel extending from a puddle of melted steel. The cannoneer
had been blown to bits. Not gunfire. Johanna spasmed out of Pilgrim's grip.
Not gunfire.
"Spacers! Pilgrim, that must be a drive torch."
Peregrine grabbed her, continuing down the hill. "Not a drive torch!
That I've heard. This is quieter -- and somebody's aiming it."
There had been a long stutter of separate blasts. How many of
Woodcarver's people had just died? "They must think we're attacking the
ship, Pilgrim. If we don't do something, they'll wipe out everyone."
His jaws eased their grip on her sleeves and pants. "What can we do?
Hanging around here will just get us killed."
Johanna stared into the sky. No sign of fliers, but there was so much
smoke. The sun was a dull bloody ball. If only the rescuers knew they were
killing her friends. If only they could see. She dug her feet into the
ground. "Let go of me, Pilgrim! I'm going uphill, out of the smoke."
He'd stopped moving but his grip was fiercely tight. Four adult faces
and two puppy ones looked up at her, and indecision was in every look.
"Please, Pilgrim. It's the only way." Packs were straggling down, some
bleeding, some in fragments.
His frightened eyes stared at her an instant longer. Then he let go and
touched her hand with a nose. "I guess this hill will always be the death of
me. First Scriber, now you -- you're all crazy." The old Pilgrim smile
flickered across his members. "Okay. Let's try it!" The two without puppies
went up the hillside, scouting for the safest route.
Johanna and the rest of him followed. They were moving across a sloping
terrace. The summer drought had drained the chill swamp water she remembered
from the landing, and the blackened moss was firm under her. The going
should have been easy, but Peregrine wound through the deepest hummocks,
hunkering down every few seconds to look in all directions. They reached the
end of the terrace and began climbing. There were places so steep she had to
grab the epaulet stirrups on two of Peregrine and let him hoist her up. They
passed the nearest cannon, what was left of it. Johanna had never seen
weapons fired except in stories, but the splash of metal and the carbonized
flesh could only mean some kind of beam weapon. Running across the hill were
similar craters, destruction punched into the already burned land.
Johanna leaned against a smooth rounding of rock. "Just pull over this
one and we're on the next terrace," Pilgrim's voice came in her ear. "Hurry,
I hear shouting." He leaned two of himself down, tilting his epaulets toward
her hands. She grabbed them, and jumped. For a moment she and the pack
teetered over a four- meter fall, and then she was lying on brownish,
unburned moss. Pilgrim clustered around her, hiding her. She peeked out
between his legs. The outermost walls of Steel's castle were visible from
here. Tinish archers stood boldly on the ramparts, taking advantage of the
chaos among Woodcarver's troops. In fact, the Queen's force had not lost
many packs in the air attack, but even the unwounded were milling around.
The Queen's soldiers were no cowards -- Johanna knew that by now -- but they
had just been confronted by force beyond all defense.
Overhead the smoke faded into blue. The battlefield ahead of her lay
under clear sky. In the years before the High Lab, Johanna and her mother
had often gone on nature trips over Bigby Marsh at Straum. With the sensors
on their camper packs they'd had no trouble watching the skyggwings there:
even if this flier's automation was not specifically looking for a human on
the ground, it should notice her. "Do you see anything?"
The four adult heads angled back and forth in coordinated pairs. "No.
The flier must be very far away or behind the smoke."
Nuts. Johanna came off her knees, trotted toward the castle walls. They
must be watching there!
"Woodcarver's not going to like this."
Two of the Queen's soldiers were already running toward them, attracted
by their purposeful movement or the sight of Johanna. Pilgrim waved them
back.
Alone on an open field less than two hundred meters from the castle
wall. Even with normal vision, how could they be overlooked? In fact, they
were noticed: There was a soft hissing, and a meter-long arrow thunked into
the turf on their left. Scarbutt grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to a
crouch. The puppies shifted his shields into position: Pilgrim made a
barricade of himself on the castle side and started back out of range. Back
into the smoke.
"No! Run parallel! I want to be seen."
"Okay, okay." Soft sounds of death whispered down. Johanna kept one
hand on his shoulder as they ran across the field. She felt Scarbutt falter.
The arrow had caught him in the thick of his shoulder, centimeters from a
tympanum. "I'm okay! Stay down, stay down."
The front line of Woodcarver's force was rallying toward them now, a
dozen packs racing across the terrace. Pilgrim bounced up and down, shouting
with a voice that punched like physical force. Something about staying back,
and danger from the sky. It didn't stop their advance. "They want you away
from the arrows."
And suddenly they noticed that the fire from the castle had stopped.
Pilgrim scanned the sky, "It's back! Coming from the east, maybe a kilometer
out."
She looked in the direction he was pointing. It was a lumpy thing,
probably space-based though it had no ultradrive spines. It bobbled and
staggered. There was no sign of jets. Some kind of agrav? Nonhumans? The
thoughts skittered through her mind, alongside the joy.
Pale light flickered from a mast on its belly and dirt geysered around
the troops who were racing to protect her. Again the stuttering thunder,
only now the light was marching right across her friends toward her.
Amdijefri was on the battlements. Steel hid his glares from the two.
There simply was no help for it; Ravna had demanded Jefri be by the radio to
guide the strike. The human was not completely stupid. It shouldn't make any
difference. An army looks like an army whether it is foe or friend. Very
soon the army beyond these walls would cease to exist.
"How did the first run go?" Ravna's voice came clearly from the
commset. But it wasn't Jefri who answered: all eight of Amdiranifani was
poking around the battlements, some of him sitting on the crenellations
practicing stereo vision, others eyeing Steel and the radio. Telling him to
stay back had no effect. Now Amdi answered the question with Jefri's voice.
"Okay. I counted fifteen pulses. Only ten hit anything. I bet I could shoot
better than that."
"Damn it, that's the best I can do with this [unknown words]." The
voice was not Ravna's. Steel heard the irritation in it. Everybody can find
something to hate in these pups. The thought warmed him.
"Please," said Steel. "Fire again. Again." He looked over the
stonework. The air attack had taken out a band of enemy by the edge of the
near terrace. It was spectacular destruction, like enormous cannon blows, or
the separate landing of twenty starships. And all from a little craft that
fluttered like a falling leaf. The enemy front line was dissolving in panic.
Up and down the ramparts, his own troops danced about their stations. Things
had been bleak since their cannon were knocked out; they needed something to
cheer about. "The archers, Shreck! Shoot upon the survivors." Then,
continuing in Samnorsk: "The front ranks are still coming. They are -- they
are -- " Damn, what's the word for "confident"? "They will kill us without
more help."
The human child looked at Steel in puzzlement. If he called that a lie,
then.... A moment later Ravna said. "I don't know. They're well back from
your walls, at least all that I can see. I don't want to butcher...." Rapid
fire conversation with the human in the flier, perhaps not even in Samnorsk.
The gunner did not sound pleased. "Pham will pull back a few kilometers,"
she said. "We can come back instantly if your enemy advances."
"Ssssst!" Shreck's Hightalk hiss was like a physical jab. Steel
wheeled, glaring. How dare -- But his lieutenant was wide-eyed, pointing
toward the center of the battlefield. Of course Steel had had a pair of eyes
on that direction, but he hadn't been paying attention: The other Two-Legs!
The mantis figure dropped behind an accompanying pack, mercifully
before Amdijefri noticed. Thank the Pack of Packs that puppies are
near-sighted. Steel swept forward, surrounding some of Amdi, shouting at the
others to get off the parapet. Both of Tyrathect ran in close, physically
grabbing for the disobedient wretches. "Get below!" Steel screamed in
Tinish. For a second all was confusion, as his own mind sounds mixed with
the puppies'. Amdi tumbled away from him, thoroughly distracted by the noise
and the rough handling. And then in Samnorsk Steel said, "There are more
cannons out there. Get below before you're hurt!"
Jefri started for the parapet. "But I don't see -- " And fortunately
there was nothing special to see. Now. The other Two-Legs was still crouched
behind one of Woodcarver's packs. Shreck took the human child in paw and
jaw. He and one of Tyrathect hustled the protesting children down the
stairs. As they departed, Tyrathect was already embellishing on Steel's
story, reporting on the troops it could see from below the crest of the
hill.
"Blow up the lesser powder dump," Steel hissed at the departing Shreck.
That dump was near empty, but its destruction might persuade the spacers
where words could not.
After they were gone, Steel stood for an instant, silent and shivering.
He had never seen disaster so narrowly avoided. Along the ramparts, his
archers were showering arrows upon the enemy pack and the Two-Legs. Damn.
They were almost out of range.
In the castle yard, Shreck detonated the lesser dump. The explosion was
a satisfying one, much louder than an artillery hit. One of the inner towers
was blown apart. Flying rock showered the yard, the smallest pieces reaching
all the way to where Steel stood on the ramparts.
Ravna's voice was shouting in swift Samnorsk, too fast for Steel to
understand. Now all the planning, all the hopes, all balanced on a knife
edge. He must bet everything: Steel leaned a shoulder close to the comm and
said, "Sorry. Things go fast here. Many more Woodcarver come up under smoke.
Can you kill all on hillside?" Could the mantises see through smoke? That
was part of the gamble.
The gunner's voice came back, "I can try. Watch this."
A third voice, thready and narrow even by human standards: "It will be
fifty seconds more, Sir Steel. We're having trouble turning."
Good. Concentrate on your flying and your killing. Don't look at your
victims too carefully. The archers had driven the human back, part way under
the cover of smoke. Other packs were rushing out to protect her. By the time
the Visitors circled back, there would be lots of targets, the human lost
among them.
Two of him caught sight of the spacer floating down through the haze.
The Visitors would have no clear view of what they were shooting at. Pale
light flickered from beneath the craft. A scythe swept across the hillside
toward Woodcarver's troops.
Pham was bounced around his perch as Blueshell turned the boat back to
the target. They weren't moving fast; the airstream couldn't have been more
than thirty meters per second. But every second was full of the damnedest
jerks and tumbles. At one point Pham's grip on the gun mount was all that
kept him indoors. Forty some hours from now the deadliest thing in the
universe is going to arrive, and I'm taking potshots at dogs.
How to take out the hillside? Steel's whiny voice still echoed in his
ears. And Ravna wasn't sure what OOB was seeing beneath all the smoke. We
might do better without automation than with this bastard mix. At least his
beamer had a manual control. Pham embraced the barrel with one arm while he
reached with the other. At wide dispersion the beam was useless against
armor, but could burst eyes and set skin and hair afire -- and the beam
width would be dozens of meters across at ground level.
"Fifteen seconds, Sir Pham," Blueshell's voice came in his ear.
They were low this time. Gaps in the smoke flickered past like
stop-action art. Most of the ground was burned-over black, but there were
precipices of naked rock and even sooty patches of snow trapped in crannies
and shadowed pits.... Here and there was a pile of doggy bodies, an
occasional gun tube.
"There's a crowd of them ahead, Sir Pham. Running near the castle."
Pham leaned down and looked forward. The mob was about four hundred
meters ahead. They were running parallel to the castle walls, through a
field that was a spinehide of arrowshafts. He pressed the firing stud, swept
the beam out from below the boat. There was plenty of water under that dried
cover; it exploded in steam as the beam passed over it.... But further out,
the wide dispersion wasn't doing much. It would be another few seconds
before he'd have a good shot at the hapless packs.
Time for the little suspicions. So how come the enemy had
muzzle-loading cannon? Those they must have made themselves -- in a world
with no evidence of firearms. Steel was the classic medieval manipulator;
Pham had spotted the type from a thousand light-years out. They were doing
the critter's dirty work, that was obvious. Shut up. Deal with Steel later.
Slanting in on the packs, Pham fired again, sweeping through living
flesh this time. He fired ahead of them and on the castle side; maybe they
wouldn't all die. He stuck his head further into the slipstream, trying for
a better view. Ahead of the packs was a hundred meters of open field, a
single pack of four and -- a human figure, black-haired and slim, jumping
and waving.
Pham smashed the barrel up against the hull, safing it at the same
time. The back flash was a surge of heat that crisped his eyebrows.
"Blueshell! Get us down! Get us down!"
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
"A bad understanding. She was lied to."
Ravna tried to read something behind the voice. Steel's Samnorsk was as
creaky as ever, the tones childish and whiny. He sounded no different than
before. But his story was stretched very thin by what had just happened. He
was either a galaxy master of impudence -- or his story was actually true.
"The human must have been hurt, then lied to by Woodcarver. This
explains a lot, Ravna. Without her, Woodcarver could not attack. Without
her, all may be safe."
Pham's voice came to Ravna on a private channel. "The girl was
unconscious during part of the ambush, Rav. But she practically scratched my
eyes out when I suggested she might be wrong about Steel and Woodcarver. And
the pack with her is a lot more convincing than Steel."
Ravna looked questioningly across the deck at Greenstalk. Pham didn't
know she was here. Tough. Greenstalk was an island of sanity amidst the
madness -- and she knew the OOB infinitely better than Ravna.
Steel spoke into her hesitation: "See now, nothing has changed, except
for the better. One more human lives. How can you doubt us? Speak to Jefri;
he understands. We have done the best for the children in ..." a gobbling
noise, and (another?) voice said, "coldsleep."
"Certainly, we must speak to him again, Steel. He's our best proof of
your good intentions."
"Okay. In a few minutes, Ravna. But see, he is also my good protection
against treachery from you. I know how powerful you Visitors are. I ... fear
you. We need to -- " gobbling consultation "-- accommodate each other in our
fears."
"Um. We'll work something out. Just let us speak to Jefri now."
"Yes."
Ravna switched channels. "What do you think, Pham?"
"There's no question in my mind. This Johanna is not a naive kid like
Jefri. We've always known Steel was a tough critter. We just had some other
facts wrong. The landing site is in the middle of his territory. He's the
killer." Pham's voice became quieter, almost a whisper. "Hell of it is, this
may not change anything. Steel does have the ship. I've got to get in
there."
"It will be another ambush."
"... I know. But does it matter? If we can get me time with the
Countermeasure, it could be -- it will be -- worth it." What matter a
suicide mission within a suicide mission?
"I'm not sure, Pham. If we give him everything, he'll kill us before we
ever get near the ship."
"He'll try. Look, just keep him talking. Maybe we can get a directional
on his radio, blow the bastard away." He did not sound optimistic.
Tyrathect didn't take them back to the ship, or to their rooms. They
descended stairs within the outer walls, part of Amdi first, then Jefri with
the rest of Amdi, then the singleton from Tyrathect.
Amdi was still complaining. "I don't understand, I don't understand. We
can help."
Jefri: "I didn't see any enemy cannons."
The singleton was full of explanations, though it sounded even more
preoccupied than usual. "I saw them from one of my other members, out in the
valley. We're pulling in all our soldiers. We must make a stand, or none of
us will be alive to be rescued. For now, this is the best place for you to
be."
"How do you know?" said Jefri. "Can you talk to Steel right now?"
"Yes, one of me is still up there with him."
"Well, tell him we have to help. We can talk better Samnorsk even than
you."
"I'll tell him right now," was the Cloak's quick reply.
There were no more window slots cut in the walls. The only light came
from wick torches set every ten meters along the tunnel. The air was cool
and musty; wetness glistened on unquilted stone. The tiny doors were not of
polished wood. Instead there were bars, and darkness beyond. Where are we
going? Jefri was suddenly reminded of the dungeons in stories, the treachery
that befell the Greater Two and the Countess of the Lake. Amdi didn't seem
to feel it. For all his mischievous nature, Puppies was basically trusting;
he had always depended on Mr. Steel. But Jefri's parents had never acted
quite like this, even during the escape from High Lab. Mr. Steel suddenly
seemed so different, as if he couldn't be bothered pretending to be nice
anymore. And Jefri had never really trusted the sullen Tyrathect; now that
one was acting downright sneaky.
There had been no new threat on the hillside.
Fear and stubbornness and suspicion all came together: Jefri spun
around, confronting the Cloak. "We're not going any farther. This isn't
where we're supposed to go. We want to talk to Ravna and Mr. Steel." A
sudden, liberating realization: "And you're not big enough to stop us!"
The singleton backed up abruptly, then sat down. It lowered its head,