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fact, there were lots of hiding places in this "dungeon." For a moment, he
held his breath and listened. All was silent ... almost: at the top of his
hearing, up where some machines wheep, and Mom and Dad and even Johanna
couldn't hear -- there was something.
"I -- I know you're here," Jefri said sharply, his voice squeaking. He
stepped sideways a few paces, trying to see around the furniture without
approaching it. The sound continued, obvious now that he was listening to
it.
A small head with great dark eyes looked around a cabinet. It was much
smaller than the creatures that had brought Jefri here, but the shape of the
muzzle was the same. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Jefri
edged slowly toward it. A puppy? The head withdrew, then came further out.
From the corner of his eye, Jefri saw something move -- another of the black
forms was peering at him from under the table. Jefri froze for a second,
fighting panic. But there was no place to run, and maybe the creatures would
help find Mom. Jefri dropped to one knee and slowly extended his hand. "Here
... here, doggy."
The puppy crawled from beneath the table, its eyes never leaving
Jefri's hand. The fascination was mutual; the puppy was beautiful.
Considering all the thousands of years that dogs have been bred by humans
(and others), this could have been some oddball breed ... but only just. The
hair was short and dense, a deep velour of black and white. The two tones
lay in broad swaths with no intermediate grays. This one's entire head was
black, its haunches split between white and black. The tail was a short,
unimpressive flap covering its rear. There were hairless patches on its
shoulders and head, where Jefri could see black skin. But the strangest
thing was the long, supple neck. It would look more natural in a sea'mal
than a dog.
Jefri wiggled his fingers, and the puppy's eyes widened, revealing an
edge of white around the iris.
Something bumped his elbow, and Jefri almost jumped to this feet. So
many! Two more had crept up to look at his hand. And where he had seen the
first one there were now three, sitting alertly, watching. Seen in the open,
there was nothing unfriendly or scary about them.
One of the puppies put a paw on Jefri's wrist and pressed gently
downward. At the same time, another extended its muzzle and licked Jefri's
fingers. The tongue was pink and raspy, a round narrow thing. The
high-pitched wheeping got stronger; all three moved in, grabbing at his hand
with their mouths.
"Be careful!" Jefri said, jerking back his hand. He remembered the
grownups' teeth. Suddenly the air was full of gobbling and buzzing. Hmp.
They sounded more like goofy birds than dogs. One of the other pups came
forward. It extended a sleek nose toward Jefri. "Be careful!" it said, a
perfect playback of the boy's voice ... yet its mouth was closed. It angled
its neck back ... to be petted? He reached out; the fur was so soft! The
buzzing was very loud now. Jefri could feel it through the fur. But it
wasn't just the one animal who was making it; the sound came from all
directions. The puppy reversed direction, sliding its muzzle across the
boy's hand. This time he let the mouth close on his fingers. He could see
teeth all right, but the puppy carefully kept them from touching Jefri's
skin. The tip of its snout felt like a pair of small fingers closing and
opening around his.
Three slipped under his other arm, like they wanted to be petted too.
He felt noses poking at his back, trying to pull his shirt out of his pants.
The effort was remarkably coordinated, almost as if a two-handed human had
grabbed his shirt. Just how many are there? For a moment he forgot where he
was, forgot to be cautious. He rolled over and began petting the marauders.
A surprised squeaking sound came from all directions. Two crawled beneath
his elbows; at least three jumped on his back and lay with their noses
touching his neck and ears.
And Jefri had what seemed a great insight: The adult aliens had
recognized he was a child; they just didn't know how old. They had put him
in one of their own kinderschools! Mom and Dad were probably talking to them
right now. Things were going to turn out all right after all.
Lord Steel had not taken his name casually: steel, the most modern of
metals; steel, that takes the sharpest edge and never loses it; steel, that
can glow red hot, and yet not fail; steel, the blade that cuts for the
flenser. Steel was a crafted person, Flenser's greatest success.
In some sense, the crafting of souls was nothing new. Brood kenning was
a limited form of it, though mainly concerned with gross physical
characteristics. Even kenners agreed that a pack's mental abilities derived
from its various members in different measures. One pair or triple was
almost always responsible for eloquence, another for spatial intuition. The
virtues and vices were even more complex. No single member was the principal
source of courage, or of conscience.
Flenser's contribution to the field -- as to most others -- had been an
essential ruthlessness, a cutting away of all but the truly important. He
experimented endlessly, discarding all but the most successful results. He
depended on discipline and denial and partial death as much as on clever
member selection. He already had seventy years of experience when he created
Steel.
Before he could take his name, Steel spent years in denial, determining
just what parts of him combined to produce the being desired. That would
have been impossible without Flenser's enforcement. (Example: if you
dismissed a part of yourself essential for tenacity, where could you get the
will to continue the flensing?) For the soul in creation, the process was
mental chaos, a patchwork of horror and amnesia. In two years he had
experienced more change than most people do in two centuries -- and all of
it directed. The turning point came when he and Flenser identified the trio
that weighed him down with both conscience and slowness of intellect. One of
the three bridged the others. Sending it into silence, replacing it with
just the right element, had made the difference. After that, the rest was
easy; Steel was born.
When Flenser had left to convert the Long Lakes Republic, it was only
natural that his most brilliant creation should take over here. For five
years Steel had ruled Flenser's heartland. In that time he had not only
conserved what Flenser built, he extended it beyond the cautious beginnings.
But today, in a single circling of the sun about Hidden Island, he
could lose everything.
Steel stepped into the meeting hall and looked around. Refreshments
were properly set. Sunlight streamed from a ceiling slit onto just the place
he wanted. Part of Shreck, his aide, stood on the far side of the room. He
said to it, "I will speak with the visitor alone." He did not use the name
"Flenser". The whitejackets groveled back and its unseen members pushed open
the far doors.
A fivesome -- three males and two females -- walked through the
doorway, into the splash of sunlight. The individual was unremarkable. But
then Flenser had never had an imposing appearance.
Two heads raised to shade the eyes of the others. The pack looked
across the room, spotting Lord Steel twenty yards away. "Ah-h ... Steel."
The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Steel had bowed when the other entered, a formal gesture. The voice
caused a sudden cramp in his guts, and he involuntarily brought bellies to
the ground. That was his voice! There was at least a fragment of the
original Flenser in this pack. The gold and silver epaulets, the personal
banner, those could be faked by anyone with suicidal bravado.... But Steel
remembered the manner. He wasn't surprised the other's presence had
destroyed discipline on the mainland this morning.
The pack's heads, where they were in sunlight, were expressionless. Was
a smile playing about the heads in shadow? "Where are the others, Steel?
What happened today is the greatest opportunity of our history."
Steel got off his bellies and stood at the railing. "Sir. There are
some questions first, just between the two of us. Clearly, you are much of
Flenser, but how much -- "
The other was clearly grinning now, the shadowed heads bobbing. "Yes, I
knew my best creation would see that question.... This morning, I claimed to
be the true Flenser, improved with one or two replacements. The truth is ...
harder. You know about the Republic." That had been Flenser's greatest
gamble: to flense an entire nation-state. Millions would die, yet even so
there would be more molding than killing. In the end, there would exist the
first collective outside of the tropics. And the Flenser state would not be
a mindless agglomeration grubbing about in some jungle. The top would be as
brilliant, as ruthless as any packs in history. No people in the world could
stand against such a force.
"It was an awesome risk to take, for an even more awesome goal. But I
took precautions. We had thousands of converts, many of them people with no
understanding of our true ambition, but faithful and self-sacrificing -- as
they should be. I always kept a special group of them nearby. The Political
Police were clever to use mob assassination against me, the last thing I had
expected -- I who made the mobs. No matter, my bodyguards were well trained.
When we were trapped in Parliament Bowl, they killed one or two members of
each of those special packs ... and I simply ceased to exist, dispersed
among three panicky, ordinary people trying to escape the blood swamp."
"But everyone around you was killed; the mob left no one."
The Flenser-thing shrugged. "That was partly Republican propaganda, and
partly my own work: I ordered my guards to hack each other down, along with
everyone who was not me."
Steel almost voiced his awe. The plan was typical of Flenser's
brilliance, and his strength of soul. In assassinations, there was always
the chance that fragments would get away. There were famous stories of
heroes reassembled. In real life such events were rare, usually happening
when the victim's forces could sustain their leader through reintegration.
But Flenser had planned this tactic from the beginning, had envisaged
reassembling himself more than a thousand miles from the Long Lakes.
Still ... Lord Steel looked at the other in calculation. Ignore voice
and manner. Think for power, not for the desires of others, even Flenser.
Steel recognized only two in the other pack. The females and the male with
the white-tipped ears were probably from the sacrificed follower. Very
likely only two of Flenser really faced him. Scarcely a threat ... except in
the very real sense of appearances. "And the other four of you, Sir? When
may we expect your entire presence?"
The Flenser-thing chuckled. Damaged as it was, it still understood
balance-of-power. This was almost like the old days: when two people have a
clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes
almost impossible. There is only the ordered flow of events, bringing good
to those who deserve to rule. "The others have equally good ... mounts. I
made detailed plans, three different paths, three different sets of agents.
I arrived on schedule. I have no doubt the others will too, in a few tendays
at most. Until then," he turned all heads toward Steel, "until then, dear
Steel, I do not claim the full role of Flenser. I did so earlier to
establish priorities, to protect this fragment till I am assembled. But this
pack is deliberately weak-minded; I know it wouldn't survive as the ruler of
my earlier creations."
Steel wondered. Half-brained, the creature's schemes were perfect.
Nearly perfect. "So you wish a background role for the next few tendays?
Very well. But you announced yourself as Flenser. How shall I present you?"
The other didn't hesitate. "Tyrathect, Flenser in Waiting."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Crypto: 0
As received by: Transceiver Relay03 at Relay
Language path: Samnorsk->Triskweline, SjK:Relay units
From: Straumli Main
Subject: Archive opened in the Low Transcend!
Summary: Our links to the Known Net will be down temporarily
Key phrases: transcend, good news, business opportunities, new archive,
communications problems
Distribution:
Where Are They Now Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group, Motley Hatch Administration Group, Transceiver Relay03 at Relay, Transceiver Windsong at Debley Down, Transceiver Not-for-Long at Shortstop
Date: 11:45:20 Docks Time, 01/09 of Org year 52089
Text of message:
We are proud to announce that a human exploration company from Straumli
Realm has discovered an accessible archive in the Low Transcend. This is not
an announcement of Transcendence or the creation of a new Power. We have in
fact postponed this announcement until we were sure of our property rights
and the safety of the archive. We have installed interfaces which should
make the archive interoperable with standard syntax queries from the Net. In
a few days this access will be made commercially available. (See discussion
of scheduling problems below.)
Because of its safety, intelligibility, and age, this Archive is
remarkable. We believe there is otherwise lost information here about
arbitration management and interrace coordination. We'll send details to the
appropriate news groups. We're very excited about this. Note that no
interaction with the Powers was necessary; no part of Straumli Realm has
transcended.
Now for the bad news: Arbitration and translation schemes have had
unfortunate clenirations[?] with the ridgeway armiphlage[?]. The details
should be amusing to the people in the Communication Threats news group, and
we will report them there later. But for at least the next hundred hours,
all our links (main and minor) to the Known Net will be down. Incoming
messages may be buffered, but no guarantees. No messages can be forwarded.
We regret this inconvenience, and will make up for it very soon!
Physical commerce is in no way affected by these problems. Straumli
Realm continues to welcome tourists and trade.
-=*=-
Looking back, Ravna Bergsndot saw it was inevitable that she become a
librarian. As a child on Sjandra Kei, she had been in love with stories from
the Age of Princesses. There was adventure, a time when a few brave Ladies
had dragged humankind to greatness. She and her sister had spent countless
afternoons pretending to be the Greater Two and rescuing the Countess of the
Lake. Later they understood that Nyjora and its Princesses were lost in the
dim past. Sister Lynne turned to more practical things. But Ravna still
wanted adventure. Through her teens, she had dreamed of emigrating to
Straumli Realm. That was something very real. Imagine: a new and mostly
human colony, right at the Top of the Beyond. And Straum welcomed folk from
the mother world; their enterprise was less than one hundred years old. They
or their children would be the first humans anywhere in the galaxy to
transcend their own humanity. She might end up a god, and richer than a
million Beyonder worlds. It was a dream real enough to provoke constant
arguments with her parents. For where there is heaven, there can also be
hell. Straumli Realm kissed close to the Transcend, and the people there
played with "the tigers that pace beyond the bars." Dad had actually used
that tired image. The disagreement drove them apart for several years. Then,
in her Computer Science and Applied Theology courses, Ravna began to read
about some of the old horrors. Maybe, maybe ... she should be a little more
cautious. Better to look around first. And there was a way to see into
everything that humans in the Beyond could possibly understand: Ravna became
a librarian. "The ultimate dilettante!" Lynne had teased. "It's true and so
what?" Ravna had grumped back, but the dream of far traveling was not quite
dead in her.
Life in Herte University at Sjandra Kei should have been perfect for
someone who had finally figured out what they wanted from life. Things might
have gone on happily for a lifetime there -- except that in her graduation
year, there had been the Vrinimi Organization's Faraway 'Prentice contest.
Three years work-study at the archive by Relay was the prize. Winning was
the chance of a lifetime; she would come back with more experience than any
local academician.
So it was that Ravna Bergsndot ended up more than twenty thousand
light-years from home, at the network hub of a million worlds.
Sunset was an hour past when Ravna drifted across Citypark toward
Grondr Vrinimikalir's residence. She'd been on the planet only a handful of
times since arriving in the Relay system. Most of her work was at the
archives themselves -- a thousand light-hours out. This part of Groundside
was in early autumn, though twilight had faded the tree colors to bands of
gray. From Ravna's altitude, one hundred meters up, the air had the nip of
frosts to come. Between her feet she could see picnic fires and gaming
fields. The Vrinimi Organization didn't spend much on the planet, but the
world was beautiful. As long as she kept her eyes on the darkening ground,
Ravna could almost imagine this was someplace in her home terrane on Sjandra
Kei. Look into the sky though ... and you knew you were far from home:
twenty-thousand light-years away, the galactic whirlpool sprawled up toward
the zenith.
It was just a faint thing in the twilight, and it might not get much
brighter this night: Low in the western sky, a cluster of in-system
factories glowed brighter than any moon. The operation was a brilliant
flickering of stars and rays, sometimes so intense that stark shadows were
cast eastwards from the Citypark mountains. In another half hour, the Docks
would rise. The Docks weren't as bright as the factories, but together they
would outshine anything from the far stars.
She shifted in her agrav harness, drifting lower. The scent of autumn
and picnics came stronger. Suddenly, the click of Kalir laughter was all
around her; she had blundered into an airball game. Ravna spread her arms in
mock humiliation and dodged out of the players' way.
Her stroll through the park was just about over; she could see her
destination ahead. Grondr 'Kalir's residence was a rarity in the Citypark
landscape: a recognizable building. It dated from when the Org bought into
the Relay operation. Seen from just eighty meters up, the house was a blocky
silhouette against the sky. When factory lights flashed, the smooth walls of
the monolith glowed in oily tints. Grondr was her boss's boss's boss. She
had talked to him exactly three times in two years.
No more delay. Nervous and very curious, Ravna floated lower and let
the house electronics guide her across the tree decks toward an entrance.
Grondr Vrinimikalir treated her with standard Organization courtesy,
the common denominator that served between the several races of the Org: The
meeting room had furniture suitable for human and Vrinimi use. There were
refreshments, and questions about her job at the archive.
"Mixed results, sir," Ravna replied honestly. "I've learned a great
deal. The 'prenticeship is everything it's claimed to be. But I'm afraid the
new division is going to require an added index layer." All this was in
reports the old fellow could have seen at the flick of a digit.
Grondr rubbed a hand absently across his eye freckles. "Yes, an
expected disappointment. We're at the limits of information management with
this expansion. Egravan and Derche -- " those were Ravna's boss and boss's
boss "-- are quite happy with your progress. You came well educated, and
learned fast. I think there's a place for humans in the Organization."
"Thank you, sir." Ravna blushed. Grondr's assessment was casually
spoken but very important to her. And it would probably mean the arrival of
more humans, perhaps even before her 'prenticeship was up. So was this the
reason for the interview?
She tried not to stare at the other. She was quite used to the Vrinimi
majority race by now. From a distance the Kalir looked humanoid. Up close,
the differences were substantial. The race was descended from something like
an insect. In upsizing, evolution had necessarily moved reinforcing struts
inside the body, till the outside was a combination of grublike skin and
sheets of pale chitin. At first glance Grondr was an unremarkable exemplar
of the race. But when the fellow moved, even to adjust his jacket or scratch
at his eye freckles, there was a strange precision to him. Egravan said that
he was very, very old.
Grondr changed the subject with the clickety abruptness. "You are aware
of the ... changes at Straumli Realm?"
"You mean the fall of Straum? Yes." Though I'm surprised you are.
Straumli Realm was a significant human civilization, but it accounted for
only an infinitesimal fraction of Relay's message traffic.
"Please accept my sympathy." Despite the cheerful announcements from
Straum, it was clear that absolute disaster had befallen Straumli Realm.
Almost every race eventually dabbled in the Transcend, more often than not
becoming a superintelligence, a Power. But it was clear by now that the
Straumers had created, or awakened, a Power of deadly inclination. Their
fate was as terrible as anything Ravna's father had ever predicted. And
their bad luck was now a disaster that stretched across all that had been
Straumli Realm. Grondr continued: "Will this news affect your work?"
Curiouser and curiouser; she would have sworn the other was coming to
the point. Maybe this was the point? "Uh, no sir. The Straumli affair is a
terrible thing, especially for humankind. But my home is Sjandra Kei.
Straumli Realm is our offspring, but I have no relatives there." Though I
might have been there if it hadn't been for Mother and Dad. Actually, when
Straumli Main dropped off the Net, Sjandra Kei had been unreachable for
almost forty hours. That had bothered her very much, since any rerouting
should have been immediate. Communication was eventually established; the
problem had been screwed-up routing tables on an alternate path. Ravna had
even shot half a year's savings for an over-and-back mailing. Lynne and her
parents were fine; the Straumli debacle was the news of the century for
folks at Sjandra Kei, but it was still a disaster at great remove. Ravna
wondered if parents had ever given better advice than hers!
"Good, good." His mouth parts moved in the analog of a human nod. His
head tilted so only peripheral freckles were looking at her; the guy
actually seemed hesitant! Ravna looked back silently. Grondr 'Kalir might be
the strangest exec in the Org. He was the only one whose principal residence
was Groundside. Officially he was in charge of a division of the archives;
in fact, he ran Vrinimi Marketing (i.e., Intelligence). There were stories
that he had visited the Top of the Beyond; Egravan claimed he had an
artificial immune system. "You see, the Straumli disaster has incidentally
made you one of the Organization's most valuable employees."
"I ... don't understand."
"Ravna, the rumors in the Threats newsgroup are true. The Straumers had
a laboratory in the Low Transcend. They were playing with recipes from some
lost archive, and they created a new Power. It appears to be a Class Two
perversion."
The Known Net recorded a Class Two perversion about once a century.
Such Powers had a normal "lifespan" -- about ten years. But they were
explicitly malevolent, and in ten years could do enormous damage. Poor
Straum.
"So you can see there's enormous potential for profit or loss here. If
the disaster spreads, we will lose network customers. On the other hand,
everyone around Straumli Realm wants to track what is happening. This could
increase our message traffic by several percent."
Grondr put it more cold-bloodedly than she liked, but he had a point.
In fact, the opportunity for profit was directly linked with mitigating the
perversion. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in archive work, she'd have
guessed all this. And now that she did think about it: "There are even more
spectacular opportunities. Historically, these perversions have been of
interest to other Powers. They'll want Net feeds and ... information about
the creating race." Her voice guttered into silence as she finally
understood the reason for this meeting.
Grondr's mouth parts clicked agreement. "Indeed. We at Relay are
well-placed to supply news to the Transcend. And we also have our own human.
In the last three days we've received several dozen queries from
civilizations in the High Beyond, some claiming to represent Powers. This
interest could mean a large increase in Organization income through the next
decade.
"All this you could read in the Threats news group. But there is
another item, something I ask you to keep secret for now: Five days ago, a
ship from the Transcend entered our region. It claims to be directly
controlled by a Power." The wall behind him became a window upon the
visitor. The craft was an irregular collection of spines and limps. A scale
bar claimed the thing was only five meters across.
Ravna felt the hair on her neck prickling. Here in the Middle Beyond
they should be relatively safe from the caprice of the Powers. Still ... the
visit was an unnerving thing. "What does it want?"
"Information about the Straumli perversion. In particular, it is very
interested in your race. It would give a great deal to take back a living
human...."
Ravna's response was abrupt. "I'm not interested."
Grondr spread his pale hands. The light glittered from the chitin on
the back of his fingers. "It would be an enormous opportunity. A
'prenticeship with the gods. This one has promised to establish an oracle
here in return."
"No!" Ravna half rose from her chair. She was one human, more than
twenty thousand light-years from home. That had been a frightening thing in
the first days of her 'prenticeship. Since then she had made friends, had
learned more of Organization ethics, had come to trust these folk almost as
much as people at Sjandra Kei. But ... there was only one halfway trustable
oracle on the Net these days, and it was almost ten years old. This Power
was tempting Vrinimi Org with fabulous treasure.
Grondr clicked embarrassment. He waved her back to her chair. "It was
only a suggestion. We do not abuse our employees. If you will simply serve
as our local expert...."
Ravna nodded.
"Good. Frankly, I had not expected you to accept the offer. We have a
much more likely volunteer, but one who needs coaching."
"A human? Here?" Ravna had a standing query in the local directory for
other humans. During the last two years she had seen three, and they had
just been passing through. "How long has she -- he? -- been here?"
Grondr said something halfway between a smile and a laugh. "A bit more
than a century, though we didn't realize it until a few days ago." The
pictures around him shifted. Ravna recognized Relay's "attic," the junkyard
of abandoned ships and freight devices that floated just a thousand
light-seconds from the archives. "We receive a lot of one-way freight, items
shipped in the hope we'll buy or sell on consignment." The view closed on a
decrepit vessel, perhaps two hundred meters long, wasp-waisted to support a
ramscoop drive. Its ultradrive spines were scarcely more than stubs.
"A bottom-lugger?" said Ravna.
Grondr clicked negation. "A dredge. The ship is about thirty thousand
years old. Most of that time was spent in a deep penetration of the Slow
Zone, plus ten thousand years in the Unthinking Depths."
Up close now, she could see the hull was finely pitted, the result of
millennia of relativistic erosion. Even unpiloted, such expeditions were
rare: a deep penetration could not return to the Beyond within the lifetime
of its builders. Some would not return within the lifetime of the builders'
race. People who launched such missions were just a little weird; People who
recovered them could make a solid profit.
"This one came from very far away, even if it's not quite a jackpot
mission. It didn't see anything interesting in the Unthinking Depths -- not
surprising given that even simple automation fails there. We sold most of
the cargo immediately. The rest we cataloged and forgot ... till the
Straumli affair." The starscape vanished. They were looking at a medical
display, random limbs and body parts. They looked very human. "In a solar
system at the bottom of the Slowness, the dredge found a derelict. The wreck
had no ultradrive capability; it was truly a Slow Zone design. The solar
system was uninhabited. We speculate the ship had a structural failure -- or
perhaps the crew was affected by the Depths. Either way, they ended up in a
frozen mangle."
Tragedy at the bottom of the Slowness, thousands of years ago. Ravna
forced her eyes from the carnage. "You figure on selling this to our
visitor?"
"Even better. Once we started poking around, we discovered a
substantial error in the cataloging. One of the deaders is almost intact. We
patched it up with parts from the others. It was expensive, but we ended up
with a living human." The picture flickered again, and Ravna caught her
breath. In the medical animation, the parts floated into an orderly
arrangement. There was a complete body there, torn up a little in the belly.
Pieces came together, and ... this was no "she". He floated whole and naked,
as if in sleep. Ravna had no doubt of his humanity, but all humankind in the
Beyond was descended from Nyjoran stock. This fellow had none of that
heritage. The skin was smoky gray, not brown. The hair was bright reddish
brown, a color she had only seen in pre-Nyjoran histories. The bones of the
face were subtly different from modern humans. The small differences were
more jarring than the outright alienness of her coworkers.
Now the figure was clothed. Under other circumstances, Ravna would have
smiled. Grondr 'Kalir had picked an absurd costume, something from the
Nyjoran era. The figure bore a sword and slug gun.... A sleeping prince from
the Age of Princesses.
"Behold the Ur-human," said Grondr.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
"Relay" is a common place-name. It has meaning in almost any
environment. Like Newtown and Newhome, it occurs over and over when people
move or colonize or participate in a communication net. You could travel a
billion light-years or a billion years and still find such names among folk
of natural intelligence.
But in the current era there was one instance of "Relay" known above
all others. That instance appeared in the routing list of two percent of all
traffic across the Known Net. Twenty thousand light-years off the galactic
plane, Relay had an unobstructed line of sight on thirty percent of the
Beyond, including many star systems right at the bottom, where starships can
make only one light-year per day. A few metal-bearing solar systems were
equally well-placed, and there was competition. But where other
civilizations lost interest, or colonized into the Transcend, or died in
apocalypse, Vrinimi Organization lasted. After fifty thousand years, there
were several races of the original Org in its membership. None of those were
still leaders -- yet the original viewpoint and policies remained. Position
and durability: Relay was now the main intermediate to the Magellanics, and
one of the few sites with any sort of link to the Beyond in Sculptor.
At Sjandra Kei, Relay's reputation had been fabulous. In her two years
of 'prenticeship, Ravna had come to realize that the truth exceeded the
reputation. Relay was in Middle Beyond; the Organization's only export was
the relay function and access to the local archive. Yet they imported the
finest biologicals and processing equipment from the High Beyond. The Relay
Docks were an extravagance that only the absolutely rich could indulge. They
stretched a thousand kilometers: bays, repair holds, transhipment centers,
parks, and playgrounds. Even at Sjandra Kei there were habitats far larger.
But the Docks were in no orbit. They floated a thousand kilometers above
Groundside on the largest agrav frame Ravna had ever seen. At Sjandra Kei
the annual income of an academician might pay for a square meter of agrav
fabric -- junk that might not last a year. Here there were millions of
hectares of the stuff, supporting billions of tonnes. Just replacements for
dead fabric required more High Beyond commerce than most star clusters could
command.
And now I have my own office here. Working directly for Grondr 'Kalir
had its perks. Ravna kicked back in her chair and stared across the central
sea. At the Docks' altitude, gravity was still about three-quarters of a
gee. Air fountains hung a breathable atmosphere over the middle part of the
platform. The day before, she had taken a sailboat across the clear-bottomed
sea. That was a strange experience indeed: planetary clouds below your keel,
stars and indigo sky above.
She had the surf cranked up this morning -- an easy matter of flexing
the agravs of the basin. It made a regular crashing against her beach. Even
thirty meters from the water there was a tang of salt in the air. Rows of
white tops marched off into the distance.
She eyed the figure that was trudging slowly up the beach toward her.
Just a few weeks ago she would never have dreamed this situation. Just a few
weeks ago she had been out at the archive, absorbed in the upgrade work,
happy to be involved with one of the largest databases on the Known Net. Now
... it was almost as if she had come full circle, back to her childhood
dreams of adventure. the only problem was, sometimes she felt like one of
the bad guys: Pham Nuwen was a living person, not something to be sold.
She stood and walked out to meet her red-haired visitor.
He wasn't carrying the sword and handgun of Grondr's fanciful
animation. Yet his clothes were the braided fabric of ancient adventure, and
he carried himself with lazy confidence. Since her meeting with Grondr, she
had looked up some anthropology from Old Earth. The red hair and the
eyefolds had been known there, though rarely in the same individual.
Certainly his smoky skin would have been remarkable to an inhabitant of
Earth. This fellow was, as much as herself, a product of post-terrestrial
evolution.
He stopped an arm's length away and gave her a lopsided grin. "You look
pretty human. Ravna Bergsndot?"
She smiled and nodded up at him. "Mr. Pham Nuwen?"
"Yes indeed. We seem both to be excellent guessers." He swept past her
into the shade of the inner office. Cocky fellow.
She followed him, unsure about protocol. You'd think with a fellow
human there would be no problems....
Actually, the interview went pretty smoothly. It was more than thirty
days since Pham Nuwen's resuscitation. Much of that time had been spent in
cram language sessions. The fellow must be damned bright; he already spoke
Triskweline trade talk with a folksy slickness. He really was rather cute.
Ravna had been away from Sjandra Kei for two years, and had another year of
her 'prenticeship to go. She'd been doing pretty well. She had many close
friends here, Egravan, Sarale. But just chatting with this fellow brought a
lot of the loneliness back. In some ways he was more alien than anything at
Relay ... and in some ways she wanted to just grab him and kiss his
confident grin away.
Grondr Vrinimikalir had been telling the truth about Pham Nuwen. The
guy was actually enthusiastic about the Org's plans for him! In theory, that
meant she could do her job with a clear conscience. In fact....
"Mr. Nuwen, my job is to orient you to your new world. I know you've
been exposed to some intense instruction the last few days, but there are
limits to how fast such knowledge can sink in."
The redhead smiled. "Call me Pham. Sure, I feel like an over-stuffed
bag. My sleep time is full of little voices. I've learned an awful lot
without experiencing anything. Worse, I've been a target for all this
'education'. It's a perfect setup if Vrinimi wants to trick me. That's why
I'm learning to use the local library. And that's why I insisted they find
someone like you." He saw the surprise on her face. "Ha! You didn't know
that. See, talking to a real person gives me a chance to see things that
aren't all planned ahead. Also, I've always been a pretty good judge of
human nature; I think I can read you pretty well." His grin showed he
understood just how irritating he was being.
Ravna looked up at the green petals of the beachtrees. Maybe this boob
deserved what he was getting into. "So you have great experience dealing
with people?"
"Given the limitations of the Slowness, I've been around, Ravna. I've
been around. I know I don't look it, but I'm sixty-seven years old
subjective. I thank your Organization for a fine job of thawing me out." He
tipped a non-existent hat in her direction. "My last voyage was more than a
thousand years objective. I was Programmer-at-Arms on a Qeng Ho longshot --
" His eyes abruptly widened, and he said something unintelligible. For a
moment he almost looked vulnerable.
Ravna reached a hand toward him. "Memory?"
Pham Nuwen nodded. "Damn. This is something I don't thank you people
for."
Pham Nuwen had been frozen in the aftermath of violent death, not as a
planned suspension. It was a near miracle that Vrinimi Org had been able to
bring him back at all -- at least with Middle Beyond technology. But memory
was the hardest thing. The chemical basis of memory does not survive chaotic
freezing well.
The problem was enough to shrink even Pham Nuwen's ego by a size or
two. Ravna took pity on him. "It's not likely that anything is completely
lost. You just have to find a different angle on some things."
"... Yes. I've been coached about that. Start with other memories; work
sideways toward what you can't remember straight on. Well ... it beats being
dead." Some of his jauntiness returned, but subdued to a really quite
charming level. They talked for long while as the redhead worked around the
points he couldn't "remember straight on".
And gradually Ravna came to feel something she had never expected in
connection with a Slow Zoner: awe. In one lifetime, Pham Nuwen had
accomplished virtually everything that was possible for a being in the
Slowness. All her life she had pitied the civilizations trapped down there.
They could never know the glory; they might never know the truth. Yet by
luck and skill and sheer strength of will, this fellow had leaped barrier
after barrier. Had Grondr known the truth when he pictured the redhead with
sword and slug gun? For Pham Nuwen really was a barbarian. He had been born
on a fallen colony world -- Canberra he called it. The place sounded much
like medieval Nyjora, though not matriarchal. He'd been the youngest child
of a king. He'd grown up with swords and poison and intrigue, living in
stone castles by a cold, cold sea. No doubt this littlest prince would have
ended up murdered -- or king of all -- if life had continued in the medieval
way. But when he was thirteen years old everything changed. A world that had
only legends of aircraft and radio was confronted by interstellar traders.
In a year of trading, Canberra's feudal politics was turned on its head.
"Qeng Ho had invested three ships in the expedition to Canberra. They
were pissed, thought we'd be at a higher level of technology. We couldn't
resupply them, so two stayed behind, probably turned my poor world inside
out. I left with the third -- a crazy hostage deal my father thought he was
putting over on them. I was lucky they didn't space me."
Qeng Ho consisted of several hundred ramscoop ships operating in a
volume hundreds of light-years across. Their vessels could reach almost a
third of the speed of light. They were mostly traders, occasionally
rescuers, even more rarely conquerors. When Pham Nuwen last knew them, they
had settled thirty worlds and were almost three thousand years old. It was
as extravagant a civilization as can ever exist in the Slowness.... And of
course, until Pham Nuwen was revived, no one in the Beyond had ever heard of
it. Qeng Ho was like a million other doomed civilizations, buried thousands
of light-years in the Slowness. Only by luck would they ever penetrate into
the Beyond, where faster-than-light travel was possible.
But for a thirteen-year-old boy born to swords and chain mail, the Qeng
Ho was more change than most living beings ever experience. In a matter of
weeks, he went from medieval lordling to starship cabin boy.
"At first they didn't know what to do with me. Figured on popping me
into cold storage and dumping me at the next stop. What can you make of a
kid who thinks there's one world and it's flat, who has spent his whole life
learning to whack about with a sword?" He stopped abruptly, as he did every
few minutes, when the stream of recollection ran into damaged territory.
Then his glance flicked out at Ravna, and his smile was as cocky as ever. "I
was one mean animal. I don't think civilized people realize what it's like
to grow up with your own aunts and uncles scheming to murder you, and you
training to get them first. In civilization I met bigger villains -- guys
who'd fry a whole planet and call it 'reconciliation' -- but for sheer
up-close treachery, you can't beat my childhood."
To hear Pham Nuwen tell it, only dumb luck saved the crew from his
scheming. In the years that followed, he learned to fit in, learned
civilized skills. Properly tamed, he could be an ideal ship master of the
Qeng Ho. And for many years he was. The Qeng Ho volume contained a couple of
other races, and a number of human-colonized worlds. At 0.3c, Pham spent
decades in coldsleep getting from star to star, then a year or two at each
port trying to make a profit with products and information that might be
lethally out-of-date. The reputation of the Qeng Ho was some protection.
"Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever" was the fleet's motto,
and they had lasted longer than most of their customers. Even religious
fanatics grew a little cautious when they thought about Qeng Ho retribution.
But more often it was the skill and deviousness of the shipmaster that saved
the day. And few were a match for the little boy in Pham Nuwen.
"I was almost the perfect skipper. Almost. I always wanted to see what
was beyond the space we had good records on. Every time I got really rich,
so rich I could launch my own subfleet -- I'd take some crazy chance and
lose everything. I was the yo-yo of the Fleet. One run I'd be captain of
five, the next I'd be pulling maintenance programming on some damn container
ship. Given how time stretches out with sublight commerce, there were whole
generations who thought I was a legendary genius -- and others who used my
name as a synonym for goofball."
He paused and his eyes widened in pleased surprise. "Ha! I remember
what I was doing there at the end. I was in the 'goofball' part of my cycle,
but it didn't matter. There was this captain of twenty who was even crazier
than I.... Can't remember her name. Her? Couldn't have been; I'd never serve
under a fem captain." He was almost talking to himself. "Anyway, this guy
was willing to bet everything on the sort of thing normal folks would argue
about over beer. He called his ship the, um, it translates as something like
'wild witless bird' -- that gives you the idea about him. He figured there
must be some really high-tech civilizations somewhere in the universe. The
problem was to find them. In a strange way, he had almost guessed about the
Zones. Only problem was, he wasn't crazy enough; he got one little thing
held his breath and listened. All was silent ... almost: at the top of his
hearing, up where some machines wheep, and Mom and Dad and even Johanna
couldn't hear -- there was something.
"I -- I know you're here," Jefri said sharply, his voice squeaking. He
stepped sideways a few paces, trying to see around the furniture without
approaching it. The sound continued, obvious now that he was listening to
it.
A small head with great dark eyes looked around a cabinet. It was much
smaller than the creatures that had brought Jefri here, but the shape of the
muzzle was the same. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Jefri
edged slowly toward it. A puppy? The head withdrew, then came further out.
From the corner of his eye, Jefri saw something move -- another of the black
forms was peering at him from under the table. Jefri froze for a second,
fighting panic. But there was no place to run, and maybe the creatures would
help find Mom. Jefri dropped to one knee and slowly extended his hand. "Here
... here, doggy."
The puppy crawled from beneath the table, its eyes never leaving
Jefri's hand. The fascination was mutual; the puppy was beautiful.
Considering all the thousands of years that dogs have been bred by humans
(and others), this could have been some oddball breed ... but only just. The
hair was short and dense, a deep velour of black and white. The two tones
lay in broad swaths with no intermediate grays. This one's entire head was
black, its haunches split between white and black. The tail was a short,
unimpressive flap covering its rear. There were hairless patches on its
shoulders and head, where Jefri could see black skin. But the strangest
thing was the long, supple neck. It would look more natural in a sea'mal
than a dog.
Jefri wiggled his fingers, and the puppy's eyes widened, revealing an
edge of white around the iris.
Something bumped his elbow, and Jefri almost jumped to this feet. So
many! Two more had crept up to look at his hand. And where he had seen the
first one there were now three, sitting alertly, watching. Seen in the open,
there was nothing unfriendly or scary about them.
One of the puppies put a paw on Jefri's wrist and pressed gently
downward. At the same time, another extended its muzzle and licked Jefri's
fingers. The tongue was pink and raspy, a round narrow thing. The
high-pitched wheeping got stronger; all three moved in, grabbing at his hand
with their mouths.
"Be careful!" Jefri said, jerking back his hand. He remembered the
grownups' teeth. Suddenly the air was full of gobbling and buzzing. Hmp.
They sounded more like goofy birds than dogs. One of the other pups came
forward. It extended a sleek nose toward Jefri. "Be careful!" it said, a
perfect playback of the boy's voice ... yet its mouth was closed. It angled
its neck back ... to be petted? He reached out; the fur was so soft! The
buzzing was very loud now. Jefri could feel it through the fur. But it
wasn't just the one animal who was making it; the sound came from all
directions. The puppy reversed direction, sliding its muzzle across the
boy's hand. This time he let the mouth close on his fingers. He could see
teeth all right, but the puppy carefully kept them from touching Jefri's
skin. The tip of its snout felt like a pair of small fingers closing and
opening around his.
Three slipped under his other arm, like they wanted to be petted too.
He felt noses poking at his back, trying to pull his shirt out of his pants.
The effort was remarkably coordinated, almost as if a two-handed human had
grabbed his shirt. Just how many are there? For a moment he forgot where he
was, forgot to be cautious. He rolled over and began petting the marauders.
A surprised squeaking sound came from all directions. Two crawled beneath
his elbows; at least three jumped on his back and lay with their noses
touching his neck and ears.
And Jefri had what seemed a great insight: The adult aliens had
recognized he was a child; they just didn't know how old. They had put him
in one of their own kinderschools! Mom and Dad were probably talking to them
right now. Things were going to turn out all right after all.
Lord Steel had not taken his name casually: steel, the most modern of
metals; steel, that takes the sharpest edge and never loses it; steel, that
can glow red hot, and yet not fail; steel, the blade that cuts for the
flenser. Steel was a crafted person, Flenser's greatest success.
In some sense, the crafting of souls was nothing new. Brood kenning was
a limited form of it, though mainly concerned with gross physical
characteristics. Even kenners agreed that a pack's mental abilities derived
from its various members in different measures. One pair or triple was
almost always responsible for eloquence, another for spatial intuition. The
virtues and vices were even more complex. No single member was the principal
source of courage, or of conscience.
Flenser's contribution to the field -- as to most others -- had been an
essential ruthlessness, a cutting away of all but the truly important. He
experimented endlessly, discarding all but the most successful results. He
depended on discipline and denial and partial death as much as on clever
member selection. He already had seventy years of experience when he created
Steel.
Before he could take his name, Steel spent years in denial, determining
just what parts of him combined to produce the being desired. That would
have been impossible without Flenser's enforcement. (Example: if you
dismissed a part of yourself essential for tenacity, where could you get the
will to continue the flensing?) For the soul in creation, the process was
mental chaos, a patchwork of horror and amnesia. In two years he had
experienced more change than most people do in two centuries -- and all of
it directed. The turning point came when he and Flenser identified the trio
that weighed him down with both conscience and slowness of intellect. One of
the three bridged the others. Sending it into silence, replacing it with
just the right element, had made the difference. After that, the rest was
easy; Steel was born.
When Flenser had left to convert the Long Lakes Republic, it was only
natural that his most brilliant creation should take over here. For five
years Steel had ruled Flenser's heartland. In that time he had not only
conserved what Flenser built, he extended it beyond the cautious beginnings.
But today, in a single circling of the sun about Hidden Island, he
could lose everything.
Steel stepped into the meeting hall and looked around. Refreshments
were properly set. Sunlight streamed from a ceiling slit onto just the place
he wanted. Part of Shreck, his aide, stood on the far side of the room. He
said to it, "I will speak with the visitor alone." He did not use the name
"Flenser". The whitejackets groveled back and its unseen members pushed open
the far doors.
A fivesome -- three males and two females -- walked through the
doorway, into the splash of sunlight. The individual was unremarkable. But
then Flenser had never had an imposing appearance.
Two heads raised to shade the eyes of the others. The pack looked
across the room, spotting Lord Steel twenty yards away. "Ah-h ... Steel."
The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Steel had bowed when the other entered, a formal gesture. The voice
caused a sudden cramp in his guts, and he involuntarily brought bellies to
the ground. That was his voice! There was at least a fragment of the
original Flenser in this pack. The gold and silver epaulets, the personal
banner, those could be faked by anyone with suicidal bravado.... But Steel
remembered the manner. He wasn't surprised the other's presence had
destroyed discipline on the mainland this morning.
The pack's heads, where they were in sunlight, were expressionless. Was
a smile playing about the heads in shadow? "Where are the others, Steel?
What happened today is the greatest opportunity of our history."
Steel got off his bellies and stood at the railing. "Sir. There are
some questions first, just between the two of us. Clearly, you are much of
Flenser, but how much -- "
The other was clearly grinning now, the shadowed heads bobbing. "Yes, I
knew my best creation would see that question.... This morning, I claimed to
be the true Flenser, improved with one or two replacements. The truth is ...
harder. You know about the Republic." That had been Flenser's greatest
gamble: to flense an entire nation-state. Millions would die, yet even so
there would be more molding than killing. In the end, there would exist the
first collective outside of the tropics. And the Flenser state would not be
a mindless agglomeration grubbing about in some jungle. The top would be as
brilliant, as ruthless as any packs in history. No people in the world could
stand against such a force.
"It was an awesome risk to take, for an even more awesome goal. But I
took precautions. We had thousands of converts, many of them people with no
understanding of our true ambition, but faithful and self-sacrificing -- as
they should be. I always kept a special group of them nearby. The Political
Police were clever to use mob assassination against me, the last thing I had
expected -- I who made the mobs. No matter, my bodyguards were well trained.
When we were trapped in Parliament Bowl, they killed one or two members of
each of those special packs ... and I simply ceased to exist, dispersed
among three panicky, ordinary people trying to escape the blood swamp."
"But everyone around you was killed; the mob left no one."
The Flenser-thing shrugged. "That was partly Republican propaganda, and
partly my own work: I ordered my guards to hack each other down, along with
everyone who was not me."
Steel almost voiced his awe. The plan was typical of Flenser's
brilliance, and his strength of soul. In assassinations, there was always
the chance that fragments would get away. There were famous stories of
heroes reassembled. In real life such events were rare, usually happening
when the victim's forces could sustain their leader through reintegration.
But Flenser had planned this tactic from the beginning, had envisaged
reassembling himself more than a thousand miles from the Long Lakes.
Still ... Lord Steel looked at the other in calculation. Ignore voice
and manner. Think for power, not for the desires of others, even Flenser.
Steel recognized only two in the other pack. The females and the male with
the white-tipped ears were probably from the sacrificed follower. Very
likely only two of Flenser really faced him. Scarcely a threat ... except in
the very real sense of appearances. "And the other four of you, Sir? When
may we expect your entire presence?"
The Flenser-thing chuckled. Damaged as it was, it still understood
balance-of-power. This was almost like the old days: when two people have a
clear understanding of power and betrayal, then betrayal itself becomes
almost impossible. There is only the ordered flow of events, bringing good
to those who deserve to rule. "The others have equally good ... mounts. I
made detailed plans, three different paths, three different sets of agents.
I arrived on schedule. I have no doubt the others will too, in a few tendays
at most. Until then," he turned all heads toward Steel, "until then, dear
Steel, I do not claim the full role of Flenser. I did so earlier to
establish priorities, to protect this fragment till I am assembled. But this
pack is deliberately weak-minded; I know it wouldn't survive as the ruler of
my earlier creations."
Steel wondered. Half-brained, the creature's schemes were perfect.
Nearly perfect. "So you wish a background role for the next few tendays?
Very well. But you announced yourself as Flenser. How shall I present you?"
The other didn't hesitate. "Tyrathect, Flenser in Waiting."
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Crypto: 0
As received by: Transceiver Relay03 at Relay
Language path: Samnorsk->Triskweline, SjK:Relay units
From: Straumli Main
Subject: Archive opened in the Low Transcend!
Summary: Our links to the Known Net will be down temporarily
Key phrases: transcend, good news, business opportunities, new archive,
communications problems
Distribution:
Where Are They Now Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group, Motley Hatch Administration Group, Transceiver Relay03 at Relay, Transceiver Windsong at Debley Down, Transceiver Not-for-Long at Shortstop
Date: 11:45:20 Docks Time, 01/09 of Org year 52089
Text of message:
We are proud to announce that a human exploration company from Straumli
Realm has discovered an accessible archive in the Low Transcend. This is not
an announcement of Transcendence or the creation of a new Power. We have in
fact postponed this announcement until we were sure of our property rights
and the safety of the archive. We have installed interfaces which should
make the archive interoperable with standard syntax queries from the Net. In
a few days this access will be made commercially available. (See discussion
of scheduling problems below.)
Because of its safety, intelligibility, and age, this Archive is
remarkable. We believe there is otherwise lost information here about
arbitration management and interrace coordination. We'll send details to the
appropriate news groups. We're very excited about this. Note that no
interaction with the Powers was necessary; no part of Straumli Realm has
transcended.
Now for the bad news: Arbitration and translation schemes have had
unfortunate clenirations[?] with the ridgeway armiphlage[?]. The details
should be amusing to the people in the Communication Threats news group, and
we will report them there later. But for at least the next hundred hours,
all our links (main and minor) to the Known Net will be down. Incoming
messages may be buffered, but no guarantees. No messages can be forwarded.
We regret this inconvenience, and will make up for it very soon!
Physical commerce is in no way affected by these problems. Straumli
Realm continues to welcome tourists and trade.
-=*=-
Looking back, Ravna Bergsndot saw it was inevitable that she become a
librarian. As a child on Sjandra Kei, she had been in love with stories from
the Age of Princesses. There was adventure, a time when a few brave Ladies
had dragged humankind to greatness. She and her sister had spent countless
afternoons pretending to be the Greater Two and rescuing the Countess of the
Lake. Later they understood that Nyjora and its Princesses were lost in the
dim past. Sister Lynne turned to more practical things. But Ravna still
wanted adventure. Through her teens, she had dreamed of emigrating to
Straumli Realm. That was something very real. Imagine: a new and mostly
human colony, right at the Top of the Beyond. And Straum welcomed folk from
the mother world; their enterprise was less than one hundred years old. They
or their children would be the first humans anywhere in the galaxy to
transcend their own humanity. She might end up a god, and richer than a
million Beyonder worlds. It was a dream real enough to provoke constant
arguments with her parents. For where there is heaven, there can also be
hell. Straumli Realm kissed close to the Transcend, and the people there
played with "the tigers that pace beyond the bars." Dad had actually used
that tired image. The disagreement drove them apart for several years. Then,
in her Computer Science and Applied Theology courses, Ravna began to read
about some of the old horrors. Maybe, maybe ... she should be a little more
cautious. Better to look around first. And there was a way to see into
everything that humans in the Beyond could possibly understand: Ravna became
a librarian. "The ultimate dilettante!" Lynne had teased. "It's true and so
what?" Ravna had grumped back, but the dream of far traveling was not quite
dead in her.
Life in Herte University at Sjandra Kei should have been perfect for
someone who had finally figured out what they wanted from life. Things might
have gone on happily for a lifetime there -- except that in her graduation
year, there had been the Vrinimi Organization's Faraway 'Prentice contest.
Three years work-study at the archive by Relay was the prize. Winning was
the chance of a lifetime; she would come back with more experience than any
local academician.
So it was that Ravna Bergsndot ended up more than twenty thousand
light-years from home, at the network hub of a million worlds.
Sunset was an hour past when Ravna drifted across Citypark toward
Grondr Vrinimikalir's residence. She'd been on the planet only a handful of
times since arriving in the Relay system. Most of her work was at the
archives themselves -- a thousand light-hours out. This part of Groundside
was in early autumn, though twilight had faded the tree colors to bands of
gray. From Ravna's altitude, one hundred meters up, the air had the nip of
frosts to come. Between her feet she could see picnic fires and gaming
fields. The Vrinimi Organization didn't spend much on the planet, but the
world was beautiful. As long as she kept her eyes on the darkening ground,
Ravna could almost imagine this was someplace in her home terrane on Sjandra
Kei. Look into the sky though ... and you knew you were far from home:
twenty-thousand light-years away, the galactic whirlpool sprawled up toward
the zenith.
It was just a faint thing in the twilight, and it might not get much
brighter this night: Low in the western sky, a cluster of in-system
factories glowed brighter than any moon. The operation was a brilliant
flickering of stars and rays, sometimes so intense that stark shadows were
cast eastwards from the Citypark mountains. In another half hour, the Docks
would rise. The Docks weren't as bright as the factories, but together they
would outshine anything from the far stars.
She shifted in her agrav harness, drifting lower. The scent of autumn
and picnics came stronger. Suddenly, the click of Kalir laughter was all
around her; she had blundered into an airball game. Ravna spread her arms in
mock humiliation and dodged out of the players' way.
Her stroll through the park was just about over; she could see her
destination ahead. Grondr 'Kalir's residence was a rarity in the Citypark
landscape: a recognizable building. It dated from when the Org bought into
the Relay operation. Seen from just eighty meters up, the house was a blocky
silhouette against the sky. When factory lights flashed, the smooth walls of
the monolith glowed in oily tints. Grondr was her boss's boss's boss. She
had talked to him exactly three times in two years.
No more delay. Nervous and very curious, Ravna floated lower and let
the house electronics guide her across the tree decks toward an entrance.
Grondr Vrinimikalir treated her with standard Organization courtesy,
the common denominator that served between the several races of the Org: The
meeting room had furniture suitable for human and Vrinimi use. There were
refreshments, and questions about her job at the archive.
"Mixed results, sir," Ravna replied honestly. "I've learned a great
deal. The 'prenticeship is everything it's claimed to be. But I'm afraid the
new division is going to require an added index layer." All this was in
reports the old fellow could have seen at the flick of a digit.
Grondr rubbed a hand absently across his eye freckles. "Yes, an
expected disappointment. We're at the limits of information management with
this expansion. Egravan and Derche -- " those were Ravna's boss and boss's
boss "-- are quite happy with your progress. You came well educated, and
learned fast. I think there's a place for humans in the Organization."
"Thank you, sir." Ravna blushed. Grondr's assessment was casually
spoken but very important to her. And it would probably mean the arrival of
more humans, perhaps even before her 'prenticeship was up. So was this the
reason for the interview?
She tried not to stare at the other. She was quite used to the Vrinimi
majority race by now. From a distance the Kalir looked humanoid. Up close,
the differences were substantial. The race was descended from something like
an insect. In upsizing, evolution had necessarily moved reinforcing struts
inside the body, till the outside was a combination of grublike skin and
sheets of pale chitin. At first glance Grondr was an unremarkable exemplar
of the race. But when the fellow moved, even to adjust his jacket or scratch
at his eye freckles, there was a strange precision to him. Egravan said that
he was very, very old.
Grondr changed the subject with the clickety abruptness. "You are aware
of the ... changes at Straumli Realm?"
"You mean the fall of Straum? Yes." Though I'm surprised you are.
Straumli Realm was a significant human civilization, but it accounted for
only an infinitesimal fraction of Relay's message traffic.
"Please accept my sympathy." Despite the cheerful announcements from
Straum, it was clear that absolute disaster had befallen Straumli Realm.
Almost every race eventually dabbled in the Transcend, more often than not
becoming a superintelligence, a Power. But it was clear by now that the
Straumers had created, or awakened, a Power of deadly inclination. Their
fate was as terrible as anything Ravna's father had ever predicted. And
their bad luck was now a disaster that stretched across all that had been
Straumli Realm. Grondr continued: "Will this news affect your work?"
Curiouser and curiouser; she would have sworn the other was coming to
the point. Maybe this was the point? "Uh, no sir. The Straumli affair is a
terrible thing, especially for humankind. But my home is Sjandra Kei.
Straumli Realm is our offspring, but I have no relatives there." Though I
might have been there if it hadn't been for Mother and Dad. Actually, when
Straumli Main dropped off the Net, Sjandra Kei had been unreachable for
almost forty hours. That had bothered her very much, since any rerouting
should have been immediate. Communication was eventually established; the
problem had been screwed-up routing tables on an alternate path. Ravna had
even shot half a year's savings for an over-and-back mailing. Lynne and her
parents were fine; the Straumli debacle was the news of the century for
folks at Sjandra Kei, but it was still a disaster at great remove. Ravna
wondered if parents had ever given better advice than hers!
"Good, good." His mouth parts moved in the analog of a human nod. His
head tilted so only peripheral freckles were looking at her; the guy
actually seemed hesitant! Ravna looked back silently. Grondr 'Kalir might be
the strangest exec in the Org. He was the only one whose principal residence
was Groundside. Officially he was in charge of a division of the archives;
in fact, he ran Vrinimi Marketing (i.e., Intelligence). There were stories
that he had visited the Top of the Beyond; Egravan claimed he had an
artificial immune system. "You see, the Straumli disaster has incidentally
made you one of the Organization's most valuable employees."
"I ... don't understand."
"Ravna, the rumors in the Threats newsgroup are true. The Straumers had
a laboratory in the Low Transcend. They were playing with recipes from some
lost archive, and they created a new Power. It appears to be a Class Two
perversion."
The Known Net recorded a Class Two perversion about once a century.
Such Powers had a normal "lifespan" -- about ten years. But they were
explicitly malevolent, and in ten years could do enormous damage. Poor
Straum.
"So you can see there's enormous potential for profit or loss here. If
the disaster spreads, we will lose network customers. On the other hand,
everyone around Straumli Realm wants to track what is happening. This could
increase our message traffic by several percent."
Grondr put it more cold-bloodedly than she liked, but he had a point.
In fact, the opportunity for profit was directly linked with mitigating the
perversion. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in archive work, she'd have
guessed all this. And now that she did think about it: "There are even more
spectacular opportunities. Historically, these perversions have been of
interest to other Powers. They'll want Net feeds and ... information about
the creating race." Her voice guttered into silence as she finally
understood the reason for this meeting.
Grondr's mouth parts clicked agreement. "Indeed. We at Relay are
well-placed to supply news to the Transcend. And we also have our own human.
In the last three days we've received several dozen queries from
civilizations in the High Beyond, some claiming to represent Powers. This
interest could mean a large increase in Organization income through the next
decade.
"All this you could read in the Threats news group. But there is
another item, something I ask you to keep secret for now: Five days ago, a
ship from the Transcend entered our region. It claims to be directly
controlled by a Power." The wall behind him became a window upon the
visitor. The craft was an irregular collection of spines and limps. A scale
bar claimed the thing was only five meters across.
Ravna felt the hair on her neck prickling. Here in the Middle Beyond
they should be relatively safe from the caprice of the Powers. Still ... the
visit was an unnerving thing. "What does it want?"
"Information about the Straumli perversion. In particular, it is very
interested in your race. It would give a great deal to take back a living
human...."
Ravna's response was abrupt. "I'm not interested."
Grondr spread his pale hands. The light glittered from the chitin on
the back of his fingers. "It would be an enormous opportunity. A
'prenticeship with the gods. This one has promised to establish an oracle
here in return."
"No!" Ravna half rose from her chair. She was one human, more than
twenty thousand light-years from home. That had been a frightening thing in
the first days of her 'prenticeship. Since then she had made friends, had
learned more of Organization ethics, had come to trust these folk almost as
much as people at Sjandra Kei. But ... there was only one halfway trustable
oracle on the Net these days, and it was almost ten years old. This Power
was tempting Vrinimi Org with fabulous treasure.
Grondr clicked embarrassment. He waved her back to her chair. "It was
only a suggestion. We do not abuse our employees. If you will simply serve
as our local expert...."
Ravna nodded.
"Good. Frankly, I had not expected you to accept the offer. We have a
much more likely volunteer, but one who needs coaching."
"A human? Here?" Ravna had a standing query in the local directory for
other humans. During the last two years she had seen three, and they had
just been passing through. "How long has she -- he? -- been here?"
Grondr said something halfway between a smile and a laugh. "A bit more
than a century, though we didn't realize it until a few days ago." The
pictures around him shifted. Ravna recognized Relay's "attic," the junkyard
of abandoned ships and freight devices that floated just a thousand
light-seconds from the archives. "We receive a lot of one-way freight, items
shipped in the hope we'll buy or sell on consignment." The view closed on a
decrepit vessel, perhaps two hundred meters long, wasp-waisted to support a
ramscoop drive. Its ultradrive spines were scarcely more than stubs.
"A bottom-lugger?" said Ravna.
Grondr clicked negation. "A dredge. The ship is about thirty thousand
years old. Most of that time was spent in a deep penetration of the Slow
Zone, plus ten thousand years in the Unthinking Depths."
Up close now, she could see the hull was finely pitted, the result of
millennia of relativistic erosion. Even unpiloted, such expeditions were
rare: a deep penetration could not return to the Beyond within the lifetime
of its builders. Some would not return within the lifetime of the builders'
race. People who launched such missions were just a little weird; People who
recovered them could make a solid profit.
"This one came from very far away, even if it's not quite a jackpot
mission. It didn't see anything interesting in the Unthinking Depths -- not
surprising given that even simple automation fails there. We sold most of
the cargo immediately. The rest we cataloged and forgot ... till the
Straumli affair." The starscape vanished. They were looking at a medical
display, random limbs and body parts. They looked very human. "In a solar
system at the bottom of the Slowness, the dredge found a derelict. The wreck
had no ultradrive capability; it was truly a Slow Zone design. The solar
system was uninhabited. We speculate the ship had a structural failure -- or
perhaps the crew was affected by the Depths. Either way, they ended up in a
frozen mangle."
Tragedy at the bottom of the Slowness, thousands of years ago. Ravna
forced her eyes from the carnage. "You figure on selling this to our
visitor?"
"Even better. Once we started poking around, we discovered a
substantial error in the cataloging. One of the deaders is almost intact. We
patched it up with parts from the others. It was expensive, but we ended up
with a living human." The picture flickered again, and Ravna caught her
breath. In the medical animation, the parts floated into an orderly
arrangement. There was a complete body there, torn up a little in the belly.
Pieces came together, and ... this was no "she". He floated whole and naked,
as if in sleep. Ravna had no doubt of his humanity, but all humankind in the
Beyond was descended from Nyjoran stock. This fellow had none of that
heritage. The skin was smoky gray, not brown. The hair was bright reddish
brown, a color she had only seen in pre-Nyjoran histories. The bones of the
face were subtly different from modern humans. The small differences were
more jarring than the outright alienness of her coworkers.
Now the figure was clothed. Under other circumstances, Ravna would have
smiled. Grondr 'Kalir had picked an absurd costume, something from the
Nyjoran era. The figure bore a sword and slug gun.... A sleeping prince from
the Age of Princesses.
"Behold the Ur-human," said Grondr.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
"Relay" is a common place-name. It has meaning in almost any
environment. Like Newtown and Newhome, it occurs over and over when people
move or colonize or participate in a communication net. You could travel a
billion light-years or a billion years and still find such names among folk
of natural intelligence.
But in the current era there was one instance of "Relay" known above
all others. That instance appeared in the routing list of two percent of all
traffic across the Known Net. Twenty thousand light-years off the galactic
plane, Relay had an unobstructed line of sight on thirty percent of the
Beyond, including many star systems right at the bottom, where starships can
make only one light-year per day. A few metal-bearing solar systems were
equally well-placed, and there was competition. But where other
civilizations lost interest, or colonized into the Transcend, or died in
apocalypse, Vrinimi Organization lasted. After fifty thousand years, there
were several races of the original Org in its membership. None of those were
still leaders -- yet the original viewpoint and policies remained. Position
and durability: Relay was now the main intermediate to the Magellanics, and
one of the few sites with any sort of link to the Beyond in Sculptor.
At Sjandra Kei, Relay's reputation had been fabulous. In her two years
of 'prenticeship, Ravna had come to realize that the truth exceeded the
reputation. Relay was in Middle Beyond; the Organization's only export was
the relay function and access to the local archive. Yet they imported the
finest biologicals and processing equipment from the High Beyond. The Relay
Docks were an extravagance that only the absolutely rich could indulge. They
stretched a thousand kilometers: bays, repair holds, transhipment centers,
parks, and playgrounds. Even at Sjandra Kei there were habitats far larger.
But the Docks were in no orbit. They floated a thousand kilometers above
Groundside on the largest agrav frame Ravna had ever seen. At Sjandra Kei
the annual income of an academician might pay for a square meter of agrav
fabric -- junk that might not last a year. Here there were millions of
hectares of the stuff, supporting billions of tonnes. Just replacements for
dead fabric required more High Beyond commerce than most star clusters could
command.
And now I have my own office here. Working directly for Grondr 'Kalir
had its perks. Ravna kicked back in her chair and stared across the central
sea. At the Docks' altitude, gravity was still about three-quarters of a
gee. Air fountains hung a breathable atmosphere over the middle part of the
platform. The day before, she had taken a sailboat across the clear-bottomed
sea. That was a strange experience indeed: planetary clouds below your keel,
stars and indigo sky above.
She had the surf cranked up this morning -- an easy matter of flexing
the agravs of the basin. It made a regular crashing against her beach. Even
thirty meters from the water there was a tang of salt in the air. Rows of
white tops marched off into the distance.
She eyed the figure that was trudging slowly up the beach toward her.
Just a few weeks ago she would never have dreamed this situation. Just a few
weeks ago she had been out at the archive, absorbed in the upgrade work,
happy to be involved with one of the largest databases on the Known Net. Now
... it was almost as if she had come full circle, back to her childhood
dreams of adventure. the only problem was, sometimes she felt like one of
the bad guys: Pham Nuwen was a living person, not something to be sold.
She stood and walked out to meet her red-haired visitor.
He wasn't carrying the sword and handgun of Grondr's fanciful
animation. Yet his clothes were the braided fabric of ancient adventure, and
he carried himself with lazy confidence. Since her meeting with Grondr, she
had looked up some anthropology from Old Earth. The red hair and the
eyefolds had been known there, though rarely in the same individual.
Certainly his smoky skin would have been remarkable to an inhabitant of
Earth. This fellow was, as much as herself, a product of post-terrestrial
evolution.
He stopped an arm's length away and gave her a lopsided grin. "You look
pretty human. Ravna Bergsndot?"
She smiled and nodded up at him. "Mr. Pham Nuwen?"
"Yes indeed. We seem both to be excellent guessers." He swept past her
into the shade of the inner office. Cocky fellow.
She followed him, unsure about protocol. You'd think with a fellow
human there would be no problems....
Actually, the interview went pretty smoothly. It was more than thirty
days since Pham Nuwen's resuscitation. Much of that time had been spent in
cram language sessions. The fellow must be damned bright; he already spoke
Triskweline trade talk with a folksy slickness. He really was rather cute.
Ravna had been away from Sjandra Kei for two years, and had another year of
her 'prenticeship to go. She'd been doing pretty well. She had many close
friends here, Egravan, Sarale. But just chatting with this fellow brought a
lot of the loneliness back. In some ways he was more alien than anything at
Relay ... and in some ways she wanted to just grab him and kiss his
confident grin away.
Grondr Vrinimikalir had been telling the truth about Pham Nuwen. The
guy was actually enthusiastic about the Org's plans for him! In theory, that
meant she could do her job with a clear conscience. In fact....
"Mr. Nuwen, my job is to orient you to your new world. I know you've
been exposed to some intense instruction the last few days, but there are
limits to how fast such knowledge can sink in."
The redhead smiled. "Call me Pham. Sure, I feel like an over-stuffed
bag. My sleep time is full of little voices. I've learned an awful lot
without experiencing anything. Worse, I've been a target for all this
'education'. It's a perfect setup if Vrinimi wants to trick me. That's why
I'm learning to use the local library. And that's why I insisted they find
someone like you." He saw the surprise on her face. "Ha! You didn't know
that. See, talking to a real person gives me a chance to see things that
aren't all planned ahead. Also, I've always been a pretty good judge of
human nature; I think I can read you pretty well." His grin showed he
understood just how irritating he was being.
Ravna looked up at the green petals of the beachtrees. Maybe this boob
deserved what he was getting into. "So you have great experience dealing
with people?"
"Given the limitations of the Slowness, I've been around, Ravna. I've
been around. I know I don't look it, but I'm sixty-seven years old
subjective. I thank your Organization for a fine job of thawing me out." He
tipped a non-existent hat in her direction. "My last voyage was more than a
thousand years objective. I was Programmer-at-Arms on a Qeng Ho longshot --
" His eyes abruptly widened, and he said something unintelligible. For a
moment he almost looked vulnerable.
Ravna reached a hand toward him. "Memory?"
Pham Nuwen nodded. "Damn. This is something I don't thank you people
for."
Pham Nuwen had been frozen in the aftermath of violent death, not as a
planned suspension. It was a near miracle that Vrinimi Org had been able to
bring him back at all -- at least with Middle Beyond technology. But memory
was the hardest thing. The chemical basis of memory does not survive chaotic
freezing well.
The problem was enough to shrink even Pham Nuwen's ego by a size or
two. Ravna took pity on him. "It's not likely that anything is completely
lost. You just have to find a different angle on some things."
"... Yes. I've been coached about that. Start with other memories; work
sideways toward what you can't remember straight on. Well ... it beats being
dead." Some of his jauntiness returned, but subdued to a really quite
charming level. They talked for long while as the redhead worked around the
points he couldn't "remember straight on".
And gradually Ravna came to feel something she had never expected in
connection with a Slow Zoner: awe. In one lifetime, Pham Nuwen had
accomplished virtually everything that was possible for a being in the
Slowness. All her life she had pitied the civilizations trapped down there.
They could never know the glory; they might never know the truth. Yet by
luck and skill and sheer strength of will, this fellow had leaped barrier
after barrier. Had Grondr known the truth when he pictured the redhead with
sword and slug gun? For Pham Nuwen really was a barbarian. He had been born
on a fallen colony world -- Canberra he called it. The place sounded much
like medieval Nyjora, though not matriarchal. He'd been the youngest child
of a king. He'd grown up with swords and poison and intrigue, living in
stone castles by a cold, cold sea. No doubt this littlest prince would have
ended up murdered -- or king of all -- if life had continued in the medieval
way. But when he was thirteen years old everything changed. A world that had
only legends of aircraft and radio was confronted by interstellar traders.
In a year of trading, Canberra's feudal politics was turned on its head.
"Qeng Ho had invested three ships in the expedition to Canberra. They
were pissed, thought we'd be at a higher level of technology. We couldn't
resupply them, so two stayed behind, probably turned my poor world inside
out. I left with the third -- a crazy hostage deal my father thought he was
putting over on them. I was lucky they didn't space me."
Qeng Ho consisted of several hundred ramscoop ships operating in a
volume hundreds of light-years across. Their vessels could reach almost a
third of the speed of light. They were mostly traders, occasionally
rescuers, even more rarely conquerors. When Pham Nuwen last knew them, they
had settled thirty worlds and were almost three thousand years old. It was
as extravagant a civilization as can ever exist in the Slowness.... And of
course, until Pham Nuwen was revived, no one in the Beyond had ever heard of
it. Qeng Ho was like a million other doomed civilizations, buried thousands
of light-years in the Slowness. Only by luck would they ever penetrate into
the Beyond, where faster-than-light travel was possible.
But for a thirteen-year-old boy born to swords and chain mail, the Qeng
Ho was more change than most living beings ever experience. In a matter of
weeks, he went from medieval lordling to starship cabin boy.
"At first they didn't know what to do with me. Figured on popping me
into cold storage and dumping me at the next stop. What can you make of a
kid who thinks there's one world and it's flat, who has spent his whole life
learning to whack about with a sword?" He stopped abruptly, as he did every
few minutes, when the stream of recollection ran into damaged territory.
Then his glance flicked out at Ravna, and his smile was as cocky as ever. "I
was one mean animal. I don't think civilized people realize what it's like
to grow up with your own aunts and uncles scheming to murder you, and you
training to get them first. In civilization I met bigger villains -- guys
who'd fry a whole planet and call it 'reconciliation' -- but for sheer
up-close treachery, you can't beat my childhood."
To hear Pham Nuwen tell it, only dumb luck saved the crew from his
scheming. In the years that followed, he learned to fit in, learned
civilized skills. Properly tamed, he could be an ideal ship master of the
Qeng Ho. And for many years he was. The Qeng Ho volume contained a couple of
other races, and a number of human-colonized worlds. At 0.3c, Pham spent
decades in coldsleep getting from star to star, then a year or two at each
port trying to make a profit with products and information that might be
lethally out-of-date. The reputation of the Qeng Ho was some protection.
"Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever" was the fleet's motto,
and they had lasted longer than most of their customers. Even religious
fanatics grew a little cautious when they thought about Qeng Ho retribution.
But more often it was the skill and deviousness of the shipmaster that saved
the day. And few were a match for the little boy in Pham Nuwen.
"I was almost the perfect skipper. Almost. I always wanted to see what
was beyond the space we had good records on. Every time I got really rich,
so rich I could launch my own subfleet -- I'd take some crazy chance and
lose everything. I was the yo-yo of the Fleet. One run I'd be captain of
five, the next I'd be pulling maintenance programming on some damn container
ship. Given how time stretches out with sublight commerce, there were whole
generations who thought I was a legendary genius -- and others who used my
name as a synonym for goofball."
He paused and his eyes widened in pleased surprise. "Ha! I remember
what I was doing there at the end. I was in the 'goofball' part of my cycle,
but it didn't matter. There was this captain of twenty who was even crazier
than I.... Can't remember her name. Her? Couldn't have been; I'd never serve
under a fem captain." He was almost talking to himself. "Anyway, this guy
was willing to bet everything on the sort of thing normal folks would argue
about over beer. He called his ship the, um, it translates as something like
'wild witless bird' -- that gives you the idea about him. He figured there
must be some really high-tech civilizations somewhere in the universe. The
problem was to find them. In a strange way, he had almost guessed about the
Zones. Only problem was, he wasn't crazy enough; he got one little thing