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wrong. Can you guess what?"
Ravna nodded. Considering where Pham's wreck was found, it was obvious.
"Yeah. I'll bet it's an idea older than spaceflight: the 'elder races'
must be toward the galactic core, where stars are closer and there are black
hole exotica for power. He was taking his entire fleet of twenty. They'd
keep going till they found somebody or had to stop and colonize. This
captain figured success was unlikely in our lifetime. But with proper
planning we could end up in a close-packed region where it would be easy to
found a new Qeng Ho -- and it would proceed even further.
"Anyway, I was lucky to get aboard even as a programmer; this captain
knew all the wrong things about me."
The expedition lasted a thousand years, penetrating two hundred and
fifty light-years galactic inward. The Qeng Ho volume was closer to the
Bottom of the Slowness than Old Earth, and they were proceeding inwards from
there. Even so, it was plain bad luck that they encountered the edge of the
Deeps after only two hundred and fifty light-years. One after another, the
Wild Witless Bird lost contact with the other ships. Sometimes it happened
without warning, other times there was evidence of computer failure or gross
incompetence. The survivors saw a pattern, guessed that common components
were failing. Of course, no one connected the problems with the region of
space they were entering.
"We backed down from ram speeds, found a solar system with a
semi-habitable planet. We'd lost track of everybody else.... Just what we
did then isn't real clear to me." He gave a dry laugh. "We must have been
right at the edge, staggering around at about IQ 60. I remember fooling with
the life support system. That's probably what actually killed us." For a
moment he looked sad and bewildered. He shrugged. "And then I woke up in the
tender clutches of Vrinimi Org, here where faster-than-light travel is
possible ... and I can see the edge of Heaven itself."
Ravna didn't say anything for a moment. She looked across her beach
into the surf. They'd been talking a long time. The sun was peeking under
the tree petals, its light shifting across her office. Did Grondr realize
what he had here? Almost anything from the Slow Zone had collector's value.
People fresh from the Slowness were even more valuable. But Pham Nuwen might
be unique. He had personally experienced more than had some whole
civilizations, and ventured into the Deeps to boot. She understood now why
he looked to the Transcend and called it "Heaven". It wasn't entirely
naïveté, nor a failure in the Organization's education programs. Pham Nuwen
had already been through two transforming experiences, from pre-tech to
star- traveler, and star-traveler to Beyonder. Each was a jump almost beyond
imagination. Now he saw that another step was possible, and was perfectly
willing to sell himself to take it.
So why should I risk my job to change his mind? But her mouth was
living a life of its own. "Why not postpone the Transcend, Pham? Take some
time to understand what is here in the Beyond. You'd be welcome in almost
any civilization. And on human worlds you'd be the wonder of the age." A
glimpse of non-Nyjoran humanity. The local newsgroups at Sjandra Kei had
thought Ravna radically ambitious to take a 'prenticeship twenty thousand
light-years away. Coming back from it, she would have her pick of Full
Academician jobs on any of a dozen worlds. That was nothing compared to Pham
Nuwen; there were folks so rich they might give him a world if he would just
stay. "You could name your price."
The redhead's lazy smile broadened. "Ah, but you see, I've already
named my price, and I think Vrinimi can meet it."
I really wish I could do something about that smile, thought Ravna.
Pham Nuwen's ticket to the Transcend was based on a Power's sudden interest
in the Straumli perversion. This innocent's ego might end up smeared across
a million death cubes, running a million million simulations of human
nature.
Grondr called less than five minutes after Pham Nuwen's departure.
Ravna knew the Org would be eavesdropping, and she'd already told Grondr her
misgivings about this "selling" of a sophont. Nevertheless, she was a bit
nervous to see him.
"When is he actually going to leave for the Transcend?"
Grondr rubbed at his freckles. He didn't seem angry. "Not for ten or
twenty days. The Power that's negotiating for him is more interested in
looking at our archives and watching what's passing through Relay. Also ...
despite the human's enthusiasm for going, he's really quite cautious."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He's insisting on a library budget, and permission to roam
anywhere in the system. He's been chatting with random employees all over
the Docks. He was especially insistent about talking to you." Grondr's mouth
parts clicked in a smile. "Feel free to speak your mind to him. Basically,
he's tasting around for hidden poison. Hearing the worst from you should
make him trust us."
She was coming to understand Grondr's confidence. Damn but Pham Nuwen
had a thick head. "Yes sir. He's asked me to show him around the Foreign
Quarter tonight." As you well know.
"Fine. I wish the rest of the deal were going as smoothly." Grondr
turned so that only peripheral freckles were looking in her direction. He
was surrounded by status displays of the Org's communication and database
operations. From what she could see, things were remarkably busy. "Maybe I
should not bring this up, but it's just possible you can help.... Business
is very brisk." Grondr did not seem pleased to report the good news. "We
have nine civilizations from the Top of the Beyond that are bidding for wide
band data feeds. That we could handle. But this Power that sent a ship
here...."
Ravna interrupted almost without thinking, a breach that would have
horrified her a few days earlier. "Just who is it, by the way? Any chance
we're entertaining the Straumli Perversion?" The thought of that taking the
redhead was a chill.
"Not unless all the Powers are fooled, too. Marketing calls our current
visitor 'Old One'." He smiled. "That's something of a joke, but true even
so. We've known it for eleven years." No one really knew how long
Transcendent beings lived, but it was a rare Power that stayed communicative
for more than five or ten years. They lost interest, or grew into something
different -- or really did die. There were a million explanations, thousands
that were allegedly from the Powers first hand. Ravna guessed that the true
explanation was the simplest one: intelligence is the handmaiden of
flexibility and change. Dumb animals can change only as fast as natural
evolution. Human equivalent races, once on their technological run-up, hit
the limits of their zone in a matter of a few thousand years. In the
Transcend, superhumanity can happen so fast that its creators are destroyed.
It wasn't surprising then that the Powers themselves were evanescent.
So calling an eleven-year Power "Old One" was almost reasonable.
"We believe that Old One is a variant on the Type 73 pattern. Such are
rarely malicious -- and we know from whom it Transcended. Just now it's
causing us major discomfort, though. For twenty days it has been
monopolizing an enormous and increasing percentage of Relay bandwidth. Since
its ship arrived, it's been all over the archive and our local nets. We've
asked Old One to send noncritical data by starship, but it refuses. This
afternoon was the worst yet. Almost five percent of Relay's capacity was
bound up in its service. And the creature is sending almost as much downlink
as it is receiving uplink."
That was weird, but, "It's still paying for the business, isn't it? If
Old One can pay top price, why do you care?"
"Ravna, we hope our Organization will be around for many years after
the Old One is gone. There is nothing it could offer us that would be good
through all that time." Ravna nodded. Actually, there were certain "magic"
automations that might work down here, but their long-term effectiveness
would be dubious. This was a commercial situation, not some exercise in an
Applied Theology course. "Old One can easily top any bid from the Middle
Beyond. But if we give it all the services it demands, we'll be effectively
nonfunctional to the rest of our customers -- and they are the people we
must depend on in the future."
His image was replaced by an archive access report. Ravna was very
familiar with the format, and Grondr's complaint really hit home. The Known
Net was a vast thing, a hierarchical anarchy that linked hundreds of
millions of worlds. Yet even the main trunks had bandwidths like something
out of Earth's dawn age; a wrist dataset could do better on a local net.
That's why bulk access to the Archive was mostly local -- to media
freighters visiting the Relay system. But now ... during the last hundred
hours, remote access to the Archive, both by volume and by count, had been
higher than local! And ninety percent of those accesses were from a single
account -- Old One's.
Grondr's voice continued from behind the graphics. "We've got one
backbone transceiver dedicated to this Power right now.... Frankly, we can't
tolerate this for more than a few days; the ultimate expense is just too
great."
Grondr's face was back on the display. "Anyway, I think you can see
that the deal for the barbarian is really the least of our problems. The
last twenty days have brought more income than the last two years -- far
more than we can verify and absorb. We're endangered by our own success." He
made an ironic smile-frown.
They talked a few minutes about Pham Nuwen, and then Grondr rang off.
Afterwards, Ravna took a walk along her beach. The sun was well down toward
the aft horizon, and the sand was just pleasantly warm against her feet; the
Docks went round the planet once every twenty hours, circling the pole at
about forty degrees north latitude. She walked close to the surf, where the
sand was flat and wet. The mist off the sea was moist against her skin. The
blue sky just above the white-tops shaded quickly to indigo and black.
Specks of silver moved up there, agrav floaters bringing starships into the
Docks. The whole thing was so fabulously, unnecessarily expensive. Ravna was
by turns grossed out and bedazzled. Yet after two years at Relay, she was
beginning to see the point. Vrinimi Org wanted the Beyond to know that it
had the resources to handle whatever communication and archive demands might
be made on it. And they wanted the Beyond to suspect that there were hidden
gifts from the Transcend here, things that might make it more than a little
dangerous to invaders.
She stared into the spray, feeling it bead on her lashes. So Grondr had
the big problem right now: how do you tell a Power to take a walk? All Ravna
Bergsndot had to worry about was one overconfident twit who seemed hell-bent
on destroying himself. She turned and paralleled the water. Every third wave
it surged over her ankles.
She sighed. Pham Nuwen was beyond doubt a twit ... but what an awesome
one. Intellectually, she had always known that there was no difference in
the possible intelligence of Beyonders and the primitives of the Slowness.
Most automation worked better in the Beyond; ultralight communication was
possible. But you had to go to the Transcend to build truly superhuman
minds. So it shouldn't be surprising that Pham Nuwen was capable. Very
capable. He had picked up Triskweline with incredible ease. She had little
doubt that he was the master skipper he claimed. And to be a trader in the
Slowness, to risk centuries between the stars for a destination that might
have fallen from civilization or become deadly hostile to outsiders ... that
took courage that was hard to imagine. She could understand how he might
think going to the Transcend was just another challenge. He'd had less than
twenty days to absorb a whole new universe. That simply wasn't enough time
to understand that the rules change when the players are more than human.
Well, he still had a few days of grace. She would change his mind. And
after talking to Grondr just now, she wouldn't feel especially guilty about
doing it.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
The Foreign Quarter was actually about a third of the Docks. It abutted
the no-atmosphere periphery -- where ships actually docked -- and extended
inwards to a section of the central sea. Vrinimi Org had convinced a
significant number of races that this was a wonder of the Middle Beyond. In
addition to freight traffic there were tourists -- some of the wealthiest
beings in the Beyond.
Pham Nuwen had carte blanche to these amusements. Ravna took him
through the more spectacular ones, including an agrav hop over the Docks.
The barbarian was more impressed by their pocket space suits than by the
Docks. "I've seen structures bigger than that down in the Slowness." Not
hovering in a planetary gravity well, you haven't.
Pham Nuwen seemed to mellow as the evening progressed. At least his
comments became more perceptive, less edged. He wanted to see how real
traders lived in the Beyond, and Ravna showed him the bourses and the
traders' Local.
They ended up in The Wandering Company just after Docks midnight. This
was not Organization territory, but it was one of Ravna's favorite places, a
private dive that attracted traders from the Top to the Bottom. She wondered
how the decor would appeal to Pham Nuwen. The place was modeled as a meeting
lodge on some world of the Slow Zone. A three-meter model ramscoop hung in
the air over the main service floor. Blue-green drive fields glowed from the
ship's every corner and flange, and spread faintly among patrons sitting
below.
To Ravna the walls and floors were heavy timber, rough cut. People like
Egravan saw stone walls and narrow tunnels -- the sort of broodery his race
had maintained on new conquests of long ago. The trickery was optical -- not
some mental smudging -- and about the best that could be done in the Middle
Beyond.
Ravna and Pham walked between widely-spaced tables. The owners weren't
as successful with sound as with vision: the music was faint and changed
from table to table. Smells changed too, and were a little bit harder to
take. Air management was working hard to keep everyone healthy, if not
completely comfortable. Tonight the place was crowded. At the far end of the
service floor, the special-atmosphere nooks were occupied: low pressure,
high pressure, high NOx, aquaria. Some customers were vague blurs within
turbid atmospheres.
In some ways it might have been a port bar at Sjandra Kei. Yet ... this
was Relay. It attracted High Beyonders who would never come to backwaters
like Sjandra Kei. Most of the High Ones didn't look very strange;
civilizations at the Top were most often just colonies from below. But the
headbands she saw here were not jewelry. Mind-computer links aren't
efficient in the Middle Beyond, but most of the High Beyonders would not
give them up. Ravna started toward a group of banded tripods and their
machines. Let Pham Nuwen talk with creatures who teetered on the edge of
transsapience.
Surprisingly, he touched her arm, drawing her back. "Let's walk around
a little more." He was looking all around the hall, as if searching for a
familiar face. "Let's find some other humans first."
When holes showed in Pham Nuwen's cram-education, they were gapingly
wide. Ravna tried to keep her face serious. "Other humans? We're all there
is at Relay, Pham."
"But the friends you've been telling me about ... Egravan, Sarale?"
Ravna just shook her head. For a moment the barbarian looked
vulnerable.
Pham Nuwen had spent his life crawling at sublight between
human-colonized star systems. She knew that in all that life he had seen
only three non-human races. Now he was lost in a sea of alienness. She kept
her sympathy to herself; this one insight might affect the guy more than all
her arguing.
But the instant passed, and he was smiling again. "Even more an
adventure." They left the main floor and walked past special-atmosphere
nooks. "Lord, but Qeng Ho would love this."
No humans anywhere, and The Wandering Company was the homiest meeting
place she knew; many Org customers met only on the Net. She felt her own
homesickness welling up. On the second floor, a signet flag caught her eye.
She'd known something like it back at Sjandra Kei. She drew Pham Nuwen
across the floor, and started up the timbered stairs.
Out of the background murmur, she heard a high-pitched twittering. It
wasn't Triskweline, but the words made sense! By the Powers, it was
Samnorsk: "I do believe it's a Homo Sap! Over here, my lady." She followed
the sound to the table with the signet flag.
"May we sit with you?" she asked, savoring the familiar language.
"Please do." The twitterer looked like a small ornamental tree sitting
in a six-wheeled cart. The cart was marked with cosmetic stripes and
tassels; its 150-by-120-centimeter topside was covered with a cargo scarf in
the same pattern as the signet flag. The creature was a Greater Skroderider.
Its race traded through much of the Middle Beyond, including Sjandra Kei.
The Skroderider's high-pitched voice came from its voder. But speaking
Samnorsk, it sounded homier than anything she'd heard in a long time. Even
granting the mental peculiarities of Skroderiders, she felt a surge of
affectionate nostalgia, as if she had run into a old classmate in a far
city.
"My name is -- " the sound was the rustling of fronds, "but you can
easier call me Blueshell. It's nice to see a familiar face, hahaha."
Blueshell spoke the laughter as words. Pham Nuwen had sat down with Ravna,
but he understood not a word of Samnorsk and so the great reunion was lost
on him. The Rider switched to Triskweline and introduced his four
companions: another Skroderider, and three humanoids who seemed to like the
shadows. None of the humanoids spoke Samnorsk, but no one was more than one
translator hop from Triskweline.
The Skroderiders were owners/operators of a small interstellar
freighter, the Out of Band II. The humanoids were certificants for part of
the starship's current cargo. "My mate and I have been in the business
almost two hundred years. We have happy feelings for your race, my lady. Our
first runs were between Sjandra Kei and Forste Utgrep. Your people are good
customers and we scarcely ever have a shipment rot...." He wheeled his
skrode back from the table and then drove forward -- the equivalent of a
small bow.
All was not sweetness and light, however. One of the humanoids spoke.
The sounds could almost have come from a human throat, though they made no
sense. A moment passed as the house translator processed his words. Then the
broach on his jacket spoke in clear Triskweline: "Blueshell states you are
Homo sapiens. Know that you have our animosity. We are bankrupt,
near-stranded here by your race's evil creation. The Straumli Perversion."
The words sounded emotionless, but Ravna could see the creature's tense
posture, its fingers twisting at a drink bulb.
Considering his attitude, it probably wouldn't help to point out that
though she was human, Sjandra Kei was thousands of light-years from Straum.
"You came here from the Realm?" she asked the Skroderider.
Blueshell didn't answer immediately. That's the way it was with his
race; he was probably trying to remember who she was and what they were all
talking about. Then: "Yes, yes. Please do excuse my certificants' hostility.
Our main cargo is a one-time cryptographic pad. The source is Commercial
Security at Sjandra Kei; the destination is the certificants' High colony.
It was the usual arrangement: We're carrying a one-third xor of the pad.
Independent shippers are carrying the others. At the destination, the three
parts would be xor'd together. The result could supply a dozen worlds'
crypto needs on the Net for -- "
Downstairs there was a commotion. Someone was smoking something a bit
too strong for the air scrubbers. Ravna caught a whiff, enough to shimmer
her vision. It had knocked out several patrons on the main level. Management
was counseling the offending customer. Blueshell made an abrupt noise. He
backed his skrode from the table and rolled to the railing. "Don't want to
be caught unawares. Some people can be so abrupt...." When nothing more came
of the incident, he returned. "Uh, where was I?" He was silent a moment,
consulting the short-term memory built into his skrode. "Yes, yes.... We
would become relatively rich if our plans work out. Unfortunately, we
stopped on Straum to drop off some bulk data." He pivoted on his rear four
wheels. "Surely that was safe? Straum is more than a hundred light-years
from their lab in the Transcend. Yet -- "
One of the certificants interrupted with loud gabble. The house
translator kicked in a moment later: "Yes. It should have been safe. We saw
no violence. Ship's recorders show that our safeness was not breached. Yet
now there are rumors. Net groups claim that Straumli Realm is owned by
perversion. Absurdity. Yet these rumors have crossed the Net to our
destination. Our cargo is not trusted, so our cargo is ruined: now it is
only a few grams of data medium carrying random -- " In the middle of the
flat-voiced translation, the humanoid lunged out of the shadows. Ravna had a
glimpse of a jaw edged with razor-sharp gums. He threw his drink bulb at the
table in front of her.
Pham Nuwen's hand flashed out, snatching the drink before it hit --
before she had quite realized what was happening. The redhead came slowly to
his feet. From the shadows, the two other humanoids came to their feet and
moved toward their friend. Pham Nuwen didn't say a word. He set the bulb
carefully down and leaned just slightly toward the other, his hands relaxed
yet bladelike. Cheap fiction talks about "looks of deadly menace". Ravna had
never expected to see the real thing. But the humanoids saw it too. They
tugged their friend gently back from the table. The loudmouth did not
resist, but once beyond Pham's reach he erupted in a barrage of squeals and
hisses that left the house translator speechless. He made a sharp gesture
with three fingers, and shut up. The three swept silently down the stairs
and away.
Pham Nuwen sat down, his gray eyes calm and untroubled. Maybe he did
have something to be arrogant about! Ravna looked across at the two
Skroderiders. "I'm sorry your cargo lost value."
Most of Ravna's past contacts had been with Lesser Skroderiders, whose
reflexes were only slightly augmented beyond their sessile heritage. Had
these two even noticed the interruption? But Blueshell answered immediately,
"Do not apologize. Ever since our arrival, those three have been
complaining. Contract partners or not, I'm very tired of them." He lapsed
into potted-plant mode.
After a moment, the other Rider -- Greenstalk, was it? -- spoke.
"Besides, our commercial situation may not be a complete failure. I am sure
the other thirds of the shipment went nowhere near Straumli Realm." That was
the usual procedure anyway: each part of the shipment was carried by a
different company, each taking a very different path. If the other thirds
could be certified, the crew of the Out of Band might not come away
empty-handed. "In -- in fact, there may be a way we can get full
certification. True, we were at Straumli Main, but -- "
"How long ago did you leave?"
"Six hundred and fifty hours ago. About two hundred hours after they
dropped off the Net."
It suddenly dawned on Ravna that she was talking to something like
eyewitnesses. After thirty days, the Threats news was still dominated by the
events at Straum. The consensus was that a Class Two perversion had been
created -- even Vrinimi Org believed that. Yet it was still mainly
guesswork.... And here she was talking to beings who had actually been
there. "You don't think the Straumers created a perversion?"
It was Blueshell who replied. "Sigh," he said. "Our certificants deny
it, but I see a problem of conscience here. We did witness strangeness on
Straum.... Have you ever encountered artificial immune systems? The ones
that work in the Middle Beyond are more trouble than they're worth, so
perhaps not. I noticed a real change in certain officers of the Crypto
Authority right after the Straumli victory. It was as if they were suddenly
part of a poorly calibrated automation, as if they were somebody's, um,
fingers.... No one can doubt they were playing in the Transcend. They found
something up there; a lost archive. But that is not the point." He stopped
talking for a long moment; Ravna almost thought he was finished. "You see,
just before leaving Straumli Main, we -- "
But now Pham Nuwen was talking too. "That's something I've been
wondering about. Everybody talks as though this Straumli Realm was doomed
the moment they began research in the Transcend. Look. I've played with
bugged software and strange weapons. I know you can get killed that way. But
it looks like the Straumers were careful to put their lab far away. They
were building something that could go very wrong, but apparently it was a
previously-tried experiment -- like just about everything Up Here. They
could stop the work any time it deviated from the records, right up to the
end. So how could they screw up so bad?"
The question stopped the Skroderider in its tracks. You didn't need a
doctorate in Applied Theology to know the answer. Even the damn Straumers
should have known the answer. But given Pham Nuwen's background, it was a
reasonable question. Ravna kept her mouth shut. The Skroderider's very
alienness might be more convincing to Pham than another lecture from her.
Blueshell dithered for a moment, no doubt using his skrode to help
assemble his arguments. When he finally spoke, he didn't seem irritated by
the interruption. "I hear several misconceptions, My Lady Pham." He seemed
to use the old Nyjoran honorific pretty indiscriminately. "Have you been
into the archive at Relay?"
Pham said yes. Ravna guessed he'd never been past the beginners' front
end.
"Then you know that an archive is a fundamentally vaster thing than the
database on a conventional local net. For practical purposes the big ones
can't even be duplicated. The major archives go back millions of years, have
been maintained by hundreds of different races -- most now extinct or
Transcended into Powers. Even the archive at Relay is a jumble, so huge that
indexing systems are laid on top of indexing systems. Only in the Transcend
could such a mass be well organized and even then only the Powers could
understand it."
"So?"
"There are thousands of archives in the Beyond -- tens of thousands if
you count the ones that have fallen into disrepair or dropped off the Net.
Along with unending trivia, they contain important secrets and important
lies. There are traps and snares." Millions of races played with the advice
that filtered unsolicited across the Net. Tens of thousands had been burned
thereby. Sometimes the damage was relatively minor, good inventions that
weren't quite right for the target environment. Sometimes it was malicious,
viruses that would jam a local net so thoroughly that a civilization must
restart from scratch. Where-Are-They-Now and Threats carried stories of
worse tragedies: planets kneedeep in replicant goo, races turned brainless
by badly programmed immune systems.
Pham Nuwen was wearing his skeptical expression. "Just test the stuff
at a safe remove. Be prepared for local disasters."
That would have brought most explanations to a stop. Ravna had to
admire the Skroderider: he paused, retreated to still more elementary terms.
"True, simple caution can prevent many disasters. And if your lab is in the
Middle or Low Beyond, such caution is all that is really needed -- no matter
how sophisticated the threat. But we all understand the nature of the
Zones...." Ravna had virtually no feel for Rider body language, but she
would have sworn that Blueshell was watching the barbarian expectantly,
trying to gauge the depth of Pham's ignorance.
The human nodded impatiently.
Blueshell continued, "In the Transcend, truly sophisticated equipment
can operate, devices substantially smarter than anyone down here. Of course,
almost any economic or military competition can be won by the side with
superior computing resources. Such can be had at the Top of the Beyond and
in the Transcend. Races are always migrating there, hoping to build their
utopias. But what do you do when your new creations may be smarter than you
are? It happens that there are limitless possibilities for disaster, even if
an existing Power does not cause harm. So there are unnumbered recipes for
safely taking advantage of the Transcend. Of course they can't be
effectively examined except in the Transcend. And run on devices of their
own description, the recipes themselves become sentient."
Understanding was beginning to glimmer across Pham Nuwen's face.
Ravna leaned forward, caught the redhead's attention. "There are
complex things in the archives. None of them is sentient, but some have the
potential, if only some naive young race will believe their promises. We
think that's what happened to Straumli Realm. They were tricked by
documentation that claimed miracles, tricked into building a transcendent
being, a Power -- but one that victimizes sophonts in the Beyond." She
didn't mention how rare such perversion was. The Powers were variously
malevolent, playful, indifferent -- but virtually all of them had better
uses for their time than exterminating cockroaches in the wild.
Pham Nuwen rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Okay, I guess I see. But I get
the feeling this is common knowledge. If it's this deadly, how did the
Straumli bunch get taken in?"
"Bad luck and criminal incompetence," the words popped out of her with
surprising force. She hadn't realized she was so bent by the Straumli thing;
somewhere inside, her old feelings for Straumli Realm were still alive.
"Look. Operations in the High Beyond and in the Transcend are dangerous.
Civilizations up there don't last long, but there will always be people who
try. Very few of the threats are actively evil. What happened to the
Straumers.... They ran across this recipe advertising wondrous treasure.
Quite possibly it had been lying around for millions of years, a little too
risky for other folks to try. You're right, the Straumers knew the dangers."
But it was a classic situation of balancing risks and choosing wrong.
Perhaps a third of Applied Theology was about how to dance near the flame
without getting incinerated. No one knew the details of the Straumli
debacle, but she could guess them from a hundred similar cases:
"So they set up a base in the Transcend at this lost archive -- if
that's what it was. They began implementing the schemes they found. You can
be sure they spent most of their time watching it for signs of deception. No
doubt the recipe was a series of more or less intelligible steps with a
clear takeoff point. The early stages would involve computers and programs
more effective than anything in the Beyond -- but apparently well-behaved."
"... Yeah. Even in the Slowness, a big program can be full of
surprises."
Ravna nodded. "And some of these would be near or beyond human
complexity. Of course, the Straumers would know this and try to isolate
their creations. But given a malign and clever design ... it should be no
surprise if the devices leaked onto the lab's local net and distorted the
information there. From then on, the Straumer's wouldn't have a chance. The
most cautious staffers would be framed as incompetent. Phantom threats would
be detected, emergency responses demanded. More sophisticated devices would
be built, and with fewer safeguards. Conceivably, the humans were killed or
rewritten before the Perversion even achieved transsapience."
There was a long silence. Pham Nuwen looked almost chastened. Yeah.
There's a lot you don't know, Buddy. Think on what Old One might have
planned for you.
Blueshell bent a tendril to taste a brown concoction that smelled like
seaweed. "Well told, My Lady Ravna. But there is one difference in the
present situation. It may be good fortune, and very important.... You see,
just before leaving Straumli Main, we attended a beach party among the
Lesser Riders. They had been little affected by events to that point; many
hadn't even noticed the destruction of independence at Straum. With luck,
they may be the last enslaved." His squeaky voice lowered an octave,
trailing into silence. "Where was I? Yes, the party. There was one fellow
there, a bit more lively than the average. Somewhere years past, he had
bonded with a traveler in a Straumli news service. Now he was acting as a
clandestine data drop, so humble that he wasn't even listed in that
service's own net....
"Anyway, the researchers at the Straumli lab -- a few of them at least
-- were not so incautious as you say. They suspected a perverse runaway, and
were determined to sabotage it."
This was news, but -- "Doesn't look like they had much success, does
it?"
"I am nodding agreement. They did not prevent it, but they did plan to
escape the laboratory planet with two starships. And they did get word of
their attempt into channels that ended with my acquaintance at the beach
party. And here is the important part: At least one of these ships was to
carry away some final elements of the Perversion's recipe -- before they
were incorporated into the design."
"Surely there were backups -- " began Pham Nuwen.
Ravna waved him silent. There had been enough grade-school explanations
for one night. This was incredible. She'd been following the news about
Straumli Realm as much as anyone. The Realm was the first High daughter
colony of Sjandra Kei; it was horrifying to see it destroyed. But nowhere in
Threats had there been even a rumor of this: the Perversion not whole? "If
this is true, then the Straumers may have a chance. It all depends on the
missing parts of the design document."
"Just so. And of course the humans realized this too. They planned to
head straight for the Bottom of the Beyond, rendezvous there with their
accomplices from Straum."
Which -- considering the ultimate magnitude of the disaster -- would
never happen. Ravna leaned back, oblivious of Pham Nuwen for the first time
in many hours. Most likely both ships had been destroyed by now. If not --
well, the Straumers had been at least half-smart, heading for the Bottom. If
they had what Blueshell thought, the Perversion would be very interested in
finding them. It was no wonder Blueshell and Greenstalk hadn't announced
this on the news groups. "So you know where they were going to rendezvous?"
she said softly.
"Approximately."
Greenstalk burred something at him.
"Not in ourselves," he said. "The coordinates are in the safeness at
our ship. But there is more. The Straumers had a backup plan if the
rendezvous failed. They intended to signal Relay with their ship's
ultrawave."
"Now wait. Just how big is this ship?" Ravna was no physical-layer
engineer, but she knew that Relay's backbone transceivers were actually
swarms of antenna elements scattered across several light years, each
element ten-thousand kilometers across.
Blueshell rolled forward and back, a quick gesture of agitation. "We
don't know, but it's nothing exceptional. Unless you're looking precisely at
it with a large antenna, you'd never detect it from here."
Greenstalk added, "We think that was part of their plan, though it is
desperation on top of desperation. Since we came to Relay, we've been
talking to the Org -- "
"Discreetly! Quietly!" Blueshell put in abruptly.
"Yes. We've asked the Organization to listen for this ship. I'm afraid
we haven't talked to the right people. No one seems to put much credence in
us. After all, the story is ultimately from a Lesser Rider," Yeah. What
could they know that was under a hundred years old? "What we're asking would
normally be a great expense, and apparently prices are especially high right
now."
Ravna tried to curb her enthusiasm. If she had read this in a
newsgroup, it would've been just one more interesting rumor. Why should she
boggle just because she was getting it face-to-face? By the Powers, what
irony. Hundreds of customers from the Top and the Transcend -- even Old One
-- were saturating Relay's resources with their curiosity about the Straumli
debacle. What if the answer had been sitting in front of them, suppressed by
the very eagerness of their investigation? "Just who have you been talking
to? Never mind, never mind." Maybe she should just go to Grondr 'Kalir with
the story. "I think you should know that I am a -- " very minor! "--
employee of the Vrinimi Organization. I may be able to help."
She had expected some surprise at this sudden good luck. Instead there
was a pause. Apparently Blueshell had lost his place in the conversation.
Finally Greenstalk spoke. "I am blushing.... You see, we knew that.
Blueshell looked you up in the employees' directory; you are the only human
in the Org. You're not in Customer Contact, but we thought that if we
chanced upon you, so to speak, you might give us a kindly hearing."
Blueshell's tendrils rustled together sharply. Irritation? Or had he
finally caught up to the conversation? "Yes. Well, since we are all being so
frank, I suppose we should confess that this might even benefit us. If the
refugee ship can prove that the Perversion is not a full Class Two, then
perhaps we can convince our buyers that our cargo has not been compromised.
If they only knew, my certificant friends would be groveling at your feet,
my lady Ravna."
They stayed at The Wandering Company until well past midnight. Business
picked up at the circadian peak of some of the new arrivals. Floor and table
shows were raucous all around. Pham's eyes flickered this way and that,
taking it all in. But above all he seemed fascinated by Blueshell and
Greenstalk. The two were starkly nonhuman, in some ways even strange as
aliens go. Skroderiders were one of the very few races that had achieved
long- term stability in the Beyond. Speciation had long ago occurred,
varieties heading outward or becoming extinct. And still there were some who
matched their ancient skrodes, a unique balance of outlook and machine
interface that was more than a billion years old. But Blueshell and
Greenstalk were also traders with much of the outlook that Pham Nuwen had
known in the Slowness. And though Pham acted as ignorant as ever, there was
new diplomacy in him. Or maybe the awesomeness of the Beyond was finally
getting through his thick skull. He couldn't have asked for better drinking
buddies. As a race, the Skroderiders preferred lazy reminiscence to almost
any activity. Once delivered of their critical message, the two were quite
content to talk of their life in the Beyond, to explain things in whatever
detail the barbarian could wish. The razor-jawed certificants stayed well
lost.
Ravna got a mild buzz on, and watched the three talk shop. She smiled
to herself. In a way, she was the outsider now, the person who had never
done. Blueshell and Greenstalk had been all over, and some of their stories
sounded wild even to her. Ravna had a theory (not that widely accepted,
actually) that where beings have a common fluency, little else matters. Two
of these three might be mistaken for potted trees on hotcarts, and the third
was unlike any human in her life. Their fluency was in an artificial
language, and two of the "voices" were squawky raspings. Yet ... after a few
minutes' listening, their personalities seemed to float in her mind's eye,
more interesting than many of her school chums, but not that different. The
two Skroderiders were mates. She hadn't thought that could count for much;
among Riders, sex amounted to scarcely more than being next-door neighbors
at the right time of year. Yet there was deep affection here. Greenstalk
especially seemed a loving personality. She (he?) was shy yet stubborn, with
a kind of honesty that might be a major handicap in a trader. Blueshell made
up for that failing. He (she?) could be glib and talkative, quite capable of
maneuvering things his way. Underneath, Ravna glimpsed a compulsive
personality, uncomfortable with his own sneakiness, ultimately grateful when
Greenstalk reined him in.
And what of Pham Nuwen? Yes, what's the inner being you see there? In
an odd way, he was more of a mystery. The arrogant boob of this afternoon
seemed to be mostly invisible tonight. Maybe it had been a cover for
insecurity. The fellow had been born in a male-dominated culture, virtually
the opposite of the matriarchy that all Beyonder humanity descended from.
Underneath the arrogance, a very nice person might be living. Then there was
the way he had faced down razor-jaw. And the way he was drawing out the
Skroderiders. It occurred to Ravna that after a lifetime of reading romantic
fiction, she had run into her first hero.
It was after 02:30 when they left The Wandering Company. The sun would
be rising across the bow horizon in less than five hours. The two
Skroderiders came outside to see them off. Blueshell had switched back to
Samnorsk to regale Ravna with a story of his last visit to Sjandra Kei --
and remind her to ask about the refugee ship.
The Skroderiders dwindled beneath them as Ravna and Pham rose into the
thinning air and headed toward the residential towers.
The two humans didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. It was even
possible that Pham Nuwen was impressed by the view. They were passing over
gaps in the brightly lit Docks, places where they could see through the
parks and concourses to the surface of Groundside a thousand kilometers
below. The clouds there were whorls of dark on dark.
Ravna's residence was at the outer edge of the Docks. Here the air
fountains were of no use; her apartment tower rose into frank vacuum. They
glided down to her balcony, trading their suits' atmosphere for the
apartment's. Ravna's mouth was leading a life of its own, explaining how the
residence was what she'd been assigned when she worked at the archive, that
it is was nothing compared to her new office. Pham Nuwen nodded,
quiet-faced. There were none of the smart remarks of their earlier tours.
She babbled on, and then they were inside and.... She shut up, and they
just looked at each other. In a way, she'd wanted this clown ever since
Grondr's silly animation. But it wasn't till this evening at The Wandering
Company that she'd felt right about bringing him home with her. "Well, I, uh
..." So. Ravna, the ravening princess. Where is your glib tongue now?
She settled for reaching out, putting her hand on his. Pham Nuwen
smiled back, shy too, by the Powers! "I think you have a nice place," he
said.
"I've decorated it Techno-Primitive. Being stuck at the edge of the
Docks has its points: The natural view isn't messed up by city lights. Here,
I'll show you." She doused the lights and pulled the curtains aside. The
window was a natural transparency, looking out from the edge of the Docks.
The view tonight should be terrific. On the ride from The Company, the sky
had been awfully dark. The in-system factories must be off line or hidden
behind Groundside. Even ship traffic seemed sparse.
She went back to stand by Pham. The window was a vague rectangle across
her vision. "You have to wait a minute for your eyes to adjust. There's no
amplification at all." The curve of Groundside was clear now, clouds with
Ravna nodded. Considering where Pham's wreck was found, it was obvious.
"Yeah. I'll bet it's an idea older than spaceflight: the 'elder races'
must be toward the galactic core, where stars are closer and there are black
hole exotica for power. He was taking his entire fleet of twenty. They'd
keep going till they found somebody or had to stop and colonize. This
captain figured success was unlikely in our lifetime. But with proper
planning we could end up in a close-packed region where it would be easy to
found a new Qeng Ho -- and it would proceed even further.
"Anyway, I was lucky to get aboard even as a programmer; this captain
knew all the wrong things about me."
The expedition lasted a thousand years, penetrating two hundred and
fifty light-years galactic inward. The Qeng Ho volume was closer to the
Bottom of the Slowness than Old Earth, and they were proceeding inwards from
there. Even so, it was plain bad luck that they encountered the edge of the
Deeps after only two hundred and fifty light-years. One after another, the
Wild Witless Bird lost contact with the other ships. Sometimes it happened
without warning, other times there was evidence of computer failure or gross
incompetence. The survivors saw a pattern, guessed that common components
were failing. Of course, no one connected the problems with the region of
space they were entering.
"We backed down from ram speeds, found a solar system with a
semi-habitable planet. We'd lost track of everybody else.... Just what we
did then isn't real clear to me." He gave a dry laugh. "We must have been
right at the edge, staggering around at about IQ 60. I remember fooling with
the life support system. That's probably what actually killed us." For a
moment he looked sad and bewildered. He shrugged. "And then I woke up in the
tender clutches of Vrinimi Org, here where faster-than-light travel is
possible ... and I can see the edge of Heaven itself."
Ravna didn't say anything for a moment. She looked across her beach
into the surf. They'd been talking a long time. The sun was peeking under
the tree petals, its light shifting across her office. Did Grondr realize
what he had here? Almost anything from the Slow Zone had collector's value.
People fresh from the Slowness were even more valuable. But Pham Nuwen might
be unique. He had personally experienced more than had some whole
civilizations, and ventured into the Deeps to boot. She understood now why
he looked to the Transcend and called it "Heaven". It wasn't entirely
naïveté, nor a failure in the Organization's education programs. Pham Nuwen
had already been through two transforming experiences, from pre-tech to
star- traveler, and star-traveler to Beyonder. Each was a jump almost beyond
imagination. Now he saw that another step was possible, and was perfectly
willing to sell himself to take it.
So why should I risk my job to change his mind? But her mouth was
living a life of its own. "Why not postpone the Transcend, Pham? Take some
time to understand what is here in the Beyond. You'd be welcome in almost
any civilization. And on human worlds you'd be the wonder of the age." A
glimpse of non-Nyjoran humanity. The local newsgroups at Sjandra Kei had
thought Ravna radically ambitious to take a 'prenticeship twenty thousand
light-years away. Coming back from it, she would have her pick of Full
Academician jobs on any of a dozen worlds. That was nothing compared to Pham
Nuwen; there were folks so rich they might give him a world if he would just
stay. "You could name your price."
The redhead's lazy smile broadened. "Ah, but you see, I've already
named my price, and I think Vrinimi can meet it."
I really wish I could do something about that smile, thought Ravna.
Pham Nuwen's ticket to the Transcend was based on a Power's sudden interest
in the Straumli perversion. This innocent's ego might end up smeared across
a million death cubes, running a million million simulations of human
nature.
Grondr called less than five minutes after Pham Nuwen's departure.
Ravna knew the Org would be eavesdropping, and she'd already told Grondr her
misgivings about this "selling" of a sophont. Nevertheless, she was a bit
nervous to see him.
"When is he actually going to leave for the Transcend?"
Grondr rubbed at his freckles. He didn't seem angry. "Not for ten or
twenty days. The Power that's negotiating for him is more interested in
looking at our archives and watching what's passing through Relay. Also ...
despite the human's enthusiasm for going, he's really quite cautious."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He's insisting on a library budget, and permission to roam
anywhere in the system. He's been chatting with random employees all over
the Docks. He was especially insistent about talking to you." Grondr's mouth
parts clicked in a smile. "Feel free to speak your mind to him. Basically,
he's tasting around for hidden poison. Hearing the worst from you should
make him trust us."
She was coming to understand Grondr's confidence. Damn but Pham Nuwen
had a thick head. "Yes sir. He's asked me to show him around the Foreign
Quarter tonight." As you well know.
"Fine. I wish the rest of the deal were going as smoothly." Grondr
turned so that only peripheral freckles were looking in her direction. He
was surrounded by status displays of the Org's communication and database
operations. From what she could see, things were remarkably busy. "Maybe I
should not bring this up, but it's just possible you can help.... Business
is very brisk." Grondr did not seem pleased to report the good news. "We
have nine civilizations from the Top of the Beyond that are bidding for wide
band data feeds. That we could handle. But this Power that sent a ship
here...."
Ravna interrupted almost without thinking, a breach that would have
horrified her a few days earlier. "Just who is it, by the way? Any chance
we're entertaining the Straumli Perversion?" The thought of that taking the
redhead was a chill.
"Not unless all the Powers are fooled, too. Marketing calls our current
visitor 'Old One'." He smiled. "That's something of a joke, but true even
so. We've known it for eleven years." No one really knew how long
Transcendent beings lived, but it was a rare Power that stayed communicative
for more than five or ten years. They lost interest, or grew into something
different -- or really did die. There were a million explanations, thousands
that were allegedly from the Powers first hand. Ravna guessed that the true
explanation was the simplest one: intelligence is the handmaiden of
flexibility and change. Dumb animals can change only as fast as natural
evolution. Human equivalent races, once on their technological run-up, hit
the limits of their zone in a matter of a few thousand years. In the
Transcend, superhumanity can happen so fast that its creators are destroyed.
It wasn't surprising then that the Powers themselves were evanescent.
So calling an eleven-year Power "Old One" was almost reasonable.
"We believe that Old One is a variant on the Type 73 pattern. Such are
rarely malicious -- and we know from whom it Transcended. Just now it's
causing us major discomfort, though. For twenty days it has been
monopolizing an enormous and increasing percentage of Relay bandwidth. Since
its ship arrived, it's been all over the archive and our local nets. We've
asked Old One to send noncritical data by starship, but it refuses. This
afternoon was the worst yet. Almost five percent of Relay's capacity was
bound up in its service. And the creature is sending almost as much downlink
as it is receiving uplink."
That was weird, but, "It's still paying for the business, isn't it? If
Old One can pay top price, why do you care?"
"Ravna, we hope our Organization will be around for many years after
the Old One is gone. There is nothing it could offer us that would be good
through all that time." Ravna nodded. Actually, there were certain "magic"
automations that might work down here, but their long-term effectiveness
would be dubious. This was a commercial situation, not some exercise in an
Applied Theology course. "Old One can easily top any bid from the Middle
Beyond. But if we give it all the services it demands, we'll be effectively
nonfunctional to the rest of our customers -- and they are the people we
must depend on in the future."
His image was replaced by an archive access report. Ravna was very
familiar with the format, and Grondr's complaint really hit home. The Known
Net was a vast thing, a hierarchical anarchy that linked hundreds of
millions of worlds. Yet even the main trunks had bandwidths like something
out of Earth's dawn age; a wrist dataset could do better on a local net.
That's why bulk access to the Archive was mostly local -- to media
freighters visiting the Relay system. But now ... during the last hundred
hours, remote access to the Archive, both by volume and by count, had been
higher than local! And ninety percent of those accesses were from a single
account -- Old One's.
Grondr's voice continued from behind the graphics. "We've got one
backbone transceiver dedicated to this Power right now.... Frankly, we can't
tolerate this for more than a few days; the ultimate expense is just too
great."
Grondr's face was back on the display. "Anyway, I think you can see
that the deal for the barbarian is really the least of our problems. The
last twenty days have brought more income than the last two years -- far
more than we can verify and absorb. We're endangered by our own success." He
made an ironic smile-frown.
They talked a few minutes about Pham Nuwen, and then Grondr rang off.
Afterwards, Ravna took a walk along her beach. The sun was well down toward
the aft horizon, and the sand was just pleasantly warm against her feet; the
Docks went round the planet once every twenty hours, circling the pole at
about forty degrees north latitude. She walked close to the surf, where the
sand was flat and wet. The mist off the sea was moist against her skin. The
blue sky just above the white-tops shaded quickly to indigo and black.
Specks of silver moved up there, agrav floaters bringing starships into the
Docks. The whole thing was so fabulously, unnecessarily expensive. Ravna was
by turns grossed out and bedazzled. Yet after two years at Relay, she was
beginning to see the point. Vrinimi Org wanted the Beyond to know that it
had the resources to handle whatever communication and archive demands might
be made on it. And they wanted the Beyond to suspect that there were hidden
gifts from the Transcend here, things that might make it more than a little
dangerous to invaders.
She stared into the spray, feeling it bead on her lashes. So Grondr had
the big problem right now: how do you tell a Power to take a walk? All Ravna
Bergsndot had to worry about was one overconfident twit who seemed hell-bent
on destroying himself. She turned and paralleled the water. Every third wave
it surged over her ankles.
She sighed. Pham Nuwen was beyond doubt a twit ... but what an awesome
one. Intellectually, she had always known that there was no difference in
the possible intelligence of Beyonders and the primitives of the Slowness.
Most automation worked better in the Beyond; ultralight communication was
possible. But you had to go to the Transcend to build truly superhuman
minds. So it shouldn't be surprising that Pham Nuwen was capable. Very
capable. He had picked up Triskweline with incredible ease. She had little
doubt that he was the master skipper he claimed. And to be a trader in the
Slowness, to risk centuries between the stars for a destination that might
have fallen from civilization or become deadly hostile to outsiders ... that
took courage that was hard to imagine. She could understand how he might
think going to the Transcend was just another challenge. He'd had less than
twenty days to absorb a whole new universe. That simply wasn't enough time
to understand that the rules change when the players are more than human.
Well, he still had a few days of grace. She would change his mind. And
after talking to Grondr just now, she wouldn't feel especially guilty about
doing it.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
The Foreign Quarter was actually about a third of the Docks. It abutted
the no-atmosphere periphery -- where ships actually docked -- and extended
inwards to a section of the central sea. Vrinimi Org had convinced a
significant number of races that this was a wonder of the Middle Beyond. In
addition to freight traffic there were tourists -- some of the wealthiest
beings in the Beyond.
Pham Nuwen had carte blanche to these amusements. Ravna took him
through the more spectacular ones, including an agrav hop over the Docks.
The barbarian was more impressed by their pocket space suits than by the
Docks. "I've seen structures bigger than that down in the Slowness." Not
hovering in a planetary gravity well, you haven't.
Pham Nuwen seemed to mellow as the evening progressed. At least his
comments became more perceptive, less edged. He wanted to see how real
traders lived in the Beyond, and Ravna showed him the bourses and the
traders' Local.
They ended up in The Wandering Company just after Docks midnight. This
was not Organization territory, but it was one of Ravna's favorite places, a
private dive that attracted traders from the Top to the Bottom. She wondered
how the decor would appeal to Pham Nuwen. The place was modeled as a meeting
lodge on some world of the Slow Zone. A three-meter model ramscoop hung in
the air over the main service floor. Blue-green drive fields glowed from the
ship's every corner and flange, and spread faintly among patrons sitting
below.
To Ravna the walls and floors were heavy timber, rough cut. People like
Egravan saw stone walls and narrow tunnels -- the sort of broodery his race
had maintained on new conquests of long ago. The trickery was optical -- not
some mental smudging -- and about the best that could be done in the Middle
Beyond.
Ravna and Pham walked between widely-spaced tables. The owners weren't
as successful with sound as with vision: the music was faint and changed
from table to table. Smells changed too, and were a little bit harder to
take. Air management was working hard to keep everyone healthy, if not
completely comfortable. Tonight the place was crowded. At the far end of the
service floor, the special-atmosphere nooks were occupied: low pressure,
high pressure, high NOx, aquaria. Some customers were vague blurs within
turbid atmospheres.
In some ways it might have been a port bar at Sjandra Kei. Yet ... this
was Relay. It attracted High Beyonders who would never come to backwaters
like Sjandra Kei. Most of the High Ones didn't look very strange;
civilizations at the Top were most often just colonies from below. But the
headbands she saw here were not jewelry. Mind-computer links aren't
efficient in the Middle Beyond, but most of the High Beyonders would not
give them up. Ravna started toward a group of banded tripods and their
machines. Let Pham Nuwen talk with creatures who teetered on the edge of
transsapience.
Surprisingly, he touched her arm, drawing her back. "Let's walk around
a little more." He was looking all around the hall, as if searching for a
familiar face. "Let's find some other humans first."
When holes showed in Pham Nuwen's cram-education, they were gapingly
wide. Ravna tried to keep her face serious. "Other humans? We're all there
is at Relay, Pham."
"But the friends you've been telling me about ... Egravan, Sarale?"
Ravna just shook her head. For a moment the barbarian looked
vulnerable.
Pham Nuwen had spent his life crawling at sublight between
human-colonized star systems. She knew that in all that life he had seen
only three non-human races. Now he was lost in a sea of alienness. She kept
her sympathy to herself; this one insight might affect the guy more than all
her arguing.
But the instant passed, and he was smiling again. "Even more an
adventure." They left the main floor and walked past special-atmosphere
nooks. "Lord, but Qeng Ho would love this."
No humans anywhere, and The Wandering Company was the homiest meeting
place she knew; many Org customers met only on the Net. She felt her own
homesickness welling up. On the second floor, a signet flag caught her eye.
She'd known something like it back at Sjandra Kei. She drew Pham Nuwen
across the floor, and started up the timbered stairs.
Out of the background murmur, she heard a high-pitched twittering. It
wasn't Triskweline, but the words made sense! By the Powers, it was
Samnorsk: "I do believe it's a Homo Sap! Over here, my lady." She followed
the sound to the table with the signet flag.
"May we sit with you?" she asked, savoring the familiar language.
"Please do." The twitterer looked like a small ornamental tree sitting
in a six-wheeled cart. The cart was marked with cosmetic stripes and
tassels; its 150-by-120-centimeter topside was covered with a cargo scarf in
the same pattern as the signet flag. The creature was a Greater Skroderider.
Its race traded through much of the Middle Beyond, including Sjandra Kei.
The Skroderider's high-pitched voice came from its voder. But speaking
Samnorsk, it sounded homier than anything she'd heard in a long time. Even
granting the mental peculiarities of Skroderiders, she felt a surge of
affectionate nostalgia, as if she had run into a old classmate in a far
city.
"My name is -- " the sound was the rustling of fronds, "but you can
easier call me Blueshell. It's nice to see a familiar face, hahaha."
Blueshell spoke the laughter as words. Pham Nuwen had sat down with Ravna,
but he understood not a word of Samnorsk and so the great reunion was lost
on him. The Rider switched to Triskweline and introduced his four
companions: another Skroderider, and three humanoids who seemed to like the
shadows. None of the humanoids spoke Samnorsk, but no one was more than one
translator hop from Triskweline.
The Skroderiders were owners/operators of a small interstellar
freighter, the Out of Band II. The humanoids were certificants for part of
the starship's current cargo. "My mate and I have been in the business
almost two hundred years. We have happy feelings for your race, my lady. Our
first runs were between Sjandra Kei and Forste Utgrep. Your people are good
customers and we scarcely ever have a shipment rot...." He wheeled his
skrode back from the table and then drove forward -- the equivalent of a
small bow.
All was not sweetness and light, however. One of the humanoids spoke.
The sounds could almost have come from a human throat, though they made no
sense. A moment passed as the house translator processed his words. Then the
broach on his jacket spoke in clear Triskweline: "Blueshell states you are
Homo sapiens. Know that you have our animosity. We are bankrupt,
near-stranded here by your race's evil creation. The Straumli Perversion."
The words sounded emotionless, but Ravna could see the creature's tense
posture, its fingers twisting at a drink bulb.
Considering his attitude, it probably wouldn't help to point out that
though she was human, Sjandra Kei was thousands of light-years from Straum.
"You came here from the Realm?" she asked the Skroderider.
Blueshell didn't answer immediately. That's the way it was with his
race; he was probably trying to remember who she was and what they were all
talking about. Then: "Yes, yes. Please do excuse my certificants' hostility.
Our main cargo is a one-time cryptographic pad. The source is Commercial
Security at Sjandra Kei; the destination is the certificants' High colony.
It was the usual arrangement: We're carrying a one-third xor of the pad.
Independent shippers are carrying the others. At the destination, the three
parts would be xor'd together. The result could supply a dozen worlds'
crypto needs on the Net for -- "
Downstairs there was a commotion. Someone was smoking something a bit
too strong for the air scrubbers. Ravna caught a whiff, enough to shimmer
her vision. It had knocked out several patrons on the main level. Management
was counseling the offending customer. Blueshell made an abrupt noise. He
backed his skrode from the table and rolled to the railing. "Don't want to
be caught unawares. Some people can be so abrupt...." When nothing more came
of the incident, he returned. "Uh, where was I?" He was silent a moment,
consulting the short-term memory built into his skrode. "Yes, yes.... We
would become relatively rich if our plans work out. Unfortunately, we
stopped on Straum to drop off some bulk data." He pivoted on his rear four
wheels. "Surely that was safe? Straum is more than a hundred light-years
from their lab in the Transcend. Yet -- "
One of the certificants interrupted with loud gabble. The house
translator kicked in a moment later: "Yes. It should have been safe. We saw
no violence. Ship's recorders show that our safeness was not breached. Yet
now there are rumors. Net groups claim that Straumli Realm is owned by
perversion. Absurdity. Yet these rumors have crossed the Net to our
destination. Our cargo is not trusted, so our cargo is ruined: now it is
only a few grams of data medium carrying random -- " In the middle of the
flat-voiced translation, the humanoid lunged out of the shadows. Ravna had a
glimpse of a jaw edged with razor-sharp gums. He threw his drink bulb at the
table in front of her.
Pham Nuwen's hand flashed out, snatching the drink before it hit --
before she had quite realized what was happening. The redhead came slowly to
his feet. From the shadows, the two other humanoids came to their feet and
moved toward their friend. Pham Nuwen didn't say a word. He set the bulb
carefully down and leaned just slightly toward the other, his hands relaxed
yet bladelike. Cheap fiction talks about "looks of deadly menace". Ravna had
never expected to see the real thing. But the humanoids saw it too. They
tugged their friend gently back from the table. The loudmouth did not
resist, but once beyond Pham's reach he erupted in a barrage of squeals and
hisses that left the house translator speechless. He made a sharp gesture
with three fingers, and shut up. The three swept silently down the stairs
and away.
Pham Nuwen sat down, his gray eyes calm and untroubled. Maybe he did
have something to be arrogant about! Ravna looked across at the two
Skroderiders. "I'm sorry your cargo lost value."
Most of Ravna's past contacts had been with Lesser Skroderiders, whose
reflexes were only slightly augmented beyond their sessile heritage. Had
these two even noticed the interruption? But Blueshell answered immediately,
"Do not apologize. Ever since our arrival, those three have been
complaining. Contract partners or not, I'm very tired of them." He lapsed
into potted-plant mode.
After a moment, the other Rider -- Greenstalk, was it? -- spoke.
"Besides, our commercial situation may not be a complete failure. I am sure
the other thirds of the shipment went nowhere near Straumli Realm." That was
the usual procedure anyway: each part of the shipment was carried by a
different company, each taking a very different path. If the other thirds
could be certified, the crew of the Out of Band might not come away
empty-handed. "In -- in fact, there may be a way we can get full
certification. True, we were at Straumli Main, but -- "
"How long ago did you leave?"
"Six hundred and fifty hours ago. About two hundred hours after they
dropped off the Net."
It suddenly dawned on Ravna that she was talking to something like
eyewitnesses. After thirty days, the Threats news was still dominated by the
events at Straum. The consensus was that a Class Two perversion had been
created -- even Vrinimi Org believed that. Yet it was still mainly
guesswork.... And here she was talking to beings who had actually been
there. "You don't think the Straumers created a perversion?"
It was Blueshell who replied. "Sigh," he said. "Our certificants deny
it, but I see a problem of conscience here. We did witness strangeness on
Straum.... Have you ever encountered artificial immune systems? The ones
that work in the Middle Beyond are more trouble than they're worth, so
perhaps not. I noticed a real change in certain officers of the Crypto
Authority right after the Straumli victory. It was as if they were suddenly
part of a poorly calibrated automation, as if they were somebody's, um,
fingers.... No one can doubt they were playing in the Transcend. They found
something up there; a lost archive. But that is not the point." He stopped
talking for a long moment; Ravna almost thought he was finished. "You see,
just before leaving Straumli Main, we -- "
But now Pham Nuwen was talking too. "That's something I've been
wondering about. Everybody talks as though this Straumli Realm was doomed
the moment they began research in the Transcend. Look. I've played with
bugged software and strange weapons. I know you can get killed that way. But
it looks like the Straumers were careful to put their lab far away. They
were building something that could go very wrong, but apparently it was a
previously-tried experiment -- like just about everything Up Here. They
could stop the work any time it deviated from the records, right up to the
end. So how could they screw up so bad?"
The question stopped the Skroderider in its tracks. You didn't need a
doctorate in Applied Theology to know the answer. Even the damn Straumers
should have known the answer. But given Pham Nuwen's background, it was a
reasonable question. Ravna kept her mouth shut. The Skroderider's very
alienness might be more convincing to Pham than another lecture from her.
Blueshell dithered for a moment, no doubt using his skrode to help
assemble his arguments. When he finally spoke, he didn't seem irritated by
the interruption. "I hear several misconceptions, My Lady Pham." He seemed
to use the old Nyjoran honorific pretty indiscriminately. "Have you been
into the archive at Relay?"
Pham said yes. Ravna guessed he'd never been past the beginners' front
end.
"Then you know that an archive is a fundamentally vaster thing than the
database on a conventional local net. For practical purposes the big ones
can't even be duplicated. The major archives go back millions of years, have
been maintained by hundreds of different races -- most now extinct or
Transcended into Powers. Even the archive at Relay is a jumble, so huge that
indexing systems are laid on top of indexing systems. Only in the Transcend
could such a mass be well organized and even then only the Powers could
understand it."
"So?"
"There are thousands of archives in the Beyond -- tens of thousands if
you count the ones that have fallen into disrepair or dropped off the Net.
Along with unending trivia, they contain important secrets and important
lies. There are traps and snares." Millions of races played with the advice
that filtered unsolicited across the Net. Tens of thousands had been burned
thereby. Sometimes the damage was relatively minor, good inventions that
weren't quite right for the target environment. Sometimes it was malicious,
viruses that would jam a local net so thoroughly that a civilization must
restart from scratch. Where-Are-They-Now and Threats carried stories of
worse tragedies: planets kneedeep in replicant goo, races turned brainless
by badly programmed immune systems.
Pham Nuwen was wearing his skeptical expression. "Just test the stuff
at a safe remove. Be prepared for local disasters."
That would have brought most explanations to a stop. Ravna had to
admire the Skroderider: he paused, retreated to still more elementary terms.
"True, simple caution can prevent many disasters. And if your lab is in the
Middle or Low Beyond, such caution is all that is really needed -- no matter
how sophisticated the threat. But we all understand the nature of the
Zones...." Ravna had virtually no feel for Rider body language, but she
would have sworn that Blueshell was watching the barbarian expectantly,
trying to gauge the depth of Pham's ignorance.
The human nodded impatiently.
Blueshell continued, "In the Transcend, truly sophisticated equipment
can operate, devices substantially smarter than anyone down here. Of course,
almost any economic or military competition can be won by the side with
superior computing resources. Such can be had at the Top of the Beyond and
in the Transcend. Races are always migrating there, hoping to build their
utopias. But what do you do when your new creations may be smarter than you
are? It happens that there are limitless possibilities for disaster, even if
an existing Power does not cause harm. So there are unnumbered recipes for
safely taking advantage of the Transcend. Of course they can't be
effectively examined except in the Transcend. And run on devices of their
own description, the recipes themselves become sentient."
Understanding was beginning to glimmer across Pham Nuwen's face.
Ravna leaned forward, caught the redhead's attention. "There are
complex things in the archives. None of them is sentient, but some have the
potential, if only some naive young race will believe their promises. We
think that's what happened to Straumli Realm. They were tricked by
documentation that claimed miracles, tricked into building a transcendent
being, a Power -- but one that victimizes sophonts in the Beyond." She
didn't mention how rare such perversion was. The Powers were variously
malevolent, playful, indifferent -- but virtually all of them had better
uses for their time than exterminating cockroaches in the wild.
Pham Nuwen rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Okay, I guess I see. But I get
the feeling this is common knowledge. If it's this deadly, how did the
Straumli bunch get taken in?"
"Bad luck and criminal incompetence," the words popped out of her with
surprising force. She hadn't realized she was so bent by the Straumli thing;
somewhere inside, her old feelings for Straumli Realm were still alive.
"Look. Operations in the High Beyond and in the Transcend are dangerous.
Civilizations up there don't last long, but there will always be people who
try. Very few of the threats are actively evil. What happened to the
Straumers.... They ran across this recipe advertising wondrous treasure.
Quite possibly it had been lying around for millions of years, a little too
risky for other folks to try. You're right, the Straumers knew the dangers."
But it was a classic situation of balancing risks and choosing wrong.
Perhaps a third of Applied Theology was about how to dance near the flame
without getting incinerated. No one knew the details of the Straumli
debacle, but she could guess them from a hundred similar cases:
"So they set up a base in the Transcend at this lost archive -- if
that's what it was. They began implementing the schemes they found. You can
be sure they spent most of their time watching it for signs of deception. No
doubt the recipe was a series of more or less intelligible steps with a
clear takeoff point. The early stages would involve computers and programs
more effective than anything in the Beyond -- but apparently well-behaved."
"... Yeah. Even in the Slowness, a big program can be full of
surprises."
Ravna nodded. "And some of these would be near or beyond human
complexity. Of course, the Straumers would know this and try to isolate
their creations. But given a malign and clever design ... it should be no
surprise if the devices leaked onto the lab's local net and distorted the
information there. From then on, the Straumer's wouldn't have a chance. The
most cautious staffers would be framed as incompetent. Phantom threats would
be detected, emergency responses demanded. More sophisticated devices would
be built, and with fewer safeguards. Conceivably, the humans were killed or
rewritten before the Perversion even achieved transsapience."
There was a long silence. Pham Nuwen looked almost chastened. Yeah.
There's a lot you don't know, Buddy. Think on what Old One might have
planned for you.
Blueshell bent a tendril to taste a brown concoction that smelled like
seaweed. "Well told, My Lady Ravna. But there is one difference in the
present situation. It may be good fortune, and very important.... You see,
just before leaving Straumli Main, we attended a beach party among the
Lesser Riders. They had been little affected by events to that point; many
hadn't even noticed the destruction of independence at Straum. With luck,
they may be the last enslaved." His squeaky voice lowered an octave,
trailing into silence. "Where was I? Yes, the party. There was one fellow
there, a bit more lively than the average. Somewhere years past, he had
bonded with a traveler in a Straumli news service. Now he was acting as a
clandestine data drop, so humble that he wasn't even listed in that
service's own net....
"Anyway, the researchers at the Straumli lab -- a few of them at least
-- were not so incautious as you say. They suspected a perverse runaway, and
were determined to sabotage it."
This was news, but -- "Doesn't look like they had much success, does
it?"
"I am nodding agreement. They did not prevent it, but they did plan to
escape the laboratory planet with two starships. And they did get word of
their attempt into channels that ended with my acquaintance at the beach
party. And here is the important part: At least one of these ships was to
carry away some final elements of the Perversion's recipe -- before they
were incorporated into the design."
"Surely there were backups -- " began Pham Nuwen.
Ravna waved him silent. There had been enough grade-school explanations
for one night. This was incredible. She'd been following the news about
Straumli Realm as much as anyone. The Realm was the first High daughter
colony of Sjandra Kei; it was horrifying to see it destroyed. But nowhere in
Threats had there been even a rumor of this: the Perversion not whole? "If
this is true, then the Straumers may have a chance. It all depends on the
missing parts of the design document."
"Just so. And of course the humans realized this too. They planned to
head straight for the Bottom of the Beyond, rendezvous there with their
accomplices from Straum."
Which -- considering the ultimate magnitude of the disaster -- would
never happen. Ravna leaned back, oblivious of Pham Nuwen for the first time
in many hours. Most likely both ships had been destroyed by now. If not --
well, the Straumers had been at least half-smart, heading for the Bottom. If
they had what Blueshell thought, the Perversion would be very interested in
finding them. It was no wonder Blueshell and Greenstalk hadn't announced
this on the news groups. "So you know where they were going to rendezvous?"
she said softly.
"Approximately."
Greenstalk burred something at him.
"Not in ourselves," he said. "The coordinates are in the safeness at
our ship. But there is more. The Straumers had a backup plan if the
rendezvous failed. They intended to signal Relay with their ship's
ultrawave."
"Now wait. Just how big is this ship?" Ravna was no physical-layer
engineer, but she knew that Relay's backbone transceivers were actually
swarms of antenna elements scattered across several light years, each
element ten-thousand kilometers across.
Blueshell rolled forward and back, a quick gesture of agitation. "We
don't know, but it's nothing exceptional. Unless you're looking precisely at
it with a large antenna, you'd never detect it from here."
Greenstalk added, "We think that was part of their plan, though it is
desperation on top of desperation. Since we came to Relay, we've been
talking to the Org -- "
"Discreetly! Quietly!" Blueshell put in abruptly.
"Yes. We've asked the Organization to listen for this ship. I'm afraid
we haven't talked to the right people. No one seems to put much credence in
us. After all, the story is ultimately from a Lesser Rider," Yeah. What
could they know that was under a hundred years old? "What we're asking would
normally be a great expense, and apparently prices are especially high right
now."
Ravna tried to curb her enthusiasm. If she had read this in a
newsgroup, it would've been just one more interesting rumor. Why should she
boggle just because she was getting it face-to-face? By the Powers, what
irony. Hundreds of customers from the Top and the Transcend -- even Old One
-- were saturating Relay's resources with their curiosity about the Straumli
debacle. What if the answer had been sitting in front of them, suppressed by
the very eagerness of their investigation? "Just who have you been talking
to? Never mind, never mind." Maybe she should just go to Grondr 'Kalir with
the story. "I think you should know that I am a -- " very minor! "--
employee of the Vrinimi Organization. I may be able to help."
She had expected some surprise at this sudden good luck. Instead there
was a pause. Apparently Blueshell had lost his place in the conversation.
Finally Greenstalk spoke. "I am blushing.... You see, we knew that.
Blueshell looked you up in the employees' directory; you are the only human
in the Org. You're not in Customer Contact, but we thought that if we
chanced upon you, so to speak, you might give us a kindly hearing."
Blueshell's tendrils rustled together sharply. Irritation? Or had he
finally caught up to the conversation? "Yes. Well, since we are all being so
frank, I suppose we should confess that this might even benefit us. If the
refugee ship can prove that the Perversion is not a full Class Two, then
perhaps we can convince our buyers that our cargo has not been compromised.
If they only knew, my certificant friends would be groveling at your feet,
my lady Ravna."
They stayed at The Wandering Company until well past midnight. Business
picked up at the circadian peak of some of the new arrivals. Floor and table
shows were raucous all around. Pham's eyes flickered this way and that,
taking it all in. But above all he seemed fascinated by Blueshell and
Greenstalk. The two were starkly nonhuman, in some ways even strange as
aliens go. Skroderiders were one of the very few races that had achieved
long- term stability in the Beyond. Speciation had long ago occurred,
varieties heading outward or becoming extinct. And still there were some who
matched their ancient skrodes, a unique balance of outlook and machine
interface that was more than a billion years old. But Blueshell and
Greenstalk were also traders with much of the outlook that Pham Nuwen had
known in the Slowness. And though Pham acted as ignorant as ever, there was
new diplomacy in him. Or maybe the awesomeness of the Beyond was finally
getting through his thick skull. He couldn't have asked for better drinking
buddies. As a race, the Skroderiders preferred lazy reminiscence to almost
any activity. Once delivered of their critical message, the two were quite
content to talk of their life in the Beyond, to explain things in whatever
detail the barbarian could wish. The razor-jawed certificants stayed well
lost.
Ravna got a mild buzz on, and watched the three talk shop. She smiled
to herself. In a way, she was the outsider now, the person who had never
done. Blueshell and Greenstalk had been all over, and some of their stories
sounded wild even to her. Ravna had a theory (not that widely accepted,
actually) that where beings have a common fluency, little else matters. Two
of these three might be mistaken for potted trees on hotcarts, and the third
was unlike any human in her life. Their fluency was in an artificial
language, and two of the "voices" were squawky raspings. Yet ... after a few
minutes' listening, their personalities seemed to float in her mind's eye,
more interesting than many of her school chums, but not that different. The
two Skroderiders were mates. She hadn't thought that could count for much;
among Riders, sex amounted to scarcely more than being next-door neighbors
at the right time of year. Yet there was deep affection here. Greenstalk
especially seemed a loving personality. She (he?) was shy yet stubborn, with
a kind of honesty that might be a major handicap in a trader. Blueshell made
up for that failing. He (she?) could be glib and talkative, quite capable of
maneuvering things his way. Underneath, Ravna glimpsed a compulsive
personality, uncomfortable with his own sneakiness, ultimately grateful when
Greenstalk reined him in.
And what of Pham Nuwen? Yes, what's the inner being you see there? In
an odd way, he was more of a mystery. The arrogant boob of this afternoon
seemed to be mostly invisible tonight. Maybe it had been a cover for
insecurity. The fellow had been born in a male-dominated culture, virtually
the opposite of the matriarchy that all Beyonder humanity descended from.
Underneath the arrogance, a very nice person might be living. Then there was
the way he had faced down razor-jaw. And the way he was drawing out the
Skroderiders. It occurred to Ravna that after a lifetime of reading romantic
fiction, she had run into her first hero.
It was after 02:30 when they left The Wandering Company. The sun would
be rising across the bow horizon in less than five hours. The two
Skroderiders came outside to see them off. Blueshell had switched back to
Samnorsk to regale Ravna with a story of his last visit to Sjandra Kei --
and remind her to ask about the refugee ship.
The Skroderiders dwindled beneath them as Ravna and Pham rose into the
thinning air and headed toward the residential towers.
The two humans didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. It was even
possible that Pham Nuwen was impressed by the view. They were passing over
gaps in the brightly lit Docks, places where they could see through the
parks and concourses to the surface of Groundside a thousand kilometers
below. The clouds there were whorls of dark on dark.
Ravna's residence was at the outer edge of the Docks. Here the air
fountains were of no use; her apartment tower rose into frank vacuum. They
glided down to her balcony, trading their suits' atmosphere for the
apartment's. Ravna's mouth was leading a life of its own, explaining how the
residence was what she'd been assigned when she worked at the archive, that
it is was nothing compared to her new office. Pham Nuwen nodded,
quiet-faced. There were none of the smart remarks of their earlier tours.
She babbled on, and then they were inside and.... She shut up, and they
just looked at each other. In a way, she'd wanted this clown ever since
Grondr's silly animation. But it wasn't till this evening at The Wandering
Company that she'd felt right about bringing him home with her. "Well, I, uh
..." So. Ravna, the ravening princess. Where is your glib tongue now?
She settled for reaching out, putting her hand on his. Pham Nuwen
smiled back, shy too, by the Powers! "I think you have a nice place," he
said.
"I've decorated it Techno-Primitive. Being stuck at the edge of the
Docks has its points: The natural view isn't messed up by city lights. Here,
I'll show you." She doused the lights and pulled the curtains aside. The
window was a natural transparency, looking out from the edge of the Docks.
The view tonight should be terrific. On the ride from The Company, the sky
had been awfully dark. The in-system factories must be off line or hidden
behind Groundside. Even ship traffic seemed sparse.
She went back to stand by Pham. The window was a vague rectangle across
her vision. "You have to wait a minute for your eyes to adjust. There's no
amplification at all." The curve of Groundside was clear now, clouds with