omething the Blight wants
desperately. Maybe fifty-five hours is enough to figure out what it is and
tell the Net. And ... and we'll still have Pham's godshatter."
Your worst enemy? Quite possibly this Pham Nuwen was a construct of the
Powers. He certainly looked like something built from a second-hand
description of humanity. But how can you tell godshatter from simple
nuttery?
She shrugged, as if acknowledging the doubts -- and accepting them. "So
what will you and Commercial Security do?"
"There is no Commercial Security anymore. Virtually all our customers
got shot out from under us. Now we've killed our company's owner -- or at
least destroyed her ship and those supporting her. We are Aniara Fleet now."
It was the official name chosen at the fleet conference just ended. There
was a certain grim pleasure in embracing it, the ghost from before Sjandra
Kei and before Nyjora, from the earliest times of the human race. For they
were truly cast away now, from their worlds and their customers and their
former leaders. One hundred ships bound for.... "We talked it over. A few
still wanted to follow you to Tines' world. Some of the crews want to return
to Middle Beyond, spend the rest of their lives killing Butterflies. The
majority want to start the races of Sjandra Kei over again, some place where
we won't be noticed, some place where no one cares if we live."
And the one thing everyone agreed on was that Aniara must be split no
further, must make no further sacrifices outside of itself. Once that was
clear, it was easy to decide what to do. In the wake of the Great Surge,
this part of the Bottom was an incredible froth of Slowness and Beyond. It
would be centuries before the zonographic vessels from above had reasonable
maps of the new interface. Hidden away in the folds and interstices were
worlds fresh from the Slowness, worlds where Sjandra Kei could be born
again. Ny Sjandra Kei?
He looked across the bridge at Tirolle and Glimfrelle. They were busy
bringing the main navigation processors out of suspension. That wasn't
absolutely necessary for the rendezvous with Lynsnar, but things would be a
lot more convenient if both ships could maneuver. The brothers seemed
oblivious to Kjet's conversation with Ravna. And maybe they weren't paying
attention. In a way, the Aniara decision meant more to them than to the
humans of the fleet: No one doubted that millions of humans survived in the
Beyond (and who knew how many human worlds might still exist in the
Slowness, distant cousins of Nyjora, distant children of Old Earth). But
this side of the Transcend, the Dirokimes of Aniara were the only ones that
existed. The dream habitats of Sjandra Kei were gone, and with them the
race. There were at least a thousand Dirokimes left aboard Aniara, pairs of
sisters and brothers scattered across a hundred vessels. These were the most
adventurous of their race's latter days, and now they were faced with their
greatest challenge. The two on Ølvira had already been scouting among
the survivors, looking for friends and dreaming a new reality.
Ravna listened solemnly to his explanations. "Group Captain, zonography
is a tedious thing ... and your ships are near their limits. In this froth
you might search for years and not find a new home."
"We're taking precautions. We're abandoning all our ships except the
ones with ramscoop and coldsleep capability. We'll operate in coordinated
nets; no one should be lost for more than a few years." He shrugged. "And if
we never find what we seek -- " if we die between the stars as our life
support finally fails "-- well then, we will have still lived true to our
name." Aniara. "I think we have a chance." More than can be said for you.
Ravna nodded slowly. "Yes, well. It ... helps me to know that."
They talked a few minutes more, Tirolle and Glimfrelle joining in. They
had been at the center of something vast, but as usual with the affairs of
the Powers, no one knew quite what had happened, nor the result of the
strivings.
"Rendezvous Lynsnar two hundred seconds," said the ship's voice.
Ravna heard it, nodded. She raised her hand. "Fare you well, Kjet
Svensndot and Tirolle and Glimfrelle."
The Dirokimes whistled back the common farewell, and Svensndot raised
his hand. The window on Ravna Bergsndot closed.
... Kjet Svensndot remembered her face all the rest of his life, though
in later years it seemed more and more to be the same as Ølvira's.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
PART III
CHAPTER 37
"Tines' world. I can see it, Pham!"
The main window showed a true view upon the system: a sun less than two
hundred million kilometers off, daylight across the command deck. The
positions of identified planets were marked with blinking red arrows. But
one of those -- just twenty million kilometers off -- was labeled
"terrestrial". Coming off an interstellar jump, you couldn't get positioning
much better than that.
Pham didn't reply, just glared out the window as if there were
something wrong with what they were seeing. Something had broken in him
after the battle with the Blight. He'd been so sure of his godshatter -- and
so bewildered by the consequences. Afterwards he had retreated more than
ever. Now he seemed to think that if they moved fast enough, the surviving
enemy could do them no harm. More than ever he was suspicious of Blueshell
and Greenstalk, as if somehow they were greater threats than the ships that
still pursued.
"Damn," Pham said finally. "Look at the relative velocity." Seventy
kilometers per second.
Position matching was no problem, but "Matching velocities will cost us
time, Sir Pham."
Pham's stare turned on Blueshell. "We talked this out with the locals
three weeks ago, remember? You managed the burn."
"And you checked my work, Sir Pham. This must be another nav system bug
... though I didn't expect anything was wrong in simple ballistics." A sign
inverted, seventy klicks per second closing velocity instead of zero.
Blueshell drifted toward the secondary console.
"Maybe," said Pham. "Just now, I want you off the deck, Blueshell."
"But I can help! We should be contacting Jefri, and rematching
velocities, and -- "
"Get off the deck, Blueshell. I don't have time to watch you anymore,"
Pham dived across the intervening space and was met by Ravna, just short of
the Rider.
She floated between the two, talking fast, hoping whatever she said
would both make sense and make peace. "It's okay, Pham. He'll go." She
brushed her hand across one of Blueshell's wildly vibrating fronds. After a
second, Blueshell wilted. "I'll go. I'll go." She kept an encouraging touch
on him -- and kept herself between him and Pham, as the Skroderider made a
dejected exit.
When the Rider was gone, she turned to Pham. "Couldn't it have been a
nav bug, Pham?"
The other didn't seem to hear the question. The instant the hatch had
closed, he had returned to the command console. OOB's latest estimate put
the Blight's arrival less than fifty-three hours away. And now they must
waste time redoing a velocity match supposedly accomplished three weeks
earlier. "Somebody, something, screwed us over ..." Pham was muttering, even
as he finished with the control sequence, "Maybe it was a bug. This next
damn burn is going to be as manual as it can be." Acceleration alarms echoed
down the core of the OOB. Pham flipped through monitor windows, searching
for loose items that might be big enough to be dangerous. "You tie down,
too." He reached out to override the five minute timer.
Ravna dived back across the deck, unfolding the free-fall saddle into a
seat and strapping in. She heard Pham speaking on the general announce
channel, warning of the timer override. Then the impulse drive cut in, a
lazy pressure back into the webbing. Four tenths of a gee -- all the poor
OOB could still manage.
When Pham said manual, he meant it. The main window appeared to be
bore-centered now. The view didn't drift at the whim of the pilot, and there
were no helpful legends and schematics. As much as possible, the were seeing
true view along OOB's main axis. Peripheral windows were held in fixed
geometry with main. Pham's eyes flickered from one to another, as his hands
played over the command board. As near as could be, he was flying by his own
senses, and trusting no one else.
But Pham still had use for the ultradrive. They were twenty million
klicks off target, a submicroscopic jump. Pham Nuwen fiddled with the drive
parameters, trying to make an accurate jump smaller than the standard
interval. Every few seconds the sunlight would shift a fraction, coming
first over Ravna's left shoulder and then her right. It made reestablishing
comm with Jefri nearly impossible.
Suddenly the window below their feet was filled by a world, huge and
gibbous, blue and swirling white. The Tines' world was as Jefri Olsndot
advertised, a normal terrestrial planet. After the months aspace and the
loss of Sjandra Kei, the sight caught Ravna short. Ocean, the world was
mostly ocean, but near the terminator there were the darker shades of land.
A single tiny moon was visible beyond the limb.
Pham sucked in his breath. "It's about ten thousand kilometers off.
Perfect. Except we're closing at seventy klicks per second." Even as she
watched, the world seemed to grow, falling toward them. Pham watched it for
few seconds more. "Don't worry, we're going to miss, fly right past the, um,
north limb."
The globe swelled below them, eclipsing the moon. She had always loved
the appearance of Herte at Sjandra Kei. But that world had smaller oceans,
and was criss-crossed with Dirokime accidents. This place was as beautiful
as Relay, and seemed truly untouched. The small polar cap was in sunlight,
and she could follow the coastline that came south from it toward the
terminator. I'm seeing the northwest coast. Jefri's right down there! Ravna
reached for her keyboard, asked the ship to attempt both ultrawave comm and
a radio link.
"Ultrawave contact," she said after a second.
"What does it say?"
"It's garbled. Probably just a ping response," acknowledgment to OOB's
signal. Jefri was housed very near the ship these days; sometimes she had
gotten responses almost immediately, even during his night time. It would be
good to talk to him again, even if ...
Tines' world filled the entire aft and side windows now, its limb a
barely curving horizon. Sky colors stood before them, fading to the black of
space. Icecap and icebergs showed detail within detail against the sea. She
could see cloud shadows. She followed the coast southwards, islands and
peninsulas so closely fit that she could not be sure of one from the other.
Blackish mountains and black-striped glaciers. Green and brown valleys. She
tried to remember the geography they had learned from Jefri. Hidden Island?
But there were so many islands.
"I have radio contact from planet's surface," came the ship's voice.
Simultaneously a blinking arrow pointed at a spot just in from the coast.
"Do you want the audio in real time?"
"Yes. Yes!" said Ravna, then punched at her keyboard when the ship did
not respond immediately.
"Hei, Ravna. Oh, Ravna!" The little boy's voice bounced excitement
around the deck. He sounded just as she had imagined.
Ravna keyed in a request for two-way. They were less than five thousand
klicks from Jefri now, even if they were sweeping by at seventy kilometers
per second. Plenty close enough for a radio conversation. "Hei, Jefri!" she
said. "We're here at last, but we need -- " we need all the cooperation your
four-legged friends can give us. How to say that quickly and effectively?
But the boy on the ground already had an agenda: "-- need help now,
Ravna! The Woodcarvers are attacking now."
There was a thumping, as if the transmitter was bouncing around.
Another voice spoke, high-pitched and weirdly inarticulate. "This Steel,
Ravna. Jefri right. Woodcarver -- " the almost human voice dissolved into a
hissing gobble. After a moment she heard Jefri's voice: "'Ambush', the word
is 'ambush'."
"Yes ... Woodcarver has done big, big ambush. They all around now. We
die in hours if you not help."
Woodcarver had never wanted to be a warrior. But ruling for half a
thousand years requires a range of skills, and she had learned about making
war. Some of that -- such as trusting to staff -- she had temporarily
unlearned these last few days. There had indeed been an ambush on Margrum
Climb, but not the one that Lord Steel had planned.
She looked across the tented field at Vendacious. That pack was
half-hidden by noise baffles, but she could see he wasn't so jaunty as
before. Being put to the question will loosen anyone's control. Vendacious
knew his survival now depended on her keeping a promise. Yet ... it was
awful to think that Vendacious would live after he had killed and betrayed
so many. She realized that two of herself were keening rage, lips curled
back from clenched teeth. Her puppies huddled back from threats unseen. The
tented area stank of sweat and the mindnoise of too many people in too small
a space. It took a real effort of will to calm herself. She licked the
puppies, and daydreamed peaceful thoughts for a moment.
Yes, she would keep her promises to Vendacious. And maybe it would be
worth the price. Vendacious had only speculations about Steel's inner
secrets, but he had learned far more about Steel's tactical situation than
the other side could have guessed. Vendacious had known just where the
Flenserists were hiding and in what numbers. Steel's folk had been
overconfident about their super guns and their secret traitor. When
Woodcarver's troops surprised them, victory had been easy -- and now the
Queen had some of these marvelous guns.
From behind the hills, those cannons were still pounding away, eating
through the stocks of ammunition the captured gunners had revealed.
Vendacious the traitor had cost her much, but Vendacious the prisoner might
yet bring her victory.
"Woodcarver?" It was Scrupilo. She waved him closer. Her chief gunner
edged out of the sun, sat down an intimate twenty-five feet away. Battle
conditions had blown away all notions of decorum.
Scrupilo's mind noise was an anxious jumble. He looked by parts
exhausted and exhilarated and discouraged. "It's safe to advance up the
castle hill, Your Majesty," he said. "Answering fire is almost extinguished.
Parts of the castle walls have been breached. There is an end to castles
here, My Queen. Even our own poor cannons would make it so."
She bobbed agreement. Scrupilo spent most of his time with Dataset in
learning to make -- cannons in particular. Woodcarver spent her time
learning what those inventions ultimately created. By now she knew far more
than even Johanna about the social effects of weapons, from the most
primitive to ones so strange that they seemed not weapons at all. A thousand
million times, castle technologies had fallen to things like cannon; why
should her world be different?
"We'll move up then -- "
From beyond the shade of the tent there was a faint whistle, a rare,
incoming round. She folded the puppies within herself, and paused a moment.
Twenty yards away, Vendacious shrank down in a great cower. But when it
came, the explosion was a muffled thump above them on the hill. It might
even have been one of our own. "Now our troops must take advantage of the
destruction. I want Steel to know that the old games of ransom and torture
will only win him worse." We'll most likely win the starship and the child.
The question was, would either be alive when they got them? She hoped
Johanna would never know the threats and the risks she planned for the next
few hours.
"Yes, Majesty." But Scrupilo made no move to depart, and suddenly
seemed more bedraggled and worried than ever. "Woodcarver, I fear ..."
"What? We have the tide. We must rush to sail on it."
"Yes, Majesty.... But while we move forward, there are serious dangers
coming up on our flanks and rear. The enemy's far scouts and the fires."
Scrupilo was right. The Flenserists who operated behind her lines were
deadly. There weren't many of them; the enemy troops at Margrum Climb had
been mostly killed or dispersed. The few that ate at Woodcarver's flanks
were equipped with ordinary crossbows and axes ... but they were
extraordinarily well-coordinated. And their tactics were brilliant; she saw
the snouts and tines of Flenser himself in that brilliance. Somehow her evil
child lived. Like a plague of years past, he was slipping back upon the
world. Given time, those guerrilla packs would seriously hurt Woodcarver's
ability to supply her forces. Given time. Two of her stood and looked
Scrupilo in the eyes, emphasizing the point: "All the more reason to move
now, my friend. We are the ones far from home. We are the ones with limited
numbers and food. If we don't win soon, then we will be cut up a bit at a
time." Flensed.
Scrupilo stood up, nodding submission. "That's what Peregrine says,
too. And Johanna wants to chase right through the castle walls.... But
there's something else, Your Majesty. Even if we must lunge all forward: I
worked for a ten of tendays, using every clue I could understand from
Dataset, to make our cannon. Majesty, I know how hard it is to do such. Yet
the guns we captured on Margrum have three times the range and one quarter
the weight. How could they do it?" There were chords of anger and
humiliation in his voice. "The traitor," Scrupilo jerked a snout in the
direction of Vendacious, "thinks they may have Johanna's brother, but
Johanna says they have nothing like Dataset. Majesty, Steel has some
advantage we don't yet know."
Even the executions were not helping. Day by day, Steel felt his rage
growing. Alone on the parapet, he whipped back and forth upon himself,
barely conscious of anything but his anger. Not since he had been under
Flenser's knife had the anger been such a radiant thing. Get back control,
before he cuts you more, the voice of some early Steel seemed to say.
He hung on the thought, pulled himself together. He stared down at
bloody drool and tasted ashes. Three of his shoulders were streaked with
tooth cuts -- he'd been hurting himself, another habit Flenser had cured him
of long ago. Hurt outwards, never toward yourself. Steel licked mechanically
at the gashes and walked closer to the parapet's edge:
At the horizon, gray-black haze obscured the sea and the islands. The
last few days, the summer winds coming off the inland had been a hot breath,
tasting of smoke. Now the winds were like fire themselves, whipping past the
castle, carrying ash and smoke. All last dayaround the far side of Bitter
Gorge had been a haze of fire. Today he could see the hillsides: they were
black and brown, crowned with smoke that swept toward the sea's horizon.
There were often brush and forest fires in the High Summer. But this year,
as if nature was a godly pack of war, the fires had been everywhere. The
wretched guns had done it. And this year, he couldn't retreat to the cool of
Hidden Island and let the coastlings suffer.
Steel ignored his smarting shoulders and paced the stones more
thoughtfully, almost analytical for a change. The creature Vendacious had
not stayed bought; he had turned traitor to his treason. Steel had
anticipated that Vendacious might be discovered; he had other spies who
should have reported such a thing. But there had been no sign ... until the
disaster at Margrum Climb. Now the twist of Vendacious's knife had turned
all his plans on their heads. Woodcarver would be here very soon, and not as
a victim.
Who would have guessed that he would really need the Spacers to rescue
him from Woodcarver? He had worked so hard to confront the Southerners
before Ravna arrived. But now he did need that help from the sky -- and it
was more than five hours away. Steel almost slipped back into rage state at
the thought. In the end, would all the cozening of Amdijefri be for nothing?
Oh, when this is over, how much will I enjoy killing those two. More than
any of the others, they deserved death. They had caused so much
inconvenience. They had consistently required his kindliest behavior, as
though they ruled him. They had showered him with more insolence than ten
thousand normal subjects.
From the castle yard there was the sound of laboring packs, straining
winches, the screech and groan of rock being moved about. The professional
core of Flenser's Empire survived. Given a few more hours, the breaches in
the walls would be repaired and new guns would be brought in from the north.
And the grand scheme can still succeed. As long as I am together, no matter
what else is lost, it can succeed.
Almost lost in the racket, he heard the click of claws on the inward
steps. Steel drew back, turned all heads toward the sound. Shreck? But
Shreck would have announced himself first. Then he relaxed; there was only
one set of claw sounds. It was a singleton coming up the stairs.
Flenser's member cleared the steps, and bowed to Steel, an incomplete
gesture without other members to mirror it. The member's radio cloak shone
clean and dark. The army was in awe of those cloaks, and of the singletons
and duos who seemed smarter than the brightest pack. Even Steel's
lieutenants who understood what the cloaks really were -- even Shreck --
were cautious and tentative around them. And now Steel needed the Flenser
Fragment more than anyone, more than anything except Starfolk gullibility.
"What news?"
"Leave to sit?" Was the sardonic Flenser smile behind that request?
"Granted," snapped Steel.
The singleton eased itself onto the stones, a parody of an insolent
pack. But Steel saw when the other winced; the Fragment had been dispersed
across the Domain for almost twenty days now. Except for brief periods, he
had been wrapped in the radio cloaks that whole time. Dark and golden
torture. Steel had seen this member without its cloak, when it was bathed.
Its pelt was rubbed raw at shoulder and haunch, where the weight of the
radio was greatest. Bleeding sores had opened at the center of the bald
spots. Alone without its cloak, the mindless singleton had blabbered its
pain. Steel enjoyed those sessions, even if this one was not especially
verbal. It was almost as if he, Steel, were now the One who Teaches with a
Knife, and Flenser were his pupil.
The singleton was silent for a moment. Steel could hear its
ill-concealed panting. "The last dayaround has gone well, My Lord."
"Not here! We've lost almost all our cannon. We're trapped inside these
walls." And the starfolk may arrive too late.
"I mean out there." The singleton poked its nose toward the open spaces
beyond the parapet. "Your scouts are well-trained, My Lord, and have some
bright commanders. Right now, I am spread round Woodcarvers rear and
flanks." The singleton made its part of a laughing gesture. "'Rear and
flanks'. Funny. To me Woodcarver's entire army is like a single enemy pack.
Our Attack Infantries are like tines on my own paws. We are cutting the
Queen deep, My Lord. I set the fire in Bitter Gorge. Only I could see
exactly where it was spreading, exactly how to kill with it. In another four
dayarounds there will be nothing left of the Queen's supplies. She will be
ours."
"Too long, if we're dead this afternoon."
"Yes." The singleton cocked its head at Steel. He's laughing at me.
Just like all those times under Flenser's knife when a problem would be
posed and death was the penalty for failure. "But Ravna and company should
be back here in five hours, no?" Steel nodded. "Well, I guarantee you that
will be hours ahead of Woodcarver's main assault. You have Amdijefri's
confidence. It seems you need only advance and compress your previous
schedule. If Ravna is sufficiently desperate -- "
"The starfolk are desperate. I know that." Ravna might mask her precise
motives, but her desperation was clear. "And if you can slow Woodcarver -- "
Steel settled all of himself down to concentrate on the scheming at hand. He
was half-conscious of his fears retreating. Planning was always a comfort.
"The problem is that we have to do two things now, and perfectly
coordinated. Before, it was simply a matter to feign a siege and trick the
starship into landing in the castle's Jaws." He turned a head in the
direction of the courtyard. The stone dome over the landed starship had been
in place since midspring. It showed some artillery damage now, the marble
facing chipped away, but hadn't taken direct hits. Beside it lay the field
of the Jaws: large enough to accept the rescue ship, but surrounded by
pillars of stone, the teeth of the Jaws. With the proper use of gunpowder,
the teeth would fall on the rescuers. That would be a last resort, if they
didn't kill and capture the humans as they came out to meet dear Jefri. That
scheme had been lovingly honed over many tendays, aided by Amdijefri's
admissions about human psychology and his knowledge of how starships
normally land. But now: "-- now we really need their help. What I ask them
must do double duty, to fool them and to destroy Woodcarver."
"Hard to do all at once," agreed the Cloak. "Why not play it in two
steps, the first more or less undeceitful: Have them destroy Woodcarver,
then worry about taking them over?"
Steel clicked a tine thoughtfully on stone. "Yes. Trouble is, if they
see too much.... They can't possibly be as naive as Jefri. He says that
humankind has a history that includes castles and warfare. If they fly
around too much, they'll see things that Jefri never saw, or never
understood.... Maybe I could get them to land inside the castle and mount
weapons on the walls. We'll have them hostage the moment that they stand
between our Jaws. Damn. That would take some clever work with Amdijefri."
The bliss of abstract planning foundered for a moment on rage. "It's getting
harder and harder for me to deal with those two."
"They're both wholly puppies, for Pack's sake." The Fragment paused a
second. "Of course, Amdiranifani may have more raw intelligence than any
pack I've ever seen. You think he may even be smart enough to see past his
childishness," he used the Samnorsk word, "and see the deception?"
"No, not that. I have their necks in my jaws, and they still don't see
it. You're right, Tyrathect; they do love me." And how I hate them for it.
"When I'm around him, the mantis thing is all over me, close enough to cut
my throat or poke out my eyes, but hugging and petting. And expecting me to
love him back. Yes, they believe everything I say, but the price is
accepting unending insolence."
"Be cool, dear student. The heart of manipulation is to empathize
without being touched." The Fragment stopped, as always, just short of the
brink. Steel felt himself hissing at the words even before he was
consciously aware of his reaction.
"Don't ... lecture ... me! You are not Flenser. You are a fragment.
Shit! You are a fragment of a fragment now. A word and you will be cut up,
dead in a thousand pieces." He tried to suppress the trembling that spread
through his members. Why haven't I killed him before now? I hate Flenser
more than anything in the world, and it would be so easy. Yet the fragment
was always so indispensable, somehow the only thing between Steel and
failure. And he was under Steel's control.
And the singleton was doing a very good terrified cower. "Sit up, you!
Give me your counsel and not your lectures, and you will live.... Whatever
the reason, it's impossible for me to carry on the charade with these
puppies. Perhaps for a few minutes at a time I can do it, or if there are
other packs to keep them away from me, but none of this unending loving.
Another hour of that and I-I know I'll start killing them. So. I want you to
talk with Amdijefri. Explain the 'situation'. Explain -- "
"But -- " The singleton was looking at him in astonishment.
"I'll be watching; I'm not giving up those two to your possession. Just
handle the close diplomacy."
The Fragment drooped, the pain in its shoulders undisguised. "If that
is your wish, My Lord."
Steel showed all his teeth. "It is indeed. Just remember, I'll be
present for everything important, especially direct radio communication." He
waved the singleton off the parapet. "Now go and cuddle up to the children;
learn something of self-control yourself."
After the Cloak was gone, he called Shreck up to the parapet. The next
few hours were spent in touring the defenses and planning with his staff.
Steel was very surprised how much clearing up the puppy problem improved his
quality of mind. His advisors seemed to pick up on it, relaxed to the point
of offering substantive suggestions. Where the breaches in the walls could
not be repaired, they would build deadfalls. The cannon from the northern
shops would arrive before the end of the dayaround, and one of Shreck's
people had worked out an alternate plan for food and water resupply. Reports
from the far scouts showed steady progress, a withering of the enemy's rear;
they would lose most of their ammunition before they reached Starship Hill.
Even now there was scarcely any shot falling on the hill.
As the sun rose into the south, Steel was back on the parapets,
scheming on just what to say to the Starfolk.
This was almost like earlier days, when plans went well and success was
wondrous yet achievable. And yet ... at the back of his mind all the hours
since talking with the singleton, there had been the little claws of fear.
Steel had the appearance of ruling. The Flenser Fragment gave the appearance
of following. But even though it was spread across miles, the pack seemed
more together than ever before. Oh, in earlier times, the Fragment often
pretended equilibrium, but its internal tension always showed. Lately, it
seemed self-satisfied, almost ... smug. The Flenser Fragment was responsible
for the Domain's forces south of Starship Hill, and after today -- after
Steel had forced the responsibility upon him -- the Cloaks would be with
Amdijefri every day. Never mind that the motivation had come from within
Steel. Never mind that the Fragment was in an obvious state of agonized
exhaustion. In its full genius, the Great One could have charmed a forest
wolf into thinking Flenser its queen. And do I really know what he's saying
to the packs beyond my hearing? Could my spies be feeding me lies about him?
Now that he had a moment away from immediate concerns, these little
claws dug deeper. I need him, yes. But the margin for error is smaller now.
After a moment, he grated a happy chord, accepting the risk. If necessary,
he would use what he had learned with the second set of cloaks, something he
had artfully concealed from Flenser Tyrathect. If necessary, the Fragment
would find that death can be radio swift.
Even as he flew the velocity match, Pham was working the ultradrive.
This would save them hours of fly back time, but it was a chancy game, one
the ship had never been designed for. OOB bounced all around the solar
system. One really lucky jump was all they needed. (And one really unlucky
jump, into the planet, would kill them. A good reason why this game was not
normally played.)
After hours of hacking the flight automation, of playing ultradrive
roulette, poor Pham's hands were faintly trembling. Whenever Tines' World
came back into view -- often no more than a far point of blue light -- he
would glare for a second at it. Ravna could see the doubts rising within
him: His memories told him he should be good with low-tech automation, yet
some of the OOB primitives were almost impenetrable. Or maybe his memories
of competence, of the Qeng Ho, were cheap fakes.
"The Blighter fleet. How long?" asked Pham.
Greenstalk was watching the nav window from the Riders' cabin. It was
the fifth time the question had been asked in the last hour, yet her voice
came back calm and patient. Maybe the repeated questions even seemed a
natural thing. "Range forty-nine light-years. Estimated time of arrival
forty-eight hours. Seven more ships have dropped out." Ravna could subtract:
one hundred and fifty-two were still coming.
Blueshell's voder sounded over his mate's, "During the last two hundred
seconds, they have made slightly better time than before, but I think that
is local variance in Bottom conditions. Sir Pham, you are doing well, but I
know my ship. We could get a little more time if you only you'd allow me
control. Please -- "
"Shut up." Pham's voice was sharp, but the words were almost automatic.
It was a conversation -- or the abortion of one -- that occurred almost as
often as Pham's demand for status info on the Blighter fleet.
In the early weeks of their journey, she had assumed that godshatter
was somehow superhuman. Instead it was parts and pieces, automation loaded
in a great panic. Maybe it was working right, or maybe it had run amok and
was tearing Pham apart with its errors.
The old cycle of fear and doubt was suddenly broken by soft blue light.
Tines' World! At last, a wondrously accurate jump, almost as good as the
shocker of five hours before: Twenty thousand kilometers away hung a vast
narrow crescent, the edge of planetary daylight. The rest was a dark blot
against the stars, except where the auroral ring hung a faint green glow
around the south pole. Jefri Olsndot was on the other side of the world from
them, in the arctic day. They wouldn't have radio communication until they
arrived -- and she hadn't figured out how to recalibrate the ultrawave for
shortrange transmission.
She turned back from the view. Pham still stared upward into the sky
behind her. "... Pham, what good is forty-eight hours? Will we just destroy
the Countermeasure?" What of Jefri and Mr. Steel's folk?
"Maybe. But there are other possibilities. There must be." That last
softly. "I've been chased before. I've been in bigger jams before." His eyes
avoided hers.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
CHAPTER 38
Jefri hadn't seen the sky for more than an hour in the last two days.
He and Amdi were safe enough in the great stone dome that sheltered the
refugee ship, but there was no way to see outside. If it weren't for Amdi, I
couldn't have stood it a minute. In some ways it was worse even than his
first days on Hidden Island. The ones who killed Mom and Dad and Johanna
were just a few kilometers away. They captured some of Mr. Steel's guns and
the last few days the explosions had gone on for hours, a booming that shook
the ground beneath them and sometimes even smashed at the walls of the dome.
Their food was brought in to them, and when they weren't sitting in the
ship's command cabin, the two wandered outside the ship, to the rooms with
the sleeping children. Jefri had kept up with the simple maintenance
procedures he remembered, but looking through the chill transp of the
coldsleep coffins, he was terribly afraid. Some of them weren't breathing
very much. The inside temperature seemed too high. And he and Amdi didn't
know how to help.
Nothing had changed here, but now there was joy. Ravna's long silence
had ended. Amdijefri and Mr. Steel had actually talked to her in voice!
Three more hours and her ship would be here! Even the bombardment had ended,
almost as if Woodcarver realized that her time was near to ending.
Three more hours. Left to himself, Jefri would have spent the time in a
state of wall-climbing anxiety. After all, he was nine years old now, a
grown-up with grown up problems. But then there was Amdi. The pack was much
smarter than Jefri in some ways, but he was such a little kid -- about five
years old, as near as Amdijefri could figure it. Except when he was into
heavy thinking, he could not stay still. After the call from Ravna, Jefri
wanted to sit down for serious worrying, but Amdi began chasing himself
around the pylons. He shouted back and forth in Jefri's voice and Ravna's,
and bumped into the boy accidentally on purpose. Jefri hopped up and glared
at the careening puppies. Just a little kid. And suddenly, happy and so sad
all at once: Is this how Johanna saw me? And so he had responsibilities now
too. Like being patient. As one of Amdi came rushing past his knees, Jefri
swept down to grab the wriggling form. He raised it to shoulder level as the
rest of the pack converged gleefully, pounding on him from all directions.
They fell to the dry moss and wrestled for a few seconds. "Let's
explore, let's explore!"
"We have to be here for Ravna and Mr. Steel."
"Don't worry. We'll remember when."
"Okay." Where was there really to go?
The two walked through the torchlit dimness to the clerestory that
ringed the inner edge of the dome. As far as Jefri could see, they were
alone. That was not unusual. Mr. Steel was very worried that Woodcarver
spies might get into the ship. Even his own soldiers rarely came here.
Amdijefri had investigated the inside wall before. Behind the quilts,
the stone felt cool and damp. There were some holes to the outside -- for
ventilation -- but they were almost ten meters up where the wall was already
curving inwards toward the apex of the dome. The stone was rough cut, not
yet polished. Mr. Steel's workers had been in a frantic hurry to complete
the protection before Woodcarver's army arrived. Nothing was polished, and
the quilts were undecorated.
Ahead and behind him, Amdi was sniffing at the cracks and fresh mortar.
The one in Jefri's arms gave a concerted wiggle. "Ha! Up ahead. I knew that
mortar was coming loose," the pack said. Jefri let all of his friend rush
forward to a nook in the wall. It didn't look any different than before, but
Amdi was scratching with five pairs of paws.
"Even if you can get it loose, what good does it do you?" Jefri had
seen these blocks as they were lowered into place. They were almost fifty
centimeters across, laid in alternating rows. Getting past one would just
bring them to more stone.
"Heh heh, I don't know. I've been saving this up till we had some time
to kill... Yech. This mortar burns my lips." More scratching, and the pack
passed back a fragment as big as Jefri's head. There really was a hole
between the blocks, and it was big enough for Amdi. One of him darted into
the tiny cave.
"Satisfied?" Jefri plunked himself down by the hole and tried to look
in.
"Guess what!" Amdi's shrill came from a member right by his ear.
"There's a tunnel back here, not just another layer of stone!" A member
wriggled past Jefri and disappeared into the dark. Secret tunnels? That was
too much like a Nyjoran fairy tale. "These are big enough for a full-grown
member, Jefri. You could get through these on hands 'n' knees." Two more of
Amdi disappeared into the hole.
The tunnel he had discovered might be large enough for a human child,
but the entrance hole was a tight fit even for the puppies. Jefri had
nothing to do but stare into the darkness. The parts of Amdi that remained
at the entrance talked about what he had found. "-- Goes on for a long, long
way. I've doubled back a couple of times. The top of me is about five meters
up, way over your head. This is kooky. I'm getting all strung out." Amdi
sounded even sillier than his normal playfulness. Two more of him went into
the hole. This was developing into serious adventure -- that Jefri could
have no part of.
"Don't go too far; it might be dangerous."
One of the pair that remained looked up at him. "Don't worry. Don't
worry. The tunnel isn't an accident. It feels like it was cut as grooves in
the stones when they were laid. This is some special escape route Mister
Steel made. I'm all right. I'm all right. Ha ha, hoohooo." One more
disappeared into the hole. After a moment the last remaining one ran in, but
stayed near enough to the entrance so Amdi could still talk to Jefri. The
pack was having a high old time, singing and screeching to itself. Jefri
knew exactly what the other was up to; it was another of the games he could
never play. In this posture, Amdi's thoughts would be the weirdest rippling
things. Darn. Now that he was playing within stone, it must be even neater
than before, since he was totally cut off from all thoughts except from
member to adjacent member.
The stupid singing went on a little longer, and then Amdi spoke in an
almost reasonable tone. "Hei, this tunnel actually splits off in places. The
front of me has come to a fork. One side is heading down.... Wish I had
enough members to go both ways!"
"Well, you don't!"
"Hei ho, I'll take the upper tunnel today." A few seconds of silence.
"There's a little door here! Like a member-size room door. Not locked." Amdi
relayed the sounds of stone scritching against stone. "Ha! I can see light!
Up just a few more meters, it opens onto a window. Hear the wind." He
relayed wind sound and the keening of the sea birds that soared up from
Hidden Island. It sounded wonderful. "Oh oh, this is stretching things, but
I wanna look out.... Jefri, I can see the sun! I'm outdoors, sitting way up
on the side of the dome. I can see all round to the south. Boy, it's smoky
down there."
"What about the hillside?" Jefri asked the nearest member; its
white-splotched pelt was barely visible through the entrance hole. At least
Amdi was staying in touch.
"A little browner than last tenday. I don't see any soldiers out
there." Relayed sound of a cannon firing. "Yipes. We're shooting though....
It hit just on this side of the crest. There's someone out there, just below
my line of sight." Woodcarver, come at last. Jefri shivered, angry that he
couldn't see, frightened of what might be seen. He often had nightmares
about what Woodcarver must truly be, how she had done it to Mom and Dad and
Johanna. Images never fully formed ... yet almost memories. Mister Steel
will get Woodcarver.
"Oh, oh. Old Tyrathect is coming across the castle yard this way."
Thumping sounds came from the hole as Amdi blundered back down. No point in
letting Tyrathect know that there was a tunnel hidden in the wall. He'd
probably just order them to stay away from it. One, two, three, four -- half
of Amdi popped out of the wall. The four wandered around a little dazedly.
Jefri couldn't tell if it was because of their stretched-out experience or
if they were temporarily split from the other half of the pack. "Act
natural. Act natural."
Then the other four arrived, and Amdi began to settle down. He led
Jefri away from the wall at a fast trot. "Let's get the commset. We'll
pretend we've been trying to raise Ravna with it." Amdi knew well that the
starship couldn't be back for another thirty minutes or so. In fact, he had
been the one who verified the math for Mister Steel. Nevertheless, he chased
up the ship's steps and dragged down the radio. The two were already
plugging the antenna into a signal booster when the public doors on the west
side of the dome were unlatched. Silhouetted against the daylight were parts
of a guard pack, and a single member of Tyrathect. The guard retired,
sliding the doors shut, and the Cloak walked slowly across the moss towards
them.
Amdi rushed over and chattered about their attempts to use the radio.
It was a little forced, Jefri thought. The puppies were still confused by
their trip through the walls.
The singleton looked at the powdering of mortar dust on Amdi's pelt.
"You've been climbing in the walls, haven't you?"
"What?" Amdi looked himself over, noticed the dust. Usually he was more
clever. "Yes," he said shamefacedly. He brushed the powder away. "You won't
tell, will you?"
Fat chance he'll help us, thought Jefri. Mr. Tyrathect had learned
Samnorsk even better than Mr. Steel, and besides Steel was the only one who
had much time to talk with them. But even before the radio cloaks, he'd been
a short-tempered, bossy sort. Jefri had had baby-sitters like him. Tyrathect
was nice up to a point, and then would get sarcastic or say something mean.
Lately that had improved, but Jefri still didn't like him much.
But Mr. Tyrathect didn't say anything right away. He sat down slowly,
as if his rump hurt. "... No, I won't tell."
Jefri exchanged a surprised glance with one of Amdi. "What is the
tunnel for?" he asked timidly.
"All castles have hidden tunnels, especially in my ... in the domain of
Mr. Steel. You want ways to escape, ways to spy on your enemies." The
singleton shook its head. "Never mind. Is your radio properly receiving,
Amdijefri?"
Amdi cocked a head at the comm's display. "I think so, but there's
nothing yet to receive. See, Ravna's ship had to decelerate and um, I could
show you the arithmetic...?" But Mr. Tyrathect was obviously not interested
in playing with chalk boards. "... well, depending on their luck with the
ultradrive, we should have radio with them real soon."
But the little window on the comm showed no incoming signal. They
watched it for several minutes. Mr. Tyrathect lowered his muzzle and seemed
to sleep. Every few seconds his body twitched as with a dream. Jefri
wondered what the rest of him was doing.
Then the comm window was glowing green. There was a garble of sound as
it tried to sort signal from background noise. "... over you in five
minutes," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri? Are you listening?"
"Yes! We're here."
"Let me talk to Mr. Steel, please."
Mr. Tyrathect stepped nearer to the comm. "He is not here now, Ravna."
"Who is this?"
Tyrathect's laugh was a giggle; he had never heard any other kind. "I?"
He made the Tinish chord that sounded like "Tyrathect" to Jefri. "Or do you
mean a taken name, like Steel? I don't know the exact word. You may call me
... Mr. Skinner." Tyrathect laughed again. "For now, I can speak for Steel."
"Jefri, are you all right?"
"Yes, yes. Listen to Mr. Skinner." What a strange name.
The sounds from the comm became muffled. There was a male voice,
arguing. Then Ravna was back, her voice kind of tight, like Mom when she was
mad. "Jefri ... what's the volume of a ball ten centimeters across?"
Amdi had been fidgeting impatiently through the conversation. All
through the last year he had been hearing stories of humans from Jefri, and
dreaming what Ravna might really be like. Now he had a chance to show off.
He jumped for the comm, and grinned at Jefri. "That's easy, Ravna." His
voice was perfect Jefri -- and completely fluent. "It's 523.598 cubic
centimeters ... or do you want more digits?"
Muffled conversation. "...No, that's fine. Okay, Mr. Skinner. We have
pictures from our earlier pass and a general radio fix. Where exactly are
you?"
"Under the castle dome at top of Starship Hill. It's right at the coast
by a -- "
A man's voice cut in. Pham? He had a funny accent. "I got it on the
map. We still can't see you direct. Too much haze."
"That's smoke," said the Cloak. "The enemy is almost upon us from the
south. We need your help immediately -- " The singleton lowered its head
from the commset. Its eyes closed and opened a couple of times. Thinking?
"Hmm, yes. Without your help, we and Jefri and this ship are lost. Please
land within the castle courtyard. You know we've specially reinforced it for
your arrival. Once down we can use your weapons to -- "
"No way," the guy replied immediately. "Just separate the friendlies
from the bad guys and let us take care of things."
Tyrathect's voice took on a wheedling tone, like a little kid
complaining. He really has been studying us. "No, no, didn't mean to be
impolite. Certainly, do it your own way. About the enemy force: everyone
close to the castle on the south side of the hill are enemy. A single pass
with your ship's ... um, torch ... would send them running."
"I can't fly that torch inside an atmosphere. Did your Pop really land
with the main jet, Jefri? No agrav?"
"Yes, sir. All we had was the jet."
"He was a lucky genius."
Ravna: "Maybe we could just float across, a few thousand meters up.
That might scare them away."
Tyrathect began, "Yes, that might -- "
The public doors on the north side of the dome slid open. Mr. Steel
stood silhouetted against the daylight beyond. "Let me talk to them," he
said.
The goal of all their voyaging lay just twenty kilometers below OOB.
They were so close, yet those twenty thousand meters might be as hard to
bridge as the twenty thousand light-years they had come so far.
They floated on agrav directly over "Starship Hill". OOB's
multispectral wasn't working very well, but where smoke did not obscure, the
ship's optics could count the needles on the trees below. Ravna could see
the forces of "Woodcarver" ranged across the slopes south of the castle.
There were other troops, and apparently cannon, hidden in the forests that
lined the fjord south of that. Given a little more time they would be able
to locate them too. Time was the one thing they did not have.
Time and trust.
"Forty-eight hours, Pham. Then the fleet will be here, all around us."
Maybe, maybe godshatter could work a miracle; they'd never know stewing
about it up here. Try: "You've got to trust somebody, Pham."
Pham glared back at her, and for an instant she feared he might go
completely to pieces. "You'd land in the middle of that castle? Medieval
villains are just as smart as any you've seen in the Beyond, Rav. They could
teach the Butterflies a thing or two. An arrow in the head will kill you as
sure as an antimatter bomb."
More fake memories? But Pham was right on this: She thought about the
just-concluded conversation. The second pack -- Steel -- had been a bit too
insistent. He had been good to Jefri, but he was clearly desperate. And she
believed him when he said that a high fly-by wouldn't scare the Woodcarvers
off. They needed to come down near the ground with firepower. Just now,
about all the firepower they had was Pham's beam gun. "Okay, then! Do what
you and Steel talked about. Fly the lander past Woodcarver's lines, laser
blast them."
"God damn it, you know I can't fly that. The landing boat is like
nothing either of us know, and without the automation I -- "
Softly: "Without the automation, you need Blueshell, Pham." There was
horror on Pham's face. She reached out to him. He was silent for a long
moment, not seeming to notice.
"Yeah." His voice was low, strangled. Then: "Blueshell! Get up here."
OOB's lander had more than enough room for the Skroderider and Pham
Nuwen. The craft had been built specifically for Rider use. With higher
automation working, it would have been easy for Pham -- for even a child --
to fly. Now, the craft could not provide stable flight, and the "manual"
controls were something that gave even Blueshell a hard time. Damn
automation. Damn optimization. For most of his adult life Pham had lived in
the Slowness. All those decades, he had managed spacecraft and weapons that
could have reduced the feudal empire below to slag. Yet now, with equipment
that should have been enormously more powerful, he couldn't even fly a damn
landing boat.
Across the crew compartment, Blueshell was at the pilot's position. His
fronds stretched across a web of supports and controls. He had turned off
all display automation; only the main window was alive, a natural view from
the boat's bow camera. OOB floated some hundred meters ahead, drifting up
and out of view as their craft slid backwards and down.
Blueshell's fidgety nervousness -- furtiveness, it seemed to Pham --
had disappeared as he got into piloting the craft. His voder voice became
terse and preoccupied, and the edges of his fronds writhed across the
controls, an exercise that would have been impossible to Pham even if he had
a lifetime of experience with the gear. "Thank you, Sir Pham.... I'll prove
you can trust...." The nose lurched downwards and they were staring almost
straight into the fjord-carven coastline twenty kilometers below. They fell
free for half a minute while the rider's fronds writhed on their supports.
Hot piloting? No: "Sorry, sorry." Acceleration, and Pham sank into his
restraints under a grav load that wobbled between a tenth gee and an
intolerable crush. The landscape rotated and they had a brief glimpse of
OOB, now like a tiny moth above them.
"Is it necessary to kill, Sir Pham? Perhaps simply our appearance over
the battle...."
Nuwen gritted his teeth. "Just get us down." The Steel creature had
been adamant that they fry the entire hillside. Despite all Pham's
suspicions, the pack might be right on that. They were up against a crew of
murderers that had not hesitated to ambush a starship; the Woodcarvers
needed a real demonstration.
Their boat fluttered down the kilometers. Steel's fortifications were
clearly visible even in the natural view: the rough polygon that guarded the
refugee ship, the much larger structure that rambled across an island
several kilometers westward. I wonder if this is how my Father's castle
looked to the Qeng Ho landers? Those walls were high and unsloping. Clearly
the Tines had had no idea of gunpowder till Ravna had clued them to it.
The valley south of the castle was a blot of dark smoke smoothly
streaming toward the sea. Even without data enhancement, he could see hot
spots, fringes of orange edging the black.
"You're at two thousand meters," came Ravna's voice. "Jefri says he can
see you."
"Patch me through to them."
"I will try, Sir Pham." Blueshell fiddled, his lack of attention
spinning the boat through a complete loop. Pham had seen falling leaves with
more control.
A child's piping voice: "A-are you okay? Don't crash!"
And then the Steel pack's hybrid of Ravna and the kid: "South to go!
South to go! Use fire gun. Burn them quick."
Blueshell was entirely too cooperative to this direction. He had them
down in the smoke already. For seconds they were flying blind. A break in
the smoke showed the hillside less than two hundred meters off, coming up
fast. Before Pham could curse at Blueshell, the Rider had turned them around
and floated the boat into clearer air. Then he pitched over so they might
see directly down.
After thirty weeks of talk and planning, Pham had his first glimpse of
the Tines. Even from here, it was obvious they were different from any
sophonts Pham had encountered: Clusters of four or five or six members hung
together so close they seemed a single spiderlike being. And each pack stood
separated from the others by ten or fifteen meters.
A cannon flashed in the murk. The pack crewing it moved like a single,
coordinated hand to rock the barrel back and ram another charge down the
muzzle.
"But if these are the enemy, Sir Pham, where did they get the guns?"
"They stole 'em." But muzzle loaders? He didn't have time to pursue the
thought.
"You're right over them, Pham! I can see you in and out of the smoke.
You're drifting south at fifteen meters per second, losing altitude." It was
the kid, speaking with his usual incredible precision.
"Kill them! Kill them!"
Pham wriggled out of his restraints and crawled back to the hatch where
they had mounted his beam gun. It was about the only thing salvaged from the
workshop fire, but by God this was something he could operate.
"Keep us steady, Blueshell. Bounce me around and I'll fry you as likely
as anything!" He pushed open the hatch, and gagged on spicy smoke. Then
Blueshell's agravs wafted them into a clear space and Pham lined the beamer
down the ranks of packfolk.
Originally Woodcarver had demanded Johanna stay at the base camp.
Johanna's response had been explosive. Even now the girl was a little
surprised at herself. Not since the first days on Tines world had she come
so close to attacking a pack. No way was anyone going to keep her from
finding out about Jefri. In the end they had compromised: Johanna would
accept Pilgrim as her guard. She could follow the army into the field, as
long as she obeyed his direction.
Johanna looked up through the drifting smoke. Damn. Pilgrim was always
such a carefree joker. By his own telling, he had gotten himself killed over
and over again through the years. And now he wouldn't even let her up to
Scrupilo's cannons. The two of them paced across a terrace in the hillside.
The brush fire had swept through here hours before, and the spicy smell of
moss ash was thick around them. And with that smell came the bright memory
of horror, of a year ago, right here....
Trusted guard packs paced their course twenty meters on either side.
This area was supposedly safe from infiltration, and there had been no
artillery fire from the Flenserists for hours. But Peregrine absolutely
refused to let her get any closer.
It's nothing like last year. Then all had been sunny blue skies and
clean air -- and her parents' murder. Now she and Pilgrim had returned, and
the blue sky was yellow-gray and the sweeps of mossy hillside were black.
And now the packs around her were fighting with her. And now there was a
chance....
"Lemme closer, damn it! Woodcarver will have the Oliphaunt no matter
what happens to me."
Peregrine shook himself, a Tinish negative. One of his puppies reached
out from a jacket pouch to catch at her sleeve. "A little longer," Pilgrim
said for the tenth time. "Wait for Woodcarver's messenger. Then we can -- "
"I want to be up there! I'm the only one who knows the ship!" Jefri,
Jefri. If only Vendacious was right about you....
She was twisting about to slap at Scarbutt when it happened: A glare of
heat on her back, and the smoke flashed bright. Again. Again. And then the
impact of rapid thunder.
Pilgrim shuddered against her. "That's not gunfire!" he shouted. "Two
of me are almost blinded. C'mon." He surrounded her, almost knocking her off
her feet as he pushed/dragged her down the hill.
For a second Johanna went along, more dazed than cooperative. Somehow
they had lost their escort.
From up the hill the shouts of battle had stopped. The sharp thunder
had silenced all. Where the smoke thinned she could see one of Scrupilo's
cannons, the barrel extending from a puddle of melted steel. The cannoneer
had been blown to bits. Not gunfire. Johanna spasmed out of Pilgrim's grip.
Not gunfire.
"Spacers! Pilgrim, that must be a drive torch."
Peregrine grabbed her, continuing down the hill. "Not a drive torch!
That I've heard. This is quieter -- and somebody's aiming it."
There had been a long stutter of separate blasts. How many of
Woodcarver's people had just died? "They must think we're attacking the
ship, Pilgrim. If we don't do something, they'll wipe out everyone."
His jaws eased their grip on her sleeves and pants. "What can we do?
Hanging around here will just get us killed."
Johanna stared into the sky. No sign of fliers, but there was so much
smoke. The sun was a dull bloody ball. If only the rescuers knew they were
killing her friends. If only they could see. She dug her feet into the
ground. "Let go of me, Pilgrim! I'm going uphill, out of the smoke."
He'd stopped moving but his grip was fiercely tight. Four adult faces
and two puppy ones looked up at her, and indecision was in every look.
"Please, Pilgrim. It's the only way." Packs were straggling down, some
bleeding, some in fragments.
His frightened eyes stared at her an instant longer. Then he let go and
touched her hand with a nose. "I guess this hill will always be the death of
me. First Scriber, now you -- you're all crazy." The old Pilgrim smile
flickered across his members. "Okay. Let's try it!" The two without puppies
went up the hillside, scouting for the safest route.
Johanna and the rest of him followed. They were moving across a sloping
terrace. The summer drought had drained the chill swamp water she remembered
from the landing, and the blackened moss was firm under her. The going
should have been easy, but Peregrine wound through the deepest hummocks,
hunkering down every few seconds to look in all directions. They reached the
end of the terrace and began climbing. There were places so steep she had to
grab the epaulet stirrups on two of Peregrine and let him hoist her up. They
passed the nearest cannon, what was left of it. Johanna had never seen
weapons fired except in stories, but the splash of metal and the carbonized
flesh could only mean some kind of beam weapon. Running across the hill were
similar craters, destruction punched into the already burned land.
Johanna leaned against a smooth rounding of rock. "Just pull over this
one and we're on the next terrace," Pilgrim's voice came in her ear. "Hurry,
I hear shouting." He leaned two of himself down, tilting his epaulets toward
her hands. She grabbed them, and jumped. For a moment she and the pack
teetered over a four- meter fall, and then she was lying on brownish,
unburned moss. Pilgrim clustered around her, hiding her. She peeked out
between his legs. The outermost walls of Steel's castle were visible from
here. Tinish archers stood boldly on the ramparts, taking advantage of the
chaos among Woodcarver's troops. In fact, the Queen's force had not lost
many packs in the air attack, but even the unwounded were milling around.
The Queen's soldiers were no cowards -- Johanna knew that by now -- but they
had just been confronted by force beyond all defense.
Overhead the smoke faded into blue. The battlefield ahead of her lay
under clear sky. In the years before the High Lab, Johanna and her mother
had often gone on nature trips over Bigby Marsh at Straum. With the sensors
on their camper packs they'd had no trouble watching the skyggwings there:
even if this flier's automation was not specifically looking for a human on
the ground, it should notice her. "Do you see anything?"
The four adult heads angled back and forth in coordinated pairs. "No.
The flier must be very far away or behind the smoke."
Nuts. Johanna came off her knees, trotted toward the castle walls. They
must be watching there!
"Woodcarver's not going to like this."
Two of the Queen's soldiers were already running toward them, attracted
by their purposeful movement or the sight of Johanna. Pilgrim waved them
back.
Alone on an open field less than two hundred meters from the castle
wall. Even with normal vision, how could they be overlooked? In fact, they
were noticed: There was a soft hissing, and a meter-long arrow thunked into
the turf on their left. Scarbutt grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to a
crouch. The puppies shifted his shields into position: Pilgrim made a
barricade of himself on the castle side and started back out of range. Back
into the smoke.
"No! Run parallel! I want to be seen."
"Okay, okay." Soft sounds of death whispered down. Johanna kept one
hand on his shoulder as they ran across the field. She felt Scarbutt falter.
The arrow had caught him in the thick of his shoulder, centimeters from a
tympanum. "I'm okay! Stay down, stay down."
The front line of Woodcarver's force was rallying toward them now, a
dozen packs racing across the terrace. Pilgrim bounced up and down, shouting
with a voice that punched like physical force. Something about staying back,
and danger from the sky. It didn't stop their advance. "They want you away
from the arrows."
And suddenly they noticed that the fire from the castle had stopped.
Pilgrim scanned the sky, "It's back! Coming from the east, maybe a kilometer
out."
She looked in the direction he was pointing. It was a lumpy thing,
probably space-based though it had no ultradrive spines. It bobbled and
staggered. There was no sign of jets. Some kind of agrav? Nonhumans? The
thoughts skittered through her mind, alongside the joy.
Pale light flickered from a mast on its belly and dirt geysered around
the troops who were racing to protect her. Again the stuttering thunder,
only now the light was marching right across her friends toward her.
Amdijefri was on the battlements. Steel hid his glares from the two.
There simply was no help for it; Ravna had demanded Jefri be by the radio to
guide the strike. The human was not completely stupid. It shouldn't make any
difference. An army looks like an army whether it is foe or friend. Very
soon the army beyond these walls would cease to exist.
"How did the first run go?" Ravna's voice came clearly from the
commset. But it wasn't Jefri who answered: all eight of Amdiranifani was
poking around the battlements, some of him sitting on the crenellations
practicing stereo vision, others eyeing Steel and the radio. Telling him to
stay back had no effect. Now Amdi answered the question with Jefri's voice.
"Okay. I counted fifteen pulses. Only ten hit anything. I bet I could shoot
better than that."
"Damn it, that's the best I can do with this [unknown words]." The
voice was not Ravna's. Steel heard the irritation in it. Everybody can find
something to hate in these pups. The thought warmed him.
"Please," said Steel. "Fire again. Again." He looked over the
stonework. The air attack had taken out a band of enemy by the edge of the
near terrace. It was spectacular destruction, like enormous cannon blows, or
the separate landing of twenty starships. And all from a little craft that
fluttered like a falling leaf. The enemy front line was dissolving in panic.
Up and down the ramparts, his own troops danced about their stations. Things
had been bleak since their cannon were knocked out; they needed something to
cheer about. "The archers, Shreck! Shoot upon the survivors." Then,
continuing in Samnorsk: "The front ranks are still coming. They are -- they
are -- " Damn, what's the word for "confident"? "They will kill us without
more help."
The human child looked at Steel in puzzlement. If he called that a lie,
then.... A moment later Ravna said. "I don't know. They're well back from
your walls, at least all that I can see. I don't want to butcher...." Rapid
fire conversation with the human in the flier, perhaps not even in Samnorsk.
The gunner did not sound pleased. "Pham will pull back a few kilometers,"
she said. "We can come back instantly if your enemy advances."
"Ssssst!" Shreck's Hightalk hiss was like a physical jab. Steel
wheeled, glaring. How dare -- But his lieutenant was wide-eyed, pointing
toward the center of the battlefield. Of course Steel had had a pair of eyes
on that direction, but he hadn't been paying attention: The other Two-Legs!
The mantis figure dropped behind an accompanying pack, mercifully
before Amdijefri noticed. Thank the Pack of Packs that puppies are
near-sighted. Steel swept forward, surrounding some of Amdi, shouting at the
others to get off the parapet. Both of Tyrathect ran in close, physically
grabbing for the disobedient wretches. "Get below!" Steel screamed in
Tinish. For a second all was confusion, as his own mind sounds mixed with
the puppies'. Amdi tumbled away from him, thoroughly distracted by the noise
and the rough handling. And then in Samnorsk Steel said, "There are more
cannons out there. Get below before you're hurt!"
Jefri started for the parapet. "But I don't see -- " And fortunately
there was nothing special to see. Now. The other Two-Legs was still crouched
behind one of Woodcarver's packs. Shreck took the human child in paw and
jaw. He and one of Tyrathect hustled the protesting children down the
stairs. As they departed, Tyrathect was already embellishing on Steel's
story, reporting on the troops it could see from below the crest of the
hill.
"Blow up the lesser powder dump," Steel hissed at the departing Shreck.
That dump was near empty, but its destruction might persuade the spacers
where words could not.
After they were gone, Steel stood for an instant, silent and shivering.
He had never seen disaster so narrowly avoided. Along the ramparts, his
archers were showering arrows upon the enemy pack and the Two-Legs. Damn.
They were almost out of range.
In the castle yard, Shreck detonated the lesser dump. The explosion was
a satisfying one, much louder than an artillery hit. One of the inner towers
was blown apart. Flying rock showered the yard, the smallest pieces reaching
all the way to where Steel stood on the ramparts.
Ravna's voice was shouting in swift Samnorsk, too fast for Steel to
understand. Now all the planning, all the hopes, all balanced on a knife
edge. He must bet everything: Steel leaned a shoulder close to the comm and
said, "Sorry. Things go fast here. Many more Woodcarver come up under smoke.
Can you kill all on hillside?" Could the mantises see through smoke? That
was part of the gamble.
The gunner's voice came back, "I can try. Watch this."
A third voice, thready and narrow even by human standards: "It will be
fifty seconds more, Sir Steel. We're having trouble turning."
Good. Concentrate on your flying and your killing. Don't look at your
victims too carefully. The archers had driven the human back, part way under
the cover of smoke. Other packs were rushing out to protect her. By the time
the Visitors circled back, there would be lots of targets, the human lost
among them.
Two of him caught sight of the spacer floating down through the haze.
The Visitors would have no clear view of what they were shooting at. Pale
light flickered from beneath the craft. A scythe swept across the hillside
toward Woodcarver's troops.
Pham was bounced around his perch as Blueshell turned the boat back to
the target. They weren't moving fast; the airstream couldn't have been more
than thirty meters per second. But every second was full of the damnedest
jerks and tumbles. At one point Pham's grip on the gun mount was all that
kept him indoors. Forty some hours from now the deadliest thing in the
universe is going to arrive, and I'm taking potshots at dogs.
How to take out the hillside? Steel's whiny voice still echoed in his
ears. And Ravna wasn't sure what OOB was seeing beneath all the smoke. We
might do better without automation than with this bastard mix. At least his
beamer had a manual control. Pham embraced the barrel with one arm while he
reached with the other. At wide dispersion the beam was useless against
armor, but could burst eyes and set skin and hair afire -- and the beam
width would be dozens of meters across at ground level.
"Fifteen seconds, Sir Pham," Blueshell's voice came in his ear.
They were low this time. Gaps in the smoke flickered past like
stop-action art. Most of the ground was burned-over black, but there were
precipices of naked rock and even sooty patches of snow trapped in crannies
and shadowed pits.... Here and there was a pile of doggy bodies, an
occasional gun tube.
"There's a crowd of them ahead, Sir Pham. Running near the castle."
Pham leaned down and looked forward. The mob was about four hundred
meters ahead. They were running parallel to the castle walls, through a
field that was a spinehide of arrowshafts. He pressed the firing stud, swept
the beam out from below the boat. There was plenty of water under that dried
cover; it exploded in steam as the beam passed over it.... But further out,
the wide dispersion wasn't doing much. It would be another few seconds
before he'd have a good shot at the hapless packs.
Time for the little suspicions. So how come the enemy had
muzzle-loading cannon? Those they must have made themselves -- in a world
with no evidence of firearms. Steel was the classic medieval manipulator;
Pham had spotted the type from a thousand light-years out. They were doing
the critter's dirty work, that was obvious. Shut up. Deal with Steel later.
Slanting in on the packs, Pham fired again, sweeping through living
flesh this time. He fired ahead of them and on the castle side; maybe they
wouldn't all die. He stuck his head further into the slipstream, trying for
a better view. Ahead of the packs was a hundred meters of open field, a
single pack of four and -- a human figure, black-haired and slim, jumping
and waving.
Pham smashed the barrel up against the hull, safing it at the same
time. The back flash was a surge of heat that crisped his eyebrows.
"Blueshell! Get us down! Get us down!"
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
CHAPTER 39
"A bad understanding. She was lied to."
Ravna tried to read something behind the voice. Steel's Samnorsk was as
creaky as ever, the tones childish and whiny. He sounded no different than
before. But his story was stretched very thin by what had just happened. He
was either a galaxy master of impudence -- or his story was actually true.
"The human must have been hurt, then lied to by Woodcarver. This
explains a lot, Ravna. Without her, Woodcarver could not attack. Without
her, all may be safe."
Pham's voice came to Ravna on a private channel. "The girl was
unconscious during part of the ambush, Rav. But she practically scratched my
eyes out when I suggested she might be wrong about Steel and Woodcarver. And
the pack with her is a lot more convincing than Steel."
Ravna looked questioningly across the deck at Greenstalk. Pham didn't
know she was here. Tough. Greenstalk was an island of sanity amidst the
madness -- and she knew the OOB infinitely better than Ravna.
Steel spoke into her hesitation: "See now, nothing has changed, except
for the better. One more human lives. How can you doubt us? Speak to Jefri;
he understands. We have done the best for the children in ..." a gobbling
noise, and (another?) voice said, "coldsleep."
"Certainly, we must speak to him again, Steel. He's our best proof of
your good intentions."
"Okay. In a few minutes, Ravna. But see, he is also my good protection
against treachery from you. I know how powerful you Visitors are. I ... fear
you. We need to -- " gobbling consultation "-- accommodate each other in our
fears."
"Um. We'll work something out. Just let us speak to Jefri now."
"Yes."
Ravna switched channels. "What do you think, Pham?"
"There's no question in my mind. This Johanna is not a naive kid like
Jefri. We've always known Steel was a tough critter. We just had some other
facts wrong. The landing site is in the middle of his territory. He's the
killer." Pham's voice became quieter, almost a whisper. "Hell of it is, this
may not change anything. Steel does have the ship. I've got to get in
there."
"It will be another ambush."
"... I know. But does it matter? If we can get me time with the
Countermeasure, it could be -- it will be -- worth it." What matter a
suicide mission within a suicide mission?
"I'm not sure, Pham. If we give him everything, he'll kill us before we
ever get near the ship."
"He'll try. Look, just keep him talking. Maybe we can get a directional
on his radio, blow the bastard away." He did not sound optimistic.
Tyrathect didn't take them back to the ship, or to their rooms. They
descended stairs within the outer walls, part of Amdi first, then Jefri with
the rest of Amdi, then the singleton from Tyrathect.
Amdi was still complaining. "I don't understand, I don't understand. We
can help."
Jefri: "I didn't see any enemy cannons."
The singleton was full of explanations, though it sounded even more
preoccupied than usual. "I saw them from one of my other members, out in the
valley. We're pulling in all our soldiers. We must make a stand, or none of
us will be alive to be rescued. For now, this is the best place for you to
be."
"How do you know?" said Jefri. "Can you talk to Steel right now?"
"Yes, one of me is still up there with him."
"Well, tell him we have to help. We can talk better Samnorsk even than
you."
"I'll tell him right now," was the Cloak's quick reply.
There were no more window slots cut in the walls. The only light came
from wick torches set every ten meters along the tunnel. The air was cool
and musty; wetness glistened on unquilted stone. The tiny doors were not of
polished wood. Instead there were bars, and darkness beyond. Where are we
going? Jefri was suddenly reminded of the dungeons in stories, the treachery
that befell the Greater Two and the Countess of the Lake. Amdi didn't seem
to feel it. For all his mischievous nature, Puppies was basically trusting;
he had always depended on Mr. Steel. But Jefri's parents had never acted
quite like this, even during the escape from High Lab. Mr. Steel suddenly
seemed so different, as if he couldn't be bothered pretending to be nice
anymore. And Jefri had never really trusted the sullen Tyrathect; now that
one was acting downright sneaky.
There had been no new threat on the hillside.
Fear and stubbornness and suspicion all came together: Jefri spun
around, confronting the Cloak. "We're not going any farther. This isn't
where we're supposed to go. We want to talk to Ravna and Mr. Steel." A
sudden, liberating realization: "And you're not big enough to stop us!"
The singleton backed up abruptly, then sat down. It lowered its head,
blinked. "So you don't trust me? You are right not to. There is no one here
but yourselves that you can trust." Its gaze drifted from Jefri to the ranks
of Amdi, and then down the hall. "Steel doesn't know I've brought you here."
The confession was so quick, so easily made. Jefri swallowed hard. "You
brought us down here to k-kill us." All of Amdi was staring at him and
Tyrathect, every eye wide with shock.
The singleton bobbed its head in part of a smile. "You think I am
traitor? After all this time, some healthy suspicion. I am proud of you."
Mr. Tyrathect continued smoothly, "You are surrounded by traitors,
Amdijefri. But I am not one of them. I am here to help you."
"I know that." Amdi reached forward to touch a muzzle to the
singleton's. "You're no traitor. You're the only person besides Jefri that I
can touch. We've always wanted to like you, but -- "
"Ah, but you should be suspicious. You will all die if you aren't."
Tyrathect looked over the puppies, at the frowning Jefri. "Your sister is
alive, Jefri. She's out there now, and Steel has known all along. He killed
your parents; he did almost everything he said Woodcarver did." Amdi backed
away, shaking himself in frightened negations. "You don't believe me? That's
funny. Once upon a time I was such a good liar; I could talk the fish right
into my mouths. But now, when only the truth will work, I can't convince
you.... Listen:"
Suddenly it was Steel's human-speaking voice that came from the
singleton, Steel talking with Ravna about Johanna being alive, excusing the
attack he had just ordered on her.
Johanna. Jefri rushed forward, fell on his knees before the Cloak.
Almost without thought, he grabbed the singleton by the throat, shaking it.
Teeth snapped at his hands as the other tried to shake free. Amdi rushed
forward and pulled hard on his sleeves. After a moment Jefri let go.
Centimeters away from his face, the singleton peered back at him, the
torchlight glinting in its dark eyes. Amdi was saying: "Human voices are
easy to fake -- "
The fragment was disdainful. "Of course. And I'm not claiming that was
a direct relay. What you heard is several minutes old. Here's what Steel and
I are planning this very second." His Samnorsk abruptly stopped, and the
hallway was filled with the gobbling chords of Pack talk. Even after a year,
Jefri could only extract vague sense from the conversation. It did sound
like two packs. One of them wanted the other to do something, bring
Amdijefri -- that chord was clear -- up.
Amdiranifani went suddenly still, every member straining at the relayed
sounds. "Stop it!" he shrilled. And the hallway was as quiet as a tomb. "Mr.
Steel, oh Mr. Steel." All of Amdi huddled against Jefri. "He's talking about
hurting you if Ravna doesn't obey. He wants to kill the Visitors when they
land." The wide eyes were ringed with tears. "I don't understand."
Jefri jabbed a hand at the Cloak. "Maybe he's faking that, too."
"I don't know. I could never fake two packs that well." The tiny bodies
shuddered against Jefri, and there was the sound of human weeping, the
eerily familiar sound of a small child desolated.... "What are we going to
do, Jefri?"
But Jefri was silent, remembering and finally understanding, the first
few minutes after Steel's troops had rescued -- captured? -- him. Memories
suppressed by later kindness crept out from the corners of his mind. Mom,
Dad, Johanna. But Johanna still lived, just beyond these walls....
"Jefri?"
"I don't know either. H-hide maybe?"
For a moment they just stared at each other. Finally the fragment
spoke. "You can do better than hide. You already know about the passages
through these walls. If you know the entrance points -- and I do -- you can
get to almost anywhere you want. You can even get outside."
Johanna.
Amdi's crying stopped. Three of him watched Tyrathect front, aft, and
sideways. The rest still clung to Jefri. "We still don't trust you,
Tyrathect," said Jefri.
"Good, good. I am a pack of various parts. Perhaps not entirely
trustable."
"Show us all the holes." Let us decide.
"There won't be time -- "
"Okay, but start showing us. And while you do, keep relaying what Mr.
Steel is saying."
The singleton bobbed its head, and the multiple streams of Pack talk
resumed. The Cloak got painfully to its feet and led the two children down a
side tunnel, one where the wick torches were mostly burned out. The loudest
sound down here was the soft dripping of water. The place was less than a
year old, yet -- except for the jagged edges of the cut stone -- it seemed
ancient.
Puppies was crying again. Jefri stroked the back of the one that clung
to his shoulder, "Please Amdi, translate for me."
After a moment Amdi's voice came hesitantly in his ear. "M-Mr. Steel is
asking again where we are. Tyrathect says we're trapped by a ceiling fall in
the inner wing." In fact, they had heard the masonry shift a few minutes
before, but it sounded far away. "Mr. Steel just sent the rest of Tyrathect
to get Mr. Shreck and dig us out. Mr. Steel sounds so ... different."
"Maybe it's not really him," Jefri whispered back.
Long silence. "No. It's him. He just seems so angry, and he's using
strange words."
"Big words?"
"No. Scary ones. About cutting and killing ... Ravna and you and me. He
... he doesn't like us, Jefri."
The singleton stopped. They were beyond the last wall torch, and it was
too dark to see anything but shadowy forms. He pointed to a spot on the
wall. Amdi reached forward and pushed at the rock. All the while Mr.
Tyrathect continued talking, reporting from the outside.
"Okay," said Amdi, "that opens. And it's big enough for you, Jefri. I
think -- "
Tyrathect's human voice said, "The Spacers are back. I can see their
little boat.... I got away just in time. Steel is getting suspicious. A few
more seconds and he will be searching everywhere."
Amdi looked into the dark hole. "I say we go," he said softly, sadly.
"Yeah." Jefri reached down to touch one of Amdi's shoulders. The member
led him to a hole cut in sharp-edged stone. If he scrunched his shoulders
there would be enough room to crawl in. One of Amdi entered just ahead of
him. The rest would follow. "I hope it doesn't get any narrower than this."
Tyrathect: "It shouldn't. All these passages are designed for packs in
light armor. The important thing: keep to upward curving passages. Keep
moving and you'll eventually get outside. Pham's flying craft is less than,
uh, five hundred meters from the walls.
Jefri couldn't even look over his shoulder to talk to the Cloak. "What
if Mr. Steel chases us into the walls?"
There was a brief silence. "He probably won't do that, if he doesn't
know where you entered. It would take too long to find you. But," the voice
was suddenly gentler, "but there are openings on the top of the walls. In
case enemy soldiers tried to sneak in from the outside, there has to be some
way to kill them in the tunnels. He could pour oil down the tunnels."
The possibility did not frighten Jefri. At the moment it just sounded
bizarre. "We've got to hurry then."
Jefri scrabbled forward as the rest of Amdi crawled in behind him. He
was already several meters deep in stone when he heard Amdi's voice back at
the entrance, the last one to enter: "Will you be okay, Mr. Tyrathect?"
Or is this all another lie? thought Jefri.
The other's voice had its usual, cynical tone. "I expect to land on my
feet. Please do remember that I helped you."
And then the hatch was shut and they scrambled forward, into the dark.
Negotiations, shit. It was obvious to Pham that Steel's idea of
"mutually safe meeting" was a cover for mayhem. Even Ravna wasn't fooled by
the pack's new proposals. At least it meant that Steel was ad libbing now --
that he was beyond all the scripts and schemes. The trouble was, he still
wasn't giving them any openings. Pham would have cheerfully died for a few
undisturbed hours with the Countermeasure, but Steel's setup would have them
dead before they ever saw the inside of the refugee ship.
"Keep moving around, Blueshell. I want Steel to have us weighing on his
mind, without being a good target."
The Rider waved a frond in agreement and the boat bounced briefly up
from the moss, drifted a hundred meters parallel to the castle walls, and
descended again. They were in the no-man's land between the forces of
Woodcarver and Steel.
Johanna Olsndot twisted around to look at him. The boat was a very
crowded place now, Blueshell stretched across the Riderish controls at the
bow, Pham and Johanna jammed into the seats behind him -- and a pack called
Pilgrim in every empty space in between. "Even if you can locate the
commset, don't fire. Jefri could be close by." For twenty minutes Steel had
been promising the momentary reappearance of Jefri Olsndot.
Pham eyed her smudged face. "Yeah, we won't fire unless we can see
exactly what we'll hit." The girl nodded shortly. She couldn't have been
more than fourteen, but she was a good trooper. Half the people he had known
in Qeng Ho would have been in limp hysterics after this pickup. And of the
rest, few could have given a better status report than Johanna and her
friend.
He glanced at the pack. It would take a while to get used to these
critters. At first he'd thought that two of the dogs were sprouting extra
heads -- then he noticed the small ones were just puppies carried in jacket
pockets. The "Pilgrim" was all over the boat; just what part of him should
he talk to? He picked the head that was looking in his direction. "Any
theories how to deal with Steel?"
The pack's Samnorsk was better than Pham's: "Steel and Flenser are as
tricky as anything I've seen in Johanna's dataset. And Flenser is cool."
"Flenser? Hadn't realized there was a person with that name.... There
was a 'Mr. Skinner' we talked to. Some kind of assistant to Steel."
"Hmm. He's tricky enough to play flunky.... wish we could drop back and
chat with Woodcarver about this." The request was artfully contained in his
intonation. Pham wondered briefly what percentage of Packfolk were so
flexible. They might be one hell of a trading race if they ever reached
space.
"Sorry, we don't have time for that. In fact, if we can't get in right
away, we've lost everything. I just hope Steel doesn't guess that."
The heads subtly rearranged themselves. The biggest member, the one
with a broken arrow shaft sticking up from its jacket, moved closer to the
girl. "Well, if Steel is in charge, there's a chance. He's very smart, but
we think he runs amok when things get tough. Your finding Johanna has
probably put him to chasing his tails. Keep him off balance, and you can
expect some big mistakes."
Johanna spoke abruptly, "He might kill Jefri."
Or blow up the starship. "Ravna, any luck with Steel?"
Her voice came back over the comm: "No. The threats are a bit more
transparent now, and his Samnorsk is getting harder to understand. He's
trying to bring cannon in from north of the Castle; I don't think he knows
how much I can see.... He still hasn't brought Jefri back to the radio."
The girl paled, but she didn't say anything. Her hand stole up to grasp
one of Pilgrim's paws.
Blueshell had been very quiet all through the rescue, first because he
had his fronds full with flying, then because the girl and the Pack had so
much to say. Pham had noticed that part of Pilgrim had been politely nosing
around the Rider. Blueshell hadn't seemed upset by the attention; his race
had plenty of experience with others.
But now the Rider made a brap for attention, "Sir Pham, there is action
in front of the castle."
Pilgrim was on it at almost the same instant, one head helping another
look through a telescope. "Yes. That's the main sally port that's coming
open. But why would Steel send packs out now? Woodcarver will chew them up."
The enemy was indeed fielding infantry. The packs spewed out the wide hole
in a headlong dash, much like troops of Pham's recollection. But once they
cleared the entrance they broke of into clumps of four to six dogs each and
spread across the castle perimeter.
Pham leaned forward, trying to see as far along the walls as possible.
"Maybe not. These guys aren't advancing. They're staying in range of the
archers on the walls."
"Yeah. But we still have cannons." Pilgrim's perfect imitation of
humanity broke for a second, and a Tinish chord filled the cockpit.
"Something is really strange. It's like they're trying to keep someone from
getting out."
"Are there other entrances?"
"Probably. And lots of little tunnels, just one member wide."
"Ravna?"
"Steel's not talking at all now. He said something about traitors
infifltrating the castle. Now all I'm getting is Tinish gobble." From
embrasure to embrasure along the battlements, Pham could see enemy soldiers
moving above those on the ground. Something had upset the rats' nest.
Johanna Olsndot was a vision of horrified concentration, her free hand
gathered into a fist, her lips faintly trembling. "All this time I thought
he was dead. If they kill him now, I...." Her voice suddenly scaled up:
"What are they doing?" Cast iron kettles had been dragged to the top of the
walls.
Pham could guess. Siege fighting on Canberra had involved similar
things. He looked at the girl, and kept his mouth shut. There's nothing we
can do.
The Pilgrim pack was not so kind -- or not so patronizing: "It's oil,
Johanna. They want to kill someone in the walls. But if he can get out....
Blueshell, I've read about loudspeakers. Can I use one? If Jefri is in the
walls, Woodcarver can safely scrape Steel's troops off the field and
battlements."
Pham opened his mouth to object, but the Rider had already opened a
channel. Pilgrim's Tinish voice echoed across the hillside. Along the castle
walls heads turned. To them, the voice must have sounded like a god's. The
chords and trills continued a moment longer, then ceased.
Ravna's voice was on the line an instant later, "Whatever you did just
now, it pushed Steel over the edge. I can barely understand him; He seems to
be describing how he'll torture Jefri if we don't pull the Woodcarvers
back."
Pham grunted. "Okay then. Get us in the air, Blueshell." It felt good
to kiss subtlety goodbye.
Blueshell wobbled the boat aloft. They moved forward, scarcely faster
than a man can run. Behind them more of Woodcarver's troops were coming over
the military crest of the hill. Those fellows had been pulled well back
after Pham's strafing run: things might be decided before they got to the
castle.... But Woodcarver's reach was still long and deadly: splashes of
smoke and fire appeared along the battlements, followed by sharp popping
noises. Killing Jefri Olsndot was going to be a very expensive proposition
for Steel.
"Can you use the beamer to clear Steel's troops away from the wall?"
asked Johanna.
Pham started to nod, then noticed what was happening by the castle.
"See the oil." Dark pools were growing between the enemy packs and the walls
they guarded. Until they knew where the kid was coming out, it would be best
not to start fires.
Pilgrim: "Oops." Then he was shouting something more on the
loudspeakers. Woodcarver's artillery ceased.
"Okay," said Pham, "for now, all eyes on the castle wall. Circle the
perimeter, Blueshell. If we can see the kid before Steel's guys, we may have
a chance."
Ravna: "They're spread evenly around every side except the North, Pham.
I don't think Steel has any idea were the boy is."
When you challenge Heaven, the stakes are high. And I could have won.
If he had not betrayed me, I could have won. But now the masks were down,
and the enemy's brute physical power was all that counted. Steel brought
himself down from the hysterical blackout of the last few minutes. If I can
not have Heaven, at least I can still take them to Hell. Kill Amdijefri,
destroy the ship the Visitors wanted so ... most of all, destroy his
traitorous teacher.
"My lord?" It was Shreck.
Steel turned a head in Shreck's direction. The time for hysteria was
past. "How goes the flooding?" he said mildly. He wouldn't ask about
Tyrathect again.
"All but complete. The oil is pooling beyond the castle walls." The two
packs crouched as one of Woodcarver's bombs exploded just beyond the
battlement. Her troops were already halfway back across the field -- and
Steel's archers were preoccupied with flooding the tunnels and watching the
exits. "We may have flushed out the traitors, my lord. Just before
Woodcarver resumed fire, we heard something by the southeast wall. But I
fear the spacers will see whatever we do there." His heads bobbed
spastically.
Strange to see Shreck coming apart, Steel thought vaguely. Shreck's was
the loyalty of clockwork, but now his orderly world was failing and there
was nothing left to support him. The madness he was born from was all that
was left.
If Shreck was close to breaking, then the siege of Starship Hill was
nearly at an end. Just a little longer, that is all I ask now. Steel forced
a confident expression upon his members. "I understand. You have done well,
Shreck. We may still win. I know how these mantises think. If you can kill
the child, especially before their eyes, it will break their spirit -- just
as puppies can be broken by the right terrors."
"Yes, sir." There was dull incredulity in Shreck's eyes, but this would
hold him, a plausible excuse to continue the charade.
"Light the oil beyond the walls. Move the troops in front of where you
think Amdijefri will exit. The Visitors must see this if it is to have
proper effect. And -- " and blow up the refugee ship! The words almost
slipped out, but he caught himself in time. The explosives built into the
Jaws and the Starship dome would bring down everything interior to the
outerwalls and would kill most of the packs within. Ordering Shreck do that
would make Steel's real goal all too clear. "-- And move quickly before
Woodcarver's troops can close. This is the Movement's last hope, Shreck."
The pack bowed its way back down the steps. Steel maintained an
expansive posture, boldly looking across the battlefield until the other was
out of sight. Then he reached across the battlements and slammed the radio
into the stone walkway. This one didn't break, and now the Ravna mantis's
voice came querulously from it. Steel bounded down the stairs. "You get
nothing," he shrieked back at her in Tines' talk. "Everything you want will
die!"
And then he was down the stairs and running across the courtyard. He
ducked out of sight, into the hallway that circled the Jaws of Welcome. He
could blow those easily, but very likely the main dome and the ship within
would survive. No, he must go to the heart. Kill the ship and all the
sleeping mantises. He stepped into a secret room, picked up two crossbows --
and the extra radio cloak he had prepared. Inside that cloak was a small
bomb. He had tested the idea with the second set of radios; the receiving
pack had died instantly.
Down another set of stairs, into a supply corridor. The sounds of
battle were lost behind him. His own tines' clatter was the loudest noise.
Around him loomed bins of gunpowder, food supplies, fresh timber. The fuses
and set charges were only fifty yards further on. And Steel slowed to a
walk, curled his paws so the metal on them made no noise. Listening. Looking
in every direction. Somehow he knew the other would be here. The Flenser
Fragment. Flenser had haunted him from the beginning of his existence, had
haunted even after Flenser had mostly died. But not until this clear treason
had Steel been able to free his hate. Most likely the Master thought to
escape with the children, but there was a chance that Flenser schemed to win
everything. There was a chance that he had returned. Steel knew his own
death would come soon. And yet there might still be triumph. If, by his own
jaws and claws, he could kill the Master.... Please, please be here, dear
Master. Be here thinking you can trick me one more time.
A wish granted. He heard faint mind sounds. Close. Heads rose from
behind the bins above him. Two of the Fragment showed themselves in the
corridor ahead.
"Student."
"Master."