a halt. "Some of you forget your courage. We
agreed to attack Hidden Island because it has been a deadly threat, one we
thought we could destroy with Johanna's cannons -- and one that could surely
destroy us if Steel ever learns to use the starship." One of Woodcarver's
members, crouching on the floor, reached out to brush Johanna's knee.
Pilgrim's focused voice chuckled in her ear. "And there's also the
little matter of getting you home and making contact with the stars, but she
can't say that aloud to the 'pragmatic' types. In case you haven't guessed,
that's one reason you're here -- to remind the chuckleheads there's more in
heaven than they have dreamed." He paused, and switched back to translating
Woodcarver:
"No mistake was made in undertaking this campaign: avoiding it would be
as deadly as fighting and losing. So ... do we have any chance of getting an
effective army up the coast in time?" She jabbed a nose in the direction of
a balcony across the room. "Scrupilo. Please be brief."
"The last thing Scrupilo can be is brief -- oops, sorry," More
editorializing from Peregrine.
Scrupilo stuck a couple more heads into view. "I've already discussed
this with Vendacious, Your Majesty. Raising an army, traveling up the coast
-- those all could be done in well under ten tendays. It's the cannon, and
perhaps training packs to use cannon, that is the problem. That is my
special area of responsibility."
Woodcarver said something abrupt.
"Yes, Majesty. We have the gunpowder. It is every bit as powerful as
Dataset says. The gun tubes have been a much greater problem. Till very
recently, the metal cracked at the breech as it cooled. Now I think I have
that fixed. At least I have two unblemished guntubes. I had hoped for
several tendays of testing -- "
Woodcarver interrupted, "-- but that is something we can't afford now."
She came completely to her feet and looked all around the council room. "I
want full-size testing immediately. If it's successful, we'll start making
gun tubes as fast as we can." And if not...
Two days later...
The funniest thing was that Scrupilo expected her to inspect the gun
tube before he fired it. The pack walked excitedly around the rig,
explaining things in awkward Samnorsk. Johanna followed, frowning seriously.
Some meters off, mostly hidden behind a berm, Woodcarver and her High
Council were watching the exercise. Well, the thing looked real enough.
They'd mounted it on a small cart that could roll back into a pile of dirt
under the recoil force. The tube itself was a single cast piece of metal
about a meter long with a ten-centimeter bore. Gunpowder and shot went in
the front end. The powder was ignited through a tiny firehole at the rear.
Johanna ran her hand along the barrel. The leaden surface was bumpy,
and there seemed be pieces of dirt caught in the metal. Even the walls of
the bore were not completely smooth; would that make a difference? Scrupilo
was explaining how he had used straw in the molds to keep the metal from
cracking as it cooled. Yecco. "You should try it out with small amounts of
gunpowder first," she said.
Scrupilo's voice became a bit conspiratorial, more focused, "Just
between you me, I did that. It went very good. Now for big test."
Hmm. So you're not a complete flake. She smiled at the nearest of him,
a member with no black at all in his head fur. In a kooky way, Scrupilo
reminded her of some the scientists at the High Lab.
Scrupilo stepped back from the cannon and said loudly, "It is all okay
to go now?" Two of him were looking nervously at the High Councillors beyond
the berm.
"Um, yes, it looks fine to me." And of course it should. The design was
copied straight from Nyjoran models in Johanna's history files. "But be
careful -- if it doesn't work right, it could kill anybody nearby."
"Yes, yes." Having gotten her official endorsement, Scrupilo swept
around the piece and shooed Johanna toward the sidelines. As she walked back
to Woodcarver, he continued in Tinish, no doubt explaining the test.
"Do you think it will work?" Woodcarver asked her quietly. She seemed
even more feeble than usual. They had spread a woven mat for her, on the
mossy heather behind the berm. Most of her lay quietly, heads between paws.
The blind one looked asleep; the young drooler cuddled against it, twitching
nervously. As usual Peregrine Wickwrackscar was nearby, but he wasn't
translating now. All his attention was on Scrupilo.
Johanna thought of the straw that Scrupilo had used in the molds.
Woodcarver's people were really trying to help, but.... She shook her head,
"I -- who knows." She came to her knees and looked over the berm. The whole
thing looked like a circus act from a history file. There were the
performing animals, the cannon. There was even the circus tent: Vendacious
had insisted on hiding the operation from possible spies in the hills. The
enemy might see something, but the longer Steel lacked details the better.
The Scrupilo pack hustled around the cannon, talking all the time. Two
of him hauled up a keg of black powder and he began pushing the stuff down
the barrel. A wad of silkpaper followed the powder down the barrel. He
tamped it into place, then loaded the cannon ball. At the same time, the
rest of him pushed the cart around to point out of the tent.
They were on the forest side of the castle yard, between the old and
new walls. Johanna could see a patch of green hillside, drizzly clouds
hanging low. About a hundred meters away was the old wall. In fact this was
the same stretch of stone where Scriber had been killed. Even if the damn
cannon didn't blow up, no one had any idea how far the shot would go.
Johanna was betting it wouldn't even get to the wall.
Scrupilo was on this side of the gun now, trying to light a long wooden
firing wand. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Johanna knew this
couldn't work. They were all fools and amateurs, she as much as they. And
this poor guy is going to get killed for nothing.
Johanna came to her feet. Gotta stop it. Something grabbed her belt and
pulled her down. It was one of Woodcarver's members, one of the fat ones
that couldn't walk quite right. "We have to try," the pack said softly.
Scrupilo had the wand alight now. Suddenly he stopped talking. All of
him but the white-headed one ran for the protection of the berm. For an
instant it seemed like strange cowardice, and then Johanna understood: A
human playing with something explosive would also try to shield his body --
except for the hand that held the match. Scrupilo was risking a maiming, but
not death.
The white-headed one looked across the trampled heather to the rest of
Scrupilo. It didn't seem upset so much as attentively listening. At this
distance it couldn't be part of Scrupilo's mind, but the creature was
probably smarter than any dog -- and apparently it was getting some kind of
directions from the rest.
White-head turned and walked toward the cannon. It belly-crawled the
last meter, taking what cover there was in the dirt behind the gun cart. It
held the wand so the flame at its tip came slowly down on the fire hole.
Johanna ducked behind the berm....
The explosion was a sharp snapping sound. Woodcarver shuddered against
her, and whistles of pain came from all around the tent. Poor Scrupilo!
Johanna felt tears starting. I have to look; I'm partly responsible. Slowly
she stood and forced herself to look across the field to where a minute ago
the cannon had been -- and still is! Thick smoke floated from both ends, but
the tube was intact. And more, White-head was wobbling dazedly around the
cart, his white fur now covered with soot.
The rest of Scrupilo raced out to White-head. The five of him ran round
and round the cannon, bounding over each other in triumph. For a long
moment, the rest of the audience just stared. The gun was in one piece. The
gunner had survived. And, almost as a side effect ... Johanna looked over
the gun, up the hillside: There was a meter-wide notch in the top of the old
wall, where none had been before. Vendacious would have a hard time
disguising that from enemy inspection!
Dumb silence gave way to the noisiest affair Johanna had seen yet.
There was the usual gobbling, and other sounds -- hissing that hovered right
at the edge of sensibility. On the other side of the tent, two Tines she
didn't know ran into each other: for a moment of mindless jubilation, they
were an enormous pack of nine or ten members.
We'll get the ship back yet! Johanna turned to hug Woodcarver. But the
Queen was not shouting with the others. She huddled with her heads close
together, shivering. "Woodcarver?" She petted the neck of one of the big,
fat ones. It jerked away, its body spasming.
Stroke? Heart attack? The names of oldenday killers popped into her
mind. Just how would they apply to a pack? Something was terribly wrong, and
nobody else had noticed. Johanna bounced back to her feet. "Pilgrim!" she
screamed.
Five minutes later, they had Woodcarver out of the tent. The place was
still a madhouse, but gone deathly quiet to Johanna's ears. She'd helped the
Queen onto her carriage, but after that no one would let her near. Even
Pilgrim, so eager to translate everything the day before, brushed her aside.
"It will be okay," was all he said as he ran to the front of the carriage
and grabbed the reins of the shaggy Whatsits. The carriage pulled out,
surrounded by several packs of guards. For an instant, the weirdness of the
Tines world came crashing back on Johanna. This was a obviously a great
emergency. A person might be dying. People were rushing this way and that.
And yet.... The packs drew into themselves. No one crowded close. No one
could touch another.
The instant passed, and Johanna was running out of the tent after the
carriage. She tried to keep to the heather along the muddy path, and almost
caught up. Everything was wet and chill, gunmetal gray. Everyone had been so
intent on the test -- could this be more Flenser treachery? Johanna
stumbled, went down on her knees in the mud. The carriage turned a corner,
onto cobblestones. Now it was lost to sight. She got up and slogged on
through the wet, but a little slower now. There was nothing she could do,
nothing she could do. She had made friends with Scriber, and Scriber had
been killed. She had made friends with Woodcarver, and now....
She walked along the cobbled alley between the castle's storehouses.
The carriage was out of sight, but she could hear its clatter on ahead.
Vendacious' security packs ran in both directions past her, stopping briefly
in side niches to allow opposing traffic by. Nobody answered her questions
-- probably none of them even spoke Samnorsk.
Johanna almost got lost. She could hear the carriage, but it had turned
somewhere. She heard it again behind her. They were taking Woodcarver to
Johanna's place! She went back, and a few minutes later was climbing the
path to the two-storey cabin she had shared with Woodcarver these last
weeks. Johanna was too pooped to run anymore. She walked slowly up the
hillside, vaguely aware of her wet and muddy state. The carriage was stopped
about five meters short of the door. Guard packs were strung out along the
hill, but their bows weren't nocked.
The afternoon sunlight found a break in the western clouds and shone
for a moment on the damp heather and glistening timbers, lighting them
bright against dark sky above the hills. It was a combination of light and
dark that had always seemed especially beautiful to Johanna. Please let her
be okay.
The guards let her pass. Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing around
the entrance, three of him watching her approach. The fourth, Scarbutt, had
its long neck stuck through the doorway, watching whatever was inside. "She
wanted to be back here when it happened," he said.
"What h-happened?" said Johanna.
Pilgrim made the equivalent of a shrug. "It was the shock of that
cannon going off. But almost anything could have done it." There was
something odd about the way his heads were bobbing around. With a shock
Johanna realized the pack was smiling, full of glee.
"I want to see her!" Scarbutt backed hastily away as she started for
the door.
Inside there was only the light from the door and the high window
slits. It took a second for Johanna's eyes to adjust. Something smelled ...
wet. Woodcarver was lying in a circle on the quilted mattress she used every
evening. She crossed the room and went to her knees beside the pack. The
pack edged nervously away from her touch. There was blood, and what looked
like a pile of guts, in the middle of the mattress. Johanna felt vomit
rising in her. "W-Woodcarver?" she said very softly.
One of the Queen moved back toward Johanna and put its muzzle in the
girl's hand. "Hello, Johanna. It's ... so strange ... to have someone next
to me at a time like this."
"You're bleeding. What's the matter?"
Soft, human-sounding laughter. "I'm hurt, but it's good.... See." The
blind one was holding something small and wet in its jaws. One of the others
was licking it. Whatever it was, it was wiggling, alive. And Johanna
remembered how strangely plump and awkward parts of Woodcarver had become.
"A baby?"
"Yes. And I'm going to have another in a day or two."
Johanna sat back on the floor timbers, and covered her face with her
hands. She was going to start crying again. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Woodcarver didn't say anything for a moment. She licked the little one
all around, then set it against the tummy of the member that must be its
mother. The newborn snuggled close, nuzzling into the belly fur. It didn't
make any noise that Johanna could hear. Finally the Queen said, "I ... don't
know if I can make you understand. This has been very hard for me."
"Having babies?" Johanna's hands were sticky with the blood on the
quilt. Obviously this had been hard, but that's how all lives must start on
a world like this. It was pain that needed the support of friends, pain that
led to joy.
"No. Having the babies isn't it. I've borne more than a hundred in my
memory's time. But these two ... are the ending of me. How can you
understand? You humans don't even have the choice to keep on living; your
offspring can never be you. But for me, it's the end of a soul six hundred
years old. You see, I'm going to keep these two to be part of me ... and for
the first time in all the centuries, I am not both the mother and the
father. A newby I'll become."
Johanna looked at the blind one and the drooler. Six hundred years of
incest. How much longer could Woodcarver have continued before the mind
itself decayed? Not both the mother and the father. "But then who is
father?" she blurted out.
"Who do you think?" The voice came from just beyond the door. One of
Peregrine Wickwrackscar's heads peered around the corner just far enough to
show an eye. "When Woodcarver makes a decision, she goes for extremes. She's
been the most tightly held soul of all time. But now she has blood -- genes,
Dataset would say -- from packs all over the world, from one of the flakiest
pilgrims who ever cast his soul upon the wind."
"Also from one of the smartest," said Woodcarver, her voice wry and
wistful at the same time. "The new soul will be at least as intelligent as
before, and probably a lot more flexible."
"And I'm a little bit pregnant, myself," said Pilgrim. "But I'm not the
least bit sad. I've been a foursome for too long. Imagine, having pups by
Woodcarver herself! Maybe I'll turn all conservative and settle down."
"Hah! Even two from me is not enough to slow your pilgrim soul."
Johanna listened to the banter. The ideas were so alien, and yet the
overtones of affection and humor were somehow very familiar. Somewhere ...
then she had it: When Johanna was just five years old, and Mom and Dad
brought little Jefri home. Johanna couldn't remember the words, or even the
sense of what they'd said -- but the tone was the same as what went between
Woodcarver and Pilgrim.
Johanna slid back to a sitting position, the tension of the day
evaporating. Scrupilo's artillery really worked; there was a chance of
getting the ship. And even if they failed ... she felt a little bit like she
was back home.
"C-can I pet your puppy?"
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
CHAPTER 25
The voyage of the Out of Band II had begun in catastrophe, where life
and death were a difference of hours or minutes. In the first weeks there
had been terror and loneliness and the resurrection of Pham. The OOB had
fallen quickly toward the galactic plane, away from Relay. Day by day the
whorl of stars tilted up to meet them, till it was the single band of light,
the Milky Way as seen from the perspective of Nyjora and Old Earth -- and
from most all the habitable planets of the Galaxy.
Twenty thousand light-years in three weeks. But that had been on a path
through the Middle Beyond. Now in the galactic plane, they were still six
thousand light-years from their goal at the Bottom of the Beyond. The Zone
interfaces roughly followed surfaces of constant mean density; on a galactic
scale, the Bottom was a vaguely lens-shaped surface, surrounding much of the
galactic disk. The OOB was moving in the plane of the disk now, more or less
toward the galactic center. Every week took them deeper toward the Slowness.
Worse, their path, and all variants that made any progress, extended right
through a region of massive Zone shifting. The Net News had called it the
Great Zone Storm, though of course there was not the slightest physical
feeling of turbulence within the volume. But some days their progress was
less that eighty percent what they'd expected.
Early on they'd known that it was not only the storm that was slowing
them. Blueshell had gone outside, looking over the damage that still
remained from their escape.
"So it's the ship itself?" Ravna had glared out from the bridge,
watching the now imperceptible crawl of near stars across the heavens. The
confirmation was no revelation. But what to do?
Blueshell trundled back and forth across the ceiling. Every time he
reached the far wall, he'd query ship's management about the pressure seal
on the nose lock. Ravna glared at him, "Hey, that was the n'th time you've
checked status in the last three minutes. If you really think something is
wrong, then fix it."
The Skroderider's wheeled progress came to an abrupt halt. Fronds waved
uncertainly. "But I was just outside. I want to be sure I shut the port
correctly.... Oh, you mean I've already checked it?"
Ravna looked up at him, and tried to get the sting out of her voice.
Blueshell wasn't the proper target for her frustration. "Yup. At least five
times."
"I'm sorry." He paused, going into the stillness of complete
concentration. "I've committed the memory." Sometimes the habit was cute,
and sometimes just irritating: When the Riders tried to think on more than
one thing at a time, their Skrodes were sometimes unable to maintain
short-term memory. Blueshell especially got trapped into cycles of behavior,
repeating an action and immediately forgetting the accomplishment.
Pham grinned, looking a lot cooler than Ravna felt. "What I don't see
is why you Riders put up with it."
"What?"
"Well, according to the ship's library, you've had these Skrode gadgets
since before there was a Net. So how come you haven't improved the design,
gotten rid of the silly wheels, upgraded the memory tracking? I bet that
even a Slow Zone combat programmer like me could come up with a better
design than the one you're riding."
"It's really a matter of tradition," Blueshell said primly, "We're
grateful to Whatever gave us wheels and memory in the first place."
"Hmm."
Ravna almost smiled. By now she knew Pham well enough to guess what he
was thinking -- namely that plenty of Riders might have gone on to better
things in the Transcend. Those remaining were likely to have self-imposed
limitations.
"Yes. Tradition. Many who once were Riders have changed -- even
Transcended. But we persist." Greenstalk paused, and when she continued
sounded even more shy than usual. "You've heard of the Rider Myth?"
"No," said Ravna, distracted in spite of herself. In the time ahead she
would know as much about these Riders as about any human friends, but for
now there were still surprises.
"Not many have. Not that it's a secret; it's just we don't make much of
it. It comes close to being religion, but one we don't proselytize. Four or
five billion years ago, Someone built the first skrodes and raised the first
Riders to sentience. That much is verified fact. The Myth is that something
destroyed our Creator and all its works.... A catastrophe so great that from
this distance it is not even understood as an act of mind."
There were plenty of theories about what the galaxy had been like in
the distant past, in the time of the Ur-Partition. But the Net couldn't be
forever. There had to be a beginning. Ravna had never been a big believer in
Ancient Wars and Catastrophes.
"So in a sense," Greenstalk said, "we Riders are the faithful ones,
waiting for What created us to return. The traditional skrode and the
traditional interface are a standard. Staying with it has made our patience
possible."
"Quite so," said Blueshell. "And the design itself is very subtle, My
Lady, even if the function is simple." He rolled to the center of the
ceiling. "The skrode of tradition imposes a good discipline -- concentration
on what's truly important. Just now I was trying to worry about too many
things...." Abruptly he returned to the topic at hand: "Two of our drive
spines never recovered from the damage at relay. Three more appear to be
degrading. We thought this slow progress was just the storm, but now I've
studied the spines up close. The diagnostic warnings were no false alarm."
"... and it's still getting worse?"
"Unfortunately so."
"So how bad will it get?"
Blueshell drew all his tendrils together. "My Lady Ravna, we can't be
certain of the extrapolations yet. It may not get much worse than now, or --
You know the OOB was not fully ready for departure. There were the final
consistency checks still to do. In a way, I worry about that more than
anything. We don't know what bugs may lurk, especially when we reach the
Bottom and our normal automation must be retired. We must watch the drives
very carefully ... and hope."
It was the nightmare that haunted travelers, especially at the Bottom
of the Beyond: with ultradrive gone, suddenly a light-year was not a matter
of minutes but of years. Even if they fired up the ramscoop and went into
cold sleep, Jefri Olsndot would be a thousand years dead before they reached
him, and the secret of his parents' ship buried in some medieval midden.
Pham Nuwen waved at the slowly shifting star fields. "Still, this is
the Beyond. Every hour we go farther than the fleet of Qeng Ho could in a
decade." He shrugged. "Surely there's some place we can get repairs?"
"Several."
So much for "a quick flight, all unobserved". Ravna sighed. The final
fitting at Relay was to include spares and Bottom compatibility software.
All that was faraway might-have-beens now. She looked at Greenstalk. "Do you
have any ideas?"
"About what?" Greenstalk said.
Ravna bit her lip in frustration. Some said the Riders were a race of
comedians; they were indeed, but it was mostly unintentional.
Blueshell rattled at his mate.
"Oh! You mean where can we get help. Yes, there are several
possibilities. Sjandra Kei is thirty-nine hundred lights spinward from here,
but outside this storm. We -- "
"Too far," Blueshell and Ravna spoke almost in chorus.
"Yes, yes, but remember. The Sjandra Kei worlds are mainly human, your
home, my lady Ravna. And Blueshell and I know them well; after all, they
were the source of the crypto shipment we brought to Relay. We have friends
there and you a family. Even Blueshell agrees that we can get the work done
without notice there."
"Yes, if we could get there." Blueshell's voder voice sounded petulant.
"Okay, what are the other choices?"
"They are not so well-known. I'll make a list." Her fronds drifted
across a console. "Our last chance for choice is rather near our planned
course. It's a single system civilization. The Net name is ... it translates
as Harmonious Repose."
"Rest in Peace, eh?" said Pham.
But they had agreed to voyage on quietly, always watching the bad drive
spines, postponing the decision to stop for help.
The days became weeks, and weeks slowly counted into months. Four
voyagers on a quest toward the Bottom. The drive became worse, but slowly,
right on OOB's diagnostic projections.
The Blight continued to spread across the Top of the Beyond, and its
attacks on Network archives extended far beyond its direct reach.
Communication with Jefri was improving. Messages trickled in at the
rate of one or two a day. Sometimes, when OOB's antenna swarm was tuned just
right, he and Ravna would talk almost in real time. Progress was being made
on the Tines' world, faster than she had expected -- perhaps fast enough
that the boy could save himself.
It should have been a hard time, locked up in the single ship with just
three others, with only a thread of communication to the outside, and that
with a lost child.
In any case, it was rarely boring. Ravna found that each of them had
plenty to do. For herself it was managing the ship's library, coaxing out of
it the plans that would help Mr. Steel and Jefri. OOB's library was nothing
compared to the Archive at Relay, or even the university libraries at
Sjandra Kei, but without proper search automation it could be just as
unknowable. And as their voyage proceeded, that automation need more and
more special care.
And ... things could never be boring with Pham around. He had a dozen
projects, and curiosity about everything. "Voyaging time can be a gift,"
he'd say. "Now we have time to catch ourselves up, time to get ready for
whatever we find ahead." He was learning Samnorsk. It went slower than his
faked learning on Relay, but the guy had a natural bent for languages, and
Ravna gave him plenty of practice.
He spent several hours each day in the OOB's workshop, often with
Blueshell. Reality graphics were a new thing to him, but after a few weeks
he was beyond toy prototypes. The pressure suits he built had power packs
and weapons stores. "We don't know what things may be like when we arrive;
powered armor could be real useful."
At the end of each work day they would all meet on the command deck, to
compare notes, to consider the latest from Jefri and Mr. Steel, to review
the drive status. For Ravna this could be the happiest time of the day ...
and sometimes the hardest. Pham had rigged the display automation to show
castle walls all around. A huge fireplace replaced the normal window on comm
status. The sound of it was almost perfect; he had even coaxed a small
amount of "fire" heat from that wall. This was a castle hall out of Pham's
memory, from Canberra he said. But it wasn't that different from the Age of
Princesses on Nyjora (though most of those castles had been in tropical
swamps, where big fireplaces were rarely used). For some perverse reason,
even the Riders seemed to enjoy it; Greenstalk said it reminded her of a
trading stop from her first years with Blueshell. Like travelers who have
walked through a long day, the four of them rested in the coziness of a
phantom lodge. And when the new business was settled, Pham and the Riders
would trade stories, often late into the "night".
Ravna sat beside him, the least talkative of the four. She joined in
the laughter and sometimes the discussion: There was the time Blueshell had
a humor fit at Pham's faith in public key encryption, and Ravna knew some
stories of her own to illustrate the Rider's opinion. But this was also the
hardest time for her. Yes, the stories were wonderful. Blueshell and
Greenstalk had been so many places, and at heart they were traders. Swindles
and bargains and good done were all part of their lives. Pham listened to
his friends, almost enraptured ... and then told his own stories, of being a
prince on Canberra, of being a Slow Zone trader and explorer. And for all
the limitations of the Slowness, his life's adventures surpassed even the
Skroderiders'. Ravna smiled and tried to pretend enthusiasm.
For Pham's stories were too much. He honestly believed them, but she
couldn't imagine one human seeing so much, doing so much. Back on Relay, she
had claimed his memories were synthetic, a little joke of Old One. She had
been very angry when she said it, and more than anything she wished she
never had ... because it was so clearly the truth. Greenstalk and Blueshell
never noticed, but sometimes in the middle of a story Pham would stumble on
his memories and a look of barely concealed panic would come to his eyes.
Somewhere inside, he knew the truth too, and she suddenly wanted to hug him,
comfort him. It was like having a terribly wounded friend, with whom you can
talk but never mutually admit the scope of the injuries. Instead she
pretended the lapses didn't exist, smiling and laughing at the rest of his
story.
And Old One's jape was all so unnecessary. Pham didn't have to be a
great hero. He was a decent person, though ebullient and kind of a
rule-breaker. He had every bit as much persistence as she, and more courage.
What craft Old One must have had to make such a person, what ... Power.
And how she hated Him, for making a joke of such a person.
Of Pham's godshatter, there was scarcely a sign. For that Ravna was
very grateful. Once or twice a month he had a dreamy spell. For a day or two
after he would go nuts with some new project, often something he couldn't
clearly explain. But it wasn't getting worse; he wasn't drifting away from
her.
"And the godshatter may save us in the end," he would say when she had
the courage to ask him about it. "No, I don't know how." He tapped his
forehead. "It's still god's own crowded attic up here. "It's more than
memory. Sometimes it needs all my mind to think with and there's no room
left for self-awareness, and afterwards I can't explain, but... sometimes I
have a glimmer. Whatever Jefri's parents brought to the Tines' world: it can
hurt the Blight. Call it an antidote -- better yet, a countermeasure.
Something taken from the Perversion as it was aborning in the Straumli lab.
Something the Perversion didn't even suspect was gone until much later."
Ravna sighed. It was hard to imagine good news that was also so
frightening. "The Straumers could sneak something like that right out from
the Perversion's heart?"
"Maybe. Or maybe, Countermeasure used the Straumers to escape the
Perversion. To hide inaccessibly deep, and wait to strike. And I think the
plan might work, Rav, at least if I -- if Old One's godshatter -- can get
down there and help it. Look at the News. The Blight is turning the top of
the Beyond upside down -- hunting for something. Hitting Relay was the least
of it, a small by-product of its murdering Old One. But it's looking in all
the wrong places. We'll have our chance at Countermeasure."
She thought of Jefri's messages. "The rot on the walls of Jefri's ship.
You think that's what it is?"
Pham's eyes went vague. "Yes. It seems completely passive, but he says
it was there from the beginning, that his parents kept him away from it. He
seems a little disgusted by it.... That's good, probably keeps his Tinish
friends away from it."
A thousand questions flitted up. Surely they must in Pham's mind too.
And they could know the answer to none of them now. Yet someday they would
stand before that unknown and Old One's dead hand would act ... through
Pham. Ravna shivered, and didn't say anything more for a time.
Month by month, the gunpowder project stayed right on the schedule of
the library's development program. The Tines had been able to make the stuff
easily; there had been very little backtracking through the development
tree. Alloy testing had been the critical event that slowed things, but they
were over the hump there too. The packs of "Hidden Island" had built the
first three prototypes: breech-loading cannon that were small enough to be
carried by a single pack. Jefri guessed they could begin mass production in
another ten days.
The radio project was the weird one. In one sense it was behind
schedule; in another, it had become something more than Ravna had ever
imagined. After a long period of normal progress, Jefri had come back with a
counterplan. It consisted of a complete reworking of the tables for the
acoustic interface.
"I thought these jokers were first-time medievals," Pham Nuwen said
when he saw Jefri's message.
"That's right. And in principle, they just reasoned out consequences to
what we sent them. The want to support pack-thought across the radio."
"Hunh. Yes. We described how the tables specified the transducer grid
-- all in nontechnical Samnorsk. That included showing how small table
changes would make the grid different. But look, our design would give them
a three kilohertz band -- a nice, voice-grade connection. You're telling me
that implementing this new table would give'em two hundred kilohertz."
"Yes. That's what my dataset says."
He grinned his cocky smile. "Ha! And that's my point. Sure, in
principle we gave them enough information to do the mod. It looks to me like
making this expanded spec table is equivalent to solving a, hmm," he counted
rows and columns, "a five-hundred-node numerical PDE. And little Jefri
claims that all his datasets are destroyed, and that his ship computer is
not generally usable."
Ravna leaned back from the display. "Sorry. I see what you mean." You
get so used to everyday tools, sometimes you forget what it must be like
without them. "You ... you think this might be, uh, Countermeasure's doing?"
Pham Nuwen hesitated, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility.
Then, "No ... no, it's not that. I think this 'Mister Steel' is playing
games with our heads. All we have is a byte stream from 'Jefri'. What do we
really know about what's going on?"
"Well, I'll tell you some things I know. We are talking to a young
human child who was raised in Straumli Realm. You've been reading most of
his messages in Trisk translation. That loses a lot of the colloquialisms
and the little errors of a child who is a native speaker of Samnorsk. The
only way this might be faked is by a group of human adults.... And after
twenty plus weeks of knowing Jefri, I'll tell you even that is unlikely."
"Okay. So suppose Jefri is for real. We have this eight-year-old kid
down on the Tines' world. He's telling us what he considers to be the truth.
I'm saying it looks like someone is lying to him. Maybe we can trust what he
sees with his own eyes. He says these creatures aren't sapient except in
groups of five or so. Okay. We'll believe that." Pham rolled his eyes.
Apparently his reading had shown how rare group intelligences were this side
of the Transcend. "The kid says they didn't see anything but small towns
from space, and that everything on the ground is medieval. Okay, we'll buy
that. But. What are the chances that this race is smart enough to do PDE's
in their heads, and do them from just the implications in your message?"
"Well, there have been some humans that smart." She could name one case
in Nyjoran history, another couple from Old Earth. If such abilities were
common among the packs, they were smarter than any natural race she had
heard of. "So this isn't first-time medievalism?"
"Right. I bet this is some colony fallen on hard times -- like your
Nyjora and my Canberra, except that they have the good luck of being in the
Beyond. These dog packs have a working computer somewhere. Maybe it's under
control of their priest class; maybe they don't have much else. But they're
holding out on us."
"But why? We'd be helping them in any case. And Jefri has told us how
this group saved him."
Pham started to smile again, the old supercilious smile. Then he
sobered. He was really trying to break that habit. "You've been on a dozen
different worlds, Ravna. And I know you've read about thousands more, at
least in survey. You probably know of varieties of medievalism I've never
guessed. But remember, I've actually been there.... I think." The last was a
nervous mutter.
"I've read about the Age of Princesses," Ravna said mildly.
"Yes.... and I'm sorry for belittling that. In any medieval politics,
the blade and the thought are closely connected. But they become much more
closely bound for someone who's lived through it. Look, even if we believe
everything that Jefri says he has seen, this Hidden Island Kingdom is a
sinister thing."
"You mean the names?"
"Like Flensers, Steel, Tines? Harsh names aren't necessarily
meaningful." Pham laughed. "I mean, when I was eight years old, one of my
titles was already 'Lord Master Disemboweler'." He saw the look on Ravna's
face and hurriedly added, "And at that age, I hadn't even witnessed more
than a couple of executions! No, the names are only a small part of it. I'm
thinking of the kid's description of the castle -- which seems to be close
by the ship -- and this ambush he thinks he was rescued from. It doesn't add
up. You asked 'what could they gain from betraying us'. I can see that
question from their point of view. If they are a fallen colony, they have a
clear idea what they've lost. They probably have some remnant technology,
and are paranoid as hell. If I were them, I'd seriously consider ambushing
the rescuers if those rescuers seemed weak or careless. And even if we come
on strong ... look at the questions Jefri asks for Steel. The guy is
fishing, trying to figure out what we really value: the refugee ship, Jefri
and the coldsleepers, or something on the ship. By the time we arrive, Steel
will probably have wiped the local opposition -- thanks to us. My guess is
we're in for some heavy blackmail when we get to Tines' world."
I thought we were talking about the good news. Ravna paged back through
recent messages. Pham was right. The boy was telling the truth as he knew
it, but.... "I don't see how we can play things any differently. If we don't
help Steel against the Woodcarvers -- "
"Yeah. We don't know enough to do much else. Whatever else is true, the
Woodcarvers seem a valid threat to Jefri and the ship. I'm just saying we
should be thinking about all the possibilities. One thing we absolutely
mustn't do is show interest in Countermeasure. If the locals know how
desperate we are for that, we don't have a chance.
"And it may be time to start planting a few lies of our own. Steel's
been talking about building a landing place for us -- within his castle.
There's