unterattack. There was
great confusion, and a desperate need for order. It made scarcely any
impression on her. She was at the end of her long desperate run, at the end
of all her energy.
Ravna must have sat by the ramp for much of the afternoon, so deep in
loss as not to think, scarcely aware of the sea song that Greenstalk shared
with her through the dataset. Eventually she realized she was not alone.
Besides Greenstalk's comfort ... sometime earlier, the little boy had
returned. He sat beside her, and around them all the puppies, all silent.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
-=*=-
EPILOGS
Peace had come to what had once been Flenser's Domain. At least there
was no sign of belligerent forces. Whoever had pulled them back had done it
very cleverly. As the days passed, local peasantry showed themselves. Where
the people weren't simply dazed, they seemed glad to be rid of the old
regime. Life picked up in the farmlands, peasants doing their best to
recover from the worst fire season of recent memory, compounded by the most
fighting the region had ever known.
The Queen had sent messengers south to report on the victory, but she
seemed in no rush to return to her city. Her troops helped with some of the
farm work, and did their best not to be a burden on the locals. But they
also scouted through the castle on Starship Hill, and the huge old castle on
Hidden Island. Down there were all the horrors that had been whispered about
over the years. But still there was no sign of the forces that had escaped.
The locals were eager with their own stories, and most were ominously
credible: That before Flenser had undertaken his attempt upon the Republic,
he had created redoubts further north. There had been reserves there --
though some thought that Steel had long since used them. Peasants from the
northern valley had seen the Flenserist troops retreating. Some said they
had seen Flenser himself -- or at least a pack wearing the colors of a lord.
Even the locals did not believe all the stories, the ones about Flenser
being here and there, singletons separated by kilometers, coordinating the
pull out.
Ravna and the Queen had reason to believe the story, but not the
foolhardiness to check it out. Woodcarver's expeditionary force was not a
large one, and the forests and valleys stretched on for more than one
hundred kilometers to where the Icefangs curved west to meet the sea. That
territory was unknown to Woodcarver. If Flenser had been preparing it for
decades -- as was that pack's normal method of operation -- there would be
deadly surprises, even for a large army hunting just a few dozens of
partisans. Let Flenser be, and hope that his redoubts had been gutted by
Lord Steel.
Woodcarver worried that this would be the great peril of the next
century.
But things were resolved much sooner than that. It was Flenser who
sought them out, and not with a counterattack: About twenty days after the
battle, at the end of a day when the sun dipped just behind the northern
hills, there was the sound of signal horns. Ravna and Johanna were wakened
and shortly found themselves on the castle's parapet, peering into something
like a sunset, all orange and gold silhouetting the hills beyond the
northern fjord. Woodcarver's aides were gazing from many eyes at the
ridgeline. A few had telescopes.
Ravna shared her binocs with Johanna. "Someone's up there." Stark
against the sky glow, a pack carried a long banner with separate poles for
each member.
Woodcarver was using two telescopes, probably more effective than
Ravna's gear, considering the pack's eye separation. "Yes, I see it. That's
a truce flag, by the way. And I think I know who's carrying it." She
yammered something at Peregrine. "It's been a long time since I've talked to
that one."
Johanna was still looking through the binoculars. finally she said, "He
... made Steel, didn't he?"
"Yes, dear."
The girl lowered the binocs. "I ... think I'll pass up meeting him."
Her voice was distant.
They met on the hillside north of the castle just eight hours later.
Woodcarver's troops had spent the intervening time scouting the valley. It
was only partly a matter of protecting against treachery from the other
side: one very special pack of the enemy would be coming, and there were
plenty of locals who would like that one dead.
Woodcarver walked to where the hill fell off in supersteepness toward
forest. Ravna and Pilgrim followed behind her at a Tinishly close ten
meters. Woodcarver wasn't saying much about this meeting, but Pilgrim had
turned out to be a very talkative sort. "This is just the way I came
originally, a year ago when the first ship landed. You can see how some of
the trees were burned by the torch. Good thing it wasn't as dry that summer
as this."
The forest was dense, but they were looking down over the treetops.
Even in the dryness, there was a sweet, resinous smell in the air. To their
left was a tiny waterfall and a path that led to the valley floor -- the
path their truce visitor had agreed to take. Farmland, Peregrine called the
valley bottom. It was undisciplined chaos to Ravna's eyes. The Tines grew
different crops together in the same fields, and she saw no fences, not even
to hold back livestock. Here and there were wooden lodges with steep roofs
and outward curving walls; what you might expect in a region with snowy
winters.
"Quite a mob down there," said Pilgrim.
It didn't look crowded to her: little clumps, each a pack, each
well-separated from the others. They clustered around the lodge buildings.
More were scattered across the fields. Woodcarver packs were stationed along
the little road that crossed the valley.
She felt Pilgrim tense next to her. A head extended past her waist,
pointing. "That must be him. All alone, as promised. And -- " part of him
was looking through a telescope, "now that's a surprise."
A single pack trekked slowly down the road, past Woodcarver's guards.
It was pulling a small cart -- containing one of its own members,
apparently. A cripple?
The peasants in the fields drifted toward the edge of the field,
paralleling the lone pack's course. She heard the gobble of Tinish talk.
When they wanted to be loud, they could be very, very loud. The troopers
moved to chase back any local who got too close to the road.
"I thought they were grateful to us?" This was the closest thing to
violence she had seen since the battle of Starship Hill.
"They are. Most of those are shouting death to Flenser."
Flenser, Skinner, the pack who had rescued Jefri Olsndot. "They can
hate one pack so much?"
"Love and hate and fear, all together. More than a century they've been
under his knife. And now he is here, half-crippled, and without his troops.
Yet they are still afraid. There are enough cotters down there to overwhelm
our guard, but they're not pushing hard. This was Flenser's Domain, and he
treated it like a good farmer might treat his yard. Worse, he treated the
people and the land like some grand experiment. From reading Dataset, I see
he is a monster ahead of his time. There are some out there who might still
kill for the Master, and no one is sure who they are...." He paused a
second, just watching.
"And you know the greatest reason for fear? That he would come here
alone, so far from any help we can conceive."
So. Ravna shifted Pham's pistol forward on her belt. It was a bulky,
blatant thing ... and she was glad to have it. She glanced westward towards
Hidden Island. OOB was safely grounded against the battlements of the castle
there. Unless Greenstalk could do some basic reprogramming, it would not fly
again. And Greenstalk was not optimistic. But she and Ravna had mounted the
beam gun in one of its cargo bays, and that remote was dead simple. Flenser
might have his surprises, but so did Ravna.
The fivesome disappeared beneath the steepness.
"It will be a while yet," said Pilgrim. One of his pups stood on his
shoulders and leaned against Ravna's arm. She grinned: her private
information feed. She picked it up and placed it on her shoulder. The rest
of Peregrine sat his rumps on the ground and watched expectantly.
Ravna looked at the others of the Queen's party. Woodcarver had posted
crossbow packs to her right and left. Flenser would sit directly before her
and a little downslope. Ravna thought she could see nervousness in
Woodcarver. The members kept licking their lips, the narrow pink tongues
slipping in and out with snake-like quickness. The Queen had arranged
herself as if for a group portrait, the taller members behind and the two
little ones sitting erect in front. Most of her gaze seem focused on the
break in the verge, where the path from below reached the terrace they sat
upon.
Finally she heard the scritching of claws on stone. One head appeared
over the drop off, and then more. Flenser walked out onto the moss, two of
his members pulling the wheeled cart. The one in the cart sat erect, its
hindquarters covered by a blanket. Except for its white-tipped ears, it
seemed unremarkable.
The pack's heads peered in every direction. One stayed disconcertingly
focused on Ravna as the pack proceeded up the slope toward the Queen.
Skinner -- Flenser -- was the one who had worn the radio cloaks. None were
worn now. Through gaps in the jackets Ravna could see scabby splotches,
where the fur had been rubbed away.
"Mangy fellow, isn't he?" came the little voice in Ravna's ear. "But
cool too. Catch his insolent look." The Queen hadn't moved. She seemed
frozen, every member staring at the oncoming pack. Some of her noses were
trembling.
Four of Flenser tipped the cart forward, helping the white-tipped one
slide to the ground. Now Ravna could see that under the blanket, its
hindquarters were unnaturally twisted and still. The five settled themselves
rumps together. Their necks arched up and out, almost like the limbs of a
single creature. The pack gobbled something that sounded to Ravna like
strangling songbirds.
Pilgrim's translation came immediately from the puppy on Ravna's
shoulder. The pup spoke in a new voice, a traditional villain voice from
children's stories, a dry and sardonic voice. "Greetings ... Parent. It has
been many years."
Woodcarver said nothing for a moment. Then she gobbled something back,
and Pilgrim translated: "You recognize me?"
One of Flenser's heads jabbed out toward Woodcarver. "Not the members
of course, but your soul is obvious."
Again, silence from the Queen. Peregrine, annotating: "My poor
Woodcarver. I never thought she would be this flummoxed." Abruptly he spoke
loud, addressing Flenser in Samnorsk. "Well, you are not so obvious to me, O
former traveling companion. I remember you as Tyrathect, the timid teacher
from the Long Lakes."
Several the heads turned toward Peregrine and Ravna. The creature
replied in pretty good Samnorsk, but with a childish voice. "Greetings,
Peregrine. And greetings, Ravna Bergsndot? Yes. Flenser Tyrathect I am." The
heads angled downwards, eyes blinking slowly.
"Sly bugger," Peregrine muttered.
"Is Amdijefri safe?" the Flenser suddenly asked.
"What?" said Ravna, not recognizing the name at first. Then, "Yes, they
are fine."
"Good." Now all the heads turned back to the Queen, and the creature
continued in Pack talk; "Like a dutiful creation, I have come to make peace
with my Parent, dear Woodcarver."
"Does he really talk like that?" Ravna hissed at the puppy on her
shoulder.
"Hei, would I exaggerate?"
Woodcarver gobbled back, and Pilgrim picked up the translation, now in
the Queen's human voice: "Peace. I doubt it, Flenser. More likely you want
breathing space to build again, to try to kill us all again."
"I wish to build again, that is true. But I have changed. The 'timid
teacher' has made me a little ... softer. Something you could never do,
Parent."
"What?" Pilgrim managed to inject a tone of injured surprise into the
word.
"Woodcarver, have you never thought on it? You are the most brilliant
pack to live in this part of the world, perhaps the most brilliant of all
time. And the packs you made, they are mostly brilliant, too. But have you
not wondered on the most successful of them? You created too brilliantly.
You ignored inbreeding and [things that I can't translate easily], and you
got ... me. With all the ... quirks that have so pained you over the last
century."
"I-I have thought on that mistake, and done better since."
"Yes, as with Vendacious? [Oh, look at my Queen's faces. He really hurt
her there.] Never mind, never mind. Vendacious may well have been a
different sort of error. The point is, you made me. Before, I thought that
your greatest act of genius. Now ... I'm not so sure. I want to make amends.
Live in peace." One of the heads jabbed at Ravna, another at the OOB down by
Hidden Island. "And there are other things in the universe to point our
genius at."
"I hear the arrogance of old. Why should I trust you now?"
"I helped to save the children. I saved the ship."
"And you were always the world's greatest opportunist."
Flenser's flanking heads shifted back. "[That's a kind of dismissing
shrug.] You have the advantage, Parent, but some of my power is left in the
north. Make peace, or you will have more decades of maneuvering and war."
Woodcarver's response was a piercing shriek. "[And that's a sign of
irritation, in case you didn't guess.] Impudence! I can kill you here and
now, and have a century of certain peace."
"I've bet that you won't harm me. You gave me safe passage, separately
and in the whole. And one of the strongest things in your soul is your hate
for lies."
The back members of Woodcarver's pack hunkered down, and the little
ones at the front took several quick steps toward the Flenser. "It's been
many decades since we last met, Flenser! If you can change, might not I?"
For an instant every one of Flenser's members was frozen. Then part of
him came slowly to its feet, and slowly, slowly edged toward Woodcarver. The
crossbow packs on either side of the meeting ground raised their weapons,
tracking him. Flenser stopped six or seven meters from Woodcarver. His heads
weaved from side to side, all attention on the Queen. Finally, a wondering
voice, almost abashed: "Yes, you might. Woodcarver, after all the centuries
... you've given up yourself? These new ones are ..."
"Not all mine. Quite right." For some reason, Pilgrim was chuckling in
Ravna's ear.
"Oh. Well...." The Flenser backed to its previous position, "I still
want peace."
"[Woodcarver looks surprised.] You sound changed, too. How many of you
are really of Flenser?"
A long pause. "Two."
"... Very well. Depending on the terms, there will be peace."
Maps were brought out. Woodcarver demanded the location of Flenser's
main troops. She wanted them disarmed, with two or three of her packs
assigned to each unit, reporting by heliograph. Flenser would give up the
radio cloaks, and submit to observation. Hidden Island and Starship Hill
would be ceded to Woodcarver. The two sketched new borders, and wrangled on
the oversight the Queen would have in his remaining lands.
The sun reached its noon point in the southern sky. In the fields
below, the peasants had long since given up their angry vigil. The only
tensely watchful people left were the Queen's crossbow packs.
Finally Flenser stepped back from his end of the maps. "Yes, yes, your
folk can watch all my work. No more ... ghastly experiments. I will be a
gentle gatherer of knowledge [is this sarcasm?], like yourself."
Woodcarver's heads bobbed in rippling synchrony. "Perhaps so; with the
Two-Legs on my side, I'm willing to chance it."
Flenser rose again from his seated posture. He turned to help his
crippled member back on the cart. Then he paused. "Ah, one last thing, dear
Woodcarver. A detail. I killed two of Steel when he tried to destroy Jefri's
starship. [Squashed them like bugs, actually. Now we know how Flenser hurt
himself.] Do you have the rest of him?"
"Yes." Ravna had seen what was left of Steel. She and Johanna had
visited most of the wounded. It should be possible to adapt OOB first aid
for the Tines. But in the case of Steel, there had been a bit of vengeful
curiosity; that creature had been responsible for so much unnecessary death.
What was left of Steel didn't really need medical attention: There were some
bloody scratches (self-inflicted, Johanna guessed), and one twisted leg. But
the pack was a pitiable, almost an unnerving, thing. It had cowered at the
back of its pen, all shivering in terror, heads shifting this way and that.
Every so often the creature's jaws would snap open and shut, or one member
would make an aborted run at the fence. A pack of three was not of human
intelligence, but this one could talk. When it saw Ravna and Johanna, its
eyes went wide, the whites showing all around, and it rattled barely
intelligible Samnorsk at them. The speech was a nightmare mix of threats and
pleas that they "not cut, not cut!" Poor Johanna started crying then. She
had spent most of a year hating the pack these were from, yet -- "They seem
to be victims, too. It's b-bad to be three, and no one will ever let them be
more."
"Well," continued Flenser, "I would like custody of what remains, I --
"
"Never! That one was almost as smart as you, even if crazy enough to
defeat. You're not going to build him back."
Flenser came together, all eyes staring at the Queen. His "voice" was
soft: "Please, Woodcarver. This is a small matter, but I will throw over
everything," he jabbed at the maps, "rather than be denied in it."
"[Oh, oh.]" The crossbow packs were suddenly at the ready. Woodcarver
came partly around the maps, close enough to Flenser that their mind noise
must collide. She brought all her heads together in a concerted glare. "If
it is so unimportant, why risk everything for it?"
Flenser bumped around for an instant, his members actually staring at
one another. It was a gesture Ravna had not seen till now. "That is my
affair! I mean ... Steel was my greatest creation. In a way, I am proud of
him. But ... I am also responsible for him. Don't you feel the same about
Vendacious?"
"I've got my plans for Vendacious," the response was grudging. "[In
fact, Vendacious is still whole; I fear the Queen made too many promises to
do much with him now.]"
"I want to make up to Steel the harm I made him. You understand."
"I understand. I've seen Steel and I understand your methods: the
knives, the fear, the pain. You're not going to get another chance at it!"
It sounded to Ravna like faint music, something from far beyond the
valley, an alien blending of chords. But it was Flenser answering back.
Pilgrim's translating voice held no hint of sarcasm: "No knives, no cutting.
I keep my name because it is for others to rename me when they finally
accept that ... in her way, Tyrathect won. Give me this chance, Woodcarver.
I am begging."
The two packs stared at each other for more than ten seconds. Ravna
looked from one to the other, trying to divine their expressions. No one
said anything. There was not even Pilgrim's voice in her ear to speculate on
whether this was a lie or the baring of a new soul.
It was Woodcarver who decided: "Very well. You may have him."
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was flying. A pilgrim with legends that went
back almost a thousand years -- and not one of them could come near to this!
He would have burst into song except that it would pain his passengers. They
were already unhappy enough with his rough piloting, even though they
thought it was simply his inexperience.
Peregrine stepped across clouds, flew among and through them, danced
with an occasional thunderstorm. How many hours of his life had he stared up
at the clouds, gauging their depths -- and now he was in them, exploring the
caves within caves within caves, the cathedrals of light.
Between scattered clouds, the Great Western Ocean stretched forever. By
the sun and the flier's instruments, he knew that they had nearly reached
the equator, and were already some eight thousand kilometers southwest of
Woodcarver's Domain. There were islands out here, the OOB's pictures from
space said so, and so did the Pilgrim's own memories. But it had been long
since he ventured here, and he had not expected to see the island kingdoms
in the lifetime of his current members.
Now suddenly he was going back. Flying back!
The OOB's landing boat was a wonderful thing, and not nearly as strange
as it had seemed in the midst of battle. True, they had not yet figured out
how to program it for automatic flight. Perhaps they never would. In the
meantime, this little flier worked with electronics that were barely more
than glorified moving parts. The agrav itself required constant adjustment,
and the controls were scattered across the bow periphery -- conveniently
placed for the fronds of a Skroderider, or the members of a pack. With the
Spacers' help and OOB's documentation, it had taken Pilgrim only a few days
to get the hang of flying the thing. It was all a matter of spreading one's
mind across all the various tasks. The learning had been happy hours, a
little bit scary, floating nearly out of control, once in a screwball
configuration that accelerated endlessly upward. But in the end, the machine
was like an extension of his jaws and paws.
Since they descended from the purpling heights and began playing in the
cloud tops, Ravna had been looking more and more uncomfortable. After a
particularly stomachs-lurching bump and drop, she said, "Will you be able to
land okay? Maybe we should have postponed this till -- " unh! "-- you can
fly better."
"Oh yes, oh yes. We'll be past this, um, weather front real soon." He
dived beneath the clouds and swerved a few tens of kilometers eastwards. The
weather was clear here, and it was actually more on a line with their
destination. Secretly chastened, he resolved to do no more joy-riding ... on
the inbound leg, anyway.
His second passenger spoke up then, only the second time in the
two-hour flight. "I liked it," said Greenstalk. Her voder voice charmed
Pilgrim: mostly narrow-band, but with little frets high up, from the
squarewaves. "It was ... it was like riding just beneath the surf, feeling
your fronds moving with the sea."
Peregrine had tried hard to know the Skroderider. The creature was the
only nonhuman alien in the world, and harder to know than the Two-Legs. She
seemed to dream most of the time, and forgot all but things that happened
again and again to her. It was her primitive skrode that accounted for part
of that, Ravna told him. Remembering the run that Greenstalk's mate had made
through the flames, Pilgrim believed. Out among the stars, there were things
even stranger than Two-Legs -- it made Pilgrim's imagination ache.
Near the horizon he saw a dark ring -- and another, beyond. "We'll have
you in real surf very soon."
Ravna: "These are the islands?"
Peregrine looked over the map displays as he took a shot on the sun.
"Yes, indeed," though it didn't really matter. The Western Ocean was over
twelve thousand kilometers across, and all through the tropics it was dotted
with atolls and island chains. This group was just a bit more isolated than
others; the nearest Islander settlement was almost two thousand kilometers
away.
They were over the nearest island. Pilgrim took a swing around it,
admiring the tropic ferns that clung to the coral. At this tide, their bony
roots were exposed. Not any flat land here at all; he flew on to the next, a
larger one with a pretty glade just within the ringwall. He floated the boat
down in a smooth glide that touched the ground without even the tiniest
bump.
Ravna Bergsndot looked at him with something like suspicion. Oh oh.
"Hei, I'm getting better, don't you think?" he said weakly.
An uninhabited little island, surrounded by endless sea. The original
memories were blurred now; it had been his Rum member who had been a native
of the island kingdoms. Yet what he remembered all fit: the high sun, the
intoxicating humidity of the air, the heat soaking through his paws.
Paradise. The Rum aspect that still lived within him was most joyous of all.
The years seemed to melt away; part of him had come home.
They helped Greenstalk down to the ground. Ravna said her skrode was an
inferior imitation, its new wheels an ad hoc addition. Still, Pilgrim was
impressed: the four balloon tires each had a separate axle. The Rider was
able to make it almost to the crest of the coral without any help from Ravna
or himself. But near the top, where the tropic ferns were thickest and their
roots grew across every path, there he and Ravna had to help a bit, lifting
and pulling.
Then they were on the other side, and they could see the ocean.
Now part of Pilgrim ran ahead, partly to find the easiest descent,
partly to get close to the water and smell the salt and the rotting
floatweed. The tide was nearly out now, and a million little pools -- some
no more than stony-walled puddles -- lay exposed to the sun. Three of him
ran from pool to pool, eyeing the creatures that lay within. The strangest
things in the world they had seemed to him when he first came to the
islands. Creatures with shells, slugs of all dimensions and colors,
animal-plants that would become tropic ferns if they ever got trapped far
enough inland.
"Where would you like to sit?" he asked the Skroderider. "If we go all
the way out to the surf right now, you'll be a meter underwater at high
tide."
The Rider didn't reply. But all her fronds were angled toward the water
now. The wheels on her skrode slipped and spun with a strange lack of
coordination. "Let's take her closer," Ravna said after a moment.
They reached a fairly level stretch of coral, pocked with holes and
gullies not more than a few centimeters deep. "I'll go for a swim, find a
good place," Peregrine said. All of him ran down to where the coral broke
the water; going for a swim was not something you did by parts. Heh heh.
Fact was, damn few mainland packs could swim and think at the same time.
Most mainlanders thought that there was a craziness in water. Now Peregrine
knew it was simply the great difference in sound speed between air and
water. Thinking with all tympana immersed must be a little like using the
radio cloaks: it took discipline and practice to do it, and some were never
able to learn. But the Island folk had always been great swimmers, using it
for meditation. Ravna even thought the Packs might be descended from of
whales!
Peregrine came to the edge of the coral and looked down. Suddenly the
surf did not seem a completely friendly thing. He would soon find out if
Rum's spirit and his own memories of swimming were up to the real thing. He
pulled off his jackets.
All at once. It's best done all at once. He gathered himself and
plopped awkwardly into the water. Confusion, heads out and in. Keep all
under. He paddled about, holding all his heads down. Every few seconds, he'd
poke a single nose into the air and refresh that member. I still can do it!
The six of him slipped through swarms of squidlets, dived separately through
arching green fronds. The hiss of the sea was all around, like the mindsound
of a vast sleeping pack.
After a few minutes he'd found a nice level spot, sand all about and
shielded from the worst fury of the sea. He paddled back to where the sea
crashed against stony coral.... and almost broke some legs scrambling out.
It was just impossible to exit all at once, and for a few moments it was
every member for itself. "Hei, over here!" He shouted to Greenstalk and
Ravna. He sat licking at coral cuts as they crossed the white rock. "Found a
place, more peaceful than this -- " He waved at the crash and spray.
Greenstalk rolled a little closer to the edge, then hesitated. Her
fronds turned back and forth along the curving sweep of the shore. Does she
need help? Pilgrim started forward, but Ravna just sat down beside the Rider
and leaned against the wheeled platform. After a moment, Pilgrim joined
them. They sat for a time, human looking out to the sea, Rider looking he
wasn't sure quite where, and pack looking in most all directions.... There
was peace here, even with (or because of?) the booming surf and the haze of
spray. He felt his hearts slowing, and just lazed in the sunlight. On every
pelt the drying sea water was leaving a glittery powder of salt. Grooming
himself tasted good at first, but ... yech, too much dry salt was one of the
bad memories. Greenstalk's fronds settled lightly across him, too fine and
narrow to provide much shade, but a light and gentle comfort.
They sat for a long while -- long enough so that later some of Pilgrims
noses were blistered, and even darkskinned Ravna was sun burned.
The Rider was humming now, a sort of song that after long minutes came
to be speech. "It is a good sea, a good edge. It is what I need now. To sit
and think at my own pace for a while."
And Ravna said, "How long? We will miss you." That was not just
politeness. Everyone would miss her. Even in her mind adrift, Greenstalk was
the expert on OOB's surviving automation.
"Long by your measure, I fear. A few decades...." She watched (?) the
waves a few minutes more. "I am eager to get down there. Ha ha. Almost like
a human in that.... Ravna, you know my memories are muddled now. I had two
hundred years with Blueshell. Sometimes he was petty and a little spineful,
but he was a great trader. We had many wonderful times. And at the end even
you could see his courage."
Ravna nodded.
"We found a terrible secret on this last journey. I think that hurt him
as much as the final ... burning. I am grateful to you for protecting us.
Now I want to think, to let the surf and the time work with my memories and
sort them out. Maybe if this poor imitation skrode is up to it, I'll even
make a chronicle of our quest."
She touched Peregrine on two of his heads. "One thing, Sir Pilgrim. You
trust much to give me freedom of your seas.... But you should know,
Blueshell and I were pregnant. I have a mist of our common eggs within me.
Leave me here and there will be new Riders by this island in future years.
Please do not take that as betrayal. I want to remember Blueshell with
children -- but modestly; our kind has shared ten million worlds and never
been bad neighbors ... except in a way that, Ravna can tell you, cannot
happen here."
In the end, Greenstalk was not at all interested in the protected
stretch of water that Peregrine had discovered. She wanted -- of all the
places here -- the one where the ocean crashed most ferociously. It took
them more than an hour to find a path down to that violent place, and
another half hour to get Rider and skrode safely into the water. Peregrine
didn't even try to swim here. The coral rock came in close from all sides,
slimy green in patches, razor jagged in others. Five minutes in that meat
grinder and he might be too weak to get out. Strange that there was so much
green in the water here. It was all but opaque with sea grasses and swarms
of foam midges.
Ravna was a little better off; at the water's greatest height, she
could still keep feet to ground -- at least most of the time. She stood in
the foam, bracing herself with feet and an arm, and helped the skrodeling
over the lip of rock. Once in, the mechanical crashed firmly to the bottom
beside the human.
Ravna looked up at Pilgrim, made an "okay" gesture. Then she huddled
down for a moment, holding to the skrode to keep her place. The surf crashed
over the two, obscuring all but Greenstalk's tallest standing fronds. When
the foam moved back, he could see that the lower fronds draped across the
human's back, and hear a voder buzzing that wasn't quite intelligible
against all the other noise.
The human stood and slogged through the waist deep-water toward the
rocks Peregrine occupied. Peregrine grabbed onto himself, reached down to
give Ravna some paws. She scrambled up the slime green and coral white.
He followed the limping Two-Legs toward the crest of tropical ferns.
They stopped under the shade, and she sat down, leaned back into the mat of
a fern's trunk. Cut and bruised, she looked almost as hurt as Johanna ever
had.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," she ran her hands back through disheveled hair. Then she looked
at him and laughed. "We both look like casualties."
Um, yes. Sometime soon he needed a fresh-water bath. He looked around
and out. From the crest of the atoll ring they had a view of Greenstalk's
niche. Ravna was looking down there too, minor injuries forgotten.
"How can she like that spot?" Peregrine said wonderingly. "Imagine
being smashed and smashed and smashed."
There was a smile on Ravna's face, but she kept her two eyes on the
surf. "There are strange things in the universe, Pilgrim; I'm glad there are
some you have not read about yet. Where the surf meets the shore -- lots of
neat things can happen there. You saw all the life that floated in that
madness. Just as plants love the sun, there are creatures that can use the
energy differences down at that edge. There they have the sun and the surge
and the richness of the suspension.... Still, we should keep watch a little
longer." Between each insurge of the waves, they could still see
Greenstalk's fronds. He already knew that those limbs weren't strong, but he
was beginning to realize that they must be very tough. "She'll be okay,
though that cheap skrode may not last long. Poor Greenstalk may end up
without any automation at all ... she and her children, the lowest of all
Riders."
Ravna turned to look at the pack. There was still that smile on her
face. Wondering, yet pleased? "You know the secret Greenstalk spoke of?"
"Woodcarver told me what you told her."
"I'm glad -- surprised -- she was willing to let Greenstalk come here.
Medieval minds -- sorry, most any minds -- would want to kill before taking
even the faintest risk with something like this."
"Then why did you tell the Queen?" About the skrode's perversion.
"It's your world. I was tired of playing god with the Secret. And
Greenstalk agreed. Even if the Queen had refused, Greenstalk could have used
a cold box on the OOB." And likely slept forever. "But Woodcarver didn't
refuse. Somehow she understood what I was saying: it's the true skrodes that
can be perverted, but Greenstalk no longer has one of those. In a decade,
this island's shore will be populated with hundreds of young Riders, but
they would never colonize beyond this archipelago without permission of the
locals. The risk is vanishingly small ... but I was still surprised
Woodcarver took it."
Peregrine settled down around Ravna, only one pair of eyes still
watching the Rider's fronds down in the foam. Best to give some explanation.
He cocked a head a Ravna, "Oh, we are medieval, Ravna -- even if changing
fast, now. We admired Blueshell's courage in the fire. Such deserves reward.
And medieval types are used to courting treachery. So what if the risk is of
cosmic size? To us, here, it is no more deadly for that. We poor primitives
live with such all the time."
"Ha!" Her smile spread at his flippant tone.
Peregrine chuckled, heads bobbing. His explanation was the truth, but
not all the truth, or even the most important part. He remembered back to
the day before, when he and Woodcarver had decided what to do with
Greenstalk's request. Woodcarver had been afraid at first, statecraftly
cautious before an evil secret billions of years old. Even leaving such a
being in cold sleep was a risk. The statecraftly ... the medieval ... thing
to do, would be to grant the request, leave the Rider ashore on this distant
island ... and then sneak back a day or two later and kill it.
Peregrine had settled down by his Queen, closer than any but mates and
relations could ever do without losing their train of thought. "You showed
more honor to Vendacious," he had said. Scriber's murderer still walked the
earth, complete, scarcely punished at all.
Woodcarver snapped at the empty air; Peregrine knew that sparing
Vendacious hurt her too. "...Yes. And these Skroderiders have shown us
nothing but courage and honesty. I will not harm Greenstalk. Yet I am
afraid. With her, there's a risk that goes beyond the stars."
Peregrine laughed. It might be pilgrim madness but -- "and that's to be
expected, My Queen. Great risks for great gains. I like being around the
humans; I like touching another creature and still being able to think at
the same time." He darted forward to nuzzle the nearest of Woodcarver, and
then retreated to a more rational distance. "Even without their starships
and their datasets, they would make our world over. Have you noticed ... how
easy it is for us to learn what they know? Even now, Ravna can't seem to
accept our fluency. Even now, she doesn't understand how thoroughly we have
studied Dataset. And their ship is easy, my Queen. I don't mean I understand
the physics behind it -- few even among star folk do. But the equipment is
easy to learn, even with the failures it has suffered. I suspect Ravna will
never be able to fly the agrav boat as well as I."
"Hmmf. But you can reach all the controls at once."
"That's only part of it. I think we Tines are more flexibly minded than
the poor Two-Legs. Can you imagine what it will be like when we make more
radio cloaks, when we make our own flying machines?"
Woodcarver smiled, a little sadly now. "Pilgrim, you dream. This is the
Slow Zone. The agrav will wear out in a few years. Whatever we make will be
far short of what you play with now."
"So? Look at human history. It took less than two centuries for Nyjora
to regain spaceflight after their dark age. And we have better records than
their archaeologists. We and the humans are a wonderful team; they have
freed us to be everything we can be." A century till their own spaceships,
perhaps another century to start building sub- light-speed starships. And
someday they would get out of the Slow Zone. I wonder if packs can be bigger
than eight up in the Transcend.
The younger parts of Woodcarver were up, pacing around the rest. The
Queen was intrigued. "So you think, like Steel seemed to, that we are some
kind of special race, something with a happy destiny in the Beyond?
Interesting, except for one thing: These humans are all we know from Out
There. How do they compare with other races there? Dataset can't fully
answer that."
"Ah, and there, Woodcarver, is why Greenstalk is so important. We do
need experience of more than one other race. Apparently the Riders are among
the most common throughout the Beyond. We need them to talk to. We need to
discover if they are as much fun, as useful, as the Two-Legs. Even if the
risk was ten times what it seems, I would still want to grant this Rider her
wish."
"... Yes. If we are to be all we can be, we need