s weaknesses and a feasible defense. Class Two Perversions all
involve a deformed Power that creates symbiotic structures in the High
Beyond -- but there is enormous variety of origins. Some are poorly-formed
jokes told by Powers no longer on the scene. Others are weapons built by the
newly transcendent and never properly disarmed.
The immediate source of this danger is well-documented: a species
recently up from the Middle Beyond, Homo sapiens, founded Straumli Realm. We
are inclined to believe the theory proposed in messages [...], namely that
Straumli researchers experimented with something in Shortcuts, and that the
recipe was a self-booting evil from an earlier time. One possibility: Some
loser from long ago planted how-to's on the Net (or in some lost archive)
for the use of its own descendants. Thus, we are interested in any
information related to Homo sapiens.
-=*=-
The next day Amdi went on the longest trip of his young life. Bundled
in windbreakers, they traveled down wide, cobbled streets to the straits
below the castle. Mr. Steel led the way on a chariot-cart drawn by three
kherhogs. He looked marvelous in his red- striped jackets. Guards dressed in
white fur rolled along on either side, and the dour Tyrathect brought up the
rear. The aurora was as brilliant as Amdijefri had ever seen, brighter in
sum than the full moon above the northern horizon. Icicles grew down from
buildings' eaves, sometimes all the way to the ground: glittering,
green-silver pillars in the light.
Then they were on the boats, rowing across the straits. The water swept
like chill black stone around the hulls.
When they reached the other side, Starship Hill towered over them,
higher than any castle could ever be. Every minute brought new visions, new
worlds.
It took half an hour to reach the top of that hill, even though their
carts were pulled by Kherhogs, and nobody walked. Amdi looked in all
directions, awed by the landscape that spread, aurora-lit, below them. At
first Jefri seemed just as excited, but as they reached the hilltop, he
stopped looking around and hugged painfully hard at his friend.
Mr. Steel had built a shelter around the starship. Inside, the air was
still and a little warmer. Jefri stood at the base of the spidery stairs,
looking up at the light that spilled from the ship's open doorway. Amdi felt
him shivering.
"Is he frightened of his own flier?" asked Tyrathect.
By now Amdi knew most of Jefri's fears, and understood most of the
despair. How would I feel if Mr. Steel were killed? "No, not scared. It's
the memories of what happened here."
Steel said gently, "Tell him we could come again. He doesn't have to go
inside today."
Jefri shook his head at the suggestion, but couldn't answer right away.
"I've got to go on. I've got to be brave." He started slowly up the stairs,
stopping at each step to make sure that Amdi was still all with him. The
puppies were split between concern for Jefri and the desire to rush madly
into this wonderful mystery.
Then they were through the hatch, and into Two-Legs strangeness. Bright
bluish light, air as warm as in the castle ... and dozens of mysterious
shapes. They walked to the far side of the big room, and Mr. Steel stuck
some heads in the entrance. His mind sounds echoed loudly around them. "I've
quilted the walls, Amdi, but even so, there isn't room for more than one of
us in here."
"Y-yes," there were echoes and Steel's mind sounded strangely fierce.
"It's up to you to protect your friend here, and let me know about
everything you see." He moved back so that just one head still looked in
upon them.
"Yes. Yes! I will." It was the first time anybody except Jefri had
really needed him.
Jefri wandered silently about the room full of his sleeping friends. He
wasn't crying any more, and he wasn't in the silent funk that often held
him. It was as if he couldn't quite believe where he was. He passed his
hands lightly across the caskets, looked at the faces within. So many
friends, thought Amdi, waiting to be wakened. What will they be like?
"The walls? I don't remember this ..." said Jefri. He touched the heavy
quilting that Steel had hung.
"It's to make the place sound better," said Amdi. He pulled at the
flaps, wondering what was behind: Green wall, like stone and steel all at
once ... and covered with tiny bumps and fingers of gray. "What's this?"
Jefri was looking over his shoulders. "Ug. Mold. It's spread. I'm glad
Mr. Steel has covered it up." The human boy drifted away. Amdi stayed a
second longer, poked several heads up close to the stuff. Mold and fungus
were a constant problem in the castle; people were always cleaning it up --
and perversely so, in Amdi's opinion. He thought fungus was neat, something
that could grow on hardest rock. And this stuff was especially strange. Some
of the clumps were almost half an inch high, but wispy, like solid smoke.
The back-looking part of him saw that Jefri had drifted off toward the
inner cabin. Reluctantly, Amdi followed.
They stayed in the ship only an hour that first time. In the inner
cabin Jefri turned on magic windows that looked out in all directions. Amdi
sat goggle-eyed; this was a trip to heaven.
For Jefri it was something else. He hunched down in a hammock and
stared at the controls. The tension slowly left his face.
"I -- I like it here," said Amdi, tentatively, softly.
Jefri rocked gently in the hammock. "... Yes." He sighed. "I was so
afraid ... but being here makes me feel closer to ..." His hands reached out
to caress the panel that hung close to the hammock. "My dad landed this
thing; he was sitting right here." He twisted around, looked at a glimmering
panel of light above him. "And Mom got the ultrawave all set.... They did it
all. And now it's only you and me, Amdi. Even Johanna is gone.... It's all
up to us."
-=*=-
Vrinimi Classification: Organizational SECRET. Not for distribution
beyond Ring 1 of the local net.
Transceiver Relay00 search log:
Beginning 19:40:40 Docks Time, 17/01 of Org year 52090 [128.13 days
since the fall of Straumli Realm]
Link layer syntax 14 message loop detected on assigned surveillance
bearing. Signal strength and S/N compatible with previously detected beacon
signal.
Language path: Samnorsk, SjK:Relay units
From: Jefri Olsndot at I dont know where this is
Subject: Hello. My names Jefri Olsndot. Our ships hurt adnd we need
help. pPlease anser.
Summary: Sorry if I get some of this wrong. This keybord is STUPID!!
Key phrases: I dont know
To: Relay anybody
Text of message: [empty]
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
CHAPTER 15
Two Skroderiders played in the surf.
"Do you think his life is in danger?" asked the one with the slender
green stalk.
"Whose life?" said the other, a large rider with a bluish basal shell.
"Jefri Olsndot, the human child."
Blueshell sighed to himself and consulted his skrode. You come to the
beach to forget the cares of the everyday, but Greenstalk would not let them
go. He scanned for danger-to-Jefri: "Of course he's in danger, you twit!
Look up the latest messages from him."
"Oh." Greenstalk's tone was embarrassed. "Sorry for the partial
remembering," remembering enough to worry and nothing more. She went silent;
after a moment he heard her pleasured humming. The surf crashed endlessly
past them.
Blueshell opened to the water, tasting the life that swirled in the
power of the waves. It was a beautiful beach. It was probably unique -- and
that was an extreme thing to say about anything in the Beyond. When the foam
swept back from their bodies, they could see indigo sky spread from one side
of the Docks to the other, and the glint of starships. When the surf came
forward, the two Riders were submerged in the turbid chill, surrounded by
the coralesks and intertidal creatures that built their little homes here.
And at high "tide" the flexure of the sea floor held steady for an hour or
so. Then the water cleared, and if in daylight, they could see patches of
glassy sea-bottom ... and through them, a thousand kilometers below, the
surface of Groundside.
Blueshell tried to clear his mind of care. For every hour of peaceful
contemplation, a few more natural memories would accumulate.... No good.
Just now he could no more banish the worries than could Greenstalk. After a
moment, he said, "Sometimes I wish I were a Lesser Rider." To stand a
lifetime in one place, with just a minimum skrode.
"Yes," said Greenstalk. "But we decided to roam. That means giving up
certain things. Sometimes we must remember things that happen only once or
twice. Sometimes we have great adventures: I'm glad we took the rescue
contract, Blueshell."
So neither of them were really in the mood for the sea today. Blueshell
lowered the skrode's wheels and rolled a little closer to Greenstalk. He
looked deep into his skrode's mechanical memory, scanning the general
databases. There was a lot there about catastrophes. Whoever created the
original skrode databases had considered wars and blights and perversion
very important. They were exciting things, and they could kill you.
But Blueshell could also see that in relative terms, such disasters
were a small part of the civilized experience. Only about once in a
millennium was there a massive blight. It was their bad luck to be caught
near such a thing. In the last ten weeks a dozen civilizations in the High
Beyond had dropped from the Net, absorbed into the symbiotic amalgam that
now was called the Straumli Blight. High trade was crippled. Since their
ship was refinanced, he and Greenstalk had flown several jobs, but all to
the Middle Beyond.
The two of them had been very cautious, but now -- as Greenstalk said
-- greatness might be thrust upon them. Vrinimi Org wanted to commission a
secret flight to the Bottom of the Beyond. Since he and Greenstalk were
already in on the secret, they were the natural choice for the job. Right
now, the Out of Band II was in the Vrinimi yards getting bottom-lugger
enhancements and a huge stock of antenna drones. In one stroke the OOB's
value was increased ten-thousand-fold. There had been no need even to
bargain!... and that was the scariest thing of all. Every addition was a
clear essential for the trip. They would be descending right to the edge of
the Slowness. Under the best of circumstances this would be slow and tedious
exercise, but the latest surveys reported movement in the zone boundaries.
With bad luck, they might actually end up on the wrong side, where light had
the ultimate speed. If that should happen, the new ramscoop would be their
only hope.
All that was within Blueshell's range of acceptable business. Before he
met Greenstalk, he had shipped on bottom-luggers, even been stranded once or
twice. But -- "I like adventure as much as you," said Blueshell, a grumpy
edge creeping into his voice. "Traveling to the Bottom, rescuing sophonts
from the claws of wildthings: given enough money, it's all perhaps
reasonable. But ... what if that Straumer ship is really as important as
Ravna thinks? After all this time it seems absurd, but she's convinced
Vrinimi Org of the possibility. If there's something down there that could
harm the Straumli Blight -- " If the Blight ever suspected the same, it
could have a fleet of ten thousand warships descending on their goal. Down
at the Bottom they might be little better than conventional vessels, but he
and Greenstalk would be no less dead for that.
Except for a faint daydreamy hum, Greenstalk was silent. Had she had
lost track of the conversation? Then her voice came to him through the
water, a reassuring caress. "I know, Blueshell, it could be the end of us.
But I still want to venture it. If it's safe, we make enormous profit. If
our going could harm the Blight ... well, then it's terribly important. Our
help might save dozens of civilizations -- a million beaches of Riders, just
in passing."
"Hmpf. You're following stalk and not skrode."
"Probably." They had watched the progress of the Blight since its
beginning. The feelings of horror and sympathy had been reinforced every day
till they percolated into their natural minds. So Greenstalk (and Blueshell
too; he couldn't deny it) felt stronger about the Blight than about the
danger in their new contract. "Probably. My fears of making the rescue are
still analytical," still confined to her skrode. "Yet ... I think if we
could stand here a year, if we could wait till we truly felt all the issues
... I think we would still choose to go."
Blueshell rolled irritably back and forth. The grit swirled up and
through his fronds. She was right, she was right. But he couldn't say it
aloud; the mission still terrified him.
"And think, mate: If it is this important, then perhaps we can get
help. You know the Org is negotiating with the Emissary Device. With any
luck we'll end up with an escort designed by a Transcendental Power."
The image almost made Blueshell laugh. Two little Skroderiders,
journeying to the Bottom of the Beyond -- surrounded by help from the
Transcend. "I will hope for it."
The Skroderiders were not the only ones with that wish. Further up the
beach, Ravna Bergsndot prowled her office. What gruesome irony that even the
greatest disasters can create opportunities for decent people. Her transfer
to Marketing had been made permanent with the fall of Arbitration Arts. As
the Blight spread and High Beyond markets collapsed, the Org became ever
more interested in providing information services about the Straumli
Perversion. Her "special" expertise in things human suddenly became
extraordinarily valuable -- never mind that Straumli Realm itself was only a
small part of what was now the Blight. What little the Blight said of itself
was often in Samnorsk. Grondr and company continued to be vitally interested
in her analysis.
Well, she had done some good. They had picked up the refugee ship's
"I-am-here", and then -- ninety days later -- a message from a human
survivor, Jefri Olsndot. Barely forty messages had they exchanged, but
enough to learn about the Tines and Mr. Steel and the evil Woodcarvers.
Enough to know that a small human life would be ended if she could not help.
Ironic but natural: most times that single life weighed more on her than all
the horror of the Perversion, even the fall of Straumli Realm. Thank the
Powers that Grondr had endorsed the rescue mission: It was a chance to learn
something important about the Straumli Perversion. And the Tinish packs
seemed to interest him, too; group minds were a fleeting thing in the
Beyond. Grondr had kept the whole affair secret, and persuaded his bosses to
support the mission. But all his help might not be enough. If the refugee
ship was as important as Ravna thought, there could be enormous perils
awaiting any rescuers.
Ravna looked across the surf. When the waves backed down the sand, she
could see the Skroderiders' fronds peeping out of the spray. How she envied
them; if tensions annoyed them, they could simply turn them off. The
Skroderiders were one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. There were
many varieties, but analysis agreed with legend: very long ago they had been
one species. Somewhere in the off-Net past, they had been sessile dwellers
of sea shores. Left to themselves, they had developed a form of intelligence
almost devoid of short-term memory. They sat in the surf, thinking thoughts
that left no imprints on their minds. Only repetition of a stimulus, over a
period of time, could do that. But the intelligence and memory that they had
was of survival value: it made it possible for them to select the best
possible place to cast their pupal seeds, locations that would mean safety
and food for the next generation.
Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to
"help" them out. Someone had put them on mobile platforms, the skrodes. With
wheels they could move along the seashores, could reach and manipulate with
their fronds and tendrils. With the skrode's mechanical short-term memory,
they could learn fast enough that their new mobility would not kill them.
Ravna glanced away from the Skroderiders -- someone was floating in
over the trees. The Emissary Device. Maybe she should call Greenstalk and
Blueshell out of the water. No. Let'em bliss out a little longer. If she
couldn't get the special equipment, things would be tough enough for them
later....
Besides, I can do without witnesses. She folded her arms across her
chest and glared into the sky. The Vrinimi Org had tried to talk to the Old
One about this, but nowadays the Power would only work through its Emissary
Device ... and he had insisted on a face-to-face meeting.
The Emissary touched down a few meters away, and bowed. His lopsided
grin spoiled the effect. "Pham Nuwen, at your service."
Ravna gave a little bow in return, and led him to the shade of her
inner office. If he thought that face-to-face would unnerve her, he was
right. "Thanks for the meeting, sir. The Vrinimi Organization has an
important request of your principal," owner? master? operator?
Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently. He'd stayed out
of her way since that night at The Wandering Company. Grondr said Old One
had kept him at Relay though, rummaging through the archives for information
about humanity and its origins. It made sense now that Old One had been
persuaded to restrict Net use: the Emissary could do local processing, i.e.,
use human intelligence to search and summarize and then upload only the
stuff that Old One really needed.
Ravna watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to
study her dataset. Pham had his old, lazy smile. She wondered if she would
ever have the courage to ask him how much of their ... affair ... had been a
human thing. Had Pham Nuwen felt anything for her? Hell, did he even have a
good time?
From a Transcendent point of view, he might be a simple data
concentrator and waldo -- but from her viewpoint he was still too human.
"Um, yes. Well ... the Org has continued to monitor the Straumli refugee
ship even though your principal has lost interest."
Pham's eyebrows raised in polite interest. "Oh?"
"Ten days ago, the simple 'I-am-here' signal was interrupted by a new
message, apparently from a surviving crewmember."
"Congratulations. You managed to keep it a secret, even from me."
Ravna didn't rise to the bait. "We're doing our best to keep it secret
from everyone, sir. For reasons that you must know." She put the messages to
date on the air between them. A handful of calls and responses, scattered
across ten days. Translated into Triskweline for Pham, the original spelling
and grammar errors were gone, yet the tone remained. Ravna was responsible
for the Org side of the conversation. It was like talking to someone in a
dark room, someone you have never seen. Much was easy to imagine: a
strident, piping voice behind the capitalized words and exclamation marks.
She had no video of the child, but through the humankind archive at Sjandra
Kei, Marketing had dug up pictures of the boy's parents. They looked like
typical Straumers, but with the brown eyes of the Linden clans. Little Jefri
would be slim and dark.
Pham Nuwen's gaze flicked down through the text, then seemed to hang on
the last few lines:
...
Org[17]: How old are you, Jefri?
Target[18]: I am eight. I mean I am eight years old. I AM OLD ENOUGH
BUT I NEED HELP.
Org[18]: We will help. We are coming as fast as we can, Jefri.
Target[19]: Sorry I couldn't talk yesterday. The bad people were on the
hill again yesterday. It wasn't safe to go to the ship.
Org[19]: Are the bad ones that close by?
Target[20]: Yes yes. I could see them from the island. I'm with Amdi on
shipboard now, but walking up here there were dead soldiers all around.
Woodcarver raids here often.
Mother is dead. Father is dead. Johanna is dead. Mister Steel will protect me as much as he can. He says that I must be brave.
For a moment, his smile was gone. "Poor kid," he said softly. Then he
shrugged and jabbed his hand at one of the messages. "Well, I'm glad Vrinimi
is sending a rescue mission. That is generous of you."
"Not really, sir. Look at items six through fourteen. The boy is
complaining about the ship's automation."
"Yeah, he makes it sound like something out of a dawn age: keyboards
and video, no voice recognition. A completely unfriendly interface. Looks
like the crash scragged almost everything, eh?"
He was being deliberately obtuse, but Ravna resolved to be infinitely
patient. "Perhaps not, considering the vessel's origin." Pham just smiled,
so Ravna continued to spell things out. "The processors are likely High
Beyond or Transcendent, snuffed down to near brainlessness by the current
environment."
Pham Nuwen sighed. "All consistent with the Skroderiders' theory,
right? You're still hoping this crate is carrying some tremendous secret
that will blow the Blight away."
"Yes!.... Look. At one time, the Old One was very curious about all
this. Why the total disinterest now? Is there some reason why the ship can't
be the key to fighting the Perversion?" That was Grondr's explanation for
the Old One's recent lack of interest. All her life Ravna Bergsndot had
heard tales of the Powers, and always from a great remove. Here, she was
awfully close to questioning one directly. It was a very strange feeling.
After a moment Pham said, "No. It's unlikely, but you could be right."
Ravna let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Good.
Then what we're asking is reasonable. Suppose the downed ship contains
something the Perversion needs, or something it fears. Then it's likely the
Perversion knows of its existence -- and may even be monitoring ultradrive
traffic in that part of the Bottom. A rescue expedition could lead the
Perversion right to it. In that case, the mission will be suicide for its
crew -- and could increase the Blight's overall power."
"So?"
Ravna slapped her dataset, resolutions of patience dissolving. "So,
Vrinimi Org is asking Old One's help to build an expedition the Blight can't
knock over!"
Pham Nuwen just shook his head. "Ravna, Ravna. You're talking about an
expedition to the Bottom of the Beyond. There's no way a Power can hold your
hand down there. Even an Emissary Device would be mostly on its own there."
"Don't act like more of a jerk than you are, Pham Nuwen. Down there,
the Perversion will be at just as much a disadvantage. What we're asking for
is equipment of Transcendent manufacture, designed for those depths, and
provided in substantial quantities."
"Jerk?" Pham Nuwen drew himself up, but there was still the ghost of
smile on his face. "Is that how you normally address a Power?"
Before this year, I would have died rather than address a Power in any
manner. She leaned back, giving him her own version of an indolent smile.
"You have a pipeline to god, Mister, but let me tell you a little secret: I
can tell whether it's open or closed."
Polite curiosity: "Oh? How is that?"
"Pham Nuwen -- left on his own -- is a bright, egotistical guy, and
about as subtle as a kick in the head." She thought back to their time
together. "I don't really start worrying until the arrogance and smart
remarks go away."
"Um. Your logic is a little weak. If the Old One were running me
direct, he could just as easily play a jerk as," he cocked his head, "as the
man of your dreams."
Ravna gritted her teeth. "That's true, but I've got a little help from
my boss. He's cleared me to monitor transceiver usage." She looked at her
dataset. "Right now, your Old One is getting less than ten kilobits per
second from all of Relay... which means, my friend, that you are not being
tele-operated. Any crass behavior I see today is the true Pham Nuwen."
The redhead chuckled, faint embarrassment evident. "You got me. I'm on
detached duty, have been ever since the Org persuaded Old One to back off.
But I want you to know that all those ten Kbps are dedicated to this
charming conversation." He paused as if listening, then waved his hand. "Old
One says 'hi'."
Ravna laughed despite herself; there was something absurd about the
gesture, and the notion that a Power would indulge such trivial humor.
"Okay. I'm glad he can, um, sit in. Look, Pham, we're not asking for much by
Transcendent standards, and it could save whole civilizations. Give us a few
thousand ships; robot oneshots would be fine."
"Old One could make that many, but they wouldn't be much better that
what's built down here. Tricking -- " he paused, looking surprised by his
own choice of words, "tricking the Zones is subtle work."
"Fine. Quality or quantity. We'll settle for whichever the Old One
thinks -- "
"No."
"Pham! We're talking about a few days work for the Old One. It's
already paid more to study the Blight." Their single wild evening might have
cost as much -- but she didn't say that.
"Yes, and Vrinimi has spent most of it."
"Paying off the customers you stepped on! ... Pham, can't you at least
tell us why?"
The lazy smile faded from his face. She took a quick glance at her
dataset. No, Pham Nuwen was not possessed. She remembered the look on his
face when he read the mail from Jefri Olsndot; there was a decent human
being lurking behind all the arrogance. "I'll give it a try. Keep in mind --
even though I've been part of Old One -- I'm remembering and explaining with
human limitations.
"You're right, the Perversion is chewing up the Top of the Beyond.
Maybe fifty civilizations will die before this Power gets tired of screwing
around -- and for a couple of thousand years after that there'll be 'echoes'
of the disaster, poisoned star systems, artificial races with bloody-minded
ideas. But -- I hate to say it this way -- so what? Old One has been
thinking about this problem, off and on, for more than a hundred days.
That's a long time for a Power, especially Old One. He's existed for more
than ten years now; his minds are drifting fast toward ... changes ... that
will put him beyond all communication. Why should he give a damn about
this?"
It was a standard topic in school, but Ravna couldn't help herself.
This time it was for real. "But history is full of incidents where Powers
helped Beyonder races, sometimes even individuals." She had already looked
up the Beyonder race that created Old One. They were gasbag creatures. Their
netmail was mostly jabberwocky even after Relay's best interpretation.
Apparently they had no special leverage with Old One. The direct appeal was
about all she had. "Look. Turn the thing around: Even ordinary humans don't
need special explanation to help animals that are hurting."
Pham's smile was beginning to come back. "You're so big on analogies.
Remember that no analogy is perfect, and the more complex the automation the
more complex the possible motivations. But ... okay, how about this for an
analogy: Old One is a basically decent guy, with a nice home in a good part
of town. One day he notices he has a new neighbor, a scruffy fellow whose
homestead is awhiff with toxic sludge. If you were Old One, you'd be
concerned, right? You might probe around beneath your properties. You'd also
chat with the new fellow and check on where he came from, try to figure out
what's going on. The Vrinimi Org saw part of that investigation.
"So you discover the new neighbor is unwholesome. Basically his
lifestyle involves poisoning swamp land and eating the sludge produced.
That's an annoyance: it smells and it hurts a lot of harmless animals. But,
after investigating, it's clear the damage will not affect your own
property, and you get the neighbor to take measures to reduce the stink. In
any case, eating toxic sludge is a self-defeating lifestyle." He paused. "As
analogies go, I think this one's pretty good. After some initial mystery,
Old One has determined that this Perversion is one of the common patterns,
so petty and banal that even creatures like you and I can see it's evil. In
one form or another, it's been drifting up from Beyonder archives for a
hundred million years."
"Damn it! I'd get my neighbors together, and run the pervert out of
town."
"That's been talked about, but it would be expensive ... and real
people might get hurt." Pham Nuwen came smoothly to his feet, and smiled
dismissingly at her. "Well, that's about all we had to say to you." He walk
out from under the trees. Ravna hopped up to pursue.
"My personal advice: don't take this so hard, Ravna. I've seen it all,
you know. From the Bottom of the Slowness to the inside of a Transcendent
Power, each Zone has its own special unpleasantness. The whole basis of the
Perversion -- thermodynamic, economic, however you want to picture it -- is
the high quality of thought and communication at the Top of the Beyond. The
Perversion hasn't touched a single civilization in the Middle Beyond. Down
here, the comm lags and expense are too great, and even the best equipment
is mindless. To run things here you'd need standing navies, secret police,
clumsy transceivers -- it would be almost as awkward as any other Beyonder
empire, and of no profit to a Power." He turned and saw her dark expression.
"Hey, I'm saying your pretty ass is safe." He reached down to pat her rear.
Ravna brushed the hand away and stepped back. She'd been working on
some clever argument that might set the guy to thinking; there were cases
where Emissary Devices had changed their principal's decision. Now the
half-formed ideas were blown away, and all she could think to say was -- "So
how safe is your own tail, hmm? You say Old One is about ready to pack it
in, go wherever overage Powers wander off to. Is he going to take you along,
or maybe just put you away, a pet that's now inconvenient?"
It was a silly shot, and Pham Nuwen just laughed. "More analogies? No
... most likely he'll just leave me behind. You know, like a robot probe
flying free after its last use." Another analogy, but one to his liking. "In
fact, if it happens soon enough, I might even be willing to take on this
rescue expedition. It looks like Jefri Olsndot is in a medieval civlization.
I'll wager there's no one in the Org who understands such a place better
than I. And down at the Bottom, your crew could scarcely ask for a better
mate than an old Qeng Ho type." He spoke breezily, as though courage and
experience were givens for him -- even if other people were cowardly scuts.
"Oh, yeah?" Ravna's arms went akimbo, and she cocked her head to one
side. It was just a bit too much, when his whole existence was a fraud.
"You're the little prince who grew up with intrigue and assassination, and
then flew away to the stars with the Qeng Ho.... Do you ever really think
about that past, Pham Nuwen? Or is that something Old One tactfully blocks
you from doing? After our charming evening at The Wandering Company, I did
think about it. You know what? There's only a few things you can know for
sure: You really were a Slow Zone spacer -- probably two or three spacers,
since none of the corpses was complete. Somehow you and your buddies got
yourselves killed down at the nether end of the Slowness. What else? Well,
your ship had no recoverable memory. The only hardcopy we found seemed to be
written in some Earth Asian language. That's all, all, that Old One had to
go on when he put together the fraud."
Pham's smile seemed a little frozen. Ravna went on before he could
speak. "But don't blame Old One. He was a little rushed, right? He had to
convince Vrinimi and me that you were real. He rummaged around in the
archives, slapped together a mishmash reality for you. Maybe it took him an
afternoon -- are you grateful for the effort? A snip from here and a snip
from there. There really was a Qeng Ho, you know. On Earth, a thousand years
before space flight. And there must have been Asia-descended colonies,
though that's an obvious extrapolation on his part. Old One really has a
nice sense of humor. He made your whole life a fantastic romance, right down
to the last tragic expedition. That should have tipped me off, by the way.
It's a combination of several pre-Nyjoran legends."
She caught her breath and rushed on. "I feel sorry for you, Pham Nuwen.
As long as you don't think about yourself too hard, you can be the most
confident fellow in space. But all the skill, all the achievement -- do you
ever look at it up close? I'll bet not. Being a great warrior or an expert
pilot -- those involve a million subskills, all the way down to kinesthetic
things below the level of conscious thought. The Old One's fraud needed just
the top level recollections, and a brash personality. Look under the
surface, Pham. I think you'll find a whole lot of nothing." A dream of
competence, too closely confronted.
The redhead had crossed his arms and was tapping his sleeve with a
finger. When she finally ran out of words, his smile grew broad and
patronizing. "Ah, silly Ravna. Even now you don't understand how far
superior the Powers are. Old One is not some Middle Beyond tyranny,
brainwashing its victims with superficial memories. Even a Transcendent
fraud has more depth than the image of reality in a human mind. And how can
you know this really is a fraud? So you looked through the Relay archives,
and didn't find my Qeng Ho." My Qeng Ho. He paused. Remembering? Trying to
remember? For an instant Ravna saw a gleam of panic on his face. Then it was
gone, and there was just the lazy smile. "Can any of us imagine the archives
of the Transcend, all the things Old One must know about humanity? Vrinimi
Org should be grateful to Old One for explaining my origins; they could
never have learned that by themselves.
"Look. I am truly sorry I can't help. Even if it's otherwise a fool's
errand, I'd like to see those kids rescued. But don't worry about the
Blight. It's near maximum expansion now. Even if you could destroy it, you
wouldn't make things better for the poor wights who've been absorbed." He
laughed, a little too loudly. "Well, I have to go; Old One has some other
errands for me this afternoon. He wasn't happy about this being
face-to-face, but I insisted. The perks of detached duty, y'know. You and I
... you and I had some good times, and I thought it would be nice to chat. I
didn't mean to make you mad."
Pham cut in his agrav and floated off the sand. He waved a laconic
salute. Staring up, Ravna lifted her hand to wave back. His figure dwindled,
acquired a faint nimbus as he left the Docks' breathable atmosphere and his
space suit cut in.
Ravna watched a few moments more, till the figure became one more
commuter in the indigo sky. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Behind her there was the sound of wheels crunching across sand.
Blueshell and Greenstalk had rolled out of the water. Wetness glistened on
the sides of their skrodes, transforming their cosmetic stripes into jagged
rainbows. Ravna walked down to meet them. How do I tell them there's no help
coming?
With someone like Pham Nuwen fronting for it, Old One had seemed so
different from what she imagined in her classes back at Sjandra Kei. She'd
almost thought she could make a difference just by talking. What a joke. She
had caught a glimpse just now, behind the front: of a being who could play
with souls the way a programmer plays with a clever graphic, a being so far
beyond her that only its indifference could protect her. Be happy, little
Ravna moth. You were only dazzled by the flame.
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
CHAPTER 16
The next few weeks went surprisingly well. Despite the Pham Nuwen
debacle, Blueshell and Greenstalk were still willing to fly the rescue.
Vrinimi Org even kicked in some extra resources. Every day, Ravna took a
tele-excursion out to the repair yards. The Out of Band II might not be
getting any Transcendent enhancements, but when the refitting was complete,
the ship would be something extraordinary: Now it floated in a golden haze
of structors, billions of tiny robots regrowing sections of the hull into
the characteristic form of a bottom lugger. Sometimes the ship seemed to
Ravna like a fragile moth ... and sometimes an abyssal fish. The rebuilt
ship could survive across a range of environments: It had the spines of an
ultradrive craft, but the hull was streamlined and wasp-waist -- the classic
form of a ramscoop ship. Bottom-luggers must troll dangerously near the Slow
Zone. The zone surface was hard to detect from a distance, even harder to
map; and there were short-term position changes. It was not impossible for a
lugger to be trapped a light-year or two within the Slowness. It was then
you'd thank goodness for the ramscoop and the coldsleep facilities. Of
course, by the time you returned to civilization, you might be completely
out of date, but at least you could get back.
Ravna floated her viewpoint through the drive spines that spread out
from the hull. They were broader than on most ships that came to Relay. They
weren't optimal for the Middle or High Beyond, but with appropriate (i.e.,
Low Beyond) computers, the ship would fly as fast as anything when it
reached the Bottom.
Grondr let her spend half-time on the project, and after a few days
Ravna realized this was not just a favor. She was the best person for this
job. She knew humans, and she knew archive management. Jefri Olsndot needed
reassurance every day. And the things Jefri was telling her were immediately
important. Even if everything went according to plan -- even if the
Perversion stayed completely out of it -- this rescue was going to be
tricky. The kid and his ship seemed to be in the middle of a bloody war.
Extracting them would mean making instantly correct decisions and acting on
them. They would need an effective onboard database and strategy program.
But not much could be expected to work at the Bottom, and memory capacity
would be limited. It was up to Ravna to decide what library materials to
move to the ship, to balance the ease of local availability against the
greater resources that would be accessible over the ultrawave from Relay.
Grondr was available on the local net, and often in real time. He
wanted this to work: "Don't worry, Ravna. We'll dedicate part of R00 to this
mission. If their antenna swarm works properly, the Riders should have have
a thirty Kbps link to Relay. You'll be their prime contact here, and you'll
have access to our best strategists. If nothing ... interferes, you should
have no trouble managing this rescue."
Even four weeks ago, Ravna wouldn't have dared to ask for more. Now:
"Sir, I have a better idea. Send me with the Skroderiders."
All of Grondr's mouth parts clapped together at once. She'd seen that
much surprise in people like Egravan, but never in the staid Grondr. He was
silent for a moment.