"I've been crippled off and on in my
travels; you can't always pick and choose when you're down to three and
you're a thousand miles into an unknown land."
Johanna set a bowl of water beside the stew. After a moment, the
crippled member turned on his axle and took some shallow sips. "Hang on,
Blacky, we'll find someone for you to be."
Chitiratte was where he was supposed to be, walking his post exactly as
expected. Nevertheless, he felt a thrill of nervousness. He always kept at
least one head gazing at the mantis creature, the Two-Legs. Nothing
suspicious about that posture either. He was supposed to be doing security
duty here, and that meant keeping a lookout in all directions. He shifted
his crossbow nervously about from jaws to field pack and back to jaws. Just
a few more minutes....
Chitiratte circled the hospital compound once more. It was soft duty.
Even though this stretch of wood had been spared, the drywind fires had
chased the bigger wildlife downstream. This close to the river, the ground
was covered with softbush, and there was scarcely a thorn to be found.
Pacing around the hospital was like a walk on Woodcarver's Green down south.
A few hundred yards east was harder work -- getting the wagons and supplies
in shape for the climb.
The fragments knew that something was up. Here and there, heads stuck
up from pallets and burrows. They watched the wagons being loaded, heard the
familiar voices of friends. The dumbest ones felt a call to duty; he had
chased three able-bodied singles back into the compound. No way such feebs
could be of any help. When the army marched up Margrum Climb, the hospital
would stay behind. Chitiratte wished he could too. He'd been working for the
Boss long enough to guess whence his orders ultimately came; Chitiratte
suspected that not many would be coming back from Margrum Climb.
He turned three pairs of eyes toward the mantis creature. This latest
job was the riskiest thing he'd been a part of. If it worked out he might
just demand that the Boss leave him with the hospital. Just be careful, old
fellow. Vendacious didn't get where he is by leaving loose ends. Chitiratte
had seen what happened to that easterner who nosed a little too close into
the Boss's business.
Damn but the human was slow! She'd been grunting at that one singleton
for five minutes. You'd think she was having sex with these frags for all
the time she spent with them. Well, she'd pay for the familiarity very soon.
He started to cock his bow, then thought better of it. Accident, accident.
It must all look like an accident.
Aha. The Two-legs was collecting food and water bowls and stowing them
on the meal cart. Chitiratte made unobtrusive haste around the hospital
perimeter, positioning himself in view of the Kratzi duo -- the fragment
that would actually do the killing.
Kratzinissinari had been a foot trooper before losing the Nissinari
parts of himself. He had no connection with the Boss or Security. But he'd
been known as a crazy-headed get of bitches, a pack that was always on the
edge of combat rage. Getting killed back to two members normally has a
gentling influence. In this case -- well, the Boss claimed that Kratzi was
specially prepared, a trap ready to be sprung. All Chitiratte need do was
give the signal, and the duo would tear the mantis apart. A great tragedy.
Of course, Chitiratte would be there, the alert hospital warden. He would
quickly put arrows through Kratzi's brains ... but alas, not in time to save
the Two-Legs.
The human dragged the meal cart awkwardly around root bushes toward
Kratzi, her next patient. The duo came out of its burrow, speaking
half-witted greetings that even Chitiratte could not understand. There were
undertones though, a killing anger that edged its friendly mien. Of course,
the mantis thing didn't notice. She stopped the cart, began filling food and
water bowls, all the time grunting away at the twosome. In a moment, she
would bend down to put the food on the ground.... For half an instant,
Chitiratte considered shooting the mantis himself if Kratzi were not
immediately successful. He could claim it was a tragic miss. He really
didn't like the Two-Legs. The mantis creature was a menacing thing; it was
so tall and moved so weirdly. By now he knew it was fragile compared to
packs, but it was scary to think of a single animal so smart as this. He
shelved the temptation even faster than he had thought it. No telling what
price he might pay for that, even if they believed his shot was an accident.
No altruism today, thank you very much; Kratzi's jaws and claws would have
to do.
One of Kratzi's heads was looking in Chitiratte's general direction.
Now the mantis picked up the bowls and turned from the meal cart --
"Hei, Johanna! How is it going?"
Johanna looked up from the stew to see Peregrine Wickwrackscar walking
along the edge of the hospital. He was moving to get as close as possible
without invading the mind sounds of the patients. The guard who had stopped
there a moment before retreated before his advance and stopped a few meters
further on. "Pretty good," she called back. "You know the one on wheels? He
actually ate some stew tonight."
"Good. I've been thinking about him and the threesome on the other side
of the hospital."
"The wounded medic?"
"Yes. What's left of Trellelak is all female, you know. I've been
listening to mind sounds and -- " Pilgrim's explanation was delivered in
fluent Samnorsk, but it didn't make much sense to Johanna. Brood kenning had
so many concepts without referents in human language that even Pilgrim
couldn't make it clear. The only obvious part was that since Blacky was a
male, there was a chance that he and the medic threesome might have pups
early enough to bind the group. The rest was talk of "mood resonance" and
"meshing weak points with strong". Pilgrim claimed to be an amateur at brood
kenning, but it was interesting the way the docs -- and even Woodcarver
sometimes -- deferred to him. In his travels he had been through a lot. His
matchups seemed to "take" more often than anybody's. She waved him to
silence. "Okay. We'll try it soon as I've fed everybody."
Pilgrim cocked a head or two at the nearby hospital plots. "Something
strange is going on. Can't quite 'put my finger on it', but ... all the
fragments are watching you. Even more than usual. Do you feel it?"
Johanna shrugged. "No." She knelt to set the water and stew bowls
before the twosome patient. The pair had been vibrating with eagerness,
though they had been quite polite in not interrupting. Out of the corner of
her eye, she noticed the hospital guard make a strange dipping motion with
its two middle heads, and --
The blows were like two great fists smashing into her chest and face.
Johanna fell to the ground, and they were on her. She raised bloody arms
against the slashing jaws and claws.
When Chitiratte gave the signal, both of Kratzi leaped into action --
crashing into each other, almost incidentally knocking the mantis on her
back. Their claws and teeth were tearing at empty air and each other as much
as the Two-legs. For an instant, Chitiratte was struck motionless with
surprise. She might not be dead. Then he remembered himself and jumped over
the fence, at the same time cocking and loading his bow. Maybe he could miss
the first shot. Kratzi was shredding the mantis, but slow --
Suddenly, there was no possibility of shooting the twosome. A wave of
snarling black and white surged over Kratzi and the mantis. Every
able-bodied fragment in the hospital seemed to be running to the attack. It
was instant killing rage, far wilder than anything that could come from
whole packs. Chitiratte fell back in astonishment before the sight and the
mindsound of it.
Even the pilgrim seemed caught up in it; the pack raced past Chitiratte
and circled the melee. The pilgrim never quite plunged in, but nipped here
and there, screaming words that were lost in the general uproar.
A splash of coordinated mindsound boomed out from the mob, so loud it
numbed Chitiratte twenty yards away. The mob seemed to shrink in on itself,
the frenzy gone from most of its members. What had been near a single beast
with two dozen bodies was suddenly a confused and bloody crowd of random
members.
The pilgrim still ran around the edge, somehow keeping his mind and
purpose. His huge, scarred member dived in and out of the remaining crowd,
clawing at anything that still fought.
The patients dragged themselves away from the killing ground. Some that
had gone in as threesomes or duos came out single. Others seemed more
numerous than before. The ground that was left was soaked with blood. At
least five members had died. Near the middle, a pair of prosthetic wheels
lay incongruously.
The pilgrim paid it all no attention. The four of him stood around and
over the bloody mound at the center.
Chitiratte smiled to himself. Mantis splatter. Such a tragedy.
Johanna never quite lost consciousness, but the pain and the
suffocating weight of dozens of bodies left no room for thought. Now the
pressure eased. Somewhere beyond the local din she could hear shouts of
normal Tinish talk. She looked up and saw Pilgrim standing all around her.
Scarbutt was straddling her, its muzzle centimeters away. It reached down
and licked her face. Johanna smiled and tried to speak.
Vendacious had arranged to be in conference with Scrupilo and
Woodcarver. Just now the "Commander of Cannoneers" was deep into tactics,
using Dataset to illustrate his scheme for Margrum Climb.
Squalls of rage sounded from down by the river.
Scrupilo looked up peevishly from the Pink Oliphaunt. "What the muddy
hell -- "
The sounds continued, more than a casual brawl. Woodcarver and
Vendacious exchanged worried glances even as they arched necks to see among
the trees. "A fight in the hospital?" said the Queen.
Vendacious dropped his note board and lunged out of the meeting area,
shouting for the local guards to stay with the Queen. As he raced across the
camp, he could see that his roving guards were already converging on the
hospital. Everything seemed as smooth as a program on Dataset ... except,
why so much noise?
The last few hundred yards, Scrupilo caught up with him and pulled
ahead. The cannoneer raced into the hospital and stumbled over himself in
abrupt horror. Vendacious burst into the clearing all prepared to display
his own shock combined with alert resolve.
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing by a meal cart, Chitiratte not far
behind him. The pilgrim was standing over the Two-Legs in a litter of
carnage. By the Pack of Packs, what happened? There was too much blood by
far. "Everybody back except the doctors," Vendacious bellowed at the
soldiers who crowded at the edge of the compound. He picked his way along a
path that avoided the loudest-minded patients. There were a lot of fresh
wounds, and here and there speckles of blood dark on the pale tree trunks.
Something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile Scrupilo had run around the edge of the hospital and was
standing just a few dozen yards from the Pilgrim. Most of him was staring at
the ground under Wickwrackscar. "It's Johanna! Johanna!" For a moment it
looked like the fool would jump over the fence.
"I think she's okay, Scrupilo." Wickwrackscar said. "She was just
feeding one of the duos and it went nuts -- attacked her."
One of the doctors looked over the carnage. There were three corpses on
the ground, and blood enough for more. "I wonder what she did to provoke
them."
"Nothing, I tell you! But when she went down, half the hospital went
after Whatsits here." He waggled a nose at unidentifiable remains.
Vendacious looked at Chitiratte, at the same time saw Woodcarver
arrive. "What about it, Soldier?" he asked. Don't screw up, Chitiratte.
"I-it's just like the pilgrim says, my lord. I've never seen anything
like it." He sounded properly astounded by the whole affair.
Vendacious stepped a little closer to the Pilgrim. "If you'll let me
take a closer look, Pilgrim?"
Wickwrackscar hesitated. He had been snuffling around the girl, looking
for wounds that might need immediate attention. Then the girl nodded weakly
to him, and he backed off.
Vendacious approached, all solemn and solicitous. Inside he raged. He'd
never heard of anything like this. But even if the whole damn hospital had
come to her aid, she should still be dead; the Kratzi duo could have ripped
her throat out in half a second. His plan had seemed fool-proof (and even
now the failure would cause no lasting damage), but he was just beginning to
understand what had gone wrong: For days, the human had been in contact with
these patients, even Kratzi. No Tinish doctor could approach and touch them
like the Two-Legs. Even some whole packs felt the effect; for fragments it
must be overwhelming. In their inner soul, most of the patients considered
the alien part of themselves.
He looked at the Two-Legs from three sides, mindful that fifty packs of
eyes were watching his every move. Very little of the blood was from the
Two-Legs. The cuts on her neck and arms were long and shallow, aimless
slashings. At the last minute, Kratzi's conditioning had failed before the
notion of the human as pack member. Even now, a quick flick of a forepaw
would rip the girl's throat open. He briefly considered putting her under
Security medical protection. The ploy had worked well with Scriber, but it
would be very risky here. Pilgrim had been nose to nose with Johanna; he
would be suspicious of any claims about "unexpected complications". No. Even
good plans sometimes fail. Count it as experience for the future. He smiled
at the girl and spoke in Samnorsk, "You're quite safe now," for the moment
and quite unfortunately. The human's head turned to the side, looking off in
the direction of Chitiratte.
Scrupilo had been pacing back and forth along the fence, so close to
Chitiratte and Pilgrim that the two had been forced back. "I won't have it!"
The cannoneer said loudly. "Our most important person attacked like this. It
smells of enemy action!"
Wickwrackscar goggled at him. "But how?"
"I don't know!" Scrupilo said, his voice a desperate shout. "But she
needs protection as much as nursing. Vendacious must find some place to keep
her."
The pilgrim pack was clearly impressed by the argument -- and unnerved
by it. He inclined a head at Vendacious and spoke with uncharacteristic
respect, "What do you think?"
Of course, Vendacious had been watching the Two-legs. It was
interesting how little humans could disguise their point of attention.
Johanna had been staring at Chitiratte, now she was looking up at
Vendacious, her shifty little close-set eyes narrowing. Vendacious had made
a project this last year of studying human expressions, both on Johanna and
in stories in Dataset. She suspected something. And she also must have
understood part of Scrupilo's speech. Her back arched and one arm fell
raised weakly. Fortunately for Vendacious, her shout came out a whisper that
even he could scarcely hear: "No ... not like Scriber."
Vendacious was a pack who believed in careful planning. He also knew
that the best-made schemes must be altered by circumstances. He looked down
at Johanna and smiled with the gentlest public sympathy. It would be risky
to kill her like Scriber's frag, but now he saw that the alternatives were
far more dangerous. Thank goodness Woodcarver was stuck with her limper on
the other side of the camp. He nodded back at Pilgrim and drew himself
together. "I fear Scrupilo is right. Just how it might have been done, I
don't know, but we can't take a chance. We'll take Johanna to my den. Tell
the Queen." He pulled cloaks from his backs and began gently to wrap the
human for the last trip she would ever make. Only her eyes protested.
Johanna drifted in and out of consciousness, horrified at her inability
to scream her fears. Her strongest cries were less than whispers. Her arms
and legs responded with little more than twitches, even that lost in
Vendacious's swaddling. Concussion, maybe, something like that, the
explanation came from some absurdly rational corner of her mind. Everything
seemed so far away, so dark....
Johanna woke in her cabin at Woodcarver's. What a terrible dream! That
she had been so cut up, unable to move, and then thinking Vendacious was a
traitor. She tried to shrug herself to a sitting position, but nothing
moved. Darn sheets are all wrapped around me. She lay quiet for a second,
still massively disoriented by the dream. "Woodcarver?" she tried to say,
but only a little moan came out. Some member moved gently around the
firepit. The room was only dimly lit, and something was wrong with it.
Johanna wasn't lying in her usual place. There was a moment of puzzled
lassitude as she tried to make sense of the orientation of the dark walls.
Funny. The ceiling was awfully low. Everything smelled like raw meat. The
side of her face hurt, and she tasted blood on her lips. She wasn't at
Woodcarver's and that terrible dream was --
Three Tinish heads drifted in silhouette nearby. One came closer, and
in the dim light she recognized the pattern of white and black on its face.
Vendacious.
"Good," he said, "You are awake."
"Where am I?" the words came out slurred and weak. The terror was back.
"The abandoned cotter's hut at the east end of the camp. I've taken it
over. As a security den, you know." His Samnorsk was quiet and fluent,
spoken in one of the generic voices of Dataset. One of his jaws carried a
dagger, the blade a glint in the dimness.
Johanna twisted in the tied cloaks and whispered screams. Something was
wrong with her; it was like shouting on empty breath.
One of Vendacious paced the hut's upper level. Daylight splashed across
its muzzle as it peered out first one and then another of the narrow slits
cut in the timbers. "Ah, it's good that you don't pretend. I could see that
you somehow guessed about my second career. My hobby. But screaming -- even
loud -- won't help either. We have only a brief time to chat. I'm sure the
Queen will come visiting soon ... and I will kill you just before she
arrives. So sad. Your hidden wounds were tragically severe...."
Johanna wasn't sure of all he said. Her vision blurred every time she
moved her head. Even now she couldn't remember the details of what had
happened back in the hospital compound. Somehow Vendacious was a traitor,
but how ... memories wriggled past the pain. "You did murder Scriber, didn't
you? Why?" Her voice came louder than before, and she choked on blood
dribbling back down her throat.
Soft, human, laughter came from all around her. "He learned the truth
about me. Ironic that such an incompetent would be the only one to see
through me.... Or do you mean a larger why?" The three nearby muzzles moved
closer still, and the blade in one's jaw patted the side of Johanna's cheek.
"Poor Two-Legs, I'm not sure you could ever understand. Some of it, the will
to power maybe. I've read what Dataset has to say about human motivation,
the 'freudian' stuff. We Tines are much more complicated. I am almost
entirely male, did you know that? A dangerous thing to be, all one sex.
Madness lurks. Yet it was my decision. I was tired of being an indifferently
good inventor, of living in Woodcarver's shadow. So many of us are her get,
and she dominates most all of us. She was quite happy about my going into
Security, you know. She doesn't quite have the combination of members for
it. She thought that all male but one would make me controllably devious."
His sentry member made another round of the window slits. Again there
was a human chuckle. "I've been planning a long time. It's not just
Woodcarver I'm up against. The power-side of her soul is scattered all over
the arctic coast; Flenser had almost a century headstart on me; Steel is
new, but he has the empire Flenser built. I made myself indispensable to all
of them: I'm Woodcarver's chief of security ... and Steel's most valued spy.
Played aright, I will end up with Dataset and all the others will be dead."
His blade tapped her face again. "Do you think you can help me?" Eyes
peered close into her terror. "I doubt it very much. If my proper plan had
succeeded, you would be neatly dead now." A sigh breathed around the room.
"But that failed, and I'm stuck with carving you up myself. And yet it may
all turn out for the best. Dataset is a torrent of information about most
things, but it scarcely acknowledges the existence of torture. In some ways,
your race seems so fragile, so easily killable. You die before your minds
can be dismembered. Yet I know you can feel pain and terror; the trick is to
apply force without quite killing."
The three nearby members snuggled into more comfortable positions, like
a human settling down for serious talk. "And there are some questions you
may be able to answer, things I couldn't really ask before. Steel is very
confident, you know, and it's not just because he has me with Woodcarver.
That pack has some other advantage. Could he have his own Dataset?"
Vendacious paused. Johanna didn't answer, her silence a combination of
terror and stubbornness. This was the monster that killed Scriber.
The muzzle with the knife slid between the blankets and Johanna's skin,
and pain shot up Johanna's arm. She screamed. "Ah, Dataset said a human
could be hurt there. No need to answer that one, Johanna. Do you know what I
think is Steel's secret? I think one of your family survived -- most likely
your little brother, considering what you've told us about the massacre."
Jefri? Alive? For an instant she forgot the pain, almost forgot the
fear. "How...?"
Vendacious gave a Tinish shrug. "You never saw him dead. You can be
sure Steel wanted a live Two-Legs, and after reading about cold sleep in
Dataset, I doubt he could have revived any of the others. And he's got
something up there. He's been eager for information from Dataset, but he's
never demanded I steal the device for him."
Johanna closed her eyes, denying the traitor pack's existence. Jefri
lives! Memories rose before her: Jefri's playful joy, his childish tears,
his trusting courage aboard the refugee ship.... things she had thought
forever lost to her. For a moment they seemed more real than the slashing
violence of the last few minutes. But what could Jefri do to help the
Flenserists? The other datasets had surely burned. There's something more
here, something that Vendacious still is missing.
Vendacious grabbed her chin, and gave her head a little shake. "Open
your eyes; I've learned to read them, and I want to see.... Hmm, I don't
know if you believe me or not. No matter. If we have time, I will learn just
what he might have done for Steel. There are other, sharper questions.
Dataset is clearly the key to all. In less than half a year, I and
Woodcarver and Pilgrim have learned an enormous amount about your race and
civilization. I daresay we know your people better than you do -- sometimes
I think we know them even better than we know our own world. When all the
violence is over, the winner will be the pack that still controls Dataset. I
intend to be that pack. And I've often wondered if there are other
passwords, or programs I can run that would actually watch for my safety --
"
The babysitter code.
The watching heads bobbed a grin, "Aha, so there is such a thing!
Perhaps this morning's bad luck is all for the best. I might never have
learned -- " his voice broke into dischords. Two of Vendacious jumped up to
join the one already at the window slits. Softly by her ear, the voice
continued, "It's the Pilgrim, still far away, but coming toward us.... I
don't know. You would be much better safely dead. One deep wound, all out of
sight." The knife slide further down. Johanna arched futilely back from the
point. Then the blade withdrew, the point poised gently against her skin.
"Let's hear what Pilgrim has to say. No point in killing you this instant if
he doesn't insist on seeing you." He pushed a cloth into her mouth and tied
it tight.
There was a moment of silence, maybe the crunch of paws in the brush
right around the cabin. Then she heard a pack warble loud from beyond the
timbered walls. Johanna doubted that she would ever learn to recognize packs
by their voices, but ... her mind stumbled through the sounds, trying to
decode the Tinish chords that were words piled on top of one another:
"Johanna
something interrogative
screech safe."
Vendacious gobbled back,
"Hail Peregrine Wrickwrackscar
Johanna trill
not visible hurts
sad uncertain squeak."
And the traitor murmured in her ear: "Now he'll ask if I need medical
help, and if he insists ... our chat will have an early end."
But the only reply Pilgrim made was a chorus of sympathetic worry.
"Damn assholes are just sitting down out there," came Vendacious's irritated
whisper.
The silence stretched on a moment, and then Peregrine's human voice,
the Joker from Dataset, said in clear Samnorsk. "Don't do anything foolish,
Vendacious, old man."
Vendacious made a sound of polite surprise -- and tensed around her.
His knife jabbed a centimeter deep between Johanna's ribs, a thorn of pain.
She could feel the blade trembling, could feel his member's breath on her
bloody skin.
Pilgrim's voice continued, confident and knowing: "I mean we know what
you're up to. Your pack at the hospital has gone completely to pieces,
confessed what little he knew to Woodcarver. Do you think your lies can get
by her? If Johanna is dead, you'll be bloody shreds." He hummed an ominous
tune from Dataset. "I know her well, the Queen. She seems such a gracious
pack ... but where do you think Flenser got his gruesome creativity? Kill
Johanna and you'll find just how far her genius in that exceeds Flenser's."
The knife pulled back. One more of Vendacious leaped to the window
slits, and the two by Johanna loosened their grip. He stroked the blade
gently across her skin. Thinking? Is Woodcarver really that fearsome? The
four at the windows were looking in all directions; no doubt Vendacious was
counting guard packs and planning furiously. When he finally replied, it was
in Samnorsk: "The threat would be more credible if it were not at second
hand."
Pilgrim chuckled. "True. But we guessed what would happen if she
approached. You're a cautious fellow; you'd have killed Johanna instantly,
and been full of lying explanation before you even heard what the Queen
knows. But seeing a poor pilgrim amble over ... I know you think me a fool,
only one step better than Scriber Jaqueramaphan." Peregrine stumbled on the
name, and for an instant lost his flippant tone. "Anyway, now you know the
situation. If you doubt, send your guards beyond the brush; look at what the
Queen has surrounding you. Johanna dead only kills you. Speaking of which, I
assume this conversation has some point?"
"Yes. She lives." Vendacious slipped the gag from Johanna's mouth. She
turned her head, choking. There were tears running down the sides of her
face. "Pilgrim, oh Pilgrim!" The words were scarcely more than a whisper.
She drew a painful breath, concentrated on making noise. Bright spots danced
before her eyes. "Hei Pilgrim!"
"Hei Johanna. Has he hurt you?"
"Some, I -- "
"That's enough. She's alive, Pilgrim, but that's easily corrected."
Vendacious didn't jam the gag back in her mouth. Johanna could see him
rubbing heads nervously as he paced round and round the ledge. He trilled
something about "stalemated game".
Peregrine replied, "Speak Samnorsk, Vendacious. I want Johanna to
understand -- and you can't talk quite as slick as in pack talk."
"Whatever." The traitor's voice was unconcerned, but his members kept
up their nervous pacing. "The Queen must realize we have a standoff here.
Certainly I'll kill Johanna if I'm not treated properly. But even then,
Woodcarver could not afford to hurt me. Do you realize the trap Steel has
set on Margrum Climb? I'm the only one who knows how to avoid it."
"Big deal. I never wanted to go up Margrum anyway."
"Yes, but you don't count, Pilgrim. You're a mongrel patchwork.
Woodcarver will understand how dangerous this situation is. Steel's forces
are everything I said they weren't, and I've been sending them every secret
I could write down from my investigations of Dataset."
"My brother is alive, Pilgrim," Johanna said.
"Oh.... You're kind of a record setter for treason aren't you,
Vendacious? Everything to us was a lie, while Steel learned all the truth
about us. You figure that means we daren't kill you now?"
Laughter, and Vendacious's pacing stopped. He sees control coming back
to him. "More, you need my full-membered cooperation. See, I exaggerated the
number of enemy agents in Woodcarver's troops, but I do have a few -- and
maybe Steel has planted others I don't know about. If you even arrest me,
word will get back to the Flenser armies. Much of what I know will be
useless -- and you'll face an immediate, overwhelming attack. You see? The
Queen needs me."
"And how do we know this is not more lies?"
"That is a problem, isn't it? Matched only by how I can be guaranteed
safety once I've saved the expedition. No doubt it's beyond your mongrel
mind. Woodcarver and I must have a talk, someplace mutually safe and unseen.
Carry that message back to her. She can't have this traitor's hides, but if
she cooperates she may be able to save her own!"
There was silence from outside, punctuated by the squeaking of animals
in the nearer trees. Finally, surprisingly, Pilgrim laughed. "Mongrel mind,
eh? Well, you have me in one thing, Vendacious. I've been all the world
round, and I remember back half a thousand years
-- but of all the villains and traitors and geniuses, you take the
record for bald impudence!"
Vendacious gave a Tinish chord, untranslatable but as a sign of smug
pleasure. "I'm honored."
"Very well, I'll take your points back to the Queen. I hope the two of
you are clever enough to work something out.... One thing more: the Queen
requires that Johanna come with me."
"The Queen requires? That sounds more like your mongrel sentiment to
me."
"Perhaps. But it will prove you are serious in your confidence. View it
as my price for cooperation."
Vendacious turned all his heads toward Johanna, silently regarding.
Then he scanned out all the windows one last time. "Very well, you may have
her." Two jumped down to the cabin's hatch while another pair pulled her
toward it. His voice was soft and near her ear. "Damn Pilgrim. Alive, you're
just going to cause me trouble with the Queen." His knife slid across her
field of view. "Don't oppose me with her. I am going to survive this affair
still powerful."
He lifted back the hatch and daylight spilled blindingly across her
face. She squinted; there was a sweep of branches and the side of the hut.
Vendacious pushed and pulled her cot onto the forest floor, and the same
time gobbling at his guards to keep their positions. He and Peregrine
chatted politely, agreeing on when the pilgrim would return.
One by one, Vendacious trotted back through the cabin's hatch. Pilgrim
advanced and grabbed the handles at the front of the cot. One of his pups
reached out from his jacket to nuzzled her face. "You okay?"
"I'm not sure. I got bashed in the head ... and it seems kind of hard
to breathe."
He loosened the blankets from around her chest as the rest of him
dragged the cot away from the hut. The forest shade was peaceful and deep
... and Vendacious's guards were stationed here and there about the area.
How many were really in on the treason? Two hours ago, Johanna had looked to
them for protection. Now their every glance sent a shiver through her. She
rolled back to the center of the cot, dizzy again, and stared up into the
branches and leaves and patches of smoke-stained sky. Things like Straumli
tree squigglies chased each other back and forth, chittering in seeming
debate.
Funny. Almost a year ago Pilgrim and Scriber were dragging me around,
and I was even worse hurt, and terrified of everything -- including them.
And now ... she had never been so glad to see another person. Even Scarbutt
was a reassuring strength, walking beside her.
The waves of terror slowly subsided. What was left was an anger as
intense, though more reasoning, than the year before. She knew what had
happened here; the players were not strangers, the betrayal was not random
murder. After all Vendacious's treachery, after all his murders, and his
planning to kill them all ... he was going to go free! Pilgrim and
Woodcarver were just going to overlook that, "He killed Scriber, Pilgrim. He
killed Scriber...." He cut Scriber to pieces, then chased down what was left
and killed that right out of our arms. "And Woodcarver is going to let him
go free? How can she do it? How can you do it?" The tears were coming again.
"Sh, sh." Two of Pilgrim's heads came into view. They looked down at
her, then swiveled around almost nervously. She reached out, touching the
short plush fur. Pilgrim was shivering! One of him dipped close; his voice
didn't sound jaunty at all. "I don't know what the Queen will do, Johanna.
She doesn't know about any of this."
"Wha -- "
"Sh." And his voice became scarcely a buzzing through her hand. "His
people can still see us. He could still figure things out.... Only you and I
know, Johanna. I don't think anyone else suspects."
"But the pack that confessed ...?"
"Bluff, all bluff. I've done some crazy things in my life but next to
following Scriber down to your starship, this takes the prize.... After
Vendacious took you away, I began to think. You weren't that badly injured.
It was all too much like what happened to Jaqueramaphan, but I had no
proof."
"And you haven't told anyone?"
"No. Foolish as poor Scriber, aren't I?" His heads looked in all
directions. "If I was right, he'd be silly not to kill you immediately. I
was so afraid I was already too late...."
You would have been, if Vendacious weren't quite the monster I know he
is.
"Anyway, I learned the truth just like poor Scriber -- almost by
accident. But if we can get another seventy meters away, we won't die like
him. And everything I claimed to Vendacious will be true."
She patted his nearest shoulder, and looked back. The tiny cabin and
its ring of guards disappeared behind the forest brush.
...and Jefri lives!
.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush
Crypto: 0 [95 encrypted packets have been discarded]
As received by: Ølvira shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Tredeschk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Zonograph Eidolon [Co-op (or religious order) in Middle Beyond
maintained by subscription of several thousand Low Beyond civilizations, in
particular those threatened by immersion]
Subject: Surge Bulletin Update and Ping
Distribution:
Zonograph Eidolon Subscribers, Zonometric Interest Group, Threats Interest Group, subgroup: navigational, Ping participants
Date: 1087892301 seconds since Calibration Event 239011, Eidolon Frame
[66.91 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei]
Key phrases: galactic scale event, superluminal, charitable emergency
announcement
Text of message:
(Please include accurate local time in any ping responses.)
If you receive this, you know that the monster surge has receded. The
new zone surface appears to be a stable froth of low dimensionality (between
2.1 and 2.3). At least five civilizations are trapped in the new
configuration. Thirty virgin solar systems have achieved the Beyond.
(Subscribers may find specifics in the encrypted data that follow this
bulletin.)
The change corresponds to what is seen in a normal period of two years
across the whole galaxy's Slow Zone surface. Yet this surge happened in less
than a two hundred hours and less than one thousandth of that surface.
Even these numbers do not show the scale of the event. (The following
can only be estimates, since so many sites were destroyed, and no
instruments were calibrated for this size event.) At its maximum, the surge
reached 1000 light-years above Zone Surface Standard. Surge rates of more
than thirty million times lightspeed (about one light-year per second) were
sustained for periods of more than 100 seconds. Reports from subscribers
show more than ten billion normalized sophont deaths directly attributable
to the Surge (local network failures, failures leading to environment
collapse, medical collapse, vehicle crashes, security failures). Posted
economic damage is much greater.
The important question now is what can we expect in aftersurges. Our
predictions are based on instrumented sites and zonometric surveys, combined
with historical data from our archives. Except for long-term trends,
predicting zone changes has never been a science, but we have served our
subscribers well in advising of aftersurges and in identifying available new
worlds. The present situation makes all previous work almost useless. We
have precise documentation going back ten million years. Faster than light
surges happen about every twenty thousand years (usually with speeds under
7.0c). Nothing like this monster is on file. The surge just seen is the kind
described at third-hand in old and glutted databases: Sculptor had one this
size fifty million years ago. The [Perseus Arm] in our galaxy probably
suffered something like this half a billion years ago.
This uncertainty makes our Mission nearly impossible, and is an
important reason for this public message to the Zonometry newsgroup and
others: Everyone interested in zonometry and navigation must pool resources
on this problem. Ideas, archive access, algorithms -- all these things could
help. We pledge significant contributions to non-subscribers, and
one-for-one trades to those with important information. Note: We are also
addressing this message to the Swndwp oracle, and direct beaming it to
points in the Transcend thought to be inhabited. Surely an event such as
this must be of interest even there? We appeal to the Powers Above: Let us
send you what we know. Give us some hint if you have ideas about this event.
To demonstrate our good faith, here are the estimates we have
currently. These are based on naive scale-up of well-documented surges in
this region. Details are in the non-crypted appendix to this sending. Over
the next year there will be five or six aftersurges, of diminishing speed
and range. During this time at least two more civilizations (see risk list)
will likely be permanently immersed. Zone storm conditions will prevail even
when aftersurges are not in progress. Navigation in the the volume
[coordinate specification] will be extremely dangerous during this period;
we recommen