by Vernor Vinge
“Under the castle dome at top of Starship Hill. It’s right at the coast by a—”
Note 1278
A man’s voice cut in. Pham? He had a funny accent. “I got it on the map. We still can’t see you direct. Too much haze.”
Note 1279
“That’s smoke,” said the Cloak. “The enemy is almost upon us from the south. We need your help immediately—” The singleton lowered its head from the commset. Its eyes closed and opened a couple of times. Thinking? “Hmm, yes. Without your help, we and Jefri and this ship are lost. Please land within the castle courtyard. You know we’ve specially reinforced it for your arrival. Once down we can use your weapons to—”
“No way,” the guy replied immediately. “Just separate the friendlies from the bad guys and let us take care of things.”
Note 1280
Tyrathect’s voice took on a wheedling tone, like a little kid complaining. He really has been studying us.“No, no, didn’t mean to be impolite. Certainly, do it your own way. About the enemy force: everyone close to the castle on the south side of the hill are enemy. A single pass with your ship’s … um, torch … would send them running.”
“I can’t fly that torch inside an atmosphere. Did your Pop really land with the main jet, Jefri? No agrav?”
“Yes, sir. All we had was the jet.”
“He was a lucky genius.”
Ravna: “Maybe we could just float across, a few thousand meters up. That might scare them away.”
Note 1281
Tyrathect began, “Yes, that might—”
The public doors on the north side of the dome slid open. Mr. Steel stood silhouetted against the daylight beyond. “Let me talk to them,” he said.
* * *
Note 1282
The goal of all their voyaging lay just twenty kilometers below OOB. They were so close, yet those twenty thousand meters might be as hard to bridge as the twenty thousand light-years they had come so far.
They floated on agrav directly over “Starship Hill”. OOB‘s multispectral wasn’t working very well, but where smoke did not obscure, the ship’s optics could count the needles on the trees below. Ravna could see the forces of “Woodcarver” ranged across the slopes south of the castle. There were other troops, and apparently cannon, hidden in the forests that lined the fjord south of that. Given a little more time they would be able to locate them too. Time was the one thing they did not have.
Note 1283
Time and trust.
“Forty-eight hours, Pham. Then the fleet will be here, all around us.” Maybe, maybe godshatter could work a miracle; they’d never know stewing about it up here. Try: “You’ve got to trust somebody, Pham.”
Note 1284
Pham glared back at her, and for an instant she feared he might go completely to pieces. “You’d land in the middle of that castle? Medieval villains are just as smart as any you’ve seen in the Beyond, Rav. They could teach the Butterflies a thing or two. An arrow in the head will kill you as sure as an antimatter bomb.”
Note 1285
More fake memories? But Pham was right on this: She thought about the just-concluded conversation. The second pack — Steel — had been a bit too insistent. He had been good to Jefri, but he was clearly desperate. And she believed him when he said that a high fly- by wouldn’t scare the Woodcarvers off. They needed to come down near the ground with firepower. Just now, about all the firepower they had was Pham’s beam gun. “Okay, then! Do what you and Steel talked about. Fly the lander past Woodcarver’s lines, laser blast them.”
“God damn it, you know I can’t fly that. The landing boat is like nothing either of us know, and without the automation I—”
Note 1286
Softly: “Without the automation, you need Blueshell, Pham.” There was horror on Pham’s face. She reached out to him. He was silent for a long moment, not seeming to notice.
“Yeah.” His voice was low, strangled. Then: “Blueshell! Get up here.”
Note 1287
* * *
Note 1288
OOB‘s lander had more than enough room for the Skroderider and Pham Nuwen. The craft had been built specifically for Rider use. With higher automation working, it would have been easy for Pham —for even a child — to fly. Now, the craft could not provide stable flight, and the “manual” controls were something that gave even Bluseshell a hard time. Damn automation. Damn optimization. For most of his adult life Pham had lived in the Slowness. All those decades, he had managed spacecraft and weapons that could have reduced the feudal empire below to slag. Yet now, with equipment that should have been enormously more powerful, he couldn’t even fly a damn landing boat.
Note 1289
Across the crew compartment, Blueshell was at the pilot’s position. His fronds stretched across a web of supports and controls. He had turned off all display automation; only the main window was alive, a natural view from the boat’s bow camera. OOB floated some hundred meters ahead, drifting up and out of view as their craft slid backwards and down.
Note 1290
Blueshell’s fidgety nervousness — furtiveness, it seemed to Pham — had disappeared as he got into piloting the craft. His voder voice became terse and preoccupied, and the edges of his fronds writhed across the controls, an exercise that would have been impossible to Pham even if he had a lifetime of experience with the gear. “Thank you, Sir Pham…. I’ll prove you can trust….” The nose lurched downwards and they were staring almost straight into the fjord-carven coastline twenty kilometers below. They fell free for half a minute while the rider’s fronds writhed on their supports. Hot piloting? No: “Sorry, sorry.” Acceleration, and Pham sank into his restraints under a grav load that wobbled between a tenth gee and an intolerable crush. The landscape rotated and they had a brief glimpse of OOB, now like a tiny moth above them.
“Is it necessary to kill, Sir Pham? Perhaps simply our appearance over the battle….”
Note 1291
Nuwen gritted his teeth. “Just get us down.” The Steel creature had been adamant that they fry the entire hillside. Despite all Pham’s suspicions, the pack might be right on that. They were up against a crew of murderers that had not hesitated to ambush a starship; the Woodcarvers needed a real demonstration.
Note 1292
Their boat fluttered down the kilometers. Steel’s fortifications were clearly visible even in the natural view: the rough polygon that guarded the refugee ship, the much larger structure that rambled across an island several kilometers westward. I wonder if this is how my Father’s castle looked to the Qeng Ho landers? Those walls were high and unsloping. Clearly the Tines had had no idea of gunpowder till Ravna had clued them to it.
Note 1293
The valley south of the castle was a blot of dark smoke smoothly streaming toward the sea. Even without data enhancement, he could see hot spots, fringes of orange edging the black.
“You’re at two thousand meters,” came Ravna’s voice. “Jefri says he can see you.”
“Patch me through to them.”
“I will try, Sir Pham.” Blueshell fiddled, his lack of attention spinning the boat through a complete loop. Pham had seen falling leaves with more control.
A child’s piping voice: “A-are you okay? Don’t crash!”
And then the Steel pack’s hybrid of Ravna and the kid: “South to go! South to go! Use fire gun. Burn them quick.”
Blueshell was entirely too cooperative to this direction. He had them down in the smoke already. For seconds they were flying blind. A break in the smoke showed the hillside less than two hundred meters off, coming up fast. Before Pham could curse at Blueshell, the Rider had turned them around and floated the boat into clearer air. Then he pitched over so they might see directly down.
Note 1294
After thirty weeks of talk and planning, Pham had his first glimpse of the Tines. Even from here, it was obvious they were different from any sophonts Pham had encountered: Clusters of four or five or s
ix members hung together so close they seemed a single spiderlike being. And each pack stood separated from the others by ten or fifteen meters.
A cannon flashed in the murk. The pack crewing it moved like a single, coordinated hand to rock the barrel back and ram another charge down the muzzle.
“But if these are the enemy, Sir Pham, where did they get the guns?”
Note 1295
“They stole’em.”But muzzle loaders? He didn’t have time to pursue the thought.
“You’re right over them, Pham! I can see you in and out of the smoke. You’re drifting south at fifteen meters per second, losing altitude.” It was the kid, speaking with his usual incredible precision.
“Kill them! Kill them!”
Pham wriggled out of his restraints and crawled back to the hatch where they had mounted his beam gun. It was about the only thing salvaged from the workshop fire, but by God this was something he could operate.
Note 1296
“Keep us steady, Blueshell. Bounce me around and I’ll fry you as likely as anything!” He pushed open the hatch, and gagged on spicy smoke. Then Blueshell’s agravs wafted them into a clear space and Pham lined the beamer down the ranks of packfolk.
* * *
Originally Woodcarver had demanded Johanna stay at the base camp. Johanna’s response had been explosive. Even now the girl was a little surprised at herself. Not since the first days on Tines world had she come so close to attacking a pack. No way was anyone going to keep her from finding out about Jefri. In the end they had compromised: Johanna would accept Pilgrim as her guard. She could follow the army into the field, as long as she obeyed his direction.
Johanna looked up through the drifting smoke. Damn. Pilgrim was always such a carefree joker. By his own telling, he had gotten himself killed over and over again through the years. And now he wouldn’t even let her up to Scrupilo’s cannons. The two of them paced across a terrace in the hillside. The brush fire had swept through here hours before, and the spicy smell of moss ash was thick around them. And with that smell came the bright memory of horror, of a year ago, right here….
Trusted guard packs paced their course twenty meters on either side. This area was supposedly safe from infiltration, and there had been no artillery fire from the Flenserists for hours. But Peregrine absolutely refused to let her get any closer.
It’s nothing like last year. Then all had been sunny blue skies and clean air — and her parents’ murder. Now she and Pilgrim had returned, and the blue sky was yellow-gray and the sweeps of mossy hillside were black. And now the packs around her were fighting with her. And now there was a chance….
Note 1297
“Lemme closer, damn it! Woodcarver will have the Oliphaunt no matter what happens to me.”
Note 1298
Peregrine shook himself, a Tinish negative. One of his puppies reached out from a jacket pouch to catch at her sleeve. “A little longer,” Pilgrim said for the tenth time. “Wait for Woodcarver’s messenger. Then we can—”
“I want to be up there! I’m the only one who knows the ship!”Jefri, Jefri. If only Vendacious was right about you….
She was twisting about to slap at Scarbutt when it happened: A glare of heat on her back, and the smoke flashed bright. Again. Again. And then the impact of rapid thunder.
Pilgrim shuddered against her. “That’s not gunfire!” he shouted. “Two of me are almost blinded. C’mon.” He surrounded her, almost knocking her off her feet as he pushed/dragged her down the hill.
For a second Johanna went along, more dazed than cooperative. Somehow they had lost their escort.
From up the hill the shouts of battle had stopped. The sharp thunder had silenced all. Where the smoke thinned she could see one of Scrupilo’s cannons, the barrel extending from a puddle of melted steel. The cannoneer had been blown to bits. Not gunfire. Johanna spasmed out of Pilgrim’s grip. Not gunfire.
“Spacers! Pilgrim, that must be a drive torch.”
Peregrine grabbed her, continuing down the hill. “Not a drive torch! That I’ve heard. This is quieter — and somebody’s aiming it.”
There had been a long stutter of separate blasts. How many of Woodcarver’s people had just died? “They must think we’re attacking the ship, Pilgrim. If we don’t do something, they’ll wipe out everyone.”
His jaws eased their grip on her sleeves and pants. “What can we do? Hanging around here will just get us killed.”
Johanna stared into the sky. No sign of fliers, but there was so much smoke. The sun was a dull bloody ball. If only the rescuers knew they were killing her friends. If only they could see. She dug her feet into the ground. “Let go of me, Pilgrim! I’m going uphill, out of the smoke.”
Note 1299
He’d stopped moving but his grip was fiercely tight. Four adult faces and two puppy ones looked up at her, and indecision was in every look. “Please, Pilgrim. It’s the only way.” Packs were straggling down, some bleeding, some in fragments.
His frightened eyes stared at her an instant longer. Then he let go and touched her hand with a nose. “I guess this hill will always be the death of me. First Scriber, now you — you’re all crazy.” The old Pilgrim smile flickered across his members. “Okay. Let’s try it!” The two without puppies went up the hillside, scouting for the safest route.
Note 1300
Johanna and the rest of him followed. They were moving across a sloping terrace. The summer drought had drained the chill swamp water she remembered from the landing, and the blackened moss was firm under her. The going should have been easy, but Peregrine wound through the deepest hummocks, hunkering down every few seconds to look in all directions. They reached the end of the terrace and began climbing. There were places so steep she had to grab the epaulet stirrups on two of Peregrine and let him hoist her up. They passed the nearest cannon, what was left of it. Johanna had never seen weapons fired except in stories, but the splash of metal and the carbonized flesh could only mean some kind of beam weapon. Running across the hill were similar craters, destruction punched into the already burned land.
Note 1301
Johanna leaned against a smooth rounding of rock. “Just pull over this one and we’re on the next terrace,” Pilgrim’s voice came in her ear. “Hurry, I hear shouting.” He leaned two of himself down, tilting his epaulets toward her hands. She grabbed them, and jumped. For a moment she and the pack teetered over a four- meter fall, and then she was lying on brownish, unburned moss. Pilgrim clustered around her, hiding her. She peeked out between his legs. The outermost walls of Steel’s castle were visible from here. Tinish archers stood boldly on the ramparts, taking advantage of the chaos among Woodcarver’s troops. In fact, the Queen’s force had not lost many packs in the air attack, but even the unwounded were milling around. The Queen’s soldiers were no cowards — Johanna knew that by now —but they had just been confronted by force beyond all defense.
Overhead the smoke faded into blue. The battlefield ahead of her lay under clear sky. In the years before the High Lab, Johanna and her mother had often gone on nature trips over Bigby Marsh at Straum. With the sensors on their camper packs they’d had no trouble watching the skyggwings there: even if this flier’s automation was not specifically looking for a human on the ground, it should notice her. “Do you see anything?”
The four adult heads angled back and forth in coordinated pairs. “No. The flier must be very far away or behind the smoke.”
Nuts. Johanna came off her knees, trotted toward the castle walls. They must be watching there!
“Woodcarver’s not going to like this.”
Two of the Queen’s soldiers were already running toward them, attracted by their purposeful movement or the sight of Johanna. Pilgrim waved them back.
Alone on an open field less than two hundred meters from the castle wall. Even with normal vision, how could they be overlooked? In fact, they were noticed: There was a soft hissing, and a meter-long arrow thunked into the turf on their left. Scar
butt grabbed her shoulder, pulling her to a crouch. The puppies shifted his shields into position: Pilgrim made a barricade of himself on the castle side and started back out of range. Back into the smoke.
“No! Run parallel! I want to be seen.”
Note 1302
“Okay, okay.” Soft sounds of death whispered down. Johanna kept one hand on his shoulder as they ran across the field. She felt Scarbutt falter. The arrow had caught him in the thick of his shoulder, centimeters from a tympanum. “I’m okay! Stay down, stay down.”
The front line of Woodcarver’s force was rallying toward them now, a dozen packs racing across the terrace. Pilgrim bounced up and down, shouting with a voice that punched like physical force. Something about staying back, and danger from the sky. It didn’t stop their advance. “They want you away from the arrows.”
Note 1303
And suddenly they noticed that the fire from the castle had stopped. Pilgrim scanned the sky, “It’s back! Coming from the east, maybe a kilometer out.”
She looked in the direction he was pointing. It was a lumpy thing, probably space-based though it had no ultradrive spines. It bobbled and staggered. There was no sign of jets. Some kind of agrav? Nonhumans? The thoughts skittered through her mind, alongside the joy.
Note 1304
Pale light flickered from a mast on its belly and dirt geysered around the troops who were racing to protect her. Again the stuttering thunder, only now the light was marching right across her friends toward her.
* * *
Note 1305
Amdijefri was on the battlements. Steel hid his glares from the two. There simply was no help for it; Ravna had demanded Jefri be by the radio to guide the strike. The human was not completely stupid. It shouldn’t make any difference. An army looks like an army whether it is foe or friend. Very soon the army beyond these walls would cease to exist.
Note 1306
“How did the first run go?” Ravna’s voice came clearly from the commset. But it wasn’t Jefri who answered: all eight of Amdiranifani was poking around the battlements, some of him sitting on the crenellations practicing stereo vision, others eyeing Steel and the radio. Telling him to stay back had no effect. Now Amdi answered the question with Jefri’s voice. “Okay. I counted fifteen pulses. Only ten hit anything. I bet I could shoot better than that.”