by VernorVinge
Today there was far more business than the humans could help with. The company’s three Tinish tailors sat on thickly padded platforms. On the floor, each of the customers had a single tailor member doing its best with fitting. To human eyes, the process was comical. The isolated members were decked out in flamboyant uniforms studded with big-handled needles, and tailor’s measuring tapes looped from spools on their collars. They were not quite mindless—the rest of their packs were up on the pallets, peeking down, trying to maintain contact without numbing the customers. The groundside members had a lot of practice and significant guidance from above—but physically they were not much more adept than dogs. The lips at the tip of their jaws could squeeze like a pair of weak fingers. Their paws and claws were what you’d expect of dumb animals, though the creatures often wore tools or metal claws—hence the human name for the race: Tines.
These tailors had plenty of experience. Their groundside parts could pull measuring tape from their shoulder spools, could pass it to the customer. With spoken directions from the tailor above, the customer—if not too befuddled by having a foreign snout in its midst—could hold tape properly while the tailor marked the measurement. In other circumstances the customer held the draped fabric and the tailor’s groundside member grabbed a pinhandle in its jaws and carefully inserted it.
Ravna and Johanna passed through an older section of the building that had not been built with humans in mind. They bent low to clear the ceiling and walked awkwardly down a short hallway toward the sewing room. Indoors, in a Tinish building, the whiff of packs was overpowering. Ravna had dealt with many races in the High Beyond—but with good air control. Here there were no such amenities.
She heard Wenda Sr.’s laughter right ahead. Wenda Sr. handled most of the business management, except for the accounting. Like most of the refugees, she was no good at manual arithmetic.
“Hei Johanna! Ravna!” Wenda was standing by one of the sewing tables. Those were lined up below high windows of smoky glass. Sunlight fell on the work tables. Larsndot, Needles & Co. had three seamsters; right now all were busy. Wenda moved back and forth, adjusting the measures, rolling in additional bolts of cloth, some of it the precious Oobii weave, the last functional output of the starship’s reality graphics display.
Wenda’s younger child, Sika, was sitting on the table beside her, evidently “helping to supervise.”
“Hei Wenda! I’m looking for advice.” Johanna laid the mosaic cloth down on a display table. “I want to get something for Nevil. His birthday, you know. Would this look too silly on a human?”
“Sika, you stay put, okay?” said Wenda, Sr. For a wonder, the three-year-old did as requested. Whatever the Tinish seamster was doing fascinated her.
Wenda came over to their table, turning sideways to fit between the heavy wooden stools. She nodded respectfully at Ravna, then lifted Johanna’s fabric sample, turning it in the sunlight. “Ah, this is the real Down Coast stuff, isn’t it, Johanna?”
The two woman chattered about the fabric. Wenda had been sixteen when the kids escaped from the High Lab, and one of the first to be wakened. That made her as old as any of the refugees, as old as Nevil Storherte. She was twenty-six. Her face and her voice were happy, but there was gray in her hair, the beginnings of age in her face. Ravna had read human histories obsessively since their exile began. In a state of nature, untreated humans began to decline almost immediately upon reaching adulthood. Wenda had never complained, but more than most—certainly more than the boys her age—she bore the burden of living Down Here. And yet she was luckier than some. She was old enough that, before the escape, she had almost completed the usual prolongevity treatments. Most of her cohort would last a couple of centuries.
The youngest kids—and certainly the new generation—had not even begun their medical treatments before the escape. They would age quickly, probably not live more than a century. They might not even last long enough for the new technologies to save them. In that case, a return to coldsleep might be their only hope.
One of the seamsters came around the table. Four of it scrambled up on the stools, leaned over to look at the fabric from all directions. The pack was a mostly old fivesome. He understood some Samnorsk, but spoke in careful Interpack. The chords were largely unintelligible to Ravna, but she could tell the fellow was pleased to be chatting with Johanna. This guy was a veteran of Woodcarver’s long march up the coast and the Battle on Starship Hill. Johanna had more Tinish friends than anyone Ravna knew, and among many she was a paramount hero. Maybe that was why Woodcarver had forgiven Jo for running amok back in Year Two.
In the end, Johanna and Wenda and the Tinish seamster came up with a bizarro cape and pants scheme that Wenda claimed would please both fashion and Nevil. It was the best evidence Ravna had ever seen for the absence of a universal esthetic.
“…and I’ll bring you those buckles,” said Johanna.
“Fine, fine,” Wenda was nodding. “Most important, what I need right away, are Nevil’s fitting measurements.”
“Right, I’ll get them. But remember, this is a surprise. He knows there’ll be a party, but—”
“Hah. Taking a tape measure to him will likely make him guess.”
“I’ve got my ways!”
And that got both Wenda and Johanna laughing.
—————
Back on the street, Johanna was still laughing. “Honest, Ravna, no double meaning.” But when she stopped laughing, she was grinning like a loon.
The afternoon went on forever, the shadows turning and turning without ever lengthening into sunset. They stopped by a couple of silversmiths, but what Johanna wanted might have to be done one-off. Now they were at the north end of the high street. The warren of merchant tents was still as crowded as packs could tolerate, not more than a few meters separating one from another.
“Seems like more foreigners than ever,” commented Ravna. It was partly a question. She could recognize East Home packs by their funny redjackets. Others were distinguished by their scattered posture or their scandalous flirtation. Getting all the details explained was just another reason why she liked to go on these walk-arounds with Johanna Olsndot.
Today Johanna wasn’t quite the perfect tour guide: “I…yeah, I guess you’re right.” She looked around into the tented chaos. “I wasn’t paying proper attention.” She saw the smile on Ravna’s face. “What?”
“You know, today you only stopped to chat with every fourth pack that we came across.”
“Oh, I don’t know everybody—wait, you mean I really haven’t been up to my usual social standard? Well, huh.” They walked on a few paces, out of the tented area. When Johanna looked at her again, the girl’s smile was still there but perhaps it contained a touch of wonder. “You’re right, I haven’t been feeling the same lately. It’s strange. Our lives I mean. Things were so tough for so long.”
When Ravna Bergsndot was feeling most sorry for herself, she tried to imagine what life had been like for Johanna and her little brother. Like all the Children, these two were orphans, but their parents had made it all the way to the ground here. Johanna had witnessed their murder, and then the murder of half her classmates. At just thirteen Johanna had spent a year in this wilderness, often befriended, sometimes betrayed. But she and her little brother had still guided the Oobii through the battle on Starship Hill.
Some of the Children had accepted all this too readily, forgetting civilization. Some others couldn’t make any accommodation with their fall from heaven. It was the ones like Jo that gave Ravna faith that—given time—they might survive the fate coming down upon them all.
They had left the merchants behind, were walking toward the part of town where in recent years public houses had been established. Johanna didn’t seem to notice; she was still far away, smiling that small wondering smile. “Things were tough, and then we unmasked Vendacious and won against Lord Steel. And since then…” surprise rose in her voice “…why, now I’m generally having a
great time. There’s so much to do, with the Fragmentarium, with the Children’s Academy, and—”
“You’re wrapped up in making the new world,” said Ravna.
“I know. But now things are even better. Ever since I started dating Nevil, lots of things are more fun. Human-type people seem much more interesting than before. Lately, Nevil and I have been even, um, closer. I want this birthday to be special for him, Ravna.”
Hah! Ravna reached out, touched Johanna’s arm. “So when…”
Johanna laughed. “Ah, Nevil is so traditional. I really think he’s waiting for me to propose.” She looked at Ravna, and now her smile was both merry and sneaky. “Don’t you tell, Ravna, but after the birthday party, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”
“That’s wonderful! What a wedding that will be!” They stopped and just grinned at each other. “You can be sure Woodcarver will invent new ceremonies for this,” said Ravna.
“Yeah, she uses my reputation unmercifully.”
“Good for her. In fact, this means even more to us than to the Tines. You and Nevil are so popular, he with the Children, you with the Tines. Maybe—” Maybe this is the time.
“What?”
Ravna drew Jo toward the middle of the street as they continued along their way—she didn’t want to be snooped upon by passing packs. “Well, it’s just that I am so tired of being co-Queen.”
“Ravna! It’s worked great for almost ten years now. Woodcarver herself suggested it. There’s precedent in Tinish history and even in ours.”
“Yes,” said Ravna, “on Nyjora.” In the Age of Princesses, there had been the Elder Princess and the Younger, the Techie. The Age of Princesses was the most recent rediscovery of civilization in any known human history—and that civilization was also the ancestor of Ravna’s Sjandra Kei and therefore of Johanna’s Straumli Realm.
The Straumers were not much for looking back, but Ravna had told them about the Age of Princesses. At the Academy, she used that history to make a bridge between humans and the Domain. Johanna smiled. “You should be glad to be co-Queen, Ravna. I bet you played at being one when you were a child.”
Ravna hesitated, embarrassed to admit the truth. “Well maybe; I’ve discovered that the reality is…distracting. It was necessary to begin with, but you kids are established now. I need to concentrate on the external deadline. We only have a few centuries before some really bad guys blow into town.” Ravna hadn’t told the Children of her crazy dream, or the zonograph glitch. There had been no repeat, and the data was less than credible. Instead she worked harder and harder, and did her best not to seem like a madwoman.
Ravna looked away from Johanna. For a few steps, she just watched her own feet trudging along the cobblestones. “It could be less than centuries,” she said. “The Blighters weren’t left with any working ramscoops, but they could probably boost a few kilograms to near-lightspeed. Maybe, when they still had their pipeline to god, maybe they even figured out some way to nail us at lightspeed. I need to spend all my time making sure we’ll be ready.”
Johanna didn’t reply. Ravna was silent for a few more steps, then repeated her main point: “I just mean, I should be spending more time with Oobii. I’m a librarian, after all, and in a situation like this, any other use of me is a waste. I think it would best if maybe you and Nevil could lead, with Woodcarver.”
Johanna stared at Ravna in shock. “Are you crazy?”
Ravna smiled. “We’ve both been accused of that at one time or another.”
“Hah!” said Johanna. She put an arm across Ravna’s shoulders. “If we’re both crazy, it’s in very different ways. Ravna, we need you—”
“Yes, I know. I’m den mother to all that’s left of humanity!”
That old and whimsical complaint should have brought a smile to Johanna; instead her expression became positively fierce. “Ravna, you’re the mother of all that’s left here. Ten years ago we were kids and babies, and to the Tines we were weird animals. Without you to hold us together—to mother us along—most of us would have died in coldsleep, and the few who survived would be freaks in Tinish wilderness!”
“…I, um, okay.” Time to regroup: “I guess I did what had to be done. And now we must prepare for the future. I’m the only one of us trained to manage Oobii’s planning systems. That’s where I need to spend all my time now. You and Nevil and Woodcarver should lead. I’m a librarian, not a leader.”
“You’re both! Librarians and archeologists have always been the ones to bring civilization back.”
“This is different. We don’t have any ruins to search. We have all the answers aboard the Oobii.” Ravna raised her chin in the direction of Starship Hill. “You needed me to begin with, but now Children like you have grown up. My technical planning is needed more than ever, but…but I’m tired of being the leader.”
“Your decisions are popular, Ravna.”
“Some of them. Some of them not, or not for a year or five or ten.” Some might seem obviously wrong for a century—and then suddenly, dreadfully right.
“I hadn’t realized you felt so…alone. We all have you, so I guess we thought you see all of us the same.” Johanna looked down at various bags of fabric samples and birthday trinkets. She gave a little laugh. “Okay, turn it all around. I’ve been so happy with Nevil. He’s made life a bright place. I should think what it would be like without that, without anyone to share it all with. Do you think about Pham very much?”
“Sometimes.” Often. “We had something fine, but there was too much else going on within him. What owned him was scary.”
“Yeah.” Johanna had met Pham Nuwen, just before the end. She had seen how scary scary could be. “There are one hundred and fifty of us, Ravna. We all love you—at least most of the time. Have you ever thought that there might be enough people now that you could find some one person you could—you could be with?”
Up the street, Ravna could see some Children. They were Johanna’s age and older. They were just going into one of the pubs. Ravna gave a nod in their direction. “Are you serious?”
The girl gave an embarrassed smile. “Look, I found someone. I’m just saying, you think of us all as children. Think…well, you’ll live longer than any of us.”
“Don’t say that. You’re ageing now, but that’s only for the present. Someday we’ll have the resources to go back and rebuild a decent medical science. This is just temporary.”
“Right. If you guide us there, we’ll eventually have the technology. And eventually, there’ll be tens of thousands of us. If you can’t find Mister Right in that mob, there’s something wrong with you!”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am!” said Johanna. “In the meantime, please remember how grateful we are, even when we complain. And Nevil and I will work harder to support you.”
“I want debate.”
“You know what I mean. It’s your voice, up front, that makes the big difference for people like Wenda and Ben.”
“Okay, I’ll lay off you and Nevil, at least for now.”
“Whew!” Johanna’s look of relief was comic exaggeration, but behind it Ravna saw the real thing. “Oh, and Ravna? Please don’t mention this to Nevil. It would just go to his head.”
—————
The tavern district was near the center of Hidden Island, just south of the Old Castle. In fact, the castle was not really old, though it pre-dated the Children’s arrival by some decades. Flenser’s castle had been a fearsome place, a legend across the continent. Flenser—the unreformed Flenser—had had extraordinary plans for the Tinish race. Before the humans arrived, this world had not even discovered gunpowder, and the printing press was the big new thing. From that, Flenser had been busy building both a totalitarian state and something like the scientific method. There were rumors that his monster packs still lurked in the Old Castle. Ravna knew that wasn’t true, though Flenser-Tyrathect still did have his supporters, spies who shadowed Woodcarver’s own s
ecret agents.
The sun was sliding into the north, the shadows now extending all the way across the street.
The two women walked past the first of the public houses. “Been there just yesterday,” Johanna said of it. “These days the customers are mostly herders from the mainland, celebrating the livestock drive.”
Up ahead were the pubs more likely to attract merchants from the Long Lakes and spies from East Home. Those shops were full of gossip and questions and strangeness. She noticed the pack across the street; it looked a lot like the one that had been hanging around behind them in the market.
Johanna saw her glance. “Don’t worry. That’s Borodani, one of Woodcarver’s guys. I recognize his low-sound ears.” She gave the pack a wave, then laughed. “And you say this is really like a city of the Middle Beyond?”
“A little. I could fool myself for minutes at a time. Sjandra Kei had half a dozen major races, though nothing like packs. We humans were only the third most numerous. But we were popular. There were tourist towns that imitated olden human times—and they attracted at least two of the other races as much as us humans.”
“So folks would promenade, right? We could almost imagine we’re out looking for action in some high-priced dive?”
“You had such romances in Straumli Realm?”
“Well, yes. I was a precocious tot, you know. But you actually lived it, right?”
“Um, yes. A few times,” as a shy college girl, before she graduated and shipped out to the Vrinimi Organization. At Vrinimi, the socializing had been exclusively nonhuman—at least till Pham came along.