Winter Song

by Colin Harvey

  She was almost sad when gravity returned a few moments later.

  Ragnar's men all breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  I get the distinct impression, Karl sub-vocalised, that once the novelty wears off, our passengers are going to find this voyage tedious, which may encourage them to mischief. I'm not sure that I entirely believe this new milk-and-water Ragnar.

  Then it's a shame that they can't see the carnage in cyberspace, you replied. That would entertain them. The ship's datarealm had launched wave after wave of counter-attack to seize control of the power, the helm, even life support, directly or through back door channels such as the sprinkler and other fire-retardant systems. Fortunately you'd been alert enough to slam every door shut before it could gain a foothold, but the battle – a lethal version of three-dimensional chess – tied up more and more of your resources.

  During a lull while the datarealm retreated off-line like a predator returning to its lair and you shored up your defences, you swept the Mizar B system with the spectographs and other external systems. There are signs of a recent conflict in the inner Mizar B system, you told Karl. The weapons signatures are identical to those that attacked Ship. But there's also debris which looks as if it's wreckage from them. It's a guesstimate based on the various pieces drifting around, but by assembling them into a cyber-jigsaw, I've established that it's possible, verging on probable that all or all but one of your attackers were destroyed.

  That might be what those lights in the sky were a few nights ago, Karl said. Is there anything to confirm the timescale?

  Nothing definitive, you said. There are also traces of plastic, metal and other wreckage that look artificial, but don't fit that pattern. If you give me some time, I'll correlate the scatter back to a common origin point and extrapolate. The hours that passed in cyberspace as you fitted, took away and reassembled again and again the billions of pieces of debris into a starship-shaped jigsaw puzzle took mere micro-seconds in real-time, but even so, you noticed Karl become aware of a growing tension among their captives.

  It looks, you said, as if the ships like those that attacked you were destroyed in turn, either by Aye ships, or by an unknown third party – more likely the former option. In turn based on one scatter point and the flotsam, there is an eighty-six per cent possibility that one or more of the Aye ships was destroyed.

  So hypothesise, Karl said. Could Ship's mayday have led to the skirmish?

  Possible. Perhaps some other factor was involved, but Occam's Scalpel suggests excluding any possibility other than that human and Aye ships fought and destroyed each other.

  How does this affect the possibility that Ship's Mayday might be answered? Karl asked.

  It makes it more likely that it will attract attention, you answered. But those receiving Ship's Mayday may assume that it was generated by one of the combatants recently destroyed.

  Leading them to assume that there's nothing left to search for? Karl said.

  Exactly, you replied.

  In which case, we need to send another message. I think that I have an idea. Get me the reactor schematics.

  Not now, you said. The datarealm has just launched another incursion, this time through the life-support back-up objects, which it's just taken off-line. Fortunately the main activity is unaffected.

  You paused. You may wish to give Bera and the others your attention. Something is developing.

  Bera was worried. Ragnar had barely spoken since she had accused him of failing her. That wasn't unusual. What was unique was that the revelation that Thorir had fathered Palli had seemed to knock the fight out of him. Such a collapse was something she'd never witnessed in all her time at Skorradalur.

  The others were also silent but watchful, as if waiting for something. Only Thorir kept up a staccato barrage of comments for Ragnar and Arnbjorn's benefit, denials and justifications alternated with digs at Bera.

  Finally Arnbjorn snapped, "Be silent. I want to see this world of ours."

  Once they had watched the screen for a few seconds, there was little to see. A white globe, slowly rotating, marked by the mountains and lakes of the single worldencircling continent. It was almost hypnotic. So effective was the distraction that when it ended, Bera took a moment to realise what was happening.

  She had been so lulled by the conversation and the view of Isheimur that she had forgotten to re-check their captives' bonds. So when Thorir's hands appeared from behind his back, one clutching an extending sword drawn dragon-swift from his leggings, she could only stare open-mouthed.

  Coeo was on the other side of the bridge, and Karl – still jacked into the controls – was deep in thought. So Bera yelled as Thorir cut the other's bonds. His freeing them gave her time to draw her sword, but even so, she only just had time to parry his first wild slash.

  Luckily his blade was thin to allow it to partially retract into the hilt – An assassin's weapon, she thought, how appropriate – so that when it clanged on her own short blade the jolt of the impact wasn't quite enough to make her drop it. Instead she juggled it into her left hand, and managed to keep one of the seats between her and Thorir.

  In the momentary respite that the move gained her, Bera glimpsed Karl freeing the jack to take on Orn, who stood looking bewildered, while Coeo engaged Arnbjorn and Ragnar, who seemed equally nonplussed. All of them had drawn concealed swords similar to Thorir's, but looked as though they were being swept along by events beyond their control.

  "Come on!" Thorir roared. "We take her, and the boy will do as we say, won't you, Allman?" When they didn't move, Thorir roared, "Has the utlander taken your balls?"

  Belatedly, reluctantly it appeared to Bera, the others joined the fight.

  "First you have to take me alive, Thorir," Bera gasped, lunging at him left-handed from behind the chair.

  But he was alive to that and danced back in the low gravity. "Uh-oh, naughty girl!"

  She retreated again, keeping the chair between them, trying desperately to shake the feeling back in her right arm, while fending off his counter-attacks with her left, but each subsequent clang of his sword on hers took another bite from the blade, while the shock stole another bit of feeling from her left arm, to go with her numbed right.

  Her only hope was that they needed her alive. She could always fall on her own blade if need be – it wasn't as if anyone would miss her. Karl would be sad for a while, but it would pass.

  But there was a stubbornness in her that refused the coward's way out. That and the fact that Thorir was concentrating on disarming her gave her a glimmer of hope.

  They danced from side to side, the chair always between them, Thorir grinning, Bera panting, the others yelling, blades clanging. The bridge stank of sweat and the tang of blood from nicks that all the fighters had taken.

  As another blow on the blade almost dashed her sword from her hand, Bera felt the tingle in her right as the numbness passed. She gasped and winced.

  Thorir's grin grew wider. "Give it up, girly!" It was the same grin as when he'd held her down on her bed at Skorradalur and torn her leggings off.

  Furious, she fumbled in her pocket with her other hand and almost dropped the short paring knife that she'd stashed there in the desert. Somehow she got her fingers around the handle. Clang! Another blow and she felt the fingers of her left hand loosening.

  There was only Thorir and her in the whole universe now. His tongue lolled like a spaniel on a hot day. One more parry of his sword, and she would drop her own.

  So she did, as he drew his arm back, and stabbed him right-handed in the heart with the paring knife.

  TWENTY

  For a moment, Bera wasn't sure that she'd penetrated Thorir's padding all the way through. He wore chest protection like all his comrades, but like them he'd sacrificed battle armour for the lighter padding that they wore when herding near Skorradalur. There attacks were fewer and predators more likely to flee than stand and fight.

  Then his eyes widened and he swayed in a phantom bree
ze that blew all the way from Valhalla. Bera let out a shout, of joy and of rage at his arrogance. He'd been so sure of himself that he'd toyed with her. She unfroze and, putting her boot onto his chest, yanked the knife free. After the sucking sound it made when it finally came free she didn't need to see the blood on the blade.

  As if she had turned off a light, life abruptly faded from Thorir's eyes, and a thin trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Bera pushed him, and he fell backward, dead. She felt oddly proud that with such accuracy, one blow had been all that was needed. Almost overwhelmed with relief that he could never hurt her again, she put her hand over her mouth, unsure if she wanted to be sick or sob, or both.

  Around her, the others fought on with no indication that they'd heard her. In Ragnar's case he fought Karl only half-heartedly, which was as well. Karl was clearly struggling to cope with Arnbjorn, as the blood running down his arm testified. Coeo and Orn were both covered in blood.

  Orn looked so panicked that Bera feared he might berserk at any moment. So picking up a panel about a metre wide that lay against a wall, Bera brought it down on the back of Orn's skull.

  "Takk!" Coeo showed his outsize canines in what Bera hoped was a friendly grin.

  "Welcome," Bera said, and they advanced on the others.

  Ragnar cried out a warning. Arnbjorn half-swung around, saw that he was outflanked and held his sword aloft, point upward. "Truce!"

  "For how long?" Karl said. "Until you launch a sneak attack?" But he held back, instead re-inserting the jack into the nape of his neck.

  Arnbjorn flipped the sword so that he held the point, and balancing the blade on his other forearm, offered the hilt to Karl. "You can search us, if you wish," he said. "I was surprised you didn't before."

  "We're novices," Karl growled. "But we won't make that mistake again. Strip." As Arnbjorn made to take the sword back, inspiration struck. "No, wait!" Karl said. "Will you swear allegiance? I propose myself as your new Gothi."

  Ragnar chortled, then stopped. "You're serious?"

  "Very," Karl said. "You're in my place now, using my resources."

  "Never!" Arnbjorn said.

  "Do it," Ragnar said, and knelt. Arnbjorn hesitated, then followed. Orn was coming round, and Ragnar bundled him into position.

  "I swear allegiance to my leader. All that I have is yours, and I will follow your lead, wherever you take me. In return, you will give me shelter, succour, honour and trust. On Wotan's name, I swear this."

  Bera had stood behind the settlers. She nodded. "It's the proper oath; no crossing of fingers to invalidate it."

  With a gesture of resignation, Arnbjorn repeated the oath. For a moment it looked as if Orn might baulk, then he shrugged and did the same.

  Ragnar indicated Thorir's corpse. "What did you do?"

  Bera shrugged. "It was him or me. Your men attacked us – or have you forgotten?"

  Ragnar's eyes narrowed, and Karl said quickly, "The man was a rapist. I passed sentence."

  "Accused," Ragnar said, but sounded tired. "Or doesn't your world presume innocence?"

  "No," Karl said, "it doesn't. On Avalon we're neither innocent nor guilty until the court hands down a verdict. My verdict was that in attacking us, he admitted his guilt."

  "I – I still can't believe it," Ragnar said. "He might not have been my ideal son-in-law, but Thorir, a rapist?" He shook his head, as if to clear it of such thoughts.

  Bera said, "What if I'd braved his threats when he sobered up the morning after? If I had pressed my case against Thorir, how would you have reacted?" When the men didn't answer, Bera said, "I'll tell you. It would've been, 'What did you do to lead him on?' I'd have been lynched, or it would have been outright civil war if anyone had believed me."

  Their silence was eloquent assent.

  "When did it happen?" Arnbjorn said.

  "The Bride Fair," Bera said. "You left him behind. Hilda was unwell, everyone else was away, he got drunk. That was that." She tried to shut out his crashing open her bedroom door, as if daring Hilda to awake; his bulk in the doorway, teeth gleaming in the midsummer midnight twilight.

  "He died in battle against enemy hordes," Ragnar said, "giving his life to buy us time."

  "Agreed," Bera said. "No reason Hilda and the children should share his shame."

  "Thank you," Ragnar said, eyes shut, hand to his forehead.

  "What now?" Coeo said in halting Isheimuri. Ragnar and the others stared, eyes widening.

  "You're still denying their sentience?" Karl said. "Because they've chosen a different shape, another way of life from yours?"

  "And if we do? Not that I say we will," Ragnar said.

  "Then you'll have half the galaxy down on you."

  "So they're sentient," Ragnar said. "It will still take some time to persuade Valdimar the Slow out at Skaftafell not to blow his new-found cousin's brains out."

  "Then we'll take our victories where we can, and persuading you to accept him will be our first victory for sense," Karl said, grinning at Bera.

  You should know that we have a primitive nanoforge aboard, Loki said. Perhaps the oldest of its kind. We do need raw materials…

  "We'll dispose of the body," Karl said, unjacking again. "No ceremony for this bastard."

  Coeo helped him carry out the corpse.

  While Karl and the others were fighting and talking, you fought your own rearguard action – worthy of the blood-soaked warrens of Hightshell Five – against the latest incursion of the datarealm's counter-insurgency programmes.

  This is pure stupidity, you wanted to tell it, but that was the very point; you weren't in the datarealm's permitted list, so therefore your gaining access meant you had to be removed. It was circular logic and, had the ship's makers had any foresight, they would have provided for the unexpected. But perhaps allowing others to take control of their ship wasn't something that they could ever countenance. The Central Asian Republics of Earth weren't, according to the histories, noted for their enlightenment.

  Deep-programmed as you were into your very soul against taking a "life", even that of an obsolete datarealm, you knew you might yet have to overcome that bedrock programming.

  Karl changed the monitor from Isheimur-view to maps, but couldn't find anything on the Mizar system to help with the plan that he and Loki had been hatching ever since the download told him of the planet's warming. Then he realised: if the ship was lost, they probably had no maps of the Mizar system!

  Sighing, he sub-vocalised, Put the view back. It took several attempts, during which other maps appeared. What's going on?

  The datarealm is still trying to retake control, Loki said. Nothing I can't handle. I could get more data on Isheimur's situation if I use the nanoforge to generate a couple of microprobes, and fire them into Isheimur's atmosphere.

  I have a better idea. Karl beckoned Bera from where she was guarding Ragnar's men, who were still in their underclothes. "I have the impression," Karl murmured, "that Thorir was the one who attacked us, and they followed him like sheep."

  "I think so," Bera said. "Maybe they felt some sort of solidarity."

  "Probably," Karl said. "They were cornered animals. Panic reaction – fight or flight. They had nowhere to run, so they had to fight together." If he was wrong, it might cost them all their lives, but he had grown used to backing his judgement on little more than instinct these last few weeks, without the benefit of libraries of data download. "Tell me," Karl said, "do you know what frequencies will get us into the Oracle?"

  "I don't," Bera said. "But Orn might."

  Karl took a deep breath and turned to the others, motioning them to dress. When they had, and sat with varying degrees of caution in the various chairs around the bridge, Karl said, "What do we do with you?" At Ragnar's raised eyebrow, he added, "What would you do, if you were me?"

  "Push us out the airlock," Arnbjorn said. "But you're not us, are you?"

  Karl smiled. "No. I'm not."

  "Why don't you tell us what you want the
ship for?" Arnbjorn said. "Are you going to fly her back to your homeworld?"

  Karl asked a silent question of Loki and after a few seconds, relayed the answer. "We can't. The ship would take a year to reach the nearest fold-point, and it doesn't have a fold-generator, which we need. Nanofacturing one would require that we stuffed the whole ship into the nanoforge just to make the tools needed to make the fold-generator."

  "So what then?" Ragnar said.

  "I need to send a Mayday, but beyond that I've no firm plans. I don't deny that I'd have liked to have flown home."

  Karl, Loki said. You should see this.

  Karl held up his hand to the others. "Give me a moment." Yes?

  I've found the likely vector for the Hangzhou Relay, and sent a Mayday across as many frequencies as possible. I'll alternate that with sending transmissions directly toward likely rescuers. The problem with those systems is that they're much further away.