The Tatja Grimm's World

by Vinge, Vernor

  Hedrigs read straight through Enar Gereu’s new serial. Gereu was a biologist from the Sutherseas. His science was usually strong and this novel was no exception. Like many authors, he assumed the discovery of large metallic deposits on the Continent. Such deposits made possible the construction of huge metal machines—machines powered by the same as-yet-unexplained mechanism that made the sun shine. As far as Svir could tell, this story contained a genuinely original idea—one that he wished he had thought of first. Instead of going directly to Seraph in his metal “ships of space,” Gereu set up way-stations, artificial satellites in orbit about Tu.

  The ultimate landing on Seraph produced deadly peril. Gereu populated the other planet with a race of intelligent animalcules. Svir choked—this fellow was supposed to be a biologist? But on the next few pages the author justified the alien life form in a manner quite as logical and novel as his space-island idea. Svir found himself totally caught up in the story as the human race fought to protect itself from the menace brought home by the explorers. The struggle was one of the most suspenseful he had ever read. Things looked hopeless for humankind … . He turned the last page.

  The dirty bastard! Svir’s feeling of warm anticipation was suddenly shattered. Gereu let the human race fall before the invaders! He suppressed a desire to rip the magazine up into small pieces. The shock was like finding a snake in schnafel pastry. Wasn’t there enough tragedy in the real world? He had seen far too many stories of this type lately. Feeling quite betrayed by Messrs. Ramsey and Gereu, the young astronomer stood up and stomped out of the library. He scarcely noticed the librarian rush forward to secure the abandoned magazine.

  Svir stopped on the deck near his cabin. It was past midday. Far above him the wind whistled through the empty rigging and mastwork. Just two miles away the brown and gray cliffs of Somnai rose abruptly from the ocean, hiding Bayfast from view. Where the surf smashed into the base of Somnai, the coastal plankton formed a glistening green band. In this longitude Seraph hung almost thirty degrees above the horizon, its bluish crescent wraithlike in the daytime sky.

  The scene had no appeal. Svir cupped chin in palm and morosely inspected the pitted guard railing he leaned against. Even in Fantasie there was no escape. Reality could not be ignored: For all practical purposes they had reached Bayfast. He’d heard Kederichi Maccioso was treating with the Port Commander for permission to land. There was some problem about getting pier space, but that would be cleared up, and come this afternoon they would be sailing right past the Regent’s Keep into the Hidden Harbor. And tonight he, Svir Hedrigs, would be risking his life to save some damned collection of old magazines.

  NINE

  Coronadas Ascuasenya had made a careful analysis of the astronomer from Krirsarque: Hedrigs was a wimp, a naive kid who was following his libido straight to destruction. So why was she hung up on him?

  The kid was tall, too skinny to be really good-looking. But he was bright, with an imagination that sparkled as she remembered Rey Guille’s had. And if he lived long enough, he might eventually grow up. She knew he was Betrog Hedrigs’s grandson; that should count for something. Old Betrog was the first to trek across the Continent, and the story of that expedition was a hair-raising thing.

  So Cor watched and waited and wondered how directly she dared interfere. Finally there was no time left. The dope would be dead if she waited another day:

  She found him at the railing just outside his cabin. He didn’t look up till she was at the railing beside him.

  “Hi, Cor.”

  “Hi.” She smiled. They stood for a moment silently, watching the sparkling sea. Then she said, “It’s tonight, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” casually.

  “Svir … don’t go through with this thing.” So much for the subtle approach.

  “Huh?” He looked at her in some confusion. “Why not?”

  “Magazines are things; they are not people. They are not worth dying for. And I think you would die. Crownesse is the most powerful country in the world. When we move into port, we’ll pass Hangman’s Row. They play rough here.”

  “I agreed to do it, Cor. And I owe it to Tatja.” But there was fear on his face.

  She took a deep breath and started over. “You don’t owe her one thing. Tatja Grimm is …” what? Cor stumbled on the question that had haunted her the last five years, the question that had eventually driven Rey Guille from the barge. “You’ve been used. Can’t you understand that? Tatja Grimm is not a very nice person.” The first statement was true; the second was beyond Cor’s knowing.

  Svir scowled. “You can’t expect me to believe that. I’ve watched the crew working with her. She gets more wholehearted cooperation and respect from them than any officer.”

  Cor sighed. “Yes, she is truly popular.” Five years ago Grimm could barely understand Spräk. After the Termiter incident things changed and changed again. Her vision, her invention, her scheming had increased Tarulle wealth more than it had grown in the previous century. “She is so popular, you should guess that she runs everything of importance here. The people you think are boss—Jespen Tarulle, Ked Maccioso, Svektr Ramsey—love and fear her. They’ve benefited by everything she’s done.

  “And she’s at least as talented when it comes to mechanical things. She designed the power trains they use in printing. She invented the special sailing rigs we have on our hydrofoils.”

  Svir looked up sharply at this last claim, and his face reddened. After a moment, he said, “And you? How are you free of this ‘spell’?”

  Another mystery Cor had spent five years trying to understand. When she didn’t answer, Hedrigs’s tone became angrier. “And if she has done all you say, why do you think the plan to save the Fantasie collection will fail?”

  “Before, increasing the wealth of the Barge increased Tatja’s power. Now … now I think she’s run us as far as she can. She’s never before messed with groundside politics. And even if the scheme succeeds, you may not.

  “I … I don’t want you hurt, Svir. Tatja is not precisely evil. But she is beyond my understanding. And I know that if it would further herself, she’d put your life in jeopardy. Besides, I … want you myself.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

  Svir seemed to soften. The things Cor had said became more understandable and more excusable. “I’m sorry, Cor. I didn’t know you felt that way. But you’re wrong. Tatja is wonderful. And I love her.”

  Wimp. “No! Just let me show you. Can you make Ancho broadcast that I’m-not-here signal?”

  “Yeah.” Svir petted the animal sitting on his shoulder. “He’s almost seemed to enjoy things these last couple of days. If he knows that something is expected of him and yet I don’t pull that confidence act, he’ll generally broadcast the I’m-not-here.”

  “Fine. Let’s use him to do eavesdropping. I’ll give you odds five-to-one that Tatja Grimm will be doing something you will find out of character.”

  Svir seemed shocked by her vehemence. He suddenly seemed in search of excuses. “It’s kind of late, you know. She’s probably asleep.”

  “Sleep? She does very little of that.” She caught his arm. “C’mon.” Cor led him fifty yards aft and down a couple of flights. They were well into the day sleep period, and hardly anyone was about. The mast watch could detect any hostiles approaching the vessel, but they were not well placed for observing the deck itself.

  Finally Svir and Cor stood below the balcony of Tatja’s office. This was Cor’s last chance to back down. A terrified chill enveloped her. She had never crossed Tatja before, never really wanted to. Those who had—or who couldn’t accept what Tatja was—were all gone now. None had been killed; most had been left better off than before. Rey Guille had been set up with a cute little vice editor, and left with a groundside publishing career. But those earlier antagonists were never immediate threats to Tatja’s interests.

  Svir cuddled Ancho. “Stay close, Cor.” He climbed one of the pillars, then gave Cor a hand up. Anyo
ne outside Ancho’s range could see them, but it was too late to worry about that; they were committed.

  They crawled to the office window and peeked over the sill. The office was almost as large as the barge library. These last five years, the Tarulle Barge had used a considerable fraction of its new fortune to support Tatja Grimm’s strange hobbies. Walls and racks were piled high with Grimm unintelligibilia: floor plans of the ruins at Alt-Llerenito were draped over copies of the earliest writing found in the Tsanarts. Dozens of boxes held sea floor core samples Grimm had collected from all over the world. Black cloth hooded her daytime/nighttime experiments.

  Tatja sat at her desk, her face in profile. Cor sucked in a breath, and grabbed Hedrigs’s ann. His mouth hung open, but he had the sense to know this was not the time to ask questions.

  This was not the Tatja Grimm known to the world outside. There was the same face, that same red hair. But gone was the shapely body that no doubt had been such an attraction for Svir Hedrigs. Her jacket draped flat across slenderness. For the real Tatja Grimm was pre-menarche; nearly eighteen years old, yet still with the body of a twelve-year-old. Cor guessed there were only three—now four—people on the Barge that knew this secret. The past five years had proved it to be dangerous knowledge.

  Tatja slumped forward, studied a large sheet of paper on her desk. Her face had none of the familiar animation and good nature. Her eyes were wide and staring, and a tear glistened on her cheek.

  Hedrigs petted Ancho, and the two interlopers leaned close to the window. What was she reading that could be so depressing? The paper on her desk was a detailed engineering diagram of—what? Then Cor recognized it as one of the Osterlai plans for a steam-driven turbine. The engine was ingenious and quite workable, but many thousands of ounces of iron were necessary for its construction. Attempts to make boilers of nonmetallic materials had been comical, and occasionally disastrous, failures. Why would an engineering diagram cause someone to cry? Cor could imagine the question rattling around Hedrigs’s brain.

  Tatja looked up suddenly, not at the window, but at the door to her office. Someone was asking admittance. She moved with amazing speed to cover the diagram and compose her features. She did nothing to disguise her figure. Cor realized there were secrets within secrets here.

  The visitor was Brailly Tounse. Their conversation was mostly inaudible. “Your people took fifteen ounces … iron. My iron. Why?”

  “ … needed steel.” Grimm’s expression was haughty.

  Tounse was not put off; in all the years, he was the only one left with active hatred for the mistress of the barge. It didn’t affect his performance—and perhaps that was why he was allowed to stay. “So? I … too. We can’t run the presses without some metals, you …”

  “Tough. We’re … lee of the Somnai now, so it doesn’t matter … return it after we leave Bayfast … need it to rescue … Fantasie collection.”

  This last promise seemed to mollify Tounse somewhat, but he still asked, “ … really think … will go through with it?”

  Tatja laughed, and Tounse’s face went red. Her words were lost to the watchers. Footsteps sounded on the gangway across the next deck up. Another few seconds and they would be in clear view of people beyond Ancho’s range.

  They backed to the edge of the balcony, slid awkwardly down the pillar. Seconds later a trio of crew appeared on the deck above, but by then Svir and Cor had recovered themselves and were casually walking away. Five minutes later they were on the other side of the barge.

  This close to the Somnai, the wind was a tiny thing, but Cor found herself shivering in a film of sweat. She hadn’t realized how frightened she had been. They stopped a few feet from the entrance to Hedrigs’s cabin. Cor looked at him. “Well?”

  Hedrigs was silent, looking at his feet. Then, “I don’t know, Cor. I made a promise. Perhaps if I knew more, what we saw wouldn’t be incriminating. I’m all confused.”

  “When do you have to make up your mind?”

  “Sometime this evening. I’m going to have a final briefing before lunch in the night wake period. I don’t know how long after that I’d be leaving.”

  “Don’t go; at least think about what I said and what we saw.” She looked at him. “Please.”

  Svir laughed harshly. “That’s one thing you can be absolutely sure of.”

  She touched his hand briefly, then turned and walked away. She had done what she could. And somehow, for the first time in five years, she felt that Tatja Grimm. had been outmaneuvered.

  Svir didn’t get much sleep that afternoon. He lay on his bunk in the shuttered cabin and stared into the darkness. What was Tatja Grimm? To him she had been a miraculous discovery, an escape from loneliness. And until now he had never doubted her sincerity. To the crew she was an immensely popular leader, one who could solve any problem. To the top officers on the barge she could be a tyrant, a bitch-goddess. Where did that leave the Tatja Grimm who sat silently, crying over an engineering diagram?

  In any case, Tatja was not what he had imagined. And that revelation put the present situation in a new light.

  Though it was past sunset, he didn’t go down for breakfast. For one thing, crew came around and asked him to move to another cabin—something about painting the first one. Afterwards, he paced tensely back and forth in the new cabin. On the bed, Ancho chirped and croaked in misery.

  Rescuing the Fantasie collection was an important project, but, as Cor said, not one worth dying for. Only now did he realize how weirdly he had been influenced by Tatja. Svir had agreed to do a job, but the promise had been extracted by means of fraud. What else was on Grimm’s agenda? If he went through with the plan, Svir Hedrigs would probably die tonight. And that death would not be the adventurous, romantic death of a hero, but an empty, final thing. Just thinking about it gave him the chills. How close he had come to sacrificing himself for … nothing. If it hadn’t been for Cor he would have, too. She was as true as Tatja was false.

  He would turn Tatja down—the most she could get him for was his passage. She would have to find another sucker and another dorfox. He would see the Doomsday astronomer and get that situation cleared up. And, and he would see Cor again, and ask her to come back to the Chainpearls with him.

  Svir fed the dorfox, then went down to the main chow hall. He didn’t see Cor. That was unusual, but not surprising. They were still working extra shifts. He would see her later in the evening, after he confronted Tatja. Now that the decision was made he felt so relieved, anxious only to be done with telling Grimm of it. He walked quickly up the steps to the briefing room, trying to imagine what Tatja might do when he told her he wasn’t going to help her.

  The barge was entering Bayfast Harbor now. That entrance was a narrow gorge cutting through the Somnai cliffs. Seraph was nearly full, and its brilliant blue light transformed the normally brown cliffs into shimmery curtains of stone. Svir had to crane his neck to see the top, where the Bayfast naval guns were mounted, pointing down at him. The Tarulle Barge was almost half as wide as the entrance.

  His stride broke as he noticed a landing boat pulling away from the barge. That girl with the helmet of short black hair—she looked like Coronadas Ascuasenya. He rushed to the terrace rail. She was a hundred yards away and not facing him, but he was almost sure it was Cor. On her lap she carried a small suitcase. What was going on? He ran along the rail, shouting her name. But the wind, channeled by the gorge, threw back his words. The boat rounded the curve of the gorge, disappeared. Perhaps it wasn’t Cor after all. But the old Fantasie motto came to mind: “Things are not as they seem.”

  His mood was considerably subdued by the time he reached the executive deck. He confronted one of Tatja’s secretaries and was ushered into the briefing room.

  Tatja smiled faintly as Svir advanced on her. “Have a seat, Svir. Ready to begin the briefing?”

  Svir didn’t accept the proffered chair. He stood awkwardly before the table. Tatja’s physical presence made him suddenly ashamed. Af
ter all, he had given her a promise. And his spying had revealed nothing overtly evil. “Tatja—Miss Grimm, I’ve been thinking, uh, about this … project. I know it’s important to you—to everyone here. But I, uh, I don’t think that I’m the right, uh …”

  Tatja picked a crystal letter opener from her desk. She flashed him a broad smile. “To make a long story short, you’ve decided you would rather not go through with it. You’re willing to pay for your passage, but you feel no obligation to risk your neck on this scheme. Is that what you are trying to say?”

  “Why, yes,” Svir said, relieved. “I’m glad you see my point of view.”

  Tatja didn’t say anything. She inspected the letter opener, tossed it into the air in a glittering whirl, and caught it just before it would have struck the table. A strange gurgly sound came from behind her lips. Svir realized she was laughing.

  “You know, Hedrigs, you are the most gullible person I ever met. Correction: the second most gullible. You’re a provincial, overgrown adolescent, and how you thought you could fool anyone into thinking you had ever been off the Islands is beyond me. I need that dorfox. Did you think our encounter on Krirsarque was an accident? I’ve been studying those animals a long time. If I had you killed, I’m certain I could become Ancho’s new master. Only my … high moral character prevents me from taking that course.”

  She smiled again. It was almost a sneer, revealing a hostility that seemed to transcend the subject at hand. “If I had known Ascuasenya could be such a nuisance, I would have kept her out of your way. Yes, I know of your activities this afternoon; no one gets on that balcony unnoticed. No matter. For my plans to succeed I now need some new form of leverage. Poor little Ascuasenya is perfect for my purposes.”