The Tatja Grimm's World

by Vinge, Vernor

  She tried to remember Tatja as she had been in her first days on the barge, when she hung on Cor’s every word, and her gratitude had been an obvious thing. Over the years, there had been occasional flickers of that, times when she was a confidante, almost a big sister … and not a pet. Was there anything left of that? When Cor finally spoke, the effect was strange—like listening to someone else talking or remembering a previous conversation.

  “Tatja, you remember our talk yesterday morning at the watering stop?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cor didn’t lose stride. “We said the possibility that perhaps Jolle was lying, that Profirio was the gendarme, and Jolle the criminal.”

  “Yes, I remember all that.” Tatja’s tone was good humored, if a bit distracted.

  “You said that we must wait and watch. Well, Svir and I … uh … we thought that the situation was so dangerous maybe more could be done. If Jolle were the evil one, maybe he lied about what he salvaged from his fight with Profirio. In fact, if these golems are so popular and if Jolle was the one who … uh … slaughters humans, then he might even have one with him.” There could be no more evasion. If she didn’t say it now, Grimm would get ahead of her.

  “Tatja, this is exactly what we discovered. Jolle is the criminal. He has a golem with …”

  “You were the one in the wagon.”

  “We had to, Tatja! Jolle is the slaver. His golem can even talk, and no machine—”

  “You peeping bitch, I’ll teach—” In the darkness Cor had no warning. The lower right side of her face went numb and splinters of pain spread through her head. Simultaneously Tatja’s other fist buried itself in her middle. The nylon webbing of Cor’s shrap vest could not protect her from the ramming force of the blow. It bowled her over the edge of the terrace and she tumbled down the slope. Ancho went flying off into space.

  There was the sound of a body block, and Svir’s voice, “Don’t hit her again! It was me, me! I’m the peeper.” Cor’s head struck a rock, and for a moment all she knew was tiny yellow lights floating lazily before her eyes. She was lying at the base of the terrace slope; Tatja and Svir were scrambling toward her. She coughed back blood and felt the beginnings of triumph. Tatja had used nothing but her fists—and those ineptly. If they could survive just a few more seconds, Tatja would cool off, and Cor might really have a chance to convince her.

  From behind her, Cor heard men moving through the darkness. One of them was running. Running? In this dark? The footsteps stopped. Strong hands lifted Cor to her feet, and a calm voice sounded in her ear. “Say friend, what’s the problem?” It was Jolle.

  TWENTY-ONE

  To Svir’s amazement, they both still lived. He looked around dazedly. But for how long? This was Jolle’s territory:

  Though the bunker had been hastily and crudely constructed, it was an effective job. The Crown’s Engineers had used a cleft in the terracing. It had been a simple matter to fill the open end with dirt-packed bags and to construct a roof of timber covered with three or four feet of dirt. The occupants of the bunker could survive all but a direct hit from a six-inch shell. Since the enemy was supposed to be without six-inch guns, the bunker should be safe unless it was overrun. There was no real floor to the room, just the curving rocky surface of the cleft. Despite the primitive aspect of the chamber, it was obviously a command post. A field table had been set in the middle of the chamber, and on it were detailed maps and overlays of the area. From the roof over the table hung a peculiar lamp that looked very much like the algae pots used in Crownesse and on the Islands. Its cool blue radiance lit the maps and the men standing around them. Underofficers moved back and forth through a curtained doorway. They were bringing information that was immediately posted on the overlays. Runners occasionally departed through the tunnel to the outside.

  Svir felt distant amusement to see that even here, his curiosity was alive: The strange light, for instance. Algae pots were terribly hard to keep alive this far from resupply. Why not use an oil lamp? At night no smoke would be visible to give away their location.

  Cor huddled against him, looking even more dazed than he. She had taken the brunt of Tatja’s rage. Svir had wiped the blood from her face, but there was a great bruise growing across her jaw. Ancho hung solicitously at her shoulder. No doubt his attention was both comforting and painful.

  Cor looked at him, her eyes wide. “Have you seen her … or him?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Neither. I … I thought Jolle would kill us when he found us with Tatja like that. But he calmed her down, and had yon carried here. I don’t know what he’s planning, but—”

  At that moment the subject of their conversation pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room. In the dim light, Jolle’s face was shadowed. His black hair glinted metallically. He nodded casually at them and walked to the map table. There they could see his features more clearly. He seemed relaxed—as Tatja did in such situations. His uniform looked freshly pressed. To him, the officers at the table might have been discussing party plans.

  Jolle addressed Imar Stark. “We just received a signal from Marget; she is at her command post. Our position is to be the prime command post unless it be knocked out by enemy action. As she mentioned before in your presence, she has delegated immediate command of all operations to me. You may check this reading of her message with your own signalman.” He nodded at the curtain.

  Stark nodded stiffly. He obviously had no love for the situation, but the queen had been explicit, and besides, this bearded provincial hadn’t tried to control the minutiae of operations with the same prickliness that Marget often did.

  Jolle continued. “I am putting the militia under you. My generals have already agreed to that, since you are my subordinate in this matter. If our scouts are to be believed—and I suspect some of the signal reports are fakes—the enemy is in position below us. I am saving my artillery until they mass for an assault. When that happens, we’ll use the plan discussed before.” He glanced at the map. “Good. I didn’t know the Celestial Servants were in position. General Stark, we can expect engagement at any moment.”

  “Yes, sir.” The old military man didn’t salute, but his voice was respectful. The alien turned, and then walked to the curtain. As if by afterthought, he glanced at Svir. “I’d like to talk with you for a moment, please.” His words were mild, but they brought a chill to Svir’s spine. Where Tatja had raged, this creature calculated. If he wished them death, then he and Cor would die.

  Jolle appeared to mistake the reason for Svir’s immobility. “Miss Ascuasenya is welcome to come, if she feels up to it.” He gestured beyond the curtain.

  Svir stood, felt Cor’s hand tight in his. She came to her feet, and looked into Svir’s eyes. “It will be together,” she said softly.

  Beyond the curtain it was completely dark. No light escaped from the map room, even as they moved past the curtain. The cloth was thick and layered double to prevent leaks. They felt their way to a wooden bench, and sat. There was a long silence. The wall beside him was made of dirtpacked bags. He realized there were slit windows at about chest level. The wall was so thick that he couldn’t see the sky. There was only a gray glow and a faint breeze to indicate the night outside. Jolle stood by the windows for a moment and said nothing. From breathing sounds, Svir realized there was at least one other person in the cool darkness, probably behind Cor. He listened carefully, but all he heard now was a fatbat cooing in the distance. At these altitudes even insects were rare and the night silence was profound. The sounds of people talking could be heard for miles, unless precautions were taken. It was suddenly clear why Tatja’s meeting with the Doomsdaymen had been held a thousand feet higher up and in the midst of wagon noises.

  Finally Jolle spoke—or rather whispered, “Take a break, Captain. I can record any messages incoming.” The fourth occupant of the room could be heard standing and walking past the curtain. Then Jolle spoke to Cor and Svir. “We’re set. Things are going to rip ap
art in fifteen minutes unless he anticipates me. I may not have another chance to talk with you before tomorrow—and I want to get this over with before we arrive at O’rmouth.”

  A cornered animal can only act aggressively, and Svir certainly felt cornered. He hissed back, “That’s assuming you win the battle tonight, you bastard.” Why didn’t the monster make his move?

  “Hey, not so loud,” Jolle answered quietly. “Part of the reason for this pause is that both sides are making a sound recon. I don’t want to get bombed out of my own command post. No. Don’t start screaming until I finish my story. Okay?”

  Svir felt Cor tense beside him. Apparently she had had the same thought. He closed his mouth, and wondered whether Jolle had seen him preparing to shout or had just concluded that he was likely to try. He might as well forget the idea. Jolle could probably kill him before he could yell.

  Jolle continued. “There is no chance we will lose this engagement. We have the high ground, we have the art’ry, and we have some acclimated troops. But this is not the final showdown that our forces think it is. Unless we are lucky, the one called Profirio will survive. This battle is merely an intermediate step, and tomorrow, after our victory, we must move on to the next. That is where I need you.”

  Cor’s words came awkwardly from her injured mouth, but the emotion was clear: “I’ll bet it pleases you to pull off the wings of batlets, too. Why don’t you finish it? We know you—slaver!”

  “You two have jumped to some easy but false conclusions. Have you ever considered that I might have brought you here to kick some sense into your heads?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “This is really my fault, I suppose. I should have picked you up right after you went through my wagon. Yes, I knew Svir was the burglar. But we were very busy, and I hadn’t counted on Marget reacting as violently as she did to your revelation. You’ll have to forgive her; she’s—uh—a little unbalanced right now. Even I didn’t realize how heavily she’s fallen for me.

  “But that’s passed. I want you back on my side and I have only minutes. What do you think you saw in my wagon this afternoon, Svir?”

  They weren’t to be killed! At least not yet. Svir straightened. “Well, I saw a golem, and it talked with a human voice. So Profirio must be the policeman and you the monster.”

  The alien sighed. “If only your technology were fifty years more advanced. If only you had more iron on this world. Svir, what you saw was a machine, not too much better than what your own people can make nowadays. It can think only in the most primitive ways. It displayed abilities that made it seem alive to you—but actually it performed only a few simple tricks. If that box had really been humanly intelligent, do you think it would have let you into the wagon? And consider the means it used to lock and unlock the wagon doors. That was a simple—uh—damn, you have no word for it. Call it an optional magnet. If you knew anything about—” again he seemed to search for words “—current changes, you would see the trick was elementary. Someday I’m going to find out how you people come to have such a good theory of chemistry without knowing about … After all you have the valence concept …” He was silent for a moment, as if considering some puzzle.

  “And as for the voice you heard calling for my help, that was as mindless as the trip alarms you have in your homes. They make a screaming wail without words. My little box has an alarm that is just a group of words that are repeated endlessly and without consciousness. Look, you already have machines that can record pictures. Why not sound?”

  Tiny doubts had been sown by this speech. When he thought back on it, Svir realized that the “golem” had shown no adaptive behavior. Perhaps it was just a mechanical alarm. Now he saw why the alien had insisted on using magic to explain his science. What would sophisticated machines be like if this sentry device were considered primitive? Yet Svir was not convinced. Perhaps both Profirio and Jolle were devils and this was all a little game where none of the gods were killed and the locals provided the blood. Everything could be a lie. His mind grasped wildly for some working assumption: the only useful one was to believe the story of monster and gendarme. Until he and Cor could make some decision as to which was which, they should appear to cooperate with the alien.

  He was just opening his mouth when Cor said, “I think you’ve convinced us that we can’t be convinced of anything. So what do you want from us?”

  “I guess that is all I could hope for. As to your cooperation, I—Listen.” Across the night, the sounds came unnaturally clear: voices, occasional screams. The sounds were so precise and yet so faint. They reminded Svir of a miniature painting seen under a glass—small and yet filled with complicated details.

  The nylon curtain moved, and someone entered the room. “Sir, we have action at Backtrack Five. We believe more enemy troops are moving into that area.”

  “Very well, Stark, you may initiate Olive Bat. And send the signal officer in here.”

  “Right.” As the chief of staff left for the map room, Cor struggled to her feet. For a moment she sagged against him, but she wouldn’t sit back down. He helped her to the sand-bagged wall, where she leaned against the damp bags and looked out the slits. On the other side of his wife he could hear the signalman taking his position.

  The window slits were cunningly constructed to protect against a wide range of art’ry bursts and still allow good visibility. Except for a scattering of stars in the narrow strip of visible sky, there was no light.

  “There’s nothing to see yet,” commented Jolle. “And if we’re lucky, the actual fighting will stay below our line of sight.”

  Svir noticed the flickering light of first one signaler and then another. “The third, fourth, and seventh art’ry batteries acknowledge our command,” said the signalman.

  Jolle spoke to Svir and Cor. “See, that first flicker was the command from this post. We can’t afford to give away our position—in case Pröfe has a suicide squad or a couple of art’ry pieces—so we use runners to take messages from the map room to our signaler. That’s about a hundred yards down the hill from here. Then the command is flashed to our units.” The explanation had been purely for their own edification, Svir realized.

  Then came the crump of a single art’ry piece firing. Seconds passed, and suddenly there was green daylight over the valley. Back in Bayfast Svir had seen art’ry flares fired over the inland cliffs during maneuvers, and this was much the same. The light moved slowly, dimming and then glowing brightly. But this was not Bayfast. Here the mountains extended thousands of feet above the top of the flare’s arc. The otherworldly green light illuminated the sides of the gorgelike valley, and in a distortion of perspective the light seemed a tiny green match flickering in a darkened room, casting shadows upon the walls and floor. It was nearly as bright as quarter-phase Seraph, and he wasted several seconds watching the shadows slowly shift as the flare drifted across the sky. But even the flare couldn’t reveal the extent of the mountains that shouldered over it. To those hulks it was indeed a tiny match flame. As the light dimmed for the last time, Svir looked at the ground below. The terraced fields stretched down a slope of nearly thirty degrees for a distance of some two thousand feet. Beyond that he could see the road that led from the Picchiu River. The road stretched transversely across the face of the slope. Beyond it, the ground dipped out of sight. Except for the flare moving across the sky and the sounds of battle below, there was no sign of human activity.

  The flare dimmed, winked out. All was dark again; Svir couldn’t even see the stars now. Signal lamps flickered as the crown’s observers reported on enemy positions they had sighted. He judged that most of the signalers were near the edge of the drop-off. In the bunker, the signal officer was scratching away. He spoke to Jolle. “Sir, they say—”

  “Never mind, Captain. Just take it into the map room. The men who are going to use this information already have it.” As he spoke, the men he referred to took action. In a space of fifteen seconds, the art’ry pieces of the combined crown and provincial fo
rces fired. It was no longer necessary to whisper. Though the firing was a couple of thousand feet away, the racket was loud enough to cover most other noises. As the barrage continued, Svir noticed pale lights flickering in the darkness below their position. Even with flashless powder, the guns emitted a pearly, oval radiance when they fired. It was probably invisible from below the guns’ positions, but the command bunker was in line of sight with most of them. They must be well camouflaged; when the flare had shined, he had looked at the road and seen no sign of them. “He’s way ahead of the reports,” Jolle said mildly.

  A second flare went up. This time there was more to see. At the edge of the drop-off, several hundred Rebels were in contact with friendly forces. It was impossible for Svir to tell whether the loyal forces were Provincial, crown, or Celestial Servants. Even after the barrage, the noise of their fighting was loud—they were within fifteen hundred feet of the command post itself, though still considerably below it. He realized that even with the flares, the art’ry wasn’t very effective. The flares had pinpointed the enemy, but only after they were almost on top of the guns. In daylight, the enemy could have been destroyed while still several miles away, but now the friendly troops had to fight just to protect their guns.

  That defense was not entirely successful. There was an earpopping concussion, and the floor of the bunker rapped their feet. At same time, a minor avalanche of dirt sifted down through the timbered roof, and fine dust filled the air. Svir and Cor held onto each other, coughing in the smoke-like dust. Ancho cringed at Cor’s feet. As the floor steadied, she bent down and picked him up, trying to brush the dust from his coat. Svir could feel heavy dirt in his hair and down his neck; the dust stuck to his skin everywhere.

  “Damn,” spoke Jolle. “They’ve captured one of our own guns. Unless—” In the green flarelight, Svir saw him pick up a pair of binoculars and inspected the terrain before them. He didn’t look at the fighting men moving toward them, but concentrated on the lip of the drop-off, further away. The flare burned out, but he kept watching. The FAO lights flickered back to the art’ry and command positions.