by Vernor Vinge
A combat whistle sounded, and the mob parted. A trooper raced through and sprayed liquid fire. The flying house looked like meat on a griddle, flame and smoke coming up all around it.
Wickwrackrum swore to himself. Good-bye alien.
The wrecked and wounded were low on the Flenserist priority list. Seriously wounded were piled onto travoises and pulled far enough away so their cries would not cause confusion. Cleanup squads bullied the trooper fragments away from the flying house. The frags wandered the hummocky meadow; here and there they coelesced into ad hoc packs. Some drifted among the wounded, ignoring the screams in their need to find themselves.
When the tumult was quieted, three packs of whitejackets appeared. The Servants of the Flenser walked under the flying house. One was out of sight for a long while; perhaps it even got inside. The charred bodies of two alien members were carefully placed on travoises—more carefully than the wounded troopers had been—and hauled off.
Jaqueramaphan scanned the ruins with his eye-tool. He had given up trying to hide it from Peregrine. A whitejackets carried something down from the flying house. “Sst! There are other dead ones. Maybe from the fire. They look like pups.” The small figures had the mantis form. They were strapped into travoises, and hauled out of sight over the hill’s edge. No doubt they had kherhog-drawn carts down there.
The Flenserists set a sentry ring around the landing site. Dozens of fresh troopers stood on the hillside beyond it. No one was going to sneak past that.
“So it’s total murder.” Peregrine sighed.
“Maybe not… The first member they shot, I don’t think it’s quite dead.”
Wickwrackrum squinted his best eyes. Either Scriber was a wishful thinker, or his tool gave him amazingly sharp sight. The first one hit had been on the other side of the craft. The member had stopped thinking, but that wasn’t a sure sign of death. There was a whitejackets standing around it now. The whitejackets put the creature onto a travois and began pulling it away from the landing site, towards the southwest … not quite the same path that the others had taken.
“The thing is still alive! It’s got an arrow in the chest, but I can see it breathing.” Scriber’s heads turned toward Wickwrackrum. “I think we should rescue it.”
For a moment Peregrine couldn’t think of anything to say; he just gaped at the other. The center of Flenser’s worldwide cabal was just a few miles to the northwest. Flenserist power was undisputed for dozens of miles inland, and right now they were virtually surrounded by an army. Scriber wilted a little before Peregrine’s astonishment, but it was clear he was not joking. “Sure, I know it’s risky. But that’s what life is all about, right? You’re a pilgrim. You understand.”
“Hmf.” That was the pilgrim reputation, all right. But no soul can survive total death—and there were plenty of opportunities for such annihilation on a pilgrimage. Pilgrims do know caution.
And yet, and yet this was the most marvelous encounter in all his centuries of pilgrimage. To know these aliens, to become them … it was a temptation that surpassed all good sense.
“Look,” said Scriber, “we could just go down and mingle with the wounded. If we can make it across the field, we might get a look at that last alien member, without risking too much.” Jaqueramaphan was already backing down from his observation point, and circling around to find a path that wouldn’t put him in silhouette. Wickwrackrum was torn; part of him got up to follow and part of him hesitated. Hell, Jaqueramaphan had admitted to being a spy; he carried an invention that was probably straight from the Long Lakes sharpest intelligence people. The guy had to be a pro…
Peregrine took a quick look around their side of the hill and across the valley. No sign of Tyrathect or anyone else. He crawled out of his various hidey holes and followed the spy.
As much as possible, they stayed in the deep shadows cast by the northering sun, and slipped from hummock to hummock where there was no shade. Just before they got to the first of the wounded, Scriber said something more, the scariest words of the afternoon. “Hey, don’t worry. I’ve read all about doing this sort of thing!”
A mob of frags and wounded is a terrifying, mind-numbing thing. Singletons, duos, trios, a few quads: they wandered aimlessly, keening without control. In most situations, this many people packed together on just a few acres would have been an instant choir. In fact, he did notice some sexual activity and some organized browsing, but for the most part there was still too much pain for normal reactions. Wickwrackrum wondered briefly if—for all their talk of rationalism—the Flenserists would just leave the wreckage of their troops to reassemble itself. They’d have some strange and crippled repacks if they did.
A few yards into the mob and Peregrine Wickwrackrum could feel consciousness slipping from him. If he concentrated really hard, he could remember who he was and that he must get to the other side of the meadow without attracting attention.
Other thoughts, loud and unguarded, pummeled him:
… Blood lust and slashing …
Glittering metal in the alien’s hand … the pain in her chest … coughing blood, falling …
… Boot camp and before, my merge brother was so good to me … Lord Steel said that we are a grand experiment…
Running across the heather toward the stick-limbed monster. Leap, tines in paw. Slash the monster’s throat. Blood spouts high.
… Where am I? … May I be part of you … please?
Peregrine whirled at that last question. It was pointed and near. A singleton was sniffing at him. He screeched the fragment off, and ran into an open space. Up ahead, Jaque-what’s-his-name was scarcely better off. There was little chance they would be spotted here, but he was beginning to wonder if he could make it through. Peregrine was only four and there were singletons everywhere. On his right a quad was raping, grabbing at whatever duos and singles happened by. Wic and Kwk and Rac and Rum tried to remember just why they was here and where they was going. Concentrate on direct sensation; what is really here: the sooty smell of the flamer’s liquid fire … the midges swarming everywhere, clotting the puddles of blood all black.
An awfully long time passed. Minutes.
Wic-Kwk-Rac-Rum looked ahead. He was almost out of it; the south edge of the wreckage. He dragged himself to a patch of clean ground. Parts of him vomited, and he collapsed. Sanity slowly returned. Wickwrackrum looked up, saw Jaqueramaphan just inside the mob. Scriber was a big fellow, a sixsome, but he was having at least as bad a time as Peregrine. He staggered from side to side, eyes wide, snapping at himself and others.
Well, they had made it a good way across the meadow, and fast enough to catch up with the whitejackets who was pulling the last alien member. If they wanted to see anything more, they’d have to figure how to leave the mob without attracting attention. Hmm. There were plenty of Flenserist uniforms around … without living owners. Peregrine walked two of himself over to where a dead trooper lay.
“Jaqueramaphan! Here!” The great spy looked in his direction, and a glint of intelligence returned to his eyes. He stumbled out of the mob and sat down a few yards from Wickwrackrum. It was far nearer than would normally be comfortable, but after what they’d been through, it seemed barely close. He lay for a moment, gasping. “Sorry, I never guessed it would be like that. I lost part of me back there … never thought I’d get her back.”
Peregrine watched the progress of the whitejackets and its travois. It wasn’t going with the others; in a few seconds it would be out of sight. With a disguise, maybe they could follow and—no, it was just too risky. He was beginning to think like the great spy. Peregrine pulled a camouflage jacket off a corpse. They would still need disguises. Maybe they could hang around here through the night, and get a closer look at the flying house.
After a moment, Scriber saw what he was doing, and began gathering jackets for himself. They slunk between the piled bodies, looking for gear that wasn’t too stained and that Jaqueramaphan thought had consistent insignia. There were plen
ty of paw claws and battle axes around. They’d end up armed to the teeth, but they’d have to dump some of their backpacks… One more jacket was all he needed, but his Rum was so broad in the shoulders that nothing fit.
Peregrine didn’t really understand what happened till later: a large fragment, a threesome, was lying doggo in the pile of dead. Perhaps it was grieving, long after its member’s dying dirge; in any case, it was almost totally thoughtless until Peregrine began pulling the jacket off its dead member. Then, “You’ll not rob from mine!” He heard the buzz of nearby rage, and then there was slashing pain across his Rum’s gut. Peregrine writhed in agony, leaped upon the attacker. For a moment of mindless rage, they fought. Peregrine’s battle axes slashed again and again, covering his muzzles with blood. When he came to his senses one of the three was dead, the others running into the mob of wounded.
Wickwrackrum huddled around the pain in his Rum. The attacker had been wearing tines. Rum was slashed from ribs to crotch. Wickwrackrum stumbled; some of his paws were caught in his own guts. He tried to nose the ruins back into his member’s abdomen. The pain was fading, the sky in Rum’s eyes slowly darkening. Peregrine stifled the screams he felt climbing within him. I’m only four, and one of me is dying! For years he’d been warning himself that four was just too small a number for a pilgrim. Now he’d pay the price, trapped and mindless in a land of tyrants.
For a moment, the pain eased and his thoughts were clear. The fight hadn’t really caused much notice amid the dirges, rapes, and simple attacks of madness. Wickwrackrum’s fight had only been a little bigger and bloodier than usual. The whitejackets by the flying house had looked briefly in their direction, but were now back to tearing open the alien cargo.
Scriber was sitting nearby, watching in horror. Part of him would move a little closer, then pull back. He was fighting with himself, trying to decide whether to help. Peregrine almost pleaded with him, but the effort was too great. Besides, Scriber was no pilgrim. Giving part of himself was not something Jaqueramaphan could do voluntarily…
Memories came flooding now, Rum’s efforts to sort things out and let the rest of him know all that had been before. For a moment, he was sailing a twinhull across the South Sea, a newby with Rum as a pup; memories of the island person who had born Rum, and of packs before that. Once around the world they had traveled, surviving the slums of a tropic collective, and the war of the Plains Herds. Ah, the stories they had heard, the tricks they had learned, the people they had met… Wic Kwk Rac Rum had been a terrific combination, clear-thinking, lighthearted, with a strange ability to keep all the memories in place; that had been the real reason he had gone so long without growing to five or six. Now he would pay perhaps the greatest price of all…
Rum sighed, and could not see the sky anymore. Wickwrackrum’s mind went, not as it does in the heat of battle when the sound of thought is lost, not as it does in the companionable murmur of sleep. There was suddenly no fourth presence, just the three, trying to make a person. The trio stood and patted nervously at itself. There was danger everywhere, but beyond its understanding. It sidled hopefully toward a sixsome sitting nearby—Jaqueramaphan?—but the other shooed it away. It looked nervously at the mob of wounded. There was completeness there … and madness too.
A huge male with deeply scarred haunches sat at the edge of the mob. It caught the threesome’s eye, and slowly crawled across the open space toward them. Wic and Kwk and Rac back away, their pelts puffing up in fright and fascination; the scarred one was at least half again the weight of any of them.
… Where am I? … May I be part of you … please? Its keening carried memories, jumbled and mostly inaccessible, of blood and fighting, of military training before that. Somehow, the creature was as frightened of those early memories as of anything. It lay its muzzle—caked with dried blood—on the ground and belly crawled toward them. The other three almost ran; random coupling was something that scared all of them. They backed and backed, out onto the clear meadow. The other followed, but slowly, still crawling. Kwk licked her lips and walked back towards the stranger. She extended her neck and sniffed along the other’s throat. Wic and Rac approached from the sides.
For an instant there was a partial join. Sweaty, bloody, wounded—a melding made in hell. The thought seemed to come from nowhere, glowed in the four for a moment of cynical humor. Then the unity was lost, and they were just three animals licking the face of a fourth.
Peregrine looked around the meadow with new eyes. He had been disintegrate for just a few minutes: The wounded from the Tenth Attack Infantry were just as before. Flenser’s Servants were still busy with the alien cargo. Jaqueramaphan was slowly backing away, his expression a compound of wonder and horror. Peregrine lowered a head and hissed at him, “I won’t betray you, Scriber.”
The spy froze. “That you, Peregrine?”
“More or less.” Peregrine still, but Wickwrackrum no more.
“H-how can you do it? Y-you just lost…”
“I’m a pilgrim, remember? We live with this sort of thing all our lives.” There was sarcasm in his voice; this was more or less the cliché Jaqueramaphan had been spouting earlier. But there was some truth to it. Already Peregrine Wickwrack…scar felt like a person. Maybe this new combination had a chance.
“Uk. Well, yes… What should we do now?” The spy looked nervously in all directions, but his eyes on Peregrine were the most worried of all.
Now it was Wickwrackscar’s turn to be puzzled. What was he doing here? Killing the strange enemy… No. That’s what the Attack Infantry was doing. He would have nothing to do with that, no matter what the scarred one’s memories. He and Scriber had come here to … to rescue the alien, as much of it as possible. Peregrine grabbed hold of the memory and held it uncritically; it was something real, from the past identity he must preserve. He glanced towards where he had last seen the alien member. The whitejackets and his travois were no longer visible, but he’d been heading along an obvious path.
“We can still get ourselves the live one,” he said to Jaqueramaphan.
Scriber stamped and sidled. He was not quite the enthusiast of before. “After you, my friend.”
Wickwrackscar straightened his combat jackets and brushed some of the dried blood off. Then he strutted off across the meadow, passing just a hundred yards from the Flenser’s Servants around the enemy—around the flying house. He flipped them a sharp salute, which was ignored. Jaqueramaphan followed, carrying two crossbows. The other was doing his best to imitate Peregrine’s strut, but he really didn’t have the right stuff.
Then they were past the military crest of the hill and descending into shadows. The sounds of the wounded were muted. Wickwrackscar broke into double time, loping from switchback to switchback as he descended the rough path. From here he could see the harbor; the boats were still at the piers, and there wasn’t much activity. Behind him, Scriber was talking nervous nonsense. Peregrine just ran faster, his confidence fueled by general newby confusion. His new member, the scarred one, had been the muscle behind an infantry officer. That pack had known the layout of the harbors and the castle, and all the passwords of the day.
Two more switchbacks and they overran the Flenser Servant and his travois. “Hallo!” shouted Peregrine. “We bring new instructions from Lord Steel.” A chill went down his spines at the name, remembering Steel for the first time. The Servant dropped the travois and turned to face them. Wickwrackscar didn’t know his name, but he remembered the guy: fairly high-ranking, an arrogant get-of-bitches. It was a surprise to see him pulling the travois himself.
Peregrine stopped only twenty yards from the whitejackets. Jaqueramaphan was looking down from the switchback above; his bows were out of sight. The Servant looked nervously at Peregrine and up at Scriber.
“What do you two want?”
Did he suspect them already? No matter. Wickwrackscar braced himself for a killing charge … and suddenly he was seeing in fours, his mind blurred with newby dizziness. No
w that he needed to kill, the scarred one’s horror of the act undid him. Damn! Wickwrackscar cast wildly about for something to say. And now that murder was out of his mind, his new memories came easily: “Lord Steel’s will, that the creature be brought with us to the harbor. You, ah, you are to return to the invader’s flying thing.”
The whitejackets licked his lips. His eyes swept sharply across Peregrine’s uniforms, and Scriber’s. “Impostors!” he screamed, at the same instant lunging one of his members toward the travois. Metal glinted in the member’s forepaw. He’s going to kill the alien!
There was a bow snap from above, and the runner fell, a shaft through its eye. Wickwrackscar charged the others, forcing his scarbacked member out front. There was an instant of dizziness and then he was whole again, screaming death at the four. The two packs crashed together, Scar carrying a couple of the Servant’s members over the edge of the path. Arrows hummed around them. Wic Kwk Rac twisted, slashing axes at whatever remained standing.
Then things were quiet, and Peregrine had his thoughts again. Three of the Servant’s members twitched on the path, the earth around them slick with blood. He pushed them off the path, near where his Scar had killed the others. Not one of the Servant had survived; it was total death, and he was responsible. He sagged to the ground, seeing in fours again.
“The alien. It’s still alive,” said Scriber. He was standing around the travois, sniffing at the mantis-like body. “Not conscious though.” He grabbed the travois poles in his jaws and looked at Peregrine. “What … what now, Pilgrim?”