by Vernor Vinge
Pilgrim cocked a head or two at the nearby hospital plots. “Something strange is going on. Can’t quite ‘put my finger on it’, but … all the fragments are watching you. Even more than usual. Do you feel it?”
Johanna shrugged. “No.” She knelt to set the water and stew bowls before the twosome patient. The pair had been vibrating with eagerness, though they had been quite polite in not interrupting. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the hospital guard make a strange dipping motion with its two middle heads, and—
The blows were like two great fists smashing into her chest and face. Johanna fell to the ground, and they were on her. She raised bloody arms against the slashing jaws and claws.
When Chitiratte gave the signal, both of Kratzi leaped into action—crashing into each other, almost incidentally knocking the mantis on her back. Their claws and teeth were tearing at empty air and each other as much as the Two-legs. For an instant, Chitiratte was struck motionless with surprise. She might not be dead. Then he remembered himself and jumped over the fence, at the same time cocking and loading his bow. Maybe he could miss the first shot. Kratzi was shredding the mantis, but slow—
Suddenly, there was no possibility of shooting the twosome. A wave of snarling black and white surged over Kratzi and the mantis. Every able-bodied fragment in the hospital seemed to be running to the attack. It was instant killing rage, far wilder than anything that could come from whole packs. Chitiratte fell back in astonishment before the sight and the mindsound of it.
Even the pilgrim seemed caught up in it; the pack raced past Chitiratte and circled the melee. The pilgrim never quite plunged in, but nipped here and there, screaming words that were lost in the general uproar.
A splash of coordinated mindsound boomed out from the mob, so loud it numbed Chitiratte twenty yards away. The mob seemed to shrink in on itself, the frenzy gone from most of its members. What had been near a single beast with two dozen bodies was suddenly a confused and bloody crowd of random members.
The pilgrim still ran around the edge, somehow keeping his mind and purpose. His huge, scarred member dived in and out of the remaining crowd, clawing at anything that still fought.
The patients dragged themselves away from the killing ground. Some that had gone in as threesomes or duos came out single. Others seemed more numerous than before. The ground that was left was soaked with blood. At least five members had died. Near the middle, a pair of prosthetic wheels lay incongruously.
The pilgrim paid it all no attention. The four of him stood around and over the bloody mound at the center.
Chitiratte smiled to himself. Mantis splatter. Such a tragedy.
Johanna never quite lost consciousness, but the pain and the suffocating weight of dozens of bodies left no room for thought. Now the pressure eased. Somewhere beyond the local din she could hear shouts of normal Tinish talk. She looked up and saw Pilgrim standing all around her. Scarbutt was straddling her, its muzzle centimeters away. It reached down and licked her face. Johanna smiled and tried to speak.
Vendacious had arranged to be in conference with Scrupilo and Woodcarver. Just now the “Commander of Cannoneers” was deep into tactics, using Dataset to illustrate his scheme for Margrum Climb.
Squalls of rage sounded from down by the river.
Scrupilo looked up peevishly from the Pink Oliphaunt. “What the muddy hell—”
The sounds continued, more than a casual brawl. Woodcarver and Vendacious exchanged worried glances even as they arched necks to see among the trees. “A fight in the hospital?” said the Queen.
Vendacious dropped his note board and lunged out of the meeting area, shouting for the local guards to stay with the Queen. As he raced across the camp, he could see that his roving guards were already converging on the hospital. Everything seemed as smooth as a program on Dataset … except, why so much noise?
The last few hundred yards, Scrupilo caught up with him and pulled ahead. The cannoneer raced into the hospital and stumbled over himself in abrupt horror. Vendacious burst into the clearing all prepared to display his own shock combined with alert resolve.
Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing by a meal cart, Chitiratte not far behind him. The pilgrim was standing over the Two-Legs in a litter of carnage. By the Pack of Packs, what happened? There was too much blood by far. “Everybody back except the doctors,” Vendacious bellowed at the soldiers who crowded at the edge of the compound. He picked his way along a path that avoided the loudest-minded patients. There were a lot of fresh wounds, and here and there speckles of blood dark on the pale tree trunks. Something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile Scrupilo had run around the edge of the hospital and was standing just a few dozen yards from the Pilgrim. Most of him was staring at the ground under Wickwrackscar. “It’s Johanna! Johanna!” For a moment it looked like the fool would jump over the fence.
“I think she’s okay, Scrupilo.” Wickwrackscar said. “She was just feeding one of the duos and it went nuts—attacked her.”
One of the doctors looked over the carnage. There were three corpses on the ground, and blood enough for more. “I wonder what she did to provoke them.”
“Nothing, I tell you! But when she went down, half the hospital went after Whatsits here.” He waggled a nose at unidentifiable remains.
Vendacious looked at Chitiratte, at the same time saw Woodcarver arrive. “What about it, Soldier?” he asked. Don’t screw up, Chitiratte.
“I-it’s just like the pilgrim says, my lord. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He sounded properly astounded by the whole affair.
Vendacious stepped a little closer to the Pilgrim. “If you’ll let me take a closer look, Pilgrim?”
Wickwrackscar hesitated. He had been snuffling around the girl, looking for wounds that might need immediate attention. Then the girl nodded weakly to him, and he backed off.
Vendacious approached, all solemn and solicitous. Inside he raged. He’d never heard of anything like this. But even if the whole damn hospital had come to her aid, she should still be dead; the Kratzi duo could have ripped her throat out in half a second. His plan had seemed fool-proof (and even now the failure would cause no lasting damage), but he was just beginning to understand what had gone wrong: For days, the human had been in contact with these patients, even Kratzi. No Tinish doctor could approach and touch them like the Two-Legs. Even some whole packs felt the effect; for fragments it must be overwhelming. In their inner soul, most of the patients considered the alien part of themselves.
He looked at the Two-Legs from three sides, mindful that fifty packs of eyes were watching his every move. Very little of the blood was from the Two-Legs. The cuts on her neck and arms were long and shallow, aimless slashings. At the last minute, Kratzi’s conditioning had failed before the notion of the human as pack member. Even now, a quick flick of a forepaw would rip the girl’s throat open. He briefly considered putting her under Security medical protection. The ploy had worked well with Scriber, but it would be very risky here. Pilgrim had been nose to nose with Johanna; he would be suspicious of any claims about “unexpected complications”. No. Even good plans sometimes fail. Count it as experience for the future. He smiled at the girl and spoke in Samnorsk, “You’re quite safe now,”for the moment and quite unfortunately. The human’s head turned to the side, looking off in the direction of Chitiratte.
Scrupilo had been pacing back and forth along the fence, so close to Chitiratte and Pilgrim that the two had been forced back. “I won’t have it!” The cannoneer said loudly. “Our most important person attacked like this. It smells of enemy action!”
Wickwrackscar goggled at him. “But how?”
“I don’t know!” Scrupilo said, his voice a desperate shout. “But she needs protection as much as nursing. Vendacious must find some place to keep her.”
The pilgrim pack was clearly impressed by the argument—and unnerved by it. He inclined a head at Vendacious and spoke with uncharacteristic respect, “What do you think?”
Of course, Vendacious had been watching the Two-legs. It was interesting how little humans could disguise their point of attention. Johanna had been staring at Chitiratte, now she was looking up at Vendacious, her shifty little close-set eyes narrowing. Vendacious had made a project this last year of studying human expressions, both on Johanna and in stories in Dataset. She suspected something. And she also must have understood part of Scrupilo’s speech. Her back arched and one arm fell raised weakly. Fortunately for Vendacious, her shout came out a whisper that even he could scarcely hear: “No … not like Scriber.”
Vendacious was a pack who believed in careful planning. He also knew that the best-made schemes must be altered by circumstances. He looked down at Johanna and smiled with the gentlest public sympathy. It would be risky to kill her like Scriber’s frag, but now he saw that the alternatives were far more dangerous. Thank goodness Woodcarver was stuck with her limper on the other side of the camp. He nodded back at Pilgrim and drew himself together. “I fear Scrupilo is right. Just how it might have been done, I don’t know, but we can’t take a chance. We’ll take Johanna to my den. Tell the Queen.” He pulled cloaks from his backs and began gently to wrap the human for the last trip she would ever make. Only her eyes protested.
Johanna drifted in and out of consciousness, horrified at her inability to scream her fears. Her strongest cries were less than whispers. Her arms and legs responded with little more than twitches, even that lost in Vendacious’s swaddling. Concussion, maybe, something like that, the explanation came from some absurdly rational corner of her mind. Everything seemed so far away, so dark…
Johanna woke in her cabin at Woodcarver’s. What a terrible dream! That she had been so cut up, unable to move, and then thinking Vendacious was a traitor. She tried to shrug herself to a sitting postion, but nothing moved. Darn sheets are all wrapped around me. She lay quiet for a second, still massively disoriented by the dream. “Woodcarver?” she tried to say, but only a little moan came out. Somemember moved gently around the firepit. The room was only dimly lit, and something was wrong with it. Johanna wasn’t lying in her usual place. There was a moment of puzzled lassitude as she tried to make sense of the orientation of the dark walls. Funny. The ceiling was awfully low. Everything smelled like raw meat. The side of her face hurt, and she tasted blood on her lips. She wasn’t at Woodcarver’s and that terrible dream was—
Three Tinish heads drifted in sihlouette nearby. One came closer, and in the dim light she recognized the pattern of white and black on its face. Vendacious.
“Good,” he said, “You are awake.”
“Where am I?” the words came out slurred and weak. The terror was back.
“The abandoned cotter’s hut at the east end of the camp. I’ve taken it over. As a security den, you know.” His Samnorsk was quiet and fluent, spoken in one of the generic voices of Dataset. One of his jaws carried a dagger, the blade a glint in the dimness.
Johanna twisted in the tied cloaks and whispered screams. Something was wrong with her; it was like shouting on empty breath.
One of Vendacious paced the hut’s upper level. Daylight splashed across its muzzle as it peered out first one and then another of the narrow slits cut in the timbers. “Ah, it’s good that you don’t pretend. I could see that you somehow guessed about my second career. My hobby. But screaming—even loud—won’t help either. We have only a brief time to chat. I’m sure the Queen will come visiting soon … and I will kill you just before she arrives. So sad. Your hidden wounds were tragically severe…”
Johanna wasn’t sure of all he said. Her vision blurred every time she moved her head. Even now she couldn’t remember the details of what had happened back in the hospital compound. Somehow Vendacious was a traitor, but how … memories wriggled past the pain. “You did murder Scriber, didn’t you? Why?” Her voice came louder than before, and she choked on blood dribbling back down her throat.
Soft, human, laughter came from all around her. “He learned the truth about me. Ironic that such an incompetent would be the only one to see through me… Or do you mean a larger why?” The three nearby muzzles moved closer still, and the blade in one’s jaw patted the side of Johanna’s cheek. “Poor Two-Legs, I’m not sure you could ever understand. Some of it, the will to power maybe. I’ve read what Dataset has to say about human motivation, the ‘freudian’ stuff. We Tines are much more complicated. I am almost entirely male, did you know that? A dangerous thing to be, all one sex. Madness lurks. Yet it was my decision. I was tired of being an indifferently good inventor, of living in Woodcarver’s shadow. So many of us are her get, and she dominates most all of us. She was quite happy about my going into Security, you know. She doesn’t quite have the combination of members for it. She thought that all male but one would make me controllably devious.”
His sentry member made another round of the window slits. Again there was a human chuckle. “I’ve been planning a long time. It’s not just Woodcarver I’m up against. The power-side of her soul is scattered all over the arctic coast; Flenser had almost a century headstart on me; Steel is new, but he has the empire Flenser built. I made myself indispensable to all of them: I’m Woodcarver’s chief of security … and Steel’s most valued spy. Played aright, I will end up with Dataset and all the others will be dead.”
His blade tapped her face again. “Do you think you can help me?” Eyes peered close into her terror. “I doubt it very much. If my proper plan had succeeded, you would be neatly dead now.” A sigh breathed around the room. “But that failed, and I’m stuck with carving you up myself. And yet it may all turn out for the best. Dataset is a torrent of information about most things, but it scarcely acknowledges the existence of torture. In some ways, your race seems so fragile, so easily killable. You die before your minds can be dismembered. Yet I know you can feel pain and terror; the trick is to apply force without quite killing.”
The three nearby members snuggled into more comfortable positions, like a human settling down for serious talk. “And there are some questions you may be able to answer, things I couldn’t really ask before. Steel is very confident, you know, and it’s not just because he has me with Woodcarver. That pack has some other advantage. Could he have his own Dataset?”
Vendacious paused. Johanna didn’t answer, her silence a combination of terror and stubbornness. This was the monster that killed Scriber.
The muzzle with the knife slid between the blankets and Johanna’s skin, and pain shot up Johanna’s arm. She screamed. “Ah, Dataset said a human could be hurt there. No need to answer that one, Johanna. Do you know what I think is Steel’s secret? I think one of your family survived—most likely your little brother, considering what you’ve told us about the massacre.”
Jefri? Alive? For an instant she forgot the pain, almost forgot the fear. “How…?”
Vendacious gave a Tinish shrug. “You never saw him dead. You can be sure Steel wanted a live Two-Legs, and after reading about cold sleep in Dataset, I doubt he could have revived any of the others. And he’s got something up there. He’s been eager for information from Dataset, but he’s never demanded I steal the device for him.”
Johanna closed her eyes, denying the traitor pack’s existence. Jefri lives! Memories rose before her: Jefri’s playful joy, his childish tears, his trusting courage aboard the refugee ship … things she had thought forever lost to her. For a moment they seemed more real than the slashing violence of the last few minutes. But what could Jefri do to help the Flenserists? The other datasets had surely burned. There’s something more here, something that Vendacious still is missing.
Vendacious grabbed her chin, and gave her head a little shake. “Open your eyes; I’ve learned to read them, and I want to see… Hmm, I don’t know if you believe me or not. No matter. If we have time, I will learn just what he might have done for Steel. There are other, sharper questions. Dataset is clearly the key to all. In less than half a year, I and Woodcarver and Pilgrim have learned an enormous amoun
t about your race and civilization. I daresay we know your people better than you do—sometimes I think we know them even better than we know our own world. When all the violence is over, the winner will be the pack that still controls Dataset. I intend to be that pack. And I’ve often wondered if there are other passwords, or programs I can run that would actually watch for my safety—”
The babysitter code.
The watching heads bobbed a grin, “Aha, so there is such a thing! Perhaps this morning’s bad luck is all for the best. I might never have learned—” his voice broke into dischords. Two of Vendacious jumped up to join the one already at the window slits. Softly by her ear, the voice continued, “It’s the Pilgrim, still far away, but coming toward us… I don’t know. You would be much better safely dead. One deep wound, all out of sight.” The knife slide further down. Johanna arched futilely back from the point. Then the blade withdrew, the point poised gently against her skin. “Let’s hear what Pilgrim has to say. No point in killing you this instant if he doesn’t insist on seeing you.” He pushed a cloth into her mouth and tied it tight.
There was a moment of silence, maybe the crunch of paws in the brush right around the cabin. Then she heard a pack warble loud from beyond the timbered walls. Johanna doubted that she would ever learn to recognize packs by their voices, but … her mind stumbled through the sounds, trying to decode the Tinish chords that were words piled on top of one another:
“Johanna
something interrogative
screech safe.”
Vendacious gobbled back,
“Hail Peregrine Wrickwrackscar