by Vernor Vinge
Ravna nodded slowly. “Yes, well. It … helps me to know that.”
They talked a few minutes more, Tirolle and Glimfrelle joining in. They had been at the center of something vast, but as usual with the affairs of the Powers, no one knew quite what had happened, nor the result of the strivings.
“Rendezvous Lynsnar two hundred seconds,” said the ship’s voice.
Ravna heard it, nodded. She raised her hand. “Fare you well, Kjet Svensndot and Tirolle and Glimfrelle.”
The Dirokimes whistled back the common farewell, and Svensndot raised his hand. The window on Ravna Bergsndot closed.
… Kjet Svensndot remembered her face all the rest of his life, though in later years it seemed more and more to be the same as Ølvira’s.
PART III
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Tines’ world. I can see it, Pham!”
The main window showed a true view upon the system: a sun less than two hundred million kilometers off, daylight across the command deck. The positions of identified planets were marked with blinking red arrows. But one of those—just twenty million kilometers off—was labeled “terrestrial”. Coming off an interstellar jump, you couldn’t get positioning much better than that.
Pham didn’t reply, just glared out the window as if there were something wrong with what they were seeing. Something had broken in him after the battle with the Blight. He’d been so sure of his godshatter—and so bewildered by the consequences. Afterwards he had retreated more than ever. Now he seemed to think that if they moved fast enough, the surviving enemy could do them no harm. More than ever he was suspicious of Blueshell and Greenstalk, as if somehow they were greater threats than the ships that still pursued.
“Damn,” Pham said finally. “Look at the relative velocity.” Seventy kilometers per second.
Position matching was no problem, but “Matching velocities will cost us time, Sir Pham.”
Pham’s stare turned on Blueshell. “We talked this out with the locals three weeks ago, remember? You managed the burn.”
“And you checked my work, Sir Pham. This must be another nav system bug … though I didn’t expect anything was wrong in simple ballistics.” A sign inverted, seventy klicks per second closing velocity instead of zero. Blueshell drifted toward the secondary console.
“Maybe,” said Pham. “Just now, I want you off the deck, Blueshell.”
“But I can help! We should be contacting Jefri, and rematching velocities, and—”
“Get off the deck, Blueshell. I don’t have time to watch you anymore,” Pham dived across the intervening space and was met by Ravna, just short of the Rider.
She floated between the two, talking fast, hoping whatever she said would both make sense and make peace. “It’s okay, Pham. He’ll go.” She brushed her hand across one of Blueshell’s wildly vibrating fronds. After a second, Blueshell wilted. “I’ll go. I’ll go.” She kept an encouraging touch on him—and kept herself between him and Pham, as the Skroderider made a dejected exit.
When the Rider was gone, she turned to Pham. “Couldn’t it have been a nav bug, Pham?”
The other didn’t seem to hear the question. The instant the hatch had closed, he had returned to the command console. OOB‘s latest estimate put the Blight’s arrival less than fifty-three hours away. And now they must waste time redoing a velocity match supposedly accomplished three weeks earlier. “Somebody, something, screwed us over…” Pham was muttering, even as he finished with the control sequence, “Maybe it was a bug. This next damn burn is going to be as manual as it can be.” Acceleration alarms echoed down the core of the OOB. Pham flipped through monitor windows, searching for loose items that might be big enough to be dangerous. “You tie down, too.” He reached out to override the five minute timer.
Ravna dived back across the deck, unfolding the free-fall saddle into a seat and strapping in. She heard Pham speaking on the general announce channel, warning of the timer override. Then the impulse drive cut in, a lazy pressure back into the webbing. Four tenths of a gee—all the poor OOB could still manage.
When Pham said manual, he meant it. The main window appeared to be bore-centered now. The view didn’t drift at the whim of the pilot, and there were no helpful legends and schematics. As much as possible, the were seeing true view along OOB‘s main axis. Peripheral windows were held in fixed geometry with main. Pham’s eyes flickered from one to another, as his hands played over the command board. As near as could be, he was flying by his own senses, and trusting no one else.
But Pham still had use for the ultradrive. They were twenty million klicks off target, a submicroscopic jump. Pham Nuwen fiddled with the drive parameters, trying to make an accurate jump smaller than the standard interval. Every few seconds the sunlight would shift a fraction, coming first over Ravna’s left shoulder and then her right. It made reestablishing comm with Jefri nearly impossible.
Suddenly the window below their feet was filled by a world, huge and gibbous, blue and swirling white. The Tines’ world was as Jefri Olsndot advertised, a normal terrestrial planet. After the months aspace and the loss of Sjandra Kei, the sight caught Ravna short. Ocean, the world was mostly ocean, but near the terminator there were the darker shades of land. A single tiny moon was visible beyond the limb.
Pham sucked in his breath. “It’s about ten thousand kilometers off. Perfect. Except we’re closing at seventy klicks per second.” Even as she watched, the world seemed to grow, falling toward them. Pham watched it for few seconds more. “Don’t worry, we’re going to miss, fly right past the, um, north limb.”
The globe swelled below them, eclipsing the moon. She had always loved the appearance of Herte at Sjandra Kei. But that world had smaller oceans, and was criss-crossed with Dirokime accidents. This place was as beautiful as Relay, and seemed truly untouched. The small polar cap was in sunlight, and she could follow the coastline that came south from it toward the terminator. I’m seeing the northwest coast. Jefri’s right down there! Ravna reached for her keyboard, asked the ship to attempt both ultrawave comm and a radio link.
“Ultrawave contact,” she said after a second.
“What does it say?”
“It’s garbled. Probably just a ping response,” acknowledgment to OOB‘s signal. Jefri was housed very near the ship these days; sometimes she had gotten responses almost immediately, even during his night time. It would be good to talk to him again, even if …
Tines’ world filled the entire aft and side windows now, its limb a barely curving horizon. Sky colors stood before them, fading to the black of space. Icecap and icebergs showed detail within detail against the sea. She could see cloud shadows. She followed the coast southwards, islands and peninsulas so closely fit that she could not be sure of one from the other. Blackish mountains and black-striped glaciers. Green and brown valleys. She tried to remember the geography they had learned from Jefri. Hidden Island? But there were so many islands.
“I have radio contact from planet’s surface,” came the ship’s voice. Simultaneously a blinking arrow pointed at a spot just in from the coast. “Do you want the audio in real time?”
“Yes. Yes!” said Ravna, then punched at her keyboard when the ship did not respond immediately.
“Hei, Ravna. Oh, Ravna!” The little boy’s voice bounced excitement around the deck. He sounded just as she had imagined.
Ravna keyed in a request for two-way. They were less than five thousand klicks from Jefri now, even if they were sweeping by at seventy kilometers per second. Plenty close enough for a radio conversation. “Hei, Jefri!” she said. “We’re here at last, but we need—”we need all the cooperation your four-legged friends can give us. How to say that quickly and effectively?
But the boy on the ground already had an agenda: “—need help now, Ravna! The Woodcarvers are attacking now.”
There was a thumping, as if the transmitter was bouncing around. Another voice spoke, high-pitched and weirdly inarticulate. “This Steel, Ravna. Jefri r
ight. Woodcarver—” the almost human voice dissolved into a hissing gobble. After a moment she heard Jefri’s voice: “‘Ambush’, the word is ‘ambush’.”
“Yes … Woodcarver has done big, big ambush. They all around now. We die in hours if you not help.”
Woodcarver had never wanted to be a warrior. But ruling for half a thousand years requires a range of skills, and she had learned about making war. Some of that—such as trusting to staff—she had temporarily un learned these last few days. There had indeed been an ambush on Margrum Climb, but not the one that Lord Steel had planned.
She looked across the tented field at Vendacious. That pack was half-hidden by noise baffles, but she could see he wasn’t so jaunty as before. Being put to the question will loosen anyone’s control. Vendacious knew his survival now depended on her keeping a promise. Yet … it was awful to think that Vendacious would live after he had killed and betrayed so many. She realized that two of herself were keening rage, lips curled back from clenched teeth. Her puppies huddled back from threats unseen. The tented area stank of sweat and the mindnoise of too many people in too small a space. It took a real effort of will to calm herself. She licked the puppies, and daydreamed peaceful thoughts for a moment.
Yes, she would keep her promises to Vendacious. And maybe it
would be worth the price. Vendacious had only speculations about Steel’s inner secrets, but he had learned far more about Steel’s tactical situation than the other side could have guessed. Vendacious had known just where the Flenserists were hiding and in what numbers. Steel’s folk had been overconfident about their super guns and their secret traitor. When Woodcarver’s troops surprised them, victory had been easy—and now the Queen had some of these marvelous guns.
From behind the hills, those cannons were still pounding away, eating through the stocks of ammunition the captured gunners had revealed. Vendacious the traitor had cost her much, but Vendacious the prisoner might yet bring her victory.
“Woodcarver?” It was Scrupilo. She waved him closer. Her chief gunner edged out of the sun, sat down an intimate twenty-five feet away. Battle conditions had blown away all notions of decorum.
Scrupilo’s mind noise was an anxious jumble. He looked by parts exhausted and exhilerated and discouraged. “It’s safe to advance up the castle hill, Your Majesty,” he said. “Answering fire is almost extinguished. Parts of the castle walls have been breached. There is an end to castles here, My Queen. Even our own poor cannons would make it so.”
She bobbed agreement. Scrupilo spent most of his time with Dataset in learning to make—cannons in particular. Woodcarver spent her time learning what those inventions ultimately created. By now she knew far more than even Johanna about the social effects of weapons, from the most primitive to ones so strange that they seemed not weapons at all. A thousand million times, castle technologies had fallen to things like cannon; why should her world be different?
“We’ll move up then—”
From beyond the shade of the tent there was a faint whistle, a rare, incoming round. She folded the puppies within herself, and paused a moment. Twenty yards away, Vendacious shrank down in a great cower. But when it came, the explosion was a muffled thump above them on the hill. It might even have been one of our own.“Now our troops must take advantage of the destruction. I want Steel to know that the old games of ransom and torture will only win him worse.”We’ll most likely win the starship and the child. The question was, would either be alive when they got them? She hoped Johanna would never know the threats and the risks she planned for the next few hours.
“Yes, Majesty.” But Scrupilo made no move to depart, and suddenly seemed more bedraggled and worried than ever. “Woodcarver, I fear…”
“What? We have the tide. We must rush to sail on it.”
“Yes, Majesty… But while we move forward, there are serious dangers coming up on our flanks and rear. The enemy’s far scouts and the fires.”
Scrupilo was right. The Flenserists who operated behind her lines were deadly. There weren’t many of them; the enemy troops at Margrum Climb had been mostly killed or dispersed. The few that ate at Woodcarver’s flanks were equipped with ordinary crossbows and axes … but they were extraordinarily well-coordinated. And their tactics were brilliant; she saw the snouts and tines of Flenser himself in that brilliance. Somehow her evil child lived. Like a plague of years past, he was slipping back upon the world. Given time, those guerrilla packs would seriously hurt Woodcarver’s ability to supply her forces. Given time. Two of her stood and looked Scrupilo in the eyes, emphasizing the point: “All the more reason to move now, my friend. We are the ones far from home. We are the ones with limited numbers and food. If we don’t win soon, then we will be cut up a bit at a time.”Flensed.
Scrupilo stood up, nodding submission. “That’s what Peregrine says, too. And Johanna wants to chase right through the castle walls… But there’s something else, Your Majesty. Even if we must lunge all forward: I worked for a ten of tendays, using every clue I could understand from Dataset, to make our cannon. Majesty, I know how hard it is to do such. Yet the guns we captured on Margrum have three times the range and one quarter the weight. How could they do it?” There were chords of anger and humiliation in his voice. “The traitor,” Scrupilo jerked a snout in the direction of Vendacious, “thinks they may have Johanna’s brother, but Johanna says they have nothing like Dataset. Majesty, Steel has some advantage we don’t yet know.”
Even the executions were not helping. Day by day, Steel felt his rage growing. Alone on the parapet, he whipped back and forth upon himself, barely conscious of anything but his anger. Not since he had been under Flenser’s knife had the anger been such a radiant thing. Get back control, before he cuts you more, the voice of some early Steel seemed to say.
He hung on the thought, pulled himself together. He stared down at bloody drool and tasted ashes. Three of his shoulders were streaked with tooth cuts—he’d been hurting himself, another habit Flenser had cured him of long ago. Hurt outwards, never toward yourself. Steel licked mechanically at the gashes and walked closer to the parapet’s edge:
At the horizon, gray-black haze obscured the sea and the islands. The last few days, the summer winds coming off the inland had been a hot breath, tasting of smoke. Now the winds were like fire themselves, whipping past the castle, carrying ash and smoke. All last dayaround the far side of Bitter Gorge had been a haze of fire. Today he could see the hillsides: they were black and brown, crowned with smoke that swept toward the sea’s horizon. There were often brush and forest fires in the High Summer. But this year, as if nature was a godly pack of war, the fires had been everywhere. The wretched guns had done it. And this year, he couldn’t retreat to the cool of Hidden Island and let the coastlings suffer.
Steel ignored his smarting shoulders and paced the stones more thoughtfully, almost analytical for a change. The creature Vendacious had not stayed bought; he had turned traitor to his treason. Steel had anticipated that Vendacious might be discovered; he had other spies who should have reported such a thing. But there had been no sign … until the disaster at Margrum Climb. Now the twist of Vendacious’s knife had turned all his plans on their heads. Woodcarver would be here very soon, and not as a victim.
Who would have guessed that he would really need the Spacers to rescue him from Woodcarver? He had worked so hard to confront the Southerners before Ravna arrived. But now he did need that help from the sky—and it was more than five hours away. Steel almost slipped back into rage state at the thought. In the end, would all the cozening of Amdijefri be for nothing? Oh, when this is over, how much will I enjoy killing those two. More than any of the others, they deserved death. They had caused so much inconvenience. They had consistently required his kindliest behavior, as though they ruled him. They had showered him with more insolence than ten thousand normal subjects.
From the castle yard there was the sound of laboring packs, straining winches, the screech and groan of rock be
ing moved about. The professional core of Flenser’s Empire survived. Given a few more hours, the breaches in the walls would be repaired and new guns would be brought in from the north. And the grand scheme can still succeed. As long as I am together, no matter what else is lost, it can succeed.
Almost lost in the racket, he heard the click of claws on the inward steps. Steel drew back, turned all heads toward the sound. Shreck? But Shreck would have announced himself first. Then he relaxed; there was only one set of claw sounds. It was a singleton coming up the stairs.
Flenser’s member cleared the steps, and bowed to Steel, an incomplete gesture without other members to mirror it. The member’s radio cloak shone clean and dark. The army was in awe of those cloaks, and of the singletons and duos who seemed smarter than the brightest pack. Even Steel’s lieutenants who understood what the cloaks really were—even Shreck—were cautious and tentative around them. And now Steel needed the Flenser Fragment more than anyone, more than anything except Starfolk gullibility. “What news?”
“Leave to sit?” Was the sardonic Flenser smile behind that request?
“Granted,” snapped Steel.
The singleton eased itself onto the stones, a parody of an insolent pack. But Steel saw when the other winced; the Fragment had been dispersed across the Domain for almost twenty days now. Except for brief periods, he had been wrapped in the radio cloaks that whole time. Dark and golden torture. Steel had seen this member without its cloak, when it was bathed. Its pelt was rubbed raw at shoulder and haunch, where the weight of the radio was greatest. Bleeding sores had opened at the center of the bald spots. Alone without its cloak, the mindless singleton had blabbered its pain. Steel enjoyed those sessions, even if this one was not especially verbal. It was almost as if he, Steel, were now the One who Teaches with a Knife, and Flenser were his pupil.