by Vernor Vinge
Ravna nodded at the pack; the co-Queens had always observed a careful informality. “So I imagine your bartender-agent has already told you about the charming surprise I encountered at the Sign of the Mantis.”
Woodcarver gave a gentle laugh. Over the years she had experimented with various human voices and mannerisms, watching how humans reacted. When she spoke, her Samnorsk was completely fluent, and she seemed perfectly human—even when Ravna was looking right at the seven strange creatures who together were her co-Queen. “The bartender?” said Woodcarver. “Screwfloss? He’s a Flenser whackjob. My guy was one of the customers up in the loft; he told me all about it, including what Gannon Jorkenrud had to say before you arrived.”
I wouldn’t have guessed about Screwfloss. Weird human words were unaccountably popular as taken names among the local packs; Flenser’s minions were fond of the more satanic variations.
Her co-Queen waved for Ravna to take a seat. Between grand audiences, Woodcarver treated this room like a private den. Up around the altar, she had fur-trimmed benches and disorganized piles of blankets. There was a strong Tinish scent from the well-used furniture, and a litter of drinks and half-gnawed bones. Woodcarver was one of the few with her own radio link to the oracle that was Oobii; her “altar” had a very practical significance.
Ravna plunked herself down on the nearest human-style chair. “How could we miss something this big, Woodcarver? This ‘Disaster Study Group’ operating right under our noses?”
Woodcarver settled herself around the altar, some of her on perches near Ravna. She gave a rippling shrug. “It’s purely a human affair.”
“We’ve always known there are reasonable disagreements about what’s left of the Blighter fleet,” said Ravna, “but I never realized how that was being tied into our rotten medical situation. And I never guessed that the Children might doubt the cause of the disaster that had dumped them here.”
Woodcarver was silent for a moment. There was something embarrassed in her aspect. Ravna’s look swept across the pack in an encompassing glare. “What? You knew about this?”
She made a waffling gesture. “Some of it. You know that even Johanna has been exposed to some of these stories.”
“Yes! And I can’t believe that neither of you have brought this up in Council!”
“Grm. I just heard rumors rumbling in the background. A good leader hears more than she acts upon. If you can’t use spies, you should go out and mingle more with your Children. As long as you’re the remote wizard on the starship, you’ll have unwelcome surprises.”
Ravna resisted the temptation to put her face in her hands and start bawling. But I’m not a leader! “Look, Woodcarver. I’m very worried about this. Leave aside the ‘surprise’ aspect. Leave aside the unpleasant fact that this must mean a lot of my kids despise me. Don’t you see a threat in organized disaffection?”
The co-Queen hunched down slightly, the equivalent of a pensive frown. “Sorry. I thought you had run into this before, Ravna. Yes, I do get reports from Best Friend packs: What Øvin Verring and company told you is true. This is all rumors, exaggerated by the telling. I haven’t found any hard core of believers—though, hmhmm, that may be because the hard core is among the humans without close Tinish friends.”
“… Yes.” That point raised a world of possibility. “Had you even heard of a ‘Disaster Study Group’?”
“Not until Gannon started making noises about it.”
“And the really extreme claims, that the Blight is not evil, that Pham was the bad guy—I’ll wager that is something new, too.”
Woodcarver was silent a moment. “Yes. That’s also new, though there have been weaker versions.” Then she added, almost defensively, “But among Tines, rumors can be impossible to track, especially when there is Interpack sex. Transient personalities pop up with notions that would not have been imagined otherwise. Afterwards there is no one to point to.”
That bit of Tinish insight forced a chuckle from Ravna. “We humans also talk about rumors taking on a life of their own, but it sounds like Tines have the real thing.”
“You think there are conspirators?”
Ravna nodded. “I’m afraid there may be. On this world, you qualify as a modern ruler, but your notion of ‘spies everywhere,’ well, it’s—”
“Hmpf. I know, by civilized standards, my surveillance is pitifully weak.” Woodcarver jabbed a nose in the direction of the radio altar, her private pipeline to Oobii’s archive. In the winter, she used a treadmill to keep it charged. In the summer, she had the sunlight from this hall’s high windows. Either way, Woodcarver practically camped around her radio, studying indiscriminately.
Woodcarver wasn’t the only pack with a spy apparatus. Ravna tried to put the question diplomatically: “This is a case where any information would be welcome. Could you perhaps consult with Flenser-Tyrathect—”
“No!” said Woodcarver, making jaw-snapping sounds. She’d never stopped suspecting that Flenser was plotting a takeover. After a moment she continued, “What we really need are a couple of dozen wireless cameras. Cams and networks, that’s the foundation of surveillance ubiquity.” She sounded like she’d been studying some very old text. “Since we don’t have proper networks yet, I’ll settle for more spy eyes.”
Ravna shook her head. “We only have a dozen loose cameras, total.” Of course, much of Oobii could act as cameras and displays. Unfortunately, when you took a crowbar and pried pieces off those programmable walls—well, you sacrificed a lot of functionality. The twelve cameras they did have were low-tech backups. Ravna recognized the irritated expression spreading across Woodcarver. “Come the day that we can fabricate digital electronics, all this will change, Woodcarver.”
“Yes. Come the day.” The pack whistled a dirge-like tune. She had three of the cameras herself, but apparently she wasn’t volunteering them. Instead: “You know that my illustrious science advisor is squatting on nine cameras?” Scrupilo was doing his best to create networks even though he lacked distributed computation. He had the cameras transmitting from his labs back to the planning logic aboard the Oobii. That trick had actually speeded up materials evaluation tenfold. Any time they could use the starship’s power or logic, they had a win. Those labs were the biggest success story of the last few years.
“Okay,” said Ravna. “I’d be willing to give up part of Scrupilo’s testing system for a tenday or two. I really want to find out if there is an organized conspiracy behind these Denier lies.”
“Then let’s see which cameras I can grab.” Three of Woodcarver hopped onto perches around her radio altar. She warbled something that was neither pack talk nor Samnorsk. Woodcarver had used Oobii’s customizer to make sound substitutes for the usual visual interface. For the pack, the result was almost as convenient as Ravna’s “tiara,” the fragile head-up display Ravna was normally afraid to wear in the casual everyday.
Woodcarver listened to the wheeps and beeps coming back from Oobii. “Ah, that Scrupilo. Oobii says my dear science advisor has been using the cams for more than your product development. Hmm. You ever hear of ‘mass-energy conversion drip’?”
“No.… It sounds dangerous.”
“Oh, it is.” Woodcarver warbled some more, probably “looking up” definitions. “Without adequate process control, the ‘drip’ normally turns into something called a ‘conversion torrent.’ That’s destroyed more than one civilization. Fortunately for most histories, it’s very difficult to create before you know the danger of it.” She queried some more. “Oh good. That was last tenday. Scrupilo dropped the project, took the path of sanity for once. What he’s doing now looks like the materials research he’s supposed to be doing.” There was pause, then a human-sounding chuckle. “Scrupilo will throw a personal riot when we take those cameras from him. It will be fun to see.” The science advisor was another of Woodcarver’s offspring packs. They had turned out to be Woodcarver’s own dangerous experiments.
Ravna was doing her best to
think sneaky: “I bet we can keep the diversion a secret. Two or three of them could officially ‘break.’” Very few of the locals understood what was durable and what was not. Over the years, she had broken all but one of her head-up displays, but the low-tech cams could probably survive a twenty-meter fall. “Scrupilo won’t have to disguise his outrage, just the details of the affair.”
“I like that!” Woodcarver gave a rippling grin, and one of her on a high perch gave Ravna a pat on the head. She spoke some notes to Oobii. “Okay, let’s take three cameras. We should think on where and how to best use them.”
“I want this done quickly. The word is out that I’ve been tipped off. If someone’s behind this, then wouldn’t they move now, to keep us off balance?”
“Just so.”
Three cameras scarcely made a surveillance system, no matter how cleverly they were placed. Ravna decided to ask directly about the others. “What about the three that you’re already using to spy on Flenser? It’s humans who are the greatest threat just now.”
“No. Those stay in place. If there really is a conspiracy here, then I’d bet a champion conspirator is behind it, not one of your naive Children. Flenser is as devious as any creature alive.” And Old Flenser had been another of Woodcarver’s offspring packs, the deadliest—if not the most malevolent—of her attempts at creating genius.
“But this is the reformed Flenser. Only two of his pack are still from you.”
Woodcarver sounded a loud sniff. “So? Old Flenser chose the other three…”
“It’s been ten years.”
“We get along. The three cameras I’ve hidden down in Old Castle, they give me reason to … well, ‘trust’ is not the right word … to tolerate him.”
Ravna smiled. “You’re always complaining that he knows where you’re watching him.”
“Um. I suspect he knows. Always suspect him, Ravna. Then you won’t be disappointed. Maybe … if I can get my people into the castle, we could move the cameras around. I’ve been wanting to do that anyway. Flenser must remain at the top of the suspects list. I don’t want those cameras diverted to anything less likely.”
“Very well.” The Original Flenser had been a scary beast, combining extremes of human history. Ravna would have been as paranoid about Flenser as Woodcarver was if she didn’t have her own special source of information. That source was one the very few secrets that she’d never told anyone, not even Johanna. She wasn’t going to reveal it now just to pry three cameras away from her co-Queen.
One of Woodcarver bumped up against Ravna’s chair and set its paw on her arm. “You’re disappointed?”
“I’m sorry. Yes, a little. We’ve freed up three cameras. Surely there are more targets.”
“And I’ll look at Flenser still more carefully than before.”
Ravna couldn’t respond to that, not without revealing her own source of information.
“Look, Ravna. In addition to the cameras, I’ll bring in some of my agents from the outlands. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Woodcarver was really trying to be cooperative. More than any pack except Scrupilo, she seemed to understand what drove Ravna.
The human reached out to pat the nearest of Woodcarver. This was Sht—hei, that’s what the name sounded like to human ears. Member names were normally little more then broodkenner tags, mostly meaningless even to Tines. Little Sht was just a few tendays old, a necessary addition in the careful balancing of youth and old age that was a coherent pack. This baby was so young that it had only basic sensory sharing with the rest of Woodcarver. Beyond that, all Ravna knew was that the puppy was not the biological get of any in Woodcarver or Pilgrim. In dealing with Tines, puppies were often a problem, especially if a pack’s lifegrooming was careless. Woodcarver had done much better with her own soul than with her offspring packs; she had maintained a steady purpose for nearly six hundred years. Ravna shouldn’t have to worry. She petted the small creature’s fine dense pelt and felt comforted. Hei, if there was a change it might be like the congenial evolution that Woodcarver had engineered for herself in the past.
CHAPTER 07
Scrupilo was beside himself. “This is an outrage!” The six of him crowded together, two members climbing up on the shoulder straps of the others to get their muzzles closer to Ravna’s face. “They were stolen. This is treachery, and I will not stand for it!”
Ravna had arrived at the North End quarries a few minutes earlier. Looking down from the edge of the carven stone walls, things had seemed relatively quiet, no blast banners or fire-in-the-hole beeping. This seemed like a good time for a nice chat with the science advisor.
As she’d started down the open stairs, she had waved to the humans who were helping with the work. They cheerily waved back, so maybe Scrupilo wasn’t too angry. She was still halfway up the rock face, when she heard the science advisor’s outraged shouting. By the time she arrived at the laboratory entrance, two of his assistants had come racing out, passing her with scarcely a how-de-do.
Now she faced the madpack in his own office. She hadn’t dreamed that Scrupilo would be so angered. For that matter, she’d never had any pack get in her face so abruptly. She backed toward the open doorway, raising her hands at the snapping jaws.
“It’s just temporary, Scrupilo! You’ll get the cameras back soon enough.” At least she hoped so. If they had to keep those cams from Scrupilo’s use for very long, large sections of her own research program would get jammed.
The good news was that Scrupilo did not bite her face off. The bad news was that the pack continued to lunge around—and he wasn’t speaking Samnorsk anymore. The chords she could hear were loud and jagged, probably cursing. Then abruptly Scrup’s oldest member, the white-headed one, hesitated. In half a second, the surprised silence spread across the pack, like some comedian’s exaggerated double take. “Cameras?” His volume dropped by some decibels. “You mean the three video cameras that officially failed earlier today when Woodcarver’s goons came and took them away?”
“Y-yes.” Hopefully the world beyond Scrupilo’s office had not made sense of this exchange, state secrets being betrayed in a temper tantrum.
Scrupilo climbed down from himself. For a moment he just circled around, glaring. Scrupilo could be an officious twit. On the other hand, he was a genius and a true engineer. As long as you could keep him pointed in the right direction, and keep him from getting too jealous of the perks of others, he was a treasure.
“Honest, Scrupilo,” Ravna continued in a soft voice. “This is an emergency. We’ll get those cams back to you as soon as possible. I know—at least as well as you—how important they are.”
The Science Advisor continued his angry pacing, but now his voice was level. “I don’t doubt that. It was the only reason I went along with the confiscation and the cover story I’m supposed to tell everyone.” Jaws snapped a couple of times, but not in her direction. “But I fear we are talking at cross-purposes. The video cams were lawfully confiscated by Your Highnesses and with some explanation. So then, you and Woodcarver had nothing to do with the disappearance of the radio cloaks?”
“What? No!” The cloaks would have been practically useless for surveillance, and wearing them was dangerous to boot. “Scrupilo, that was never our plan.”
“Then I was right. There is treachery afoot.”
“How could the cloaks disappear? You keep them in your private vaults, right?”
“I took them out of the vault after the Queen’s agents made off with my cameras. I had this idea for using the cloaks … a clever idea really, a way I might wear them without getting killed in the process. Y’see, maybe if only part of me wore them, and off-the-shoulder, then—” Scrupilo shook himself free of geekish distraction. “Never mind. The point is, I had the cloaks laid out in the experiment factory, ready for use. I was still afume about Woodcarver’s confiscation, and there were way too many other distractions this morning. Let’s see…” Scrupilo brought all his heads together for a
moment, the very picture of Tinish concentration.
“Yes. You know how the experiment factory is set up.” Long rows of simple wood benches. Hundreds of experiment trays, each a simple combination of reagents, all designed by the planning programs on the Oobii as the ship matched the reality of Tinish resources with the archival data that it possessed. Some of the rooms would go for hours without any pack or human presence—and then the starship automation would issue a flurry of wireless requests to the scheduling receivers in the dispatch room. Scrupilo’s helpers would sweep through, removing some experiments entirely, shifting some to new stations, placing some under cameras for Oobii’s direct observation.
“I was alone with the radio cloaks, quite distracted by my new idea.” Scrupilo’s heads all look up. “Yes! Those clowns from the Tropical madhouse showed up.”
“They came in among the experiments?”
“No. That used to happen, but nowadays we keep them in the visitor area. Heh. I’ve fobbed them off with junk like unconnected landline telephones.… Anyway, I had to go out and chat with their ‘Ambassador.’” Scrupilo jostled together. “I’ll bet that’s it! I was out of the room for almost fifteen minutes. I wish we didn’t have to be nice to that guy. Do we really need gallite that much? Never mind, I know the answer.
“Anyway, today they were louder and more numerous than usual, the whole gang painted up like the loose things they are.” Some of Scrupilo was already edging toward the door, outpacing the conscious stream of his surmise. “The scum. While they distracted my people, one of them must have swiped the cloaks!
“Damn! C’mon, milady!” And the rest of him was out the door, White Head bringing up the rear. The pack clattered down the outside stairs, shouting chords of alarm in all directions.
Ravna would have had a hard time keeping up with some packs, but White Head had arthritis, and Scrupilo was not running completely amok. The pack wouldn’t leave him behind.
Scrupilo was also shouting in Samnorsk, “Stop the Tropicals! Stop the Tropicals!” The guards at the top of the exit stairs had already lowered the gates.