by Vernor Vinge
“You really don’t believe in the Blight?”
Nevil shrugged irritably. “I believe that we’re not in a position to know exactly what happened Up There. Our presence here is good evidence that a deadly accident happened at the High Lab. Your presence here, and what’s visible in Oobii’s files—those are good evidence that your home worlds and probably mine have been destroyed. The silence across the sky is proof that some terrible catastrophe has been visited upon the Beyond. But your obsession with the ‘Blight’ goes beyond reasonable logic.”
“What’s left of their fleet is just thirty lightyears out, Nevil.”
Storherte shook his head. “Thirty lightyears. Yes. Perhaps a hundred ships, moving at just a few kilometers per second on no coherent bearing and without ramscoop drives—all this by your own telling! Thousands of years from now, they may make planetfall, somewhere. When that eventually happens, whatever the facts behind all this uncertainty will be ancient history. Meantime—”
“That’s all wishful thinking, Nevil. The—”
“No. I’ve heard all this from you before, Ravna. Over and over. It’s your mantra, your excuse for hiding aboard this ship. The problem just got worse in the years since we older kids could take care of younger ones. You might still be in charge now, if you had not so totally lost touch with us.”
Ravna stared for a moment, vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging open. “No one complained—”
“You never would have listened.” He paused. “Understand me: I’m a moderate. We Children remember our parents, and we know they were not fools. The High Lab attracted the best minds of Straumli Realm. They would not have wakened a Great Evil. And yet, when we look at your ship’s records, we see how you and Pham Nuwen brought disaster wherever you went. You admit Pham Nuwen was infested by some part of a Power. You call it Countermeasure and admit it destroyed civilizations for as far as our eyes can see. Some of us look at these facts and conclude that everything you say may be true—but with the values of good and evil reversed.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I regard that position as extremism, as nutty as yours but not nearly as dangerous.”
“Not … as … dangerous?”
“Ravna, you were running wild, diverting more and more resources into your obsession. You had to be stopped. So yes. I lied to you. And I told Woodcarver of your deceit. I set you up for a fall. But however brutal it seems to you, it was the gentlest way I could find to make the change. It removed you from authority, but it left you in a position to contribute.” He was staring into her eyes, perhaps assessing, perhaps waiting for some response. When none came, he leaned forward and his voice was a little softer. “Ravna, we need you. You are beloved by all the younger ones. You were the only adult they had. On a coldly logical level, your importance is that you’re the only surviving professional, and a librarian at that. Some of my friends are smart and cocky. All their lives they’ve lived with decent computation. They’ve solved lots of problems—but at the Top of the Beyond. Now they are beginning to realize their cluelessness. You are on a different level from all of them.”
Nevil leaned back, watched her steadily for a moment. “Ravna, I don’t care that you hate my guts, but I’m desperate for your cooperation. That’s why I’ve tried to make your new quarters as comfortable as possible. That’s why I’ve tried to minimize the humiliation you may feel. Even if you can’t run the show anymore, I’m hoping you’ll help. Our projects are mundane and practical, but they’re essential for survival on this world.”
Ravna gave a jerky nod. “And you expect this with the game-level access that Bili gave me today?”
Nevil gave her a smile. It was his first of the conversation, and perhaps more meaningful than all his friendliness of before the coup. “Sorry. That was all he has authority to pass out. I’ve discussed this with Woodcarver. She understands that you are best qualified to exploit what computational powers Oobii possesses. We’ll get you an office like this so you won’t have to waste time on frivolous distractions. We ask for two limitations: Your work should always leave other users with continuity of access. And second, Woodcarver—well frankly, me too—we don’t want you taking control.” He hesitated again. “You have some kind of bureaucratic authority over Oobii, right? Is that called ‘system administration’ on a machine this small?”
Ravna thought a moment. “Sysadmin is the usual term,” she said. And you have no idea what that means, do you, Nevil? Once upon a time, Ravna had been equally ignorant. It was Pham Nuwen and the Skroderider Blueshell who had shown her what a very special, terrible thing it was to command a starship.
“Ah. Well, I want to thank you for staying within the access that Bili gave you this afternoon. It shows that Woodcarver’s worst fears are groundless.” He looked a little embarrassed, another first for this conversation. “Nevertheless, we ask that you transfer that authority now.”
“To you.”
“Yes. That would only make the facts fit the result of the general vote.” When she didn’t reply he said, “It’s for the best, Ravna, and no more than what you accepted at the time of the meeting.”
She thought back to the last minutes of that meeting, right before the vote. She remembered her rage, and even now felt it return. She had turned away from physical force then.
Ravna bowed her head. She would turn away from it now.
CHAPTER 13
The clear weather moved inland and a new storm front rolled onto the coast. So while the first big snow fell on Newcastle, Johanna and Pilgrim had a chance to lift off from their camp to the southeast. Ravna went to bed late that night, worrying that the two were making a big mistake. The wind across Starship Hill was rising. What if the two arrived and found a blizzard in progress? Much safer to wait things out on the ground, even if far away. Three years earlier, Pilgrim had been stuck in the wilds for five tendays while storms danced across takeoff and landing points with perfect synchronization. This time … well, she knew the two travelers had heard only bits and pieces of what had happened here. She prayed they wouldn’t let their curiosity trump their good judgment.
The worry and the wind kept her awake for several hours. When she finally dozed off … she massively overslept. That had happened much too often since she’d moved to the town house. All her life she’d had convenient external reminder services. Her body’s natural system needed discipline that it had not yet learned.
In this case she was wakened by muffled pounding. She lay for a moment, trying to imagine what that could flag—then suddenly realized someone was banging on her front door. She skittered across the cold floor, out of her bedroom. Through the windows she had a glimpse of darkening overcast, snow piled deep on nearby homes, drowning the street below. The wind had died sometime during her sleep.
Ravna was halfway down the front stairs when the delicate lockbolt finally gave up its defense. The door crashed opened. Frigid air swept in around a figure in a heavy parka. “What damn cheap construction!” That was Johanna’s voice, and as the figure advanced toward the stairs, it pulled back its hood. Yes, it was Johanna.
She advanced through the cloak room, pulling off her parka as she came. A pack of five entered the house behind her. Tines in the arctic winter had deep pelts, but even they wore heavy jackets in cold like this. Nevertheless, Ravna recognized Pilgrim. Two of him were inspecting the shattered lockbolt while two others quietly shut the door. The fifth was keeping an eye on Johanna.
The young woman threw her parka to the floor. “That fucker! That motherless, shit-eating traitor! That—”
From there, Johanna’s criticism became more pointed. There were words Ravna was a little surprised Johanna would know, though maybe in the Straumer dialect they were more mellow than Ravna thought.
At last there came a pause in the verbal hellstorm. “You’re talking about Nevil, are you?”
Johanna glared at her for almost five seconds as she seemed to struggle for speech. Finally, she said, “In case you haven’t guessed, the w
edding is off.”
“Why don’t we go upstairs and talk about it?”
They trekked up the wooden stairs, Ravna in the lead, Johanna thumping along behind her. Halfway, Ravna heard her muffled voice say something like, “Sorry about the dirty boots.”
Pilgrim’s voice came from further back: “We’ve talked to Nevil; I’ve had a hearts to hearts chat with Woodcarver.”
Maybe I won’t have to explain everything. Just the most embarrassing parts. “How long have you been back?”
“Five hours,” said Pilgrim. “We took a navigational chance, and it paid off. A mere twelve hours hanging in the air and then the wind died to nothing and the snow stopped, and here we are!”
As they entered the second level, Ravna turned on the glow panels. Johanna teetered at the edge of the carpet, then sagged down to sit with her back against the wall, her butt on the bare wood margin of the room. Pilgrim helped her take off her boots while he walked around the room, apparently admiring the carpet.
“We got only the most scattered fragments on our commset,” he said. “We—”
“You got screwed, Ravna” said Johanna.
Ravna sighed. “I can’t believe I was so naive.”
Johanna shook her head. “You knew I trusted him enough to marry him.”
Pilgrim’s voice was comforting even if his words were not: “Nevil is a big surprise for all of us, a political genius. He accomplished so much with so little effort. And I truly think he—”
Jo interrupted him, “You should have been there, Ravna. He was so full of deeply felt straight talk. He would have lost some teeth if Yngva and Jerkwad hadn’t been close by.” She looked up at Ravna, and her face seemed to crumple. “I love, I loved him, Ravna! I can’t believe Nevil is evil. I think he really b-believes he did the r-right thing.” She leaned forward, sobbing.
─────
Johanna had moved to the room’s long sofa. Now she simply looked exhausted. Pilgrim’s big, scarred one was sitting next to her, his head in her lap. The rest of Pilgrim was lying at the traditional viewing positions on the carpet. “I’ve got to find Jefri,” Jo said. “Jef was so little when we left the High Lab. He was almost as talented as Jerkwad, but he didn’t have any training. I never thought he even liked the place. How could he betray—”
“He’s not the only Denier, Jo,” said Ravna, remembering the angry voices denouncing her.
“Yeah. I never paid attention to the whiners. For that matter, since … since I’ve been on this world, Tines seem much better friends than humans.” Her look got a little distant. “I thought Nevil was bringing me back from that.” She glanced at Pilgrim. “You know, there’s a more surprising idiot than any of us, and that’s Woodcarver. I can see she’d be pissed when Nevil told her about your secret snooping on Flenser, but Powers!, why would she let Nevil lead her around like all the rest?”
A soft chuckle rose from Pilgrim. “Ah, dear Woodcarver. She wouldn’t have been fooled if she weren’t going through a change of life.”
Jo was nodding. “I’ve been worried about her new puppy.”
“Yes. Sht. Keeping Sht was a mistake. Not a big mistake. Woodcarver and her broodkenners are too experienced for that; normally this would only be an inconvenience. Now with little Sht onboard, our co-Queen is a bit more … vindictive than before.” The four of Pilgrim on the carpet had been staring down into the weave of its design. Now they all looked up at Ravna. “I understand why you didn’t tell Woodcarver about your spying on Flenser. But telling Nevil—”
“May be my biggest mistake of all?” said Ravna.
The pack nodded heads. “Nevil’s revelation outraged Woodcarver far more than it would have pre-Sht. She rationalized this to me in some detail. She considers that she is using Nevil.”
“I don’t know,” said Johanna. She idly petted the scarred one’s head. “Back at the High Lab, Nevil was the most popular guy in school. I loved him even then—well, I had a crush on him. But he comes from a long line of leaders and politicians. His folks were the lab’s directors, the best in Straumli Realm. Both naturally and by training, Nevil is a star.”
“Yes, but my Woodcarver has had centuries to observe sneakiness and breed sneakiness into herself,” said Pilgrim. A smile rippled. “Sharing puppies with her, I’ve inherited some of that myself.” The four on the carpet hunkered down. For a moment an old-time human tune filled around the room, Pilgrim “humming” to himself. “Still, there’s Sht’s influence. Woodcarver honestly believes that Ravna has drifted into power madness.”
Johanna straightened abruptly. “What?”
“Woodcarver studied the decorations in the New Meeting Place, and Ravna’s words and dress.”
“Which were all helpfully put together by Nevil, right?” Jo looked at Ravna, who nodded.
Pilgrim: “Oh, Woodcarver figured that out—but she says, even so, it was a valid reflection of Ravna’s inclinations. She is really angry with you, Ravna. Sorry.”
Ravna bowed her head. “Yeah … I’ve gotten too wrapped up in the Age of Princesses. Nevil didn’t have to exaggerate much to make me look like a nutcase.” The Age of Princesses will never seem beautiful to me again.
“Don’t be that way, Ravna.” Johanna eased the scarred one aside and came around the low table to hold her hand. “Nevil has outsmarted everybody.” She sat on the carpet beside Ravna’s chair, rested her head in their clasped hands. “Everybody. That’s the biggest surprise, you know. So what if we Children have disagreements with you, or complain that you make mistakes? Most of the kids love you, Ravna.”
“Yes, Nevil said something similar to me. He—”
“Okay then. I’ll bet his biggest problem is keeping the Children from connecting that affection with their common sense.” She paused for a long moment, staring at the floor.
“You finally noticed the carpet, eh?” said Pilgrim.
Johanna gave him a weak glare. “Yes.” Her gaze swept along the windows, the carven knicknacks that Bili had set on the wall shelves. “This place is beautiful, Ravna. Nevil has set you up with swankier digs than Woodcarver’s own inner rooms.”
Pilgrim: “And I’ll bet he wants Ravna to work in separate quarters, too.”
Ravna nodded.
Johanna made a grumpy noise. “We already know he’s a great manipulator.” She came to her feet and walked to the windows. There was a break in the overcast way out at the horizon. Aurora light spilled through. After a moment she said. “You know what we need?”
“To finally get some sleep?” said Pilgrim, but Ravna noticed that his eyes were open and all watching Jo.
“True, but I’m thinking further ahead. If Nevil is a great politician, we just have to be better. There must be whole sciences of sneaky. Ravna knows Oobii’s archives. We’re smart; we can learn.” Johanna was looking at her expectantly, and suddenly Ravna realized that the girl thought librarians must be experts at everything.
“Johanna, I could set up a sneakiness research program, but—”
“Oh! You think Nevil knows enough about Oobii to track you on this?”
“Ah,” said Ravna. “I didn’t tell you what happened yesterday,” They had gotten sidetracked by the overwhelming unpleasantness that had come before. “Nevil explained my new situation.”
“Okay?” Suddenly Johanna looked wary.
Ravna described Nevil’s “moderate” position, his plea for her help. “Then, well, he said that since I had lost the vote and agreed to step down, it was only right that I give him system administration authority over Oobii.”
Pilgrim said, “Is that what it sounds like?”
“Ravna, you didn’t!”
“I gave him the sysadmin authority, but—”
Johanna had covered her face with her hands. “So now he can see everything we do? He can block whatever archive access he wants? He can redocument records?”
“Not … exactly. I gave him what he literally asked for. I lucked out; if I’d had to actively lie, I�
��m sure I would have botched it.”
Johanna peeked from between her fingers. “So … what does sysadmin mean?”
“Literally, bureaucratic control over the Oobii’s automation. The thing that Nevil didn’t understand is that Oobii is a ship. It must have a captain, and the captain’s command must exist independent of administration.”
“Really? I don’t think it was like that on Straumer vessels.”
Ravna remembered back to the near-lethal conflict between Pham Nuwen and the Skroderider Blueshell. “Maybe not, but it’s the case for Oobii.” Straumli Realm always cut corners—but she didn’t say that out loud. “The Out of BandII has a n-partite memory system. Only a minority is accessible through sysadmin. If that deviates from the rest, then the person with Command Privilege has a number of options.”
Johanna had lowered her hands. A look of triumph was spreading across her face. “And … you … have Command Privilege?”
Ravna nodded. “Pham set up a contingent transfer, just before he dropped onto Starship Hill. It, it was one of the last things he did for me.”
Pilgrim: “So you’re like the Goddess on the Bridge!” The pack looked back and forth at itself, embarrassed. “Sorry. That’s one of your Sjandra adventure novels.”
Ravna remembered no such title, but that was no surprise. Most civilizations had more fiction than they did real history. In any case: “I’m deleting such references from what Nevil and company can read.”
“Command Privilege can do that?”
“Oh yes. The places he’s likely to see, anyway. Oobii doesn’t have the compute power to revise its entire archive. The point is, Nevil can go on about his business, messing and snooping—”
“But it’s all in an invisible box!”
“Right. He shouldn’t notice a thing, unless we have bad luck or we cause some external effect.”
CHAPTER 14
A few days later, Ravna had her very own office aboard Oobii … and the opportunity to begin her research into sneakiness. Oobii’s archives were mostly about technology. Even so, “sneakiness” was far too broad a search concept. Normally in the Beyond, where interactions were almost always positive-sum, “sneakiness” was no more than knowing one’s customer and driving a shrewd deal. It was exactly the peaceful pursuit of her old employers at the Vrinimi Organization. The winners got fabulously wealthy and the losers—well, they only got rich. At the other extreme, in the unhappiest corners of the Slow Zone, there were sometimes true negative-sum games. On those worlds, only a saint could believe in return business, and all advancement depended on diminishing others. Pham Nuwen’s childhood had been in such a place—or so he had remembered.