The Witling

by Vernor Vinge

  “By God, that’s it!” Bjault said in Homespeech. He would never have seen it without this map, yet a born Azhiri would never have seen it without Ajão’s technical background. He looked up at the puzzled Guildsman, and said with a triumphant grin, “Between your Talent, and my ‘magic,’ I think we can get to that island!”

  Eleven

  They called it the Festival of the Southern Summer-and ignored the fact that this marked the shortest day of all winter in the northern hemisphere. It was the greatest of the imperial holidays, equaled only by the Festival of the Northern Summer a half year away. The present affair wasn’t quite up to previous years—the duchies Rengeleru and Dgeredgerai were too busy holding their trade routes through the Great Desert against Sandfolk incursions to send their usual shows to the court. Nevertheless, most of the Summer peerage had come to the fest, filling all fifteen tiers of the Equatorial Amphitheater. The amphitheater was a natural ridge line stretching north and south some five hundred yards. It had taken the king’s laborers more than three years to carve the brownish-pink rhyolite of the hillside into fifteen shelves, each for a particular degree of nobility. Then millions of tons of topsoil, turf, and trees had been laid over the steps until an occasional pink streak of polished stone was all that showed through the green.

  It was just two days since the mysterious invasion of the Summerplace Keep had been discovered. Though nothing had been revealed publicly, the rumors had spread—and the guards posted at every transit pool and ornamental pond of the amphitheater simply strengthened the rumors. Pelio wondered if things would ever return to normal. It had been a miracle that he was able to get Ionina out of the Keep unnoticed; he had never seen his father’s advisers so upset. Even though they found nothing missing from the king’s private rooms—and Pelio didn’t admit to his own losses—they were still faced with the irrefutable fact that someone had taken advantage of the diplomatic reception to rifle the Keep, and murder two air-rengers. The would-be thieves had had great Talent and incredible audacity. From that night on, patrols roamed the Keep, the first time any king-imperial had ever thought that necessary.

  But only Pelio realized the true enormity of what had happened. Only Pelio knew that the thieves had actually stolen anything; someone had penetrated the Keep, someone who could reng objects out of it without the aid of the Highroom attendants. A Guildsman—or what was more likely, considering how carefully the Guild abided by the Covenant of Powers—a member of the royal family. The prince kept this knowledge to himself. He knew his situation was precarious; questions were being asked that might incidentally expose his relationship with a witling commoner. For a few days he must avoid the girl, both in public and private.

  Pelio drifted from conversation to conversation, ever standing on the outskirts, and never knowing quite what to do. It had been different before he met Ionina. Then, he had been content to sulk. But now that he knew how much fun the give and take of conversation could be, he couldn’t do that either. Perhaps it was just as well: he looked across the terrace at Aleru and Queen Virizhiana. Whoever burgled his storeroom was playing a deadly yet mysterious game. Until he knew more about that game, it was wise to remain quiet and inconspicuous.

  He moved away from the crowd, and walked to a tree-enclosed bower near the edge of the terrace. Here the smell of flowers and green leaves was stronger, and the sounds of the fest fainter. Just a few inches from his feet, the grass ended abruptly and the ground fell steeply away, exposing the polished pink bedrock. From where he stood, Pelio could see every one of the fifteen tiers, all the way down to the baronial level. But there was so much greenery that he could see only a fraction of the crowds.

  Somewhere under the trees on the ninth terrace, the fest’s musicians struck up “Invitation to a Joust.” On all the terraces the crowds moved forward to watch the action on the jousting plain to the west. Pelio’s little bower was invaded by a trio of young nobles, full of chatter and wagers. By the blue in their kilts, Pelio knew they were from some country court and rightly belonged down on the sixth terrace. But the fest’s formality was not strict, and with the proper friends a nobleman could go practically anywhere in the amphitheater. For the first time in years Pelio found himself unrecognized, and before he knew it, he was betting his largest ring that one Tseram Cherapfu would carry the day on the field below. In fact, he knew nothing of Tseram Cherapfu; it was a name he had heard discussed earlier by some other jousting experts.

  The four settled down in the soft grass to watch the event. Seconds later the two contenders appeared—one at the north end of the plain, and one at the south. At this distance they were tiny specks, distinguished only by their colorful jousting costumes. Pelio gathered from the others that the red-suited fellow, the one on the north, was Cherapfu.

  A crack of thunder broke across the plain, and dust billowed up from the turf near the jouster dressed in blue; Tseram Cherapfu had taken the first shot. One of the young nobles snorted that such a premature attack was a foolish waste of effort, and another responded that you could never be sure, that Cherapfu was sometimes uncannily accurate. The two figures walked slowly toward each other, till they were barely four hundred yards apart. Now the thunder began again, but this time it continued in a ragged staccato of sharp snaps, the sound of super-velocity air slamming into existence above the plain.

  The contest was a friendly one, but these men fought as trained and talented soldiers would in a real battle. For in actual warfare, it was usually impossible to scramble your enemy’s insides by a direct application of the Talent: unless he were dazed or a witling his natural defenses would protect him against a keng attack. So it was necessary to assault the enemy indirectly, by teleporting air and rocks from many leagues away, air and rocks that would emerge traveling hundreds of feet per second in the direction of your target.

  The battle in the plain below could not be quite so realistic: the contestants were not allowed to reng solid projectiles and their air blasts emerged high above the ground. Still, it was spectacular: the sledgehammer winds drove grass and dust up into dirty clouds over the field as the two troopers flickered back and forth, trying to avoid each other’s blasts.

  Pelio found himself yelling just as loudly as the others. They were good, those soldiers—even he could tell that. Both had made the Grand Pilgrimage through the arctic to be able to reng in the thunder like that. And only a few highly trained people could jump without a transit pool, yet these men were doing so every few seconds.

  It couldn’t go on for long; the soldier in red staggered beneath a multiple series of blasts that flattened the grass around him. He swayed dazedly, defenselessly, as the thunder converged upon him. The four boys sucked in their breath at once, as a final blast knocked Cherapfu backward. He did a complete flip before falling to earth.

  A cheer swept the length of the amphitheater, and the three boys jumped to their feet, arguing excitedly about the match. Pelio found himself talking, too, parroting back arguments he had heard earlier in the afternoon. And strangely enough, it was fun, even though he didn’t understand half of what he said. As Pelio slid the ring his wager had cost him off his finger, a second wave of cheering sounded behind them. They turned to look through the trees. The winner of the match had just emerged from the main transit pool, to be greeted by Aleru and Virizhiana, and receive the wreath of victory across his blue jacket. The crowd closed in about them and—

  Ionina! She stood about twenty yards from the pool, and right next to her towered the gangling, brown-faced Adgao. How could they possibly be here? Who had brought them? His amazement was drowned in the chill fear that this time he could not possibly carry off his deception. Pelio numbly turned back to the others and handed his ring to the nearest of them, then walked out of the bower, with Samadhom close on his heels.

  Behind him he heard one of the boys exclaim, “Jiru, look! The prince-imperial’s seal is carved into this thing.”

  I’ve got to get them out of here, got to get them out of
here. It was all Pelio could think as he walked across the grassy terrace toward the girl and her grotesque companion. There were first-rate troopers all around, people who could seng for a certainty that these two strangers were witlings. He couldn’t be seen talking to Ionina.

  Then he realized it didn’t matter anymore: the terrace was strangely silent. Even the talk around the transit pool had died. He and Ionina and Adgao had become the center of attention. He saw now that the two aliens were actually in the custody of guards. There was no more hope. Pelio straightened his back and slowly walked the distance that separated him from the girl. It was so quiet he could hear his feet parting the grass, hear voices from the terraces below. How ironic that things should come to an end now, on such a sunny, blue-skied day.

  Finally he stood facing Ionina. She seemed to catch the fear he felt, though she couldn’t know the cause. Behind the guards stood three of Pelio’s household servants. They must be responsible for bringing Ionina and Adgao to the fest. Were they bungling fools—or had someone put them up to this? The question rippled the top of his mind, but deep down he knew it didn’t matter.

  There were sounds behind him, and when he turned he was not surprised at the tableau confronting him. There was his father, the king. Shozheru’s mouth opened and closed, like a sea-bat out of water, as he vacillated between mortification and rage. On either side of him were ranged his advisers—those grim-faced, loyal men who all these years had urged their king to remove Pelio so that Aleru could succeed to the throne. To one side stood Aleru himself, his gray-green face blanched almost white by—what? Rage? Triumph? In the crowd behind them, only two or three faces caught Pelio’s eye: his mother, her gaze fixed on some point above his head; Thredegar Bre’en, his face as bland as ever; and Thengets del Prou. The dark-skinned Guildsman had always been strange, one of the few persons who talked to Pelio as if he were no different from everyone else—perhaps because, from Prou’s superior vantage point, Pelio wasn’t that much less Talented than the normals. But now even that dubious ally seemed far away and indifferent. It was the whole world set against himself and the two other witlings.

  At last old Shozheru found his voice, though it quavered with pain and anger. “Why, Pelio? You could have been king of All Summer … at least in name. I had managed that.” His voice croaked away into silence, then began again. “All, all you had to do was to keep some shred of dignity about you, to pretend that my dynasty could continue through you. Instead, you surround yourself with de—degenerates.” He pointed spastically at the tall strangers standing behind Pelio. “If I let you succeed me, your ‘court’ would be the laughingstock of All Summer. What vassal could even pretend loyalty to you? The empire would fall in a year—though it has stood five centuries.” And now the pain seemed much stronger than the rage. “What choice have I, Pelio? By law you must succeed me, or you must die. After this”—again he gestured at Ionina and Adgao—“you can never succeed me.”

  A soft yet defiant voice spoke from behind Pelio. “There is other choice.” Ionina’s interruption stopped Shozheru cold. No nobleman had ever addressed him so abruptly, much less a commoner, much less a witling. Pelio turned to look at the girl. Ionina was not cringing. She looked levelly at Shozheru, and her strange beauty held him motionless. But when she spoke again, her words broke the spell—in fact, provoked quickly suppressed laughter through the crowd:

  “Pelio will travel across the Great Ocean soon, and you will have rid of him.”

  The king-imperial’s body straightened as he gathered his powers. “Do not mock me!” His voice was shrill and womanish but there was death in his face, and at that moment Ionina should have fallen dead, the interior of her brain or heart jumbled into a nonfunctioning mess. Instead, Samadhom gave a pained yelp and rushed clumsily to her side.

  The girl continued, her voice tense and argumentative. Didn’t she know how close she’d come to death? “I do not mock you. I speak truth.”

  Shozheru came down from his rage, his body bending back into its usual infirm posture. For the first time he seemed aware of the onlookers. He glared weakly at the three witlings and said, “We will discuss this in private. Now.”

  The crowd parted silenty before them as they walked to the transit pool.

  Shozheru’s study was in the western foothills of the palace mountains. Beyond the open windows, brightly lit greenery stretched half a mile to where the land dropped away to the depths of the equatorial rain forest. Inside, the room was plain, its only ornamentation a collection of small paintings—portraits of Shozheru’s forty-seven predecessors. Even the table at the center of the room was devoid of the carven gargoyles so popular nowadays. Except for the addition of four portraits, the room had remained unchanged for nearly a century, since the Teratseru period—when simplicity had been thought elegant.

  The study was very crowded at first, before the king ordered his advisers and all the guards to leave. In another time, Pelio would have been greatly amused at those advisers’ consternation; they came close to angry argument with their king. But finally they left. Only five people were left then: Aleru and the king on one side of the room, and the three witlings on the other.

  Shozheru set his palms on the deeply varnished surface of his desk and stared at his son for a long moment. The king seemed more rational, more resolved than before. “She says I have a third choice, Pelio.” He didn’t look at Ionina as he spoke. “She says you are going to ‘travel across the ocean,’ and leave the way to succession open to Aleru.”

  Pelio looked down the table at Ionina and Adgao. The girl looked back at him with that dark, mysterious gaze of hers, and Pelio knew she hadn’t been mocking anyone: her witling kingdom must lie across the sea and she must know a way to get there.

  “Yes, Sir, that is true,” he said.

  “How?” The single word was loaded with infinite sarcasm; there were lands beyond the oceans, but no one—not even Guildsmen—could safely go there. Pelio opened his mouth, but no words came to mind.

  “I will tell you how.” The girl’s voice was so soft, yet as decisive as before. Shozheru’s eyes swung unwillingly toward her, but this time he listened.

  And Ionina told them. In some detail. A chill crept up from the pit of his stomach as she spoke. The scheme was insane; how could even magic make it work? Shozheru and Aleru listened expressionlessly but from their brief questions Pelio could tell they also thought the plan was a shortcut to a particularly unpleasant death.

  When Ionina finished, Shozheru turned back to Pelio. “It would be suicide, son,” he said quietly. “Is this what you three really plan to do?”

  What is the alternative? thought Pelio. He knew that Shozheru was convinced now that Pelio couldn’t rule Summer even as a figurehead king. That meant that Pelio must be removed; Pelio must die. Exile was not sufficient—so unbreakable custom dictated—for princes can always come out of exile with insurrectionist armies … .

  Yet no man had ever returned from across the sea, no man had ever survived a jump even one-tenth so far; the king could probably persuade his advisers to let Pelio undertake that journey, rather than have him executed.

  “Yes, Father,” replied Pelio; but he doubted that—even with the faith he had in Ionina and Adgao—he could ever have accepted their scheme, if the alternative were not an imperial death warrant.

  Shozheru looked down at the table. Behind him, Aleru stared through his father into the distance. It was obvious they understood the situation. This way, at least, the king would not have to be his own son’s murderer. “Very well,” Shozheru said at last. “I grant you three all the freedom the girl has asked for, all the materials, and all the labor.” He looked up at them, and Pelio realized that his father was making an expensive gesture in granting Pelio’s “wish.” The Summer court was already the butt of ridicule for the way it pampered the witling prince. “You have nine days.”

  The king walked across the room and slipped into the transit pool without a word of farewell.
>
  “I will send for your servants,” said Aleru as he too started for the transit pool. He hesitated by the water and turned to face the witlings. His head was silhouetted against the bright greenery beyond the windows, so Pelio couldn’t see his features. Was there a tinge of mockery in the words he spoke? “However this turns out, the dynasty will be saved, brother. But I hope that … somehow … you will succeed.”

  Twelve

  They began their journey the morning of the seventh day after the Summer Festival. The sky was inauspiciously overcast and a warm drizzle slid down the sides of Pelio’s yacht as it floated in the North Wing’s transit lake. Yoninne Leg-Wot looked across the puckering water at the gray beaches and rain-slicked vegetation. There was no one to see them off. All that morning, as they finished their departure preparations, she hadn’t seen a single servant or nobleman except those assigned to Pelio’s project, and even they seemed sullen. This didn’t bother her, but Pelio took it all kind of hard. Since their confrontation with the king, many people weren’t even pretending respect for the prince. Pelio’s disgrace went so deep that he was almost like an “unperson” in some totalitarian state. And if they couldn’t accomplish Ajão’s plan in the nine days Shozheru had given them, Yoninne had the feeling they would all be dead unpersons, to boot.

  Nine days. When Bjault and the Guildsman had first described the plan, that had seemed an awfully long time. She had soon found out how wrong she was. With all necessary equipment and technical support things would have been easy, since basically Ajão’s scheme was very simple. But in many ways the Azhiri technology was stuck in the iron age; even the simplest gadgets had to be made from scratch. The ballast for instance: on that item alone Yoninne had wasted three days testing various approaches.