The Witling

by Vernor Vinge

  The sun stood almost ten degrees above the horizon now, its glare blotting the eastern plains from view. The air turned dry and hot, and something—animals hidden in the rocks?—set up a terrible buzzing. What had—by contrast with the antarctic—seemed warm before, had been nothing but the chill of a desert night. By noon this place would be hotter than anything she’d seen in the Summerkingdom.

  Bre‘en looked sourly at the heat ripples rising over the brownish green marsh. Pelio had used one of the boat cables to tie the Snowman to the biggest, sturdiest bush in sight. Bre’en couldn’t reng away from them, but he had what freedom of movement his broken ankle permitted. “So?” the haggard Bre’en said, grimacing at the pain that must be shooting up his leg. “At most you’ve gained yourselves an hour of freedom. Right now my king’s army and their allies are checking every mudhole inside ten leagues. And the Desertfolk know these lands: to them water is terribly important. You’ll be lucky to—”

  “Oh? They know where every last drop of water is, eh?” Yoninne broke in nastily. “Then why don’t your friends have a settlement here?”

  Bre’en pointed at the circle of rocks that peeked through the scrub around the marsh. “Someone was here once; they even had a transit lake. If I remember right, there are ruins on the other side of the bog … buildings burned right down to their foundations.”

  “The water is so thoroughly poisoned that only scragweed can drink it,” said Pelio sharply.

  Bre’en nodded, almost smugly. “Some of my … some of the partisans were overeager on that score. They felt your Summerfolk were a bit discourteous, planting your towns in the margin of their desert.”

  Pelio started to reply, then waved angrily at their hostage. “You’re wasting our time, Bre’en.” He turned to Yoninne. “We’ve got to decide what to do. Should we hide out here, or take another chance with the Desertfolk’s roads? Your strange sphere”—he gestured at the ablation skiff—“could hold us all, and it certainly seems sturdy enough to be used as a road boat.”

  “Could Bre’en jump us all the way into County Tsarang?”

  The Snowman smiled crookedly and shook his head. “I doubt it,” said Pelio, confirming Bre’en’s wordless assertion. “The county has always been well guarded against unwelcome pilgrims. He could reng us to a border lake, but that’s about all.”

  “Then I don’t see what good it would do to get back on the road,” Yoninne said glumly. “At least the Snowmen don’t know where we are now.”

  Bjault broke the long silence that followed. “You said this was once a Summerfolk village, Bre’en. It must be close to land that’s still under Summer control.”

  The Snowman tried to laugh but it was a hollow, croaking sound. “It is, you brown-faced fool, it is. County Tsarang lies just beyond those mountains.” He waved toward the west. “It would be one quick jump if you had someone who could seng the way. But it’s a death march if you try to walk it without water.”

  “Hmm,” said Bjault, as if this were some very encouraging answer. The archaeologist rose stiffly and walked over to the skiff.

  Pelio watched him for a moment, then said to Yoninne, “You told me once that yonder sphere can fly.”

  “Yes, but only downward, to slow a fall.” She didn’t try to explain the workings of the parachute. Face it,girl: we’re stuck. Even if Bre’en were exaggerating—even if the walk to the mountains were a piece of cake—it still wouldn’t do them any good. They needed the skiff, too. Without it, they couldn’t carry out Ajão’s plan for getting to the telemetry station on Draere’s island.

  As they talked, Bjault stood silently, looking first at the skiff and then at the ragged line of mountains to the west. Suddenly he shouted in Homespeech, “That’s it! Look, Yoninne: we have a good parachute and we have Bre’en. We can teleport high-velocity air into the chute and lift ourselves right up by our bootstraps!” A grin split his dark face from ear to ear.

  Leg-Wot realized her mouth was hanging open. Why, Bre’en could sail their skiff right over the mountains into County Tsarang. Suddenly she was on her feet, running through the brush to Ajão and the skiff. She pulled open the hatch, and clambered into the still-cool darkness. A loud sprong sounded as she pulled the chute release, and the olivecolored, fiberene parachute burst from the top of the skiff’s heat-scarred hull. She grabbed a fold from the heavy pack and pulled streamer after streamer of gauzy fiberene onto the ground. Bjault tried ineffectually to help.

  All the while, Pelio and Bre‘en looked on with expressions of wonder and—in Bre’en’s case—suspicion. Yoninne turned to them. “I was wrong, Pelio.” She waved at the hundreds of square meters of olive chute spread across the rocks and bushes. “Using Bre’en’s Talent, we can fly.” She explained what the Snowman would have to do.

  Thredegar Bre’en had risen to his knees to stare at them. He swayed slightly from side to side, and his face was filmed with sweat. But he seemed to understand what she wanted, even if he didn’t see what the effect would be. Finally he said, “You’ve been working me for hours. How much longer do you think I can go on?”

  She glanced at Pelio, saw that the prince couldn’t tell if Bre‘en were faking or not. Bre’en certainly hadn’t been getting as much rest as their pilots had during the trip to the North Pole. But had those rest-stops been a matter of comfort or necessity? Then she remembered the med-kit in the skiff. The kit contained booster drugs. Perhaps they wouldn’t help—perhaps they would blot out what Talent the Snowman could still use—but the alternative was simply to threaten the fellow, and that ploy had already been used for all it was worth. She started toward the skiff’s hatch and said to Bre’en, “I’ve got some, uh, potions here that should bring your strength back.” She might as well seem confident, anyway.

  For an instant she saw stark terror in the Snowman’s face, and realized how thoroughly his people must respect the witlings’ “magic.” Bre’en’s fear turned to dark anger, and the man straightened, his fatigue visibly diminished. What she had offered as help was actually the greatest threat she could have made.

  “All right, then,” Pelio said to Bre’en. “Let’s get aboard.”

  Eighteen

  Yoninne spent a few extra seconds outside the skiff, trying to spread the chute as far as possible across the thicketed ground. She worked with frantic haste, and tried to suppress the constant urge to look over her shoulder at the marsh. Now that they had a means of escaping, she expected their pursuers to come popping into existence at any moment.

  At last she climbed into the dark interior of the skiff, leaving the hatch ajar. Things were even more crowded than when the powered sledge had been aboard. Samadhom, Bre’en, and the witlings shared the skiff with several tons of carefully seated lead ballast. They would need that ballast if they ever reached County Tsarang, but for now it only made their task more difficult. She settled into the webbed pilot’s seat—left vacant for her by Ajão, who apparently realized she would need as much room as possible.

  “Start off slowly, Bre’en. We don’t know just how this will work.”

  The Snowman—crammed between herself and Pelio—didn’t say anything, but the brush outside the hatch cracked and strained in a sudden gust of wind. Through the skiff’s window slits, Yoninne saw the chute press itself against the ground. “Not that way,” she said abruptly. “Reng in air from the northwest.”

  The breeze vanished for a moment, then returned. The olive fiberene floated upward as the air moved over it. In seconds, the canopy had bellied out before them, tugging the shrouds that extended horizontally from the top of the skiff. Pelio gasped as he looked through the narrow windows at the immense olive disk and finally realized just how it might be possible for them to fly. But the wind barely filled the chute; its lower edge still rested on the ground. Bre’en was probably stalling, but Leg-Wot did not object. They’d get their necks broken if they didn’t handle this takeoff cautiously. “More,” was all she said to their hostage.

  The wind became a sh
rieking, pulsing hurricane, as the Snowman teleported gout after gout of air into the canopy. The shrouds bounced back and forth, absorbing the irregular thrust, and the skiff lurched forward with a whiplash, rocking motion. Something—a boulder?—crashed against the hull, sending them half a meter into the air. Bre‘en’s windstorm was dragging them across the jagged stones that surrounded the marsh. The skiff’s interior became a jumble of randomly extended hands and feet as everyone—except Yoninne and Bre’en, who were strapped down—caromed wildly about. Leg-Wot pulled hard on the trim controls with little effect.

  “Give us some up, or we’ll all die,” she screamed at the Snowman. “Jump the air in from further west,” she added, jabbing him in the side. Bre’en got the message, for suddenly the chute swung twenty degrees into the air, and after one last bone-crunching collision, the skiff was—provisionally—airborne. The noise suddenly faded, though they were still being dragged along by Bre’en’s wind storm: when Leg-Wot looked out the hatch she saw scrub and rocks streaming past just a couple of meters below. If they hit anything now, the hull would crack open. She worked at the chute’s trim controls, trying to direct the thrust. The controls were manual, but well designed, and soon their climb angle was almost forty-five degrees. The ride was still bumpy—much like the antique pulse-jet her father once let her fly—but she had control and they were putting distance between themselves and the ground.

  The thrust came ragged now; Bre’en lay gasping in his webbed seat. Leg-Wot touched his arm. “Rest for a moment.”

  The other nodded without looking up and the gale roaring around the skiff became more of a breeze. Yoninne pushed open the hatch and looked at the lands below. The skiff’s altimeter said they were twenty-five hundred meters up. She could believe it: the ground looked soft—almost velvety—and the grazing sunlight sent long blue shadows across the hills. At their present sink rate, about eight meters per second, Bre’en could relax for a minute or so.

  Behind them, a dusky green ring sat in the desert—the poisoned oasis they had just departed. But that marsh was no longer empty! An egg-shaped road boat had materialized at the center of the swamp. And she thought she could make out tiny figures standing in the dry brush at its margin.

  Pelio leaned past Bre’en to look out the hatch. For a moment he just stared; then he laughed. “We’re too far up. The fools can see us but they can’t seng us. Safe. We’re safe!” Suddenly he seemed to realize just how much sheer empty space separated them from the ground. He shivered, and carefully retreated from the opening.

  One thousand meters altitude. “Bre’en. Give us another boost.”

  The Snowman opened his eyes, and looked dazedly out the hatch. For a moment Yoninne thought he was going to scream. Then he realized that their descent was relatively slow, and concentrated on the task Leg-Wot had set. Pulsing explosions of hypervelocity air sounded again above them. The chute pitched over to the west as the air rammed into it. Yoninne estimated that they were being dragged along at better than sixty meters per second—and as long as she kept the chute properly trimmed, much of that velocity was directed upward.

  A minute passed and Leg-Wot motioned to the Snowman, who immediately stopped work. Relative quiet returned to the cabin. Four thousand meters, the altimeter said. Not bad; even with all the ballast we’re in good shape. The dead oasis was lost in the morning glare. For the moment, all their problems lay within the skiff itself.

  She trimmed the chute for maximum westward glide, and looked at the others. Bre’en was sunk down in his acceleration webbing, his eyes closed, apparently semiconscious. Crammed into the left side of the skiff, Pelio and Ajão looked uncomfortable but alert. As for Samadhom: the watchbear rested limply across her friends’ laps, his massive head drooping over Pelio’s knee. Every few seconds he swayed his head to the side, and a faint meep sounded from his hidden mouth. Poor fellow. If he had been human, she would have said he was sinking into delirium.

  If Sam lost consciousness, then the tables would finally be turned—and Bre‘en could kill them all. Then all the Snowman had to do was teleport the skiff back to the oasis, and he’d be home free. No, that wasn’t quite right. They were several thousand meters up now—with all the potential energy that altitude gave them: unless Bre’en could find a rengable exchange mass, he would die of heatstroke teleporting down that far. But that was not an insuperable objection: if they were dead Bre’en could just wait until the parachute lowered the skiff to a safe altitude—and then “jump.”

  But did Bre‘en know that? Did he really understand the chute’s function? Perhaps she could convince him that without her cooperation, the skiff would fall like a rock. Her hand slid back to grasp the spill lanyard that hung close by the side of her webbing, hidden from Bre’en’s view.

  Seconds later, Bre’en groaned and sat a little straighter. Yoninne glanced quickly at the man, then pretended to concentrate on the trim stick in her left hand. “I want to show you something, Bre’en. You’re not the only person needed to keep us in the air.” She waited till she had his full attention, then released the stick from her left hand. At the same time, she surreptitiously yanked the spill lanyard with her right; in the olive dome above them, dozens of tiny vents slid open. The skiff’s gentle descent became a swift free fall toward the desert below.

  Pelio’s eyes went wide. Bre‘en gave a short barking yell, before trying madly to slow their fall. The Snowman teleported blast after blast at the chute, but it was close-reefed now and their fall continued. Yoninne waited, resisting the terrible urge to act, until the instant Bre’en seemed to realize that all his efforts were in vain. Then she made a great show of grabbing the stick, and pulling it quickly this way and that. Simultaneously, she reset the lanyard with her right hand, and prayed the chute would dereef.

  It did, and their fall ended in a protracted thunng sound as the shrouds stretched taut and the skiff resumed its eightmeter-per-second sink rate. Yoninne glanced at the skiff’s simple instrument board. They had lost only two-hundredmeters’ altitude; more surprising still, the whole game had lasted only seven seconds. She trimmed the chute back onto their original glide path, then fiddled impressively with the controls a few seconds more. Keeping her hand on the trim stick, she turned to Bre’en. “See what I mean?”

  Thredegar Bre’en nodded dumbly. She noticed that Ajão’s face was blank, an expression that Leg-Wot recognized as carefully concealed amusement.

  They flew in silence for several minutes. Now the desert looked like tawny cement, littered with pebbles, splattered here and there with motor oil.

  Gradually the land seemed to ripple. Long shadows stood the foothills up like great ridges. She leaned out past the hatch, into the wind: the mountains ahead rose a good thousand meters above them, the rounded summits speckled with trees, pepper on sand.

  She had Bre’en give the craft another boost, and minutes later still another. Each time they drew swiftly closer to the mountains but each time they rose hundreds of meters. Yoninne swallowed again and again to ease the pressure in her ears.

  They passed over the line of peaks, missing the nearest by less than five hundred meters. In the branches of the trees there, she saw tiny spots of color that must be flowers. But spectacular as it was, the land below them couldn’t compare to what she saw over the mountains. The sea! A dark blue line along the western horizon. And the land between the mountains and the coast was green—not brown or ocher like the deserts behind them. The beautiful green band stretched as far to the north as she could see. So this was County Tsarang.

  It was all downhill now; Bre’en had a much easier time of it. Yoninne estimated they could make it all the way to the coast if necessary. “Do you recognize any of this, Pelio?” she asked.

  Pelio started to lean across Bre’en to look out the hatch. There were small observation windows slotted into the hull near him, but the open hatch provided a much better view. Samadhom shifted heavily across his lap and rolled limply against the wall. Pelio turned to crad
le Sam’s head in his arms. He looked back at Yoninne, and his voice quavered faintly. “Samadhom’s still alive, I’m sure of it—”

  But he’s unconscious, thought Leg-Wot. Bre’en’s attention flickered quickly from Yoninne to the watchbear and then back. Thank God Bre’en thinks the skiff will fall without our help.

  Pelio reluctantly eased Sam onto the piled ballast, then returned to the hatch. He looked northward, then—gripping the edge of the hatch with both hands—leaned into the wind to look straight ahead. “We’ve done it, Ionina,” he said softly. “The center of Tsarangalang city is just to the right of our path. It can’t be more than a few miles away.”

  They grinned foolishly at each other for a moment. Then Pelio turned back to Samadhom.

  Yoninne tipped the canopy slightly and the skiff angled off in the direction Pelio had indicated. They weren’t more than two thousand meters up. The country below was wild by Homeworld standards, but Yoninne could see that it must be an Azhiri orchard. The greenery was speckled with red, and here and there she saw large stacks of the fruit waiting for transportation. An occasional building peeked through the foliage.

  On the other side of the cabin, Pelio talked softly to Sam. Until the watchbear could be revived, the only thing that kept Bre’en from kenging them all was his fear of a crash. But that fear would diminish as the skiff sank nearer to earth.

  Finally they were passing over the central districts of Tsarangalang: the buildings below were separated by scant hundreds of meters. Straight ahead lay the circular blue disk of the city’s transit lake. That’s where they’d have to touch down. With all the tons of ballast aboard, they were coming down so fast that Pelio and Ajão—unprotected by deceleration webbing—could get messed up if she landed on solid ground.