A Fire Upon the Deep (18 page)

The Skroderiders were not the only ones with that wish. Further up the beach, Ravna Bergsndot prowled her office. What gruesome irony that even the greatest disasters can create opportunities for decent people. Her transfer to Marketing had been made permanent with the fall of Arbitration Arts. As the Blight spread and High Beyond markets collapsed, the Org became ever more interested in providing information services about the Straumli Perversion. Her "special" expertise in things human suddenly became extraordinarily valuable -- never mind that Straumli Realm itself was only a small part of what was now the Blight. What little the Blight said of itself was often in Samnorsk. Grondr and company continued to be vitally interested in her analysis.

Well, she had done some good. They had picked up the refugee ship's "I-am-here", and then -- ninety days later -- a message from a human survivor, Jefri Olsndot. Barely forty messages had they exchanged, but enough to learn about the Tines and Mr. Steel and the evil Woodcarvers. Enough to know that a small human life would be ended if she could not help. Ironic but natural: most times that single life weighed more on her than all the horror of the Perversion, even the fall of Straumli Realm. Thank the Powers that Grondr had endorsed the rescue mission: It was a chance to learn something important about the Straumli Perversion. And the Tinish packs seemed to interest him, too; group minds were a fleeting thing in the Beyond. Grondr had kept the whole affair secret, and persuaded
his
bosses to support the mission. But all his help might not be enough. If the refugee ship was as important as Ravna thought, there could be enormous perils awaiting any rescuers.

Ravna looked across the surf. When the waves backed down the sand, she could see the Skroderiders' fronds peeping out of the spray. How she envied them; if tensions annoyed them, they could simply turn them off. The Skroderiders were one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. There were many varieties, but analysis agreed with legend:
very
long ago they had been one species. Somewhere in the off-Net past, they had been sessile dwellers of sea shores. Left to themselves, they had developed a form of intelligence almost devoid of short-term memory. They sat in the surf, thinking thoughts that left no imprints on their minds. Only repetition of a stimulus, over a period of time, could do that. But the intelligence and memory that they had
was
of survival value: it made it possible for them to select the best possible place to cast their pupal seeds, locations that would mean safety and food for the next generation.

Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to "help" them out. Someone had put them on mobile platforms, the skrodes. With wheels they could move along the seashores, could reach and manipulate with their fronds and tendrils. With the skrode's mechanical short-term memory, they could learn fast enough that their new mobility would not kill them.

Ravna glanced away from the Skroderiders -- someone was floating in over the trees. The Emissary Device. Maybe she should call Greenstalk and Blueshell out of the water. No. Let'em bliss out a little longer. If she couldn't get the special equipment, things would be tough enough for them later....

Besides, I can do without witnesses.
She folded her arms across her chest and glared into the sky. The Vrinimi Org had tried to talk to the Old One about this, but nowadays the Power would only work through its Emissary Device ... and
he
had insisted on a face-to-face meeting.

The Emissary touched down a few meters away, and bowed. His lopsided grin spoiled the effect. "Pham Nuwen, at your service."

Ravna gave a little bow in return, and led him to the shade of her inner office. If he thought that face-to-face would unnerve her, he was
right
. "Thanks for the meeting, sir. The Vrinimi Organization has an important request of your principal," owner? master? operator?

Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently. He'd stayed out of her way since that night at The Wandering Company. Grondr said Old One had kept him at Relay though, rummaging through the archives for information about humanity and its origins. It made sense now that Old One had been persuaded to restrict Net use: the Emissary could do local processing, i.e., use human intelligence to search and summarize and then upload only the stuff that Old One really needed.

Ravna watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to study her dataset. Pham had his old, lazy smile. She wondered if she would ever have the courage to ask him how much of their ... affair ... had been a human thing. Had Pham Nuwen felt anything for her? Hell, did he even have a good time?

From a Transcendent point of view, he might be a simple data concentrator and waldo -- but from
her
viewpoint he was still too human. "Um, yes. Well ... the Org has continued to monitor the Straumli refugee ship even though your principal has lost interest."

Pham's eyebrows raised in polite interest. "Oh?"

"Ten days ago, the simple 'I-am-here' signal was interrupted by a new message, apparently from a surviving crewmember."

"Congratulations. You managed to keep it a secret, even from me."

Ravna didn't rise to the bait. "We're doing our best to keep it secret from everyone, sir. For reasons that you must know." She put the messages to date on the air between them. A handful of calls and responses, scattered across ten days. Translated into Triskweline for Pham, the original spelling and grammar errors were gone, yet the tone remained. Ravna was responsible for the Org side of the conversation. It was like talking to someone in a dark room, someone you have never seen. Much was easy to imagine: a strident, piping voice behind the capitalized words and exclamation marks. She had no video of the child, but through the humankind archive at Sjandra Kei, Marketing had dug up pictures of the boy's parents. They looked like typical Straumers, but with the brown eyes of the Linden clans. Little Jefri would be slim and dark.

Pham Nuwen's gaze flicked down through the text, then seemed to hang on the last few lines:

Org[17]: How old are you, Jefri?

Target[18]: I am eight. I mean I am eight years old. I AM OLD ENOUGH BUT I NEED HELP.

Org[18]: We will help. We are coming as fast as we can, Jefri.

Target[19]: Sorry I couldn't talk yesterday. The bad people were on the hill again yesterday. It wasn't safe to go to the ship.

Org[19]: Are the bad ones that close by?

Target[20]: Yes yes. I could see them from the island. I'm with Amdi on shipboard now, but walking up here there were dead soldiers all around. Woodcarver raids here often.
Mother is dead. Father is dead. Johanna is dead. Mister Steel will protect me as much as he can. He says that I must be brave.

For a moment, his smile was gone. "Poor kid," he said softly. Then he shrugged and jabbed his hand at one of the messages. "Well, I'm glad Vrinimi is sending a rescue mission. That is generous of you."

"Not really, sir. Look at items six through fourteen. The boy is complaining about the ship's automation."

"Yeah, he makes it sound like something out of a dawn age: keyboards and video, no voice recognition. A completely unfriendly interface. Looks like the crash scragged almost everything, eh?"

He was being deliberately obtuse, but Ravna resolved to be infinitely patient. "Perhaps not, considering the vessel's origin." Pham just smiled, so Ravna continued to spell things out. "The processors are likely High Beyond or Transcendent, snuffed down to near brainlessness by the current environment."

Pham Nuwen sighed. "All consistent with the Skroderiders' theory, right? You're still hoping this crate is carrying some tremendous secret that will blow the Blight away."

"Yes!.... Look. At one time, the Old One was very curious about all this. Why the total disinterest now? Is there some reason why the ship
can't
be the key to fighting the Perversion?" That was Grondr's explanation for the Old One's recent lack of interest. All her life Ravna Bergsndot had heard tales of the Powers, and always from a great remove. Here, she was awfully close to questioning one directly. It was a very strange feeling.

After a moment Pham said, "No. It's unlikely, but you could be right."

Ravna let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Good. Then what we're asking is reasonable. Suppose the downed ship contains something the Perversion needs, or something it fears. Then it's likely the Perversion knows of its existence -- and may even be monitoring ultradrive traffic in that part of the Bottom. A rescue expedition could lead the Perversion right to it. In that case, the mission will be suicide for its crew -- and could increase the Blight's overall power."

"So?"

Ravna slapped her dataset, resolutions of patience dissolving. "
So
, Vrinimi Org is asking Old One's help to build an expedition the Blight can't knock over!"

Pham Nuwen just shook his head. "Ravna, Ravna. You're talking about an expedition to the
Bottom of the Beyond
. There's no way a Power can hold your hand down there. Even an Emissary Device would be mostly on its own there."

"Don't act like more of a jerk than you are, Pham Nuwen. Down there, the Perversion will be at just as much a disadvantage. What we're asking for is equipment of Transcendent manufacture, designed for those depths, and provided in substantial quantities."

"Jerk?" Pham Nuwen drew himself up, but there was still the ghost of smile on his face. "Is that how you normally address a Power?"

Before this year, I would have
died
rather than address a Power in any manner.
She leaned back, giving him her own version of an indolent smile. "You have a pipeline to god, Mister, but let me tell you a little secret: I can tell whether it's open or closed."

Polite curiosity: "Oh? How is that?"

"Pham Nuwen -- left on his own -- is a bright, egotistical guy, and about as subtle as a kick in the head." She thought back to their time together. "I don't really start worrying until the arrogance and smart remarks go away."

"Um. Your logic is a little weak. If the Old One were running me direct, he could just as easily play a jerk as," he cocked his head, "as the man of your dreams."

Ravna gritted her teeth. "That's true, but I've got a little help from my boss. He's cleared me to monitor transceiver usage." She looked at her dataset. "Right now, your Old One is getting less than ten kilobits per second from all of Relay... which means, my friend, that you are not being teleoperated. Any crass behavior I see today is the true Pham Nuwen."

The redhead chuckled, faint embarrassment evident. "You got me. I'm on detached duty, have been ever since the Org persuaded Old One to back off. But I want you to know that all those ten Kbps are dedicated to this charming conversation." He paused as if listening, then waved his hand. "Old One says 'hi'."

Ravna laughed despite herself; there was something absurd about the gesture, and the notion that a Power would indulge such trivial humor. "Okay. I'm glad he can, um, sit in. Look, Pham, we're not asking for much by Transcendent standards, and it could save whole civilizations. Give us a few thousand ships; robot oneshots would be fine."

"Old One could make that many, but they wouldn't be much better that what's built down here. Tricking --" he paused, looking surprised by his own choice of words, "tricking the Zones is subtle work."

"Fine. Quality or quantity. We'll settle for whichever the Old One thinks --"

"No."

"Pham! We're talking about a few days work for the Old One. It's already paid more to study the Blight." Their single wild evening might have cost as much -- but she didn't say that.

"Yes, and Vrinimi has spent most of it."

"Paying off the customers you stepped on! ... Pham, can't you at least tell us
why
?"

The lazy smile faded from his face. She took a quick glance at her dataset. No, Pham Nuwen was not possessed. She remembered the look on his face when he read the mail from Jefri Olsndot; there was a decent human being lurking behind all the arrogance. "I'll give it a try. Keep in mind -- even though I've been part of Old One -- I'm remembering and explaining with human limitations.

"You're right, the Perversion is chewing up the Top of the Beyond. Maybe fifty civilizations will die before this Power gets tired of screwing around -- and for a couple of thousand years after that there'll be 'echoes' of the disaster, poisoned star systems, artificial races with bloody-minded ideas. But -- I hate to say it this way -- so what? Old One has been thinking about this problem, off and on, for more than a hundred days. That's a
long
time for a Power, especially Old One. He's existed for more than ten years now; his minds are drifting fast toward ... changes ... that will put him beyond all communication. Why should he give a damn about this?"

It was a standard topic in school, but Ravna couldn't help herself. This time it was for real. "But history is full of incidents where Powers helped Beyonder races, sometimes even individuals." She had already looked up the Beyonder race that created Old One. They were gasbag creatures. Their netmail was mostly jabberwocky even after Relay's best interpretation. Apparently they had no special leverage with Old One. The direct appeal was about all she had. "Look. Turn the thing around: Even ordinary humans don't need special explanation to help animals that are hurting."

Pham's smile was beginning to come back. "You're so big on analogies. Remember that no analogy is perfect, and the more complex the automation the more complex the possible motivations. But ... okay, how about this for an analogy: Old One is a basically decent guy, with a nice home in a good part of town. One day he notices he has a new neighbor, a scruffy fellow whose homestead is awhiff with toxic sludge. If you were Old One, you'd be concerned, right? You might probe around beneath your properties. You'd also chat with the new fellow and check on where he came from, try to figure out what's going on. The Vrinimi Org saw part of that investigation.

"So you discover the new neighbor is unwholesome. Basically his lifestyle involves poisoning swamp land and eating the sludge produced. That's an annoyance: it smells and it hurts a lot of harmless animals. But, after investigating, it's clear the damage will not affect your own property, and you get the neighbor to take measures to reduce the stink. In any case, eating toxic sludge is a self-defeating lifestyle." He paused. "As analogies go, I think this one's pretty good. After some initial mystery, Old One has determined that this Perversion is one of the common patterns, so petty and banal that even creatures like you and I can see it's evil. In one form or another, it's been drifting up from Beyonder archives for a hundred million years."

"Damn it! I'd get my neighbors together, and run the pervert out of town."

"That's been talked about, but it would be expensive ... and real people might get hurt." Pham Nuwen came smoothly to his feet, and smiled dismissingly at her. "Well, that's about all we had to say to you." He walk out from under the trees. Ravna hopped up to pursue.

"My personal advice: don't take this so hard, Ravna. I've seen it all, you know. From the Bottom of the Slowness to the inside of a Transcendent Power, each Zone has its own special unpleasantness. The whole basis of the Perversion -- thermodynamic, economic, however you want to picture it -- is the high quality of thought and communication at the Top of the Beyond. The Perversion hasn't touched a single civilization in the Middle Beyond. Down here, the comm lags and expense are too great, and even the best equipment is mindless. To run things here you'd need standing navies, secret police, clumsy transceivers -- it would be almost as awkward as any other Beyonder empire, and of no profit to a Power." He turned and saw her dark expression. "Hey, I'm saying your pretty ass is safe." He reached down to pat her rear.

Ravna brushed the hand away and stepped back. She'd been working on some clever argument that might set the guy to thinking; there
were
cases where Emissary Devices had changed their principal's decision. Now the half-formed ideas were blown away, and all she could think to say was -- "So how safe is your own tail, hmm? You say Old One is about ready to pack it in, go wherever overage Powers wander off to. Is he going to take you along, or maybe just put you away, a pet that's now inconvenient?"

It was a silly shot, and Pham Nuwen just laughed. "More analogies? No ... most likely he'll just leave me behind. You know, like a robot probe flying free after its last use." Another analogy, but one to his liking. "In fact, if it happens soon enough,
I
might even be willing to take on this rescue expedition. It looks like Jefri Olsndot is in a medieval civlization. I'll wager there's no one in the Org who understands such a place better than I. And down at the Bottom, your crew could scarcely ask for a better mate than an old Qeng Ho type." He spoke breezily, as though courage and experience were givens for him -- even if other people were cowardly scuts.

"Oh, yeah?" Ravna's arms went akimbo, and she cocked her head to one side. It was just a bit too much, when his whole existence was a fraud. "You're the little prince who grew up with intrigue and assassination, and then flew away to the stars with the Qeng Ho.... Do you ever really
think
about that past, Pham Nuwen? Or is that something Old One tactfully blocks you from doing? After our charming evening at The Wandering Company, I did think about it. You know what? There's only a few things you can know for sure: You really were a Slow Zone spacer -- probably two or three spacers, since none of the corpses was complete. Somehow you and your buddies got yourselves killed down at the nether end of the Slowness. What else? Well, your ship had no recoverable memory. The only hardcopy we found seemed to be written in some Earth Asian language. That's all,
all
, that Old One had to go on when he put together the fraud."

Pham's smile seemed a little frozen. Ravna went on before he could speak. "But don't blame Old One. He was a little rushed, right? He had to convince Vrinimi and me that you were real. He rummaged around in the archives, slapped together a mishmash reality for you. Maybe it took him an afternoon -- are you grateful for the effort? A snip from here and a snip from there. There really was a Qeng Ho, you know. On
Earth
, a thousand years before space flight. And there must have been Asia-descended colonies, though that's an obvious extrapolation on his part. Old One really has a nice sense of humor. He made your whole life a fantastic romance, right down to the last tragic expedition.
That
should have tipped me off, by the way. It's a combination of several pre-Nyjoran legends."

She caught her breath and rushed on. "I feel sorry for you, Pham Nuwen. As long as you don't think about yourself too hard, you can be the most confident fellow in space. But all the skill, all the achievement -- do you ever look at it up close? I'll bet not. Being a great warrior or an expert pilot -- those involve a million subskills, all the way down to kinesthetic things below the level of conscious thought. The Old One's fraud needed just the top level recollections, and a brash personality. Look under the surface, Pham. I think you'll find a whole lot of nothing."
A dream of competence, too closely confronted.

The redhead had crossed his arms and was tapping his sleeve with a finger. When she finally ran out of words, his smile grew broad and patronizing. "Ah, silly Ravna. Even now you don't understand how far superior the Powers are. Old One is not some Middle Beyond tyranny, brainwashing its victims with superficial memories. Even a Transcendent fraud has more depth than the image of reality in a human mind. And how can you know this really
is
a fraud? So you looked through the Relay archives, and didn't find my Qeng Ho."
My Qeng Ho.
He paused. Remembering? Trying to remember? For an instant Ravna saw a gleam of panic on his face. Then it was gone, and there was just the lazy smile. "Can any of us imagine the archives of the Transcend, all the things Old One must know about humanity? Vrinimi Org should be grateful to Old One for explaining my origins; they could never have learned that by themselves.

"Look. I am truly sorry I can't help. Even if it's otherwise a fool's errand, I'd like to see those kids rescued. But don't worry about the Blight. It's near maximum expansion now. Even if you could destroy it, you wouldn't make things better for the poor wights who've been absorbed." He laughed, a little too loudly. "Well, I have to go; Old One has some other errands for me this afternoon. He wasn't happy about this being face-to-face, but I insisted. The perks of detached duty, y'know. You and I ... you and I had some good times, and I thought it would be nice to chat. I didn't mean to make you mad."

Pham cut in his agrav and floated off the sand. He waved a laconic salute. Staring up, Ravna lifted her hand to wave back. His figure dwindled, acquired a faint nimbus as he left the Docks' breathable atmosphere and his space suit cut in.