A Fire Upon the Deep (29 page)

For Johanna, lots of things changed in the weeks after Scriber Jaqueramaphan died. Most were for the better, things that might never have happened but for the murder ... and that made Johanna very sad.

She let Woodcarver live in her cabin, and take the place of the helper pack. Apparently Woodcarver had wanted to do this from the beginning, but had been afraid of the human's anger. Now they kept the dataset in the cabin. There were never less than four packs of Vendacious' security surrounding the place, and there was talk of building barracks around it.

She saw the others during the day at meetings, and individually when they needed help with the dataset. Scrupilo, Vendacious, and Scarbutt -- the "Pilgrim" -- all spoke fluent Samnorsk now, more than good enough so that she could see the character behind their inhuman forms: Scrupilo, prissy and very bright. Vendacious, as pompous as Scriber had ever seemed, but without the playfulness and imagination. Pilgrim Wickwrackscar. She felt a chill every time she saw his big, scarred one. It always sat in the back, hunched down to look unthreatening. Pilgrim obviously knew how the sight affected her and tried not to offend, but even after Scriber's death she couldn't do more than tolerate that pack.... And after all, there could be traitors in the Woodcarver castle. It was only Vendacious' theory that the murder had been a raid from outside. She kept a suspicious eye on Pilgrim.

At night Woodcarver chased the other packs away. She huddled around the firepit, and asked the dataset questions that had no conceivable connection with fighting the Flenserists. Johanna sat with her and tried to explain things that Woodcarver didn't understand. It was strange. Woodcarver was something very like the Queen of these people. She had this enormous (primitive, uncomfortable, ugly -- yet still enormous) castle. She had dozens of servants. Yet she spent most of each night in this little wood cabin with Johanna, and helped with the fire and the food at least as much as the pack who had been here before.

So it was that Woodcarver became Johanna's second friend among the Tines. (Scriber was the first, though she hadn't known it till after he was dead.) Woodcarver was very smart and very strange. In some ways she was the smartest person Johanna had ever known, though that conclusion came slowly. She hadn't really been surprised when the Tines mastered Samnorsk quickly -- that's the way it was in most adventures, and more to the point, they had the language learning programs in the dataset. But night after night Johanna watched Woodcarver play with the set. The pack showed no interest in the military tactics and chemistry that preoccupied them all during the day. Instead she read about the Slow Zone and the Beyond and the history of Straumli Realm. She had mastered nonlinear reading faster than any of the others. Sometimes Johanna would just sit and stare over her shoulders. The screen was split into windows, the main one scrolling much faster than Johanna could follow. A dozen times a minute, Woodcarver might come upon words she didn't recognize. Most were just unfamiliar Samnorsk: she'd tap a nose on the offending word and the definition would flicker briefly in a dictionary window. Other things were conceptual, and the new windows would lead the pack off into other fields, sometimes for just a few seconds, sometimes for many minutes -- and sometimes the detour would become her new main path. In a way, she was everything that Scriber had wanted to be.

Many times she had questions the dataset couldn't really answer. She and Johanna would talk late into the night. What was a human family like? What had Straumli Realm thought to make at the High Lab? Johanna no longer thought of most packs as gangs of snake-necked rats. Deep past midnight, the dataset's screen was brighter than the gray light from the firepit. It painted the backs of Woodcarver in cheerful colors. The pack gathered round her, looking up, almost like small children listening to a teacher.

But Woodcarver was no child. Almost from the first, she had seemed old. Those late night talks were beginning to teach Johanna about the Tines, too. The pack said things she never did during the day. They were mostly things that must be obvious to other Tines, but never talked about. The human girl wondered if Woodcarver the Queen had anyone to confide in.

Only one of Woodcarver's members was physically old; two were scarcely more than puppies. It was the pattern of the pack that was half a thousand years old. And that showed. Woodcarver's soul was held together by little more than willpower. The price of immortality had been inbreeding. The original stock had been healthy, but after six hundred years.... One of her youngest members couldn't stop drooling; it was constantly patting a kerchief to its muzzle. Another had milky white in its eyes where there should have been deep brown. Woodcarver said it was stone blind, but healthy and her best talker. Her oldest member was visibly feeble; it was panting all the time. Unfortunately, Woodcarver said it was the most alert and creative of all. When it died....

Once she started looking for it, Johanna could see weakness in all of Woodcarver. Even the two healthiest members, strong and with plush fur, walked a little strangely compared to normal pack members. Was that due to spinal deformities? The two were also gaining weight, which wasn't helping the problem.

Johanna didn't learn this all at once. Woodcarver had told her about various Tinish affairs, and gradually her own story came out, too. She seemed glad to have someone to confide in, but Johanna saw little self-pity in her. Woodcarver had chosen this path -- apparently it was perversion to some -- and had beaten the odds for longer than any other pack in recorded history. She was more wistful than anything else, that her luck had finally run out.

Tines architecture tended to extremes -- grotesquely oversized, or too cramped for human use. Woodcarvers council chamber was at the large extreme; it was not a cozy place. You could get three hundred humans into the bowl-shaped cavity with room to spare. The separated balconies that ran around its upper circumference could have held another hundred more.

Johanna had been here often enough before; this was where most work was done with the dataset. Usually there was herself and Woodcarver and whoever else needed information. Today was different, not a day to consult the dataset at all: This was Johanna's first council meeting. There were twelve packs in the High Council, and they were all here. Every balcony contained a pack, and there were three on the floor. Johanna knew enough about Tines now to see that for all the empty space, the place was hideously crowded. There was the mind noise of fifteen packs. Even with all the padded tapestries, she felt an occasional buzzing in her head or through her hands from the railing.

Johanna stood with Woodcarver on the largest balcony. When they arrived, Vendacious was already down on the main floor, arranging diagrams. As the packs of the council came to their feet, he looked up and said something to Woodcarver. The Queen replied in Samnorsk: "I know it will slow things down, but perhaps that's a good thing." She made a human laughing sound.

Peregrine Wickwrackscar was standing on the next balcony over, just like some council pack. Strange. Johanna had not yet figured out why, but Scarbutt seemed to be one of Woodcarver's favorites. "Pilgrim, would you translate for Johanna?"

Pilgrim bobbed several heads. "Is, is that okay, Johanna?"

The girl hesitated an instant, then nodded back. It made sense. Next to Woodcarver, Pilgrim spoke better Samnorsk than any of them. As Woodcarver sat down, she took the dataset from Johanna and popped it open. Johanna glanced at the figures on the screen.
She's made notes.
Her surprise didn't have a chance to register, before the Queen was talking again -- this time in the gobble sounds of interpack talk. After a second, Pilgrim began translating:

"Everyone please sit. Hunker down. This meeting is crowded enough as it is." Johanna almost smiled. Pilgrim Wickwrackscar was pretty good. He was imitating Woodcarver's human voice perfectly. His translation even captured the wry authority of her speech.

After some shuffling around, only one or two heads were visible sticking up from each balcony. Most stray thought noise should now be caught in the padding around the balcony or absorbed by the quilted canopy that hung over the room. "Vendacious, you may proceed."

On the main floor, Vendacious stood and looked up in all directions. He started talking. "Thank you," came the translation, now imitating the security chief's tones. "The Woodcarver asked me to call this meeting because of urgent developments in the North. Our sources there report that Steel is fortifying the region around Johanna's starship."

Gobble gobble interruption.
Scrupilo? "That's not news. That's what our cannon and gunpowder are for."

Vendacious: "Yes, we've known of the plans for some time. Nevertheless the completion date has been advanced, and the final version will have walls a good deal thicker than we had figured. It also appears that once the enclosure is complete, Steel intends to break apart the starship and distribute its cargo through his various laboratories."

For Johanna the words came like a kick in the stomach. Before there had been a chance: If they fought hard enough, they might recapture the ship. She might finish her parents' mission, perhaps even get rescued.

Pilgrim said something on his own account, translating: "So what's the new deadline?"

"They're confident of having the main walls complete in just under ten tendays."

Woodcarver bent a pair of noses to the keyboard, tapped in a note. At the same time she stuck a head over the railing and looked down at the security chief. "I've noticed before that Steel tends to be a bit over-optimistic. Do you have an objective estimate?"

"Yes. The walls will be complete between eight and eleven tendays from now."

Woodcarver: "We had been counting on at least fifteen. Is this a response to our plans?"

On the floor below, Vendacious drew himself together. "That was our first suspicion, Your Majesty. But ... as you know, we have a number of very special sources of information ... sources we shouldn't discuss even here."

"What a braggart. Sometimes I wonder if he knows anything. I've never seen him stick
his
asses out in the field."
Huh?
It took Johanna a second to realize that this was Pilgrim, editorializing. She glanced across the railing. Three of Pilgrim's heads were visible, two looking her way. They bore an expression she recognized as a silly smile. No one else seemed to react to his comment; apparently he could focus his translation on Johanna alone. She glared at him, and after a moment he resumed his businesslike translation:

"Steel knows we plan to attack, but he does
not
know about our special weapons. This change in schedule appears to be a matter of random suspicion. Unfortunately we are the worse for it."

Three or four Councillors began talking at once. "Much loud unhappiness," came Pilgrim's voice, summing up. "They're full of 'I knew this plan would never work' and 'Why did we ever agree to attack the Flenserists in the first place'."

Right next to Johanna, Woodcarver emitted a shrill whistle. The recriminations dribbled to a halt. "Some of you forget your courage. We agreed to attack Hidden Island because it has been a deadly threat, one we thought we could destroy with Johanna's cannons -- and one that could surely destroy
us
if Steel ever learns to use the starship." One of Woodcarver's members, crouching on the floor, reached out to brush Johanna's knee.

Pilgrim's focused voice chuckled in her ear. "And there's also the little matter of getting you home and making contact with the stars, but she can't say that aloud to the 'pragmatic' types. In case you haven't guessed, that's one reason you're here -- to remind the chuckleheads there's more in heaven than they have dreamed." He paused, and switched back to translating Woodcarver:

"No mistake was made in undertaking this campaign: avoiding it would be as deadly as fighting and losing. So ... do we have any chance of getting an effective army up the coast in time?" She jabbed a nose in the direction of a balcony across the room. "Scrupilo. Please be brief."

"The last thing Scrupilo can be is brief -- oops, sorry," More editorializing from Peregrine.

Scrupilo stuck a couple more heads into view. "I've already discussed this with Vendacious, Your Majesty. Raising an army, traveling up the coast -- those all could be done in well under ten tendays. It's the cannon, and perhaps training packs to use cannon, that is the problem. That is my special area of responsibility."

Woodcarver said something abrupt.

"Yes, Majesty. We have the gunpowder. It is every bit as powerful as Dataset says. The gun tubes have been a much greater problem. Till very recently, the metal cracked at the breech as it cooled. Now I think I have that fixed. At least I have two unblemished guntubes. I had hoped for several tendays of testing --"

Woodcarver interrupted, "-- but that is something we can't afford now." She came completely to her feet and looked all around the council room. "I want full-size testing immediately. If it's successful, we'll start making gun tubes as fast as we can."
And if not...

Two days later...

The funniest thing was that Scrupilo expected her to inspect the gun tube before he fired it. The pack walked excitedly around the rig, explaining things in awkward Samnorsk. Johanna followed, frowning seriously. Some meters off, mostly hidden behind a berm, Woodcarver and her High Council were watching the exercise. Well, the thing
looked
real enough. They'd mounted it on a small cart that could roll back into a pile of dirt under the recoil force. The tube itself was a single cast piece of metal about a meter long with a ten-centimeter bore. Gunpowder and shot went in the front end. The powder was ignited through a tiny firehole at the rear.

Johanna ran her hand along the barrel. The leaden surface was bumpy, and there seemed be pieces of dirt caught in the metal. Even the walls of the bore were not completely smooth; would that make a difference? Scrupilo was explaining how he had used straw in the molds to keep the metal from cracking as it cooled.
Yecco.
"You should try it out with small amounts of gunpowder first," she said.

Scrupilo's voice became a bit conspiratorial, more focused, "Just between you me, I did that. It went very good. Now for big test."

Hmm. So you're not a complete flake.
She smiled at the nearest of him, a member with no black at all in his head fur. In a kooky way, Scrupilo reminded her of some the scientists at the High Lab.

Scrupilo stepped back from the cannon and said loudly, "It is all okay to go now?" Two of him were looking nervously at the High Councillors beyond the berm.

"Um, yes, it looks fine to me." And of course it should. The design was copied straight from Nyjoran models in Johanna's history files. "But be careful -- if it doesn't work right, it could kill anybody nearby."

"Yes, yes." Having gotten her official endorsement, Scrupilo swept around the piece and shooed Johanna toward the sidelines. As she walked back to Woodcarver, he continued in Tinish, no doubt explaining the test.

"Do you think it will work?" Woodcarver asked her quietly. She seemed even more feeble than usual. They had spread a woven mat for her, on the mossy heather behind the berm. Most of her lay quietly, heads between paws. The blind one looked asleep; the young drooler cuddled against it, twitching nervously. As usual Peregrine Wickwrackscar was nearby, but he wasn't translating now. All his attention was on Scrupilo.

Johanna thought of the straw that Scrupilo had used in the molds. Woodcarver's people were really trying to help, but.... She shook her head, "I -- who knows." She came to her knees and looked over the berm. The whole thing looked like a circus act from a history file. There were the performing animals, the cannon. There was even the circus tent: Vendacious had insisted on hiding the operation from possible spies in the hills. The enemy might see something, but the longer Steel lacked details the better.

The Scrupilo pack hustled around the cannon, talking all the time. Two of him hauled up a keg of black powder and he began pushing the stuff down the barrel. A wad of silkpaper followed the powder down the barrel. He tamped it into place, then loaded the cannon ball. At the same time, the rest of him pushed the cart around to point out of the tent.

They were on the forest side of the castle yard, between the old and new walls. Johanna could see a patch of green hillside, drizzly clouds hanging low. About a hundred meters away was the old wall. In fact this was the same stretch of stone where Scriber had been killed. Even if the damn cannon didn't blow up, no one had any idea how far the shot would go. Johanna was betting it wouldn't even get to the wall.

Scrupilo was on this side of the gun now, trying to light a long wooden firing wand. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Johanna knew this couldn't work. They were all fools and amateurs, she as much as they.
And this poor guy is going to get killed for nothing.

Johanna came to her feet.
Gotta stop it.
Something grabbed her belt and pulled her down. It was one of Woodcarver's members, one of the fat ones that couldn't walk quite right. "We have to try," the pack said softly.

Scrupilo had the wand alight now. Suddenly he stopped talking. All of him but the white-headed one ran for the protection of the berm. For an instant it seemed like strange cowardice, and then Johanna understood: A human playing with something explosive would also try to shield his body -- except for the hand that held the match. Scrupilo was risking a maiming, but not death.

The white-headed one looked across the trampled heather to the rest of Scrupilo. It didn't seem upset so much as attentively listening. At this distance it couldn't be part of Scrupilo's mind, but the creature was probably smarter than any dog -- and apparently it was getting some kind of directions from the rest.

White-head turned and walked toward the cannon. It belly-crawled the last meter, taking what cover there was in the dirt behind the gun cart. It held the wand so the flame at its tip came slowly down on the fire hole. Johanna ducked behind the berm....

The explosion was a sharp snapping sound. Woodcarver shuddered against her, and whistles of pain came from all around the tent. Poor Scrupilo! Johanna felt tears starting.
I have to look; I'm partly responsible.
Slowly she stood and forced herself to look across the field to where a minute ago the cannon had been --
and still is!
Thick smoke floated from both ends, but the tube was intact. And more, White-head was wobbling dazedly around the cart, his white fur now covered with soot.

The rest of Scrupilo raced out to White-head. The five of him ran round and round the cannon, bounding over each other in triumph. For a long moment, the rest of the audience just stared. The gun was in one piece. The gunner had survived. And, almost as a side effect ... Johanna looked over the gun, up the hillside: There was a meter-wide notch in the top of the old wall, where none had been before. Vendacious would have a hard time disguising
that
from enemy inspection!

Dumb silence gave way to the noisiest affair Johanna had seen yet. There was the usual gobbling, and other sounds -- hissing that hovered right at the edge of sensibility. On the other side of the tent, two Tines she didn't know ran
into
each other: for a moment of mindless jubilation, they were an enormous pack of nine or ten members.

We'll get the ship back yet!
Johanna turned to hug Woodcarver. But the Queen was not shouting with the others. She huddled with her heads close together, shivering. "Woodcarver?" She petted the neck of one of the big, fat ones. It jerked away, its body spasming.

Stroke? Heart attack?
The names of oldenday killers popped into her mind. Just how would they apply to a pack? Something was terribly wrong, and nobody else had noticed. Johanna bounced back to her feet.
"Pilgrim!"
she screamed.