A Fire Upon the Deep (52 page)

"The Queen requires? That sounds more like your mongrel sentiment to me."

"Perhaps. But it will prove you are serious in your confidence. View it as
my
price for cooperation."

Vendacious turned all his heads toward Johanna, silently regarding. Then he scanned out all the windows one last time. "Very well, you may have her." Two jumped down to the cabin's hatch while another pair pulled her toward it. His voice was soft and near her ear. "Damn Pilgrim. Alive, you're just going to cause me trouble with the Queen." His knife slid across her field of view. "Don't oppose me with her. I am going to survive this affair still powerful."

He lifted back the hatch and daylight spilled blindingly across her face. She squinted; there was a sweep of branches and the side of the hut. Vendacious pushed and pulled her cot onto the forest floor, and the same time gobbling at his guards to keep their positions. He and Peregrine chatted politely, agreeing on when the pilgrim would return.

One by one, Vendacious trotted back through the cabin's hatch. Pilgrim advanced and grabbed the handles at the front of the cot. One of his pups reached out from his jacket to nuzzled her face. "You okay?"

"I'm not sure. I got bashed in the head ... and it seems kind of hard to breathe."

He loosened the blankets from around her chest as the rest of him dragged the cot away from the hut. The forest shade was peaceful and deep ... and Vendacious's guards were stationed here and there about the area. How many were really in on the treason? Two hours ago, Johanna had looked to them for protection. Now their every glance sent a shiver through her. She rolled back to the center of the cot, dizzy again, and stared up into the branches and leaves and patches of smoke-stained sky. Things like Straumli tree squigglies chased each other back and forth, chittering in seeming debate.

Funny. Almost a year ago Pilgrim and Scriber were dragging me around, and I was even worse hurt, and terrified of everything -- including them.
And now ... she had never been so glad to see another person. Even Scarbutt was a reassuring strength, walking beside her.

The waves of terror slowly subsided. What was left was an anger as intense, though more reasoning, than the year before. She
knew
what had happened here; the players were not strangers, the betrayal was not random murder. After all Vendacious's treachery, after all his murders, and his planning to kill them all ... he was going to go
free
! Pilgrim and Woodcarver were just going to
overlook
that, "He killed Scriber, Pilgrim. He killed Scriber...."
He cut Scriber to pieces, then chased down what was left and killed that right out of our arms.
"And Woodcarver is going to let him go free? How can she do it? How can you do it?" The tears were coming again.

"Sh, sh." Two of Pilgrim's heads came into view. They looked down at her, then swiveled around almost nervously. She reached out, touching the short plush fur. Pilgrim was shivering! One of him dipped close; his voice didn't sound jaunty at all. "I don't know what the Queen will do, Johanna. She doesn't know about any of this."

"Wha --"

"Sh." And his voice became scarcely a buzzing through her hand. "His people can still see us. He could still figure things out.... Only you and I know, Johanna. I don't think anyone else suspects."

"But the pack that confessed ...?"

"Bluff, all bluff. I've done some crazy things in my life but next to following Scriber down to your starship, this takes the prize.... After Vendacious took you away, I began to think. You weren't that badly injured. It was all too much like what happened to Jaqueramaphan, but I had no proof."

"And you haven't told anyone?"

"No. Foolish as poor Scriber, aren't I?" His heads looked in all directions. "If I was right, he'd be silly not to kill you immediately. I was so afraid I was already too late...."

You would have been, if Vendacious weren't quite the monster I know he is.

"Anyway, I learned the truth just like poor Scriber -- almost by accident. But if we can get another seventy meters away, we won't die like him. And everything I claimed to Vendacious will be
true
."

She patted his nearest shoulder, and looked back. The tiny cabin and its ring of guards disappeared behind the forest brush.

...and Jefri
lives!

.Delete this paragraph to shift page flush

Text of message:

(Please include accurate local time in any ping responses.)

If you receive this, you know that the monster surge has receded. The new zone surface appears to be a stable froth of low dimensionality (between 2.1 and 2.3). At least five civilizations are trapped in the new configuration. Thirty virgin solar systems have achieved the Beyond. (Subscribers may find specifics in the encrypted data that follow this bulletin.)

The change corresponds to what is seen in a normal period of two years across the whole galaxy's Slow Zone surface. Yet this surge happened in less than a two hundred hours and less than one thousandth of that surface.

Even these numbers do not show the scale of the event. (The following can only be estimates, since so many sites were destroyed, and no instruments were calibrated for this size event.) At its maximum, the surge reached 1000 light-years above Zone Surface Standard. Surge rates of more than thirty million times lightspeed (about one light-year per second) were sustained for periods of more than 100 seconds. Reports from subscribers show more than ten billion normalized sophont deaths directly attributable to the Surge (local network failures, failures leading to environment collapse, medical collapse, vehicle crashes, security failures). Posted economic damage is much greater.

The important question now is what can we expect in aftersurges. Our predictions are based on instrumented sites and zonometric surveys, combined with historical data from our archives. Except for long-term trends, predicting zone changes has never been a science, but we have served our subscribers well in advising of aftersurges and in identifying available new worlds. The present situation makes all previous work almost useless. We have precise documentation going back ten million years. Faster than light surges happen about every twenty thousand years (usually with speeds under 7.0c). Nothing like this monster is on file. The surge just seen is the kind described at third-hand in old and glutted databases: Sculptor had one this size fifty million years ago. The [Perseus Arm] in our galaxy probably suffered something like this half a billion years ago.

This uncertainty makes our Mission nearly impossible, and is an important reason for this public message to the Zonometry newsgroup and others: Everyone interested in zonometry and navigation must pool resources on this problem. Ideas, archive access, algorithms -- all these things could help. We pledge significant contributions to non-subscribers, and one-for-one trades to those with important information. Note: We are also addressing this message to the Swndwp oracle, and direct beaming it to points in the Transcend thought to be inhabited. Surely an event such as this must be of interest even there? We appeal to the Powers Above: Let us send you what we know. Give us some hint if you have ideas about this event.

To demonstrate our good faith, here are the estimates we have currently. These are based on naive scale-up of well-documented surges in this region. Details are in the non-crypted appendix to this sending. Over the next year there will be five or six aftersurges, of diminishing speed and range. During this time at least two more civilizations (see risk list) will likely be permanently immersed. Zone storm conditions will prevail even when aftersurges are not in progress. Navigation in the the volume [coordinate specification] will be extremely dangerous during this period; we recommend that shipping in the volume be suspended. The time line is probably too short to admit feasible rescue plans for the civilizations at risk. Our long-range prediction (probably the least uncertain of all): The million-year-scale secular shrinkage will not be affected at all. The next hundred thousand years will however show a retardation in the shrinkage of the Slow Zone boundary in this portion of the galaxy.

Finally, a philosophical note. We of Zonographic Eidolon watch the zone boundary and the orbits of border stars. For the most part, the zone changes are very slow: 700 meters per second in the case of the long-term secular shrinkage. Yet these changes together with orbital motion affect billions of lives each year. Just as the glaciers and droughts of a pretechnical world must affect a people, so must we accept these long-term changes. Storms and surges are obvious tragedies, near-instant death for some civilizations. Yet these are as far beyond our control as the slower movements. Over the last few weeks, some newsgroups have been full of tales of war and battle fleets, of billions dying in the clash of species. To all such -- and those living more peaceably around them -- we say: Look out on the universe. It does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply
is
.

-=*=-

Text of message:

Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. The Great Surge now in progress appears by all accounts to be an event of cosmic scope and rarity. Furthermore, the other posters put its epicenter less than 6,000 light-years from recent warfare related to the Blight. Can this be mere coincidence? As has long been theorized [citations from various sources, three known to
Ølvira
; the theories cited are of long standing and nondisprovable] the Zones themselves may be an artifact, perhaps created by something beyond Transcendence for the protection of lesser forms, or [hypothetical] sentient gas clouds in galactic cores.

Now for the first time in Net history we have a Transcendent form, the Blight, that can effectively dominate the Beyond. Many on the Net [cites Hanse and Sandor at the Zoo] believe that it is searching for an artifact near the Bottom. Is it no wonder that this could upset the Natural Balance and provoke the recent Event?

Please write to me and tell me what you think. I don't get much mail.

-=*=-

Text of message:

Subsequent to our action against the human nest at [Sjandra Kei] a part of our fleet pursued human and other Blight-controlled forces toward the Bottom of the Beyond. Evidently, the Perversion hoped to protect these forces by putting them in an environment too dangerous to challenge. That thinking did not count on the courage of Alliance commanders and crews. We can now report the substantial destruction of those escaping forces.

The first major operation of your Alliance has been an enormous success. With the extermination of their most important supporters, Blight encroachment on the Middle Beyond has been brought to a standstill. Yet much remains to be done:

The Alliance Fleet is returning to the Middle Beyond. We've suffered some casualties and need substantial reprovisioning. We know that there are still scattered pockets of humanity in the Beyond, and we've identified secondary races that are aiding humanity. The defense of the Middle Beyond must be the goal of every sophont of good will. Elements of your Alliance Fleet will soon visit systems in the volume [parameter specification]. We ask for your aid and support against what is left of this terrible enemy.

-=*=-

Kjet Svensndot was alone on
Ølvira
's bridge when the Surge passed. They had long since done all the preparations that were meaningful, and the ship had no realistic means of propulsion in the Slowness that surrounded it. Yet the Group Captain spent much of his time up here, trying to program some sort of responsiveness into the automation that remained. Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience.

Of course, the actual transition out of Slowness would have been totally unnoticed if not for all the alarms he and the Dirokimes had installed. As it was, the noise and lights blew him out of a half-drowse into hair-raised wakefulness. He punched the ship's comm: "Glimfrelle! Tirolle! Get your tails up here."

By the time the brothers reached the command deck, preliminary nav displays had been computed, and a jump sequence was awaiting confirmation. The two were grinning from ear to ear as they bounced in, and strapped themselves down at action posts. For a few moments there was little chitchat, only an occasional whistle of pleasure from the Dirokimes. They had rehearsed this over and over during the last hundred plus hours, and with the poor automation there was a lot for them to do. Gradually the view from the deck's windows sharpened. Where at first there had only been vague blurs, the ultrawave sensors were posting individual traces with steadily improving information on range and rates. The communication window showed the queue of fleet comm messages getting longer and longer.

Tirolle looked up from his work "Hei, Boss, these jump figures look okay -- at least as a first cut."

"Good. Commit and allow autocommit." In the hours after the Surge, they had decided that their initial priority should be to continue with the pursuit. What they did then ... they had talked long on that, and Group Captain Svensndot had thought even longer. Nothing was routine any more.

"Yes,
sir
!" The Dirokime's longfingers danced across the controls, and 'Rolle added some verbal control. "Bingo!"

Status showed five jumps completed, ten. Kjet stared out the true-view window for a few seconds. No change, no change ... then he noticed that one of the brightest stars in the field had moved, was sliding imperceptibly across the sky. Like a juggler getting her pace,
Ølvira
was coming up to speed.

"Hei, hei!" Glimfrelle leaned over to see his brother's work. "We're making 1.2 light-years per hour. That's better than before the Surge."

"Good. Comm and Surveillance?" Where was everybody else and what were they up to?

"Yup. Yup. I'm on it." Glimfrelle bent his slender frame back to the console. For some seconds, he was almost silent. Svensndot began paging through the mail. There was nothing yet from Owner Limmende. Twenty-five years Kjet had worked for Limmende and SjK Commercial Security. Could he mutiny? And if he did, would any follow?

"Okay. Here's the situation, Boss." Glimfrelle shifted the main window to show his interpretation of the ship's reports. "It's like we guessed, maybe a little more extreme." They had realized almost from the beginning that the surge was bigger than anything in recorded history; that's not what the Dirokime meant by "extreme". He swept his shortfingers down, making a hazy blue line across the window. "We guessed that the leading edge of the Surge moved normal to this line. That would account for it taking Boss Limmende out four hundred seconds before it hit the
Out of Band
, and hitting us ten seconds after that.... Now if the trailing edge were similar to ordinary surges" -- upgraded a million times -- "then we, and then the rest of the pursuing fleets should come out well before
Out of Band
." He pointed at a single glowing dot that represented the
Ølvira
. Around and just ahead of it dozens of points of light were popping into existence as the ship's detectors reported seeing the initiation of ultradrive jumps. It was like a cold fire sweeping away from them into the darkness. Eventually Limmende and the heart of the anonymous fleet would all be back in business. "Our pickup log shows that's about what happened. Most all the pursuing fleets will be out of the surge before the
Out of Band
."

"Hm. So it'll lose part of its lead."

"Yup. But if it's going where we think --" a G-star eighty light-years ahead "-- it'll still get there before they kill it." He paused, pointed at a haze that was spreading sideways from the growing knot of light. "Not everybody is still chasing."

"Yeah...." Svensndot had been reading the News even as he listened to 'Frelle's summary. "... according to the Net, that's the Alliance for the Defense departing the battle field, victorious."

"Say
what?
" Tirolle twisted abruptly in his harness. His large, dark eyes held none of their usual humor.

"You heard me." Kjet put the item where the brothers could see it. The two read rapidly, 'Frelle mumbling phrases aloud, "...
courage
of Alliance commanders....
substantial
destruction of escaping forces...."

Glimfrelle shuddered, all flippancy departed. "They don't even mention the Surge. Everything they say is a cowardly lie!" His voice shifted up to its normal speaking range and he continued in his own language. Kjet could understand parts of it. The Dirokimes that left their dream habitats were normally lighthearted folk, full of whimsy and gentle sarcasm. Glimfrelle sounded almost that way now, except for the high edges to his whistling and the insults more colorful than Svensndot had ever heard from them: "... get from a verminous cow-pie ... killers of innocent dreams ..." even in Samnorsk the words were strong, but in Dirokime "verminous cow-pie" was drenched in explicit imagery that almost brought the smell of such a thing into the room. Glimfrelle's voice went higher and higher, then beyond the human register. Abruptly, he collapsed, shuddering and moaning low. Dirokimes could cry, though Svensndot had never seen such a thing before. Glimfrelle rocked in his brother's arms.

Tirolle looked over Glimfrelle's shoulder at Kjet. "Where does revenge take us now, Group Captain?"

For a moment, Kjet looked back silently. "I'll let you know, Lieutenant." He looked at the displays.
Listen and watch a little longer, and maybe we'll know.
"Meantime, get us nearer the center of pursuit," he said gently.

"Aye, sir." Tirolle patted his brother's back gently and turned back to the console.