A Fire Upon the Deep (28 page)

The meeting hall on Starship Hill was a small, temporary thing. It had been good enough to keep the cold out during the winter, but for a conference of more than three people it was a real madhouse. Steel stomped past the Flenser Fragment and collected himself on the loft with the best view of the construction. After a polite moment, Tyrathect entered and climbed to the facing loft.

But all the decorum was an act for the groundlings outside; now Flenser's soft laughter hissed across the air to him, just loud enough for him to hear. "Dear Steel. Sometimes I wonder if you are truly my student ... or perhaps some changeling inserted after my departure. Are you
trying
to screw us up?"

Steel glared back. He was sure there was no uneasiness in his posture; all that was held within. "Accidents happen. The incompetents will be culled."

"Quite so. But that appears to be your response to
all
problems. If you hadn't been so bent on silencing the digger teams, they might not have rioted ... and you would have had one less 'accident'."

"The flaw was in their guessing. Such executions are a necessary part of military construction."

"Oh? You really think I had to kill all those who built the halls under Hidden Island?"

"
What?
You mean you didn't? How --?"

The Flenser Fragment smiled the old, fanged smile. "Think on it, Steel. An exercise."

Steel arranged his notes on the desk and pretended to study them. Then all of him looked back at the other pack. "Tyrathect. I honor you because of the Flenser in you. But remember: You survive on my sufferance. You are not the Flenser-in-Waiting." The news had come late last fall, just before winter closed the last pass over the Icefangs: The packs bearing the rest of the Master hadn't made it out of Parliament Bowl. The fullness of Flenser was gone forever. That had been an indescribable relief to Steel, and for a time afterward the Fragment had been quite tractable. "Not one of my lieutenants would blink if I killed all of you -- even the Flenser members."
And I'll do it, if you push me hard enough, I swear I will.

"Of course, dear Steel. You command."

For an instant the other's fear showed through.
Remember,
Steel thought to himself,
always remember: This is just a fragment of the Master. Most of it is a little school teacher, not the Great Teacher with a Knife.
True, its two Flenser members totally dominated the pack. The spirit of the Master was right here in this room, but gentled. Tyrathect could be managed, and the power of the Master used for Steel's ends.

"Good," Steel said smoothly. "As long as you understand this, you can be of great use to the Movement. In particular," he riffled through the papers, "I want to review the Visitor situation with you."
I want some advice.

"Yes."

"We've convinced 'Ravna' that her precious Jefri is in imminent danger. Amdijefri has told her about all the Woodcarver attacks and how we fear an overwhelming assault."

"And that may really happen."

"Yes. Woodcarver really
is
planning an attack, and she has her own source of 'magical' help. We have something much better." He tapped the papers; the advice had been coming down since early winter. He remembered when Amdijefri had brought in the first pages, pages of numerical tables, of directions and diagrams, all drawn in neat but childish style. Steel and the Fragment had spent days trying to understand. Some of the references were obvious. The Visitor's recipes required silver and gold in quantities that would otherwise finance a war. But what was this "liquid silver"? Tyrathect had recognized it; the Master had used such a thing in his labs in the Republic. Eventually they acquired the amount specified. But many of the ingredients were given only as methods for creating them. Steel remembered the Fragment musing over those, scheming against nature as if it were just another foe. The recipes of mystics were full of "horn of squid" and "frozen moonlight". The directions from Ravna were sometimes even stranger. There were directions within directions, long detours spent in testing common materials to decide which really fit the greater plan. Building, testing, building. It was like the Master's own method but without the dead ends.

Some of it made sense early on. They would have the explosives and guns that Woodcarver thought were her secret weapons. But so much was still unintelligible -- and it never got easier.

Steel and the Fragment worked through the afternoon, planning how to set up the latest tests, deciding where to search for the new ingredients that Ravna demanded.

Tyrathect leaned back, hissing a wondering sigh. "Stage built upon stage. And soon we'll have our own
radios
. Old Woodcarver won't have a chance.... You are right, Steel. With this you can rule the world. Imagine knowing instantly what is happening in the Republic's Capital and being able to coordinate armies around that knowledge. The Movement will be the Mind of God." That was an old slogan, and now it could be true. "I salute you, Steel. You have a grasp worthy of the Movement." Was there the Teacher's contempt in his smile? "
Radio
and
guns
can give us the world. But clearly these are crumbs from the Visitors' table. When do they arrive?"

"Between one hundred and one hundred twenty days from now; Ravna has revised her estimate again. Apparently even the Two-Legs have problems flying between the stars."

"So we have that long to enjoy the Movement's triumph. And then we are nothing, less than savages. It might have been safer to forego the gifts, and persuade the Visitors that there is nothing here worth rescuing."

Steel looked out through the window slits that cut horizontally between timbers. He could see part of the starship compound, and the castle foundations, and beyond that the islands of the fjord country. He was suddenly more confident, more
at peace
, than he'd been in a long time. It felt right to reveal his dream. "You really don't see it, do you Tyrathect? I wonder if the whole Master would understand, or whether I have exceeded him, too. In the beginning, we had no choice. The Starship was automatically sending some sort of signal to Ravna. We could have destroyed it; maybe Ravna would have lost interest...
And maybe not
, in which case we would be taken like a fish gilled from a stream. Perhaps I took the greater risk, but if I win, the prize will be far more than you imagine." The Fragment was watching him, heads cocked. "I've studied these humans, Jefri and -- through my spies -- the one down at Woodcarvers. Their race may be older than ours, and the tricks they've learned make them seem all-powerful. But the race is flawed. As singletons, they work with handicaps we can scarcely imagine. If I can use those weaknesses....

"You know the average Tines cares for its pups. We've manipulated parental sentiments often enough. Imagine how it must be for the humans. To them, a single pup is also an entire child. Think of the leverage that gives us."

"You're seriously betting everything on this? Ravna isn't even Jefri's parent."

Steel made an irritated gesture. "You haven't seen all of Amdi's translations." Innocent Amdi, the perfect spy. "But you're right, saving the one child is not the main reason for this Visit. I've tried to find out their real motive. There are one hundred fifty-one children in some kind of deathly stupor, all stacked up in coffins within the ship. The Visitors are desperate to save the children, but there's something else they want. They never quite talk about it ... I think it's in the machinery of the ship itself."

"For all we know the children are a brood force, part of an invasion."

That was an old fear and -- after watching Amdijefri -- Steel saw no chance of it. There could be other traps but, "If the Visitors are lying to us, then there is really nothing we can do to win. We'll be hunted animals; maybe generations from now we'll learn their tricks, but it will be the end of
us
. On the other hand, we have good reason to believe that the Two-Legs are weak, and whatever their goals, they do not involve us directly. You were there the day of the landing, much closer than I. You saw how easy it was to ambush them, even though their ship is impregnable and their single weapon a match for a small army. It is obvious that they do not consider us a threat. No matter how powerful their tools, their real fears are elsewhere.
And in that Starship, we have something they need.

"Look at the foundations of our new castle, Tyrathect. I've told Amdijefri that it is to protect the Starship against Woodcarver. It will do that -- later in the Summer when I shatter Woodcarver upon its ramparts. But see the foundations of the curtain around the Starship. By the time our Visitors arrive, the ship will be envaulted. I've done some quiet tests on its hull. It can be breached; a few dozen tons of stone falling on it would quite nicely crush it. But Ravna is not to worry; this is all for the protection of her prize. And there will be an open courtyard nearby, surrounded by strangely high walls. I've asked Jefri to get Ravna's help on this. The courtyard will be just large enough to enclose Ravna's ship, protecting it too.

"There are many details still to be settled. We must make the tools Ravna describes. We must arrange the demise of Woodcarver, well before the Visitors arrive. I need your help in all those things, and I expect to receive it. In the end, if the Visitors are treacherous, we will make the best stand that can be. And if they are not ... well I think you'll agree that my reach has at least matched my teacher's."

For once, the Flenser Fragment had no reply.

The ship's control cabin was Jefri and Amdi's favorite place in all of Lord Steel's domain. Being here could still make Jefri very sad, but now the good memories seemed the stronger ... and here was the best hope for the future. Amdi was still entranced by the window displays -- even if the views were all of wooden walls. By their second visit they had already come to regard the place as their private kingdom, like Jefri's treehouse back on Straum. And in fact the cabin was much too small to hold more than a single pack. Usually a member of their bodyguard would sit just inside the entrance to the main hold, but even that seemed to be uncomfortable duty. This was a place where they were important.

For all their rambunctiousness, Amdi and Jefri realized the trust that Lord Steel and Ravna were placing in them. The two kids might race around out-of-doors, driving their guards to distraction, but the equipment in this command cabin must be treated as cautiously as when Mom and Dad were here. In some ways, there was not much left in the ship. The datasets were destroyed; Jefri's parents had them outside when Woodcarver attacked. During the winter, Mr. Steel had carried out most of the loose items to study. The coldsleep boxes were now safe in cool chambers nearby. Every day Amdijefri inspected the boxes, looked at each familiar face, checked the diag displays. No sleeper had died since the ambush.

What was left on the ship was hard-fastened to the hull. Jefri had pointed out the control boards and status elements that managed the container shell's rocket; they stayed strictly away from those.

Mr. Steel's quilting shrouded the walls. Jefri's folks' baggage and sleeping bags and exercisers were gone, but there were still the acc webbing and hard-fastened equipment. And over the months, Amdijefri had brought in paper and pens and blankets and other junk. There was always a light breeze from the fans sweeping through the cabin.

It was a happy place, strangely carefree even with all the memories it brought. This was where they would save the Tines and all the sleepers. And this was the only place in the world where Amdijefri could talk to another human being. In some ways, the means of talking seemed as medieval as Lord Steel's castle: They had one flat display -- no depth, no color, no
pictures
. All they could coax from it were alphanumerics. But it was connected to the ship's ultrawave comm, and that was still programmed to track their rescuers. There was no voice recognition attached to the display; Jefri had almost panicked before he realized that the lower part of the screen worked as a keyboard. It was a laborious job typing in every letter of every word -- though Amdi had gotten pretty good at it, using four noses to peck at the keys. And nowadays he could read Samnorsk even better than Jefri.

Amdijefri spent many afternoons here. If there was a message waiting from the previous day, they would bring it up page by page and Amdi would copy and translate it. Then they would enter the questions and answers that Mr. Steel had talked to them about. Then there was a lot of waiting. Even if Ravna was watching at the other end, it could take several hours to get a reply. But the link was so much better than during the winter; they could almost feel Ravna getting closer. The unofficial conversations with her were often the high point of their day.

So far,
this
day had been quite different. After the false workers attacked, Amdijefri had the shakes for about half an hour. Mr. Steel had been wounded trying to protect them. Maybe there was nowhere that was safe. They messed with the outside displays, trying to peek through cracks in the rough planking of the compound's walls.

"If we'd been able to see out, we could have warned Mr. Steel," said Jefri.

"We should ask him to put some holes in the walls. We could be like sentries."

They batted the idea around a bit. Then the latest message started coming in from the rescue ship. Jefri jumped into the acc webbing by the display. This was his dad's old spot, and there was plenty of room. Two of Amdi slid in beside him. Another member hopped on the armrest and braced its paws on Jefri's shoulders. Its slender neck extended toward the screen to get a good view. The rest scrambled to arrange paper and pens. It was easy to play back messages, but Amdijefri got a certain thrill out of seeing the stuff coming down "live".

There was the initial header stuff -- that wasn't so interesting after about the thousandth time you saw it -- then Ravna's actual words. Only this time it was just tabular data, something to support the radio design.

"Nuts. It's numbers," said Jefri.

"Numbers!" said Amdi. He climbed a free member onto the boy's lap. It stuck its nose close to the screen, cross-checking what the one by Jefri's shoulder was seeing. The four on the floor were busy scratching away, translating the decimal digits on the screen into the X's and O's and 1's and deltas of Tines' base four notation. Almost from the beginning Jefri had realized that Amdi was really
good
at math. Jefri wasn't envious. Amdi said that hardly any of the Tines were that good, either; Amdi was a very special pack. Jefri was proud that he had such a neat friend. Mom and Dad would have liked Amdi. Still ... Jefri sighed, and relaxed in the webbing. This number stuff was happening more and more often. Mom had read him a story once, "Lost in the Slow Zone", about how some marooned explorers brought civilization to a lost colony. In
that
, the heroes just collected the right materials and built what they needed. There had been no talk of precision or ratios or design.

He looked away from the screen, and petted the two of Amdi that were sitting beside him. One of them wriggled under his hand. Their whole bodies hummed back at him. Their eyes were closed. If Jefri didn't know better, he would have assumed they were asleep. These were the parts of Amdi that specialized in talking.

"Anything interesting?" Jefri said after a while. The one on his left opened its eyes and looked at him.

"This is that bandwidth idea Ravna was talking about. If we don't make things just right, we'll just get
clicks
and
clacks
."

"Oh, right." Jefri knew that the initial reinventions of radio were usually not good for much more than Morse code. Ravna seemed to think they could jump that stage. "What do you think Ravna is like?"

"What?" The scritching of pens on paper stopped for an instant; he had all of Amdi's attention, even though they'd talked of this before. "Well, like you ... only bigger and older?"

"Yeah, but --" Jefri knew Ravna was from Sjandra Kei. She was a grownup, somewhere older than Johanna and younger than Mom.
What exactly does she look like?
"I mean, she's coming all this way just to rescue us and finish what Mom and Dad were trying to do. She must really be a great person."

The scritching stopped again, and the display scrolled heedless on. They would have to replay it. "Yes," Amdi said after a moment. "She -- she must be a lot like Mr. Steel. It will be nice to meet someone I can hug, the way you do Mr. Steel."

Jefri was a little miffed by that. "Well
wait
, you can hug me!"

The parts of Amdi next to him purred loudly. "I know. But I mean someone that's a grownup ... like a parent."

"Yeah."

They got the tables translated and checked in about an hour. Then it was time to send up the latest things that Mr. Steel was asking about. There were about four pages, all neatly printed in Samnorsk by Amdi. Usually he liked to do the typing, too, all bunched up over the keyboard and display. Today he wasn't interested. He lay all over Jefri, but didn't pay any special attention to checking what was being keyed in. Every so often Jefri felt a buzzing through his chest, or the screen mounting would make a strange sound -- all in sympathy to the unhearable sounds that Amdi was making between his members. Jefri recognized the signs of deep thought.

He finished typing in the latest message, adding a few small questions of his own. Things like, "How old are you and Pham? Are you married? What are Skroderiders like?"

Daylight had faded from the cracks in the walls. Soon the digger teams would be turning in their hoes and marching off to the barracks over the edge of the hill. Across the straits, the towers on Hidden Island would be golden in the mist, like something in a fairy tale. Their whitejackets would be calling Amdi and Jefri out for supper any minute now.

Two of Amdi jumped off the acc webbing, and began chasing each other around the chair. "I've been thinking! I've been thinking! Ravna's radio thing: why is it just for talking? She says all sound is just different frequencies of the same thing. But sound is all that thought is. If we could change some of the tables, and make the receivers and transmitters to cover my tympana, why couldn't I
think
over the radio?"

"I don't know." Bandwidth was a familiar constraint on many everyday activities, though Jefri had only a vague notion of exactly what it was. He looked at the last of the tables, still displayed on the screen. He had a sudden insight, something that many adults in technical cultures never attain. "I use these things all the time, but I don't know exactly how they work. We can follow these directions, but how would we know what to change?"

Amdi was getting all excited now, the way he did when he'd thought of some great prank. "No, no, no. We don't have to understand everything." Three more of him jumped to the floor; he waved random sheets of paper up at Jefri. "Ravna doesn't know for sure how we make sound. The directions include options for making small changes. I've been thinking. I can see how the changes relate." He paused and made a high-pitched squealing noise. "Darn. I can't explain it exactly. But I think we can expand the tables, and that will change the machine in ob-obvious ways. And
then
..." Amdi was beside himself for a moment, and speechless. "Oh Jefri, I wish you could be a pack, too! Imagine putting one of yourself each on a different mountain top, and then using radio to think. We could be as big as the world!"

Just then there was the sound of interpack gobbling from outside the cabin, and then the Samnorsk: "Dinner time. We go now, Amdijefri. Okay?" It was Mr. Shreck; he spoke a fair amount of Samnorsk, though not as well as Mr. Steel. Amdijefri picked up the scattered sheets and carefully slipped them into the pockets on the back of Amdi's jackets. They powered down the display equipment and crawled into the main hold.

"Do you think Mr. Steel will let us make the changes?"

"Maybe we should also send them back to Ravna."

The whitejackets' member retreated from the hatch, and Amdijefri descended. A minute later they were out in the slanting sunlight. The two kids scarcely noticed; they were both caught up in Amdi's vision.

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