A Fire Upon the Deep

by Vernor Vinge

  Note 303

  “Here now, fellow! I thought you wanted to see Woodcarver.” The remark was directed at Scriber. Jaqueramaphan was strung out along the landscapes, one of him sitting in front of a different picture all down the hall. He turned a head to look at the chamberlain. His voice sounded dazed. “Soul’s end! It’s like being God, as if I have one member on each hilltop and can see everything at once.” But he scrambled to his feet and trotted to catch up.

  Note 304

  * * *

  Note 305

  The hall opened on one of the largest indoor meeting rooms Peregrine had ever seen.

  “This is as big as anything in the Republic,” Scriber said with apparent admiration, looking up at the three levels of balconies. They stood alone with the alien at the bottom.

  Note 306

  “Hmf.” Besides the chamberlain and the doctor, there were already five other packs in the room. More showed up as they watched. Most were dressed like nobles of the Republic, all jewels and furs. A few wore the plain jackets he remembered from his last trip. Sigh. Woodcarver’s little settlement had grown into a city and now a nation-state. Peregrine wondered if he — she — had any real power now. He trained one head precisely on Scriber and Hightalked at him. “Don’t say anything about the picture box just yet.”

  Jaqueramaphan looked puzzled and conspiratorial all at once. He High Talked back, “Yes … yes. A bargaining card?”

  “Something like that.” Peregrine’s eyes swept back and forth across the balconies. Most packs entered with an air of harried self-importance. He smiled to himself. One glance into the pit was enough to shatter their smugness. The air above him was filled with buzzing talk. None of the packs looked like Woodcarver. But then, she’d have few of her members from before; he could only recognize her by manner and bearing. It shouldn’t matter. He had carried some friendships far longer than any member’s lifespan. But with others the friend had changed in a decade, its viewpoints altering, affection turning to animosity. He’d been counting on Woodcarver being the same. Now….

  Note 307

  There was a brief sound of trumpets, almost like a call to order. The pubic doors of a lower balcony slid open and a fivesome entered. Peregrine felt a twitchy thrill of horror. This was Woodcarver, but so … misarranged. One member was so old it had to be helped by the rest. Two were scarcely more than puppies, and one of those a constant drooler. The largest member was white-eyed blind. It was the sort of thing you might see in a waterfront slum, or in the last generation of incest.

  She looked down at Peregrine, and smiled almost as if she recognized him. When she spoke, it was with the blind one. The voice was clear and firm. “Please carry on, Vendacious.”

  The chamberlain nodded. “As you wish, Your Majesty.” He pointed into the pit, at the alien. “That is the reason for this hasty meeting.”

  “We can see monsters at the circus, Vendacious.” The voice came from an overdressed pack on the top balcony. To judge from the shouting that came from all sides, this was a minority view. One pack on a lower balcony jumped over the railing and tried to shoo the doctor away from the alien’s litter.

  The chamberlain raised a head for silence, and glared down at the fellow who had jumped into the pit. “If you please, Scrupilo, be patient. Everyone will get a chance to look.”

  “Scrupilo” made some grumbling hisses, but backed off.

  “Good.” Vendacious turned all his attention on Peregrine and Scriber. “Your boat has outrun any news from the north, my friends. No one but I knows anything of your story — and what I have is guard codes hooted across the bay. You say this creature flew down from the sky?”

  Note 308

  An invitation to speechify. Peregrine let Scriber Jaqueramaphan do the talking. Scriber loved it. He told the story of the flying house, of the ambush and the murders, and the rescue. He showed them his eye-tools and announced himself as a secret agent of the Long Lakes Republic. Now what real spy would do that? Every pack on the council had eyes on the alien, some fearful, some — like Scrupilo —crazily curious. Woodcarver watched with only a couple of heads. The rest might have been asleep. She looked as tired as Peregrine felt. He rested his own heads on his paws. The pain in Scar was a pulsing beat; it would be easy enough to set the member asleep, but then he’d understand very little of what was being said. Hey! maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. Scar drifted off and the pain receded.

  The talk went on for some minutes more, not making a whole lot of sense to the threesome that was Wickwrack. He understood the tones of voice though. Scrupilo — the pack on the floor — complained several times, impatiently. Vendacious said something, agreeing with him. The doctor retreated, and Scrupilo advanced on Wickwrack’s alien.

  Peregrine pulled himself to full wakefulness. “Be careful. The creature is not friendly.”

  Scrupilo snapped back, “Your friend has already warned me once.” He circled the litter, staring at the alien’s brown, furless face. The alien stared back, impassive. Scrupilo reached forward cautiously and drew back the alien’s quilt. Still no response. “See?” said Scrupilo. “It knows I mean no harm.” Peregrine said nothing to correct him.

  “It really walks on those rear paws alone?” said one of the other advisors. “Can you imagine it, towering over us? One little bump would knock it down.” Laughter. Peregrine remembered how mantis- like the alien had seemed when upright. These fellows hadn’t seen it move.

  Scrupilo wrinkled a nose. “The thing is filthy.” He was all around her, a posture that Peregrine knew upset the Two-Legs. “That arrow shaft must be removed, you know. Most of the bleeding has stopped, but if we expect the creature to live for long, it needs medical attention.” He looked disdainfully at Scriber and Peregrine, as if they were to blame for not performing surgery aboard the twinhull. Something caught his eye and his tone abruptly changed: “By the Pack of Packs! Look at its forepaws.” He loosened the ropes about the creature’s front legs. “Two paws like that would be as good as five pairs of lips. Think what a pack of these creatures could do!” He moved close to the five-tentacled paw.

  “Be—” careful, Peregrine started to say. The alien abruptly bunched its tentacles into a club. Its foreleg flicked out at an impossible angle, ramming its paw into Scrupilo’s head. The blow couldn’t have been too strong, but it was precisely placed on the tympanum.

  “Ow! Yow! Wow. Wow.” Scrupilo danced back.

  The alien was shouting, too. It was all mouth noise, thin and low-pitched. The eldritch sound brought up every head, even Woodcarver’s. Peregrine had heard it many times by now. There was no doubt in his mind — this was the aliens’ interpack speech. After a few seconds, the sound changed to a regular hacking that gradually faded.

  For a long moment no one spoke. Then part of Woodcarver got to her feet. She looked at Scrupilo. “Are you all right?” It was the first time she had spoken since the beginning of the meeting.

  Scrupilo was licking his forehead. “Yes. It smarts is all.”

  “Your curiosity will kill you some day.”

  The other huffed indignantly, but also seemed flattered by the prediction.

  Queen Woodcarver looked at her councillors. “I see an important question here. Scrupilo thinks one alien member would be as agile as an entire pack of us. Is that so?” She pointed the question at Peregrine rather than Scriber.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. If those ropes had been tied within its reach, it could easily have unknotted them.” He knew where this was going; he’d had three days to get there himself. “And the noises it makes sound like coordinated speech to me.”

  There was a swell of talk as the others caught on. An articulate member can often make semi-sensible speech, but usually at the expense of dexterity.

  “Yes … A creature like nothing on our world, whose boat flew down from the top of heaven. I wonder at the mind of such a pack, if a single member is almost as smart as all of one of us?” Her blind one looked around as it made the words
, almost as if it could see. Two others wiped at her drooler’s muzzle. She was not an inspiring sight.

  Note 309

  Scrupilo poked a head up. “I hear not a hint of thought sound from this one. There is no fore-tympanum.” He pointed at the torn clothing around the creature’s wound. “And I see no sign of shoulder tympana. Perhaps it is pack smart even as a singleton … and perhaps that’s all the aliens ever are.” Peregrine smiled to himself; this Scrupilo was a prickly twit, but not one who held with tradition. For centuries, academics had debated the difference between people and animals. Some animals had larger brains; some had paws or lips more agile than a member’s. In the savannahs of Easterlee, there were creatures that even looked like people and ran in groups, but without much depth of thought. Leaving aside wolf nests and whales, only people were packs. It was the coordination of thought between members that made them superior. Scrupilo’s theory was a heresy.

  Jaqueramaphan said, “But we did hear thought sounds, loud ones, during the ambush. Perhaps this one is like our unweaned, unable to think—”

  “And yet still almost as smart as a pack,” Woodcarver finished somberly. “If these people are not smarter than we, then we might learn their devices. No matter how magnificent they are, we could eventually be their equals. But if this member is just one of a superpack …” For a moment there was no talk, just the muted underedge of her councillors’ thoughts. If the aliens were superpacks, and if their envoy had been murdered — then there might not be anything they could do to save themselves.

  “So. Our first priority should be to save this creature, to befriend it and learn its true nature.” Her heads lowered, and she seemed lost within herself — or perhaps just tired. Apruptly, she turned several heads toward her chamberlain. “Move the creature to the lodge by mine.”

  Vendacious started with surprise. “Surely not, Your Majesty! We’ve seen that it is hostile. And it needs medical attention.”

  Woodcarver smiled and her voice turned silky. Peregrine remembered that tone from before. “Do you forget that I know surgery? Do you forget … that I am the Woodcarver?”

  Vendacious licked his lips and looked at the other advisors. After a second he said, “No, Your Majesty. It will be as you wish.”

  Note 310

  And Peregrine felt like cheering. Perhaps Woodcarver did still run things.

  Chapter 12

  Note 311

  Peregrine was sitting back to back on the steps of his quarters when Woodcarver came to see him next day. She came alone, and wearing the simple green jackets he remembered from his last visit.

  He didn’t bow or go out to meet her. She looked at him coolly for a moment, and sat down just a few yards away.

  “How is the Two-Legs?” he asked.

  “I took out the arrow and sewed the wound shut. I think it will survive. My advisors were pleased: the creature didn’t act like a reasoning being. It fought even after it was tied down, as though it had no concept of surgery…. How is your head?”

  “All right, as long as I don’t move around.” The rest of him — Scar — lay behind the doorway in the dark interior of the lodge. “The tympanum is healing straight, I think. I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  Note 312

  “Good.” A wrecked tympanum could mean continuing mental problems, or the need for a new member and the pain of finding a use for the singleton that was sent into silence. “I remember you, pilgrim. All the members are different, but you really are the Peregrine of before. You had some great stories. I enjoyed your visit.”

  Note 313

  “And I enjoyed meeting the great Woodcarver. That is the reason I returned.”

  She cocked a head wryly. “The great Woodcarver of before, not the wreck of now?”

  He shrugged. “What happened?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. For a moment, they sat and looked across the city. It was cloudy this afternoon, with rain coming. The breeze off the channel was a cool stinging on his lips and eyes. Woodcarver shivered, and puffed her fur out a bit. Finally she said, “I held my soul six hundred years — and that’s counting by foreclaws. I should think it’s obvious what has become of me.”

  “The perversion never hurt you before.” Peregrine was not normally so blunt. Something about her brought out the frankness in him.

  “Yes, the average incest degrades to my state in a few centuries, and is an idiot long before then. My methods were much cleverer. I knew who to breed with whom, which puppies to keep and which to put on others. So it was always my flesh bearing my memories, and my soul remained pure. But I didn’t understand enough — or perhaps I tried the impossible. The choices got harder and harder, till I was left with choosing between brains and physical defect.” She wiped away the drool, and all but the blind one looked out across her city. “These are the best days of summer, you know. Life is a green madness just now, trying to squeeze the last bit of warmth from the season.” And the green did seem to be everywhere it could be: featherleaf down the hillside and in the town, ferns all over the near hillsides, and heather struggling toward the gray crowns of the mountains across the channel. “I love this place.”

  He never expected to be comforting the Woodcarver of Woodcarvers. “You made a miracle here. I’ve heard of it all the way on the other side of the world…. And I’ll bet that half the packs around here are related to you.”

  “Y-yes, I’ve been successful beyond a rake’s wildest dreams. I’ve had no shortage of lovers, even if I couldn’t use the pups myself. Sometimes I think my get has been my greatest experiment. Scrupilo and Vendacious are mostly my offspring … but so is Flenser.”

  Note 314

  Huh! Peregrine hadn’t known that last.

  “The last few decades, I’d more or less accepted my fate. I couldn’t outwit eternity; sometime soon I would let my soul slip free. I let the council take over more and more; how could I claim the domain after I was no longer me? I went back to art — you saw those monochrome mosaics.”

  “Yes! They’re beautiful.”

  Note 315

  “I’ll show you my picture loom sometime. The procedure is tedious but almost automatic. It was a nice project for the last years of my soul. But now — you and your alien have changed everything. Damn it! If only this had happened a hundred years ago. What I would have done with it! We’ve been playing with your ‘picture box’, you know. The pictures are finer than any in our world. They are a bit like my mosaics — the way the sun is like a glowbug. Millions of colored dots go to make each picture, the tiles so small you can’t see them without one of Scriber’s eye-tools. I’ve worked for years to make a few dozen mosaics. The picture box can make unnumbered thousands, so fast they seem to move. Your aliens make my life less than an unweaned pup’s scratching in its cradle.”

  The queen of the Woodcarvers was softly crying, but her voice was angry. “And now the whole world is going to change, but too late for such wreckage as I!”

  Almost without conscious thought, Peregrine extended one of his members toward the Woodcarver. He walked unseemly close: eight yards, five. Their thoughts were suddenly fuzzy with interference, but he could feel her calming.

  Note 316

  She laughed blearily. “Thank you…. Strange that you should be sympathetic. The greatest problem of my life is nothing to a pilgrim.

  “You were hurting.” It was all he could think to say.

  “But you pilgrims change and change and change—” She eased one of herself close to him; they were almost touching, and it was even harder to think.

  Peregrine spoke slowly, concentrating on every word, hoping he wouldn’t forget his point. “But I do keep something of a soul. The parts that remain a pilgrim must have a certain outlook.” Sometimes great insight comes in the noise of battle or intimacy. This was such at time. “And — and I think the world itself is due for a change of soul now that we have Two-Legs dropping from the sky. What better time for Woodcarver to give up the old?”


  Note 317

  She smiled, and the confusion became louder, but a pleasant thing. “I … hadn’t … thought of it that way. Now is the time to change….”

  Note 318

  Peregrine walked into her midst. The two packs stood for a moment, necking, thoughts blending into sweet chaos. Their last clear recollection was of stumbling up the steps and into his lodge.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Woodcarver brought the picture box to Scrupilo’s laboratory. When she arrived Scrupilo and Vendacious were already present. Scriber Jaqueramaphan was there too, but standing farther from the others than courtesy might demand. She had interrupted some kind of argument. A few days before, such squabbling would have just depressed her. Now — she dragged her limper into the room and looked at the others through her drooler’s eyes — and smiled. Woodcarver felt the best she had in years. She had made her decision and acted on it, and now there were new adventures to be had.

  Scriber brightened at her entrance. “Did you check on Peregrine? How is he?”

  “He is fine, fine, just fine.”Oops, no need to show them how fine he really is!“I mean, there’ll be a full recovery.”

  “Your Majesty, I’m very grateful to you and your doctors. Wickwrackscar is a good pack, and I … I mean, even a pilgrim can’t change members every day, like suits of clothes.”

  Note 319

  Woodcarver waved an offhand acknowledgment. She walked to the middle of the room, and set the alien’s picture box on the table there. It looked like nothing so much as a big pink pillow — with floppy ears and a weird animal design sewed in its cover. After playing with it for a day and a half, she was getting pretty good … at opening the thing up. As always, the Two-Legs’s face appeared, making mouth noises. As always, Woodcarver felt an instant of awe at seeing the moving mosaic. A million colored “tiles” had to flip and shift in absolute synchrony to create the illusion. Yet it happened exactly the same each time. She turned the screen so Scrupilo and Vendacious could see.