A Fire Upon the Deep

by Vernor Vinge

  Note 371

  No matter. There were other, far more significant, projects. The rooms ahead were the true heart of the Movement. Steel’s soul had been born in these rooms; all of Flenser’s greatest creations had begun here. During the last five years, Steel had continued the tradition … and improved upon it.

  Note 372

  He walked down the hall that linked the separate suites. Each bore its number in inlaid gold. At each he opened a door and stepped partway through. His staff left their report on the previous tenday just inside. Steel quickly read each one, then poked a nose over the balcony to look at the experiment within. The balconies were well- padded, and screened; it was easy to observe without being seen.

  Note 373

  Flenser’s one weakness (in Steel’s opinion) was his desire to create the superior being. The Master’s confidence was so immense, he believed that any such success could be applied to his own soul. Steel had no such illusions. It was a commonplace that teachers are surpassed by their creations — pupils, fission-children, adoptions, whatever. He, Steel, was a perfect illustration of this, though the Master didn’t know it yet.

  Steel had determined to create beings that would each be superior in some single way — while flawed and malleable in others. In the Master’s absence, he had begun a number of experiments. Steel worked from scratch, identifying inheritance lines independent of pack membership. His agents purchased or stole pups that might have potential. Unlike Flenser, who usually melded pups into existing packs in an approximation of nature, Steel made his totally newborn. His puppy packs had no memories or fragments of soul; Steel had total control from the beginning.

  Note 374

  Of course, most such constructions quickly died. The pups had to be parted from their wet nurses before they began to participate in the adult’s consciousness. The resulting pack was taught entirely in speech and written language. All inputs could be controlled.

  Steel stopped before door number thirty-three: Experiment Amdiranifani, Mathematical Excellence. It was not the only attempt in this direction, but it was by far the most successful. Steel’s agents had searched the Movement for packs with ability for abstraction. They had gone further: the world’s most famous mathematician lived in the Long Lakes Republic. The pack had been preparing to fission; she had several puppies by herself and a mathematically talented lover. Steel had had the pups taken. They matched his other acquisitions so well that he decided to make an eightsome. If things worked out, it might be beyond all nature in its intelligence.

  Note 375

  Steel motioned his guard to shield the torches. He opened door thirty-three and soft-toed one member to the edge of the balcony. He looked down, carefully silencing that member’s fore-tympanum. The skylight was dim, but he could see the pups huddled together … with its new friend. The mantis. Serendipity, that was all he could call this, the reward that comes to a researcher who labors long enough, carefully enough. He had had two problems. The first had been growing for a year: Amdiranifani was slowly fading, its members falling into the usual autism of wholly newborn packs. The second was the captured alien; that was an enormous threat, an enormous mystery, an enormous opportunity. How to communicate with it? Without communication, the possibilities for manipulation were very limited.

  Yet in a single blind stroke, an incompetent Servant had shown the way to solve both problems. Now that his eyes were adjusted to the dimness, Steel could see the alien beneath the pile of puppies. When first he’d heard that the creature had been put in with an experiment, Steel had been enraged beyond thought; the Servant who made the mistake had been recycled. But the days passed. Experiment Amdiranifani began showing more liveliness than any time since its pups were weaned. It quickly became obvious — from dissecting the other aliens, and observing this one — that mantis folk did not live in packs. Steel had a complete alien.

  Note 376

  The alien moved in its sleep, and made a low-pitched mouth noise; it was totally incapable of any other kind of sound. The pups shifted to fit the new position. They were sleeping too, vaguely thinking among themselves. The low end of their sounds was a perfect imitation of the alien…. And that was the greatest coup of all. Experiment Amdiranifani was learning the alien’s speech. To the pack of newborns this was simply another form of interpack talk, and apparently its mantis friend was more interesting than the tutors who appeared on these balconies. The Flenser Fragment claimed it was the physical contact, that the pups were reacting to the alien as a surrogate parent, thoughtless though the alien was.

  Note 377

  It really didn’t matter. Steel brought another head to the edge of the balcony. He stood quietly, neither member thinking directly at the other. The air smelled faintly of puppies and mantis sweat. These two were the Movement’s greatest treasure: the key to survival and more. By now, Steel knew the flying ship was not part of an invasion fleet. Their visitors were more like ill-prepared refugees. There had been no word of other landings, and the Movement’s spies were spread far.

  It had been a close thing, winning against the aliens. Their single weapon had killed most of a regiment. In the proper jaws, such weapons could defeat armies. He had no doubt the ship contained more powerful killing machines — ones that still functioned. Wait and watch, Steel counseled himself. Let Amdiranifani show the levers that could control this alien. The entire world would be the prize.

  Note 378

  * * *

  Note 379

  Chapter 14

  Note 380

  Sometimes Mom used to say that something was “more fun than a barrel full of puppies.” Jefri Olsndot had never had more than one pet at a time, and only once had that been a dog. But now he understood what she meant. From the very first day, even when he had been so tired and scared, he had been entranced by the eight puppies. And they by him. They were all over him, pulling at his clothes, unfastening his shoes, sitting on his lap, or just running around him. Three or four were always staring at him. Their eyes were completely brown or pink, and seemed large for their heads. From the beginning the puppies had mimicked him. They were better than Straumli songbirds; anything he said, they could echo — or play back later. And when he cried, often the puppies would cry too, and cuddle around him.

  There were other dogs, big ones that wore clothes and entered the room through doorways high up on the walls. They lowered food into the room, sometimes making strange noises. But the food tasted awful, and they didn’t respond to Jefri’s screaming even by mimicking him.

  Note 381

  Two days had passed, then a week. Jefri had investigated everything in the room. It wasn’t really a dungeon; it was too big. And besides, prisoners don’t get pets. He understood that this world was uncivilized, not part of the Realm, perhaps not even on the Net. If Mom or Dad or Johanna weren’t nearby, it was possible that there was no one here to teach the dogs to speak Samnorsk! Then it would be up to Jefri Olsndot to teach the dogs and find his family. Now when the white-jacketed dogs came onto the corner balconies, Jefri shouted questions at them. It didn’t help very much. Even the one with red stripes didn’t respond. But the puppies did! They shouted right along with Jefri, sometimes echoing his words, sometimes making nonsense sounds.

  Note 382

  It didn’t take Jefri long to realize that the puppies were driven by a single mind. When they ran around him, some would always sit a little way off, their graceful necks arching this way and that — and the runners seemed to know exactly what the others saw. He couldn’t hide things behind his back if there was even one of them to alert the others. For a while he thought they were somehow talking to each other. But it was more than that: when he watched them unfasten his shoes or draw a picture — the heads and mouths and paws cooperated so perfectly, like the fingers on a person’s hands. Jefri didn’t reason things out so explicitly; but over a period of days he came to think of all the puppies together as a single friend. At the same time he noticed that the puppies was mix
ing up his words — and sometimes making new meanings.

  “You me play.” The words came out like a cheap voice splice, but they generally preceded a mad game of tag all around the furniture.

  Note 383

  “You me picture.” The slate board covered the lowest meter of the wall, all around the room. It was a display device like Jefri had never seen in his life: dirty, imprecise, imperfectly deletable, unstorable. Jefri loved it. His face and hands, and most of Puppies’ lips, got covered with chalk stains. They drew each other, and themselves. Puppies didn’t draw neat pictures like Jefri’s; Puppies’ dog figures had big heads and paws, with the bodies all smudged together. When he drew Jefri, the hands were always big, each finger carefully drawn.

  Jefri drew his family and tried to make Puppies understand.

  Note 384

  Day by day, the sunlight circled higher on the walls. Sometimes the room was dark now. At least once a day, packs came to talk to Puppies. This was one of the few things which could pull the little ones away from Jefri. Puppies would sit below the balconies, screeching and croaking at the adults. It was a school class! They’d lower scrolls for him to look at, and retrieve ones he had marked.

  Jefri sat quietly and watched the lessons. He fidgeted, but he didn’t shout at the teachers anymore. Just a little longer, and he and Puppies would really be talking. Just a little longer and Puppies could find out for him where Mom and Dad and Johanna were.

  Note 385

  Note 386

  * * *

  Note 387

  Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers; deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all. Once Amdiranifani was fluent in the mantis language, Steel had him explain about the “tragic death” of Jefri’s parents and brood-sibling. The Flenser Fragment had argued against it, but Steel wanted quick and unquestioned control.

  Now it seemed that the Fragment might have been right; at least he should have held out the hope that the brood-sibling lived. Steel looked solemnly at the Amdiranifani Experiment. “How can we help?”

  Note 388

  The young pack looked up trustingly. “Jefri is so terribly upset about his parents and sister.” Amdiranifani was using mantis words a lot, often unnecessarily: sister instead of brood-sibling. “He hasn’t been eating much. He doesn’t want to play. It makes me very sad.”

  Note 389

  Note 390

  Steel kept watch on the far balcony. The Flenser Fragment was there. It was not hiding, though most of its faces were out of the candlelight. So far its insights had been extraordinary. But the Fragment’s stare was like old times, when a mistake could mean mutilation or worse. So be it. The stakes were higher now than ever before; if fear at Steel’s throats could help him succeed, he welcomed it. He looked away from the balcony, and brought all his faces to an expression of tender sympathy for poor Jefri’s plight. “You just have to make it — him — understand. No one can bring his parents or sister back to life. But we know who the murderers are. We’re doing everything we can to defend against them. Tell him how hard this is. Woodcarvers is an empire that has lasted hundreds of years. In a fight, we are no match for them. That’s why we need all the help he can give us. We need him to teach us to use his parents’ ship.”

  Note 391

  The puppy pack lowered a head. “Yes. I’ll try, but …” The three members by Jefri made low-pitched grunting noises at it. The mantis sat head bowed; it held its tentacled paws across its eyes. The creature had been like this for several days, and the withdrawal was getting worse. Now it shook its head violently, made sharp noises a little higher pitched than its normal register.

  “Jefri says he doesn’t understand how things work in the ship. He’s just a little …” the pack searched for a translation. ” … he is really very young. You know, like me.”

  Note 392

  Steel nodded understandingly. It was an obvious consequence of the aliens’ singleton nature, but weird even so: Every one of them started out all a puppy. Every one of them was like Steel’s puppy- pack experiments. Parental knowledge was transmitted by the equivalent of interpack speech. That made the creature easy to dupe, but it was a damned inconvenience now. “Still, if there’s anything he can help explain.”

  Note 393

  More grunting from the mantis. Steel should learn that language. The sounds were easy; these pitiful creatures used their mouths to talk, like a bird or a forest slug. For now he depended on Amdiranifani. For now that was okay; the puppy pack trusted him. Another piece of serendipity. With a few of his recent experiments, Steel had tried love in place of Flenser’s original terror/love combination; there had been a slim chance that it might be superior. By great good luck Amdiranifani fell into the love group. Even his instructors had avoided negative reinforcement. The pack would believe anything he said … and so, Steel hoped, would the mantis.

  Note 394

  Amdiranifani translated: “There is something else; he has asked me about it before. Jefri knows how to wake the other children—” the word literally meant “pack of puppies”, “—on the ship. You look surprised, my lord Steel?”

  Note 395

  Even though he no longer dreamed in terror of monster minds, Steel would just as soon not have a hundred more aliens running around. “I hadn’t realized they could be wakened so easily…. But we shouldn’t do it right now. We’re having trouble finding food that Jefri can eat.” That was true; the creature was an incredibly finicky eater. “I don’t think we could feed any more right now.”

  More grunting. More sharp cries from Jefri. Finally, “There is one other thing, my lord. Jefri thinks it may be possible to use the ship’s ultrawave to call for help from others like his parents.”

  Note 396

  The Flenser Fragment jerked out of the shadows. A pair of heads looked down at the mantis, while another stared meaningfully at Steel. Steel didn’t react; he could be cooler than any loose pack. “That’s something to think about. Perhaps you and Jefri could talk more about it. I don’t want to try it till we’re sure we won’t hurt the ship.” That was weak. He saw the Fragment twitch a muzzle in amusement.

  As he spoke, Amdiranifani was translating. Jefri responded almost immediately.

  “Oh, that’s okay. He meant a special call. Jefri says the ship has been signaling … all by itself … ever since it landed.”

  And Steel wondered if he had ever heard a deadly threat uttered in such sweet innocence.

  * * *

  Note 397

  Note 398

  They began letting Amdi and Jefri outside to play. Beforehand Amdi was nervous about going out. He was unused to wearing clothes. His whole life — all four years of it — had been spent in that one big room. He read about the outside and was curious about it, yet he was also a little afraid. But the human boy seemed to want it. Every day he’d been more withdrawn, his crying softer. Mostly he was crying for his parents or sister, but sometimes he cried about being locked up so deep away.

  Note 399

  So Amdi had talked to Mr. Steel, and now they got out almost every day, at least to an inner courtyard. At first, Jefri just sat, not really looking around. But Amdi discovered that he loved the outdoors, and every time he got his friend to play a little more.

  Note 400

  Packs of teachers and guards stood at the corners of the yellowing moss and watched. Amdi — and eventually Jefri — got a big kick out of harrassing them. They hadn’t realized it down in the room, where visitors came at the balconies, but most adults were nervous around Jefri. The boy was half again as tall as a normally standing pack member. When he came close, the average pack would clump together and edge away. They didn’t like having to look up at him. It was silly, Amdi thought. Jefri was so tall and skinny, he looked like he might topple over at any moment. And when he ran it was like he was wildly trying to recover from a fall and never quite succeeding. So Amdi’s favorite game those first days was tag. Whenever
he was the chaser, he contrived to run Jefri right through the most prim looking whitejackets. If he and Jefri did it right they could turn the tag into a three-way event, Amdi chasing Jefri and a whitejackets racing to stay away from both of them.

  Sometimes he felt sorry for the guards and whitejackets. They were so stiff and grownup. Didn’t they understand how much fun it was to have a friend that you walk right next to, that you could actually touch ?

  It was mostly night now. Daylight hovered for a few hours around noon. The twilight before and after was bright enough to dim the stars and aurora, but still too faint to show colors. Though Amdi had spent his life indoors, he understood the geometry of the situation, and liked to watch the change of light. Jefri didn’t much like the dark of winter … until the first snow fell.

  Note 401

  Amdi got his first set of jackets. And Mr. Steel had special clothes made for the human boy, big puffy things that covered his whole body and kept him warmer than a good pelt would have done.

  On one side of the courtyard the snow was just six inches deep, but elsewhere it piled into drifts higher than Amdi’s head. Torches were mounted in wind shields on the walls; their light glittered golden off the snow. Amdi knew about snow — but he’d never seen it before. He loved to splash it on one of his jackets. He would stare and stare, trying to see the snowflakes without his breath melting them. The hexagonal pattern was tantalizing, just at the limit of his vision.

  Note 402

  But tag was no fun anymore; the human could run through drifts that left Amdi swimming in the white stuff. There were other things the human could do, wonderful things. He could make balls of snow and throw them. The guards were very upset by this, especially when Jefri plinked a few members. It was the first time he ever saw them get angry.