A Fire Upon the Deep

by Vernor Vinge

  Note 1134

  Vendacious was a pack who believed in careful planning. He also knew that the best-made schemes must be altered by circumstances. He looked down at Johanna and smiled with the gentlest public sympathy. It would be risky to kill her like Scriber’s frag, but now he saw that the alternatives were far more dangerous. Thank goodness Woodcarver was stuck with her limper on the other side of the camp. He nodded back at Pilgrim and drew himself together. “I fear Scrupilo is right. Just how it might have been done, I don’t know, but we can’t take a chance. We’ll take Johanna to my den. Tell the Queen.” He pulled cloaks from his backs and began gently to wrap the human for the last trip she would ever make. Only her eyes protested.

  * * *

  Note 1135

  Johanna drifted in and out of consciousness, horrified at her inability to scream her fears. Her strongest cries were less than whispers. Her arms and legs responded with little more than twitches, even that lost in Vendacious’s swaddling. Concussion, maybe, something like that, the explanation came from some absurdly rational corner of her mind. Everything seemed so far away, so dark….

  * * *

  Johanna woke in her cabin at Woodcarver’s. What a terrible dream! That she had been so cut up, unable to move, and then thinking Vendacious was a traitor. She tried to shrug herself to a sitting postion, but nothing moved. Darn sheets are all wrapped around me. She lay quiet for a second, still massively disoriented by the dream. “Woodcarver?” she tried to say, but only a little moan came out. Somemember moved gently around the firepit. The room was only dimly lit, and something was wrong with it. Johanna wasn’t lying in her usual place. There was a moment of puzzled lassitude as she tried to make sense of the orientation of the dark walls. Funny. The ceiling was awfully low. Everything smelled like raw meat. The side of her face hurt, and she tasted blood on her lips. She wasn’t at Woodcarver’s and that terrible dream was —

  Three Tinish heads drifted in sihlouette nearby. One came closer, and in the dim light she recognized the pattern of white and black on its face. Vendacious.

  “Good,” he said, “You are awake.”

  “Where am I?” the words came out slurred and weak. The terror was back.

  Note 1136

  “The abandoned cotter’s hut at the east end of the camp. I’ve taken it over. As a security den, you know.” His Samnorsk was quiet and fluent, spoken in one of the generic voices of Dataset. One of his jaws carried a dagger, the blade a glint in the dimness.

  Johanna twisted in the tied cloaks and whispered screams. Something was wrong with her; it was like shouting on empty breath.

  Note 1137

  Note 1138

  One of Vendacious paced the hut’s upper level. Daylight splashed across its muzzle as it peered out first one and then another of the narrow slits cut in the timbers. “Ah, it’s good that you don’t pretend. I could see that you somehow guessed about my second career. My hobby. But screaming — even loud — won’t help either. We have only a brief time to chat. I’m sure the Queen will come visiting soon … and I will kill you just before she arrives. So sad. Your hidden wounds were tragically severe….”

  Johanna wasn’t sure of all he said. Her vision blurred every time she moved her head. Even now she couldn’t remember the details of what had happened back in the hospital compound. Somehow Vendacious was a traitor, but how … memories wriggled past the pain. “You did murder Scriber, didn’t you? Why?” Her voice came louder than before, and she choked on blood dribbling back down her throat.

  Note 1139

  Soft, human, laughter came from all around her. “He learned the truth about me. Ironic that such an incompetent would be the only one to see through me…. Or do you mean a larger why?” The three nearby muzzles moved closer still, and the blade in one’s jaw patted the side of Johanna’s cheek. “Poor Two-Legs, I’m not sure you could ever understand. Some of it, the will to power maybe. I’ve read what Dataset has to say about human motivation, the ‘freudian’ stuff. We Tines are much more complicated. I am almost entirely male, did you know that? A dangerous thing to be, all one sex. Madness lurks. Yet it was my decision. I was tired of being an indifferently good inventor, of living in Woodcarver’s shadow. So many of us are her get, and she dominates most all of us. She was quite happy about my going into Security, you know. She doesn’t quite have the combination of members for it. She thought that all male but one would make me controllably devious.”

  Note 1140

  His sentry member made another round of the window slits. Again there was a human chuckle. “I’ve been planning a long time. It’s not just Woodcarver I’m up against. The power-side of her soul is scattered all over the arctic coast; Flenser had almost a century headstart on me; Steel is new, but he has the empire Flenser built. I made myself indispensable to all of them: I’m Woodcarver’s chief of security … and Steel’s most valued spy. Played aright, I will end up with Dataset and all the others will be dead.”

  His blade tapped her face again. “Do you think you can help me?” Eyes peered close into her terror. “I doubt it very much. If my proper plan had succeeded, you would be neatly dead now.” A sigh breathed around the room. “But that failed, and I’m stuck with carving you up myself. And yet it may all turn out for the best. Dataset is a torrent of information about most things, but it scarcely acknowledges the existence of torture. In some ways, your race seems so fragile, so easily killable. You die before your minds can be dismembered. Yet I know you can feel pain and terror; the trick is to apply force without quite killing.”

  The three nearby members snuggled into more comfortable positions, like a human settling down for serious talk. “And there are some questions you may be able to answer, things I couldn’t really ask before. Steel is very confident, you know, and it’s not just because he has me with Woodcarver. That pack has some other advantage. Could he have his own Dataset?”

  Vendacious paused. Johanna didn’t answer, her silence a combination of terror and stubbornness. This was the monster that killed Scriber.

  Note 1141

  The muzzle with the knife slid between the blankets and Johanna’s skin, and pain shot up Johanna’s arm. She screamed. “Ah, Dataset said a human could be hurt there. No need to answer that one, Johanna. Do you know what I think is Steel’s secret? I think one of your family survived — most likely your little brother, considering what you’ve told us about the massacre.”

  Jefri? Alive? For an instant she forgot the pain, almost forgot the fear. “How…?”

  Vendacious gave a Tinish shrug. “You never saw him dead. You can be sure Steel wanted a live Two-Legs, and after reading about cold sleep in Dataset, I doubt he could have revived any of the others. And he’s got something up there. He’s been eager for information from Dataset, but he’s never demanded I steal the device for him.”

  Johanna closed her eyes, denying the traitor pack’s existence. Jefri lives! Memories rose before her: Jefri’s playful joy, his childish tears, his trusting courage aboard the refugee ship…. things she had thought forever lost to her. For a moment they seemed more real than the slashing violence of the last few minutes. But what could Jefri do to help the Flenserists? The other datasets had surely burned. There’s something more here, something that Vendacious still is missing.

  Note 1142

  Vendacious grabbed her chin, and gave her head a little shake. “Open your eyes; I’ve learned to read them, and I want to see…. Hmm, I don’t know if you believe me or not. No matter. If we have time, I will learn just what he might have done for Steel. There are other, sharper questions. Dataset is clearly the key to all. In less than half a year, I and Woodcarver and Pilgrim have learned an enormous amount about your race and civilization. I daresay we know your people better than you do — sometimes I think we know them even better than we know our own world. When all the violence is over, the winner will be the pack that still controls Dataset. I intend to be that pack. And I’ve often wondered if there are other passwords
, or programs I can run that would actually watch for my safety—”

  The babysitter code.

  The watching heads bobbed a grin, “Aha, so there is such a thing! Perhaps this morning’s bad luck is all for the best. I might never have learned—” his voice broke into dischords. Two of Vendacious jumped up to join the one already at the window slits. Softly by her ear, the voice continued, “It’s the Pilgrim, still far away, but coming toward us…. I don’t know. You would be much better safely dead. One deep wound, all out of sight.” The knife slide further down. Johanna arched futilely back from the point. Then the blade withdrew, the point poised gently against her skin. “Let’s hear what Pilgrim has to say. No point in killing you this instant if he doesn’t insist on seeing you.” He pushed a cloth into her mouth and tied it tight.

  Note 1143

  There was a moment of silence, maybe the crunch of paws in the brush right around the cabin. Then she heard a pack warble loud from beyond the timbered walls. Johanna doubted that she would ever learn to recognize packs by their voices, but … her mind stumbled through the sounds, trying to decode the Tinish chords that were words piled on top of one another:

  “Johanna

  something interrogative

  screech safe.”

  Vendacious gobbled back,

  “Hail Peregrine Wrickwrackscar

  Johanna trill

  not visible hurts

  sad uncertain squeak.”

  And the traitor murmurred in her ear: “Now he’ll ask if I need medical help, and if he insists … our chat will have an early end.”

  But the only reply Pilgrim made was a chorus of sympathetic worry. “Damn assholes are just sitting down out there,” came Vendacious’s irritated whisper.

  The silence stretched on a moment, and then Peregrine’s human voice, the Joker from Dataset, said in clear Samnorsk. “Don’t do anything foolish, Vendacious, old man.”

  Vendacious made a sound of polite surprise — and tensed around her. His knife jabbed a centimeter deep between Johanna’s ribs, a thorn of pain. She could feel the blade trembling, could feel his member’s breath on her bloody skin.

  Pilgrim’s voice continued, confident and knowing: “I mean we know what you’re up to. Your pack at the hospital has gone completely to pieces, confessed what little he knew to Woodcarver. Do you think your lies can get by her ? If Johanna is dead, you’ll be bloody shreds.” He hummed an ominous tune from Dataset. “I know her well, the Queen. She seems such a gracious pack … but where do you think Flenser got his gruesome creativity? Kill Johanna and you’ll find just how far her genius in that exceeds Flenser’s.”

  Note 1144

  The knife pulled back. One more of Vendacious leaped to the window slits, and the two by Johanna loosened their grip. He stroked the blade gently across her skin. Thinking? Is Woodcarver really that fearsome? The four at the windows were looking in all directions; no doubt Vendacious was counting guard packs and planning furiously. When he finally replied, it was in Samnorsk: “The threat would be more credible if it were not at second hand.”

  Pilgrim chuckled. “True. But we guessed what would happen if she approached. You’re a cautious fellow; you’d have killed Johanna instantly, and been full of lying explanation before you even heard what the Queen knows. But seeing a poor pilgrim amble over … I know you think me a fool, only one step better than Scriber Jaqueramaphan.” Peregrine stumbled on the name, and for an instant lost his flippant tone. “Anyway, now you know the situation. If you doubt, send your guards beyond the brush; look at what the Queen has surrounding you. Johanna dead only kills you. Speaking of which, I assume this conversation has some point?”

  “Yes. She lives.” Vendacious slipped the gag from Johanna’s mouth. She turned her head, choking. There were tears running down the sides of her face. “Pilgrim, oh Pilgrim!” The words were scarcely more than a whisper. She drew a painful breath, concentrated on making noise. Bright spots danced before her eyes. “Hei Pilgrim!”

  Note 1145

  “Hei Johanna. Has he hurt you?”

  “Some, I—”

  “That’s enough. She’s alive, Pilgrim, but that’s easily corrected.” Vendacious didn’t jam the gag back in her mouth. Johanna could see him rubbing heads nervously as he paced round and round the ledge. He trilled something about “stalemated game”.

  Note 1146

  Peregrine replied, “Speak Samnorsk, Vendacious. I want Johanna to understand — and you can’t talk quite as slick as in pack talk.”

  “Whatever.” The traitor’s voice was unconcerned, but his members kept up their nervous pacing. “The Queen must realize we have a standoff here. Certainly I’ll kill Johanna if I’m not treated properly. But even then, Woodcarver could not afford to hurt me. Do you realize the trap Steel has set on Margrum Climb? I’m the only one who knows how to avoid it.”

  “Big deal. I never wanted to go up Margrum anyway.”

  “Yes, but you don’t count, Pilgrim. You’re a mongrel patchwork. Woodcarver will understand how dangerous this situation is. Steel’s forces are everything I said they weren’t, and I’ve been sending them every secret I could write down from my investigations of Dataset.”

  “My brother is alive, Pilgrim,” Johanna said.

  Note 1147

  “Oh…. You’re kind of a record setter for treason aren’t you, Vendacious? Everything to us was a lie, while Steel learned all the truth about us. You figure that means we daren’t kill you now?”

  Laughter, and Vendacious’s pacing stopped. He sees control coming back to him.“More, you need my full-membered cooperation. See, I exaggerated the number of enemy agents in Woodcarver’s troops, but I do have a few — and maybe Steel has planted others I don’t know about. If you even arrest me, word will get back to the Flenser armies. Much of what I know will be useless — and you’ll face an immediate, overwhelming attack. You see? The Queen needs me.”

  “And how do we know this is not more lies?”

  “That is a problem, isn’t it? Matched only by how I can be guaranteed safety once I’ve saved the expedition. No doubt it’s beyond your mongrel mind. Woodcarver and I must have a talk, someplace mutually safe and unseen. Carry that message back to her. She can’t have this traitor’s hides, but if she cooperates she may be able to save her own!”

  Note 1148

  There was silence from outside, punctuated by the squeaking of animals in the nearer trees. Finally, surprisingly, Pilgrim laughed. “Mongrel mind, eh? Well, you have me in one thing, Vendacious. I’ve been all the world round, and I remember back half a thousand years

  — but of all the villains and traitors and geniuses, you take the record for bald impudence!”

  Vendacious gave a Tinish chord, untranslatable but as a sign of smug pleasure. “I’m honored.”

  “Very well, I’ll take your points back to the Queen. I hope the two of you are clever enough to work something out…. One thing more: the Queen requires that Johanna come with me.”

  “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.

  Note 1149

  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.”