The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

by Vernor Vinge

  He turned and saw Jones and company descending a nearby hill at all but breakneck speed. One misstep and the entire group would have descended the hill on their backs rather than their feet. The rolling stones cast loose by their rush preceded them into the valley. The astrologers reached the bottom of the hill, far outdistancing the sailors delegated to protect them, and continued running.

  “Wonder what’s trying to eat them?” Ribera asked Juarez half-seriously.

  As he plunged past Delgado, Jones shouted, “—think we may have found it, Capitán—something man-made rising from the sea.” He pointed wildly toward the hill they had just descended.

  The astrologers piled into a boat. Seeing that the mystics really intended to leave, Delgado dispatched fifteen men to help them with the craft, and an equal number to go along in another boat. In a couple of minutes, the two boats were well into the channel and rowing fast toward open water.

  “What the hell was that about?” Ribera shouted to Capitán Delgado.

  “You know as much as I, Señor Profesor. Let’s take a look. If we go for a little walk”—he nodded to the hill—“we can probably get within sight of the ‘discovery’ before Jones and the rest reach it by boat. You men stay here.” Delgado turned his attention to the remaining crewmen. “If these primitives try to confiscate our boat, demonstrate your firearms to them—on them.

  “The same goes for you scientists. As many men as possible are going to have to stay here to see that we don’t lose that boat; it’s a long, wet walk back to the Vigilancia. Let’s go, Ribera. You can take a couple of your people if you want.”

  Ribera and Juarez set out with Delgado and three ship’s officers. The men moved slowly up the slope, which was made treacherous by its loose covering of boulders. As they reached the crest of the hill the wind beat into them, tearing at their parkas. The terrain was less hilly but in the far distance they could see the mountains that formed the backbone of the peninsula.

  Delgado pointed. “If they saw something in the ocean, it must be in that direction. We saw the rest of the coast on our way in.”

  The six men started off in the indicated direction. The wind was against them and their progress was slow. Fifteen minutes later they crossed the top of a gentle hill, and reached the coast. Here the water was a clean bluish-green and the breakers smashing over the rocky beach could almost have been mistaken for Pacific waters sweeping into some bleak shore in the Province of Chile. Ribera looked over the waves. Two stark, black objects broke the smooth, silver line of the horizon. Their uncompromising angularity showed them to be artificial.

  Delgado drew a pair of binoculars from his parka. Ribera noted with surprise that the binoculars bore the mark of the finest optical instruments extant: U.S. Naval war surplus. On some markets, the object would have brought a price comparable to that of the entire ship Vigilancia. Capitán Delgado raised the binoculars to his eyes and inspected the black forms of the ocean. Thirty seconds passed. “¡Madre del Presidente!” he swore softly but with feeling. He handed the binocs to Ribera. “Take a look, Señor Profesor.”

  The anthropologist scanned the horizon, spotted the black shapes. Though winter sea ice had smashed their hulls and scuttled them in the shallow water, they were obviously ships—atomic or petroleum powered, pre-War ships. At the edge of his field of vision, he noticed two white objects bobbing in the water; they were the two landing boats from the Vigilancia. The boats disappeared every few seconds in the trough of a wave. They moved a little closer to the two half-sunken ships, then began to pull away. Ribera could imagine what had happened: Jones had seen that the hulks were no different from the relics of the Argentine navy sunk off Buenos Aires. The astrologer was probably fit to be tied.

  Ribera inspected the wrecks minutely. One was half capsized and hidden behind the other. His gaze roamed along the bow of the nearer vessel. There were letters on that bow, letters almost worn away by the action of ice and water upon the plastic hull of the ship.

  “My God!” whispered Ribera. The letters spelled: S—Hen—k—V—woe—d. He didn’t need to look at the other vessel to know that it had once been called Nation. Ribera dumbly handed the binoculars to Juarez.

  The mystery was solved. He knew the pressures that had driven the natives here. “If the Zulunders ever hear about this…” Ribera’s voice trailed off into silence.

  “Yeah,” Delgado replied. He understood what he had seen, and for the first time seemed somewhat subdued. “Well, let’s get back. This land isn’t fit for…it isn’t fit.”

  The six men turned and started back. Though the ship’s officers had had an opportunity to use the binoculars, they didn’t seem to understand exactly what they had seen. And probably the astrologers didn’t realize the significance of the discovery, either. That left three, Juarez, Ribera, and Delgado, who knew the secret of the natives’ origin. If the news spread much further, disaster would result, Ribera was sure.

  The wind was at their backs but it did not speed their progress. It took them almost a quarter-hour to reach the crest of the hill overlooking the village and the red water.

  Below them, Ribera could see the adult male natives clustered in a tight group. Not ten feet away stood all the scientists, and the crewmen. Between the two groups was one of the Sudaméricans. Ribera squinted and saw that the man was Enrique Cardona. The ecologist was gesturing wildly, angrily.

  “Oh, no!” Ribera sprinted down the hill, closely followed by Delgado and the rest. The anthropologist moved even faster then the astrologers had an hour before, and almost twice as fast as he would have thought humanly possible. The tiny avalanches started by his footfalls were slow compared to his speed. Even as he flew down the slope, Ribera felt himself detached, analytically examining the scene before him.

  Cardona was shouting, as if to make the natives understand by sheer volume. Behind him the ecologists and biologists stood, impatient to inspect the village and the natives’ boat. Before him stood a tall, withered native, who must have been all of forty years old. Even from a distance the native’s bearing revealed intense, suppressed anger. The native’s parka was the most impractical of all those Ribera had seen; he could have sworn that it was a crude, sealskin imitation of a double-breasted suit.

  Almost screaming, Cardona cried, “God damn it, why can’t we look at your boat?” Ribera put forth one last burst of speed, and shouted at Cardona to stop his provocation. It was too late. Just as the anthropologist arrived at the scene of the confrontation, the native in the strange parka drew himself to his full height, pointed to all the Sudaméricans, and screeched (as nearly as Ribera’s Spanish-thinking mind could record), “—in di nam niutrantsfals mos yulisterf—”

  The half-raised harpoons were thrown. Cardona went down instantly, transfixed by three of the weapons. Several other men were hit and felled. The natives drew their knives and ran forward, taking advantage of the confusion that the harpoons had created. A painfully loud BAM erupted beside Ribera’s ear as Delgado fired his pistol, picking off the leader of the natives. The crewmen recovered from their shock, began firing at the aborigines. Ribera whipped his pistol from a pouch at his side and blasted into the swarm of primitives. Their single-shot pistols emptied, the scientists and crew were reduced to knives. The next few seconds were total chaos. The knives rose and fell, gleaming more redly than the water in the cove. The anthropologist half stumbled over squirming bodies. The air was filled with hoarse shouts and sounds of straining men.

  The groups were evenly matched and they were cutting each other to pieces. In some still calm part of his mind Ribera noticed the returning boats of the astrologers. He glimpsed the crewmen aiming their muskets, waiting for a clear shot at the primitives.

  The turbulence of the fray whirled him about, out of the densest part of the fight. They had to disengage; another few minutes and there wouldn’t be one in ten left standing on the beach. Ribera screamed this to Delgado. Miraculously the man heard him and agreed; retreat was the only sane t
hing to do. The Sudaméricans ran raggedly toward their boat, with the natives close behind. Sharp cracking sounds came from over the water. The crewmen in the other boats were taking advantage of the dispersion between pursuers and pursued. The Sudaméricans reached their boat and began pushing it into the water. Ribera and several others turned to face the natives. Musket fire had forced most of the primitives back, but a few still ran toward the shore, knives drawn. Ribera reached down and snatched a small stone from the ground. Using an almost forgotten skill of his “gentle” childhood, he cocked his arm and snapped the rock forward in a flat trajectory. It caught one of the natives dead between the eyes with a sharp smack. The man plunged forward, fell on his face, and lay still.

  Ribera turned and ran into the shallow water after the boat. He was followed by the rest of the rearguard. Eager hands reached out from the boat to pull him aboard. A couple more feet and he would be safe.

  The blow sent him spinning forward. As he fell, he saw with dumb horror the crimson harpoon which had emerged from his parka just below the right side pocket.

  Why? Must we forever commit the same blunders over and over, and over again? Ribera didn’t have time to wonder at this fleeting incongruous thought, before the redness closed about him.

  A GENTLE BREEZE, carrying the happy sounds of distant parties, entered the large windows of the bungalow and caressed its interior. It was a cool night, late in summer. The first mild airs of fall made the darkness pleasant, inviting. The house was situated on the slight ridge which marked the old shoreline of La Plata; the lawns and hedges outside fell gently away toward the general plain of the city. The faint though delicate light from the oil lamps of that city defined its rectangular array of streets, and showed its buildings uniformly one or two stories high. Farther out, the city lights came to an abrupt end at the waterfront. But even beyond that there were the moving, yellow lights of boats and ships navigating La Plata. Off to the extreme left burned the bright fires surrounding the Naval Enclosure, where the government labored on some secret weapon, possibly a steam-powered warship.

  It was a peaceful scene, and a happy evening; preparations were almost complete. His desk was littered with the encouraging replies to his proposals. It had been hard work but a lot of fun at the same time. And Buenos Aires had been the ideal base of operations. Alfredo IV was touring the western provinces. To be more precise, el Presidente Imperial and his court were visiting the pleasure spots in Santiago (as if Alfredo had not built up enough talent in Buenos Aires itself). The Imperial Guard and the Secret Police clustered close by the monarch (Alfredo was more afraid of a court coup than anything else), so Buenos Aires was more relaxed then it had been in many years.

  Yes, two months of hard work. Many important people had to be informed, and confidentially. But the replies had been almost uniformly enthusiastic, and it appeared that the project wasn’t known to those who would destroy its goal; though of course the simple fact that so many people had to know increased the chances of disclosure. But that was a risk that had to be taken.

  And, thought Diego Ribera, it’s been two months since the Battle of Bloody Cove. (The name of the inlet had arisen almost spontaneously.) He hoped that the tribe hadn’t been scared away from that spot, or, infinitely worse, driven to the starvation point by the massacre. If that fool Enrique Cardona had only kept his mouth shut, both sides could have parted peacefully (if not amicably) and some good men would still be alive.

  Ribera scratched his side thoughtfully. Another inch and he wouldn’t have made it himself. If that harpoon had hit just a little further up…Someone’s quick thinking had added to his initial good luck. That someone had slashed the thick cord tied to the harpoon which had hit Ribera. If the separation had not been made, the cord would most likely have been pulled back and the harpoon’s barb engaged. Even as miraculous was the fact that he had survived the impalement and the poor medical conditions on board the Vigilancia. Physically, all the damage that remained was a pair of neat, circular scars. The whole affair was enough to give you religion, or, conversely, scare the hell out of you…

  And come next January he would be headed back, along with the secret expedition that he had been so energetically organizing. Nine months was a long time to wait, but they definitely couldn’t make the trip this fall or winter, and they really did need time to gather just the right equipment.

  Diego was taken from these thoughts by several dull thuds from the door. He got up and went to the entrance of the bungalow. (This small house in the plushiest section of the city was evidence of the encouragement he had already received from some very important people.) Ribera had no idea who the visitor could be, but he had every expectation that the news brought would be good. He reached the door, and pulled it open.

  “Mkambwe Lunama!”

  The Zulunder stood framed in the doorway, his black face all but invisible against the night sky. The visitor was over two meters tall and weighed nearly one hundred kilos; he was the picture of a superman. But then, the Zulunder government made a special point of using the super-race type in its dealings with other nations. The procedure undoubtedly lost them some fine talent, but in Sudamérica the myth held strong that one Zulunder was worth three warriors of any other nationality.

  After his first outburst, Ribera stood for a moment in horrified confusion. He knew Lunama vaguely as the Highman of Trueness—propaganda—at the Zulunder embassy in Buenos Aires. The Highman had made numerous attempts to ingratiate himself with the academic community of la Universidad de Buenos Aires. The efforts were probably aimed at recruiting sympathizers against that time when the disagreements between the Sudamérican Empire and the Reaches of Zulund erupted into open conflict.

  Wildly hoping that the visit was merely an unlucky coincidence, Ribera recovered himself. He attempted a disarming smile, and said, “Come on in, Mkambwe. Haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  The Zulunder smiled, his white teeth making a dazzling contrast with the rest of his face. He stepped lightly into the room. His robes were woven of brilliant red, blue, and green fibers, in defiance of the more somber hues of Sudamérican business suits. On his hip rested a Mavimbelamake 20-millimeter revolver. The Zulunders had their own peculiar ideas about diplomatic protocol.

  Mkambwe moved lithely across the room and settled in a chair. Ribera hurried over and sat down by his desk, trying unobtrusively to hide the letters that lay on it from the Zulunder’s view. If the visitor saw and understood even one of those letters, the game would be over.

  Ribera tried to appear relaxed. “Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, Mkambwe, but the house is as dry as a desert.” If the anthropologist got up, the Zulunder would almost certainly see the correspondence. Diego continued jovially, desperately trying to dredge up reminiscences. (“Remember that time your boys whited their faces and went down to la Casa Rosada Nueva and raised hell with the—”)

  Lunama grinned. “Frankly, old man, this visit is business.” The Zulunder spoke with a dandyish, pseudo-Castilian accent, which he no doubt thought aristocratic.

  “Oh,” Ribera answered.

  “I hear that you were on a little expedition to Palmer Peninsula this January.”

  “Yes,” Ribera replied stonily. Perhaps there was still a chance; perhaps Lunama didn’t know the whole truth. “And it was supposed to be a secret. If el Presidente Imperial found out that your government knew about it—”

  “Come, come, Diego. That isn’t the secret you are thinking of. I know that you found what happened to the Hendrik Verwoerd and the Nation.”

  “Oh,” Ribera replied again. “How did you find out?” he asked dully.

  “You talked to many people, Diego,” he waved vaguely. “Surely you didn’t think that every one of them would keep your secret. And surely you didn’t think you could keep something this important from us.” He looked beyond the anthropologist and his tone changed. “For three hundred years we lived under the heels of those white devils. Then came the Retribution in
the North and—”

  What a quaint term the Zulunders use for the North World War, thought Ribera. It had been a war in which every trick of destruction—nuclear, biological, and chemical—had been used. The mere residues from the immolation of China had obliterated Indonesia and India. Mexico and América Central had disappeared with the United States and Canada. And North Africa had gone with Europe. The gentlest wisps from that biological and nuclear hell had caressed the Southern Hemisphere and nearly poisoned it. A few more megatons and a few more disease strains and the war would have gone unnamed, for there would have been no one to chronicle it. This was the Retribution in the North which Lunama so easily referred to.

  “—and the devils no longer had the protection of their friends there. Then came the Sixty-Day Struggle for Freedom.”

  There were both black devils and white devils in those sixty days—and saints of all colors, brave men struggling desperately to avert genocide. But the years of slavery were too many and the saints lost, not for the first time.

  “At the beginning of the Rising we fought machine guns and jet fighters with rifles and knives,” Lunama continued, almost self-hypnotized. “We died by the tens of thousands. But as the days passed their numbers were reduced, too. By the fiftieth day we had the machine guns, and they had the knives and rifles. We boxed the last of them up at Kapa and Durb,” (he used the Zulunder terms for Capetown and Durban) “and drove them into the sea.”

  Literally, added Ribera to himself. The last remnants of White Africa were physically pushed from the wharves and sunny beaches into the ocean. The Zulunders had succeeded in exterminating the Whites, and thought they succeeded in obliterating the Afrikaner culture from the continent. Of course they had been wrong. The Afrikaners had left a lasting mark, obvious to any unbiased observer; the very name Zulunder, which the present Africans cherished fanatically, was in part a corruption of English.

  “By the sixtieth day, we could say that not a single White lived on the continent. As far as we know, only one small group evaded vengeance. Some of the highest-ranking Afrikaner officials, maybe even the Prime Minister, commandeered two luxury vessels, the SR Hendrik Verwoerd and the Nation. They left many hours before the final freedom drive on Kapa.”