by Vernor Vinge
We’re not sure of the details, but a scenario such as this is inevitable. What we must do is also clear. Straumli Realm is at the heart of the Blight, obviously beyond all attack. But there are other human colonies. We ask the Net to help in identifying all of them. We ourselves are not a large civilization, but we would be happy to coordinate the information gathering, and the military action that is required to prevent the Blight’s spread in the Middle Beyond.
For nearly seventeen weeks, we’ve been calling for action. Had you listened in the beginning, a concerted strike might have been sufficient to destroy the Straumli Realm. Isn’t the Fall of Relay enough to wake you up? Friends, if we act together we still have a chance.
Death to vermin.
The bastards even played on humanity’s foundling nature. Foundling races were rare, but scarcely unknown. Now these Death-to-Vermin creatures were turning the Miracle of Nyjora into something deadly evil.
Death to Vermin were the only ones to call for pogroms, but even respected posters were saying things that indirectly might support such action:
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo [A known military corporation of the High Beyond. If this is a masquerade, somebody is living dangerously.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse subthread
Key phrases: limits on the Blight; the Blight is searching something
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
Close-coupled Automation Interest Group
War Trackers Interest Group
Date: 11.94 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
The Blight admits that it is a Power that tele-operates sophonts in the Beyond. But consider how difficult it is to have a close-coupled automation with time lags of more than a few milliseconds. The Known Net is a perfect illustration of this: Lags range between five milliseconds for systems that are a couple of light-years apart—to (at least) several hundred seconds when messages must pass through intermediate nodes. This, combined with the low bandwidth available across interstellar distances, makes the Known Net a loose forum for the exchange of information and lies. And these restrictions are inherent in the nature of the Beyond, part of the same restrictions that make it impossible for the Powers to exist down here.
We conclude that even the Blight can’t attain close-coupled control except in the High Beyond. At the Top, the Blight’s sophont agents are literally its limbs. In the Middle Beyond, we believe mental “possession” is possible but that considerable preprocessing must be done in the controlled mind. Furthermore, considerable external equipment (the bulky items characteristic of those depths) is needed to support the communication. Direct, millisecond-by-millisecond, control is normally impractical in the Middle Beyond. Combat at this level would involve hierarchical control. Long-term operations would also use intimidation, fraud, and traitors.
These are the threats that you of the Middle and Low Beyond should recognize.
These are the Blight’s tools in the Middle and Low Beyond, and what you should guard against for the immediate future. We don’t see imperial takeovers; there’s no profit [sustenance] in it. Even the destruction of Relay was probably just a byplay to the murder it was simultaneously committing in the Transcend. The greatest tragedies will continue to be at the Top and in the Low Transcend. But we know that the Blight is searching for something; it has attacked at great distances where major archives were the target. Beware of traitors and spies.
Even some of humanity’s supporters sent a chill through Ravna:
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From: Hanse
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Alliance for the Defense subthread
Key phrases: Death Race Theory
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
War Trackers Interest Group
Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 18.29 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
I have obtained specimens from the human worlds in our volume. Detailed analysis is available in the Homo sapiens interest group archive. My conclusions: previous (but less intensive) analysis of human phys/psych is correct. The race has no built-in structures to support remote control. Experiments with living subjects showed no special inclination toward submission. I found little or no evidence of artificial optimization. (There was evidence of DNA surgery to improve disease resistance: drift timing dated the hackwork at two thousand years Before Present. The blood of Straumli Realm subjects carried an optigens, Thirault [a cheap medical recipe that can be tailored across a wide mammalian range].) This race—as represented by our specimens—looks like something that arrived from the Slow Zone quite recently, probably from a single origin world.
Has anyone done such retesting on more distant human worlds?
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Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk->Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse 1
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
War Trackers Interest Group
Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 19.43 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
Who is this “Hanse”? It makes objective, tough-sounding noises about testing human specimens, but it keeps its own nature secret. Don’t be fooled by humans telling you about themselves! In fact, we have no way of testing the creatures that dwell in Straumli Realm; their protector will see to that.
Death to vermin.
And there was a little boy trapped at the bottom of the well. Some days, no communication was possible. Other days, when the OOB antenna swarm was tuned in exactly the right direction and when the vagaries of the zone favored it—then Ravna could hear his ship. Even then the signal was so faint, so distorted, that the effective transmission rate was just a few bits per second.
Jefri and his problems might be only the smallest footnote to the story of the Blight (less than that, since no one knew of him), but to Ravna Bergsndot these conversations were the only bright thing in her life just now.
The kid was very lonely, but less so now, she thought. She learned about his friend Amdi, about the stern Tyrathect and the heroic Mr. Steel and the proud Tines. Ravna smiled to herself, at herself. The walls of her cabin displayed a flat mural of jungle. Deep in the drippy murk lay regular shadows—a castle built in the roots of a giant mangrove tree. The mural was a famous one; the original had been an analog work from three thousand years ago. It showed life at an even further remove, during the Dark Ages on Nyjora. She and Lynne had spent much of their childhood imagining that they were transported to such a time. Little Jefri was trapped in the real thing. Woodcarver’s butchers were no interstellar threat, but they were a deadly horror to those around them. Thank goodness Jefri had not seen the killing.
This was a real medieval world. A tough and unforgiving place, even if Jefri had fallen in with fair-minded people. And the Nyjoran comparison was only vaguely appropriate. These Tines were pack minds; even old Grondr ‘Kalir had been surprised at that.
All through Jefri’s mail, Ravna could see the panic among Steel’s people:
Mister Steel asked me again if theres any way we can make our ship to fly even a little. I dont know. We almost crashed, I think. We need guns. That would save us, at least till you get here. They have bows and arrows just like in Nyjoran days, but no guns. Hes asking me, can you teach us to make guns?
Woodcarver’s raiders w
ould return, and this time in enough force to overrun Steel’s little kingdom. Back when they thought OOB‘s flight would be only thirty or forty days, that had not seemed great a risk, but now… Ravna might arrive to find Woodcarver’s murdering complete.
Oh Pham, dear Pham. If you ever really were, please come back now. Pham Nuwen of medieval Canberra. Pham Nuwen, trader from the Slowness… What would someone such as you make of this? Hmm.
TWENTY-ONE
Ravna knew that—under his bluster—Blueshell was at least as much a worrier as she. Worse, he was a nitpicker. The next time Ravna asked him about their progress, he retreated into technicalities.
Finally Ravna broke in, “Look. The kid is sitting on something that just might blow the Blight sky high, and all he has are bows and arrows. How the long will it be till we get down there, Blueshell?”
Blueshell rolled nervously back and forth across the ceiling. The Skroderiders had reaction jets; they could maneuver in free fall more adroitly than most humans. Instead they used stick-patches, and rolled around on the walls. In a way, it was kind of cute. Just now, it was irritating.
At least they could talk; she glanced across the bridge to where Pham Nuwen sat facing the bridge’s main display. As usual, all his attention was fixed on the slowly moving stars. He was unshaven, his reddish beard bright on his skin; his long hair floated snarled and uncombed. Physically he was cured of his injuries. Ship’s surgeon had even replaced the muscle mass that Old One’s communication equipment had usurped. Pham could dress and feed himself now, but he still lived in a private dreamworld.
The two riders twittered at each other. It was Greenstalk who finally answered her question: “Truly, we’re not sure how long. The quality of the Beyond changes as we descend. Each jump is taking us a fraction longer than the one before.”
“I know that. We’re moving toward the Slow Zone. But the ship is designed for that; it should be an easy matter to extrapolate the slowing.”
Blueshell extended a tendril from ceiling to floor. He diddled with the matte corrugations for a second and then his voder made a sound of human embarrassment. “Ordinarily you would be correct, my lady Ravna. But this is a special case… For one thing, it appears that the zones themselves are in flux.”
“What?”
“It’s not that unheard of. Small shifts are going on all the time. That’s a major purpose for bottom-lugger ships: to track the changes. We’re having the bad luck to run through the middle of the uncertainty.”
Actually, Ravna had known that interface turbulence was high at the Bottom below here. She just didn’t think of it in grandiose terms like “zone shifting”; she also hadn’t realized it was serious enough to affect them yet.
“Okay. How bad can it get then? How much can it slow us?”
“Oh my.” Blueshell rolled to the far wall; he was standing on starry sky now. “It would be nice to be a Low Skroderider. So many problems my high calling brings me. I wish I could be deep in surf right now, thinking on olden memories.” Of other days in the surf.
Greenstalk carried on for him: “It’s not ‘the tide, how high can it rise?’ It’s ‘this storm, how bad can it get?’ Right now it is worse than anything in this region during the last thousand years. However, we have been following the local news; most agree that the storm has peaked. If our other problem gets no worse, we should arrive in about one hundred and twenty days.”
Our other problem. Ravna drifted to the center of the bridge and strapped onto a saddle. “You’re talking about the damage we took getting out of Relay. The ultradrive spines, right? How are they holding up?”
“Quite well, apparently. We’ve not tried to jump faster than eighty percent of design max. On the other hand, we lack good diagnostics. It’s conceivable that serious degradation might happen rather suddenly.”
“Conceivable, but unlikely,” put in Greenstalk.
Ravna nodded. Considering all their other problems, there was no point in contemplating possibilities beyond their control. Back on Relay, this had looked like a thirty or forty day trip. Now … the boy in the well might have to be brave for a long time yet, no matter how much she wished otherwise. Hmm. Time for Plan B then. Time for what someone like Pham Nuwen might suggest. She pushed off the floor and settled by Greenstalk. “Okay, so the best we can plan on is one hundred and twenty days. If the Zone surge gets worse or if we have to get repairs…” Get repairs where? That might be only a delay, not an impossibility. The rebuilt OOB was supposed to be to repairable even in the Low Beyond. “Maybe even two hundred days.” She glanced at Blueshell, but he didn’t interrupt with his usual amendments and qualifications. “You’ve both read the messages we’re getting from the boy. He says the locals are going to be overrun, probably in less than one hundred days. Somehow, we have to help him … before we actually arrive there.”
Greenstalk rattled her fronds in a way Ravna took for puzzlement.
She looked across the deck at Pham, and raised her voice a trifle. Hey you, you should be an expert on this!“You Skroderiders may not recognize it, but this is a problem that’s been seen a million times in the Slow Zone: civilizations are separated by years—centuries—of travel time. They fall into dark ages. They become just as primitive as the pack creatures, these ‘Tines’. Then they get visited from outside. In a short time, they have technology back again.” Pham’s head did not turn; he just looked out across the starscape.
The Skroderiders rattled at each other, then:
“But how can that help us? Doesn’t rebuilding a civilization take dozens of years?”
“And besides, there’s nothing to rebuild on the Tines’ world. According to the child, this is a race without antecedents. How long does it take to found a civilization?”
Ravna waved a hand at the objections. Don’t stop me, I’m on a roll. “That’s not the point. We are in communication with them. We have a good general library on board. Original inventors don’t know where they’re going; they’re groping in the dark. Even the archaeologist/engineers of Nyjora had to reinvent much. But we know everything about making airplanes and such; we know hundreds of ways of going at it.” Now faced with necessity, Ravna was suddenly sure they could do it. “We can study all the development paths, eliminate the dead ends. Even more, we can find the quickest way to go from medieval to specific inventions, things that can beat whatever barbarians are attacking Jefri’s friends.”
Ravna’s speech tumbled to a stop. She stared, grinning, first at Greenstalk and then at Blueshell. But a silent Skroderider is one of the universe’s more impassive audiences. It was hard even to tell if they were looking at her. After a moment Greenstalk said, “Yes, I see. And rediscovery being so common in the Slow Zone, most of this may already be worked out in the ship’s library.”
That’s when it happened: Pham turned from the window. He looked across the deck at Ravna and the Riders. For the first time since Relay, he spoke. Even more, the words weren’t nonsense, though it took her a moment to understand. “Guns and radios,” he said.
“Ah … yes.” She looked back at him. Think of something to make him say more.“Why those in particular?”
Pham Nuwen shrugged. “It worked on Canberra.”
Then damn Blueshell started talking, something about doing a library search. Pham stared at them for moment, his face expressionless. He turned back to watch the stars, and the moment was lost.
TWENTY-TWO
“Pham?” He heard Ravna’s voice just behind him. She had stayed on the bridge after the Riders left, departing on whatever meaningless preparations their meeting had ordained. He didn’t reply, and after a moment she drifted around and blocked his view of the stars. Almost automatically, he found himself focussing on her face.
“Thank you for talking to us… We need you more than ever.”
He could still see lots of stars. They were all around her, slowly moving. Ravna cocked her head, the way she did when she meant friendly puzzlement. “We can help…”
/> He didn’t answer. What had make him speak just now? Then: “You can’t help the dead,” he said, vaguely surprised at his own speaking. Like eye focussing, the speech must be a reflex.
“You’re not dead. You’re as alive as I am.”
Then words tumbled from him; more than in all the days since Relay. “True. The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I’ll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you? From the outside, from Old One’s view—” He looked away from her, dizzy with a doubled vision.
Ravna drifted closer till her face was just centimeters from his. She floated free, except for one foot tucked into the floor. “Dear Pham, you are wrong. You’ve been at the Bottom, and at the Top, but never in between. … ‘The illusion of self-awareness’? That’s a commonplace of any practical philosophy in the Beyond. It has some beautiful consequences, and some scary ones. All you know are the scary ones. Think: the illusion must apply just as surely to the Powers.”
“No. He could make devices like you and I.”
“Being dead is a choice, Pham.” She reached out to pass her hand down his shoulder and arm. He had a typical 0-gee change of perspective; “down” seemed to rotate sideways, and he was looking up at her. Suddenly he was aware of his splotchy beard, his tangled hair floating all about. He looked up at Ravna, remembering everything he’d thought about her. Back on Relay she’d seemed bright; maybe not smarter than he, but as smart as most competitors of the Qeng Ho. But there were other memories, how Old One had seen her. As usual, His memories were overwhelming; about this one woman, there was more insight than from all Pham’s life experience. As usual, it was mostly unintelligible. Even His emotions were hard to interpret. But … He had thought of Ravna a little like … a favored dog. Old One could see right through her. Ravna Bergsndot was a little manipulative; He had been pleased/amused(?) by that fact. But behind her talk and argument, He’d seen a great deal of … “goodness” might be the human word. Old One had wished her well. In the end, He had even tried to help. Insight flitted past him, too fast to catch. Ravna was talking again:
