Zones of Thought Trilogy

by Vernor Vinge

  The concourse was crowded. The creatures here had ordinary enough body plans, though none were of species Greenstalk recognized for certain. The tusk-leg type that ran Saint Rihndell’s was most numerous. After a moment, one such drifted out from the wall near the OOB‘s lock. It buzzed something that came out as Triskweline: “For trading, we go this way.” Its ivory legs moved agilely across netting into an open car. The Skroderiders settled behind and they accelerated along the arc. Blueshell waggled at Greenstalk, “The old story, eh; what good are their legs now?” It was the oldest Rider humor, but it was always worth a laugh: Two legs or four legs—evolved from flippers or jaws or whatever—were all very good for movement on land. But in space, it scarcely mattered.

  The car was making about one hundred meters per second, swaying slightly whenever they passed from one ring segment to the next. Blueshell kept up a steady patter of conversation with their guide, the sort of pitch that Greenstalk knew was one of his great joys in life. “Where are we going? What are those creatures there? What sort of things are they in search of at Saint Rihndell’s?” All jovial, and almost humanly brisk. Where short-term memory was failing him, he depended on his skrode.

  Tusk-legs spoke only reduced-grammar Triskweline and didn’t seem to understand some of the questions: “We go to the Master Seller … helper creatures those are … allies of big new customer…” Their guide’s limited speech bothered dear Blueshell not at all; he was collecting responses more than answers. Most races had interests that were obscure to the likes of Blueshell and Greenstalk. No doubt there were billions of creatures in Harmonious Repose who were totally inscrutable to Riders or Humans or Dirokimes. Yet simple dialog often gave insight on the two most important questions: What do you have that might be useful to me, and how can I persuade you to part with it? Dear Blueshell’s questions were sounding out the other, trying to find the parameters of personality and interest and ability.

  It was a team game the two Skroderiders played. While Blueshell chattered, Greenstalk watched everything around them, running her skrode’s recorders on all bands, trying to place this environment in the context of others they had known. Technology: What would these people need? What could work? In space this flat, there would be little use for agrav fabric. And this low in the Beyond, a lot of the most sophisticated imports from above would spoil almost immediately. Workers outside the long windows wore articulated pressure suits—the force-field suits of the High Beyond would last only a few weeks down here.

  They passed trees(?) that twisted and twisted. Some of the trunks circled the wall of the arc; others trailed along their path for hundreds of meters. Tusk-leg gardeners floated everywhere about the plants, yet there was no evidence of agriculture. All this was ornament. In the ring plane beyond the windows there were occasional towers, structures that sprouted a thousand kilometers above the plane and cast the pointy shadows they had seen on their final approach to the system. Ravna’s voice and Pham’s buzzed against her stalk, softly asking Greenstalk about the towers, speculating on their purpose. She stored their theories for later consideration … but she doubted them; some would only work in the High Beyond, and others would be clumsy given this civilization’s other accomplishments.

  Greenstalk had visited eight ring system civilizations in her life. They were a common consequence of accidents and wars (and occasionally, of deliberate habitat design). According to OOB‘s library, Harmonious Repose had been a normal planetary system up till ten million years ago. Then there’d been a real estate dispute: A young race from Below had thought to colonize and exterminate the moribund inhabitants. The attack had been a miscalulation, for the moribund could still kill and the system was reduced to rubble. Perhaps the young race survived. But after ten million years, if there were any of those young killers left they would now be the most frail of the systems’ elder races. Perhaps a thousand new races had passed through in that time, and almost every one had done something to tailor the rings and the gas cloud left from the debacle. What was left was not a ruin at all, but old … old. The ship’s library claimed that no race had transcended from Harmonious Repose in a thousand years. That fact was more important than all the others. The current civilizations were in their twilight, refining mediocrity. More than anything else, the system had the feel of an old and beautiful tide pool, groomed and tended, shielded from the exciting waves that might upset its bansai plumes. Most likely the tusk-legs were the liveliest species about, perhaps the only one interested in trade with the outside.

  Their car slowed and spiraled into a small tower.

  “By the Fleet, what I wouldn’t give to be out there with them!” Pham Nuwen waved at the views coming in from the skrode cameras. Ever since the Riders left, he’d been at the windows, alternately gaping wide-eyed at the ringscape and bouncing abstractedly between the command deck’s floor and ceiling. Ravna had never seen him so absorbed, so intense. However fraudulent his memories of trading days, he truly thought he could make a difference. And he may be right.

  Pham came down from the ceiling, pulled close to the screen. It looked like serious bargaining was about to begin. The Skroderiders had arrived in a spherical room perhaps fifty meters across. Apparently they were floating near the center of it. A forest grew inward from all directions, and the Riders seemed to float just a few meters from the tree tops. Here and there between the branches, they could see the ground, a mosaic of flowers.

  Saint Rihndell’s sales creatures were scattered all about the tallest trees. They sat(?) with their ivory limbs twined about the tree tops. Tusk-leg races were a common thing in the galaxy, but these were the first Ravna had known. The body plan was totally unlike anything from home, and even now she didn’t have a clear idea of their appearance. Sitting in the trees, their legs had more of the aspect of a skeletal fingers grasping around the trunk. Their chief rep—who claimed to be Saint Rihndell itself—had scrimshaw covering two-thirds of its ivory. Two of the windows showed the carving close up; Pham seemed to think that understanding the artwork might be useful.

  Progress was slow. Triskweline was the common language, but good interpreting devices didn’t work this deep in the Beyond, and Saint Rihndell’s folk were only marginally familiar with the trade talk. Ravna was used to clean translations. Even the Net messages she dealt with were usually intelligible (though sometimes misleadingly so).

  They’d been talking for twenty minutes and had only just established that Saint Rihndell might have the ability to repair OOB. It was the usual Riderly driftiness, and something more. The tedium seemed to please Pham Nuwen, “Rav, this is almost like a Qeng Ho operation, face to face with critters and scarcely a common language.”

  “We sent them a description of our repair problem hours ago. Why should it take so long for a simple yes or no?”

  “Because they’re haggling,” said Pham, his grin broadening. “‘Honest’ Saint Rihndell here—” he waved at the scrimshawed local, “—wants to convince us just how hard the job is… Lord I wish I was out there.”

  Even Blueshell and Greenstalk seemed a little strange now. Their Triskweline was stripped down, barely more complex than Saint Rihndell’s. And much of the discussion seemed very round about. Working for Vrinimi, Ravna had had some experience with sales and trading. But haggling? You had your pricing data bases and strategy support, and directions from Grondr’s people. You either had a deal or you didn’t. What was going on between the Riders and Saint Rihndell was one of the more alien things Ravna had ever seen.

  “Actually, things are going pretty well … I think. You saw when we arrived, the bone legs took away Blueshell’s samples. By now they know precisely what we have. There’s something in those samples that they want.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. Saint Rihndell isn’t bad-mouthing our stuff for his health.”

  “Damn it, it’s possible we don’t have anything on board they could want. This was never intended to be a trade expedition.” Blueshell and Greenstalk had sca
venged “product samples” from the ship’s supplies, things that the OOB could survive without. These included sensoria and some Low Beyond computer gear. Some of that would be a serious loss. But one way or another, we need those repairs.

  Pham chuckled. “No. There’s something there Saint Rihndell wants. Otherwise he wouldn’t still be jawing… And see how he keeps needling us about his ‘other customers’ needs’? Saint Rihndell is a human kind of a guy.”

  Something like human song came over the link to the Riders. Ravna phased Greenstalk’s cameras toward the sound. From the forest “floor” on the far side of Blueshell, three new creatures had appeared.

  “Why … they’re beautiful. Butterflies,” said Ravna.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean they look like butterflies. You know? Um. Insects with large colored wings.”

  Giant butterflies, actually. The newcomers had a generally humanoid body plan. They were about 150 centimeters tall and covered with soft-looking brown fur. Their wings sprouted from behind their shoulder blades. At full spread they were almost two meters across, soft blues and yellows, some more intricately patterned than others. Surely they were artificial, or a gengineered affectation; they would have been useless for flying about in any reasonable gravity. But here in zero-gee… The three floated at the entrance for just a moment, their huge, soft eyes looking up at the Riders. Then they swept their wings in measured sweeps, and drifted gracefully into the air above the forest. The entire effect was like something out of a children’s video. They had pert, button noses, like pet jorakorns, and eyes as wide and bashful as any human animator ever drew. Their voices sounded like youngsters singing.

  Saint Rihndell and his buddies sidled around their tree tops. The tallest visitor sang on, its wings gently flexing. After a moment, Ravna realized it was speaking fluent Trisk with a front end adapted to the creature’s natural speech:

  “Saint Rihndell, greetings! Our ships are ready for your repairs. We have made fair payment, and we are in a great hurry. Your work must begin at once!” Saint Rihndell’s Trisk specialist translated the speech for his boss.

  Ravna leaned across Pham’s back. “So maybe our friendly repairman really is overbooked,” she said.

  “…Yeah.”

  Saint Rihndell came back around his treetop. His little arms picked at the green needles as he made a reply. “Honored Customers. You made offer of payment, not fully accepted. What you ask is in short supply, difficult to … do.”

  The cuddly butterfly made a squeaking noise that might have passed for joyous laughter in a human child. The sense behind its singing was different: “Times are changing, Rihndell creature! Your people must learn: We will not be stymied. You know my fleet’s sacred mission. We count every passing hour against you. Think on the fleet you will face if your lack of cooperation is ever known—is ever even suspected.” There was a sweep of blue and yellow wings, and the butterfly turned. Its dark, bashful eyes rested on the Riders. “And these potted plants, they are customers? Dismiss them. Till we are gone, you have no other customers.”

  Ravna sucked in a breath. The three had no visible weapons, but she was suddenly afraid for Blueshell and Greenstalk.

  “Well, what do you know,” Pham said. “Butterflies in jackboots.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  According to the clock, it took less than half an hour for the Skroderiders to make it back. It seemed a lot longer to Pham Nuwen, even though he tried to keep up a casual front with Ravna. Maybe they were both keeping up a front; he knew she still considered him a fragile case.

  But the Riders’ cameras showed no more signs of the killer butterflies. Finally the cargo lock cracked open and Blueshell and Greenstalk were back.

  “I was sure the wily tusk-legs was just pretending there was strong demand,” said Blueshell. He seemed as eager to rehash the story as Pham was.

  “Yeah, I thought so too. In fact, I still think those butterflies might just be part of an act. It’s all too melodramatic.”

  Blueshell’s fronds rattled in a way that Pham recognized as a kind of shiver. “I wager not, Sir Pham. Those were Aprahanti. Just the look of them fills you with dread, does it not? They’re rare these days, but a star trader knows the stories. Still … this is a little much even for Aprahanti. Their Hegemony has been on the wane for several centuries.” He rattled something at the ship, and the windows were filled with views of nearby berths in the repair harbor. There was more Rider rattling, this time between Greenstalk and Blueshell. “Those other ships are a uniform type, you know. A High Beyond design like ours, but more, um, … militant.”

  Greenstalk moved close to a window. “There are twenty of them. Why would so many need drive repairs all at once?”

  Militant? Pham looked at the ships with a critical eye. He knew the major features of Beyonder vessels by now. These appeared to have rather large cargo capacity. Elaborate sensoria too. Hm.“Okay, so the Butterflies are hard types. How scared is Saint Rihndell and company?”

  The Skroderiders were silent for a long moment. Pham couldn’t tell if his question was being given serious consideration or if they had simultaneously lost track of the conversation. He looked at Ravna. “How about the local net? I’d like to get some background.”

  She was already running comm routines. “They weren’t accessible earlier. We couldn’t even get the News.” That was something Pham could understand, even if it was damned irritating. The “local net” was a RIP-wide ultrawave computer and communication network, perhaps a billion times more complex than anything Pham had known—but conceptually similar to organizations in the Slow Zone. And Pham Nuwen had seen what vandals could do to such structures; Qeng Ho had dealt with at least one obnoxious civilization by perverting its computer net. Not surprisingly, Saint Rihndell hadn’t provided them with links to the RIP net. And as long as they were in harbor, the OOB‘s antenna swarm was necessarily down, so they were also cut off from the Known Net and the newsgroups.

  A grin lit Ravna’s face. “Hei! Now we’ve got read access, maybe more. Greenstalk. Blueshell. Wake up!”

  Rattle. “I wasn’t asleep,” claimed Blueshell, “just thinking on Sir Pham’s question. Saint Rihndell is obviously afraid.”

  As usual, Greenstalk didn’t make excuses. She rolled around her mate to get a better look at Ravna’s newly opened comm window. There was an iterated-triangle design with Trisk annotations. It meant nothing to Pham. “That’s interesting,” said Greenstalk.

  “I am chuckling,” said Blueshell. “It is more than interesting. Saint Rihndell is a hard-trading type. But look, he is making no charge for this service, not even a percentage of barter. He is afraid, but he still wants to deal with us.”

  Hmm, so something from their High Beyond samples was enough to make him risk Aprahanti violence. Just hope it’s not something we really need too.“Okay. Rav, see if—”

  “Just a second,” the woman replied. “I want to check the News.” She started a search program. Her eyes flickered quickly across her console window … and after a second she choked, and her face paled. “By the Powers, no!”

  “What is it?”

  But Ravna didn’t reply, or put the news to a main window. Pham grabbed the rail in front of her console and pulled himself around so he could see what she was reading:

  Crypto: 0

  Syntax: 43

  As received by: Harmonious Repose Communication Synod

  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: Bold victory over the Perversion

  Distribution:

  Threat of the Blight

  War Trackers Interest Group

  Homo Sapiens Interest Group

  Date: 159.06 days since fall of Relay

  Key phrases: Action, not talk; A promising beginning

  Text of messag
e:

  One hundred seconds ago, Alliance Forces began action against the tools of the Blight. By the time you read this, the Homo Sapiens worlds known as Sjandra Kei will have been destroyed.

  Note well: for all the talk and theories that have flown about the Blight, this is the first time anyone has successfully acted. Sjandra Kei was one of only three systems outside of Straumli Realm known to harbor humans in any numbers. In one stroke we have destroyed a third of the Perversion’s potential for expansion.

  Updates will follow.

  Death to vermin.

  There was one other message in the window, an update of sorts, but not from Death to Vermin:

  Crypto: 0

  Syntax: 43

  Billing: charity/general interest

  As received by: Harmonious Repose Communication Synod

  Language path: Samnorsk->Triskweline, SjK units

  From: Commercial Security, Sjandra Kei [Note from lower protocol layer: This message was received at Sneerot Down along the Sjandra Kei bearing. The transmission was very weak, perhaps from a shipboard transmitter]

  Subject: Please help

  Distribution:

  Threats Interest Group

  Date: 5.33 hours since disaster at Sjandra Kei

  Text of message:

  Earlier today, relativistic projectiles struck our main habitations. Fatalities cannot be less than twenty-five billion. Three billion may still live, in transit and in smaller habitats.

  We are still under attack.

  Enemy craft are in the inner system. We see glow bombs. They are killing everyone.

  Please. We need help.

  “Nei nei nei!” Ravna drove up against him, her arms tight around him, her face buried in his shoulder. She sobbed incoherent Samnorsk. Her whole body shuddered against him. He felt tears coming to his own eyes. So strange. She had been the strong one, and he the fragile crazy. Now it was turned all around, and what could he do? “Father, mother, sister—gone, gone.”