A Deepness in the Sky

by Vernor Vinge

  Vernor Vinge’s Hugo Award-winning novel, A Fire upon the Deep, established him as one of the field’s elite. Now Vinge returns to that cosmos of infinite variety in a spellbinding novel of masterful suspense and originality; a visionary epic with the complexity and breadth of the universe, and the joy and pain of the human heart.

  Thirty thousand years before the events of A Fire upon the Deep, Pham Nuwen is living in anonymity among the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet. In high orbit above the planet Arachna, they wait for the awakening of its dormant population, the Spiders, who have burrowed deep into the planet, awaiting the relighting of the On/Off star their planet orbits. For when light returns, Arachna will at long last explode into a Golden Age of technology and commerce.

  But the slumbering Spiders’ vulnerability has attracted another lurking presence—the Emergents, a band of traders whose plans for Arachna are more sinister than anything the Qeng Ho could envision.

  Reluctant to share their spoils with the Qeng Ho, the Emergents unleash an attack unlike any seen in the Qeng Ho’s millennia-long history of exploration, reducing their fleet to serfdom…and then to something far worse.

  Reaching into memories so old and painful he can barely recall them, Pham gathers the other “survivors” about him and makes a final attempt to be worthy of a reputation as ancient and storied as the history of the Qeng Ho itself. But time is running out, for soon the Emergents’ assault will strip Arachna bare.

  As Pham’s underground resistance cell struggles against its torturers in space, a wondrously gifted clan of Spiders on the planet below fights another battle—to advance their technology quickly enough to defeat their terrestrial foes, and to somehow overcome the invisible enemy lurking above.

  ALSO BY VERNOR VINGE

  Tatja Grimm’s World

  The Witling

  True Names and Other Dangers (collection)

  Threats…and Other Promises (collection)

  Across Realtime

  comprising:

  The Peace War

  “The Ungoverned”

  Marooned in Realtime

  *A Fire Upon the Deep

  *A Deepness in the Sky

  *True Names and the Opening of the

  Cyberspace Frontier (forthcoming)

  *denotes a Tor book

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY

  Copyright © 1999 by Vernor Vinge

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Edited by James Frenkel

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  Tor Books on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Vinge, Vernor.

  A deepness in the sky / Vernor Vinge. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 0-312-85683-0 (acid-free paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3572.I534D44 1999

  813'.54-dc21

  98-43457

  CIP

  First Edition: March 1999

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Poul Anderson,

  In learning to write science fiction, I have had many great models, but Poul Anderson’s work has meant more to me than any other. Beyond that, Poul has provided me and the world with an enormous treasure of wonderful, entertaining stories—and he continues to do so.

  On a personal note, I will always be grateful to Poul and Karen Anderson for the hospitality that they showed a certain young science fiction writer back in the 1960s.

  —V.V.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful for the advice and help of: Robert Cademy, John Carroll, Howard L. Davidson, Bob Fleming, Leonard Foner, Michael Gannis, Jay R. Hill, Eric Hughes, Sharon Jarvis, Yoji Kondo, Cherie Kushner, Tim May, Keith Mayers, Mary Q. Smith, and Joan D. Vinge.

  I am very grateful to James Frenkel for the wonderful job of editing he has done with this book and for his timely insight on problems with the earlier drafts.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel takes place thousands of years from now. The connection with our languages and writing systems is tenuous. But, for what it’s worth, the initial sound in “Qeng Ho” is the same as the initial sound in the English word “checker.” (Trixia Bonsol would understand the problem!)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Part Two

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Part Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light-years and eight centuries. It had always been a secret search, unacknowledged even among some of the participants. In the early years, it had simply been encrypted queries hidden in radio broadcasts. Decades and centuries passed. There were clues, interviews with The Man’s fellow-travelers, pointers in a half-dozen contradictory directions: The Man was alone now and heading still farther away; The Man had died before the search ever began; The Man had a war fleet and was coming back upon them.

  With time, there was some consistency to the most credible stories. The evidence was solid enough that certain ships changed schedules and burned decades of time to look for more clues. Fortunes were lost because of the detours and delays, but the losses were to a few of the largest trading Families, and went unacknowledged. They were rich enough, and this search was important enough, that it scarcely mattered. For the search had narrowed: The Man was traveling alone, a vague blur of multiple identities, a chain of one-shot jobs on minor trading vessels, but always moving back and back into this end of Human Space. The hunt narrowed from a hundred
light-years, to fifty, to twenty—and a half-dozen star systems.

  And finally, the manhunt came down to a single world at the coreward end of Human Space. Now Sammy could justify a fleet specially for the end of the hunt. The crew and even most of the owners would not know the mission’s true purpose, but he had a good chance of finally ending the search.

  Sammy himself went groundside on Triland. For once, it made sense for a Fleet Captain to do the detail work: Sammy was the only one in the fleet who had actually met The Man in person. And given the present popularity of his fleet here, he could cut through whatever bureaucratic nonsense might come up. Those were good reasons…but Sammy would be down here in any case. I have waited so long, and in a little while we’ll have him.

  “Why should I help you find anyone! I’m not your mother!” The little man had backed into his inner office space. Behind him, a door was cracked five centimeters wide. Sammy caught a glimpse of a child peeking out fearfully at them. The little man shut the door firmly. He glared at the Forestry constables who had preceded Sammy into the building. “I’ll tell you one more time: My place of business is the net. If you didn’t find what you want there, then it’s not available from me.”

  “’Scuse me.” Sammy tapped the nearest constable on the shoulder. “’Scuse me.” He slipped through the ranks of his protectors.

  The proprietor could see that someone tall was coming through. He reached toward his desk. Lordy. If he trashed the databases he had distributed across the net, they’d get nothing out of him.

  But the fellow’s gesture froze. He stared in shock at Sammy’s face. “Admiral?”

  “Um, ‘Fleet Captain,’ if you please.”

  “Yes, yes! We’ve been watching you on the news every day now. Please! Sit down. You’re the source of the inquiry?”

  The change in manner was like a flower opening to the sunlight. Apparently the Qeng Ho was just as popular with the city folk as it was with the Forestry Department. In a matter of seconds, the proprietor—the “private investigator,” as he called himself—had pulled up records and started search programs. “…Hmm. You don’t have a name, or a good physical description, just a probable arrival date. Okay, now Forestry claims your fellow must have become someone named ‘Bidwel Ducanh.’” His gaze slid sideways to the silent constables, and he smiled. “They’re very good at reaching nonsense conclusions from insufficient information. In this case…” He did something with his search programs. “Bidwel Ducanh. Yeah, now that I search for it, I remember hearing about that fellow. Sixty or a hundred years ago he made some kind of a name for himself.” A figure that had come from nowhere, with a moderate amount of money and an uncanny flare for self-advertisement. In a period of thirty years, he had gathered the support of several major corporations and even the favor of the Forestry Department. “Ducanh claimed to be a city-person, but he was no freedom fighter. He wanted to spend money on some crazy, long-term scheme. What was it? He wanted to…” The private investigator looked up from his reading to stare a moment at Sammy. “He wanted to finance an expedition to the OnOff star!”

  Sammy just nodded.

  “Damn! If he had been successful, Triland would have an expedition partway there right now.” The investigator was silent for a moment, seeming to contemplate the lost opportunity. He looked back at his records. “And you know, he almost succeeded. A world like ours would have to bankrupt itself to go interstellar. But sixty years ago, a single Qeng Ho starship visited Triland. Course, they didn’t want to break their schedule, but some of Ducanh’s supporters were hoping they’d help out. Ducanh wouldn’t have anything to do with the idea, wouldn’t even talk to the Qeng Ho. After that, Bidwel Ducanh pretty much lost his credibility…He faded from sight.”

  All this was in Triland’s Forestry Department records. Sammy said, “Yes. We’re interested in where this individual is now.” There had been no interstellar vessel in Triland’s solar system for sixty years. He is here!

  “Ah, so you figure he may have some extra information, something that would be useful even after what’s happened the last three years?”

  Sammy resisted an impulse to violence. A little more patience now, what more could it cost after the centuries of waiting? “Yes,” he said, benignly judicious, “it would be good to cover all the angles, don’t you think?”

  “Right. You’ve come to the right place. I know city things that the Forestry people never bother to track. I really want to help.” He was watching some kind of scanning analysis, so this was not completely wasted time. “These alien radio messages are going to change our world, and I want my children to—”

  The investigator frowned. “Huh! You just missed this Bidwel character, Fleet Captain. See, he’s been dead for ten years.”

  Sammy didn’t say anything, but his mild manner must have slipped; the little man flinched when he looked up at him. “I-I’m sorry, sir. Perhaps he left some effects, a will.”

  It can’t be. Not when I’m so close. But it was a possibility that Sammy had always known. It was the commonplace in a universe of tiny lifetimes and interstellar distances. “I suppose we are interested in any data the man left behind.” The words came out dully. At least we have closure—that would be the concluding line from some smarmy intelligence analyst.

  The investigator tapped and muttered at his devices. The Forestry Department had reluctantly identified him as one of the best of the city class, so well distributed that they could not simply confiscate his equipment to take him over. He was genuinely trying to be helpful…“There may be a will, Fleet Captain, but it’s not on the Grandville net.”

  “Some other city, then?” The fact that the Forestry Department had partitioned the urban networks was a very bad sign for Triland’s future.

  “…Not exactly. See, Ducanh died at one of Saint Xupere’s Pauper Cemeteria, the one in Lowcinder. It looks like the monks have held on to his effects. I’m sure they would give them up in return for a decent-sized donation.” His eyes returned to the constables and his expression hardened. Maybe he recognized the oldest one, the Commissioner of Urban Security. No doubt they could shake down the monks with no need for any contribution.

  Sammy rose and thanked the private investigator; his words sounded wooden even to himself. As he walked back toward the door and his escort, the investigator came quickly around his desk and followed him. Sammy realized with abrupt embarrassment that the fellow hadn’t been paid. He turned back, feeling a sudden liking for the guy. He admired someone who would demand his pay in the face of unfriendly cops. “Here,” Sammy started to say, “this is what I can—”

  But the fellow held up his hands. “No, not necessary. But there is a favor I would like from you. See, I have a big family, the brightest kids you’ve ever seen. This joint expedition isn’t going to leave Triland for another five or ten years, right? Can you make sure that my kids, even one of them—?”

  Sammy cocked his head. Favors connected with mission success came very dear. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said as gently as he could. “Your children will have to compete with everyone else. Have them study hard in college. Have them target the specialties that are announced. That will give them the best chance.”

  “Yes, Fleet Captain! That is exactly the favor that I am asking. Would you see to it—” He swallowed and looked fiercely at Sammy, ignoring the others. “—would you see to it that they are allowed to undertake college studies?”

  “Certainly.” A little grease on academic entrance requirements didn’t bother Sammy at all. Then he realized what the other was really saying. “Sir, I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Thank you. Thank you!” He touched his business card into Sammy’s hand. “There’s my name and stats. I’ll keep it up-to-date. Please remember.”

  “Yes, uh, Mr. Bonsol, I’ll remember.” It was a classic Qeng Ho deal.

  The city dropped away beneath the Forestry Department flyer. Grandville had only about half a million inhabitants, but they were crammed into a
snarled slum, the air above them shimmering with summer heat. The First Settlers’ forest lands spread away for thousands of kilometers around it, virgin terraform wilderness.

  They boosted high into clean indigo air, arcing southward. Sammy ignored the Triland “Urban Security” boss sitting right beside him; just now he had neither the need nor the desire to be diplomatic. He punched a connection to his Deputy Fleet Captain. Kira Lisolet’s autoreport streamed across his vision. Sum Dotran had agreed to the schedule change: all the fleet would be going to the OnOff star.

  “Sammy!” Kira’s voice cut across the automatic report. “How did it go?” Kira Lisolet was the only other person in the fleet who knew the true purpose of this mission, the manhunt.

  “I—” We lost him, Kira. But Sammy couldn’t say the words. “See for yourself, Kira. The last two thousand seconds of my pov. I’m headed back to Lowcinder now…one last loose end to tie down.”

  There was a pause. Lisolet was fast with an indexed scan. After a moment he heard her curse to herself. “Okay…but do tie that last loose end, Sammy. There were times before when we were sure we’d lost him.”

  “Never like this, Kira.”

  “I said, you make absolutely sure.” There was steel in the woman’s voice. Her people owned a big hunk of the fleet. She owned one ship herself. In fact, she was the only operational owner on the mission. Most times, that was not a problem. Kira Pen Lisolet was a reasonable person on almost all issues. This was one of the exceptions.

  “I’ll make sure, Kira. You know that.” Sammy was suddenly conscious of the Triland Security boss at his elbow—and he remembered what he had accidentally discovered a few moments earlier. “How are things topside?”

  Her response was light, a kind of apology. “Great. I got the shipyard waivers. The deals with the industrial moons and the asteroid mines look solid. We’re continuing with detailed planning. I still think we can be equipped and specialist-crewed in three hundred Msec. You know how much the Trilanders want a cut of this mission.” He heard the smile in her voice. Their link was encrypted, but she knew that his end was emphatically not secure. Triland was a customer and soon to be a mission partner, but they should know just where they stood.