Vernor Vinge - The Witling

Finally he returned to the soldiers. “Where is he?” said Pelio, trying to keep the pique from his voice.

The men snapped to attention. “He?—the chief transit attendant, Your Highness? He was called within.” The fellow paused and Pelio could almost see the thought in his eyes: If you were a proper heir to the crown, you wouldn’t need servants to shuttle you in and out of your own Keep. “He should be back at any moment, however, Your Highness.”

Pelio turned wordlessly away, and drew the girl off to one side of the room. For a moment he just glared at the scene.

“What is the matter?” Ionina asked softly. She stood shivering, her arms folded across her high breasts.

Pelio looked across at her soft brown face, and felt the anger drain from him. “At the moment there is no one here who can reng us into the Keep.”

Ionina frowned. “But you told me … I mean, aren’t you the oldest son of the king? Of all the people, you would know the way?”

Pelio’s jaw dropped. How can she dare to taunt me— Then he realized with an awful shock that she didn’t know he was almost as crippled as she. He lowered his head, and said quietly, “I am like you, Ionina. I can’t teleport; I can’t even kill from a distance.” It was the first time ever that this admission had not caused him pain.

Ionina looked across the room at the soldiers and the two bodyguards; the men were talking casually among themselves. They really seemed quite bored. She absently reached down to pat Samadhom’s wet hulk. “What you said before. You guess right. Where I come from, the all of us are, uh, witlings.”

How casually she spoke the words! He had scarcely believed the assertion when he made it—he’d simplv been voicing his dreams. Now suddenly it was reality. And Ionina and Adgao seemed so civilized; they must control some sorcery, for what except magic could raise a man above the common beasts if he did not first have Talent? He opened his mouth, but his conflicting questions and speculations reduced him to momentary speechlessness. Where was Ionina’s magical land? Could he escape to it?

Water splashed from the transit pool as two newcomers entered the room and bounded to attention; whoever was coming after them must be important. There was another splash, and two more figures emerged. Aleru! Even in the dim light Pelio instantly recognized his younger brother. And the other figure—heavy, ponderous, pale-skinned—that was Thredegar Bre’en. Ever since he could remember, Bre’en had been the second-ranking representative of the Snowking at the palace: ambassadors came and went, but Bre’en always remained. Shozheru and his advisers realized that Thredegar Bre’en was anything but the congenial fool he seemed. The wily Snowman was the one sure link the Summerkingdom had in its communications with the arctic lands. No matter which clique was in power at the poles, Bre’en always seemed to rank high in its councils.

Aleru was talking to the other even before they were out of the water. “And I tell you Bre’en, this is serious. We’re tired of you people supporting this illegal immigration to the Great Desert. The Sandfolk attack on Marecharu Oasis cost us lives.” After them, four men—all dressed in heavy Snow-folk leggings—climbed awkwardly from the pool; these were Bre’en’s personal servants.

It took only those few sentences for Pelio to realize that Aleru was speaking directly for their father, the king. But by tradition, the office of direct spokesman should go to the king’s firstborn son, as soon as that son could be considered responsible. Pelio swallowed hard, and stepped deeper into the shadows, and wished he were invisible.

The motion must have caught Aleru’s eye, for the other’s head snapped around to look directly at them. “Who—Pelio!” The younger prince straightened his shoulders and hailed the elder: “Brother.” Beside him, Bre’en bowed slightly.

Pelio returned the greeting, and tried to look self-composed. Their father had often remarked how similar in appearance and voice he and his brother were. It was true: except for Pelio’s one “tiny” deficiency, they might have been the same person. But that deficiency and the accident of his being born before Aleru meant that they had always been separated by a wall of mutual envy—and hate.

Aleru was one of the few people who knew Pelio well enough to see through his deception.

His brother glanced briefly around the room, and seemed to guess that Pelio was stuck here waiting for the chief attendant. He looked back at Pelio and shrugged as if to say, You pitiful, embarrassed fool. Then his jaw sagged a fraction as he finally noticed Ionina’s slim, dark form in the shadows. He looked at her for a long moment, and Pelio could almost imagine his futile effort to decide where in the world the girl could be from. Even the Snowman, Thredegar Bre’en, seemed interested now—though his gaze was a bit more affable and relaxed than Aleru’s. Pelio tried to outstare them. After all, to explain anything at all about Ionina would imply that there was something special about her. But finally he felt forced to speak. “Do you like her?” he said, trying to smile. “A new concubine. The gift of some baron south of County Tsarang.” The more obscure her origin the better. Tsarang was on the other side of the world, so far from the Summerkingdom proper that its loyalty was scarcely more than lip service. And the lands around it were wild enough to produce a creature as strange as Ionina.

“Very nice, brother. Someday I would have one.”

“Certainly.” Pelio nodded, and the two brothers stared at each other. With Samadhom’s defensive screens hanging invisibly around them, Aleru had no way of senging that Ionina was a widing. But that didn’t help matters much. Aleru knew that Pelio rarely used his statutory harem, that he despised the girls and they despised him. So Aleru might reasonably conclude there was something special about this particular girl. Would his brother guess the one terrible peculiarity that might interest Pelio?

Finally Aleru snapped to attention—an exaggerated gesture of respect—and said, “By your leave, brother.” He turned and walked to the edge of the pool, then noticed that Bre’en had made no move to follow.

“Ah, yes, Your Highness,” Bre’en said to Aleru. “Could we finish our discussion later? Certainly the ambassador should hear what you say firsthand. And I don’t often get the chance to speak with the prince-imperial. If he is someday to rule All Summer, then we of the Poles must know him.”

Aleru pinched in one side of his mouth. “Do whatever you please, Bre’en.” He dived into the pool and disappeared.

For a moment after Aleru’s party left, no one spoke. Behind the Snowman, his servants stood at blank-faced attention. Quite likely, they were witlings; no person with Talent could be as completely intimidated as a witling. It was rumored that the Snowking valued fear and oppression so much that he was systematically breeding a race of witlings to rule over. In the long run such schemes were laughable. In the short run they were ghastly grotesque, even to Pelio.

Bre’en smiled, and leaned forward to gesture Ionina out of the shadows. “I am captivated by Your Highness’s acquisition. She is beautiful—almost supernaturally exotic. Tell me, little one,” he addressed the girl, who was anything but little, “to reach the Summerkingdom from County Tsarang you must have crossed the Snowkingdom. Did our land please you?” For all the man’s ugliness, he had an engaging smile.

The girl seemed puzzled by his question, finally said faintly, “I no … I mean, I don’t know.”

Bre’en’s laugh was cheerful, yet not mocking. “You don’t blow? In just four words my entire kingdom is consigned to obscurity! I am crushed.” He turned to Pelio, and abruptly changed the subject. “Your Highness, it was not by our request that we deal with your father through Prince Aleru rather than yourself.”