Vernor Vinge: The Witling

Two gouts of water—accompanied by characteristic thunder—fountained from the lake’s surface. Then the enemy got their range and the hypervelocity bolts of wind slammed into the speedboat’s hull, shredding it still further. “They’re being gentle,” Bre’en shouted over the sounds of destruction. He looked haggard and scared now, his oily manner gone. “They could reng water at us, or even rocks.”

“Jump, damn you, jump!” Leg-Wot screamed in Homespeech, but the other got her meaning. They jumped and Leg-Wot felt herself lurch upward against the restraining straps: they had hopped east rather than north. They were no longer moving to get somewhere, but only to avoid the enemy. It was a futile effort: the new lake was already occupied. Blow after blow broke across the boat. The deck tilted toward the gaping vents at the waterline.

“We’re boxed in,” Pelio said to no one in particular. “They must have boats on every transit lake for leagues. Wherever we go, they’ll keep hitting us.” Crunch. Slivers of wood flew up from the deck and the boat slid sideways into the water. The enemy boats were moving in now, as if this were a delicate operation they must do piece by piece; so they meant to save Bre’en after all. She saw the Snowman’s hands edging toward the quick release on his harness, and waved her maser at him. If he escaped, the enemy could dispense with delicacy.

But even as their speedboat was being hacked from under them, old Bjault piped up with an inane question. “You said you learned to seng this part of the world because you were a soldier?” he said to Bre’en. Leg-Wot didn’t know whether to laugh or swear: was Bjault so far out of touch, he didn’t see the end was seconds away?

Bre’en just grunted in response. “Well, then,” continued Ajão, “you must have learned to seng spots much smaller than transit lakes. You must know all sorts of hidden—”

“Of course!” shouted Pelio over the crashing wind. “Ambush points, food caches! You can take us to hundreds of places these people won’t find for hours.”

In the brightening twilight, the hate in Bre’en’s face was plain to see. “No!” he shrilled. He came so close , thought Yoninne, to saving his own neck and recapturing us, too. She turned the maser’s blunt muzzle on him, and tried to ignore the water rising about her ankles. “One more jump, Bre’en. Take us somewhere no one has been in a long time.”

Jump. A groaning, ripping sound came through the speedboat’s belly. The deck split down the middle and Yoninne was looking straight up into the morning sky—then down at the water. Around her timbers and planking flew in all directions. Finally she came to rest, hanging upside down from her harness. For a moment she swung gently back and forth on the straps. All was silent except for a faint drip drip drip somewhere behind her. From the marshy ground a meter below her head, scraggly brush thrust stiff fingers within ten centimeters of her face, bringing an odor of muck and decay.

Yoninne pulled the harness release and the universe spun around her as she swung down onto the boggy ground. She staggered to her feet and walked dazedly around the wreckage.

Dawn had come to the desert: peeking over the jumbled plain to the east, the sun turned the rocks and sand to tan and orange, the brush to dusty green.

Very pretty. But the speedboat was an unrecognizable pile of junk. Bre’en had renged them into some kind of marsh. The boat had skidded out of the water and rolled across the ground to the marsh’s edge, where it broke apart on jagged rocks. But the ablation skiff was undamaged. It had bounced clear of the wreckage to sit, a dull black sphere, in the brush surrounding the marsh.

There were voices now from within the wreckage, and she thought she heard meeping , too. She poked around the split timbers that thrust deep through the brush into the marshy soil. “Ionina!” Pelio called. She found him under what was left of the boat’s bottom plates. Except for the beginnings of a massive bruise along his jaw and neck, he looked okay. She clambered through the wreckage to reach him. Together they eased back the curved planking that pinned him to his couch. For an instant, Yoninne’s hand rested on his arm, and they looked at each other silently. Then Pelio smiled at her—the first time in how many hours?—and they turned to recover the others.

In half an hour they were all sitting around the edge of the marsh, huddled down in the bushes. Considering the damage the boat had taken, they had come out awfully well. Bre’en had a broken ankle (which could only serve to make him more manageable), and Ajão had come through without even a bruise. Sam was a different story: the watchbear seemed alert and comfortable as he lay in the brush next to Pelio, but the fur across his shoulder was matted with blood…

The sun stood almost ten degrees above the horizon now, its glare blotting the eastern plains from view. The air turned dry and hot, and something—animals hidden in the rocks?—set up a terrible buzzing. What had—by contrast with the antarctic—seemed warm before, had been nothing but the chill of a desert night. By noon this place would be hotter than anything she’d seen in the Summerkingdom.

Bre’en looked sourly at the heat ripples rising over the brownish green marsh. Pelio had used one of the boat cables to tie the Snowman to the biggest, sturdiest bush in sight. Bre’en couldn’t reng away from them, but he had what freedom of movement his broken ankle permitted. “So?” the haggard Bre’en said, grimacing at the pain that must be shooting up his leg. “At most you’ve gained yourselves an hour of freedom. Right now my king’s army and their allies are checking every mudhole inside ten leagues. And the Desertfolk know these lands: to them water is terribly important. You’ll be lucky to—”

“Oh? They know where every last drop of water is, eh?” Yoninne broke in nastily. “Then why don’t your friends have a settlement here?”

Bre’en pointed at the circle of rocks that peeked through the scrub around the marsh. “Someone was here once; thev even had a transit lake. If I remember right, there are ruins on the other side of the bog… buildings burned right down to their foundations.”

“The water is so thoroughly poisoned that only scragweed can drink it,” said Pelio sharply.

Bre’en nodded, almost smugly. “Some of my… some of the partisans were overeager on that score. They felt your Summerfolk were a bit discourteous, planting your towns in the margin of their desert.”

Pelio started to reply, then waved angrily at their hostage. “You’re wasting our time, Bre’en.” He turned to Yoninne. “We’ve got to decide what to do. Should we hide out here, or take another chance with the Desertfolk’s roads? Your strange sphere”—he gestured at the ablation skiff—“could hold us all, and it certainly seems sturdy enough to be used as a road boat.”

“Could Bre’en jump us all the wav into County Tsarang?” The Snowman smiled crookedly and shook his head. “I doubt it,” said Pelio, confirming Bre’en’s wordless assertion. “The county has always been well guarded against unwelcome pilgrims. He could reng us to a border lake, but that’s about all.”

“Then I don’t see what good it would do to get back on the road,” Yoninne said glumly. “At least the Snowmen don’t know where we are now.”

Bjault broke the long silence that followed. “You said this was once a Summerfolk village, Bre’en. It must be close to land that’s still under Summer control.”

The Snowman tried to laugh but it was a hollow, croaking sound. “It is, vou brown-faced fool, it is. County Tsarang lies just beyond those mountains.” He waved toward the west. “It would be one quick jump if you had someone who could seng the way. But it’s a death march if you try to walk it without water.”