Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

They dismounted and the Lord Chamberlain had the Two-Legs moved to a litter.

"Woodcarver, he'll see us now?" said Scriber.

The bureaucrat laughed. "She. Woodcarver changed gender more than ten years ago."

Peregrine's heads twisted about in surprise. Precisely what would that mean? Most packs change with time, but he had never heard of Woodcarver being anything but "he". He almost missed what the Lord Chamberlain said next.

"Even better. Her whole council must see… what you've brought. Come inside." He waved the guards away.

They walked down a hall almost wide enough for two packs to pass abreast. The chamberlain led, followed by the travelers and the doctor with the alien's litter. The walls were high, padded with silver-crusted quilting. It was far grander than before… and again, unsettling. There was scarcely any statuary, and what there was dated from centuries before.

But there were pictures. He stumbled when he saw the first, and behind him he heard Scriber gasp. Peregrine had seen art all around the world: The mobs of the tropics preferred abstract murals, smudges of psychotic color. The Southseas islanders had never invented perspective; in their watercolors, distant objects simply floated in the upper half of the picture. In the Long Lakes Republic, representationism was currently favored, especially multiptychs that gave a whole-pack view.

But Peregrine had never seen the likes of these. The pictures were mosaics, each tile a ceramic square about a quarter inch on a side. There was no color, just four shades of gray. From a few feet away, the graininess was lost, and… they were the most perfect landscapes Peregrine had ever seen. All were views from hilltops around Woodcarvers. Except for the lack of color, they might have been windows. The bottom of each picture was bounded by a rectangular frame, but the tops were irregular; the mosaics simply broke off at the horizon. The hall's quilted wall stood where the pictures should have shown sky.

"Here now, fellow! I thought you wanted to see Woodcarver." The remark was directed at Scriber. Jaqueramaphan was strung out along the landscapes, one of him sitting in front of a different picture all down the hall. He turned a head to look at the chamberlain. His voice sounded dazed. "Soul's end! It's like being God, as if I have one member on each hilltop and can see everything at once." But he scrambled to his feet and trotted to catch up.

The hall opened on one of the largest indoor meeting rooms Peregrine had ever seen.

"This is as big as anything in the Republic," Scriber said with apparent admiration, looking up at the three levels of balconies. They stood alone with the alien at the bottom.

"Hmf." Besides the chamberlain and the doctor, there were already five other packs in the room. More showed up as they watched. Most were dressed like nobles of the Republic, all jewels and furs. A few wore the plain jackets he remembered from his last trip. Sigh. Woodcarver's little settlement had grown into a city and now a nation-state. Peregrine wondered if he — she — had any real power now. He trained one head precisely on Scriber and Hightalked at him. "Don't say anything about the picture box just yet."

Jaqueramaphan looked puzzled and conspiratorial all at once. He High Talked back, "Yes… yes. A bargaining card?"

"Something like that." Peregrine's eyes swept back and forth across the balconies. Most packs entered with an air of harried self-importance. He smiled to himself. One glance into the pit was enough to shatter their smugness. The air above him was filled with buzzing talk. None of the packs looked like Woodcarver. But then, she'd have few of her members from before; he could only recognize her by manner and bearing. It shouldn't matter. He had carried some friendships far longer than any member's lifespan. But with others the friend had changed in a decade, its viewpoints altering, affection turning to animosity. He'd been counting on Woodcarver being the same. Now…

There was a brief sound of trumpets, almost like a call to order. The pubic doors of a lower balcony slid open and a fivesome entered. Peregrine felt a twitchy thrill of horror. This was Woodcarver, but so… misarranged. One member was so old it had to be helped by the rest. Two were scarcely more than puppies, and one of those a constant drooler. The largest member was white-eyed blind. It was the sort of thing you might see in a waterfront slum, or in the last generation of incest.

She looked down at Peregrine, and smiled almost as if she recognized him. When she spoke, it was with the blind one. The voice was clear and firm. "Please carry on, Vendacious."

The chamberlain nodded. "As you wish, Your Majesty." He pointed into the pit, at the alien. "That is the reason for this hasty meeting."

"We can see monsters at the circus, Vendacious." The voice came from an overdressed pack on the top balcony. To judge from the shouting that came from all sides, this was a minority view. One pack on a lower balcony jumped over the railing and tried to shoo the doctor away from the alien's litter.

The chamberlain raised a head for silence, and glared down at the fellow who had jumped into the pit. "If you please, Scrupilo, be patient. Everyone will get a chance to look."

"Scrupilo" made some grumbling hisses, but backed off.

"Good." Vendacious turned all his attention on Peregrine and Scriber. "Your boat has outrun any news from the north, my friends. No one but I knows anything of your story — and what I have is guard codes hooted across the bay. You say this creature flew down from the sky?"

An invitation to speechify. Peregrine let Scriber Jaqueramaphan do the talking. Scriber loved it. He told the story of the flying house, of the ambush and the murders, and the rescue. He showed them his eye-tools and announced himself as a secret agent of the Long Lakes Republic. Now what real spy would do that? Every pack on the council had eyes on the alien, some fearful, some — like Scrupilo — crazily curious. Woodcarver watched with only a couple of heads. The rest might have been asleep. She looked as tired as Peregrine felt. He rested his own heads on his paws. The pain in Scar was a pulsing beat; it would be easy enough to set the member asleep, but then he'd understand very little of what was being said. Hey! maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. Scar drifted off and the pain receded.

The talk went on for some minutes more, not making a whole lot of sense to the threesome that was Wickwrack. He understood the tones of voice though. Scrupilo — the pack on the floor — complained several times, impatiently. Vendacious said something, agreeing with him. The doctor retreated, and Scrupilo advanced on Wickwrack's alien.

Peregrine pulled himself to full wakefulness. "Be careful. The creature is not friendly."

Scrupilo snapped back, "Your friend has already warned me once." He circled the litter, staring at the alien's brown, furless face. The alien stared back, impassive. Scrupilo reached forward cautiously and drew back the alien's quilt. Still no response. "See?" said Scrupilo. "It knows I mean no harm." Peregrine said nothing to correct him.

"It really walks on those rear paws alone?" said one of the other advisors. "Can you imagine it, towering over us? One little bump would knock it down." Laughter. Peregrine remembered how mantis-like the alien had seemed when upright. These fellows hadn't seen it move.

Scrupilo wrinkled a nose. "The thing is filthy." He was all around her, a posture that Peregrine knew upset the Two-Legs. "That arrow shaft must be removed, you know. Most of the bleeding has stopped, but if we expect the creature to live for long, it needs medical attention." He looked disdainfully at Scriber and Peregrine, as if they were to blame for not performing surgery aboard the twinhull. Something caught his eye and his tone abruptly changed: "By the Pack of Packs! Look at its forepaws." He loosened the ropes about the creature's front legs. "Two paws like that would be as good as five pairs of lips. Think what a pack of these creatures could do!" He moved close to the five-tentacled paw.