Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

The Riders didn't turn their skrodes for a better view — for all she knew, they had been looking that way all along — but they stopped talking. As the sun set, the breakers shattered it into a thousand images, glints of green and yellow through the foam. She guessed the two would have preferred to be out there just now. She had seen them often enough around sunset, deliberately sitting where the surf was hardest. When the water drew back, their stalks and fronds were like supplicants' arms, upstretched. At times like these she could almost understand the Lesser Skroderiders; they spent their whole lives memorizing such repeated moments. She smiled in the greenish twilight. There would always be time enough later to worry and plan.

They must have sat like that for twenty minutes. Along the curving line of the beach, she saw tiny fires in the gathering dark: office parties. Somewhere very nearby there was the crunch crunch of feet on sand. She turned and saw that it was Pham Nuwen. "Over here," she called.

Pham ambled toward them. He'd been very scarce since their last confrontation; Ravna guessed that some of her jibes had struck deep. This once, I hope Old One made him forget. Pham Nuwen had the potential to be a real person; it hadn't been right to hurt him because his principal was beyond reach.

"Have a seat. Galaxy-rise in a half hour." The Skroderiders rustled, so deep into the sunset that they were only now noticing the visitor.

Pham Nuwen walked a pace or two beyond Ravna and stood arms akimbo, staring across the sea. He glanced back at her, and the green twilight gave his face an eerie fierceness. He flashed his old, lopsided smile. "I think I owe you an apology."

Old One's gonna let you join the human race after all? But Ravna was touched. She dropped her eyes from his. "I guess I owe you one too. If Old One won't help, he won't help; I shouldn't have lost my temper."

Pham Nuwen laughed softly, "Yours was certainly the lesser error. I'm still trying to figure out where I went wrong, and… I don't think I have time now to learn."

He looked back at the sea. After a moment, Ravna stood and stepped toward him. Up close, his stare looked glassy. "What's wrong?" Damn you, Old One. If you're going to abandon him, don't do it in pieces!

"You're the great expert on Transcendent Powers, eh?"

More sarcasm. "Well — "

"Do the big boys have wars?"

Ravna shrugged. "You can find rumors of everything. We think there's conflict, but something too subtle to call war."

"You're pretty much right. There is struggle, but it has more angles than anything down here. The benefits of cooperation are normally so great that… That's part of the reason I didn't take the Perversion seriously. Besides, the creature is pitiful: a wimpy cur that fouls its own den. Even if it wanted to kill other Powers, something like that never could. Not in a billion years…"

Blueshell rolled up beside them. "Who is this, my lady?"

It was the sort of Riderish conversation-stopper that she was only just getting used to. If Blueshell would just get in synch with his skrode memory, he'd know. Then the question truly hit her. Who is this? She glanced at her dataset. It was showing transceiver status, had been ever since Pham Nuwen arrived. And… by the Powers, three transceivers had been grabbed by a single customer!

She took a quick step backwards. "You!"

"Me! Face to face once more, Ravna." The leer was a parody of Pham's self-assured smile. "Sorry I can't be charming tonight." He slapped his chest awkwardly. "I'm using this thing's underlying instincts… I'm too busy trying to stay alive."

There was drool coming down his chin. Pham's eyes would focus on her and then drift.

"What are you doing to Pham!"

The Emissary Device stepped toward her, stumbled. "Making room," came Pham Nuwen's voice.

Ravna spoke Grondr's phone code. There was no response.

The Emissary Device shook its head. "Vrinimi Org is very busy right now, trying to convince me to get off their equipment, trying to screw up their courage and force me off. They don't believe what I'm telling them" He laughed, a quick choking sound. "Doesn't matter. I see now that the attack here was just a deadly diversion… How about that, Little Ravna? See, the Blight is not a Class Two perversion. In the time I have left, I can only guess what it is… Something very old, very big. Whatever it is, I'm being eaten alive."

Blueshell and Greenstalk had rolled close to Ravna. Their fronds made faint skritching noises. Some thousands of light-years away, well into the Transcend, a Power was fighting for its life. And all they saw of it was one man turned into a slobbering lunatic.

"So that's my apology, Little Ravna. Helping you probably wouldn't have saved me." His voice strangled on itself, and he took a gasping breath. "But helping you now will be a measure of — vengeance is a motive you would understand. I've called your ship down. If you move fast and don't use agrav, you may survive the next hour."

Blueshell's voice was timid and blustery at the same time. "Survive? Only a conventional attack could work down here, and there is no sign of one."

A maniac surrounded by the soft, quiet night. Ravna's dataset showed nothing strange except for the diversion of bandwidth to Old One.

Pham Nuwen made a coughing laugh. "Oh, it's conventional enough, but very clever. A few grams of replicant disorder, wafted in over weeks. It's blossoming now, timed with the attack you see… The growth will die in a matter of hours, after it kills all of Relay's precious High automation… Ravna! Take the ship, or die in the next thousand seconds. Take the ship. If you survive, go to the Bottom. Get the…" the Emissary Device pulled itself straighter, and smiled its greenish smile a last time. "And here is my gift to you, the best help I have left to give."

The smile disappeared. The glassy look was replaced by a wonder… and then mounting terror. Pham Nuwen dragged in a great breath, and had time for one barking scream before he collapsed. He landed face down, twitching and choking in the sand.

Ravna shouted Grondr's code again, and ran to Pham Nuwen. She pulled him over on his back and tried to clear his mouth. The fit lasted several seconds, Pham's limbs flailing randomly about. Ravna collected several solid hits as she tried to steady him. Then Pham went limp, and she could barely feel his breath.

Blueshell was saying, "Somehow he's grabbed the OOB. It's four thousand kilometers out, coming straight for the Docks. Wail. We're ruined." Unauthorized flight close to the Docks was cause for confiscation.

Somehow Ravna didn't think it mattered anymore. "Is there any sign of attack?" she said over her shoulder. She eased Pham's head back, made sure he had a clear breathing passage.

Random rustling between the Skroderiders. Greenstalk: "Something is strange. We have service suspension on the main transceivers." So Old One is still transmitting? "The local net is very clogged. Much automation, many employees being called to special duty."

Ravna rocked back. The sky was night dark, punctuated by a dozen bright points of light — ships guiding for the Docks. All very normal. But her own dataset was showing what Greenstalk reported.

"Ravna, I can't talk right now." Grondr's clickety voice sounded out of the air beside her. This would be his associate program. "Old One has taken most of Relay. Watch out for the Emissary Device." A little late, that! "We've lost contact with the surveillance fence beyond the transceivers. We are having program and hardware failures. Old One claims we are being attacked." A five second pause. "We see evidence of fleet action at the domestic defense boundary." That was just a half light-year out.

"Brap!" From Blueshell. "At the domestic defense boundary! How could you miss them coming in?" He rolled back and forth, pivoted.