Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

"Urk." Greenstalk's tendrils froze in comical disarray. She chittered to herself for a second. "You're right… I forgot. I thought we had found an open space, but…"

Open space all right, but in a shooting gallery. Ravna looked back at the command deck windows. They were on the dayside now, perhaps five hundred kilometers above Groundside's principal ocean. The space above the hazy blue horizon was free of flash and glow. "I don't see any fighting," Ravna said hopefully.

"Sorry." Blueshell switched the windows to a more significant view. Most of it was navigation and ultratrace information, meaningless to Ravna. Her eye caught on a medstat: Pham Nuwen was breathing again. The ship's surgeon thought it could save him. But there was also a communication status window; on it, the attack was dreadfully clear. The local net had broken into hundreds of screaming fragments. There were only automatic voices from the planetary surface, and they were calling for medical aid. Grondr had been down there. Somehow she suspected that not even his Marketing ops people had survived. Whatever hit Groundside was even deadlier than the failures at the Docks. In near planetary space, there were a few survivors in ships and fragments of habitats, most on doomed trajectories. Without massive and coordinated help, they would be dead in minutes — hours at the outside. The directors of Vrinimi Org were gone, destroyed before they ever figured out quite what had happened.

Go, Grondr had said, go.

Out-system, there was fighting. Ravna saw message traffic from Vrinimi defense units. Even without control or coordination, some still opposed the Perversion's fleet. The light from their battles would arrive well after the defeat, well after the enemy arrived here in person. How long do we have? Minutes?

"Brrap. Look at those traces," said Blueshell. "The Perversion has almost four thousand vessels. They are bypassing the defenders."

"But now there is scarcely anyone left out there," said Greenstalk. "I hope they're not all dead."

"Not all. I see several thousand ships departing, everyone with the means and any sense." Blueshell rolled back and forth. "Alas! We have the good sense… but look at this repair report." One window spread large, filled with colored patterns that meant less than zip to Ravna. "Two spines still broken, unrepairable. Three partially repaired. If they don't heal, we'll be stuck here. This is unacceptable!" His voder voice buzzed up shrilly. Greenstalk drove close to him, and they rattled their fronds at each other.

Several minutes passed. When Blueshell spoke Samnorsk again, his voice was quieter. "One spine repaired. Maybe, maybe, maybe…" He opened a natural view. The OOB was coasting across Groundside's south pole, back into night. Their orbit should take them over the worst of the Docks junk, but the ride was a constant jigging as the ship avoided other debris. The cries of battle horror from out-system dwindled. The Vrinimi Organization was one vast, twitching corpse… and very soon its killer would come snuffling.

"Two repaired." Blueshell became very quiet… "Three! Three are repaired! Fifteen seconds to recalibrate and we can jump!"

It seemed longer… but then all the windows changed to a natural view. Groundside and its sun were gone. Stars and dark stretched all around.

Three hours later and Relay was a hundred and fifty light-years behind them. The OOB had caught up with the main body of fleeing ships. What with the archives and the tourism, there had been an extraordinary number of interstellar ships at Relay: ten thousand vehicles were spread across the light-years around them. But stars were rare this far off the galactic plane and they were at least a hundred hours flying time from the nearest refuge.

For Ravna, it was the start of a new battle. She glared across the deck at Blueshell. The Skroderider dithered, its fronds twisting on themselves in a way she had not seen before. "See here, my lady Bergsndot, High Point is a lovely civilization, with some bipedal participants. It is safe. It is nearby. You could adapt." He paused. Reading my expression is he? "But -but if that is not acceptable, we will take you further. Give us a chance to contract the proper cargo, and — and we'll take you all the way back to Sjandra Kei. How about that?"

"No. You already have a contract, Blueshell. With Vrinimi Organization. The three of us — " and whatever has become of Pham Nuwen "— are going to the Bottom of the Beyond."

"I am shaking my head in disbelief! We received a preliminary retainer, true. But now that Vrinimi Org is dead, there is no one to make good on the rest of the agreement. Hence we are free of it also."

"Vrinimi is not dead. You heard Grondr 'Kalir. The Org had — has -branch offices all across the Beyond. The obligation stands."

"On a technicality. We both know that those branches could never make the final payment."

Ravna didn't have a good answer to that. "You have an obligation," she said, but without the proper forcefulness. She had never been good at bluster.

"My lady, are you truly speaking from Org ethics, or from simple humanity?"

"I— " In fact, Ravna had never completely understood Org ethics. That was one reason why she had intended to return to Sjandra Kei after her 'prenticeship, and one reason the Org had dealt cautiously with the human race. "It doesn't matter which I speak from! There is a contract. You were happy to honor it when things looked safe. Well, things turned deadly — but that possibility was part of the deal." Ravna glanced at Greenstalk. She had been silent so far, not even rustling at her mate. Her fronds were tightly held against her central stalk. Maybe — "Listen, there are other reasons besides contract obligation. The Perversion is more powerful than anyone thought. It killed a Power today. And it's operating in the Middle Beyond… The Riders have a long history, Blueshell, longer than most races' entire existence. The Perversion may be strong enough to put an end to all of that."

Greenstalk rolled toward her and opened slightly. "You — you really think we might find something on that ship at the Bottom, something that could harm a Power among Powers?"

Ravna paused. "Yes. And Old One himself thought so, just before he died."

Blueshell wrapped even tighter around himself, twisting. In anguish? "My Lady, we are traders. We have lived long and traveled far… and survived by minding our own business. No matter what romantics may think, traders do not go on quests. What you ask… is impossible, mere Beyonders seeking to subvert a Power."

Yet that was a risk you signed for. But Ravna didn't say it aloud. Perhaps Greenstalk did: her fronds rustled, and Blueshell scrinched even more. Greenstalk was silent for a second, then she did something funny with her axles, bumping free of the stickem. Her wheels spun on nothing as she floated through a slow arc, till she was upside down, her fronds reaching down to brush Blueshell's. They rattled back and forth for almost five minutes. Blueshell slowly untwisted, the fronds relaxing and patting back at his mate.

Finally he said. "Very well… One quest. But mark you! Never another."

Spring came wet and cold, and excruciatingly slow. It had been raining the last eight days. How Johanna wished for something else, even the dark of winter back again.

She slogged across mud that had been moss. It was midday; the gloomy light would last another three hours. Scarbutt claimed that without the overcast, they would be seeing a bit of direct sunlight nowadays. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever see the sun again.

The castle's great yard was on a hillside. Mud and sullen snow spread down the hill, piled against the wooden buildings. Last summer there had been a glorious view from here. And in the winter, the aurora had spilled green and blue across the snow, glinted on the frozen harbor, and outlined the far hills against the sky. Now: The rain was a close mist; she couldn't even see the city beyond the walls. The clouds were a low and ragged ceiling above her head. She knew there were guards on the stone walls of the castle curtain, but today they must be huddled behind watch slits. Not a single animal, not a single pack was visible. The Tines' world was an empty place compared to Straum — but not like the High Lab either. High Lab was a airless rock orbiting a red dwarf. The Tines' world was alive, moving; sometimes it looked as beautiful and friendly as a holiday resort on Straum. Indeed, Johanna realized that it was kindlier than most worlds the human race had settled — certainly a gentler world than Nyjora, and perhaps as nice as Old Earth.