Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

"You're here to study me for your book?"

More alternating nods. "Well, yes. And also, I wanted to talk to you about my other plans. I've always been something of an inventor, you see. I know that doesn't mean much now. It seems that everything that can be invented is already in Dataset. I've seen many of my best ideas there." He sighed, or made the sound of a sigh. Now he was imitating one of the pop science voices in the dataset. Sound was the easiest thing for the Tines; it could be darn confusing.

"In any case, I was just wondering how to improve some of those ideas — " four of Scriber's members bellied down on the bench by the fire pit; it looked like he was settling in for a long conversation. His other two walked around the pit to give her a stack of paper threaded with brass hoops. While one on the other side of the fire continued to talk, the two carefully turned the pages and pointed at where she should look.

Well, he did have plenty of ideas: Tethered birds to hoist flying boats, giant lenses that would concentrate the sun's light on enemies and set them afire. From some of the pictures, it appeared he thought the atmosphere extended beyond the moon. Scriber explained each idea in numbing detail, pointing at the drawings and patting her hands enthusiastically. "So you see the possibilities? My unique slant combined with the proven inventions in Dataset. Who knows where it could lead?"

Johanna giggled, overcome by the vision of Scriber's giant birds hauling kilometer-wide lenses to the moon. He seemed to take the sound for approval.

"Yes! It's brilliant, okay? My latest idea, I never would have thought it except for Dataset. This 'radio', it projects sound very far and fast, okay? Why not combine it with the power of our Tinish thoughts? A pack could think as one even spread across hundreds of, um, kilometers."

Now that almost made sense! But if gunpowder took months to make -even given the exact formula — how many decades would it be before the packs had radio? Scriber was an immense fountain of half-baked ideas. She let his words wash over her for more than an hour. It was insanity, but less alien than most of what she had endured this last year.

Finally he seemed to run down; there were longer pauses and he asked her opinion more often. Finally he said, "Well, that was certainly fun, okay?"

"Unh, yes, fascinating."

"I knew you would like it. You're just like my people, I really think. You're not all angry, not all the time…"

"Just what do you mean by that?" Johanna pushed a soft muzzle away and stood. The dogthing rocked back on its haunches to look up at her.

"I, well… you have much to hate, I know. But you seem so angry at us all the time, and we're the ones who are trying to help you! After the day work you stay here, you don't want to talk with people — though now I see that was our fault. You wanted us to come here but were too proud to say it. I have these insights into character, you see. My friend, the one you call Scarbutt: he is truly a nice fellow. I know I can tell you that honestly, and that as my new friend you will believe. He would very much like to come to visit you, too… urk."

Johanna walked slowly around the fire pit, forcing the two members to back away from her. All of Scriber was looking up at her now, the necks arching around one another, the eyes wide.

"I'm not like you. I don't need your talk, or your stupid ideas." She threw Scriber's notebook into the pit. Scriber leaped to the fire's edge, desperately reached for the burning notes. He pulled most of them back and clutched them to his chests.

Johanna kept walking toward him, kicking at his legs. Scriber retreated, backing and sprawling. "Stupid, dirty, butchers. I'm not like you." She slapped her hand on a ceiling beam. "Humans don't like to live like animals. We don't adopt killers. You tell Scarbutt, you tell him. If he ever comes by for a friendly chat, I-I'll smash in his head; I'll smash in all of them!"

Scriber was backed into the wall now. His heads turned wildly this way and that. He was making plenty of noise. Some of it was Samnorsk, but too high-pitched to understand. One of his mouths found the door pole. He pushed open the door, and all six members raced into the twilight, their rain slickers forgotten.

Johanna knelt and stuck her head through the doorway. The air was a wind-driven mist. In an instant, her face was so cold and wet that she couldn't feel the tears. Scriber was six shadows in the darkening grayness, shadows that raced down the hillside, sometimes tumbling in their haste. In a second he was gone. There was nothing but the vague forms of nearby cabins, and the yellow light that spilled out around her from the fire.

Strange. Right after the ambush, she had felt terror. The Tines had been unstoppable killers. Then, on the boat, when she smashed Scarbutt… it had been so wonderful: the whole pack collapsed, and suddenly she knew that she could fight back, that she could break their bones. She didn't have to be at their mercy… Tonight she had learned something more. Even without touching them, she could hurt them. Some of them, anyway. Her dislike alone had undone Pompous Clown.

Johanna backed into the smoky warmth and shut the door. She should feel triumph.

— =*=

Scriber Jaqueramaphan didn't tell anyone about his meeting with the Two-Legs. Of course, Vendacious's guard had overheard everything. The fellow might not speak much Samnorsk, but he had surely gotten the drift of the argument. People would hear about it eventually.

He moped around the castle for a few days, spent a number of hours hunched over the remains of his notebook, trying to recreate the diagrams. It would be a a while before he attended any more sessions with Dataset, especially when Johanna was around. Scriber knew he seemed brash to the outside world, but in fact it had taken a lot of courage to walk in on Johanna like that. He knew his ideas had genius, but all his life unimaginative people had been telling him otherwise.

In most ways Scriber was a very fortunate person. He had been born a fission pack in Rangathir, at the eastern edge of the Republic. His parent had been a wealthy merchant. Jaqueramaphan had some of his parent's traits, but the dull patience necessary for day-to-day business work had been lost to him. His sibling pack more than retained that faculty; the family business grew, and — in the first years — his sib didn't begrudge Scriber his share of the wealth. From his earliest days, Scriber had been an intellectual. He read everything: natural history, biography, brood kenning. In the end he had the largest library in Rangathir, more than two hundred books.

Even then Scriber had tremendous ideas, insights which — if properly executed — would have made them the wealthiest merchants in all the eastern provinces. Alas, bad luck and his sib's lack of imagination had doomed his early ideas. In the end, his sib bought out the business, and Jaqueramaphan moved to the Capital. It was all for the best. By this time Scriber had fleshed himself out to six members; he needed to see more of the world. Besides… there were five thousand books in the library there, the experience of all history and all the world! His own notebooks became a library in themselves. Yet still the packs at the university had no time for him. His outline for a summation of natural history was rejected by all the stationers, though he paid to have small parts of it published. It was clear that success in the world of action was necessary before his ideas could get the attention they deserved, hence his spy mission; Parliament itself would thank him when he returned with the secrets of Flenser's Hidden Island.

That was almost a year ago. What had happened since — with the flying house and Johanna and Dataset — went beyond his wildest dreams (and Scriber granted that those dreams were already pretty extreme). The library in Dataset contained millions of books. With Johanna to help him polish his ideas, they would sweep Flenserism from the face of the world. They would regain her flying house. Not even the sky would be a limit.