Vernor Vinge: Tatja Grimm's World

Abruptly, she grabbed Rey’s hand. “And you think this thing? You make it?”

Tatja’s grip was almost painful; her hands were slender but as outsized as the rest of her. “You mean, did I invent the telescope?” He chuckled. “No, Miss Grimm. The basic idea is two hundred years old. People don’t invent telescopes just to pass the time on a dull morning. Things like this are the work of scattered geniuses. Part of an invention may exist for decades, useless, before another genius makes the idea successful.”

The girl’s expression collapsed. It might have been laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. She had no concept of what was difficult and what was trivial, and so her attempt at bright conversation had foundered. Rey turned her gently back to the telescope and showed her how to adjust the focus. Her former enthusiasm did not completely return, but she seemed sincerely taken by the close-up view of Seraph. Rey gave her his usual spiel, pointing out the brown smudges across part of the southern continent. “Brush fires, we think. That land must be a lot like the grassy plains north of Bayfast. The religions have all sorts of visions of Seraph, but we now know it’s a world much like ours.” And the stories of hidden civilizations there might still be true. Rey had written more than one editorial about plans for detecting and communicating with Seraph’s hypothetical inhabitants. One of the first steps would be to build an observatory in this part of the world, where Seraph could be observed with a minimum of atmospheric distortion.

A couple of people from Printing had stopped nearby, were watching intently. They were not the sort Rey would think attracted by skygazing; one was Brailly Tounse’s bombwright. Rey glanced at her questioningly.

“Sir, we’ve got a line of sight into the harbor now,” the bombwright said, waving to the north. “We were wondering if you’d take a quick look at Termite Town through your scope.”

Rey hid a sigh, and gave up any hope of having the device to himself this morning. The bombwright must have noticed his irritation. She hurried on to say, “Something strange is happening with the Termite People, sir. So far the officer types ain’t talking, but—take a look, will you?”

Guille eased Tatja Grimm away from the scope and tilted it toward the horizon. He made a quick adjustment with the spotter scope and then looked through the main eyepiece. “…Looks about like I remember it.” There were dozens of towers, from water’s edge back up the hills around the harbor. The smallest ones were bigger than a house. The largest were over a hundred feet tall. The spaces between were like streets at the bottom of shadowed canyons. Even knowing the truth, one’s first reaction was awe: this must be a city, the greatest one in the world. Krirsarque and Bayfast were insignificant, low-story affairs compared to this. In fact, there were only a few thousand humans in this whole “city.” They dug their burrows and staircases through the termite mounds; they poked air holes through the walls, holes that also served as windows. “Hmm. There’s something different. One of the towers by the moorage … it looks like it was burned, or stained with soot. The dark goes as high as the windows overhanging the water.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what got our attention, but we couldn’t see what made the stain. And there’s something strange in the water, too.” Rey tilted the scope a fraction. A twisted pile of spikes and filaments stuck through the water, directly in front of the scorch-marked tower. Rey sucked in a breath. “It looks like ship’s rigging, the fiberglass part.”

The bombwright stepped closer, and he let her take a look. She was silent for a moment, then, “Unh huh. That’s where they like visitors to dock. Looks like the gooks dumped pet’ bombs out those windows, right onto the moorage. The guys they ambushed didn’t have a chance.”

A minute before, Rey had been feeling sorry for one retarded girl. Now… He looked across the water. Without a telescope, the village was a barely distinguishable skyline, the scorch unnoticeable.

The guys they ambushed… According to the advance reports, there had been exactly one ship tied up at the village: the Science.

Crew and publishing folk spent the next few hours speculating: Why was the Science ambushed? What would Tarulle do about it? The barge stayed several miles offshore, but rumor held that fastboats were doing close recon under cover of the midday eclipse. The only word from the executive deck was that there would be no immediate landing.

Top management was not asleep—just terribly indecisive. Rey Guille bluffed his way onto the bridge shortly before eclipsend. All the biggies were there, both from Ownership and Operations. The atmosphere was that of an incipient brawl: consensus time had not arrived.

“—and I say, sail into catapult range and burn their filthy village to the ground! Barbarians must learn that ambushing merchants is a dangerous sport.” The speaker was one of Tarulle’s nephews, an arrogant pip-squeak who’d be scrubbing decks if it weren’t for his relatives. The little man looked angrily around the room, daring anyone to disagree. Fortunately for the company, there were some strong personalities present:

Barge Captain Maccioso stood near the helm, facing the rest. His form was a vague, intimidating shadow in the eclipse light. Maccioso was a huge man; the bridge itself had been rebuilt to accommodate his six-foot eight-inch height. He was in his early fifties and only just beginning to go to fat. The first twenty years of his career had been spent in the Chainpearls Navy. The man had retired an admiral, and the greatest hero of the Loretto Bight affair. Now he crossed his ham-like arms and seemed to lean toward Tarulle’s nephew. “Warlike talk coming from…” a wee wimp who couldn’t cock a how, the pause seemed to say, “from those who need customers to live. It’s true, I could torch the village. It would be expensive; we wouldn’t be left with much reserve. And what would we get for it? The Termite Folk are isolated, Master Craeto. There would be few to learn from the lesson. The Tarulle Company would lose one—admittedly minor—customer. The barge has visited here four times since I’ve been Captain. We’ve had less trouble than in some civilized ports. These people are not pirates. The Science crew did something, broke some taboo. …”

Maccioso turned to look into the harbor; sunbreak was almost upon them. The land was bright with washed-out pastels. When he continued, his voice held more frustration than certainty. “Sure. We have the power to raze the place. But we could never bring off an assault landing. There’s no way we can rescue the survivors and find out how to avoid such a debacle in the future.”

Survivors? Someone had lived through the pet’ bombing. Rey felt a surge of joy. No one else seemed moved by the news; they already knew. This must be a major point of the debate. “We can’t just leave them there!” The words popped out of Guille’s mouth without conscious thought.

Dead silence greeted his words. The people closest to him moved slightly away, but didn’t look at him; it was as though he had made a bad smell. Maccioso turned and his gaze swept the bridge. “Master Tounse!”

“Sir!”

The barge captain pointed at Rey Guille. “Take this man out and …” Rey’s guts went cold; there were stories about Ked Maccioso’s command of the Chainpearl Armada, “ brief him.”

“Yessir!”

Brailly Tounse emerged from the crowd and hustled Rey onto the open walkway beyond the bridge. The printmaster shut the hatch and turned to face him. “ ‘Brief you?’ The commercial life is turning Ked soft.” It took a moment for Rey to realize that the other man was suppressing laughter. “Don’t you understand that a rescue is what Ked is dying to do? For almost an hour, he’s been trying to trick these flightless bats into backing one.”