him, too; group minds were a fleeting thing in the Beyond. Grondr had kept the whole affair secret, and persuaded his bosses to support the mission. But all his help might not be enough. If the refugee ship was as important as Ravna thought, there could be enormous perils awaiting any rescuers.
Ravna looked across the surf. When the waves backed down the sand, she could see the Skroderiders’ fronds peeping out of the spray. How she envied them; if tensions annoyed them, they could simply turn them off. The Skroderiders were one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. There were many varieties, but analysis agreed with legend: very long ago they had been one species. Somewhere in the off-Net past, they had been sessile dwellers of sea shores. Left to themselves, they had developed a form of intelligence almost devoid of short-term memory. They sat in the surf, thinking thoughts that left no imprints on their minds. Only repetition of a stimulus, over a period of time, could do that. But the intelligence and memory that they had was of survival value: it made it possible for them to select the best possible place to cast their pupal seeds, locations that would mean safety and food for the next generation.
Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to “help” them out. Someone had put them on mobile platforms, the skrodes. With wheels they could move along the seashores, could reach and manipulate with their fronds and tendrils. With the skrode’s mechanical short-term memory, they could learn fast enough that their new mobility would not kill them.
Ravna glanced away from the Skroderiders—someone was floating in over the trees. The Emissary Device. Maybe she should call Greenstalk and Blueshell out of the water. No. Let ’em bliss out a little longer. If she couldn’t get the special equipment, things would be tough enough for them later…
Besides, I can do without witnesses. She folded her arms across her chest and glared into the sky. The Vrinimi Org had tried to talk to the Old One about this, but nowadays the Power would only work through its Emissary Device… and he had insisted on a face-to-face meeting.
The Emissary touched down a few meters away, and bowed. His lopsided grin spoiled the effect. “Pham Nuwen, at your service.”
Ravna gave a little bow in return, and led him to the shade of her inner office. If he thought that face-to-face would unnerve her, he was right. “Thanks for the meeting, sir. The Vrinimi Organization has an important request of your principal,” owner? master? operator?
Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently. He’d stayed out of her way since that night at The Wandering Company. Grondr said Old One had kept him at Relay though, rummaging through the archives for information about humanity and its origins. It made sense now that Old One had been persuaded to restrict Net use: the Emissary could do local processing, i.e., use human intelligence to search and summarize and then upload only the stuff that Old One really needed.
Ravna watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to study her dataset. Pham had his old, lazy smile. She wondered if she would ever have the courage to ask him how much of their… affair… had been a human thing. Had Pham Nuwen felt anything for her? Hell, did he even have a good time?
From a Transcendent point of view, he might be a simple data concentrator and waldo—but from her viewpoint he was still too human. “Um, yes. Well… the Org has continued to monitor the Straumli refugee ship even though your principal has lost interest.”
Pham’s eyebrows raised in polite interest. “Oh?”
“Ten days ago, the simple ‘I-am-here’ signal was interrupted by a new message, apparently from a surviving crewmember.”
“Congratulations. You managed to keep it a secret, even from me.”
Ravna didn’t rise to the bait. “We’re doing our best to keep it secret from everyone, sir. For reasons that you must know.” She put the messages to date on the air between them. A handful of calls and responses, scattered across ten days. Translated into Triskweline for Pham, the original spelling and grammar errors were gone, yet the tone remained. Ravna was responsible for the Org side of the conversation. It was like talking to someone in a dark room, someone you have never seen. Much was easy to imagine: a strident, piping voice behind the capitalized words and exclamation marks. She had no video of the child, but through the humankind archive at Sjandra Kei, Marketing had dug up pictures of the boy’s parents. They looked like typical Straumers, but with the brown eyes of the Linden clans. Little Jefri would be slim and dark.
Pham Nuwen’s gaze flicked down through the text, then seemed to hang on the last few lines:
…
Org[17]: How old are you, Jefri?
Target[18]: I am eight. I mean I am eight years old. I AM OLD ENOUGH BUT I NEED HELP.
Org[18]: We will help. We are coming as fast as we can, Jefri.
Target[19]: Sorry I couldn’t talk yesterday. The bad people were on the hill again yesterday. It wasn’t safe to go to the ship.
Org[19]: Are the bad ones that close by?
Target[20]: Yes yes. I could see them from the island. I’m with Amdi on shipboard now, but walking up here there were dead soldiers all around. Woodcarver raids here often.
Mother is dead. Father is dead. Johanna is dead. Mister Steel will protect me as much as he can. He says that I must be brave.
For a moment, his smile was gone. “Poor kid,” he said softly. Then he shrugged and jabbed his hand at one of the messages. “Well, I’m glad Vrinimi is sending a rescue mission. That is generous of you.”
“Not really, sir. Look at items six through fourteen. The boy is complaining about the ship’s automation.”
“Yeah, he makes it sound like something out of a dawn age: keyboards and video, no voice recognition. A completely unfriendly interface. Looks like the crash scragged almost everything, eh?”
He was being deliberately obtuse, but Ravna resolved to be infinitely patient. “Perhaps not, considering the vessel’s origin.” Pham just smiled, so Ravna continued to spell things out. “The processors are likely High Beyond or Transcendent, snuffed down to near brainlessness by the current environment.”
Pham Nuwen sighed. “All consistent with the Skroderiders’ theory, right? You’re still hoping this crate is carrying some tremendous secret that will blow the Blight away.”
“Yes!… Look. At one time, the Old One was very curious about all this. Why the total disinterest now? Is there some reason why the ship can’t be the key to fighting the Perversion?” That was Grondr’s explanation for the Old One’s recent lack of interest. All her life Ravna Bergsndot had heard tales of the Powers, and always from a great remove. Here, she was awfully close to questioning one directly. It was a very strange feeling.
After a moment Pham said, “No. It’s unlikely, but you could be right.”
Ravna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Good. Then what we’re asking is reasonable. Suppose the downed ship contains something the Perversion needs, or something it fears. Then it’s likely the Perversion knows of its existence—and may even be monitoring ultradrive traffic in that part of the Bottom. A rescue expedition could lead the Perversion right to it. In that case, the mission will be suicide for its crew—and could increase the Blight’s overall power.”
“So?”
Ravna slapped her dataset, resolutions of patience dissolving. “So, Vrinimi Org is asking Old One’s help to build an expedition the Blight can’t knock over!”
Pham Nuwen just shook his head. “Ravna, Ravna. You’re talking about an expedition to the Bottom of the Beyond. There’s no way a Power can hold your hand down there. Even an Emissary Device would be mostly on its own there.”
“Don’t act like more of a jerk than you are, Pham Nuwen. Down there, the Perversion will be at just as much a disadvantage. What we’re asking for is equipment of Transcendent manufacture, designed for those depths, and provided in substantial quantities.”
“Jerk?” Pham Nuwen drew himself up, but there was still the ghost of smile on his face. “Is that how you normally address a Power?”
Before this year, I would have died rather than address a Power in any manner. She leaned back, giving him her own version of an indolent smile. “You have a pipeline to god, Mister, but let me tell you a little secret: I can tell whether it’s open or closed.”
