Org[57]: Hi, Jefri. Amdi and Mr. Steel are right. I always like to talk, and it will make you feel better… There are inventions that might help Mister Steel. We’ve thought of some improvements for his bows and flamethrowers. I’m also sending down some fortress design information. Please tell Mister Steel that we can’t tell him how to fly the ship. It would be dangerous even for an expert pilot to try…
Target[57]: Ya, even Daddy had a hard time landing it. ikocxljikersw89iou43e5 I think Mister Steel just doesnt understand, and hes getting sorta disparate… Isnt there other stuff, though, like they had in oldendays. You know, bombs and airplanes that we could make?…
Org[58]: There are other inventions, but it would take time for Mister Steel to make them. Our star ship is leaving Relay soon, Jefri. We’ll be there long before other inventions would help…
Target[58]: Your coming? Your finally coming!!! When do you leave? When will you get here???
Ordinarily Ravna composed her messages to Jefri on a keyboard—it gave her some feeling for the kid’s situation. He seemed to be holding up, though there were still days when he didn’t write (it was strange to think of “mental depression” having any connection with an eight-year-old). Other times he seemed to have a tantrum at the keyboard, and across twenty-one thousand light-years she saw evidence of small fists slamming into keys.
Ravna grinned at the display. Today she finally had something more than nebulous promises for him: she had a positive departure time. Jefri was going to like message [59]. She typed: “We’re scheduled to leave in seven more days, Jefri. Travel time will be about thirty days.” Should she qualify that? Latest postings on the Zone boundary newsgroups said the Bottom was unusually active. The Tines World was so close to the Slow Zone… If the “storm” worsened, travel time would suffer. There was about a one percent chance the voyage would take more than sixty days. She leaned back from the keyboard. Did she really want to say that? Damn. Better be frank; these dates could affect the locals who were helping Jefri. She explained the “ifs” and “buts', then went on to describe the ship and the wonderful things they would bring. The boy usually didn’t write at great length (except when he was relaying information from Steel), but he really seemed to like long letters from her.
The Out of Band II was undergoing final consistency checks. Its ultradrive was rebuilt and tested; the Skroderiders had taken it out a couple of thousand light-years to check the antenna swarm. The swarm worked great, too. She and Jefri would be able to talk through most of the voyage. As of yesterday, the ship was stocked with consumables. (That sounded like something out of medieval adventure. But you had to take some supplies when you were headed so far down that reality graphics couldn’t be trusted.) Sometime tomorrow, Grondr’s people would be loading the ship’s hold with gadgets that might be real handy for a rescue. Should she mention those? Some of them might sound a bit intimidating to Jefri’s local friends.
That evening, she and the Skroderiders had a beach party. That’s what they called it, though it was much more like the human version than an authentic Rider one. Blueshell and Greenstalk had rolled well back from the water, to where the sand lay dry and warm. Ravna laid out refreshments on Blueshell’s cargo scarf. They sat on the sand and admired the sunset.
It was mostly a celebration—that Ravna had gotten permission to go with the OOB, that the ship was almost ready to depart. But, “Are you really happy to be going, my lady?” asked Blueshell. “We two will make very good money, but you—”
Ravna laughed. “I’ll get a travel bonus.” She had argued and argued for permission to go; there wasn’t much room left to haggle about the pay. “And yes. This is what I really want.”
“I am glad,” said Greenstalk.
“I am laughing,” said Blueshell. “My mate is especially pleased that our passenger will not be surly. We almost lost our love for bipeds after shipping with the certificants. But there is nothing to be frightened of now. Have you read Threats Group in the last fifteen hours? The Blight has stopped growing, and its edges have become sharply defined. The Perversion is settling into middle age. I’m ready to leave right now.”
Blueshell was full of speculations about the Tinish “packs', and possible schemes for extracting Jefri and any other survivors. Greenstalk interjected a thought here and there. She was less shy than before, but still seemed softer, more diffident than her mate. And her confidence was a bit more realistic. She was glad they weren’t leaving for another week. There were still the final consistency checks to run on the OOB—and Grondr had gotten Org financing for a small fleet of decoy ships. Fifty were complete so far. A hundred would be ready by the end of the week.
The Docks drifted into night. With its shallow atmosphere, twilight was short, but the colors were spectacular. The beach and the trees glistened in the horizontal rays. The scent of evening flowers mixed with the tang of sea salt. On the far side of the sea, all was stark bright and dark, silhouettes that might have been Vrinimi fancies or functional dock equipage—Ravna had never learned which. The sun slid behind the sea. Orange and red spread along the aft horizon, topped by a wider band of green, probably ionized oxygen.
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.”
