Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence at the Zoo [A known military corporation of the High Beyond. If this is a masquerade, somebody is living dangerously.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse subthread
Key phrases: limits on the Blight; the Blight is searching something
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Close-coupled Automation Interest Group, War Trackers Interest Group
Date: 11.94 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
The Blight admits that it is a Power that tele-operates sophonts in the Beyond. But consider how difficult it is to have a close— coupled automation with time lags of more than a few milliseconds. The Known Net is a perfect illustration of this: Lags range between five milliseconds for systems that are a couple of light-years apart—to (at least) several hundred seconds when messages must pass through intermediate nodes. This, combined with the low bandwidth available across interstellar distances, makes the Known Net a loose forum for the exchange of information and lies. And these restrictions are inherent in the nature of the Beyond, part of the same restrictions that make it impossible for the Powers to exist down here.
We conclude that even the Blight can’t attain close-coupled control except in the High Beyond. At the Top, the Blight’s sophont agents are literally its limbs. In the Middle Beyond, we believe mental “possession” is possible but that considerable preprocessing must be done in the controlled mind. Furthermore, considerable external equipment (the bulky items characteristic of those depths) is needed to support the communication. Direct, millisecond-by-millisecond, control is normally impractical in the Middle Beyond. Combat at this level would involve hierarchical control. Long-term operations would also use intimidation, fraud, and traitors.
These are the threats that you of the Middle and Low Beyond should recognize.
These are the Blight’s tools in the Middle and Low Beyond, and what you should guard against for the immediate future. We don’t see imperial takeovers; there’s no profit [sustenance] in it. Even the destruction of Relay was probably just a byplay to the murder it was simultaneously committing in the Transcend. The greatest tragedies will continue to be at the Top and in the Low Transcend. But we know that the Blight is searching for something; it has attacked at great distances where major archives were the target. Beware of traitors and spies.
Even some of humanity’s supporters sent a chill through Ravna:
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Alliance for the Defense subthread
Key phrases: Death Race Theory
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 18.29 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
I have obtained specimens from the human worlds in our volume. Detailed analysis is available in the Homo sapiens interest group archive. My conclusions: previous (but less intensive) analysis of human phys/psych is correct. The race has no built-in structures to support remote control. Experiments with living subjects showed no special inclination toward submission. I found little or no evidence of artificial optimization. (There was evidence of DNA surgery to improve disease resistance: drift timing dated the hackwork at two thousand years Before Present. The blood of Straumli Realm subjects carried an optigens, Thirault [a cheap medical recipe that can be tailored across a wide mammalian range].) This race—as represented by our specimens—looks like something that arrived from the Slow Zone quite recently, probably from a single origin world.
Has anyone done such retesting on more distant human worlds?
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Baeloresk-»Triskweline, SjK units
From: Alliance for the Defense [Claimed cooperative of five polyspecific empires in the Beyond below Straumli Realm. No record of existence before the Fall of the Realm.]
Subject: Blighter Video thread, Hanse 1
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 19.43 days since Fall of Relay
Text of message:
Who is this “Hanse?” It makes objective, tough-sounding noises about testing human specimens, but it keeps its own nature secret. Don’t be fooled by humans telling you about themselves! In fact, we have no way of testing the creatures that dwell in Straumli Realm; their protector will see to that.
Death to vermin.
And there was a little boy trapped at the bottom of the well. Some days, no communication was possible. Other days, when the OOB antenna swarm was tuned in exactly the right direction and when the vagaries of the zone favored it—then Ravna could hear his ship. Even then the signal was so faint, so distorted, that the effective transmission rate was just a few bits per second.
Jefri and his problems might be only the smallest footnote to the story of the Blight (less than that, since no one knew of him), but to Ravna Bergsndot these conversations were the only bright thing in her life just now.
The kid was very lonely, but less so now, she thought. She learned about his friend Amdi, about the stern Tyrathect and the heroic Mr. Steel and the proud Tines. Ravna smiled to herself, at herself. The walls of her cabin displayed a flat mural of jungle. Deep in the drippy murk lay regular shadows—a castle built in the roots of a giant mangrove tree. The mural was a famous one; the original had been an analog work from three thousand years ago. It showed life at an even further remove, during the Dark Ages on Nyjora. She and Lynne had spent much of their childhood imagining that they were transported to such a time. Little Jefri was trapped in the real thing. Woodcarver’s butchers were no interstellar threat, but they were a deadly horror to those around them. Thank goodness Jefri had not seen the killing.
This was a real medieval world. A tough and unforgiving place, even if Jefri had fallen in with fair-minded people. And the Nyjoran comparison was only vaguely appropriate. These Tines were pack minds; even old Grondr ’Kalir had been surprised at that.
All through Jefri’s mail, Ravna could see the panic among Steel’s people:
Mister Steel asked me again if theres any way we can make our ship to fly even a little. I dont know. We almost crashed, I think. We need guns. That would save us, at least till you get here. They have bows and arrows just like in Nyjoran days, but no guns. Hes asking me, can you teach us to make guns?
Woodcarver’s raiders would return, and this time in enough force to overrun Steel’s little kingdom. Back when they thought OOB’s flight would be only thirty or forty days, that had not seemed great a risk, but now… Ravna might arrive to find Woodcarver’s murdering complete.
Oh Pham, dear Pham. If you ever really were, please come back now. Pham Nuwen of medieval Canberra. Pham Nuwen, trader from the Slowness… What would someone such as you make of this? Hmm.
