absorbed. But interpack speech and Samnorsk were low-pitched sound—they would scarcely be affected. She stopped, holding all her breath. She could hear birds and the sounds of timber being sawn somewhere on the far side of the inner yard. Yet Steel was only thirty feet from her. His thought noise should have been a loud intrusion, even confusing. She strained to hear… There was nothing but her own thoughts and a stickety buzzing noise that seemed to come from all directions.
“And we thought this would just give us control in battle,” she said, wonderingly. All of her turned and walked toward Amdi. He was twenty feet away, ten feet. Still no thought noise. Amdi’s eyes were wide. The puppies held their ground; in fact all eight of him seemed to lean toward her. “You knew about this all along, didn’t you?” Tyrathect said.
“I hoped. Oh, I hoped.” He stepped closer. Five feet. The eight of him looked at the five of her from a distance of inches. He extended a nose, brushing muzzles with Tyrathect. His thought sounds came only faintly through the cloak, no louder than if he were fifty feet away. For a moment they looked at each other in stark astonishment. Nose to nose, and they both could still think! Amdi gave a whoop of glee and bounded in among Tyrathect, rubbing back and forth across her legs. “See, Jefri,” he shouted in Samnorsk. “It works. It works!”
Tyrathect wobbled under the assault, almost lost hold of her thoughts. What had just happened… In all the history of the world there had never been such a thing. If thinking packs could work paw by jowl… There were consequences and consequences, and she got dizzy all over again.
Steel moved a little closer and suffered a flying hug from Jefri Olsndot. Steel was trying his best to join the celebration, but he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He hadn’t lived the consequences like Tyrathect. “Wonderful progress for the first try,” he said. “But it must be painful even so.” Two of him looked sharply at her. “We should get that gear off you, and give you a rest.”
“No!” Tyrathect and Amdi said almost together. She smiled back at Steel. “We haven’t really tested it yet, have we? The whole purpose was long-distance communications.” We thought that was the purpose, anyway. In fact, even if it had no better range than talk sounds, it was already a towering success in Tyrathect’s mind.
“Oh.” Steel smiled weakly at Amdi and glared hidden faces at Tyrathect. Jefri was still hanging on two of his necks. Steel was a picture of barely concealed anguish. “Well, go slowly then. We don’t know what might happen if you run out of range.”
Tyrathect disentangled two of herself from Amdi and stepped a few feet away. Thought was as clear—and as potentially confusing—as before. By now she was beginning to get the feel of it though. She had very little trouble keeping her balance. She walked the two another thirty feet, about the maximum range a pack could coordinate in the quietest conditions. “It’s like I’m still heads-together,” she said wonderingly. Ordinarily at thirty feet, thoughts were faint and the time lag so bad that coordination was difficult.
“How far can I go?” She murmured the question to Amdi.
He made a human giggling sound and slid a head close to hers. “I’m not sure. It should be good at least to the outer walls.”
“Well,” she said in a normal voice, for Steel, “let’s see if I can spread a little bit further.” The two of her walked another ten yards. She was more than sixty feet across!
Steel was wide-eyed. “And now?”
Tyrathect laughed. “My thought’s as crisp as before.” She turned her two and walked away.
“Wait!” roared Steel, bounding to his feet. “That’s far—” then he remembered his audience, and his fury became more a frightened concern for her welfare. “That’s far too dangerous for the first experiment. Come back!”
From where she sat with Amdi, Tyrathect smiled brightly. “But Steel, I never left,” she said in Samnorsk.
Amdijefri laughed and laughed.
She was one hundred fifty feet across. Her two broke into a careful trot—and she watched Steel swallow back foam. Her thought still had the sharp, abrupt quality of closer than heads-together. How fast is this radio thing?
She passed close by Shreck and the guards posted at the edge of the field. “Hey, hey, Shreck! What do you say?” one of her said at his stupefied faces. Back with Amdi and the rest of her, Steel was shouting at Shreck, telling him to follow her.
Her trot became an easy run. She split, one going north of the inner yard, the other south. Shreck and company followed, clumsy with shock. The dome of the inner keep was between her, a sweeping hulk of stone. Her radio thoughts faded into the stickety buzzing.
“Can’t think,” she mumbled to Amdi.
“Pull on the mouth straps. Make your thoughts louder.”
Tyrathect pulled, and the buzzing faded. She regained her balance and raced around the starship. One of her was in a construction area now. Artisans looked up in shock. A loose member usually meant a fatal accident or a pack run amok. In either case the singleton must be restrained. But Tyrathect’s member was wearing a greatcloak that sparkled here and there of gold. And behind her, Shreck and his guards were shouting for everyone to stand back.
She turned a head to Steel, and her voice was joy. “I soar!” She ran through the cowering workers, ran toward the south and the west walls. She was everywhere, spreading and spreading. These seconds would make memories that would outlast her soul, that would be legends in the minds of her descendants a thousand years from now.
Steel hunkered down. Things were totally out of his control now; Shreck’s people were all on the far side of inner keep. All that he and Amdijefri could know came from Tyrathect—and the clamor of alarums.
Amdi bounced around her. “Where are you now? Where?”
“Almost to the outer wall.”
“Don’t go beyond that,” Steel said quietly.
Tyrathect scarcely heard. For a few more seconds she would drink this glorious power. She charged up the inside stairs. Guards scuttled back, some members jumping back into the yard. Shreck still followed, shouting for her safety.
One of her reached the parapet, then the other.
She gasped.
“Are you all right?” said Amdi.
“I—” Tyrathect looked about her. From her places on the south wall she could see herselves back in the castle yard: a tiny clump of gold and black that was her three and Amdi. Beyond the northeast walls stretched forest and valleys, the trails up into the Icefang mountains. To the west was Hidden Island and the misty inner waters. These were things she had seen a thousand times as Flenser. How he had loved them, his domain. But now… she was seeing as if in a dream. Her eyes were so far apart. Her pack was almost as wide as the castle itself. The parallax view made Hidden Island seem just a few paces away. Newcastle was like a model spread out around her. Almighty Pack of packs—this was God’s view.
Shreck’s troopers were edging closer. He had sent a couple of packs back to get directions. “A couple of minutes. I’ll come down in a couple of minutes.” She spoke the words to the troopers on the palisade and to Steel back in the yard. Then she turned to survey her domain.
She had only extended two of herself across less than a quarter of a mile. But there was no perceptible time lag; coordination had the same abrupt feel it did when she was all together. And there was plenty more pull in the braid-bone straps. What if all five of her spread out, moved miles apart? All of the northland would be her private room.
And Flenser? Ah, Flenser. Where was he? The memories were still there, but… Tyrathect remembered the loss of consciousness right when the radios began working. It took a special skill of coordination to think in the face of such terrible speed. Perhaps Lord Flenser had never walked between close cliffs when he was new. Tyrathect smiled. Perhaps only her mindset could hold when using the radios. In that case… Tyrathect looked again across the landscape. Flenser had made a great empire. If these new developments were managed properly, then the coming victories could make it infinitely grander.
He turned to Shreck’s troopers. “Very well, I’m ready to return to Lord Steel.”
