and she began again, “horror struck, horror struck…”
After a moment: “It was like suddenly new memories in the skrode, Blueshell. New memories, new attitudes. But thousands of years deep. And not mine. Instantly, instantly. I never even lost consciousness. I thought just as clearly, I remembered all I had before.”
“And when you resisted?” Ravna said softly.
“… Resisted? My Lady Ravna, I did not resist. I was theirs… No. Not theirs, for they were owned, too. We were things, our intelligence in service to another’s goal. Dead, and alive to see our death. I would kill you, I would kill Pham, I would kill Blueshell. You know I tried. And when I did, I wanted to succeed. You could not imagine, Ravna. You humans speak of violation. You could never know…” Long pause. “That’s not quite right. At the Top of the Beyond, within the Blight itself—perhaps there, everyone lives as I did.”
The shuddering did not subside, but her gestures were no longer aimless. The fronds were saying something in her own language, and brushing gently against Blueshell.
“Our whole race, dear love. Just as Pham says it.”
Blueshell wilted, and Ravna felt the sort of gut-tearing she had when they learned of Sjandra Kei. That had been her worlds, her family, her life. Blueshell was hearing worse.
Ravna pushed a little closer, near enough to run her hand up the side of Greenstalk’s fronds. “Pham says it’s the greater skrodes that are the cause.” Sabotage hidden billions of years deep.
“Yes, it is mainly the skrodes. The ‘great gift’ we Riders love so… It is a design for control, but I fear we were remade for it, too. When they touched my skrode, I was converted instantly. Instantly, everything I cared for was meaningless. We are like smart bombs, scattered by the trillions through space that everyone thinks is safe. We will be used sparingly. We are the Blight’s hidden weapon, especially in the Low Beyond.”
Blueshell twitched, and his voice came out jerkily: “And everything Pham claims is correct.”
“No, Blueshell, not everything.” Ravna remembered that last chilling standoff with Pham Nuwen. “He has the facts, but he weighs them wrong. As long as your skrodes are not perverted, you are the same folk that I trusted to fly me to the Bottom.”
Blueshell angled his look away from her, an angry shrug. Greenstalk’s voice came instead. “As long as the skrode has not been perverted… But look how easy it was done, how sudden I became the Blight’s.”
“Yes, but could it happen except by direct touch? Could you be ‘changed’ by reading the Net News?” She meant the question as ghastly sarcasm, but poor Greenstalk took it seriously:
“Not by a News item, nor by standard protocol messages. But accepting a transmission targeted on skrode utilities might do it.”
“Then we are safe here. You, because you no longer ride a greater skrode, Blueshell because—”
“Because I was never touched—but how can you know that?” His anger was still there deep within shame, but now it was a hopeless anger, directed at something very far away.
“No, dear love, you have not been touched. I would know.”
“Yes, but why should Ravna believe you?”
Everything could be a lie, thought Ravna,… but I believe Greenstalk. I believe we four are the only ones in all the Beyond who can hurt the Blight. If only Pham could see it. And that brought her back to: “You say we will start losing our lead?”
Blueshell waved an affirmative. “As soon as we are a little lower. They should have us in a matter of weeks.”
And then it won’t matter who was perverted and who was not. “I think we should have a little chat with Pham Nuwen.” Godshatter and all.
Beforehand Ravna couldn’t imagine how the confrontation would turn out. Just possibly—if he’d lost all touch with reality—Pham might try to kill them when they appeared on the command deck. More likely there would be rage and argument and threats, and they would be back to square one.
Instead… it was almost like the old Pham, from before Harmonious Repose. He let them enter the command deck, he made no comment when Ravna set herself carefully between himself and the Riders. He listened without interruption, while Ravna explained what Greenstalk had said. “These two are safe, Pham. And without their help we’ll not make it to the Bottom.”
He nodded, looked away at the windows. Some showed natural starscape; most were ultratrace displays, the closest thing to a picture of the enemies that were closing on the OOB. His calm expression broke for just an instant, and the Pham that loved her seemed to stare out, desperate: “And you really believe all this, Rav? How?” Then the lid was back on, his expression distant and neutral. “Never mind. Certainly it’s true: without all of us working together we’ll never make it to Tines’ World. Blueshell, I accept your offer. Subject to cautious safeguards, we work together.” Till I can safely dispose of you, Ravna could feel the unsaid words behind his blandness. Showdown deferred.
CHAPTER 33
They were less than eight weeks from Tines’ World, both Pham and Blueshell said. If the Zone conditions remained stable. If they were not overtaken in the meantime.
Less than two months, after the six already voyaged. But the days were not like before. Every one was a challenge, a standoff sometimes cloaked in civility, sometimes flaring into threats of sudden death—as when Pham retrieved Blueshell’s shop equipment.
Pham was living on the command deck now; when he left it, the hatch was locked on his ID. He had destroyed, or thought he had destroyed, all other privileged links to the ship’s automation. He and Blueshell were in almost constant collaboration… but not like before. Every step was slow, Blueshell explaining everything, allowed to demonstrate nothing. That’s where the arguments came closest to deadly force, when Pham must give in to one peril or the other. For every day the pursuing fleets were a little bit closer: two bands of killers, and what was left of Sjandra Kei. Evidently some of the SjK Commercial Security fleet could still fight, wanted revenge on the Alliance. Once Ravna suggested to Pham that they contact Commercial Security, try to persuade them to attack the Blighter fleet. Pham had given her a blank look. “Not yet, maybe not ever,” he said, and turned away. In a way his answer was a relief: Such a battle would be a suicidal long shot. Ravna didn’t want the last of her kinsfolk dying for her.
So the OOB might arrive at Tines’ World before the enemy, but with what little time to spare! Some days Ravna withdrew in tears and despair. What brought her back was Jefri and Greenstalk. They both needed her, and for a few weeks more she could still help.
Mr. Steel’s defense plans were proceeding. The Tines were even having some success with their wideband radio. Steel reported that Woodcarver’s main force was on its way north; there was more than one race against time. She spent many hours with the OOB’s library, devising more gifts for the Jefri’s friends. Some things—like telescopes—were easy, but others… It wasn’t wasted effort. Even if the Blight won, its fleet might ignore the natives, might settle for killing the OOB and winning back the Countermeasure.
Greenstalk was slowly improving. At first Ravna was afraid the improvement might be in her own imagination. Ravna was spending a good part of each day sitting with the Rider, trying to see progress in her responses. Greenstalk was very “far away', almost like a human with stroke damage and prosthesis. In fact, she seemed regressed from the articulate horror of her first conversations. Maybe her recent progress was just a mirror to Ravna’s sensitivity, to the fact that Ravna was with her so much. Blueshell insisted there was progress, but with that stubborn inflexibility of his. Two weeks, three—and there was no doubt: something was healing at the boundary between Rider and skrodeling. Greenstalk consistently made sense, consistently committed important rememberings… Now as often as not it was she helping Ravna. Greenstalk saw things that Ravna had missed: “Sir Pham isn’t the only one who is afraid of us Skroderiders. Blueshell is frightened too, and it is tearing him apart. He can’t admit it even to me, but he thinks it’s possible that we’re infected independently of our skrodes. He desperately wants to convince Pham that this is not true—and so to convince himself.” She was silent for a long moment, one frond brushing against Ravna’s arm. Sea sounds surrounded them in the cabin, but ship’s automation could no longer produce surging water. “Sigh. We must pretend the surf, dear Ravna. Somewhere it will always be,
