lost. But the violet analysis and the raw zonograph session, those were gone.
He ran a quick heal on the zonograph spew and restarted the program. Meantime, he finished an oh-so- gentle foldup of his Best Hope output. And finally, he did what Nevil would complain that he should have done first thing:
“Ship, give me a secure link to Nevil.” Bili was firmly back in caveman mode now. He even remembered to specify that the link be secure. Among other things, that meant the comm would go to Nevil’s head-up display, or by direct line of sight to Nevil’s town house.
Unfortunately, there was only one HUD left, and Nevil was just as careful as Ravna Bergsndot had been about using it. Nearly ten seconds passed, and then a woman replied: “Yeah?”
“Um, hei Tami. May I speak to Nevil, please?”
“Hei Bili. Nevil went up to Newcastle—you know, getting ready for the big protest against Woodcarver’s conspiracy. He made me stay behind to be his answering machine. So what’s your message?” There was a pouting tone to her voice. Tami was no Johanna Olsndot, but she could be trouble in other ways. Bili wasn’t quite sure what Nevil saw in her.
“No, that’s okay, I’ll catch him at the meeting. Thanks, Tam.”
Bili stared at the zonograph display for a moment more. It was showing low levels of random noise. Most likely, the Slow Zone was again lightyears deep above them.
He hustled off the command deck, down to the great meeting hall. For a wonder, the place was empty. Somehow, Nevil had persuaded
He stepped out of doors, into a solid wall of cold. Fortunately, the air was still and he didn’t freeze anything. He stepped back into the relative warmth of the entranceway and buttoned up his jacket. Even as he stood there, the first rays of the morning sun lit the hillside above him, showing the town houses along Queen’s Road all the way to the roofs of Newcastle town. Beyond that stood the castle’s marble dome—the Dome of the Lander.
It was another perfectly normal morning at the nether end of nowhere, all thanks to Pham Nuwen and the fungus that came down with the Lander. Bili knew the stories about the day Pham Nuwen raised the Slow Zone high, how the sun had gone dark and the packs had danced in madness. The surge this morning—Bili couldn’t see any evidence of it. Most likely he was the only person on this world who had noticed a thing. It had not been a grand change in the universe. It had been just a tiny slip back toward the natural equilibrium.
As Bili started the long walk to Newcastle, some of his frustration slipped away. Salvation had been snatched away at the last second, but this was a message. Rescue was on the way, and it would arrive sooner rather than later.
Chapter 25
“Escape by wriggling out sideways.” Amdi’s suggestion was much easier said than done. The wriggling began with a midnight sneak several kilometers closer to the sinister ‘X’ on Chitiratifor’s map. They forded the river at a fast-moving shallows, under a merciless rain. Once safely across, Ravna decided to be heartened by the weather. The storm might mask them from any enemy scouts. The clouds (probably) meant that Nevil’s orbiter could not see them. And the rain had swatted down the armies of gnats that had so enjoyed yesterday’s sunny warmth.
The path Amdi had found on the maps should eventually take them over mountain passes into another rift valley. The “Wild Principates” was one of the less geologically active rifts, but its name was a confession of ignorance. Its last valley-long blowup had occurred perhaps a thousand years earlier. Afterwards, settlers had trickled into the region, risking merely local catastrophes. Two hundred years ago, such an eruption in the northern part of the valley had suffocated every last member of Woodcarver’s colony there. Queen Woodcarver had a long memory for such things; she had not been back.
Compared to the alternatives, the geological risks were entirely acceptable to Ravna and company.
As they climbed out of the valley, the wind picked up and lightning slammed into the cliffs above them. Nothing came falling down, but their path was narrow and the racket made the kherhogs nervous.
After about half an hour of this, she noticed that the lightning had somehow triggered the tamper alarm on the lamps in the middle wagon. The alarm pattern flickered from cracks in the cabinetry. This didn’t further upset the kherhogs, but it was very distracting to Ravna—and to Amdi, some of whom were driving the wagon behind her.
“It’s all the lamps,” he said to her. “Um, um, They’re coordinating in phase! See the rainbows along the side of your wagon?”
“I know. Don’t worry, Amdi. It should stop after the storm,” unless Nevil was smart enough to be probing from the orbiter—but even that would be a useful bit of information. “Just keep your eyes on the road.” It was better advice for her than for him, considering how many eyes he had available.
The alarm display lasted only another minute or two. Eventually the winds calmed and the lightning retreated. The rain continued, sometimes in icy sheets so dense she couldn’t see beyond her kherhog’s ears. Then there would be a minute or two during which she could see partway across the valley, to where the storm looked more like drifting fog. They were far above the valley forest. Good-bye crusherbushes and arrow trees and stately bannerwood. Up here, the trees were thick and twisted, guarding snowbanks slowly melting in the rain.
The one of Amdi beside her had hunkered down, looking miserable; the rain was a powerful damper on his mindsound. She just hoped the ones on the rear wagon were enough to keep it on the road. In places, the path was defined by cliff rock on one side and vague mist on the other. When the downpour eased, she had scary views of how far she would fall if her kherhog strayed off the path.
Screwfloss kept close together, mostly ahead of Jefri’s wagon. Last night, after revealing the maps, the remnant had been no help at all. When Amdi explained to him about cutting east and asked about the risk of detection, the remnant just stood around cocking its heads in all directions, a kind of sarcastic shrug. But today the pack was really helping. When the path disappeared or appeared to fork, Screwfloss would scramble above and below them. Then he’d come back into sight and lead them forward. Several times they’d had to dismount and lever rocks clear of their way, but they’d always made progress, more eastward and upwards than not.
Just now, Screwfloss was heading toward the last wagon. The Amdi member beside her twisted around to watch. “I think he’s checking on the spare kherhog,” he said. The extra draft animal followed the third wagon, on a short tether.
As the remnant passed she glanced down. As usual, the limper affected the pack’s collective gait, but … She had gotten very used to the pack’s appearance. There were two members with white blazes across their heads, so perfectly symmetrical they had to be littermates. One was the poor fellow whose leg she’d broken. The limp made the critter impossible to miss, but now the border of its white blaze was smeared like … like a cheap dye job.
The rain continued into the afternoon twilight, but now they were past the worst of the climbing. Their little caravan trundled along the edge of alpine meadows. If not for the overcast, the orbiter’s cameras could probably have spotted them. Jefri cajoled additional kilometers out of the kherhogs, finally stopping where Amdi judged a cliff side would keep them out of sight of the orbiter even in sunny daytime.
“Unless Nevil maneuvers it again,” said Ravna.
“Yes.” The eightsome looked skyward nervously. “I gotta think. I spread myself too thin today.”
Screwfloss did some climbing, maybe looking for rockfall threats. When he came back, he circled forward, indicating where they should put the wagons.
