A Fire Upon the Deep zot-1, page 37
part #1 of Zones of Thought Series
And soon—perhaps today—the Flenserists would have radio, too.
God damn you, Woodcarver! Of course Tyrathect had never met the Woodcarver, but Flenser had known that pack well: Flenser was mostly Woodcarver’s offspring. The “Gentle Woodcarver” had borne him and raised him to power. It had been Woodcarver who taught him about freedom of thought and experiment. Woodcarver should have known the pride that lived in Flenser, should have known that he would go to extremes his parent never dared. And when the new one’s monstrous nature became clear, when his first “experiments” were discovered, Woodcarver should have had him killed—or at the very least, fragmented. Instead, Flenser had been allowed to take exile… to create things like Steel, and they to create their own monsters, ultimately to build this hierarchy of madness.
And now, a century overdue, Woodcarver was coming to correct her mistake. She came with her toy guns, as overconfident and idealistic as ever. She came into a trap of steel and fire that none of her people would survive. If only there were some way to warn the Woodcarver. Tyrathect’s only reason for being here was the oath she had sworn herself to bring Flenser’s Movement down. If Woodcarver knew what awaited her here, if she even knew of the traitors in her own camp… there might be a chance. Last fall, Tyrathect had come close to sending an anonymous message south. There were traders who visited through both kingdoms. Her Flenser memories told her which were likely independent. She almost passed one a note, a single piece of silkpaper, reporting the starship’s landing and Jefri’s survival. In that she had missed death by less than a day: Steel had shown her a report from the South, about the other human and Woodcarver’s progress with the “dataset". There were things in the report that could only be known by someone at the top at Woodcarver’s. Who? She didn’t ask, but she guessed it was Vendacious; the Flenser in Tyrathect remembered that sibling pack well. They’d had… dealings. Vendacious had none of the raw genius of their joint parent, but there was a broad streak of opportunism in him.
Steel had shown her the report only to puff himself up, to prove to Tyrathect that he had succeeded in something that Flenser had never attempted. And it was a coup. Tyrathect had complimented Steel with more than usual sincerity… and quietly shelved her plans of warning. With a spy at the top at Woodcarver’s, any message would be pointless suicide.
Now Tyrathect padded across the castle’s outer yard. There was still plenty of construction going on, but the teams were smaller. Steel was building timber lodges all over the yard. Many were empty shells. Steel hoped to persuade Ravna to land at a special spot near the inner keep.
The inner keep. That was the only thing about this castle built to the standards of Hidden Island. It was a beautiful structure. It could really be what Steel told Amdijefri: a shrine to honor Jefri’s ship and protect it from Woodcarver attack. The central dome was a smooth sweep of cantilevers and fitted stone as wide as the main meeting hall on Hidden Island. Tyrathect watched it with one pair of eyes as she trotted round it. Steel intended to face the dome with the finest pink marble. It would be visible for dozens of miles into the sky. The deadfalls built into its structure were the centerpiece of Steel’s plan, even if the rescuers didn’t land in his other trap.
Shreck and two other high Servants stood on the steps of the castle’s meeting hall. They came to attention as she approached. The three backed quickly away, bellies scraping stone… but not as quickly as last fall. They knew that the other Flenser Fragments had been destroyed. As Tyrathect swept past them, she almost smiled. For all her weakness and all her problems, she knew she could best these ones.
Steel was already inside, alone. The most important meetings were all like this, just Steel and herself. She understood the relationship. In the beginning, Steel had been simply terrified of her—the one person he believed he could never kill. For tendays, he had teetered between grovelling before her and dismembering her. It was amusing to see the bonds Flenser had installed years before still having force. Then had come word of the death of the other Fragments. Tyrathect was no longer Flenser-in-Waiting. She had half expected death to come then. But in a way this made her safer. Now Steel was less afraid, and his need for intimate advice could be satisfied in ways he saw less threatening. She was his bottled demon: Flenser wisdom without the Flenser threat.
This afternoon he seemed almost relaxed, nodding casually to Tyrathect as she entered. She nodded back. In many ways Steel was her—Flenser’s -finest creation. So much effort had been spent honing Steel. How many packs-worth of members had been sacrificed to get just the combination that was Steel. She—Flenser—had wanted brilliance, ruthlessness. As Tyrathect she could see the truth. With all the flensing, Flenser had created a poor, sad thing. It was strange, but… sometimes Steel seemed like Flenser’s most pitiable victim.
“Ready for the big test?” Tyrathect said. At long last, the radios seemed complete.
“In a moment. I wanted to ask you about timing. My sources tell me Woodcarver’s army is on its way. If they make reasonable progress, they should be here in five tendays.”
“That’s at least three tendays before Ravna’s ship arrives.”
“Quite. We will have your old enemy disposed of long before we go for the high stakes. But… something is strange about the Two-Legs’ recent messages. How much do you think they suspect? Is it possible that Amdijefri are telling them more than we know?”
It was an uncertainty Steel would have masked back when she had been Flenser-in-Waiting. Tyrathect slid to a seated position before replying. “You might know the answer if you had bothered to learn more of the Two-Legs’ language, dear Steel, or let me learn more.” Through the winter, Tyrathect had been desperate to talk to the children alone, to get warning to the ship. She was of two minds about that now. Amdijefri were so transparent, so innocent. If they glimpsed anything of Steel’s treachery, they couldn’t hide it. And what might the rescuers do if they knew Steel’s villainy? Tyrathect had seen one starship in flight. Just its landing could be a terrible weapon. Besides… If Steel’s plan succeeds, I won’t need the aliens’ goodwill.
Aloud, Tyrathect continued, “As long as you can continue your magnificent performance, you have nothing to fear from the child. Can’t you see that he loves you?”
For an instant, Steel seemed pleased, and then the suspicion returned. “I don’t know. Amdi seems always to taunt me, as though he sees through my act.”
Poor Steel. Amdiranifani was his greatest success, and he would never understand it. In this one thing Steel had truly exceeded his Master, had discovered and honed a technique that had once been Woodcarver’s. The Fragment eyed his former student almost hungrily. If only he could do him all over again; there must be a way to combine the fear and the flensing with love and affection. The resulting tool would truly merit the name Steel. Tyrathect shrugged, “Take my word for it. If you can continue your kindness act, both children will be faithful. As for the rest of your question: I have noticed some change in Ravna’s messages. She seems much more confident of their arrival time, yet something has gone wrong for them. I don’t think they’re any more suspicious than before; they seemed to accept that Jefri was responsible for Amdi’s idea about the radios. That lie was a good move, by the way. It played to their sense of superiority. On a fair battlefield, we are probably their betters—and they must not guess that.”
“But what are they suddenly so tense about?”
The Fragment shrugged. “Patience, dear Steel. Patience and observation. Perhaps Amdijefri have noticed this too. You might subtly inspire them to ask about it. My guess is the Two-Legs have their own politics to worry about.” He stopped and turned all his heads on Steel. “Could you have your ‘source’ down at Woodcarver’s ferret about with the question?”
“Perhaps I will. That Dataset is Woodcarver’s one great advantage.” Steel sat in silence for a moment, nervously chewing at his lips. Abruptly, he shook himself all over, as if to drive off the manifold threats he saw encroaching. “Shreck!”
There was the sound of paws. The hatch creaked open and Shreck stuck a head inside. “Sir?”
“Bring the radio outfits in here. Then ask Amdijefri if he can come down to talk to us.”
The radios were beautiful things. Ravna claimed that the basic device could be invented by civilizations scarcely more advanced than Flenser’s. That was hard to believe. There were so many steps in the making, so many meaningless detours. The final results: eight one-yard squares of night-darkness. Glints of gold and silver showed in the strange material. That, at least, was no mystery: a part of Flenser’s gold and silver had gone into the construction.
Amdijefri arrived. They raced around the central floor, poked at the radios, shouted to Steel and the Flenser Fragment. Sometimes it was hard to believe they were not truly one pack, that the Two Legs was not another member: They clung to each other as a single pack might. As often as not, Amdi answered questions about Two-Legs before Jefri had a chance to speak, using the “I-pack” pronoun to identify both of them.
Today, however, there seemed to be a disagreement. “Oh, please my lord, let me be the one to try it!”
Jefri rattled off something in Samnorsk. When Amdi didn’t translate, he repeated the words more slowly, speaking directly to Steel. “No. It is [something something] dangerous. Amdi is [something] small. And also, time [something] narrow.”
The Fragment strained for the meaning. Damn. Sooner or later their ignorance of the Two Legs’ language was going to cost them.
Steel listened to the human, then sighed the most marvelously patient sigh. “Please. Amdi. Jefri. What is problem?” He spoke in Samnorsk, making more sense to the Flenser Fragment than the human child had.
Amdi dithered for a moment. “Jefri thinks the radio jackets are too big for me. But look, it doesn’t fit so badly!” Amdi jumped all around one of the night-dark squares, dragging it heedlessly off its velvet pallet onto the floor. He pulled the fabric over the back and shoulders of his largest member.
Now the radio was roughly the shape of a greatcloak; Steel’s tailors had added clasps at the shoulders and gut. But the thing was vastly outsized for little Amdi. It stood like a tent around one of him. “See? See?” The tiny head poked out, looking first at Steel and then at Tyrathect, willing their belief.
Jefri said something. The Amdi pack squeaked back angrily. Then, “Jefri worries about everything, but somebody has to test the radios. There’s this little problem with speed. Radio goes much faster than sound. Jefri’s just afraid it’s so fast, it might confuse the pack using it. That’s foolish. How much faster could it be than heads-together thought?” He asked it as a question. Tyrathect smiled. The pack of puppies couldn’t quite lie, but he guessed that Amdi knew the answer to his question—and that it did not support his argument.
On the other side of the hall, Steel listened with heads cocked—the picture of benign tolerance. “I’m sorry, Amdi. It’s just too dangerous for you to be the first.”
“But I am brave! And I want to help.”
“I’m sorry. After we know it’s safe—”
Amdi gave a shriek of outrage, much higher than normal interpack talk, almost in the range of thought. He swarmed around Jefri, whacking at the human’s legs with his butt ends. “Hideous traitor!” he cried, and continued the insults in Samnorsk.
It took about ten minutes to get him calmed down to a sulk. He and Jefri sat on the floor, grumbling at each other in Samnorsk. Tyrathect watched the two, and Steel on the other side of the room. If irony were something that made sound, they would all be deaf by now. All their lives, Flenser and Steel had experimented on others—usually unto death. Now they had a victim who literally begged to be victimized… and he must be rejected. There was no question about the rejection. Even if Jefri had not raised objections, the Amdi pack was too valuable to be risked. Furthermore, Amdi was an eightsome. It was a miracle that such a large pack could function at all. Whatever dangers there were with radio would be much greater for him.
So, a proper victim would be found. A proper wretch. Surely there were plenty of those in the dungeons beneath Hidden Island. Tyrathect thought back on all the packs she remembered killing. How she hated Flenser, his calculating cruelty. I am so much worse than Steel. I made Steel. She remembered where her thoughts had been the last hour. This was one of the bad days, one of the days when Flenser sneaked out from the recesses of her mind, when she rode the power of his reason higher and higher, till it became rationalization and she became him. Still, for a few more seconds she might be in control. What could she do with it? A soul that was strong enough might deny itself, might become a different person… might at the very least end itself.
“I-I will try the radio.” The words were spoken almost before he thought them. Weak, silly frill.
“What?” said Steel.
But the words had been clear, and Steel had heard. The Flenser Fragment smiled dryly. “I want to see what this radio can do. Let me try it, dear Steel.”
They took the radios out into the yard, on the side of the starship that was hidden from general view. Here it would just be Amdijefri, Steel, and whoever I am at the moment. The Flenser Fragment laughed at the upwelling fear. Discipline, she had thought! Perhaps that was best. He stood in the middle of the yard and let the human help him with the radio gear. Strange to see another intelligent being so close, and towering over him.
Jefri’s incredibly articulate paws arranged the jackets loosely on his backs. The inside material was soft, deadening. And unlike normal clothing, the radios covered the wearer’s tympana. The boy tried to explain what he was doing. “See? This thing,” he pulled at the corner of the greatcloak, “goes over your head. The inside has [something] that makes sound into radio.”
The Fragment shrugged away as the boy tried to pull the cover forward. “No. I can’t think.” Only by standing just so, all members facing inward, could the Fragment maintain full consciousness. Already the weaker parts of him were edging toward isolation panic. The conscience that was Tyrathect would learn something today.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Jefri turned and spoke to Amdi, something about using the old design.
Amdi was heads-together, just thirty feet away. He had been all frowns, sullen at being denied, nervous to be apart from the Two-Legs. But as the preparations continued, the frowns eased. The puppies’ eyes grew wide with happy fascination. The Fragment felt a wave of affection for the puppies that came and went almost too fast to be noticed.
Now Amdi edged nearer, taking advantage of the fact that the cloaks muffled much of the Fragment’s thought sounds. “Jefri says maybe we shouldn’t have tried to make the mind-size radio,” he said. “But this will be so much better. I know it! And,” he said with transparent slyness, “you could still let me test it instead.”
“No, Amdi. This is the way it must be.” Steel’s voice was all soft sympathy. Only the Flenser Fragment could see the broad grin on a couple of the lord’s members.
“Well, okay.” The puppies crept a little nearer. “Don’t be afraid, Lord Tyrathect. We’ve had the radios in sunlight for some time. They should have lots of power. To make them work you just pull all the belts tight, even the ones at your neck.”
“All of them at once?”
Amdi fidgeted. “That’s probably best. Otherwise, there will be such a mismatch of speeds that—” He said something to the Two Legs.
Jefri leaned close. “This belt goes here, and this here.” He pointed to the braid-bone straps that drew the head covering close. “Then just pull this with your mouth.”
“The harder you pull, the louder the radio,” Amdi added.
“Okay.” The Fragment drew himself together. He shrugged the jackets into place, tightening the shoulder and gut belts. Deadly muffling. The jackets almost seemed to mold themselves to his tympana. He looked at himself, and grasped desperately for what was left of consciousness. The jackets were beautiful, magic darkness yet with a hint of the golden-silver of a Flenserist Lord. Beautiful instruments of torture. Even Steel had not imagined such twisted revenge. Had he?
The Fragment grabbed the head straps and pulled.
Twenty years ago, when Tyrathect was new, she had loved to hike with her fission parent on the grassy dunes along Lake Kitcherri. That was before their great falling out, before loneliness drove Tyrathect to the Republic’s Capital and her search for “meaning". Not all of the shore of Lake Kitcherri was beaches and dunes. Farther south there was the Rockness, where streams cut through stone to the water. Sometimes, especially when she and her parent had fought, Tyrathect would walk up from the shore along streams bordered by sheer, smooth cliffs. It was a sort of punishment: there were places where the stone had a glassy haze and didn’t absorb sound at all. Everything was echoed, right up to the top of thought. It was if she were surrounded by copies of herself, and copies beyond them, all thinking the same sounds but out of step.
Of course echoes are often a problem with unquilted stone walls, especially if the size and geometry are wrong. But these cliffs were perfect reflectors, a quarrier’s nightmare. And there were places where the shape of the Rockness conspired with the sounds… When Tyrathect walked there, she couldn’t tell her own thoughts from the echoes. Everything was garbled with barely offset resonance. At first it had been a great pain that sent her running. But she forced herself back again and again, and finally learned to think even in the worst of the narrows.
