A Fire Upon the Deep zot-1, page 41
part #1 of Zones of Thought Series
On the ground beyond the tent’s entrance there were already splashes of sunlight. “Okay.” Johanna slipped off her outer clothes. She lay down and dragged a light quilt across herself. Most of Woodcarver already looked asleep. As usual, one or two pairs of eyes were open, but their intelligence would be limited—and just now, even they looked tired. Funny, Woodcarver had worked with Dataset so much, her human voice had come to capture emotion as well as pronunciation. Just now she had sounded so tired, so sad.
Johanna reached out from under her quilt to brush the neck of Woodcarver’s nearest, the blind one. “Do you believe what you told everyone?” she said softly.
One of the “sentry” heads looked at her, and a very human sigh seemed to come from all directions. Woodcarver’s voice was very faint. “Yes… but I am very afraid that it doesn’t matter any more. For six hundred years, I have had proper confidence in myself. But what happened on the south wall
… should not have happened. It would not if I had followed Vendacious’s advice, and come down on the New Road.”
“But we might have been seen—”
“Yes. A failure either way, don’t you see? Vendacious has precise information from the highest councils of the Flenser. But he’s something of a careless fool in everyday matters. I knew that, and thought I could compensate. But the Old Road was in far worse condition than I remembered; the wolf-nest could never have settled by it if there had been any traffic during the last few years. If Vendacious had managed his patrols properly, or if I had been managing him properly, we would never have been surprised. Instead we were nearly overrun… and my only remaining talent appears to be in fooling those who trust me into thinking I still know what I’m doing.” She opened another pair of eyes and made the smile gesture. “Strange. I haven’t said these things even to Pilgrim. Is this another ‘advantage’ of human relations?”
Johanna patted the blind one’s neck. “Maybe.”
“Anyway, I believe what I said about things that could be, but I fear the my soul may not be strong enough to make them so. Perhaps I should turn things over to Pilgrim or Vendacious; that’s something I must think on.” Woodcarver shhed Johanna’s surprised protests.
“Now sleep please.”
CHAPTER 32
There was a time when Ravna thought their tiny ship might fly all the way to the Bottom unnoticed. Along with everything else, that had changed. At the moment, Out of Band II might be the most famous star ship known to the Net. A million races watched the chase. In the Middle Beyond there were vast antenna swarms beaming in their direction and listening to the news—mostly lies—sent from ships that pursued the OOB. She couldn’t hear those lies directly, of course, but the transmissions from beyond were as clear as if they were on a main trunk.
Ravna spent part of each day reading the News, trying to find hope, trying to prove to herself that she was doing the right thing. By now, she was pretty sure what was chasing them. No doubt even Pham and Blueshell would have agreed on that. Why they were being chased, and what they might find at the end was now the subject of endless speculation on the Net. As usual, whatever the truth might be was well hidden among the lies.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Triskweline, SjK units
From: Hanse [No references prior to the fall of Relay. No probable source. This is someone being very cautious.]
Subject: Alliance for the Defense fraudulent?
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 5.80 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Fools’ errand, unnecessary genocide
Text of message:
Earlier I speculated that there had been no destruction at Sjandra Kei. Apologies. That was based on a catalog identification error. I agree with the messages (13123 as of a few seconds ago) assuring me that the habitations of Sjandra Kei suffered collisional damage within the last six days.
So apparently the “Alliance for the Defense” has taken the military action they claimed earlier. And apparently, they are powerful enough to destroy small civilizations in the Middle Beyond. The question still remains: “Why?” I have already posted arguments showing it unlikely that Homo sapiens is especially controllable by the Blight (though they were stupid enough to create that entity). Even the Alliance’s own reports admit that less than half of Sjandra Kei’s sophonts were of that race.
Now a large part of the Alliance fleet is chasing into the Bottom of the Beyond after a single ship. What conceivable damage can the Alliance do to the Blight down there? The Blight is a great threat, perhaps the most novel and threatening in well-recorded history. Nevertheless, Alliance behavior appears destructive and pointless. Now that the Alliance has revealed some of its sponsoring organizations (see messages [id numbers]), I think we know its real motives. I see connections between the Alliance and the old Aprahant Hegemony. A thousand years ago, that group had a similar jihad, grabbing real estate left vacant by recent Transcendences. Stopping the Hegemony was an exciting bit of action in that part of the galaxy. I think these people are back, taking advantage of the general panic attending the Blight (which is admittedly a much greater threat).
My advice: Beware of the Alliance and its claims of heroic efforts.
Crypto: 0
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Schirachene-»Rondralip-»Triskweline, SjK units
From: Harmonious Repose Communications Synod
Subject: Encounter with agents of the Perversion
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight
Date: 6.37 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Hanse fraudulent?
Text of message:
We have no special inclination toward any of the posters on this thread. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable that an entity that has not revealed its location or special interests—namely “Hanse"—should be smearing the efforts of the Alliance for the Defense. The Alliance kept its constituents secret only during that period when its forces were being gathered, when a single stroke of the Perversion’s power might destroy it entirely. Since that time, it has been quite open in its efforts.
Hanse wonders how a single starship could be worth the Alliance’s attention. As Harmonious Repose was the site of the latest turn of events, we are in a position to give some explanation. The ship in question, the Out of Band II, is clearly designed for operations at the Bottom of the Beyond—and is even capable of limited operations within the Slow Zone. The ship presented itself as a special zonographic flight commissioned to study the recent turbulence at the Bottom. In fact, this ship’s mission is a very different one. In the aftermath of its violent departure, we have pieced together some extraordinary facts:
At least one of the ship’s crew was human. Though they made great efforts to stay out of view and used Skroderider traders as intermediaries, we have recordings. A biosequence of one individual was obtained, and it matches the patterns maintained by two out of three of the Homo sapiens archives. (It’s well known that the third archive, on Sneerot Down, is in the control of Human sympathizers.) Some might say this deception was founded in fear. After all, these events happened after the destruction of Sjandra Kei. We think otherwise: The ship’s initial contact with us occurred before the Sjandra Kei incident.
We have since made a careful analysis of the repair work our yards performed on this vessel. Ultradrive automation is a deep and complex thing; even the cleverest of cloaking cannot mask all the memories in it. We now know that the Out of Band II was from the Relay system and that it left there after the Perversion’s attack. Think what this means.
The crew of the Out of Band II brought weapons into a habitat, kill several local sophonts, and escaped before our musicians [harmonizers? police?] were properly notified. We have good reason to wish them ill.
Yet our misfortune is a small thing compared to the unmasking of this secret mission. We are very grateful that the Alliance is willing to risk so much in following this lead.
There’s more than the usual number of unsubstantiated assertions floating around on this news thread. We hope our facts will wake some people up. In particular, consider what “Hanse” may really be. The Perversion is very visible in the High Beyond, where it has great power and can speak with its own voice. Down here, it is more likely that deception and covert propaganda will be its tools. Think on this when you read postings from unidentified entities such as “Hanse"!
Ravna gritted her teeth. The hell of it was, the facts in the posting were correct. It was the inferences that were vicious and false. And she couldn’t guess if this were some shade of black propaganda or simply Saint Rihndell expressing honest conclusions (though Rihndell had never seemed so trusting of the butterflies).
One thing all the News seemed to agree on: Much more than the Alliance fleet was chasing the OOB. The swarm of ultradrive traces could be seen by anyone within a thousand light-years. The best guess was that three fleets pursued the OOB. Three! The Alliance for the Defense, still loud and boastful, even though suspected (by some) of being opportunistic genocides. Behind them, Sjandra Kei… and what was left of Ravna’s motherland; in all the universe perhaps the only folk she could trust. And just behind them, the silent fleet. Diverse news posters claimed it was from the High Beyond. That fleet might have problems at the Bottom, but for now it was gaining. Few doubted that it was the Perversion’s child. More than anything, it convinced the universe that the OOB or its destination was cosmically important. Just why it was important was the big question. Speculation was drifting in at the rate of five thousand messages per hour. A million different viewpoints were considering the mystery. Some of those viewpoints were so alien that they made Skroderiders and Humans look like the same species. At least five participants on this News thread were gaseous inhabitants of stellar coronas. There were one or two others that Ravna suspected were uncataloged races, beings so shy that this might be their first active use of the Net ever.
The OOB’s computer was a lot dumber than it had been in the Middle Beyond. She couldn’t ask it to sift through the messages looking for nuance and insight. In fact, if an incoming message didn’t have a Triskweline text, it was often unreadable. The ship’s translator programs still worked fairly well with the major trade languages, but even there the translation was slow and full of alternative meanings and jabberwocky. It was just another sign that they were approaching the Bottom of the Beyond. Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Nevertheless, with proper design, things might have been better. The automation might have degraded gracefully under the restrictions imposed by their depth. Instead, gear just stopped working; what remained was slow and error-prone. If only the refitting had been completed before the Fall of Relay. And just how many times have I wished for that? She hoped things were as bad aboard the pursuing ships.
So Ravna used the ship to do light culling on the Threats newsgroup. Much of what was left was inane, as from people who see “portents in the weather” -
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Arbwyth-»Trade24-»Cherguelen-»Triskweline, SjK units
From: Twirlip of the Mists [Perhaps an organization of cloud fliers in a single jovian system. Very sparse priors before this thread began. Appears to be seriously out of touch. Program recommendation: delete this poster from presentation.]
Subject: The Blight’s goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation
Date: 4.54 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key insight
Text of message:
Apologies first if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings. I think that anyone following both Great Secrets of Creation and Threat of the Blight would see an important pattern. Since the events reported by Harmonious Repose information service, most agree that something important to the Perversion exists at the Bottom of the Beyond in region […]. I see a possible connection here with the Great Secrets. During the last two hundred and twenty days, there have been increasing reports of zone interface instability in the region below Harmonious Repose. As the Blight threat has grown and its attacks against advanced races and other Powers continued, this instability has increased. Could there not be some connection? I urge all to consult their information on the Great Secrets (or the nearest archive maintained by that group). Events such as this prove once again that the universe is all ronzelle between.
Some of the postings were tantalizing—[Light gloss]
Crypto: 0
Syntax: 43
As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc
Language path: Wobblings-»Baeloresk-»Triskweline, SjK units
From: Cricketsong under the High Willow [Cricketsong is a synthetic race created as a jape/ experiment/instrument by the High Willow upon its Transcendence. Cricketsong has been on the Net for more than ten thousand years. Apparently it is a fanatical studier of paths to Transcendence. For eight thousand years it has been the heaviest poster on “Where are they now” and related groups. There is no evidence that any Cricketsong settlement has itself Transcended. Cricketsong is sufficiently peculiar that there is a large news group for speculation concerning the race itself. Consensus is that Cricketsong was designed by High Willow as a probe back into the Beyond, that the race is somehow incapable of attempting its own Transcendence.]
Subject: The Blight’s goal at the Bottom
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Special Interest Group, Where are they now Special Interest Group
Date: 5.12 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Key phrases: On becoming Transcendent
Text of message:
Contrary to other postings, there are a number of reasons why a Power might install artifacts at the Bottom of the Beyond. The Abselor’s message on this thread cites some: some Powers have documented curiosity about the Slow Zone and, even more, about the Unthinking Depths. In rare cases, expeditions have been dispatched (though any return from the Depths would occur long after the dispatching Power lost interest in all local questions).
However, none of these motives are likely here. To those who are familiar with Fast Burn transcendence, it is clear that the Blight is a creature seeking stasis. Its interest in the Bottom is very sudden, provoked, we think, by the revelations at Harmonious Repose. There is something at the Bottom that is critical to the Perversion’s welfare.
Consider the notion of ablative dissonance (see the Where Are They Now group archive): No one knows what set-up procedures the humans of Straumli Realm were using. The Fast Burn may itself have had Transcendent intelligence. What if it became dissatisfied with the direction of the channedring? In that case it might try to hide the jumpoff birthinghel. The Bottom would not be a place where the algorithm itself could normally execute, but avatars might still be created from it and briefly run.
Up to a point, Ravna could almost make sense of it; ablative dissonance was a commonplace of Applied Theology. But then, like one of those dreams where the secret of life is about to be revealed, the posting just drifted into nonsense.
There were postings that were neither asinine nor obscure. As usual, Sandor at the Zoo had a lot of things dead right:
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: The Blight’s goal at the Bottom
Key phrases: Sudden change in Blight’s tactics
Distribution:
Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Homo Sapiens Interest Group
Date: 8.15 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei
Text of message:
In case you don’t know, Sandor Intelligence has a number of different Net feeds. We can collect messages on paths that have no intermediate nodes in common. Thus we can be fairly confident that news we receive has not been tampered with en route. (There remain the lies and misunderstandings that were present to begin with, but that’s something that makes the intelligence business interesting.)
The Blight has been our top priority since its instantiation a year ago. This is not just because of the Blight’s obvious strength, the destruction and the deicides it has committed. We fear that all this is the lesser part of the Threat. There have been perversions almost as powerful in the recorded past. What truly distinguishes this one is its stability. We see no evidence of internal evolution; in some ways it is less than a Power. It may never lose interest in controlling the High Beyond. We may be witnessing a massive and permanent change in the nature of things. Imagine: a stable necrosis, where the only sentience in the High Beyond is the Blight.
Thus, studying the Blight has been a matter of life and death for us (even though we are powerful and widely distributed). We’ve reached a number of conclusions. Some of these may be obvious to you, others may sound like flagrant speculation. All take on a new coloring with the events reported from Harmonious Repose:
Almost from the beginning, the Blight has been searching for something. This search has extended far beyond its aggressive physical expansion. Its automatic agents have tried to penetrate virtually every node in the Top of the Beyond; the High Network is in shambles, reduced to protocols scarcely more efficient than those known below. At the same time, the Blight has physically stolen several archives. We have evidence of very large fleets searching for off-Net archives at the Top and in the Low Transcend. At least three Powers have been murdered in this rampage.
