A Fire Upon the Deep zot-1 Read online

  “She’s no more the Flenser than I am,” said Peregrine. They had traveled together from Eastgate all the way across the Icefangs. She was obviously a newby, and not well-integrated. She had seemed reserved and innerlooking, but there had been rages. Peregrine knew there was a deadly streak in Tyrathect… Now he guessed whence it came. At least some of Flenser’s members had escaped assassination, and he and Scriber had spent three tendays in its presence; Peregrine shivered.

  At the fort’s gate, the pack called Tyrathect turned to face the troops and Servants. She gestured, and bugles sounded again. The new Peregrine understood that signal: an Incalling. He suppressed the sudden urge to follow the others on the pier as they walked belly-low toward the fort, all their eyes upon The Master. Scriber looked back at him, and Peregrine nodded. They had needed a miracle, and here was one—provided by the enemy itself! Scriber moved slowly toward the end of the pier, pulling the travois from shadow to shadow.

  Still no one looked back. For good reason; Wickwrackscar remembered what happened to those showing disrespect at an Incalling. “Pull the creature on the bow-starboard boat,” he said to Jaqueramaphan. He leaped off the pier and scattered across the multiboat. It was great to be back on swaying decks, each member drifting a different direction! He sniffed among the bow catapults, listened to the hulls and the creak of the lashings.

  But Scar was no sailor, and had no recollection of what might be the most important thing.

  “What are you looking for?” came Scriber’s Hightalk hiss.

  “Scuttle knockouts.” If they were here, they looked nothing like the Southseas version.

  “Oh,” said Scriber, “that’s easy. These are Northern Skimmers. There are swingout panels and a thin hull behind.” Two of him dropped from sight for a second and there was a banging sound. The heads reappeared, shaking water off. He grinned surprise, taken aback by his own success. “Why, it’s just like in the books!” his expression seemed to say.

  Wickwrackscar found them now; the panels had looked like crew rests, but they were easily pulled out and the wood behind was easy to break with a battle axe. He kept a head out, looking to see if he were attracting attention, while at the same time he hacked at the knockouts. Peregrine and Scriber worked their way across the bow ranks of the multiboat; if those foundered, it would take a while to get the twinhulls behind them free.

  Oops. One of the boat workers was looking back this way. Part of the fellow continued up the hillside, part strained to return to the pier. The bugles sounded their imperative once more, and the pack followed the call. But his whining alarums were causing other heads to turn.

  No time for stealth. Peregrine hotfooted it back to the bow-starboard twinhull. Scriber was cutting the braid-bone fasteners that held the twinhull to the rest of the ship. “You have any sailing experience?” Peregrine said. Foolish question.

  “Well, I’ve read about it—”

  “Fine!” Peregrine shooed him all into the twinhull’s starboard pod. “Keep the alien safe. Hunker down, and be as quiet as you can.” He could sail the twinhull by himself, but he’d have to be all over to do it; the fewer confusing thought sounds, the better.

  Peregrine poled their boat forward from the multiboat. The scuttling wasn’t obvious yet, but he could see water in the bow hulls. He reversed his pole and used its hook to draw the nearest boat into the gap created by their departure. Another five minutes and there’d be just a row of masts sticking out of the water. Five minutes. No way they could make it… if not for Flenser’s Incalling: up by the fort, troopers were turning and pointing at the harbor. Yet still they must attend on Flenser/Tyrathect. How long would it be before someone important decided that even an Incalling can be overridden?

  He hoisted canvas.

  The wind caught the twinhull’s sail and they pulled out from the pier. Peregrine danced this way and that, the shrouds grasped tightly in his mouths. Even without Rum, what memories the taste of salt and cordage brought back! He could feel where tautness and slack meant that the wind was giving all it could. The twin hulls were sleek and narrow, the mast of ironwood creaking as the wind pulled on the sail.

  The Flenserists were streaming down the hillside now. Archers stopped and a haze of arrows rose. Peregrine jerked on the shrouds, tipping the boat into a left turn on one hull. Scriber leaped to shield the alien. To starboard ahead of them the water puckered, but only a couple of shafts struck the boat. Peregrine twisted the shrouds again, and they jigged back in the other direction. Another few seconds and they’d be out of bowshot. Soldiers raced down to the piers, shrieking as they saw what was left of their ship. The bow ranks were flooded; the whole front of the anchorage was a wreck of sunken boats. And the catapults were in the bow.

  Peregrine swept his boat back, racing straight south, out of the harbor. To starboard, he could see they were passing the southern tip of Hidden Island. The Castle towers hung tall and ominous. He knew there were heavy catapults there, and some fast boats in the island harbor. A few more minutes and even that wouldn’t matter. He was gradually realizing just how nimble their boat was. He should have guessed they’d put their best in a corner bow position. It was probably used for scouting and overtaking.

  Jaqueramaphan was piled up at the stern of his hull, staring across the water at the mainland harbor. Soldiers, workers, whitejackets were crowded in a mind-numbing jumble at the ends of the piers. Even from here, you could see the place was a madhouse of rage and frustration. A silly grin spread across Scriber as he realized they really were going to make it. He clambered onto the rail and jumped into the air to flip a member at their enemies. The obscene gesture nearly cast him overboard, but it was seen: the distant rage brightened for a moment.

  They were well south of Hidden Island; even its catapults could not reach them now. The packs on the mainland shore were lost to view. Flenser’s personal banner still whipped cheerfully in the morning breeze, a dwindling square of red and yellow against the forest’s green.

  All Peregrine looked at the narrows, where Whale Island kissed close to the mainland. His Scar remembered that the choke point was heavily fortified. Normally that would have been the end of them. But its archers had been withdrawn to participate in the ambush, and its catapults were under repair.

  …so the miracle had happened. They were alive and free and they had the greatest find of all his pilgrimage. He shouted joy so loud that Jaqueramaphan cowered and the sound echoed back from the green and snow-patched hills.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jefri Olsndot had few clear memories of the ambush and saw none of the violence. There had been the noises outside, and Mom’s terrified voice, screaming for him to stay inside. Then there had been lots of smoke. He remembered choking, trying to crawl to clear air. He blacked out. When he woke, he was strapped onto some sort of first-aid cot, with the big dog creatures all around. They looked so funny with their white jackets and braid. He remembered wondering where their owners were. They made the strangest noises: gobbling, buzzing, hissing. Some of it was so high-pitched he could barely hear it.

  For while he was on a boat, then on a wheeled cart. Before this, he had only seen pictures of castles, but the place they took him was the real thing, its towers dark and overhanging, its big stone walls sharply angled. They climbed through shadowed streets that went skumpety skumpety beneath the cart’s wheels. The long-necked dogs hadn’t hurt him, but the straps were awfully tight. He couldn’t sit up; he couldn’t see to the sides. He asked about Mom and Dad and Johanna, and he cried a little. A long snout appeared by his face, the soft nose pushing at his cheek. There was a buzzing sound he felt all the way down to his bones. He couldn’t tell if the gesture was comfort or threat, but he gasped and tried to stop the tears. They didn’t befit a good Straumer, anyway.

  More white-jacketed dogs, ones with silly shoulder patches of gold and silver.

  His cot was being dragged again, this time down a torch-lit tunnel. They stopped by a double door, two meters wide but scarcely one high. A pair of metal triangles was set in the blond wood. Later Jefri learned they signified a number—fifteen or thirty-three, depending on whether you counted by legs or fore-claws. Much, much later he learned that his keeper had counted by legs and the builder of the castle by fore-claws. Thus he ended up in the wrong room. It was a mistake that would change the history of worlds.

  Somehow the dogs opened the doors and dragged Jefri in. They clustered around the cot, their snouts tugging loose his restraints. He had a glimpse of rows of needle-sharp teeth. The gobbling and buzzing was very loud. When Jefri sat up, they backed off. Two of them held the doors as the other four exited. The doors slammed shut and the circus act was gone.

  Jefri stared at the doors for a long moment. He knew it was no circus act; the dog things must be intelligent. Somehow they had surprised his parents and sister. Where are they? He almost started to cry again. He hadn’t seen them by the spaceship. They must have been captured, too. They were all being held prisoner in this castle, but in separate dungeons. Somehow they must find each other!

  He climbed to his feet, swayed dizzily for a moment. Everything still smelled like smoke. It didn’t matter; it was time to start working on getting out. He walked around the room. It was huge, and not like any dungeon he’d seen in stories. The ceiling was very high, an arching dome. It was cut by twelve vertical slots. Sunlight fell in a dust-moted stream from one of them, splashing off the padded wall. It was the room’s only illumination, but more than enough on this sunny day. Low-railed balconies stuck out from the four corners of the room just below the dome. He could see doors in the walls behind them. Heavy scrolls hung by the side of each balcony. There was writing on them, really big print. He walked to the wall and felt the stiff fabric. The letters were painted
on. The only way you could change the display was by rubbing it out. Wow. Just like olden times on Nyjora, before Straumli Realm! The baseboard below the scrolls was black stone, glossy. Someone had used scraps of chalk to draw on it. The stick-figure dogs were crude; they reminded Jefri of pictures little kids draw in kinderschool.

  He stopped, remembering all the children they had left aboard the boat, and on the ground around it. Just a few days ago, he’d been playing with them at the High Lab school. The last year had been so strange—boring and adventurous at the same time. The barracks had been fun with all the families together, but the grownups hardly ever had time to play. At night the sky was so different from Straum’s. “We’re beyond the Beyond,” Mom had said, “making God.” When she first said it, she laughed. Later when people said it, they seemed more and more scared. The last hours had been crazy, the coldsleep drills finally for real. All his friends were in those boxes… He wept into the awful silence. There was no one to hear, no one to help him.

  After a few moments he was thinking again. If the dogs didn’t try to open the boxes, his friends should be okay. If Mom and Dad could make the dogs understand…

  Strange furniture was scattered around the room: low tables and cabinets, and racks like kids’ jungle gyms—all made from the same blond wood as the doors. Black pillows lay around the widest table. That one was littered with scrolls, all full of writing and still drawings. He walked the length of one wall, ten meters or so. The stone flooring ended. There was a two-by-two bed of gravel where the walls met. Something smelled even stronger than smoke here. A bathroom smell. Jefri laughed: they really were like dogs!

  The padded walls soaked up his laughter, echoless. Something… made Jefri look up and across the room. He’d just assumed he was alone here; in fact, there were lots of hiding places in this “dungeon.” For a moment, he held his breath and listened. All was silent… almost: at the top of his hearing, up where some machines wheep, and Mom and Dad and even Johanna couldn’t hear—there was something.

  “I—I know you’re here,” Jefri said sharply, his voice squeaking. He stepped sideways a few paces, trying to see around the furniture without approaching it. The sound continued, obvious now that he was listening to it.

  A small head with great dark eyes looked around a cabinet. It was much smaller than the creatures that had brought Jefri here, but the shape of the muzzle was the same. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Jefri edged slowly toward it. A puppy? The head withdrew, then came further out. From the corner of his eye, Jefri saw something move—another of the black forms was peering at him from under the table. Jefri froze for a second, fighting panic. But there was no place to run, and maybe the creatures would help find Mom. Jefri dropped to one knee and slowly extended his hand. “Here

  … here, doggy.”

  The puppy crawled from beneath the table, its eyes never leaving Jefri’s hand. The fascination was mutual; the puppy was beautiful. Considering all the thousands of years that dogs have been bred by humans (and others), this could have been some oddball breed… but only just. The hair was short and dense, a deep velour of black and white. The two tones lay in broad swaths with no intermediate grays. This one’s entire head was black, its haunches split between white and black. The tail was a short, unimpressive flap covering its rear. There were hairless patches on its shoulders and head, where Jefri could see black skin. But the strangest thing was the long, supple neck. It would look more natural in a sea’mal than a dog.

  Jefri wiggled his fingers, and the puppy’s eyes widened, revealing an edge of white around the iris.

  Something bumped his elbow, and Jefri almost jumped to this feet. So many! Two more had crept up to look at his hand. And where he had seen the first one there were now three, sitting alertly, watching. Seen in the open, there was nothing unfriendly or scary about them.

  One of the puppies put a paw on Jefri’s wrist and pressed gently downward. At the same time, another extended its muzzle and licked Jefri’s fingers. The tongue was pink and raspy, a round narrow thing. The high-pitched wheeping got stronger; all three moved in, grabbing at his hand with their mouths.

  “Be careful!” Jefri said, jerking back his hand. He remembered the grownups’ teeth. Suddenly the air was full of gobbling and buzzing. Hmp. They sounded more like goofy birds than dogs. One of the other pups came forward. It extended a sleek nose toward Jefri. “Be careful!” it said, a perfect playback of the boy’s voice… yet its mouth was closed. It angled its neck back… to be petted? He reached out; the fur was so soft! The buzzing was very loud now. Jefri could feel it through the fur. But it wasn’t just the one animal who was making it; the sound came from all directions. The puppy reversed direction, sliding its muzzle across the boy’s hand. This time he let the mouth close on his fingers. He could see teeth all right, but the puppy carefully kept them from touching Jefri’s skin. The tip of its snout felt like a pair of small fingers closing and opening around his.

  Three slipped under his other arm, like they wanted to be petted too. He felt noses poking at his back, trying to pull his shirt out of his pants. The effort was remarkably coordinated, almost as if a two-handed human had grabbed his shirt. Just how many are there? For a moment he forgot where he was, forgot to be cautious. He rolled over and began petting the marauders. A surprised squeaking sound came from all directions. Two crawled beneath his elbows; at least three jumped on his back and lay with their noses touching his neck and ears.

  And Jefri had what seemed a great insight: The adult aliens had recognized he was a child; they just didn’t know how old. They had put him in one of their own kinderschools! Mom and Dad were probably talking to them right now. Things were going to turn out all right after all.

  Lord Steel had not taken his name casually: steel, the most modern of metals; steel, that takes the sharpest edge and never loses it; steel, that can glow red hot, and yet not fail; steel, the blade that cuts for the flenser. Steel was a crafted person, Flenser’s greatest success.

  In some sense, the crafting of souls was nothing new. Brood kenning was a limited form of it, though mainly concerned with gross physical characteristics. Even kenners agreed that a pack’s mental abilities derived from its various members in different measures. One pair or triple was almost always responsible for eloquence, another for spatial intuition. The virtues and vices were even more complex. No single member was the principal source of courage, or of conscience.

  Flenser’s contribution to the field—as to most others—had been an essential ruthlessness, a cutting away of all but the truly important. He experimented endlessly, discarding all but the most successful results. He depended on discipline and denial and partial death as much as on clever member selection. He already had seventy years of experience when he created Steel.

  Before he could take his name, Steel spent years in denial, determining just what parts of him combined to produce the being desired. That would have been impossible without Flenser’s enforcement. (Example: if you dismissed a part of yourself essential for tenacity, where could you get the will to continue the flensing?) For the soul in creation, the process was mental chaos, a patchwork of horror and amnesia. In two years he had experienced more change than most people do in two centuries—and all of it directed. The turning point came when he and Flenser identified the trio that weighed him down with both conscience and slowness of intellect. One of the three bridged the others. Sending it into silence, replacing it with just the right element, had made the difference. After that, the rest was easy; Steel was born.

  When Flenser had left to convert the Long Lakes Republic, it was only natural that his most brilliant creation should take over here. For five years Steel had ruled Flenser’s heartland. In that time he had not only conserved what Flenser built, he extended it beyond the cautious beginnings.

  But today, in a single circling of the sun about Hidden Island, he could lose everything.

  Steel stepped into the meeting hall and looked around. Refreshments were properly set. Sunlight streamed from a ceiling slit onto just the place he wanted. Part of Shreck, his aide, stood on the far side of the room. He said to it, “I will speak with the visitor alone.” He did not use the name “Flenser". The whitejackets groveled back and its unseen members pushed open the far doors.