A Fire Upon the Deep (34 page)

Ravna came to the cargo deck as Blueshell and Greenstalk were preparing the trellises for delivery. She moved hesitantly, pushing awkwardly from point to point. There were dark rings, almost bruises, beneath her eyes. She returned Pham's hug almost tentatively, but didn't let go. "I want to help. Is there anything I can do to help?"

The Skroderiders left their trellises and rolled over. Blueshell ran a frond gently across Ravna's arm, "Nothing for you to do now, my lady Ravna. We have everything well, ah, in hand. We'll be back in less than an hour, and then we can be rid of here."

But they let her check their cameras and the cargo strap-downs. Pham drifted close by her as she inspected the trellises. The twisted carbon blocks looked stranger than the one alone had. Properly stacked, they fit perfectly. More than a meter across, the stack looked like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle carved from coal. Counting a separate bag of loose spares, they totaled less than half a kilogram.
Huh.
Damn things should be flammable as hell. Pham resolved to play with the remaining hundred odd trellises after they were safely back in deep space.

Then the Skroderiders were through the cargo lock with their delivery, and they could only follow along on their cameras.

This secondary harbor was not really part of the tusk-leg race's terrane. The inside of the arc was far different from what they had seen on the Skroderiders' first trip. There were no exterior views. Cramped passages wound between irregular walls pocked with dark holes. Insects flew everywhere, often covering parts of the camera balls. To Pham, the place looked filthy. There was no evidence of the terrane's owners -- unless they were the pallid worms that sometimes stuck a featureless head(?) up from a burrow hole. Over his voice link, Blueshell opined that these were very ancient tenants of the RIP system. After a million years, and a hundred transcendent emigrations, the residue might still be sentient, but stranger than anything evolved in the Slow Zone. Such a people would be protected from physical extinction by ancient automation, but they would also be inward turning, totally cautious, absorbed in concerns that were inane by any outside standard. It was the type that most often lusted after trellis work.

Pham tried to keep an eye on everything. The Riders had to travel almost four kilometers from the harbor lock to reach the place where the trellises would be "validated". Pham counted two exterior locks along the way, and nothing that looked especially threatening -- but then how would he know what "threatening" looked like here? He had the
OOB
mount an exterior watch. A large shepherd satellite floated on the outer side of the ring, but there were no other ships in this harbor. The EM and ultra-environment seemed placid, and what could be seen on the local net did not make the ship's defenses suspicious.

Pham looked up from the reports. Ravna had drifted across the deck to the outside view. The repair work was visible, though not spectacular. A pale greenish aura hung around the damaged spines. It was scarcely brighter than the glow you often see on ship hulls in low planetary orbit. She turned and said softly, "Is it really getting fixed?"

"As far as we can -- I mean yes." Ship's automation was monitoring the regrowth, but they wouldn't know for sure till they tried to fly with it.

Pham was never sure why Rihndell had the Skroderiders pass through the wormheads' terrane; maybe, if the creatures were the ultimate trellis users, they wanted a look at the sellers. Or maybe it had some connection with the treachery that ultimately followed. In any case the Riders were soon out of it, and into a polyspecific concourse as crowded as any low-tech bazaar.

Pham's jaw sagged. Everywhere he looked there was a different class of sophont. Intelligent life is a rare development in the universe; in all his life in the Slow Zone, he had known three nonhuman races. But the universe is a big place, and with ultradrive it was easy to find other life. The Beyond collected the detritus of countless migrations, an accumulation that finally made civilization ubiquitous. For a moment he lost track of his surveillance programs and his general suspicions, drowned in the wonder of it. Ten species? Twelve? Individuals brushed familiarly by one another. Even Relay had not been like this. But then Harmonious Repose was a civilization lost in stagnation. These races had been part of the RIP complex for thousands of years. The ones that could interact had long since learned to do so.

And nowhere did he see butterfly wings on creatures with large, compassionate eyes.

He heard a small sound of surprise from the far side of the deck. Ravna was standing close by a window that looked out from one of Greenstalk's side cameras. "What is it, Rav?"

"Skroderiders. See?" She pointed into the mob and zoomed the view. For a moment the images towered over her. Through the passing chaos he had a glimpse of hull forms and graceful fronds. Except for cosmetic stripes and tassles, they looked very familiar indeed.

"Yeah, there's a small colony of them hereabouts." He opened the channel to Greenstalk and told her about the sighting.

"I know. We ... smelled them. Sigh. I wish we had time to visit them after this. Finding friends in far places ... always nice." She helped Blueshell push the trellises around a balloon acquarium. They could see Rihndell's people just ahead. Six tusk-legs sat on the wall around what might be test equipment.

Blueshell and Greenstalk pushed their ball of frothy carbon into the group. The scrimshawed one leaned close to the pile and reached out to fondle the pieces with its tiny arms. One after another the trellises were placed in the tester. Blueshell moved in close to watch, and Pham set the main windows to look through his cameras. Twenty seconds passed. Rihndell's Trisk interpreter said, "First seven test true, make an interlocked septet."

Only then did Pham realize he had been holding his breath. The next three "septets" passed, too. Another sixty seconds. He glanced at the ship's repair status.
OOB
considered the job done but for sign-off commit from the local net.
Another few minutes and we can kiss this place goodbye!

But there are always problems. Saint Rihndell bitched about the twelfth and fifteenth sets. Blueshell argued at length, grudgingly produced replacement pieces from his bag of spares. Pham couldn't tell if the Skroderider was debating for the fun of it, or if he really was short on good replacements.

Twenty-five sets okayed.

"Where is Greenstalk going?" said Ravna.

"What?" Pham called up the view from Greenstalk's cameras. She was five meters from Blueshell and moving away. He panned wildly about. A local Skroderider was on her left and another floated inverted above her. Its fronds touched hers in apparently amiable conversation. "
Greenstalk!
" There was no reply.

"Blueshell! What's happening?" But that Rider was in gesticulating argument with the tusk-legs. Still another set of trellises had failed their examination. "
Blueshell!
" After a moment the Rider's voice came over their private channel. He sounded drifty, the way he often did when he was jammed or overloaded. "Not to bother me now, Sir Pham. I'm down to three perfect replacements. I must persuade these fellows to settle for what they already have."

Ravna broke in, "But what about Greenstalk? What's happening to her?" The cameras had lost sight of each other. Greenstalk and her companions emerged from a dense crowd and floated across the middle of the concourse. They were using gas jets instead of wheels. Someone was in a hurry.

The seriousness of events finally got through to Blueshell. The view from his skrode turned wildly as he rolled back and forth around Saint Rihndell's people. There was the rattle of Rider talk and then his voice came back on the inside channel, plaintive and confused. "She's gone. She's gone. I must ... I have to ...." Abruptly he rolled back to the tusk legs and resumed the argument that had just been interrupted. After a couple of seconds his voice came back on the inside channel. "What should I do, Sir Pham? I have a sale here still incomplete, yet my Greenstalk has wandered off."

Or been kidnapped.
"Get us the sale, Blueshell. Greenstalk will be okay....
OOB
: Plan B." He grabbed a headset and pushed off from the console.

Ravna rose with him. "Where are you going?"

He grinned. "Out. I thought Saint Rihndell might lose his halo when the crunch came -- and I made plans." She followed him as he glided toward the floor hatch. "Look. I want you to stay on deck. I can only carry so much snoop equipment; I'll need your coordination."

"But --"

He went through the hatch head first, missing the rest of her objection. She didn't follow, but a second later her voice was back, in his headset. Some of the tremor was gone from her voice; the old Ravna was there, fighting out from under her other problems. "Okay, I'll back you ... but what can we
do
?"

Pham pulled himself hand over hand down the passageway, accelerating to a speed that would have left a lubber caroming off the walls. Ahead loomed the uncompromising wall of the cargo lock. He swatted a hand gently at the wall and flipped head over heels. He dragged his hands precisely against the wall flanges, slowing just enough so the impact with the hatch did not break his ankles. Inside the lock, the ship had his suit already power up.

"Pham, you can't go out." Evidently she was watching through the lock's cameras. "They'll know we're a human expedition."

His head and shoulders were already in the suit's top shell. He felt the bottom pushing up around him, the seals fastening. "Not necessarily."
And by now it probably doesn't matter.
"There are plenty of two-arm/two-leg critters around, and I've glued some camouflage to this outfit." He cupped his chin in the helmet controls and reset the displays. The armored pressure suit was a very primitive thing compared to the field suits of Relay. Yet the Qeng Ho would have given a starship for this gear. He'd originally put the thing together to impress the Tines,
but it's going to get some early testing.

He chinned up the outside view, what Ravna was seeing: his figure was unrelieved black, more than two meters tall. The hands were backed with carapace-claws and every edge of his figure was razor sharp and spined. These most recent additions should break the lines of the strictly human form, and hopefully be intimidating as hell.

Pham cycled the lock and pushed off, into the wormheads' terrane. Walls of mud stood all around, misty in humid air and swarms of insects.

Ravna's voice was in his ear. "I've got a low-level query, probably automatic: 'Why you send third negotiator?'"

"Ignore it."

"Pham, be careful. These Middle Beyond cultures, the old ones, they keep nasty things in reserve. Otherwise they wouldn't still be around."

"I'll be a good citizen."
As long as I'm treated nice.
He was already halfway to the concourse gate. He chinned up a small window from Blueshell's camera. All this high-bandwidth comm was courtesy of the local net. Strange that Rihndell was still providing the service. Blueshell seemed to be negotiating still. Maybe there
wasn't
a scam ... or anyway, not one that Saint Rihndell was in on.

"Pham, I've lost the video from Greenstalk, just as she went into some kind of tunnel. Her location beacon is still clear."

The concourse gate made an opening for him, and then Pham was in the crowded, market volume. He heard the raucous hubbub even through his armor. He moved slowly, sticking to the most uncrowded paths, following guide ropes that threaded the space. The mob was no problem. Everyone made way, some with almost panicky haste. Pham didn't know whether it was his razor spines or the trace of chlorine his suit "leaked".
Maybe that last touch was a bit much.
But the whole point was to look nonhuman. He slowed even more, doing his best not to nick anyone. Something awfully like a target-designation laser flickered in his rear window. He ducked quickly around an aquarium as Ravna said, "The terrane just complained to your suit: 'You are in violation of dress-code' is how the translation comes out."

Is it my chlorine B.O., or have they detected the guns?
"What about outside? Any Butterflies in sight?"

"No. Ship activity hasn't changed much during the last five hours. No Aprahanti movement or change in comm status." Long pause. Indirectly from the
OOB
bridge he could hear Blueshell talking with Ravna, the words indistinct but excited. He jabbed around, trying to find the direct connection. Then Ravna was talking to him again. "Hei! Blueshell says Rihndell has accepted the shipment! He's onloading the agrav fabric right now. And
OOB
just got a commit on the repairs!" So they were ready to fly -- except that three of them were still ashore, and one of them was missing.

Pham floated over the top of the aquarium and finally caught direct sight of Blueshell. He tweaked the suit's gas jets very carefully and settled down beside the Rider.

His arrival was about as welcome as finger-mites at a picnic. The scrimshawed one had been chattering away, tapping his articulated artwork on the wall as his helper translated into Trisk. Now the creature drew in his tusks, and the neck arms folded themselves. The others followed suit. All of them sidled up the wall, away from Blueshell and Pham. "Our business is now complete. We don't know where your friend has gone," said the Trisk interpreter.

Blueshell's fronds extended after them, wavering. "B-but just a little guidance is all we need. Who --" It was no use. Saint Rihndell and his merry crew kept going. Blueshell rattled in abrupt frustration. His fronds angled slightly, turning all attention on Pham Nuwen. "Sir Pham, I am doubting now your expertise as a trader. Saint Rihndell might have helped."

"Maybe." Pham watched the tusk-legs disappear into the crowd, pulling the trellises behind them like a big black balloon. Ugh. Maybe Rihndell was simply an honest trader. "What are the chances that Greenstalk would abandon you in the middle of something like that?"

Blueshell dithered for a moment. "In an ordinary trade stop, she might have noticed some extraordinary profit opportunity. But here, I --"