The Tatja Grimm's World (15 page)

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Authors: Vernor Vinge

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Svir looked stupidly at the gray patch that was the folded tent. Itchybites buzzed in the moist, cool air. The tiny bastards would feed well tonight. He fell to his knees and tried to unfasten the tent buckles. Cor joined him. Soon they had the tent spread flat on the ground. He slipped the center pole through the tent fabric and hoisted it. Cor crawled inside and set the floor rods.
Then they were both inside. The ground seemed so soft. He reached for Cor, and she came easily into his arms. His kiss became a snore and he was asleep.
Cor grinned in the darkness. “This is no good, friend. Tomorrow, you get more sleep during the day.”
“L
isten, you pack of traitors. You cost us thirty-five men and three art’ry pieces this afternoon. We’re going to have an explanation or we’re going to have your heads!” In the flickering torchlight, Haarm Wechsler’s face was even paler than usual. “For the last two hours you’ve led us a merry chase all over this camp. But now we’ve found you.” He stopped and stood a little taller. The guardsmen behind him came to attention. “Now you can answer for your infidelity to Marget herself.”
Everyone in the room—Provincial and Bayfastling—came to his feet. Tatja entered the Sfierranyil command tent and looked around. Close behind her came three general officers. Her lips parted in a faint smile and she murmured to Wechsler, “Got’em softened up, Haarm?” She advanced to the table and sat down. “Please be seated, gentles.” Behind her, the Crownesse people uneasily took their seats. On the other side of the table the
Sfierranyil commanders seemed equally upset. Most of the provincial commanders were old men. All but one she recognized from Wechsler’s dossiers. These weren’t the best campaigners in the world, but they should have been loyal.
Her tone remained pleasant. “Now that we are all together, perhaps things can be cleared up. You deceived us this afternoon. Your courier told us you needed immediate artillery support. When we came to your aid, we found you were moving away from us. This misunderstanding cost us men and equipment, and I ask for an explanation.” Her reasonable tone took some of the edge off Wechsler’s previous statement of the question.
A militiaman stood and bowed, his chest of medals glinting in the torchlight. He wiped his hand through tangled white hair, the picture of a general disgraced; even his epaulets drooped. His Spräk was excellent, however. “Marget, what you say is true. There was deception. We can only beg your mercy. We deceived you because we were deceived ourselves. We, uh, our training is not as thorough as might be desired by Your Majesty. We are operating far outside our province. To the north is our enemy and the Doomsdaymen—which latter refuse us aid. To the south is Picchiu Province—whose army is our enemy.” The old man paused. His rambling had taken him so far afield he couldn’t remember his point. Tatja grabbed Wechsler’s elbow before that worthy could make some cutting comment about Sfierranyil mental acuteness. After all, she found normal people almost as dopey as this one.
The militiaman had regained the thread. “Marget, the campaign has taken us further and yet further inland, as we followed
the forces of the Rebel Profirio. We never guessed that your aid would come to us from the south—or that it would arrive so soon. We mistook you for Picchiul reinforcements pretending to be Crownesse troops. Thank the gods that you were so numerous that we could not attack you—only trick you into Rebel fire.
“So. That’s why we deceived you. And that’s why, even when you arrived here, we were circumspect in admitting you to our command area.” The fellow’s head bobbed up and down miserably. Behind Tatja there was some easing of tension: the explanation was credible.
Tatja nodded. “Where is Profirio’s main force now?”
“Uh, we believe it’s across the river, about five miles upstream.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How is that possible? This afternoon we were attacked by his artillery—and that was almost fifteen miles downstream from here.” She produced a small piece of parchment and wrote rapidly upon it.
The young provincial sitting opposite Tatja touched the militiaman’s sleeve and said, “
Deche mau
, Sam.” The old man nodded gratefully and sat down.
As the young man stood, Tatja handed the parchment to a messenger and whispered something to him. The courier nodded and left. She turned back to the provincials. The young fellow was dark, his beard close-trimmed. The expression on his narrow face was unworried, almost sardonic. He wore the uniform of a full general in the provincial militia, but his chest bore not a single medal—which was unusual, since the Sfierranyil Militia gave medals for things like having clean fingernails.
“And who are you?” came Wechsler’s voice.
“Marget, I am Jolle. Until present difficulties I was a commercial chemist, but war makes different things of people, and the Provincial Assembly elected me military commander of this expedition.” There was a faint snort of disgust from the Crown’s Men. They had a saying in the civil service that a nation which elects its generals elects defeat.
Jolle spoke rapidly. He had the right words and syntax, but there was a Sfierro lilt to his pronunciation. “You see, Profirio has split his art’ry from his infantry. So, in fact, our misunderstanding this afternoon may give us a decisive advantage over the Rebels.”
“I Hmm, that would take some explaining.”
Jolle nodded. “This Profirio fellow wants desperately to reach the mountains. We think he figures on persuading the Doomsdaymen to join his cause. After today’s encounter, we know the man has decided to gamble, to leave his art‘ry behind and gain himself speed. I suspect he intended to put his troops between us and O’rmouth, so our artillery fire would provoke the Doomsdaymen to enter the contest on his side. At the same time, his own art‘ry could follow both armies, along the Riverside Road. Thus he would end up with his art’ry on our flank and the Doomsdaymen against us, too.
“Unfortunately for him, the scheme hinged on our ignorance of it. This is why our misunderstanding of this afternoon is for the good: Profirio’s art‘ry commander was flustered by your appearance. He opened fire, and destroyed his master’s plan. Knowing that his art’ry is hopelessly far behind,
we
can use the Riverside Road with impunity. Thus we can get inland the faster, and achieve just the position he wanted for himself.”
Tatja considered. Profirio’s gamble had the ingenuity and daring she expected. It had failed because of a subordinate’s mistake and the unexpected appearance of her troops. There were still edges and ends that didn’t fit, but the more she saw, the more she was convinced that her goal was near.
How quiet everything was. It was late, and the animals of these lands had no Seraph to light their nights. The only sounds were insects creaking. It was hard to believe they were sitting in the midst of an armed camp. Inside the tent, things were quiet too. Even the officers who pretended to be awake sat with their eyes glazed. A sound suspiciously like a snore came from behind her. These poor weak people—given thirty hours of hard work, they were dead on their feet.
She looked up and found Jolle’s dark eyes gazing back. There was something unnatural about this one’s accent. Her next question was not directly related to the events of the day. “Have you any idea where the Rebels got their art’ry in the first place?”
Jolle shrugged. “No. Though he raided the ammunition stockpiles Your Majesty keeps in the provinces. I’ve heard the man is a foreigner.”
“Yes, I’ve, uh, suspected that. But where did you Loyalists get your artillery?”
“Well, the ammunition as Profirio did.”
“And the gun tubes?”
Jolle spread his hands in self-deprecation. “I am a chemist. I beg forgiveness if it displeases the crown, but I designed most of the artillery you see among the Sfierranyii. Without it we would have had no chance to protect Your Majesty’s interests.”
In that instant the silence seemed complete. One dark face filled the sensory universe; time itself slowed as she considered one fantastic possibility and then another.
 
Svir came awake with the lightlreaded alertness that follows a short, uneasy sleep. He swallowed painfully, trying to remove a nauseous taste from his mouth. “What do you want?” he heard Cor say to the figure silhouetted in the entrance to the tent.
The shape whispered, “Ma’am, I have a message for you.” The courier reached forward, fumbled a parchment into Cor’s hand. Svir hunted about in his pack and came up with matches. The light was almost painfully bright.
The courier blew the flame out. “We’re under light security, sir. You can’t do that,” he said.
Svir’s voice was as close to a scream as a whisper can be. “How the hell can we read this without a light!”
“I didn’t make the rules, you—”
Svir was speechless for a second. Then he remembered that he was a person of authority and pulled rank. The messenger backed out of the tent, cowed. Svir carefully unsealed the flap, then lit another match, shielding it with his hand. The message was cryptic and simple: “Azimuth 30°. Do it now—T.”
“Oh, boy. Tatja wants us to go ahead with the Plan.” He began assembling the tripod and signaling equipment. Meanwhile Cor woke Ancho and fed him. The dorfox was not lively; they could expect trouble with him. Finally Cor convinced the little animal that there was a job to do. Ancho clung to her neck as she crawled out of the tent. Svir followed, dragging tripod and signaler.
For the moment, every sensation seemed intense. But his balance was poor and he still had that awful taste in his mouth. This was actually the middle of the night wake period, as practiced in Bayfast. In fact, for him it was nearly lunchtime. The long daylight march and the different sleeping customs of the Upcoast people had inverted his normal schedule. He felt alert only because his natural time sense told him he should be.
The trees were close set. Insect sounds were loud and there were no signs of human activity. Svir peered up through the branches at the stars. He couldn’t see enough sky to recognize constellations. He and Cor moved cautiously along an indistinct path. The air was cool, but his uniform was still damp with sweat. He couldn’t remember having felt more dirty and chilled.
He guided Cor—northward? Upslope, anyway.
There was a man-sized blotch about fifty feet away. He touched Cor’s shoulder, pointed the fellow out to her. He felt her nod. She reached to caress the dorfox. When she was satisfied that Ancho was alert and radiating, they resumed their walk. Svir breathed a nearly audible sigh of relief as they passed the sentry unchallenged. They were almost thirty yards past the hallucinated soldier when a low, determined voice spoke. “Halt. Who goes there?”
Svir froze. Damn. The first sentry was a decoy. They were lucky the second guy bothered to challenge them at all.
“I said, ‘Who goes there?’ Respond or I shoot.”
Svir gulped and said, “Erl Bonnip, trying to find the latrine.” As he spoke, Cor turned and walked toward the voice in the bush. Now that Ancho had noticed the other fellow, he was radiating
I’m-not-here. Since the sentry was already alerted, the signal couldn’t cover Svir’s existence; he must stand exposed.
“Advance and be recognized.”
Svir moved cautiously toward the voice. At best he would be turned back—and that only if the sentry didn’t notice the tripod and signaler he was carrying … .
There was a dull
thunk
and a ruffled groan. Then Cor emerged from the thicket.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I didn’t hit him hard, but Ancho gave him a good dose.”
They continued along the trail. The night no longer seemed particularly tranquil. He knew this job was not the trivial errand Tatja had made it sound. If they weren’t shot by Sfierranyil or Crownesse sentries, there was always the possibility that Rebel infiltrators might get them. The ground sloped down now. Technically they were in the Picchiu River valley. A darkness at the bottom of the sky was the far side of the valley, seven miles away. Svir thought he could see the river itself, glinting here and there between trees. A fatbat cooed somewhere near. How many human eyes watched this scene?
The forest thinned, and they moved quietly into the open. Their first objective was to get far enough from the camp so its position wouldn’t be given away. He swore silently. If Tatja were sure of her theory, why bother? She’d gone over the plan in mind-numbing detail during the voyage from Bayfast. She thought an alien was marooned here, was using native materials and native armies to attain its incomprehensible goals. Now the presumed alien must be contracted, and since this was an operation
at cross purposes with the crown’s official goal, he and Cor must do it on their own. They could get killed, all for an unsupported speculation.
He led Cor into a thicket; they settled down. He looked into the sky, found the Hourglass, and extended its base to intersect the long bar of the Northern Cross. Now that he had north fixed, he could find the azimuth in Tatja’s message: the azimuth of the Rebel camp.
As he set the tripod on the ground and screwed the signaler on it, Cor took out paper and pen, ready to record any answer. He pulled the starting strip and felt the box warm. He grasped the shutter trip and recalled the exact words Tatja wanted sent. The message was in Savoy Mercantile Code, the most common signaling code of Crownesse: AS THE ISLAND APE SAID TO THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR: MAY I AID YOU? Since island apes are brainless, only a very peculiar person would get the point.
He began tripping out the message. The lamp’s shutter flew open and shut with barely audible clicks. The air was clear, and the box was well shielded. He saw no sign of the beam he was casting across the valley. He had barely finished the third word when he saw a light flicker down by the river. He ignored it, concentrated on his own message. Behind him, Cor whispered the letters she was recording from the other signal lamp: “KZTPQ MPAPF RPTOZ DZRNR.”

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