Author: Joan D. Vinge
Category: Science
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“Forgive me, Jerusha.” Fairhaven put out a hand, touching Jerusha’s arm, a gesture that was somehow both apology and the comfort of one woman reaching out to another. Fairhaven had never addressed her as anything but “Commander” before; the combination took her doubly by surprise. “But I suffered my share of stillborn babes … three I lost, out of seven I bore with my pledged. It was hard, hard.…” Her mouth tightened, although Jerusha knew her children were all grown; the memories of her losses must be old ones now. She looked up again, sighing. “The Lady gives, and She takes away.… We had a saying in the islands, you know, that you should let nine days pass before you took to your work again. Three for the baby’s sake, three for the mother’s sake, three for the Lady’s sake.”
Jerusha smiled, faintly. Her head was still buzzing from the native painkillers she had been chewing the past few days. They had used up their own small stock of offworlder drugs, on her previous miscarriages and other small disasters. “But I don’t worship the Lady. And as for me, I’d rather work than brood. So I’ve taken time enough off.”
Fairhaven shook her head. Her graying, sand-colored braids rolled against her tunic with the motion. “It’s still good advice, you know. To take time to grieve is only right. Otherwise you suffer more, in the long run.”
Jerusha forced herself to control the sudden annoyance that filled her. And she remembered, unexpectedly, the face of one of the men under her old command—her assistant, Gundhalinu, on the day he had received news of his father’s death. She remembered his stubborn Kharemoughi pride; his refusal even to acknowledge his loss, until finally she had ordered him to take the rest of the day off to grieve.… She rubbed her eyes, turning away.
She was saved from having to make a further response by a sound like thunder that echoed through the underworld of the docks. She turned back to Fairhaven, meeting her stare. “A ship’s fallen—” Fairhaven said, as the sound of voices shouting filled the stunned silence that followed the crash. They turned together, not needing words; started to run, as others were running now, toward the site of the accident. As they approached she heard pain-cries, before she could even make out what had happened through the wall of milling bodies.
She pushed through the crowd until she had a clear view, taking it all in at a glance: the ship that had been winched up for repairs, the chain that had snapped and let it fall sideways onto the dock, the two men pinned beneath it. As many workers as could press their backs against the hull were already straining to lift it; but one of the catamaran’s large floats was wedged beneath the pier, and they could get no leverage.
Jerusha looked from the broken length of chain lying on the dock to the pulley high up beneath the city’s underbelly. She looked down again. One of the workers lay unconscious or dead in a pool of blood; the other one, his legs pinned, was still moaning. She tightened her jaw, trying not to listen to the sound, trying to keep her mind clear for thought.
She pulled loose the coiled length of monofilament line she had carried at her belt, ever since her Police-issue binders ceased to function. She knotted one end of the line through the last solid link of broken chain, while the workers looked on, uncomprehending.
She flung the coil of line upward, feeling something half-healed pull painfully inside her; watched with relief and some surprise as it passed through the pulley overhead on her first try. The rope spiraled down to the dock and lay waiting, but nobody moved forward to pick it up. “Come on!” Jerusha shouted. She picked up the rope’s end. “Wind it up!” They stared at her, muttering and shaking their heads.
“Commander,” Fairhaven murmured. “It won’t hold. They know it will snap, it’s too thin—” She nodded at the broken chain, as thick around as Jerusha’s wrist.
“It’ll hold!” Jerusha called sharply, with the sound of the trapped worker’s moans grating inside her like a broken bone. “It will! Winch it up!”
Two dockhands moved forward, looking at her as if she were insane, but having no other alternative. She watched them fasten the line to the winch and begin to crank it. Their motions slowed abruptly, their muscles strained, as the line suddenly grew taut. They went on turning the winch; the line sang briefly as every last millimeter of play was drawn out of it and it began to take the full weight of the ship.
Jerusha held her breath, knowing the line would hold, but still instinctively afraid of disaster. The ship began to crack and groan in turn as its immovable mass surrendered to the irresistible force of the winch’s power—and finally it began to rise.
Dockhands leaped forward to drag the two trapped workers free as the ship began to lift clear. But the two men at the winch kept cranking, and as the rest of the crowd watched in murmuring awe, the ship rose farther. The float that was wedged under the pier’s edge snapped and broke in two, ripping free with a spray of splintered wood. The ship lunged and bucked against the line; gradually stabilized again as the relentless pull lifted it even higher, until it was back in position overhead—and still the line held.
Jerusha tore her own gaze from the ship, to watch the injured workers carried away toward the ramp that rose into the city, toward the hospital. She looked back again as someone embraced her suddenly, awkwardly, before hurrying on past, going after the injured workers.
“Littleharbor’s kinsman,” Fairhaven said, indicating one of the victims, and the man who had just hugged her. Jerusha nodded mutely, wondering with a familiar, morbid weariness whether the two workers could be healed or even helped in any meaningful way by the primitive medical treatment they had now. Miroe had done his best to share what medical training he had with the locals; but without sophisticated equipment and diagnosticators to back it up, his modern methods were hardly more effective than the herbal-remedies-mixed-with-common-sense the Tiamatans had evolved on their own.
“Commander—?” Someone’s voice caught at her hesitantly.
She turned back, finding a crowd of Summers gathered around her. “What is it?” she said.
“How is it possible?” the woman who had spoken asked; asking, Jerusha realized, for them all. “What sort of string is this you carry, that can bear the weight that snapped a chain?”
“It’s called monomolecular line,” she answered. “It’s extremely strong. They say it could lift the entire city of Carbuncle without snapping. It’s from offworld.” She watched their faces, expecting their eyes to glaze over with disinterest as she said those final words … just as they always had, and probably always would. She had come to believe that masochism must be an inherited trait among the Summers; that they were somehow instinctively opposed to making their lives any easier.
But they only came closer, touching the line hesitantly, speculatively, murmuring among themselves about the strength, the lightness, the countless possible uses for netting, bindings, rigging … on a farm … in a cottage. That this was better. All the things that the Queen and her College of Sibyls and the Winter entrepreneurs had been trying to tell them, show them, force on them—forcing it down their throats, when all that had done was make the Summers retch. When they should have been letting those things speak for themselves … letting the Summers think for themselves. Showing, and not telling …
“Is this something the Winters have learned to make?” a large, red-bearded man asked, almost grudgingly.
“Not yet,” Jerusha said. “Someday they will.” She looked down, trying to conceal the sudden inspiration that struck her. “But—there’s a supply of it left in the old government warehouses. If you want it, maybe I could arrange to make it available.…” She shrugged, trying not to sound too eager, not to look as though it mattered to her.
The Summers glanced at each other, their expressions mixed, as if they were trying to gauge one another’s response: whether the person next to them would somehow be the first to get a quantity of the new line, and an advantage over them, all at the same time.
“What would you ask for it?” someone murmured.
She almost said, “No
thing”; stopped, thinking fast. The Summers made most of their own equipment, and preferred barter to the city’s offworlder-based credit system. “We can talk a trade,” she said, and saw their faces begin to come alive as she answered them in their own way. “Come up to the warehouse whenever you finish your work. One of my Summer constables will be there to speak with you.” She saw them nodding, saw their eyes, and knew that sooner or later, some of them would come. And then, with any luck, more would. Shown, not told … There were other things in the warehouses, things that she could have put to casual use in the Summers’ presence, letting them see for themselves that their way of doing things was not the only way, not even necessarily the best. Lost in thought, she scarcely felt the pain of her overtaxed body as she started back up the ramp toward the city.
NUMBER FOUR: Foursgate
“Wake up, you stinking hero. This is no time for sleep—”
Police Commander BZ Gundhalinu gasped and came awake in utter darkness, the sourceless words echoing in his head like a dream. “Wha—?” Dreaming … he had been dreaming. But it was a woman’s face he had been dreaming of, as pale as moonlight, echoed in blue, her arms reaching out to him.…
He rolled toward the edge of the bed, groping for the light, the time, the message function on his bedside table; groping for whatever had wakened him so rudely from the sodden sleep of exhaustion. He had not gotten back to the apartment from the latest in the seemingly endless series of fetes and celebrations honoring him until well after local midnight. He could not possibly have been asleep for more than two or three hours. Who in the name of a thousand gods—?
He found the lamp base, slapped it with his hand—but no light came up. He realized then that he could see nothing at all, not even shadows against the night, the hidden form of a window. His hands flew to his face—rebounded without touching it from the polarized security shield locked in place over his head.
He swore, scrambling out from under the covers on his hands and knees; felt strong arms—more than one set of them—lock around him, jerking him back. He heard the unmistakable crack of a stunner shot in the same instant that the hit impacted against his chest, and shut off his voluntary nervous system. He collapsed in the bedding, paralyzed but completely conscious, furiously aware that he was stark naked, because he had been too exhausted to throw on a sleep shirt before falling into bed.
The hands rolled him roughly onto his back; he heard muttered speech distorted by the shield’s energy field. What do you want—? His slack lips would not form the words that he needed to say—needing desperately to have that much effect on his body, or his fate. He could not swear, could not even moan.
He felt their hands on him again, manhandling him with ruthless efficiency; realized with a sense of gratitude that was almost pathetic that they were wrapping his nerveless body in a robe. They lifted him off the bed, dragging him across the room and toward the door.
Gods, kidnapped—he was being kidnapped. He struggled to control his panic, the only thing left over which he had any control at all; trying to keep his mind working, trying to think. What did they want? “You stinking hero,” they’d called him. Ransom then, terrorism, information about the stardrive, Fire Lake—? Stop it. No way to guess that, he’d probably find out soon enough. Concentrate. What do you already know? He didn’t know how many of them there were, where they were taking him—he grunted as he was dumped unceremoniously into the cramped floorspace of some kind of vehicle, and felt his captors climb in around him. He felt the vehicle rise, carrying them all to gods-only-knew what destination.
Trying to use the only sensory feedback he had left to him, he realized that the vehicle had an oddly familiar smell. He recognized the distinctive odor of bandro, a stimulant drink imported from Tsieh-pun. Most of the Hegemonic Police force stationed here were from Tsieh-pun. Police. Could it be Police involvement? That would explain the equipment, the vehicle, the ruthless efficiency of the way they had made him their prisoner, even the effortless way they had walked in on him through the invisible walls of his security system.…
But what in the name of all his ancestors would make the Police do this to him—? Maybe it was terrorists; maybe they were going to— Oh gods, this is insane, why is this happening to me now—? No. Stop it. No. The stunshock was making it hard to breathe, doubled up in the cramped space. He recited an adhani silently, calming himself, and lay still, because he had no choice. He waited.
They were coming down again. The flight hadn’t been a long one. He must still be within range of Foursgate, at least. He tried to feel encouraged by that fact, and failed. The craft settled almost imperceptibly onto some flat surface, and he was hauled out of the vehicle like the dead weight he was. He was carried into another building, downward … down a long, echoing hall, into a lift which dropped them farther down. Had they landed on a rooftop pad? Or were they going underground? He had no clue.
At last the sickening motion stopped; he was dropped, dead weight again, onto a hard surface. He felt his leaden hands and feet jerked wide and pinioned, felt a sting against his neck as someone gave him the antidote for the muscle paralysis. He took in a deep, ragged breath of relief as control came back to him, felt his muscles spasm as he tried to move his limbs. And then the invisible hands did something by his jaw, dissolving the security field—letting him see and hear at last.
He raised his head, all he could do freely; let it fall back again. He made a sound that wasn’t really a laugh. I’m having a nightmare. This isn’t happening.… What he had seen was too absurd. He was not really lying here like this, inside a cone of stark white light, surrounded by a dozen figures in black star-flecked robes, their identities hidden behind hologramic masks: featureless forms crowned by the image of a Black Gate’s flaming corona, its heart of darkness sucking his vision relentlessly down toward madness. It’s a dream, a flashback, stress, nightmare … wake up, wake up, damn you—!
He did not wake up. His eyes still showed him the same figures, barely visible at the edges of the cone of light which shone relentlessly on his own helpless, half-clad body. He watched silently as one of the figures came toward him, stood over him, gazing down at him with infinity’s face. He had to look away; he turned his face aside and shut his eyes. Sweat trickled down his cheek into his ear; the itch it caused was maddening, agonizing. His hand fisted with exasperation inside its restraint.
The robed figure reached out, touched his straining hand almost comfortingly. The blunt, gloved fingers closed over his own, formed a hidden pattern as distinctive as it was unobtrusive. He stiffened as he recognized it; returned it with sudden hope.
But then the face of flaming nothingness turned back to his own, and suddenly there was a light pencil in the stranger’s hand. The blade of coherent light pricked his throat, touching the trefoil tattoo there; hot enough to make him jump, but not set to burn. An electronically distorted voice asked him, “Are you a sibyl?” The voice gave him no clue to the speaker; he could not even tell if it was a man or a woman.
“Yes,” he whispered, with his eyes still averted from the face of Chaos. “Yes, I am—my blood carries the virus.” Hoping that the implied threat might prevent his suddenly seeing too much of his own blood.
The voice laughed unpleasantly. “Considerate of you to warn us. But this cauterizes nicely.” The faceless figure twitched the light pencil, making the spot of pain dance on Gundhalinu’s neck. “What do you know about Survey?”
“Input—” he murmured, taking the question as one asked of him in his official capacity; taking the easy way out.
“Stop,” the voice ordered, jerking him back into realtime just as his mind began the long fall into the sibyl net. “Answer me yourself. Are you a member of Survey?”
“Yes,” he repeated, reorienting with difficulty. His hand tightened over the memory of the other’s touch. But you know that. Why am I here? Can you help me—? Not asking any of the questions forming in his mind, because he was afraid of what would happen
if there were no answers. The silence when no one was speaking was almost complete; the sound of his own breathing hurt his ears.
“What do you know about Survey?” the voice repeated.
He shook his head, more surprised than frightened now by the unexpected turn of the questioning. Of all the possibilities his frantic brain had offered for this ordeal, his membership in Survey had not been one of them. He stared at the ceiling—if there really was one, in the darkness behind the blinding glare. “It’s a private social and philanthropic organization. Almost everyone I knew—every Technician—on Kharemough seemed to be a member. There are chapters on all the worlds of the Hegemony.” Many members of the Hegemonic Police belonged to it; he had attended meetings on three different worlds. “Look, this is absurd—” He raised his head, with difficulty, to confront the face of nightmare. “What in the name of any god you like do you want from me—?”
“Just answer the question.” The voice thrummed gratingly with its owner’s impatience. The light pencil traced a stinging track down his naked chest and half-exposed stomach to the vicinity of his private parts. His eyes began to water as he felt the heat concentrate there.
He took a deep breath, letting his head fall back again. “What do you want to know—?” His own voice sounded thin and peevish. “You can find out anything I could tell you down at the local meeting hall!”
“Do many sibyls belong to Survey?” the voice asked, ignoring his response.
He thought about it. “Yes. Quite a few.” He had never realized until now what a high percentage of them there were. “But it isn’t a requirement.”
“Do all sibyls belong to it?”
He shook his head, remembering Tiamat. “No.”
“Why not?”
He opened his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why so many of them do belong—” he said, exasperated.
“How old is the organization?”
“I don’t know. Very old, I think. I believe it originated on Kharemough.”