Tatja Grimm's World by Vernor Vinge
Ancho had barely changed the illusion he broadcast when Tatja and Jolle entered the tent. He couldn’t risk looking around the corner of the stand. He held his breath and waited to be discovered. Although the perfume was pleasant in small doses, in high concentrations it brought a nearly overpowering desire to sneeze. He heard them sit on the low couch, and wondered how the interior of the tent could ever have seemed dim. The sunlight coming down from the ceiling vents splashed over the blue-green rug. Why, his footprints might still be visibly impressed in the pile!
“Feral or sport?” Tatja’s soft voice came from the area of the couch.
“Feral. Shipwreck, maybe an ambush.” Jolle’s voice sounded perfectly calm. Perhaps Svir hadn’t been detected. On impulse, he reached behind him and pulled again at the leverlatch. It moved smoothly downward and the door swung open. Svir came close to squeaking his surprise. He looked through the little doorway. There was no one in the darkness beyond. Now he had an unpleasant choice: he could remain behind the perfume stand or he could sneak into the wagon. If he moved quickly and quietly, he could probably make it. The doorway was hidden from the couch by the high perfume stand. He would never have dared it without Ancho. Ordinarily Tatja seemed able to hear the faintest sounds. Without the dorfox broadcasting a signal that would put a battle group out of action, she—and probably Jolle — could have heard his heart beating.
In the final analysis it was his curiosity that decided him:
He turned, slipped through the entrance, and quietly shut the door. No alarms sounded. Except for the blood singing in his ears, there was no sound in the wagon. The spider-silk screen provided an almost transparent window on the more brightly lit tent area. Tatja and Jolle were sitting on the couch, and were facing almost directly away from him. There was no sign that he had been discovered. He felt Ancho purring against the side of his neck as the little animal continued to broadcast deception.
Tatja was dressed even more gushily than that morning. A party shawl of virtually transparent silk covered her shoulders. Svir could see the top of her low-cut blouse. Jolle wore a militia uniform. He was pouring drinks. Svir pulled his attention away from the tent and inspected the wagon. It was hot, poorly ventilated. Except for the perfume drifting through the silk screen, he smelled nothing. But it wasn’t completely dark here. Along the length of the wagon, red and orange prisms had been set in the roof. A dim, hellish light filtered through. Everything was a jumble. Along one side he saw a bed and bath. The rest of the room was filled with books and ornately carved cabinets. This seemed more like a wizard’s den than the quarters of a man from the stars. It was hard to believe that just twenty inches away the sun was shining, bats were flying, and pink flowers scattered blue mist through cool mountain air.
Svir looked back through the silk screen. Jolle handed Tatja a goblet of clear wine. They sipped in silence. Then Jolle spoke. “It was sloppy language. But—” he waved broadly “—we’re all the same species. They just don’t have the benefit of engineering of self.”
“Natural state?” Tatja. sounded incredulous.
“Sure. My grandparents even. No. Call it magic.”
“Please?”
Jolle laughed sympathetically at the pleading tone in her voice. He reached out to caress the smooth, clear skin of her neck. She moved closer, and even through the silk screen she seemed dazed.
“Well,” replied the alien, “I can try. But it will just mislead you. You’re asking for an education, not an explanation. There’s drugs, genetic manipulation, and direct amplification. The last was first because it’s easiest, but the deadliest — as the first discovered.”
Svir followed every word closely. He was almost onto what they were talking about. If he could just fill in the blanks—
“Why deadly?” she asked.
“Last last, please,” he answered, and extended his arms around her shoulders, drew her against his chest. She came slowly but without reluctance. Her body had none of the tension that was her usual armor.
Now Jolle’s voice was low, barely audible. His black hair mixed with Tatja’s red. “First first: information?”
“Hmm.” Tatja seemed half asleep, but after a moment of thought her voice came muffled against Jolle’s chest. “Something like the log inverse probability of the signal.”
“Okay. What about noisy, ah, channels? It’s possible to reduce the error rate to arbitrarily low levels with clever coding. True?”
A long silence. She appeared more interested in his neck than the question. Finally her voice came, so low pitched it hardly seemed her own. She was obviously thinking of more important things. “Yes, though it’s more complicated than that. I never thought about that before … .”
Svir came near groaning aloud. The conversation had passed beyond intelligibility just when he thought he might be able to follow it. He looked at the door that had opened so conveniently for him. Perhaps there was some clue as to why it had done so. There was. The door could be locked from the inside by a heavy wooden bar. In a way this was ridiculous, since anyone with a sharp knife could have cut through the silk screen. On the other hand, when the tent was not set up, there was probably a wooden panel fitted over the screen. One end of the bar was enclosed in a metallic collar—an expensive and wasteful ornament. Touching this collar was an (iron?) bar. Around the bar were wound several hundred turns of yellow wire sheathed in transparent resin. There was a fortune in metals here—to what purpose? The wires led away from the bar to a large wooden chest. If he were going to search the wagon, this was the place to start.
He glanced back through the silk screen. The high-powered conversation was over. He couldn’t see Tatja at all, but now her blouse was draped over the back of the couch. He looked away from the screen, blushing. Being a snoop in a good cause didn’t hurt his conscience, but voyeurism was out of his league. No wonder Tatja was so dense when it came to discussing the possibility that Jolle was a bastard. When a goddess is in love, she’s just as irrational as anyone else.
Svir turned and followed the yellow wires to the chest. It was an expensive Sdan piece. He felt the ghoulish hardwood faces, hunting for the tongue-catch the Sdan carpenters worked into their designs. There was a faint buzzing near the box, but he couldn’t see the bug that made the noise. His searching fingers found the catch and the lid came up with silent, counterbalanced precision.
A blue glow radiated from that opening. For an instant he was frozen by the flickering, actinic gleam. He leaned forward. His first impression was that the box was filled with treasure: glowing jewels. The colors and intensities were constantly changing, so it was hard to know the exact size and shape of the gems. Silver boxes were set along the inside walls. The shifting reflections made them seem almost transparent. After a moment, he noticed that the copper wires from the wagon door were connected to one of those little boxes. He looked deep into the pile of “jewels.” Though they were motionless, the changing colors made the pile shimmer like foam on an island shore.
The buzzing sound was louder now. An alarms! The buzz reached a crescendo and became a screeching, inhuman wail. “Master! Help me! I will be stolen!” From the tent, he heard Tatja’s surprised exclamation and the sounds of rapid movement. Svir scrambled to the other end of the wagon. From the inside it was easy to flip the crossbar up and push the door open. As he plunged into the blinding daylight, he heard Jolle enter the wagon.
By luck Svir landed on his feet. As he fell forward, he dug long legs into the ground and sprinted away. Ancho clung to his shoulder and radiated for all he was worth. The nearest guards were more than forty feet away. They knew something strange was happening, but Ancho’s efforts kept them from taking effective action. Even so, a couple of crossbow bolts zipped by him as he fled into the forest. He could hear no pursuers. Apparently Jolle was still in the wagon, inspecting his — slave?
Soon he was deep in the grove, the looproots an arched hallway before him. Only dim and shifting pencils of light penetrated the br
Now he moved cautiously. If Jolle had identified him, there would be a welcoming committee here. He stayed in the forest shadows and looked out at the sun-dappled cots. Cor was lying on her cot—next to someone else! He did a double take, and examined the figure beside her. It didn’t move. In fact, its face was a brown piece of cloth.
Good girl! When she discovered that Tatja was going with Jolle to his tent, she had done the only thing possible—return to their sleeping area and construct an alibi. He moved quickly out of the shadows, pulled the netting aside, and lay down beside his wife. She jerked with surprise. Her hands were clenched white, and there were tears on her cheeks. Together they disassembles the crude dummy, and Svir told her what he had seen, what had happened.
They lay in each other’s arms, and whispered their fears. “He’ll kill us, Svir. We’ve got to talk to Tatja.”
They needed protection, but, “We can’t talk to her yet. She’s probably still with Jolle. And — she’s not herself. She’s worse than this morning. We’ll have to wait until we can get her alone.”
“I can convince her; I know I can.”
“Look, I don’t think Jolle saw me. We’ll be safe as long as we play innocent.” Ancho wormed his way between them, and Svir petted him. There was really nothing more to say.
TWENTY
We have to tell Tatja. All through the day, that imperative had driven Coronadas Ascuasenya. And Cor had to be the one to do the talking; she’d made that clear to Svir. After all the years, there might still be a bond from those first days on the barge. Tatja might be willing to listen, and to see out of the trap into which she had fallen. We have to tell Tatja. The thought was easier than the deed. For what seemed hours, Cor stood near the back of Tatja’s command post, waiting for some break in Marget’s schedule. The queen was managing a war … and now that she had Jolle, she had no need for her pets.
“—and you can be sure we understand all this, Observer Reynolt. I have no desire to hold your hands under my direct control.” The Tatja that spoke was the Tatja of old: composed, persuasive, tactful. She had made no attempt to use her ostensible position as the absolute ruler of all the Continent to overawe the Doomsdayman confronting her.
And every bit of her diplomacy would be required to mollify the angry Doomsday priest. In the starlit darkness, his triplepointed mitre made him look more a seven-foot obelisk than a human being. He spoke with the sarcastic servility of a subordinate who thinks he has the upper hand. “Your Majesty must know that we Doo’d’en would never ascribe such motives to Your Sacred Person. But in our ignorance, we beg to know why you destroyed parts of the Riverside Road, why you razed Kotta-svo-Picchiu, why you destroyed the sacred eye there, and why you now set an army on the farmlands beneath our capital.”
Tatja was a vague shadow by the low field table, but her voice was clear and distinct. “Observer, for all four incursions we tender our apologies, and for the first three we offer reparations. However, when you understand the situation, I believe you will thank us. You reprove us for acts of war, committed to protect your most holy places from the Rebel army, which even now masses below us. Do you realize what will happen if the Rebels are not defeated? They are the ones who first invaded your territories. They are the ones who desecrated the Kotta Eye before it was destroyed. Though I cannot present proof now, the Rebels’ ultimate goal is the destruction of the High Eye itself.”.
The priest had no immediate answer to this. He turned to the window-hole of the stone farmhouse that was Tatja’s command post. From outside came the creak and crunch of Doo’d’en wagons carrying bombs and men to their positions, but there was very little for Observer Reynolt to see. Somewhere above them was O’rmouth, capital of Doomsday, and thousands of feet above that, the observatory itself. Two thousand feet below the farmhouse was the Picchiu River, and the mouth of the glacier that fed it. And somewhere down there were twenty-three thousand Loyalists and an unknown number of Rebels.
The crown’s generals stood uneasily behind their queen. Cor heard Haarm Wechsler whispering indignantly at Imar Stark, the crown’s chief of staff. The military didn’t think the Doomsdaymen should be cajoled. If these provincials refused to fight for their queen, they should be ignored until after the battle, and then dealt with as traitors. It seemed a waste of time to stand here debating while the opposing armies took their positions. And it seemed doubly strange that a militia leader should be in charge of that deployment. At this moment Jolle and midrank staff officers were down there in the darkness, deploying crossbow men, ground obstacles, FAOs, and art’ry pieces. Soon there would be nothing peaceful about the night.
Finally Observer Reynolt spoke. Some of the false servility was gone from his voice. “Yes, Marget, we realize this. We are very unhappy about the situation: you have caused us as much damage as the Rebels. But in the past you have been just and have truly protected us. What aid do you require? Your army — if our reports are accurate — is much larger than any trained force we Doo’d’en could field. And we have none of the bomb throwers which both you and the Rebels have.”
Tatja laughed softly. “My troops arc great. They can whip twice their number — at sea level. But now we’re at fourteen thousand feet. I am sure you understand — even if my own advisors do not—what these altitudes do to unacclimated troops. My forces already hold decisive advantages: high ground, artillery superiority. But to be sure of victory I want two or three thousand Doomsday fighting men, uh, Celestial Servants.” She turned to her chief of staff. “How much time do we have, Immy?”
“The Provincial claims the Rebels won’t be in position for another six hours. Twilight begins about seven-thirty this morning, so we can expect engagement in six to eight hours.”
“Observer Reynolt, it is now thirty-nine-thirty,” she said. “Can you get a battle group of Celestial Servants into my command by four-thirty tomorrow morning?”
“Marget, permit me to signal O’rmouth. If my superiors approve, the Servants will be at your disposal in less than four hours.” The priest gave a shallow bow which was Somehow more respectful than the extravagant obeisance he had made earlier.
On Reynolt’s departure, the generals moved in to discuss the details of the deployment. Strangely, Tatja made no move to dominate or even to participate in the conversation.
Soon she left the small stone building. Cor and Svir followed her. The newly plowed field outside was steeply sloping, and several times Cor nearly wrenched her foot in the narrow furrows. Ancho held tight to her neck. She had never imagined that ground this rough could be cultivated. Even though terraced, the fields had twenty-degree slopes. Only the hardiest vegetation could survive at these altitudes and in this soil.
Tatja stopped at the edge of the terrace and sat down. Cor felt Svir clutch her elbow. He wanted to pull her back, set himself in front of her. She disengaged his hand, held it for a moment. They had argued this over and over. If anyone could make the point that had to be made, it was she and not Svir.
Tatja’s voice was soft against the creaking of wagon wheels. “Sit down, you two.” They sat. “What do you think of the situation?”
Here was the moment they had waited fifteen hours for: Tatja was alert, no longer the soft, yielding girl she had been with Jolle; that was obvious from the way she had just handled the Doomsday priest. They would never have a better chance to try to convince her of Jolle’s real objectives. In fact, they might never have another chance. If Profirio were destroyed this night, which seemed likely, Jolle would be left unopposed, and would have no further need of Tatja. Yet now Cor’s throat seemed frozen. She remembered what Svir had seen in the tent. Tatja had finally gotten wh
The silence stretched on for an endless moment. Finally it was Svir who answered the queen’s question in a voice a bit too high and forced to be natural. “I thought it was really something of a masterstroke, that of convincing the priest to let us use his men.”
Tatja. laughed for the second time that night. “No,” she said softly, “just the natural thing to do. And he really had to do what we asked. They know Profirio has caused much of the damage, and I have treated them fairly in the past. Too bad they’re such a bunch of fanatics. I wonder what their reaction will be when they find out that my side intends to desecrate the High Eye with its presence. I can just imagine their scream of ‘Betrayal.’
“But Marget,” said Cor, puzzled. “You already say that we are poor fighters, even at fourteen thousand feet. We’ll be much worse at O’rmouth, and the observatory is nearly ten thousand feet above that. How can you expect success there?”
“You’ll see. I assure you, there will be nothing subtle about it. Jolle and I are sure it will work. In the meantime, we have a competent adversary down there below us. I’d give a lot to know what he is planning.”
So the conversation was back to that. She must speak now, Cor realized. Jolle would soon return from the front lines, and then it would be impossible to bring the matter up. Even if the alien didn’t kill them before they could finish the story, he could certainly persuade Tatja that it was a fabrication.