A Fire Upon the Deep

Peregrine watched the progress of the whitejackets and its travois. It wasn't going with the others; in a few seconds it would be out of sight. With a disguise, maybe they could follow and — no, it was just too risky. He was beginning to think like the great spy. Peregrine pulled a camouflage jacket off a corpse. They would still need disguises. Maybe they could hang around here through the night, and get a closer look at the flying house.

After a moment, Scriber saw what he was doing, and began gathering jackets for himself. They slunk between the piled bodies, looking for gear that wasn't too stained and that Jaqueramaphan thought had consistent insignia. There were plenty of paw claws and battle axes around. They'd end up armed to the teeth, but they'd have to dump some of their backpacks… One more jacket was all he needed, but his Rum was so broad in the shoulders that nothing fit.

Peregrine didn't really understand what happened till later: a large fragment, a threesome, was lying doggo in the pile of dead. Perhaps it was grieving, long after its member's dying dirge; in any case, it was almost totally thoughtless until Peregrine began pulling the jacket off its dead member. Then, "You'll not rob from mine!" He heard the buzz of nearby rage, and then there was slashing pain across his Rum's gut. Peregrine writhed in agony, leaped upon the attacker. For a moment of mindless rage, they fought. Peregrine's battle axes slashed again and again, covering his muzzles with blood. When he came to his senses one of the three was dead, the others running into the mob of wounded.

Wickwrackrum huddled around the pain in his Rum. The attacker had been wearing tines. Rum was slashed from ribs to crotch. Wickwrackrum stumbled; some of his paws were caught in his own guts. He tried to nose the ruins back into his member's abdomen. The pain was fading, the sky in Rum's eyes slowly darkening. Peregrine stifled the screams he felt climbing within him. I'm only four, and one of me is dying! For years he'd been warning himself that four was just too small a number for a pilgrim. Now he'd pay the price, trapped and mindless in a land of tyrants.

For a moment, the pain eased and his thoughts were clear. The fight hadn't really caused much notice amid the dirges, rapes, and simple attacks of madness. Wickwrackrum's fight had only been a little bigger and bloodier than usual. The whitejackets by the flying house had looked briefly in their direction, but were now back to tearing open the alien cargo.

Scriber was sitting nearby, watching in horror. Part of him would move a little closer, then pull back. He was fighting with himself, trying to decide whether to help. Peregrine almost pleaded with him, but the effort was too great. Besides, Scriber was no pilgrim. Giving part of himself was not something Jaqueramaphan could do voluntarily…

Memories came flooding now, Rum's efforts to sort things out and let the rest of him know all that had been before. For a moment, he was sailing a twinhull across the South Sea, a newby with Rum as a pup; memories of the island person who had born Rum, and of packs before that. Once around the world they had traveled, surviving the slums of a tropic collective, and the war of the Plains Herds. Ah, the stories they had heard, the tricks they had learned, the people they had met… Wic Kwk Rac Rum had been a terrific combination, clear-thinking, lighthearted, with a strange ability to keep all the memories in place; that had been the real reason he had gone so long without growing to five or six. Now he would pay perhaps the greatest price of all…

Rum sighed, and could not see the sky anymore. Wickwrackrum's mind went, not as it does in the heat of battle when the sound of thought is lost, not as it does in the companionable murmur of sleep. There was suddenly no fourth presence, just the three, trying to make a person. The trio stood and patted nervously at itself. There was danger everywhere, but beyond its understanding. It sidled hopefully toward a sixsome sitting nearby — Jaqueramaphan? — but the other shooed it away. It looked nervously at the mob of wounded. There was completeness there… and madness too.

A huge male with deeply scarred haunches sat at the edge of the mob. It caught the threesome's eye, and slowly crawled across the open space toward them. Wic and Kwk and Rac back away, their pelts puffing up in fright and fascination; the scarred one was at least half again the weight of any of them.