A Fire Upon the Deep

Ravna's voice in his ear was shuddery. "He drove through that even while he was burning?"

"Can't be. He must have been dead after the first few meters. This must all have been on autopilot." Pham tried to forget the agonized reaching of fronds he had seen back in the fire. He blanked out for a moment, staring at the fire-split flesh.

The skrode itself radiated heat. Pilgrim sniffed around it, shying away abruptly when a nose came too close. Abruptly he reached out a steel-tined paw and pulled hard on the scarf that covered the hull.

Johanna screamed and rushed forward. The forms beneath the scarf were unmoving, but unburned. She grabbed her brother by the shoulders, pulling him to the ground. Pham knelt beside her. Is the kid breathing? He was distantly aware of Ravna shouting in his ear, and Pilgrim plucking tiny dogthings off the metal.

Seconds later the boy started coughing. His arms windmilled against his sister. "Amdi, Amdi!" His eyes opened, widened. "Sis!" And then again. "Amdi?"

"I don't know," said the Pilgrim, standing close to the seven — no, eight — grease-covered forms. "There are some mind sounds but not coherent." He nosed at three of puppies, doing something that might have been rescue breathing.

After a moment the little boy began crying, a sound lost in the fire sounds. He crawled across to the puppies, his face right next to one of Pilgrim's. Johanna was right behind him, holding his shoulders, looking first to Pilgrim and then at the still creatures.

Pham came to his knees and looked back at the castle. The fire was a little lower now. He stared a long time at the blackened stump that had been Blueshell. Wondering and remembering. Wondering if all the suspicion had been for naught. Wondering what mix of courage and autopilot had been behind the rescue.

Remembering all the months he had spent with Blueshell, the liking and then the hate — Oh, Blueshell, my friend.

The fires slowly ebbed. Pham paced the edge of receding heat. He felt the godshatter coming finally back upon him. For once he welcomed it, welcomed the drive and the mania, the blunting of irrelevant feeling. He looked at Pilgrim and Johanna and Jefri and the recovering puppy pack. It was all a meaningless diversion. No, not quite meaningless: It had had an effect, of slowing down progress on what was deadly important.

He glanced upwards. There were gaps in the sooty clouds, places where he could see the reddish haze of high-level ash and occasional splotches of blue. The castle's ramparts appeared abandoned, and the battle around the walls had died. "What news?" he said impatiently at the sky.

Ravna: "I still can't see much around you, Pham. Large numbers of Tines are retreating northwards. Looks like a fast, coordinated retreat. Nothing like the 'fight-to-the-last' that we were seeing before. There are no fires within the castle — or evidence of remaining packs either."

Decision. Pham turned back to the others. He struggled to turn sharp commands into reasonable-sounding requests. "Pilgrim! Pilgrim! I need Woodcarver's help. We have to get inside the castle."

Pilgrim didn't need any special persuasion, though he was full of questions. "You're going to fly over the walls?" he asked as he bounded toward him.

Pham was already jogging toward the boat. He boosted Pilgrim aboard, then clambered up. No, he wasn't going to try to fly the damn thing. "No, just use the loudspeaker to get your boss to find a way in."

Seconds later, packtalk was echoing across the hillside. Just minutes more. Just minutes more and I will be facing the Countermeasure. And though he had no conscious notion what might come of that, he felt the godshatter bubbling up for one final takeover, one final effort to do Old One's will. "Where is the Blighter fleet, Rav?"

Her answer came back immediately. She had watched the battle below, and the hammer coming down from above. "Forty-eight light-years out." Mumbled conversation off-mike. "They've speeded up a little. They'll be in-system in four-six hours… I'm sorry, Pham."

— =*=

Crypto: 0

As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc

Language path: Triskweline, SjK units

Apparently From: Sandor Arbitration Intelligence [Not the usual originator, but verified by intermediate sites. Originator may be a branch office or a back-up site.]

Subject: Our final message?

Distribution:

Threat of the Blight, War Trackers Interest Group, Where Are They Now, Extinctions Log

Date: 72.78 days since the Fall of Sjandra Kei

Key phrases: vast new attack, the Fall of Sandor Arbitration

Text of message:

As best we can tell, all our High Beyond sites have been absorbed by the Blight. If you can, please ignore all messages from those sites.

Until four hours ago, our organization comprised twenty civilizations at the Top. What is left of us doesn't know what to say or what to do. Things are so slow and murky and dull now; we were not meant to live this low. We intend to disband after this mailing.