A Fire Upon the Deep

Amdi raced around the windswept side of the courtyard, dodging snowballs and keening frustration. Human hands were such wicked, wicked things. How he would love to have a pair — four pairs! He circled round from three sides and sprinted right at the human. Jefri backed quickly into deeper snow, but too late. Amdi hit him high and low, tipping the Two-Legs over into a snowdrift. There was a mock battle, slashing lips and paws against Jefri's hands and feet. But now Amdi was on top. The human got paid back for his snowballs with plenty of snow stuffed down the back of his jacket.

Sometimes they just sat and watched the sky for so long that rumps and paws went numb. Sitting behind the largest snow drift, they were shaded from the castle torches and had a clear view of the lights in the sky.

At first Amdi had been entranced by the aurora. Even some of his teachers were. They said this part of the world was one of the best places to see the sky glow. Sometimes it was so faint that the torchlight glimmering off the snow was enough to blot it out. Other times it ran from horizon to horizon: green light trimmed with hints of pink, twisting as though ruffled by a slow wind.

He and Jefri could talk very easily now, though always in Jefri's language. The human couldn't make many of the sounds of interpack speech; even his pronunciation of Amdi's name was a scarcely recognizable. But Amdi understood Samnorsk pretty well; it was fun, their own secret language.

Jefri was not especially impressed by the aurora. "We have that lots at home. It's just light from — " He said a new word, and glanced at Amdi. It was funny how the human couldn't look in more than one place at time. His eyes and head were always moving. "— you know, places where people make things. I think the gas and waste leaks out, and then the sun lights it up or it gets — " unintelligible.

"Places where people make things?" In the sky? Amdi had a globe; he knew the size of the world and its orientation. If the aurora were reflecting sunlight, it must be hundreds of miles above the ground! Amdi leaned a back against Jefri's jacket and made a very human whistling sound. His knowledge of geography was not up to his geometry, but, "The packs don't work in the sky, Jefri. We don't even have flying boats."

"Uh, that's right, you don't… I don't know what that stuff is then. But I don't like it. It gets in the way of the stars." Amdi knew all about the stars; Jefri had told him. Somewhere out there were the friends of Jefri's parents.

Jefri was silent for several minutes. He wasn't looking at the sky anymore. Amdi wriggled a little closer, watching the shifting light in the sky. Behind them the wind-sharpened crest of the drift was edged with yellow light from the torches. Amdi could imagine what the other was thinking. "The commsets from the boat, they really aren't good enough to call for help?"

Jefri slapped the ground. "No! I told you. They're just radio. I think I can make them work, but what's the use? The ultrawave stuff is still on the boat and it's too big to move. I just don't understand why Mr. Steel won't let me go aboard… I'm eight years old, you know. I could figure it out. Mom had it all set up before, before…" His words guttered into the familiar, despairing silence.

Amdi rubbed a head against Jefri's shoulder. He had a theory about Mr. Steel's reluctance. It was an explanation he hadn't told Jefri before: "Maybe he's afraid you'll just fly away and leave us."

"That's stupid! I'd never leave you. Besides, that boat is real hard to fly. It was never meant to land on a world."

Jefri said the strangest things; sometimes Amdi was just misunderstanding — but sometimes they were literal truth. Did the humans really have ships that never came to ground? Where did they go then? Amdi could almost feel new scales of reference clicking together in his mind. Mr. Steel's geography globe represented not the world, but something very, very small in the true scheme of things.

"I know you wouldn't leave us. But you can see how Mr. Steel might be afraid. He can't even talk to you except through me. We have to show him that we can be trusted."

"I guess."

"If you and I could get the radios working, that might help. I know my teachers haven't figured them out. Mr. Steel has one, but I don't think he understands it either."

"Yeah. If we could get the other one to work…"

That afternoon the guards got a break: their two charges came in from the cold early. The guards didn't question their good fortune.