CHAPTER 31
Note
!QU should the viewpoint be here?
! Choices are: Johanna, Peregrine, Woodcarver. I opt for Johanna even though
! she was where I had the viewpoint the last time I was in this subplot
! Hmm, choosing Johanna also makes it a little harder to follow dialog --
! but a little easier to show wildlife.
!PRB research numbers in following descriptions <medieval>
!QU PRB Is Vendacious' success (in his true role) implausible? Is he
! too easily accepted?
!PRB work on getting a feeling of time passing onboard the OOB, too
!V Possible relation to Lost Time (time not narrated but simply
!V alluded to later)
!V June 14, 1991 Contamine, p146 speaks of 29 iron connons for
!V an English expedition on France in 1372
!V p147 His table implies a range of 700m would be considered very good
!V in 1530
It was high summer when Woodcarver's army left for the north. The preparations had been frantic, with Vendacious driving himself and everyone else to the point of exhaustion. There had been cannons to make -- Scrupilo cast seventy tubes before getting thirty that would fire reliably. There had been cannoneers to train -- and safe methods of firing to discover. There had been wagons to build and kherhogs to buy.
Surely word of the preparations had long ago filtered north. Woodcarvers was a port city; they could not close down the commerce that moved through it. Vendacious warned them of this in more than one inner council meeting: Steel knew they were coming. The trick was in keeping the Flenserists uncertain as to numbers and timing and exact purpose. "We have one great advantage over the enemy," he said. "We have agents in his highest councils. We know what he knows of us." They couldn't disguise the obvious from the spies, but the details were a different matter.
The army departed along inland routes, a dozen wagons here, a few squads there. In all there were a thousand packs in the expedition, but they would never be together till they reached deep forest. It would have been easier to take the first part of the trip by sea, but the Flenserists had spotters hidden high in the fjordlands. Any ship movement -- even deep in Woodcarver territory -- would be known in the north. So they traveled on forest paths, through areas that Vendacious had cleared of enemy agents.
At first the going was very easy, at least for those with the wagons. Johanna rode in one of the rear ones with Woodcarver and Dataset. Even I'm beginning to treat the thing like an oracle, thought Johanna. Too bad it couldn't really predict the future.
The weather was as beautiful as Johanna had ever seen it on Tines world, an endless afternoon. It was strange that such unending fairness should make her so nervous, but she couldn't help it. This was so much like her first time on this world, when everything had ... gone wrong.
Note
!NÆH: CHK Look up the Norwegian for "dayaround"
!Seem to me that they really would have a notion of "children", though
! the individual members of a newby would normally not all be puppies
! This will cause a retro change in terminology
!V I think I've DONE this back in an amdi/steel conversation:
!V the word for child means "pack of pups"
!IMP retrowrite: there should be lots of small innovations that
! Peregrine and
! Woodcarver make using the dataset June 14, 1991 NO TIME
!ID sea'mals statt seals or sea mammals? YES BKG SEQ
During the first dayarounds of the journey, while they were still in home territory, Woodcarver pointed out every peak that came into view and tried to translate its name into Samnorsk for her. After six hundred years the Queen knew her land well. Even the patches of snow -- the ones that lasted all through the summer -- were known to her. She showed Johanna a sketchbook she had brought along. Each page was from a different year, and showed her special snowpatches as they had appeared on the same day of the summer. Riffling through the leaves, it was almost like a crude piece of animation. Johanna could see the patches moving, growing over a period of decades, then retreating. "Most packs don't live long enough to feel it," said Woodcarver, "but to me, the patches that last all summer are like living things. See how they move? They are like wolves, held off from our lands by our fire that is the sun. They circle about, grow. Sometimes they link together and a new glacier starts toward the sea."
Johanna had laughed a little nervously. "Are they winning?"
"For the last four centuries, no. The summers have often been hot and windy. In the long run? I don't know. And it doesn't matter quite so much to me anymore." She rocked her two little puppies for a moment and laughed gently. "Peregrine's little ones are not even thinking yet, and I'm already losing my long view!"
Johanna reached out to stroke her neck. "But they are your puppies too."
Note
!V CHK INCON development rate compared to humans (it's been ~60d since
!V the puppies were born) and compare with puppies
!These two had just opened their eyes a couple of days earlier, just after
! they left Woodcarvers city.
^ V June 6, 1991 AWKward and misleading:
"I know. Most of my pups have been with other packs, but these are the first that I have kept to be me." Her blind one nuzzled at one of the puppies. It wriggled and made a sound that warbled at the top of Johanna's hearing. Johanna held the other on her lap. Tine pups looked more like baby sea'mals than dogs. Their necks were so long compared to their bodies. And they seemed to develop much more slowly than the puppy she and Jefri had raised. Even now they seemed to have trouble focusing. She moved her fingers slowly back and forth in front of one puppy's head; its efforts to track were comical.
Note
!QU Is "worthy of me" too jarring?
! or is it the proper character/Tines touch?
!IDEA 17Mar89 "I don't want to risk others' politeness or
! rudeness by boring them"
!V TINES BKG about suckling
And after sixty days, Woodcarver's pups couldn't really walk. The Queen wore two special jackets with carrying pouches on the sides. Most of the waking day, her little ones stayed there, suckling through the fur on her tummy. In some ways, Woodcarver treated her offspring as a human would. She was very nervous when they were taken from her sight. She liked to cuddle them and play little games of coordination with them. Often she would lay both of them on their backs and pat their paws in a sequence of eight, then abruptly tap the one or the other on the belly. The two wriggled furiously at the attack, their little legs waving in all directions. "I nibble the one whose paw was last touched. Peregrine is worthy of me. These two are already thinking a little. See?" She pointed to the puppy that had convulsed into a ball, avoiding most of her surprise tickle.
In other ways Tinish parenting was alien, almost scary. Neither Woodcarver nor Peregrine ever talked to their pups in audible tones, but their ultrasonic "thoughts" seemed to be constantly probing the little ones. Some of it was so simple and regular that it set sympathetic vibrations through the walls of the little wagon. The wood buzzed under Johanna's hands. It was like a mother humming a lullaby, but she could see it had another purpose. The little creatures responded to the sounds, twitching in complicated rhythms. Peregrine said it would be another thirty days before the pups could contribute conscious thought to the pack, but they were already being trained and exercised for the function.
Note
!V June 6, 1991 IMP INCON in c37, at least,
! he appears to have 2 puppies
They camped part of each dayaround, the troops standing turns as sentry lines. Even during the traveling part of the day, they stopped numerous times, to clear the trail, or await the return of scouts, or simply to rest. At one such stop, Johanna sat with Peregrine in the shade of a tree that looked like pine but smelled of honey. Pilgrim played with his young ones, helping them to stand up and walk a few steps. She could tell by the buzzing in her head that he was thinking at the pups. And suddenly they seemed more like marionettes than children to her. "Why don't you let them play by themselves, or with their --" Brothers? Sisters? What do you call siblings born to the other pack? "--with Woodcarver's pups?"
Even more than Woodcarver, the pilgrim had tried to learn human customs. He was by far the most flexible pack she knew ... after all, if you can accommodate a murderer in your own mind, you must be flexible. But Pilgrim was visibly startled by her question. The buzzing in her head stopped abruptly. He laughed weakly. It was a very human laugh, though a bit theatrical. Peregrine had spent hours at interactive comedy on Dataset -- whether for entertainment or insight, she didn't know. "Play? By themselves? Yes ... I see how natural that would seem to you. To us, it would be a kind of perversion.... No, worse than that, since perversions are at least fun for some people some of the time. But if a pup were raised a singleton, or even a duo -- it would be making an animal of what could be sturdy member."
"You mean that pups never have life of their own?"
Peregrine cocked his heads and scrunched close to the ground. One of him continued to nose around the puppies, but Johanna had his attention. He loved to puzzle over human exotica. "Well, sometimes there is a tragedy -- an orphan pup left to itself. Often there is no cure for it; the creature becomes too independent to meld with any pack. In any case, it is a very lonely, empty life. I have personal memories of just how unpleasant."
"You're missing a lot. I know you've watched children's stories on Dataset. It's sad you can never be young and foolish."
"Hei! I never said that. I've been young and foolish lots; it's my way of life. And most packs are that way when they have several young members by different parents." As they talked, one of Peregrine's pups had struggled to the edge of the blanket they sat on. Now it awkwardly extended its neck into the flowers that grew from the roots of a nearby tree. As it scruffed around in the green and purple, Johanna felt the buzzing begin again. The pup's movement became a tad more organized. "Wow! I can smell the flowers with him. I bet we'll be seeing through each other's eyes well before we get to Flenser's Hidden Island." The pup backed up, and the two did a little dance on the blanket. Peregrine's heads bobbed in time with the movement. "They are such bright little ones!" He grinned. "Oh, we are not so different from you, Johanna. I know humans are proud of their young ones. Both Woodcarver and I wonder what ours will become. She is so brilliant, and I am -- well, a bit mad. Will these two make me a scientific genius? Will Woodcarver's turn her into an adventurer? Heh, heh. Woodcarver's a great brood kenner, but even she's not sure what our new souls will be like. Oh, I can't wait to be six again!"
Note
!CHK the timing here for INCON
It had taken Scriber and Pilgrim and Johanna only three days to sail from Flenser's Domain to the harbor at Woodcarver's. It would take this army almost thirty days to walk back to where Johanna's adventure began. On the map it had looked a tortuous path, wiggling this way and that through the fjordland. Yet the first ten days were amazingly easy. The weather stayed dry and warm. It was like the day of the ambush stretched out forever and ever. A dry winds summer, Woodcarver called it. There should be occasional storms, at least cloudiness. Instead the sun circled endlessly above the forest canopy, and when they broke into the open (never for long, and then only when Vendacious was sure that it was safe), the sky was clear and almost cloudless.
Note
!QU PRB Decide precisely how big this army is. Compare with human history
! Also check for consistency <medieval>
!BKG A little further up, you say 1000 packs and 30 cannon
In fact, there was already uneasiness about the weather. At noon it could get downright hot. The wind was constant, drying. The forest itself was drying out; they must be careful with fire. And with the sun always up and no clouds, they might be seen by lookouts many kilometers away. Scrupilo was especially bothered. He hadn't expected to fire the cannons en route, but he had wanted to drill "his" troops more in the open.
Officially Strupilo was a council member and the Queen's chief engineer. Since his experiment with the cannon, he had insisted on the title "Commander of Cannoneers". To Johanna, the engineer had always seemed curt and impatient. His members were almost always moving, and with jerky abruptness. He spent almost as much time with the Dataset as the Queen or Peregrine Wickwrackscar, yet he had very little interest in people-oriented subjects. "He has a blindness for all but machines," Woodcarver once said of him, "but that's how I made him. He's invented much, even before you came."
Note
^ V June 15, 1991 Here's a place where you might put in something about
^ V explosive shells.
Scrupilo had fallen in love with the cannons. For most packs, firing the things was a painful experience. Since that first test, Scrupilo had fired the things again and again, trying to improve the tubes, the powder, and the explosive rounds. His fur was scored with dozens of powder burns. He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind -- but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
During rest stops Scrup was a familiar figure, strutting up and down the line, haranguing his cannoneers. He claimed even the shortest stop was an opportunity for training, since in real combat speed would be essential. He had designed special epaulets, based on Nyjoran gunners' ear muffs. They didn't cover his low-sound ears at all, but instead the forehead and shoulder tympana of his trigger member. Actually tying the muffs down was a mind-numbing thing to do, but for the moments right around firing it was worth it. Scrupilo wore his own muffs all the time, but unsnugged. They looked like silly little wings sticking out from his head and shoulders. He obviously thought the effect was raffish -- and in fact, his gunner crews also made a big thing of wearing the gear at all times. After a while, even Johanna could see that the drill was paying off. At least, they could swing the gun tubes around at an instant's notice, stuff them with fake powder and ball, and shout the Tinish equivalent of "BANG!".
The army carried much more gunpowder than food. The packs were to live off the forest. Johanna had little experience with camping in an atmosphere. Were forests usually this rich? It was certainly nothing like the urban forests of Straum, where you needed a special license to walk off marked paths, and most of the wild life were mechanical imitations of Nyjoran originals. This place was wilder than even the stories of Nyjora. After all, that world had been well settled before it fell to medievalism. The Tines' had never been civilized, had never spread cities across continents. Pilgrim guessed there were fewer than thirty million packs in all the world. The Northwest was only beginning to be settled. Game was everywhere. In their hunting, the Tines were like animals. Troopers raced through the underforest. The favorite hunt was one of sheer endurance, where the prey was chased until it dropped. That was rarely practical here, but they got almost as much pleasure from chasing the unwary into ambushes.
Note
!ID one place where the wideband radio would be helpful would be for a
! gunner/FAO. In fact, the radio itself would protect the gunner from
! some of the noise.
!jrf "eschewed the use of" <V: seriously?>
Johanna didn't like it. Was this a medieval perversion or a peculiarly Tinish one? If allowed the time, the troops didn't use their bows and knives. The pleasure of the hunt included slashing at throats and bellies with teeth and claws. Not that the forest creatures were without defenses: for millions of years threat and counterthreat had evolved here. Almost every animal could generate ultrasonic screeching that totally drowned the thought of any nearby pack. There were parts of the forest that seemed silent to Johanna, but through which the army drove at a cautious gallop, troops and drivers writhing in agony from the unseen assault.
Some of the forest animals were more sophisticated....
Note
^ V QU Is this segue too abrupt?
Twenty-five days out, the army was stuck trying to get across the biggest valley yet. In the middle -- mostly hidden by the forest -- a river flowed down to the western sea. The walls of these valleys were like nothing Johanna had seen in the parks of Straum: If you took a cross-section at right angles to the river, the walls made a "U" shape. They were cliff-like steep at the high edges, then became slopes and finally a gentle plain where the river ran. "That's how the ice gouges it," explained Woodcarver. "There are places further up where I've actually watched it happen," and she showed Johanna explanations in the Dataset. That was happening more and more; Pilgrim and Woodcarver and sometimes even Scrupilo seemed to know more of a child's modern education than Johanna.
They had already been across a number of smaller valleys. Getting down the steep parts was always tedious, but so far the paths had been good. Vendacious took them to the edge this latest valley.
Note
!V BKG IMP no bees, very small "mammals"
!V SEQ I don't think this outlaws the possibility of shell-based small
!V critters
!V BKG There ARE things I can call birds, though
Woodcarver and staff stood under the forest cover just short of the dropoff. Some meters back, Johanna sat surrounded by Peregrine Wickwrackscar. The trees at this elevation reminded Johanna a little of pines. The leaves were narrow and sharp and lasted all year. But the bark was blistered white and the wood itself was pale blond. Strangest of all were the flowers. They sprouted purple and violet from the exposed roots of the trees. Tines' world had no analog of honeybees, but there was constant motion among the flowers as thumb-sized mammals climbed from plant to plant. There were thousands of them, but they seemed to have no interest in anything except the flowers and the sweetness that oozed from them. She leaned back among the flowers and admired the view while the Queen gobbled with Vendacious. How many kilometers could you see from here? The air was as clear as she had even known it on Tines' world. East and west the valley seemed to stretch forever. The river was a silver thread where it occasionally showed through the forest of the valley floor.
Pilgrim nudged her with a nose and nodded toward the Queen. Woodcarver was pointing this way and that over the dropoff. "Argument is in the air. You want a translation?"
"Yeah."
"Woodcarver doesn't like this path," Pilgrim's voice changed to the tone the Queen used when speaking Samnorsk: "The path is completely exposed. Anyone on the other side can sit and count our every wagon. Even from miles away. [A mile is a fat kilometer.]"
Vendacious whipped his heads around in that indignant way of his. He gobbled something that Johanna knew was angry. Pilgrim chuckled and changed his voice to imitate the security chief's: "Your Majesty! My scouts have scoured the valley and far wall. There is no threat."
"You've done miracles, I know, but do you seriously claim to have covered that entire north face? That's five miles away, and I know from my youth that there are dozens of cavelets -- you have those memories yourself."
"That stopped him!" said Pilgrim, laughing.
"C'mon. Just translate." She was quite capable of interpreting body language and tone by now. Sometimes even the Tinish chords made sense.
"Hmph. Okay."
The Queen hiked her baby packs around and sat down. Her tone became conciliatory. "If this weather weren't so clear, or if there were night times, we might try it, but -- You remember the old path? Twenty miles inland from here? That should be overgrown by now. And the road coming back is --"
Note
^ V June 15, 1991 what she didn't get to say is that the road
^ V coming back is very fast (this to partly get me back on schedule)
Gobble-hiss from Vendacious, angry. "I tell you, this is safe! We'll lose days on the other path. If we arrive late at Flenser's, all my work will be for nothing. You must go forward here."
"Oops," Pilgrim whispered, unable to resist a little editorializing, "Ol' Vendacious may have gone too far with that." The Queen's heads arched back. Pilgrim's imitation of her human voice said, "I understand your anxiety, pack of my blood. But we go forward where I say. If that is intolerable to you, I will regretfully accept your resignation."
"But you need me!"
"Not that much."
Note
!V June 15, 1991 tojrf: am I using too much of this masked irony?
Johanna suddenly realized that the whole mission could fall apart right here, without even a shot being fired. Where would we be without Vendacious? She held her breath and watched the two packs. Parts of Vendacious walked in quick circles, stopping for angry instants to stare at Woodcarver. Finally all his necks drooped. "Um. My apologies, Your Majesty. As long as you find me of use, I beg to continue in your service."
Now Woodcarver relaxed, too. She reached to pet her puppies. They had responded with her mood, thrashing in their carriers and hissing. "Forgiven. I want your independent advice, Vendacious. It has been miraculously good."
Vendacious smiled weakly.
"I didn't think the jerk had it in him," Pilgrim said near Johanna's ear.
It took two dayarounds to reach the old path. As Woodcarver had predicted, it was overgrown. More: In places there was no sign of the path at all, just young trees growing from slumped earth. It would take days to get down the valley side this way. If Woodcarver had any misgivings about the decision, she didn't mention them to Johanna. The Queen was six hundred years old; she talked often enough about the inflexibility of age. Now Johanna was getting a clear example of what that meant.
When they came to a washout, trees were cut down and a bridge constructed on the spot. It took a day to get by each such spot. But progress was agonizingly slow even where the path was still in place. No one rode in the carts now. The edge of the path had worn away, and the cart wheels sometimes turned on nothingness. On Johanna's right she could look down at tree crowns that were a few meters from her feet.
Note
^ V June 15, 1991 AWK
They ran into the wolves six days along the detour, when they had almost reached the valley floor. Wolves. That's what Pilgrim called them anyway; what Johanna saw looked like gerbils.
They had just completed a kilometer stretch of easy going. Even under the trees they could feel the wind, dry and warm and moving ceaselessly down the valley. The last patches of snow between the trees were being sucked to nothingness, and there was a haze of smoke beyond the north wall of the valley.
Johanna was walking alongside Woodcarver's cart. Pilgrim was about ten meters behind, chatting occasionally with them. (The Queen herself had been very quiet these last days.) Suddenly there was a screech of Tinish alarm from above them.
Note
!?Arghh! PRB Where are we going?
!The ground above might have been carpeted with them.
A second later Vendacious shouted from a hundred meters ahead. Through gaps in the trees, Johanna could see troopers on the next switchback above them unlimbering crossbows, firing into the hillside above them. The sunlight came dappled through the forest cover, bringing plenty of light but in splotches that broke and moved as the soldiers hustled about. Chaos, but ... there were things up there that weren't Tines! Small, brown or gray, they flitted through the shadows and the splotches of light. They swept up the hillside coming upon the soldiers from the opposite direction that they were shooting.
"Turn around! Turn around." Johanna screamed, but her voice was lost in the turmoil. Besides, who there could understand her? All of Woodcarver was peering up at the battle. She grabbed Johanna's sleeve. "You see something up there? Where?"
Johanna stuttered an explanation, but now Pilgrim had seen something too. His gobbled shouting came loud over the battle. He raced back up the trail to where Scrupilo was trying to get a cannon unlimbered. "Johanna! Help me."
Note
!PRB It's implausible that Johanna would be better at seeing what's
! going on
! in the woods here -- though the noise might be a confusing element. If
! this is what accounts for their poor perception, you should say so
! somewhere.
Woodcarver hesitated, then said, "Yes. It may be that bad. Help with the cannon, Johanna."
It was only fifty meters to the gun cart, but uphill. She ran. Something heavy smashed into the path just behind her. Part of a soldier! It twisted and screamed. Half a dozen gerbil-sized hunks of fur were attached to the body, and its pelt was streaked with red. Another member fell past her. Another. Johanna stumbled but kept running.
Note
!V I realize this is PoV Johanna, but I'm assuming she's a little into
!V the meaning of their naming there, so I use the following name,
!V complete with the "translation" of "scar":
Wickwrackscar was standing heads-together, just a few meters from Scrupilo. He was armed in every adult member -- mouth knives and steel tines. He waved Johanna down next to him. "We run on a nest of, of wolves." His speech was awkward, slurred. "Must be between here and path above. A lump, like a l'il castle tower. Gotta kill nest. Can you see?" Evidently he could not; he was looking all over. Johanna looked back up the hillside. There seemed to be less fighting now, just sounds of Tinish agony.
Johanna pointed. "You mean there, that dark thing?"
Pilgrim didn't answer. His members were twitching, his mouth knives waving randomly. She leaped away from the flashing metal. He had already cut himself. Sound attack. She looked back along the path. She'd had more than a year to know the packs, and what she was seeing now was ... madness. Some packs were exploding, racing in all directions to distances where thought couldn't possibly be sustained. Others -- Woodcarver on her cart -- huddled in heaps, with scarcely a head showing.
Just beyond the nearest uphill trees she could see a gray tide. The wolves. Each furry lump looked innocent enough. All together ... Johanna froze for an instant, watching them tear out the throat of a trooper's member.
Johanna was the only sane person left, and all it would mean is she would know she was dying.
Kill the nest.
On the gun cart beside her only one of Scrupilo was left, old White Head. Daffy as ever, it had pulled down its gunner's muffs and was nosing around under the gun tube. Kill the nest. Maybe not so daffy after all!
Johanna jumped up on the wagon. It rolled back toward the dropoff, banging against a tree; she scarcely noticed. She pulled up the gun barrel, just as she had seen in all the drills. The white headed one pulled at the powder bag, but with just his one pair of jaws he couldn't handle it. Without the rest of its pack it had neither hands nor brains. It looked up at her, its eyes wide and desperate.
She grabbed the other end of the bag, and the two of them got the powder into the barrel. White Head dived back into the equipment, nosing around for a cannon ball. Smarter than a dog, and trained. Between them, maybe they had a chance!
Just half a meter beneath her feet, the wolves were running by. One or two she could have fought off herself. But there were dozens down there, worrying and tearing at random members. Three of Pilgrim were standing around Scarbutt and the pups, but their defense was unthinking slashing. The pack had dropped its mouth knives and tines.
She and White Head got the round down the barrel. White Head whipped back to the rear, began playing with the little wick-lighter the gunners used. It was something that could be held in a single mouth, since only one member actually fired the weapon.
"Wait, you idiot!" Johanna kicked him back. "We gotta aim this thing!"
Note
!V March 30, 1991 "he" versus "it" again :-(
White Head looked hurt for an instant. The complaint wasn't completely clear to him. He had dropped the standoff wand, but still held the lighter. He flicked on the flame, and circled determinedly back, tried to worm past Johanna's legs. She pushed him back again, and looked uphill. The dark thing. That must be the nest. She tilted the gun tube on its mounting and sighted down the top. Her face ended up just centimeters from the persistent White Head and his flame. His muffed head darted forward, and the flame touched the fire-hole.
Note
!jrf2 JRFmark as of 29Mar91 (c31 p481)
The blast almost knocked Johanna off the cart. For a moment she could think of nothing but the pain that stabbed into her ears. She rolled to a sitting position, coughing in the smoke. She couldn't hear anything beyond a high-pitched ringing that went on and on. Their little wagon was teetering, one wheel hanging over the dropoff. White Head was flopping around under the butt of the cannon. She pushed it off him and patted the muffed head. He was bleeding -- or she was. She just sat dazed for a few seconds, mystified by the blood, trying to imagine how she had ever ended up here.
A voice somewhere in the back of her head was screaming. No time, no time. She forced herself to her knees and looked around, memories coming back painfully slow.
There were splintered trees uphill of them; the blond wood glinted among the leaves. Beyond them, where the nest had been, she saw a splash of fresh turned earth. They had "killed" it, but ... the fighting continued.
There were still wolves on the path, but now they were the ones running in all directions. As she watched, dozens of them catapulted off the edge of trail into the trees and rocks below. And the Tines were actually fighting now. Pilgrim had picked up his knives. The blades and his muzzles dripped red as he slashed. Something gray and bleeding flew over the edge of the cart and landed by Johanna's leg. The "wolf" couldn't have been more than twenty centimeters long, its hair dirty gray brown. It really did look like a pet, but the tiny jaws clicked with murderous intent at her ankles. Johanna dropped a cannon ball on it.
Note
!NÆH: ID Somewhere should liken the wolves to the Helper. Is it too much
! similar? -- not sure there is any character in a position to make the
!V the connection
!SEQ short story about a wood cutter deep in a forest who has a truce,
! almost a cooperation, with a nest of wolves. There would be all sorts
! of ways to play this: like a fairy tale, or perverse, or the story of a
! human child outcast from the small human settlement that follows this
! novel.
!IDEA 23Mar89
! With almost current pc-tech could do vocabulary analysis of a
! previously analyzed speaker and determine who they had recently
! been influenced by ("Let me share this [idea] with you")
!IDEA 23Mar89 for comp.risks:
! metarisk of legislation about risks
!
^
During the next three days, while Woodcarver's people struggled to bring their equipment and themselves back together, Johanna learned quite a bit about the wolves. What she and Scrupilo's White Head did with cannon had stopped the attack cold. Without doubt, knocking out the nest had saved a lot of lives and the expedition itself. The "wolves" were a type of hive creature, only a little like the packs. The Tines race used group thought to reach high intelligence; Johanna had never seen a rational pack of more than six members. The wolf nests didn't care about high intelligence. Woodcarver claimed that a nest might have thousands of members -- certainly the one they'd tripped over was huge. Such a mob couldn't be as smart as a human. In terms of raw reasoning power, it probably wasn't much brighter than a single pack member. On the other hand, it could be a lot more flexible. Wolves could operate alone at great distances. When within a hundred meters of the home nest they were appendages of the "queen" members of the nest, and no one doubted their canniness then. Pilgrim had legends of nests with almost packish intelligence, of foresters who made treaties with nearby nests for protection in return for food. As long as the high-powered noises in the nest lived, the worker wolves could coordinate almost like Tine members. But kill the nest, and the creature fell apart like some cheap, star-topology network.
Certainly this nest had done a number on Woodcarver's army. It had waited quietly until the troopers were within its inner loudness. Then outlying wolves had used synchronized mimicry to create sonic "ghosts", tricking the packs into turning from the nest and shooting uselessly into the trees. And when the ambush actually began, the nest had screamed concentrated confusion down on the Tines. That attack had been a far more powerful thing than the "stink noise" they'd encountered in other parts of the forest. To the Tines, the stinkers had been painfully loud and sometimes even frightening, but not the mind-destroying chaos of the wolf-nest attack.
More than one hundred packs had been knocked out in the ambush. Some, mostly packs with pups, had huddled. Others, like Scrupilo, had been "blasted apart". In the hours following the attack, many of these fragments straggled back and reassembled. The resulting Tines were shaken but unharmed. Intact troops hunted up and down the forested cliffs for injured members of their comrades. There were places along the dropoff that were more than twenty meters deep. Where their fall wasn't cushioned by tree boughs, members landed on naked rock. Five dead ones were eventually found, and another twenty seriously injured. Two carts had fallen. They were kindling, and their kherhogs were too badly injured to survive. By great good luck, the gunshot had not started a forest fire.
Three times the sun made its vast, tilted course around the sky. Woodcarver's army recovered in a camp in the depths of the valley forest, by the river. Vendacious had posted lookouts with signaling mirrors on the northern valley wall. This place was about as safe as any they could find so far north. It was certainly one of the most beautiful. It didn't have the view of the high forest, but there was the sound of the river nearby, so loud it drowned the sighing of the dry wind. The lowland trees didn't have root flowers, but they were still different from what Johanna had known. There was no underbrush, just a soft, bluish "moss" that Pilgrim claimed was actually part of the trees. It stretched like mown parkland to the edge of the river.
Note
^ V June 14, 1991 Some AWK at the end of this paragraph, and it
^ V doesn't quite fit the hospital situation of c35:
On the last day of their rest, the Queen called a meeting of all the packs not at guard or lookout. It was the largest collection of Tines Johanna had seen in one place since her family was killed. Only these ones weren't fighting. As far as Johanna could see across the bluish moss, there were packs, each at least eight meters from its nearest neighbor. For an absurd instant she was reminded of Settlers Park at Overby: Families picnicking on the grass, each with its own traditional blanket and food lockers. But these "families" were each a pack, and this was a military formation. The rows were gently curving arcs all facing toward the Queen. Peregrine Wickwrackscar was ten meters behind her, in shadow; being Queen's consort didn't count for anything official. On Woodcarver's left lay the living casualties of the ambush, members with bandages and splints. In some ways, such visible damage wasn't the most horrifying. There were also what Pilgrim called the "walking wounded". These were singletons and duos and trios that were all that was left of whole packs. Some of these tried to maintain a posture of attention, but others mooned about, occasionally breaking into the Queen's speech with aimless words. It was like Scriber Jaqueramaphan all over again, but most of these would live. Some were already melding, trying to make new individuals. Some of these might even work out, as Peregrine Wickwrackscar had done. For most, it would be a long time before they were fully people again.
Note
!V June 14, 1991 FRAG (not consistent with c35):
! After this meeting,
! the fragments would depart with one or two packs who were wounded but
! whole, for the south.
!V NO, though that's a clear excuse:
!V In connection with flamethrowers, could comment that they couldn't
!V be used in many places this summer because threat of starting fires
!V NÆH:
!Maybe have to substitute the fire for the wolves attack?
! In which case, might have more info early on about the forest critters?
! But then how to get this stuff about Scrupilo and Johanna?
!
!1988: ID QU Maybe Ravna is from Sjandra Kei!
! Allows me to show a nonstatist situation
! Allows me to put the Straumli war in perspective
! Still have coincidence problem
! Certainly fall of Sjandra Kei have a bigger emotional impact on her
! Maybe too big?
Johanna sat with Scrupilo in the first rank of troopers before the Queen. The Commander of Cannoneers stood at Tinish parade rest: rumps on the ground, chest high, most heads facing front. Scrup had come through it without serious damage. His white head had a few more scorch marks, and one of the other members had sprained a shoulder falling off the path. He wore his flying cannoneer muffs as flamboyantly as always, but there was something subdued about him -- maybe it was just the military formation and getting a medal for heroism.
Note
!V June 14, 1991 IMP BKG stuff said clearly in this paragraph:
The Queen was wearing her special jackets. Each head looked out at a different section of her audience. Johanna still couldn't understand Tinish, and would certainly never speak it without mechanical assistance. But the sounds were mostly within her range of hearing -- the "low" frequencies carried a lot better than higher ones. Even without memory aides and grammar generators she was learning a little. She could recognize emotional tone easily, and things like the raucous ark ark ark that passed for applause around here. As for individual words -- well, they were more like chords, single syllables that had meaning. Nowadays, if she listened really carefully (and Pilgrim weren't nearby to give a running translation) she could even recognize some of those.
Note
!
!PRB below with the name "Wickwrackscar" (but actually the problem
! already existed, I think. FIXED, I think (though perhaps the sentence
! is awkward:
... Just now, for instance, Woodcarver was saying good things about her audience. Approving ark ark's came from all directions. They sounded like a bunch of sea'mals. One of the Queen's heads dipped into a bowl, came up with a small carven doodad in its mouth. She spoke a pack's name, a multichord tumptititum that if Johanna heard often enough she might be able to repeat as "Jaqueramaphan" -- or even see meaning in, as "Wickwrackscar".
From the front rank of the audience, a single member trotted toward the Queen. It stopped practically nose to nose with the Queen's nearest member. Woodcarver said something about bravery, and then two of her fastened the wooden -- broach? -- to the member's jacket. It turned smartly and returned to its pack.
Woodcarver picked out another decoration, and called on another pack. Johanna leaned over toward Scrupilo. "What's going on?" she said wonderingly. "Why are single members getting medals?" And how can they stand to get so near another pack?
Scrupilo had been standing more stiffly at attention than most packs, and was pretty much ignoring her. Now he turned one head in her direction. "Shh!" He started to turn back, but she grabbed him by one of his jackets. "Foolish one," he finally replied. "The award is for the whole pack. One member is extended to accept. More would be madness."
Note
!V June 14, 1991 PRB small fossil of the "war plot": FIXED
Hmm. One after another, three more packs "extended a member" to take their decorations. Some were full of precision, like human soldiers in stories. Others started out smartly, then became timid and confused as they approached Woodcarver.
Finally Johanna said, "Ssst. Scrupilo! When do we get ours?"
This time he didn't even look at her; all his heads faced rigidly toward the Queen. "Last, of course. You and I killed the nest, and saved Woodcarver herself." His bodies were almost shaking with the intensity of their brace. He's scared witless. And suddenly Johanna guessed why. Apparently Woodcarver had no problem maintaining her mind with one outside member nearby. But the reverse would not be true. Sending one of yourself into another pack meant losing some consciousness and placing trust in that other pack. Looking at it that way ... well, it reminded Johanna of the historical novels she used to play. On Nyjora during the Dark Age, ladies traditionally gave their sword to their queen when granted audience, and then knelt. It was a way to swear loyalty. Same thing here, except that looking at Scrupilo, Johanna realized that even as a matter of form, the ceremony might be damn frightening.
Three more medals bestowed, and then Woodcarver gobbled the chords that were Scrupilo's name. The Commander of Cannoneers went absolutely rigid, made faint whistling noises through his mouths. "Johanna Olsndot," said Woodcarver, then more Tinish, something about coming forward.
Johanna stood up, but not one of Scrupilo moved.
The Queen made a human laugh. She was holding two polished broaches. "I'll explain all in Samnorsk later, Johanna. Just come forward with one of Scrupilo. Scrupilo?"
Suddenly they were the center of attention, with thousands of eyes watching. There was no more arking or background chatter. Johanna hadn't felt so exposed since she played First Colonist in her school's Landing Play. She leaned down so that her head was close to one of Scrupilo's. "Come on, guy. We're the big heroes."
The eyes that looked back at her were wide. "I can't." The words were almost inaudible. For all his jaunty cannoneer muffs and standoffish manner, Scrupilo was terrified. But for him it wasn't stage fright. "I can't tear me apart so soon. I can't."
Note
!V There was previously a reference to "the Eye in the U" here
There was murmured gobbling in the ranks behind them, Scrupilo's own cannoneers. By all the Powers, would they hold this against him? Welcome to the middle ages. Stupid people. Even cut to pieces, Scrupilo had saved their behinds, and now --
She put her hands on two of his shoulders. "We did it before, you and I. Remember?"
Note
!V NÆH:
!ID Retrowrite earlier interactions with Scrupilo, not favorable ones.
! Possibly you could have him shoo her away from the cannon test.
!NO ID Hey, if Johanna lives, perhaps she could be smitten by Pham -- who
! doesn't really notice her?
!PRB work out the size of this conclave and decide whether you have to
! say something about Woodcarver talking loudly
!ID Maybe could have Steel destroy one of the two walkie-talkies from
! the ship when Amdijefri play the joke on him. YES!
^
The heads nodded. "Some. That one part of me alone ... could never have done it."
"Right. And neither could I. But together we killed a wolf-nest."
Note
!V Might want to go back and sharpen the original prickliness of
!V Scrupilo NO
Scrupilo stared at her a second, eyes wavering. "Yes, we really did." He came to his feet, frisked his heads so the cannoneer muffs flapped. "Yes!" And he moved his white-headed one closer to her.
Johanna straightened. She and White Head walked out into the open space. Four meters. Six. She kept the fingertips of one hand lightly on his neck. When they were about twelve meters from the rest of Scrupilo, White Head's pace faltered. He looked sideways, up at Johanna, then continued more slowly.
Johanna didn't remember much of the ceremony, so much of her attention was on White Head. Woodcarver said something long and unintelligible. Somehow they both ended up with intricately carven decorations on their collars, and were headed back toward the rest of Scrupilo. Then she was aware of the crowd once more. They stretched as far as she could see under the forest canopy -- and every one of them seemed to be cheering, Scrup's cannoneers loudest of all.
Midnight. Here at the bottom of the valley there were three or four hours of the dayaround when the sun dipped behind the high north wall. It didn't much feel like night, or even twilight. The smoke from the fires to the north seemed to getting worse. She could smell it now.
Note
!PRB If it was really more than a day from the battle till the awards,
! it seems to me that Johanna would have learned more about the situation
! and the awards than she did
!jrf Not if she was kept busy; maybe she helped nurse casualties
!V June 14, 1991 mARK
!V June 14, 1991 IMP CHRON INCON this 9Jul15989 and the hospital
!V incident isn't till 20Jul15989. So why is she talking about the
!V starting off for the climb up the north wall???
Johanna walked back from the cannoneers section toward the center of camp, and Woodcarver's tent. It was quiet; she could hear little creatures scritching in the root bushes. The celebrating might have gone on longer, except that everyone knew that in another few hours they would be preparing for the climb up the valley's north wall. So now there was only occasional laughter, an occasional pack walking about. Johanna walked barefoot, her shoes slung over her shoulders. Even in the dry weather, the moss was wonderfully soft between her toes. Above her the forest canopy was shifting green and patches of hazy sky. She could almost forget what had gone before, and what lay ahead.
The guards around Woodcarver's tent didn't challenge her, just called softly ahead. After all, there weren't that many humans running around. The Queen stuck out a head, "Come inside, Johanna."
Inside, she was sitting in her usual circle, the puppies protected in the middle. It was quite dark, the only light being what came through the entrance. Johanna flopped down on the pillows where she usually slept. Ever since this afternoon, the big award thing, she had been planning to give Woodcarver a piece of her mind. Now ... well the party at the cannoneers had been a happy thing. It seemed kind of a shame to break the mood.
Woodcarver cocked a head at her. Simultaneously, the two puppies duplicated the gesture. "I saw you at the party. You are a sober one. You eat most of our foods now, but none of the beer."
Note
^ V June 10, 1991 "month" problem
Johanna shrugged. Yes, why? "Kids aren't supposed to drink before they're eighteen years old." That was the custom, and her parents had agreed with it. Johanna had turned fourteen a couple of months ago; Dataset had reminded her of the exact hour. She wondered. If none of this had happened, if she were still back at the High Lab or Straumli Realm: would she be sneaking out with friends to try such forbidden things? Probably. Yet here, where she was entirely on her own, where she was currently a big hero, she hadn't tried a drop.... Maybe it was because Mom and Dad weren't here, and following their wishes seemed to keep them closer. She felt tears coming to her eyes.
Note
!jrf preceding paragraph nice.
!ID At climax of story, Woodcarver could be a little dopey because she
! is now almost 7 -- probably they have ways of handling this, so if
!V you don't get to doing it, no big deal
!QU IMP Ug. Where does menarch fit in all this? Probably be best if you
! could put it before the story starts?
!jrf Yes.
!
"Hmm." Woodcarver didn't seem to notice. "That's what Pilgrim said was the reason." She tapped at her puppies and smiled. "I guess it makes sense. These two don't get beer till they're older -- though I know they got some second-hand partying from me tonight." There was a hint of beer breath in the tent.
Johanna wiped roughly at her face. She really did not want to talk about being a teenager just now. "You know, that was kind of a mean trick you pulled on Scrupilo this afternoon."
"I -- Yes. I talked to him about it beforehand. He didn't want it, but I thought he was just being ... is stiff-necked the word? If I had known how upset he was, well --"
"He practically fell apart out there in front of everybody. If I understand how things work, that would have been his disgrace, right?"
"... Yes. Exchanging honor for loyalty in front of peers, it's an important thing. At least the way I run things; I'm sure Pilgrim or Dataset can say a dozen other ways to lead. Look Johanna, I needed that Exchange, and I needed you and Scrupilo to be there."
"Yeah, I know. 'We two saved the day.'"
Note
!V June 14, 1991 IMP CHRON INCON I thought they were closer???
"Silence!" Her voice was suddenly edged, and Johanna remembered that this was a medieval queen. "We are two hundred miles north of my borders, almost to the heart of the Flenser Domain. In a few days we will meet the enemy, and more of us will die for we-know-not-quite-what."
Note
!NO ID maybe have it be that Johanna's mother was really the force
! engineering the flight from High Lab
^ QU does this scene go on too long, get too drifty?
!QU ID Hmm, this may actually be setting the stage for some
! retrowriting about Straumli background, that might work well
! -- or might be a monkey wrench?
!NÆH: QU PRB what about the fønvind fire thing?
!ID SEQ IMP! QU (conceived as I passed the latest Pern book at BDalton)
! Don't overlook the possibility of purely Tinish sister books
!jrf Absolutely!!!
! For instance, there could be a period of as long as a hundred years
! where there is little contact with the outside, and even when there
! is such contact, it could be with the remnants of Sjandra Kei
! Furthermore, with a good number of humans already present, you have
! opening for a joint culture
! QU Is it too ugly that we won't see the High stuff for a real long
! time?
! Note that this makes it more likely that I'll want to zap the OOB
!ID Could also have stories going on throughout the galaxy, though
! they would be essentially uncoupled from the near sequels of this
! novel:
!V Eg, Aniara Port where the memory of Kjet is reviled
!chapter TITLE "No more net news!"
!chapter TITLE "McGuffins galore"
!
The bottom dropped out of Johanna's stomach. If she couldn't get back to the ship, couldn't finish what Mom and Dad had started... "Please, Woodcarver! It is worth it!"
"I know that. Pilgrim knows it. The majority of my council agrees, though grudgingly. But we of the council have talked with Dataset. We've seen your worlds and what your science can do. On the other hand, most of my people here," she waved a head at the camp beyond the tent, "are here on faith, and out of loyalty to me. For them, the situation is deadly and the goal is vague." She paused, though her two pups continued gesturing forcefully for a second. "Now I don't know how you would persuade your kind to take such risks. Dataset talks of military conscription."
Note
!V June 15, 1991 BKG SEQ so apparently Long Lakes don't have
!V conscription
"That was Nyjora, long ago."
"Never mind. The point is, my troops are here out of loyalty, mostly to me personally. For six hundred years, I have protected my people well; their memories and legends are clear on it. More than once, I was the only one who saw a peril, and it was my advice that saved all those who heeded it. That is what keeps most of the soldiers, most of the cannoneers going. Each of them is free to turn back. So. What should they think when our first 'combat' is to fall like ignorant ... tourists ... onto a nest of wolves? Without the great good luck of you and part of Scrupilo being at the right place and alert, I would have been killed. Pilgrim would have been killed. Perhaps a third of the soldiers would have died."
"If not us, perhaps someone else," Johanna said in a small voice.
Note
!QU Is the following assertion a little in contradiction of a few
! paragraphs further on? -- I don't think so.
"Perhaps. I don't think anyone else came close to firing on the nest. You see the effect on my people? 'If bad luck in the forest can kill our Queen and destroy our marvelous weapons, what will it be like when we face a thinking enemy?' That was the question in many minds. Unless I could answer it, we'd never make it out of this valley -- at least not going northward."
"So you gave the medals. Loyalty for honor."
"Yes. You missed the sense of it, not understanding Tinish. I made a big thing of how well they had done. I gave silverwood accolades to packs who showed any competence during the ambush. That helped some. I repeated my reasons for this expedition -- the wonders that Dataset describes and how much we lose if Steel gets his way. But they've heard all that before, and it points to far away things they can scarcely imagine. The new thing I showed them today was you and Scrupilo."
"Us?"
Note
!ID Aha! a scene at the end (probably in heavy action) where Johanna is
! glad to see the scarbutt member
!?IMP Somewhere want to make it clear how Woodcarver could breed herself
! in certain directions without outbreeding. Moral question: What to do
! with defectives?
!V I think most of the following is done in various places (much in
!V the epilogs):
!QU You may have missed prior opportunity to have Johanna think of the
! theory that Tines have developed more slowly than humans
! Weren't you intending to do that somewhere (and then somewhere else
! talk about their advantages now that they had radio)?
!
"I praised you beyond the skies. Singletons often do brave things. Sometimes they are halfway clever, or talk as though they are. But alone, Scrupilo's fragment wouldn't be much more than a good knife fighter. He knew about using the cannon, but he didn't have the paws or mouths to do anything with it. And by himself, he would never have figured out where to shoot it. You, on the other hand, are a Two Legs. In many ways you are helpless. The only way you can think is by yourself, but you can do it without interfering with those around you. Together you did what no pack could do in the middle of a wolf-nest attack. So I told my army what a team our two races could become, how each makes up for the age-long failings of the other. Together, we are one step closer to being the Pack of Packs. How is Scrupilo?"
Johanna smiled faintly. "Things turned out okay. Once he was able to get out there and accept his medal," she fingered the broach that was pinned to her own collar; it was a beautiful thing, a landscape of Woodcarver's city, "once he'd done that, he was totally changed. You should have seen him with the cannoneers afterwards. They did their own loyalty/honor thing, and then they drank a lot of beer. Scrupilo was telling them all about what we were doing. He even had me help demonstrate.... You really think the army bought what you said about humans and Tines?"
"I think so. In my own language, I can be very eloquent. I've bred myself to be." Woodcarver was silent for a moment. Her puppies scrambled across the carpet, and patted their muzzles at Johanna's hands. "Besides ... it may even be true. Pilgrim is sure of it. You can sleep in this same tent with me and still think. That's something that he and I can't do; in our own ways, we've each lived a long time and I think we are each at least as smart as the humans and other creatures that Dataset talks about in the Beyond. But you singleton creatures can stand next to each other, and think and build. Compared to us, I'll bet singleton races developed the sciences very fast. But now, with your help, maybe things will change fast for us, too." The two puppies retreated, and Woodcarver lowered heads to paws. "That's what I told my people, anyway.... You should try to get some sleep now."
On the ground beyond the tent's entrance there were already splashes of sunlight. "Okay." Johanna slipped off her outer clothes. She lay down and dragged a light quilt across herself. Most of Woodcarver already looked asleep. As usual, one or two pairs of eyes were open, but their intelligence would be limited -- and just now, even they looked tired. Funny, Woodcarver had worked with Dataset so much, her human voice had come to capture emotion as well as pronunciation. Just now she had sounded so tired, so sad.
Johanna reached out from under her quilt to brush the neck of Woodcarver's nearest, the blind one. "Do you believe what you told everyone?" she said softly.
One of the "sentry" heads looked at her, and a very human sigh seemed to come from all directions. Woodcarver's voice was very faint. "Yes ... but I am very afraid that it doesn't matter any more. For six hundred years, I have had proper confidence in myself. But what happened on the south wall ... should not have happened. It would not if I had followed Vendacious's advice, and come down on the New Road."
Note
!IMP Somewhere you also want to make it clear that in some ways
! Tines can be closer than humans (as in merged packs, and memories)
!
!TITLE (for heaven knows what) "The Mayor of Moscow" (if Yeltsin turns
! out to be important)
!
"But we might have been seen --"
"Yes. A failure either way, don't you see? Vendacious has precise information from the highest councils of the Flenser. But he's something of a careless fool in everyday matters. I knew that, and thought I could compensate. But the Old Road was in far worse condition than I remembered; the wolf-nest could never have settled by it if there had been any traffic during the last few years. If Vendacious had managed his patrols properly, or if I had been managing him properly, we would never have been surprised. Instead we were nearly overrun ... and my only remaining talent appears to be in fooling those who trust me into thinking I still know what I'm doing." She opened another pair of eyes and made the smile gesture. "Strange. I haven't said these things even to Pilgrim. Is this another 'advantage' of human relations?"
Johanna patted the blind one's neck. "Maybe."
"Anyway, I believe what I said about things that could be, but I fear the my soul may not be strong enough to make them so. Perhaps I should turn things over to Pilgrim or Vendacious; that's something I must think on." Woodcarver shhed Johanna's surprised protests.
"Now sleep please."