A Deepness in the Sky (44 page)

"Ah, Dr. Underhill, such apleasure !" Madame Subtrime came sweeping out of her cubicle. The station manager was all legs and pointy hands, with a body scarcely bigger than her head. Gokna and Viki got plenty of laughs imitating her. "You won't believe the interest this debate has generated. We are forwarding to the East Coast, and copies will be on the shortwave. I tell you without exaggeration, we have listeners from justall over!"

I tell you without exaggeration...Hidden from the manager, Gokna waggled her mouth parts in time with the words. Viki kept her own aspect prim, and pretended not to notice.

Daddy tipped his head to the manager. "I'm glad to be so popular, Madame."

"Oh, yes, indeed! We've got sponsors killing each other for the slots in this time. Simplykilling each other!" She smiled down at the children. "I've arranged that you can watch from our engineer's loft."

They all knew where that was, but they followed obediently along, listening to her unending gush. None of them really knew what Madame Subtrime thought of them. Jirlib claimed that she was no fool, that under all the words lurked a cold counter of cash. "She knows to the tenth-penny how much she can earn for the old cobbers by outraging the public." Maybe, but Viki liked her even so, and even forgave her shrill and foolish talk. Too many people were so stuck on their beliefs that nothing would bend them.

"Didi's on duty this hour. You know her." Madame Subtrime stopped at the entrance to the engineer's loft. For the first time she seemed to notice the babies peeking out of Sherkaner Underhill's fur. "My, you do have all ages, don't you? I...will they be safe with your children? I don't know who else could take care of them."

"Quite all right, Madame. I intend to introduce Rhapsa and Little Hrunk to the representative of the Church."

Madam Subtrime froze. For a full second, all the fidgety legs and hands were simultaneously motionless. It was the first time Viki had seen her really,really taken aback. Then her body relaxed into a slow, broad smile. "Dr. Underhill! Has anyone ever told you you're a genius?"

Daddy grinned back. "Never with such good reason....Jirlib, make sure everyone stays in the room with Didi. If I want you to come out, you'll know it."

The cobblies climbed into the engineering loft. Didire Ultmot was slouched on her usual perch overlooking the controls. A thick glass wall separated the room from the soundstage itself. It was soundproof, and darned hard to see through, too. The children edged close to the glass. There was someone already perched on the stage.

Didire waved a hand at them. "That's the Church's rep out there. The cobber came an hour early." Didi was her usual, faintly impatient, self. She was a very good-looking twenty-one-year-old. Didi wasn't as smart as some of Daddy's students, but she was bright. She was Princeton Radio's chief technician. At fourteen she had been a prime-time operator, and knew as much about electrical engineering as Jirlib. In fact, she wanted to become an electrical engineer. All that had come across the first time Jirlib and Brent met her, back when they started on the show. Viki remembered the strange way Jirlib had acted when he told them about that meeting; he seemed almost in awe of the Didire creature. She was nineteen then, and Jirlib was twelve...but big for his age. It took her two shows to realize that Jirlib was out-of-phase. She had taken the surprise as an intentional, personal insult. Poor Jirlib walked around like his legs were broken for a few days. He got over it—after all, there would be worse rejections in the future.

Didire more or less got over it, too. As long as Jirlib kept his distance, she was civil. And sometimes, when she forgot herself, Didi was more fun than any current-generation person that Viki knew. When they weren't onstage, she would let Viki and Gokna sit by her perch and watch her tweak the dozens of controls. Didire was very proud of her control panel. In fact—except that the frame was furniture wood and not sheet metal—it looked almost as scientific as some of the gear at Hill House.

"So what's this church cobber like?" asked Gokna. She and Viki had pressed their main eyes flat against the glass wall. The glass was so thick that lots of colors could not penetrate. The stranger perched onstage could have been dead for all the far-red you could see of her.

Didi shrugged. "Name's ‘Honored Pedure.' She talks funny. I think she's a Tiefer. And that cleric's shawl she's wearing? It's not just our crummy view from the control room: that shawl really isdark, across all colors but the farthest reds."

Hmm. Expensive. Mom had a dress uniform like that, only most people never saw her in it.

A wicked smile grew across Didi's aspect. "I bet she pukes when she sees the babies in your father's fur."

No such luck. But when Sherkaner Underhill came in a few seconds later, the Honored Pedure stiffened under her shapeless cowl. A second later, Rappaport Digby trotted onto the stage and grabbed an earphone. Digby had been with "The Children's Hour" from the beginning, long before Jirlib and Brent had started on the show. He was an old coot, and Brent claimed he was really one of the station owners. Viki didn't believe it, not after the way Didi sassed him.

"Okay, everybody." Didi's voice came amplified now. Daddy and the Honored Pedure straightened, each hearing the words from the speaker on their side. "We're coming up on fifteen seconds. Will you be ready, Master Digby, or should I play some dead air?"

Digby's snout was stuck in a wad of written notes. "Laugh if you like, Miss Ultmot, but air time is money. One way or another, I will—"

"Three, two, one—" Didi cut her speaker and stabbed a long, pointed hand in Digby's direction.

The cobber picked up his cue as if he'd been waiting in patient alertness. His words had the usual smooth dignity, the trademark that had introduced the show for more than fifteen years: "My name is Rappaport Digby, and this is ‘The Children's Hour of Science.'..."

When Zinmin Broute spoke in translation, his motions were no longer fitful and compulsive. He looked directly forward and smiled or frowned with emotions that seemed very real. And maybe they were real—for some armored spider creature down on the surface of Arachna. Occasionally there was some hesitation, a glitch in the intermediate conversions. Even more rarely, Broute would turn away, perhaps when some important cue appeared off-center in his head-up. But unless you knew what to look for, the fellow seemed to be speaking as fluently as any human announcer reading from notes written in his birth language.

Broute as Digby began with a little self-congratulatory history of the radio program, then described the shadow that had fallen upon it in recent days. "Out of phase," "perversion of birth." Broute rattled off the words as if he'd known them all his life. "This afternoon, we are back on the air as promised. The charges made in recent days are grave. Ladies and gentlemen, these charges of themselves are true."

The silence was a dramatic three beat, and then: "So my friends, you may wonder what gave us the courage—or the impudence—to return. For the answer to that, I ask you to listen to this afternoon's edition of ‘The Children's Hour.' Whether we continue in the future will largely depend on your reactions to what you hear today... ."

Silipan snorted. "What a money-grubbing hypocrite." Xin and the others waved at him to shut up. Trud sailed over to sit beside Ezr. This had happened before; he seemed to think that because Ezr sat at the edge, somehow he wanted to hear Silipan's analysis.

Beyond the wallpaper, Broute was introducing the debaters. Silipan anchored a comp to his knee and flipped it open. It was a clumsy Emergent thing, but it had ziphead support and that made it more effective than anything Humankind had created before. He punched the Explain key and a tiny voice gave him background: "Officially, the Honored Pedure represents the traditional Church. In fact—" The voice coming from Trud's comp paused, presumably while hardware searched databases. "—Pedure is a foreigner to the Goknan Accord. She's probably an agent of the Kindred government."

Xin looked around at them, momentarily losing track of Broute-Digby. "Pus, these people take their fundamentalism seriously. Does Underhill know about this?"

The voice from Trud's hand comp replied. "It's possible. ‘Sherkaner Underhill' is strongly correlated with Accord's security communications... .To date, we haven't seen any military message traffic discussing this debate, but the Spider civilization is not yet well automated. There could be things we're missing."

Trud spoke to the device: "I have a lowest-pri background task for you. What would the Kindred want from this debate?" He glanced up at Jau and shrugged. "Dunno if we'll get any answer. Things are pretty busy."

Broute was almost done with his introductions. Honored Pedure was to be played by a Xopi Reung. Xopi was a thin little Emergent. Ezr knew her name only from studying rosters and talking to Anne Reynolt.I wonder ifanyone else here knows the woman's name? thought Ezr. Certainly not Jau and Rita. Trud would, just as a livestock herder in primitive times would know his property. Xopi Reung was young; she had been brought out of the freezer to replace what Silipan called "a senility failure." Reung had been on-Watch for about 40Msec. She was responsible for most of the progress in learning other Spider languages, in particular "Tiefic." And she was already the second-best translator of "Standard Accord" speech. Someday, she might very well be better than Trixia. In a sane world, Xopi Reung would have been a premier academic, famous across her solar system. But Xopi Reung had been selected in the Podmaster Lottery. While Xin and Liao and Silipan led fully conscious lives, Xopi Reung was part of the automation in the walls, unseen except for the occasional peculiar circumstance.

Xopi Reung spoke: "Thank you, Master Digby. The Radio of Princeton secures itself proud by giving us this time to talk." During Broute's introduction, Reung's attention had flickered all around, birdlike. Perhaps her huds were out of adjustment, or maybe she preferred to scatter important cues all about her visual field. But when she started talking, something feral came into her eyes.

"Not a very good translation," someone complained.

"She's new, remember," said Trud.

"Or maybe this Pedure really does talk funny. You said she's a foreigner."

Reung-as-Pedure leaned out over the table. Her voice came silky and low. "Twenty days ago, we all discovered a corruption afester in what millions of people had been taking for years into their homes, into their husbands' and children's ears." She continued for several moments, speaking awkward sentences that seemed very self-righteous. Then: "So it is fitting that the Radio of Princeton should now give us opportunity to cleanse the community's air." She paused, "I—I—" It was as though she couldn't think of the right words. For an instant she seemed the ziphead again, fidgeting, her head cocked. Then abruptly she slammed her palm against the surface of the table. She pulled herself down to her chair and shut up.

"I told you, that one's not much of a translator."

TWENTY-FOUR

By leaning hands and forelegs on the wall, Viki and Gokna could keep their main eyes against the glass. It was an awkward pose, and the two skittered back and forth along the base of the window.

"Thank you, Master Digby. The Radio of Princeton secures itself proud by—" blah blah blah.

"She talks funny," said Gokna.

"I already told you that. She's a foreigner." Didire spoke abstractedly. She was busy with some arcane adjustment of her equipment. She didn't seem to be paying much attention to what was actually being said on the soundstage. Brent was watching the show with stolid fascination, while Jirlib alternated between the window and standing as close as he could to Didi. He was well cured of giving her technical advice, but he still liked to stand close. Sometimes he would ask an appropriately naive question. When Didi wasn't busy, that usually got her talking to him.

Gokna grinned at Viki. "No. I meant ‘Honored Pedure' talks like a bad joke."

"Hm." Viki wasn't so sure. Pedure's clothing was strange, of course. She hadn't seen cleric shawls outside of books. It was a shapeless cloak that came down on every side, obscuring all but Pedure's head and maw. But she had an impression of strength under cover. Viki knew what most people thought of children such as herself. Pedure was just a full-time advocate of that view, right? But her speech had a certain menace...."Do you think she really believes what she's saying?"

"Sure she believes it. That's what makes her so funny. See how Daddy's smiling?" Sherkaner Underhill was perched on the other side of the sound-stage, quietly petting his babies. He hadn't said a word yet, but there was a faint smile twitching across him. Two pairs of baby eyes peered fearfully out from his fur. Rhapsa and Hrunk couldn't understand everything that was going on, but they looked frightened.

Gokna noticed, too. "Poor babies. They're the only ones she can scare. Watch! I'm gonna Give Ten to the Honored Pedure." She turned away from the window and ran to the side wall—and then up the rack of audio tapes. The girls were seven years old, much too big for acrobatics.Oops. The rack was freestanding. It swayed out from the wall, tapes and assorted junk sliding to the edge of each shelf. Gokna reached the top before anyone but Viki realized what was happening. And from there she leaped out, grabbing the top molding of the soundstage window. The rest of her body swung down against the glass with a solidsplat sound. For an instant, she was a perfect Ten splayed out across the window. On the far side of the glass, Pedure stared in stupefied shock. The two girls shrieked with laughter. It wasn't often you could give such a perfect Ten, flaring your underwear in the target's face.

"Quit it!"Didi's voice was a flat hiss. Her hands flickered across the controls. "This is the last time you little crappers get into my control room! Jirlib, get over there! Shut your sisters down or drag them out, but no more crapping nonsense."

"Yes, yes! I'm so sorry." Jirlib really did sound sorry. He rushed over and plucked Gokna from the glass wall. A second later Brent followed him, grabbing Victory.