The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (12 page)

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Authors: Vernor Vinge

BOOK: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
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Wim saw Jagit forcibly relax; the peddler’s smile reappeared, full of irony. “But the fact remains that a cycle of rise and fall is the natural order of things—life and death, if you want to call it that. It gives humanity a chance to reach new heights, and gives an old order a clean
death. Stasis is a coma—no lows, but no highs either, no
choice.
Somehow I think that Sharn would have preferred a clean death to this—”
“Sharn? What do you know about the old empire?” The governor leaned forward, complaisance lost.
“Sharn—?” Wim’s bewilderment was lost on the air.
“They knew everything about Sharn, where I come from. The crystal city with rot at its heart, the Games of Three. They were even seeing the trends that would lead to this, though they had no idea it would prove so eminently successful.”
“Well, this gets more and more interesting.” The governor’s voice hardened. “Considering that there should be no way someone from outside could have known of the last years of the empire. But I suspect we’ll only continue to raise more questions this way. I think it’s time we got some answers.”
Wim slumped in his seat, visions of torture leaping into his mind. But the governor only left his desk, passing Wim with a glance that suggested hunger, and placed a shining band of filigreed metal on Jagit’s head.
“You may be surprised at what you get.” Jagit’s expression remained calm, but Wim thought strain tightened his voice.
The governor returned to his chair. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve just linked you into our computer net—”
Abruptly Jagit went rigid with surprise, settled back into a half-smile; but not before Aydricks had seen the change. “Once it gets into your mind you’ll have considerable difficulty concealing anything at all. It’s quick and always effective; though unfortunately I can’t guarantee that it won’t drive you crazy.”
The peddler’s smile faded. “How civilized,” he said quietly. He met Wim’s questioning eyes. “Well, Wim, you remember what I showed you. And crossing your fingers didn’t help, did it?”
Wim shook his head. “Whatever you say, Mr. Jagged … .” He suspected he’d never have an opportunity to remember anything.
Suddenly the peddler gasped, and his eyes closed, his body went limp in the seat. “Mr. Jagged—?” But there was no response. Alone, Wim wondered numbly what sort of terrible enchantment the metal crown held, and whether it would hurt when the computer—whatever that was—swallowed his own soul.
“Are you monitoring? All districts? Direct hookup, yes.” The governor seemed to be speaking to his desk. He hesitated as though listening, then stared into space.
Wim sagged fatalistically against his chair, past horror now, ignoring—and ignored by—the two entranced men. Silence stretched in the green room. Then the light in the room flickered and dimmed momentarily.
Wim’s eyes widened as he felt the unseen pressure that held him down weaken slightly, then return with the lighting. The governor frowned at nothing, still staring into space. Wim began ineffectually to twist at his bound hands. However the magic worked in this room, it had just stopped working; if it stopped again he’d be ready … . He glanced at Jagit. Was there a smile—?”
“District Eighteen here. Aydricks, what is this?”
Wim shuddered. The live disembodied head of a red-haired youth had just appeared in a patch of sudden brightness by the wall. The governor turned blinking toward the ghost.
“Our reception’s getting garbled. This data can’t be right, it says he’s …” The ghostly face wavered and the voice was drowned in a sound like water rushing. “ … it, what’s wrong with the transmission? Is he linked up directly? We aren’t getting anything now—”
Two more faces—one old, with skin even darker than the peddler’s, and one a middle-aged woman—appeared in the wall, protesting. And Wim realized then that he saw the other lords of Fyffe—and truly of the world—here and yet not here, transported by their magic from the far ends of the earth. The red-haired ghost peered at Wim, who shrank away from the angry, young-old eyes, then looked past to Jagit. The frown grew fixed and then puzzled, was transformed into incredulity. “No, that’s impossible!”
“What is it?” Aydricks looked harassed.
“I know that man.”
The black-haired woman turned as though she could see him. “What do you mean you—”
“I know that man too!” Another dark face appeared. “From Sharn, from the empire. But … after ten thousand years, how can he be the
same …
Aydricks! Remember the Primitive Arts man, he was famous, he spent …” the voice blurred, “ … got to get him out of the comm system! He knows the comm-sat codes, he can—” The ghostly face dematerialized entirely.
Aydricks looked wildly at the unmoving peddler, back at the remaining governors.
Wim saw more faces appear, and another face flicker out;
the same man …
“Stop him, Aydricks!” The woman’s voice rose. “He’ll ruin us. He’s altering the comm codes, killing the tie-up!”
“I can’t cut him off!”
“He’s into my link now, I’m losing con—”The red-haired ghost disappeared.
“Stop him, Aydricks, or we’ll burn out Fyffe!”
“Jagged! Look out!” Wim struggled against his invisible bonds as he
saw the governor reach with grim resolution for the colored metal globe on his desk. He knew Aydricks meant to bash in the peddler’s skull, and the helpless body in the chair couldn’t stop him. “Mr. Jagged, wake up!” Desperately Wim stuck out his feet as Aydricks passed; the governor stumbled. Another face disappeared from the wall, and the lights went out. Wim slid from the chair, free and groping awkwardly for a knife he no longer had. Under the faltering gaze of the ghosts in the wall, Aydricks fumbled toward Jagit.
Wim grabbed at Aydricks’s feet just as the light returned, catching an ankle. The governor turned back, cursing, to kick at him, but Wim was already up, leaping away from a blow with the heavy statue.
“Aydricks, stop the peddler!”
Full of sudden fury, Wim gasped, “Damn you, you won’t stop it this time!” As the governor turned away Wim flung himself against the other’s back, staggering him, and hooked his bound hands over Aydricks’s head. Aydricks fought to pull him loose, dropping the globe as he threw himself backward to slam his attacker against the desk. Wim groaned as his backbone grated against the desk edge, and lost his balance. He brought his knee up as he fell; there was a sharp
crack
as the governor landed beside him, and lay still. Wim got to his knees; the ancient eyes stabbed him with accusation and fear, “No. Oh,
no.”
The eyes glazed.
A week after his seventeenth birthday, Wim Buckry had killed a ten-thousand-year-old man. And, unknowingly, helped to destroy an empire. The room was quiet; the last of the governors had faded from the wall. Wim got slowly to his feet, his mouth pulled back in a grin of revulsion. All the magic in the world hadn’t done this warlock any good. He moved to where Jagit still sat entranced, lifted his hands to pull the metal crown off and break the spell. And hesitated, suddenly unsure of himself. Would breaking the spell wake the peddler, or kill him? They had to get out of here; but Jagit was somehow fighting the bewitchment, that much he understood, and if he stopped him now—His hands dropped, he stood irresolutely, waiting. And waiting.
His hands reached again for the metal band, twitching with indecision; jerked back as Jagit suddenly smiled at him. The dark eyes opened and the peddler sat forward, taking the metal band gently from his own head with a sigh. “I’m glad you waited. You’ll probably never know how glad.” Wim’s grin became real, and relieved.
Jagit got unsteadily to his feet, glanced at Aydricks’s body and shook his head; his face was haggard. “Said you might be a help, didn’t I?” Wim stood phlegmatically while the peddler who was as old as Sharn itself unfastened the cords on his raw wrists. “I’d say our business is finished. You ready to get out of here? We don’t have much time.”
Wim started for the door in response, opened it, and came face-to-face with the unsummoned guard standing in the hall. His fist connected with the gaping jaw; the guard’s knees buckled and he dropped to the floor, unconscious. Wim picked up the guard’s rifle as Jagit appeared beside him, motioning him down the dim hallway.
“Where is everybody?”
“Let’s hope they’re home in bed; it’s four-thirty in the morning. There shouldn’t be any alarms.”
Wim laughed giddily. “This’s a sight easier than getting away from the Borks!”
“We’re not away yet; we may be too late already. Those faces on the wall were trying to drop a—piece of sun on Fyffe. I think I stopped them, but I don’t know for sure. If it wasn’t a total success, I don’t want to find out the hard way.” He led Wim back down the wide stairway, into the empty hall where petitioners had gathered during the day. Wim started across the echoing floor but Jagit called him back, peering at something on the wall; they went down another flight into a well of darkness, guided by the peddler’s magic light. At the foot of the stairs the way was blocked by a door, solidly shut. Jagit looked chagrined, then suddenly the beam of his light shone blue; he flashed it against a metal plate set in the door. The door slid back and he went through it.
Wim followed him, into a cramped, softly glowing cubicle nearly filled by three heavily padded seats around a peculiar table. Wim noticed they seemed to be bolted to the floor, and suddenly felt claustrophobic.
“Get into a seat, Wim. Thank God I was right about this tower being a ballistic exit. Strap in, because we’re about to use it.” He began to push lighted buttons on the table before him.
Wim fumbled with the restraining straps, afraid to wonder what the peddler thought they were doing, as a heavy inner door shut the room off from the outside. Why weren’t they out of the building, running? How could this—Something pressed him down into the seat cushions like a gentle, insistent hand. His first thought was of another trap; but as the pressure continued, he realized this was something new. And then, glancing up past Jagit’s intent face, he saw that instead of blank walls, they were now surrounded by the starry sky of night. He leaned forward—and below his feet was the town of Fyffe, shrinking away with every heartbeat, disappearing into the greater darkness. He saw what the eagle saw … he was flying. He sat back again, feeling for the reassuring hardness of the invisible floor, only to discover suddenly that his feet no longer touched it. There was no pressure bearing him down now, there was nothing at all. His body drifted against the restraining straps, lighter than a bird. A small sound of incredulous wonder escaped him as he stared out at the unexpected stars.
And saw a brightness begin to grow at the opaque line of the horizon, spreading and creeping upward second by second, blotting out the stars with the fragile hues of dawn. The sun’s flaming face thrust itself up past the edge of the world, making him squint, rising with arcane speed and uncanny brilliance into a sky that remained stubbornly black with night. At last the whole sphere of the sun was revealed, and continued to climb in the midnight sky while now Wim could see a thin streak of sky-blue stretched along the horizon, left behind with the citron glow of dawn still lighting its center. Above the line in darkness the sun wore the pointed crown of a star that dimmed all others, and below it he could see the world at the horizon’s edge moving into day. And the horizon did not lie absolutely flat, but was bowing gently downward now at the sides … . Below his feet was still the utter darkness that had swallowed Fyffe. He sighed.
“Quite a view.” Jagit sat back from the glowing table, drifting slightly above his seat, a tired smile on his face.
“You see it too?” Wim said hoarsely.
The peddler nodded. “I felt the same way, the first time. I guess everyone always has. Every time civilization has gained space flight, it’s been rewarded again by that sight.”
Wim said nothing, unable to find the words. His view of the bowed horizon had changed subtly, and now as he watched there came a further change—the sun began, slowly but perceptibly, to move backward down its track, sinking once more toward the point of dawn that had given it birth. Or, he suddenly saw, it was they who were slipping, back down from the heights of glory into his world’s darkness once more. Wim waited while the sun sank from the black and alien sky, setting where it had risen, its afterglow reabsorbed into night as the edge of the world blocked his vision again. He dropped to the seat of his chair, as though the world had reclaimed him, and the stars reappeared. A heavy lurch, like a blow, shook the cubicle, and then all motion stopped.
He sat still, not understanding, as the door slid back in darkness and a breath of cold, sharp air filled the tiny room. Beyond the doorway was darkness again, but he knew it was not the night of a building hallway.
Jagit fumbled wearily with the restraining straps on his seat. “Home the same day …”
Wim didn’t wait, but driven by instinct freed himself and went to the doorway. And jerked to a stop as he discovered they were no longer at ground level. His feet found the ladder, and as he stepped down from its bottom rung he heard and felt the gritty shifting of gravel. The only other sounds were the sigh of the icy wind, and water lapping. As his eyes adjusted they told him what his other senses already knew—that
he was home. Not Darkwood Corners, but somewhere in his own cruelly beautiful Highlands. Fanged shadow peaks rose up on either hand, blotting out the stars, but more stars shone in the smooth waters of the lake; they shivered slightly, as he shivered in the cold breeze, clammy with sweat under his thin shirt. He stood on the rubble of a mountain pass somewhere above the treeline, and in the east the gash between the peaks showed pinkish-gray with returning day.

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