terror.

     <I>Oh Pham, how I wish  I could talk to you like before!</I> She curled gently
in  on herself, the  way  you can  in zero gee. The  sobs  came  softly, but
without hope. They had not exchanged a hundred words in the  last five days.
They lived as if with  guns at each  others' heads. And that was the literal
truth -- <I>she</I> had made it so. When she  and he and the Skroderiders  had been
together, at least the danger had been a  shared burden. Now they were split
apart and their enemies were  slowly gaining on them. What good could Pham's
godshatter be against a thousand enemy ships and the Blight behind them?
     She  floated  for  a timeless while,  the sobs  fading into  despairing
silence. And again she wondered if what she'd done  could possibly be right.
She had threatened Pham's life to protect Blueshell and Greenstalk and their
kind. In  doing so, she had kept secret what might be the greatest treachery
in  the history of the Known Net. <I>Can  one person make such a decision?</I> Pham
had asked her that, and she had answered <I>yes</I> but....
     The question toyed  with her every  day. And every day she tried to see
some way out. She wiped  her face  silently.  She didn't doubt what Pham had
discovered.
     There  were some smug posters on  the Net who  argued that something as
vast as the Blight was simply a tragic disaster, and not an evil. Evil, they
argued,  could  only have meaning on  smaller scales,  in  the hurt that one
sophont does  to another. Before RIP,  the argument  had seemed a  frivolous
playing with words. Now she saw  that  it was meaningful  -- and dead wrong.
The  Blight had  created  the  Riders, a marvelous and peaceful  race. Their
presence on a billion  worlds  had  been a good. And behind it  all  was the
potential for converting the sovereign minds of friends into monsters.  When
she thought of Blueshell and Greenstalk, and the fear welled up and she knew
the poison that was there --  <I>even though they were good people</I> --  then she
knew she'd glimpsed evil on the Transcendent scale.
     She had gotten Blueshell and Greenstalk into this mission; they had not
asked  for it. They were  friends  and allies, and she  <I>would not</I>  harm them
because of what they could become.
     Maybe it was  the latest news items. Maybe it was  confronting the same
impossibilities for the n'th time:  Ravna gradually straightened, looking at
those last messages. So. She believed Pham about the Skroderider threat. She
also believed these two were only enemies  in potential. She had thrown away
everything  to save them and  their kind. Maybe  it was a mistake, <I>but  take
what advantage  there is in it. If they are to  be saved because  you  think
they are allies, then treat  them as allies. Treat them  as the friends they
are. We are all pawns together.</I>
     Ravna pushed gently toward her cabin's doorway.






     The Skroderiders'  cabin was just behind the  command  deck.  Since the
debacle at  RIP, the two had not  left  it. As she drifted down the  passage
toward their  door, Ravna half-expected to see  Pham's handiwork lurking  in
the shadows. She  knew he was doing his best to "protect himself". Yet there
was nothing unusual. <I>What will he think of my visiting them?</I>
     She announced  herself. After a moment  Blueshell appeared. His  skrode
was  wiped clean of cosmetic stripes, and the room behind him  was a jumble.
He waved her in with quick jerks of his fronds.
     "My lady."
     "Blueshell," she nodded  at him.  Half the time she cursed  herself for
trusting the Riders; the other half, she was mortally embarrassed for having
left them alone. "H-how is Greenstalk?"
     Surprisingly,  Blueshell's  fronds  snapped together in  a  smile. "You
guessed? This  is the first day  with her new skrode.... I will show you, if
you'd like."
     He threaded around equipment that was scattered in a lattice across the
room.  It  was similar to  the shop  equipment  Pham  had used to build  his
powered armor. And if Pham had seen it, he might have lost all self-control.
     "I've worked on it every minute since ... Pham locked us in here."
     Greenstalk  was in  the other  room. Her stalk and  fronds rose  from a
silver pot.  There were  no  wheels.  It looked nothing  like a  traditional
skrode. Blueshell rolled across the ceiling and extended a frond down to his
mate. He rustled something at her, and after a moment, she replied.
     "The  skrodeling  is  very  limited,  no mobility,  no  redundant power
supplies.  I  copied  it off a Lesser  Skroderider  design, a  simple  thing
designed by Dirokimes. It's not  meant for more than sitting  in  one place,
facing in one direction. But it provides her with short-term memory support,
and attention focusers....  She is back with me." He fussed around her, some
fronds caressing  hers, others pointing to the gadget  he had built for her.
"She  herself was  not badly injured. Sometimes  I wonder  -- whatever  Pham
says, maybe at the last second he could not kill her."
     He spoke nervously, as though afraid of what Ravna might say.
     "The first few days I  was  very worried. But the  surgeon  is good. It
gave her plenty of time to stand in strong surf. To think slowly. Since I've
added  on  this  skrodeling, she has  practiced the calisthenics  of memory,
repeating what the surgeon or I say  to her. With  the  skrodeling, she  can
hold on to a new memory for almost five hundred seconds. That's usually long
enough for her natural mind to commit a thought to long-term memory."
     Ravna  drifted  close.  There  were  some  new creases in  Greenstalk's
fronds. Those would be scars healing.  Her visual  surfaces followed Ravna's
approach. The Rider knew she was here; her whole posture was friendly.
     "Can she talk Trisk, Blueshell? Do you have a voder hooked up?"
     "What?" Buzz.  He was forgetful or nervous,  Ravna couldn't tell which.
"Yes, yes. Just give me a minute.... There was no need before. No one wanted
to talk to us." He fiddled with something on the home-made skrode.
     After a moment, "Hello, Ravna. I ... recognize you." Her fronds rustled
in time with the words.
     "I know you, too. We, I am glad that you are back."
     The voder voice  was faint, wistful? "Yes. It's hard for me  to tell. I
do want to talk, but I'm not sure ... am I'm making sense?"
     Out of Greenstalk's sight, Blueshell flicked a long tendril, a gesture:
<I>say yes.</I>
     "Yes, I understand you, Greenstalk."  And Ravna resolved never again to
get angry with Greenstalk about not remembering.
     "Good." Her fronds straightened and she didn't say anything more.
     "See?" came Blueshell's voder voice. "I am brightly cheerful. Even now,
Greenstalk  is  committing this conversation  to  long-term  memory. It goes
slowly for now, but I am  improving the skrodeling. I'm sure her slowness is
mainly emotional  shock."  He continued to brush at Greenstalk's fronds, but
she  didn't say anything more. Ravna wondered just how  brightly cheerful he
could be.
     Behind the Riders were a set of display windows, customized now for the
Rider outlook. "You've been following the News?" Ravna asked.
     "Yes, indeed."
     "I-I feel so helpless." <I>I feel so foolish, saying that to you.</I>
     But Blueshell didn't take offense. He seemed grateful for the change of
topic,  preferring the gloom at a  distance.  "Yes. We certainly  are famous
now. Three fleets chasing us down, my lady. Ha ha."
     "They don't seem to be gaining very fast."
     Frond shrug. "Sir Pham has turned out to be a competent  ship's master.
I'm afraid things will change as  we  descend. The ship's higher  automation
will gradually  fail.  What  you  call  'manual control'  will  become  very
important. <I>OOB</I> was designed for my race,  my lady. No  matter what Sir  Pham
thinks of us,  at bottom  we can fly it better than  any. So  bit by bit the
others will gain -- at least those who truly understand their own ships."
     It  was something  she  hadn't guessed, certainly  something she  would
never have found reading the Net. <I>Too bad it's also bad news.</I> "S-surely Pham
must know this?"
     "I think he must. But he is trapped in  his own fears. What can  he do?
If not for you, My  Lady Ravna, he might have killed us  already. Maybe when
the choice comes down to dying in the  next  hour against trusting us, maybe
then there will be a chance."
     "By then it will be too late. Look, even if he  doesn't  trust  -- even
though he believes the worst of Riders -- there must still be a way." And it
came to her that sometimes you don't have to change the way people think, or
even whom they may  hate.  "Pham wants to get to the Bottom, to recover this
Countermeasure.  He thinks  you  may be from the  Blight, and after the same
thing. But up to a  point -- " up to a point he <I>can</I>  cooperate, postpone the
showdown he imagines till perhaps it won't matter.
     Even as  she started to say it,  Blueshell was already shouting back at
her. "I'm am <I>not</I> of the  Blight! Greenstalk  is not! The Rider race is not!"
He swept around his mate, rolled across the ceiling till his fronds  rattled
right before Ravna's face.
     "I'm sorry. It's just the potential -- "
     "<I>Nonsense!</I>"  His  voder  buzzed off  scale. "We ran in to an evil  few.
Every race has such, people who will kill for trade. They forced Greenstalk,
substituted  data at  her voder. Pham Nuwen would  kill our billions for the
sake of this fantasy." He waved,  inarticulate. Something she had never seen
in a Skroderider: his fronds actually changed tone, darkened.
     The motion ceased, yet he said nothing more. And then Ravna heard it, a
keening that might have come from a voder. The sound was steadily growing, a
howl  that  made  all  Blueshell's sound  effects friendly nonsense.  It was
Greenstalk.
     The scream reached a threshold just below pain, then  broke into choppy
Triskweline:  "<I>It's true!</I> Oh,  by all our trading, Blueshell, it's true...."
and staticky noise came from  her voder. Her fronds  started shaking, random
turning that must be like a human's  eyes  wildly  staring,  like  a human's
mouth mumbling hysteria.
     Blueshell was  already back by the  wall,  reaching  to  adjust her new
skrode. Greenstalk's fronds brushed him away, and her voder voice continued,
"<I>I was horror struck, Blueshell.</I> I was horror  struck, struck by horror. And
it would not stop...." the voice rattled quiet for just an instant, and this
time Blueshell  made no move. "I  remember everything up  till the last five
minutes. And everything Pham says is true, dear love. Loyal as you  are, and
I have seen that loyalty now for two  hundred years, you would be  turned in
an instant  ...  just as I was."  Now that  the  dam broke, her  words  came
quickly, mostly making sense. The  horrors  she could  remember  were graven
deep, and  she was finally coming out of ghastly shock.  "I was right behind
you, remember, Blueshell? You were deep in your trading  with the tusk-legs,
so deep you did not really see. I noticed the other Riders coming toward us.
No matter: a friendly meeting, so far from home. Then one touched my Skrode.
I -- " Greenstalk hesitated. Her fronds rattled and she began again, "horror
struck, horror struck ...."
     After a  moment:  "It  was  like suddenly new memories in  the  skrode,
Blueshell. New memories, new attitudes. But thousands of years deep. <I>And not
mine.</I> Instantly, instantly. I  never even lost consciousness. I thought just
as clearly, I remembered all I had before."
     "And when you resisted?" Ravna said softly.
     "... Resisted?  My  Lady Ravna, I did not resist.  I was theirs.... No.
Not  theirs, for they  were owned, too. We  were things, our intelligence in
service to another's goal. Dead,  and  alive to see  our death. I would kill
you, I would kill Pham, I would kill Blueshell. You know I tried. And when I
did, I wanted to succeed. You could not imagine,  Ravna. You humans speak of
violation. You could never know...." Long pause. "That's not quite right. At
the Top of the  Beyond, within the Blight itself -- perhaps there,  <I>everyone</I>
lives as I did."
     The  shuddering  did  not  subside, but  her gestures  were  no  longer
aimless. The fronds were saying something in her own language,  and brushing
gently against Blueshell.
     "Our whole race, dear love. Just as Pham says it."
     Blueshell wilted, and  Ravna  felt the sort of gut-tearing she had when
they learned of Sjandra Kei. That had been her worlds, her family, her life.
Blueshell was hearing worse.
     Ravna pushed a little  closer, near enough to run her  hand up the side
of Greenstalk's fronds. "Pham  says it's  the greater skrodes  that are  the
cause." Sabotage hidden billions of years deep.
     "Yes, it is mainly  the skrodes. The 'great gift' we Riders love so....
It is a design for control, but I fear we were remade for it, too. When they
touched my skrode, I was converted  instantly. Instantly, everything I cared
for  was  meaningless. We are  like  smart bombs, scattered by the trillions
through space that everyone thinks  is  safe. We will  be used sparingly. We
are the Blight's hidden weapon, especially in the Low Beyond."
     Blueshell  twitched,  and  his voice came out jerkily:  "And everything
Pham claims is correct."
     "No, Blueshell, not  everything."  Ravna remembered  that last chilling
standoff  with Pham Nuwen. "He has  the facts, but he weighs  them wrong. As
long as your skrodes are not perverted, you are the same folk that I trusted
to fly me to the Bottom."
     Blueshell angled his  look  away from her, an angry shrug. Greenstalk's
voice came instead.  "As  long as  the skrode has not been perverted.... But
look how easy it was done, how sudden I became the Blight's."
     "Yes,  but could  it  happen  except  by  direct  touch? Could  you  be
'changed'  by  reading  the Net  News?" She  meant  the question  as ghastly
sarcasm, but poor Greenstalk took it seriously:
     "Not by a News item, nor by standard protocol messages. But accepting a
transmission targeted on skrode utilities might do it."
     "Then we are safe  here.  You,  because  you no  longer  ride a greater
skrode, Blueshell because -- "
     "Because I was never touched  -- but how can you  know that?" His anger
was still there deep within shame, but now it was a hopeless anger, directed
at something very far away.
     "No, dear love, you have not been touched. I would know."
     "Yes, but why should Ravna believe <I>you</I>?"

     <I>Everything could be a lie,</I> thought Ravna, <I>... but I believe Greenstalk.
I  believe  we  four are  the only ones in all the Beyond who  can hurt  the
Blight.</I> If only Pham could see it. And that brought her back to: "You say we
will start losing our lead?"
     Blueshell waved an affirmative. "As soon as we are a little lower. They
should have us in a matter of weeks."
     And then it won't matter who was perverted and who was not. "I think we
should have a little chat with Pham Nuwen." Godshatter and all.






     Beforehand Ravna couldn't imagine how the confrontation would turn out.
Just possibly -- if he'd  lost  all touch with reality --  Pham might try to
kill them when they appeared on the command deck. More likely there would be
rage and argument and threats, and they would be back to square one.
     Instead ...  it was  almost  like the old Pham,  from before Harmonious
Repose. He  let them enter the command deck,  he  made no comment when Ravna
set herself carefully between himself and the  Riders. He  listened  without
interruption, while Ravna explained what Greenstalk had said. "These two are
safe, Pham. And without their help we'll not make it to the Bottom."
     He nodded, looked away  at the windows.  Some showed natural starscape;
most were ultratrace displays, the closest thing to a picture of the enemies
that were closing on the <I>OOB</I>. His calm expression broke for just an instant,
and the  Pham that loved her seemed to stare out, desperate: "And you really
believe all  this,  Rav? <I>How?</I>"  Then the  lid  was back  on,  his expression
distant  and  neutral. "Never mind.  Certainly it's true: without all  of us
working together  we'll never make it  to Tines' World.  Blueshell, I accept
your offer. Subject  to cautious safeguards,  we  work together." <I>Till I can
safely  dispose  of  you,</I>  Ravna  could  feel  the  unsaid words behind  his
blandness. Showdown deferred.



     .Delete this paragraph to shift page flush


        CHAPTER 33


     They were  less  than eight  weeks  from  Tines' World,  both Pham  and
Blueshell  said. If the Zone conditions remained stable. If  they  were  not
overtaken in the meantime.
     Less than two months, after the six already voyaged. But  the days were
not like before. Every one was a challenge, a standoff sometimes  cloaked in
civility, sometimes  flaring into  threats of sudden  death -- as  when Pham
retrieved Blueshell's shop equipment.
     Pham was living on the command deck now; when he left it, the hatch was
locked on his ID. He  had destroyed, or  thought he had destroyed, all other
privileged links to the  ship's  automation. He and Blueshell were in almost
constant  collaboration  ...  but not  like  before. Every  step  was  slow,
Blueshell explaining  everything,  allowed  to demonstrate  nothing.  That's
where the arguments came closest to deadly force, when Pham must  give in to
one peril or the other. For every day the pursuing fleets were  a little bit
closer: two bands of killers, and  what was left  of  Sjandra Kei. Evidently
some of the SjK Commercial Security fleet could still fight,  wanted revenge
on  the Alliance. Once Ravna suggested to Pham that they contact  Commercial
Security, try to persuade them to attack the Blighter fleet. Pham  had given
her a blank look. "Not yet, maybe not ever," he said, and  turned away. In a
way his answer  was a relief:  Such a battle  would be a suicidal long shot.
Ravna didn't want the last of her kinsfolk dying for her.
     So the <I>OOB</I> might arrive at Tines' World before the enemy, but with what
little time to spare!  Some  days  Ravna withdrew in tears and despair. What
brought her back was Jefri and Greenstalk. They both  needed her, and  for a
few weeks more she could still help.
     Mr. Steel's defense  plans were proceeding. The  Tines were even having
some  success  with their wideband  radio. Steel reported  that Woodcarver's
main force was on its way north;  there was more than one race against time.
She spent many hours  with  the  <I>OOB</I>'s library, devising more  gifts for the
Jefri's friends. Some things -- like telescopes -- were easy, but others....
It wasn't wasted effort. Even if the Blight won,  its fleet might ignore the
natives,  might  settle  for   killing  the   <I>OOB</I>   and  winning   back  the
Countermeasure.
     Greenstalk  was  slowly  improving.  At  first  Ravna  was  afraid  the
improvement might  be in her own imagination. Ravna was spending a good part
of each day sitting with the Rider, trying to see progress in her responses.
Greenstalk was very "far away",  almost like a  human with stroke damage and
prosthesis. In  fact, she seemed regressed from the articulate horror of her
first conversations. Maybe her recent progress was just a  mirror to Ravna's
sensitivity, to the fact that Ravna was with her so much. Blueshell insisted
there was progress,  but with that stubborn inflexibility of his. Two weeks,
three --  and  there was no  doubt:  something was  healing  at the boundary
between  Rider   and  skrodeling.   Greenstalk   consistently  made   sense,
consistently committed important rememberings.... Now as often as not it was
<I>she</I> helping Ravna. Greenstalk  saw things  that Ravna had missed:  "Sir Pham
isn't the only one who is afraid of us Skroderiders. Blueshell is frightened
too, and  it is tearing him apart. He  can't admit it  even to  me,  but  he
thinks it's  possible that we're infected  independently of our skrodes.  He
desperately wants  to  convince  Pham  that  this  is not true --  and so to
convince himself."  She was  silent for  a  long moment,  one frond brushing
against Ravna's arm. Sea sounds surrounded them  in  the  cabin,  but ship's
automation could no longer produce surging water. "Sigh. We must pretend the
surf, dear Ravna. Somewhere  it will always be,  no matter  what happened at
Sjandra Kei, no matter what happens here."






     Blueshell was hearty gentleness  around his mate, but  alone with Ravna
his  rage  showed through: "No, no, I don't object to Sir Pham's navigation,
at  least  not now.  Perhaps we  could  be a little further  ahead  with  me
directly  at  the helm, but  the  fastest  ships behind us  would  still  be
closing. It's the other  things,  my lady. You know  how  untrustworthy  our
automation is  down here.  Pham is hurting it further.  He's written his own
security overrides.  He's  turning  the ship's environment automation into a
system of boobytraps."
     Ravna had seen evidence of  this. The  areas  around <I>OOB</I>'s command deck
and ship's workshop looked like military  checkpoints. "You  know his fears.
If this makes him feel safer -- "
     "That's not the point, My Lady. I would  do anything to persuade him to
accept  my  help.  But  what he's  doing  is deadly  dangerous.  Our  Bottom
automation is not  reliable, and he's making  it actively worse.  If we  get
some sudden  stress, the  environment  programs will  likely have a  bizarre
crash -- atmosphere dump, thermal runaway, anything."
     "I -- "
     "Doesn't he understand? Pham controls <I>nothing</I>." His voder broke into  a
nonlinear  squawk. "He has the ability to destroy, but that is all. He needs
my help. He was my friend. Doesn't he understand?"






     Pham  understood ... oh, Pham  understood.  He and Ravna  still talked.
Their  arguments were the hardest  thing  in her  life.  And sometimes  they
didn't exactly argue; sometimes it was almost like rational discussion:
     "I  haven't  been taken over, Ravna.  Not like  the Blight  takes  over
Riders, anyway. I still  have charge of  my  soul." He turned away from  the
console and flashed a wan smile in her  direction, acknowledging the flaw in
such self-conviction. And from things like  that  smile, Ravna was convinced
that Pham Nuwen still lived, and sometimes spoke.
     "What about the godshatter state? I see you for hours, just  staring at
the  tracking display,  or mucking  around in the  library  and  the  News,"
scanning faster than any human could consciously read.
     Pham  shrugged. "It's studying the ships that are chasing us, trying to
figure  out just what  belongs to whom,  just  what capabilities each  might
have. I don't know  the details. Self-awareness is on  vacation  then," when
all Pham's  mind  was turned  into a processor for whatever programs Old One
had  downloaded.  A  few hours  of  fugue state  might yield  an  instant of
Power-grade thought  -- and even that he didn't consciously remember. "But I
know this.  Whatever the godshatter is,  it's a  very narrow thing. It's not
alive; in some ways it may not even be very smart. For everyday matters like
ship piloting, there's just good old Pham Nuwen."
     "... there's the rest of us, Pham. Blueshell would like to help," Ravna
spoke  softly. This was the place where Pham would close into icy silence --
or blow up in rage. This day, he just cocked his head. "Ravna, Ravna. I know
I need him.... And, and I'm glad I need him. That I don't have to kill him."
<I>Yet.</I>  Pham's lips quivered  for  a second,  and  she thought  he might start
crying.
     "The godshatter can't know Blueshell -- "
     "<I>Not</I> the godshatter. It's not making me  act this way -- I'm doing what
any  person should do when the  stakes are this high." The words were spoken
without anger. Maybe there was a chance. Maybe she could reason:
     "Blueshell and  Greenstalk are loyal, Pham. Except at Harmonious Repose
-- "
     Pham  sighed, "Yeah. I've thought about that a lot. They  <I>came</I> to Relay
from  Straumli Realm. They  got  Vrinimi looking for the refugee ship.  That
smells of setup, but probably unknowing  --  maybe even a setup by something
opposing  the Blight. In any case they were  innocent  then, else the Blight
would have known about Tines world right from the beginning. The Blight knew
nothing till RIP, till Greenstalk was converted.  And I  know Blueshell  was
loyal even then. He knew  things about my armor -- the remotes, for instance
-- that he could have warned the others about."
     Hope came as a surprise to Ravna. He really had thought things out, and
--  "It's  just the skrodes, Pham.  They're  traps waiting to be sprung. But
we're isolated here, and you destroyed the one that Greenstalk -- "
     Pham was shaking his head. "It's more  than the skrodes. The Blight had
its hand in  Rider design, too, at least to some degree. I can't imagine the
takeover of Greenstalk's being so smooth otherwise."
     "Y-yes. A risk. A very small risk compared to -- "
     Pham  didn't  move, but something in him seemed to  draw away from her,
denying the support  she  could offer.  "A small risk?  We  don't  know. The
stakes are so <I>high</I>. I'm walking a tightrope. If  I don't  use Blueshell now,
we'll be shot out of space  by the Blighter fleet. If I let him do too much,
if I trust him,  then he or some  part of him could betray us. All I have is
the godshatter, and  a bunch of memories  that  ... that may be the  biggest
fakes of all." These last words were nearly inaudible. He looked up  at her,
a look  that  was both cold  and terribly lost. "But I'm going to use what I
have, Rav, and whatever it is  I am. Somehow  I'm going to get us  to Tines'
World. Somehow I'm going to get Old One's godshatter to whatever is there."






     It was another three weeks before Blueshell's predictions came true.
     The  <I>OOB</I> had  seemed a sturdy  beast up in the Middle  Beyond; even its
damaged ultradrive had failed  gracefully. Now the ship was leaking  bugs in
all directions. Much  of it had nothing to do  with Pham's meddling. Without
those final  consistency checks, none  of the  <I>OOB</I>'s Bottom  automation  was
really  trustworthy.  But  its failures were compounded by Pham's  desperate
security hacks.
     The ship's library had source code  for generic Bottom automation. Pham
spent several days revising it for  the <I>OOB</I>. All four  of them  were on  the
command  deck during  the  installation,  Blueshell  trying  to  help,  Pham
suspiciously   examining   every   suggestion.  Thirty   minutes   into  the
installation,  there  were  muffled banging noises  down the  main corridor.
Ravna might have ignored them, except that she'd never heard the like aboard
the <I>OOB</I>.
     Pham  and the  Riders  reacted  with near  panic;  spacers  don't  like
unexplained  bumps in  the  night.  Blueshell raced  to  the  hatch, floated
fronds-first through the hole. "I see nothing, Sir Pham."
     Pham  was paging quickly  through the diagnostic displays, mixed format
things partly from the new setup. "I've got some warning lights here, but --
"
     Greenstalk started to say something, but Blueshell was back and talking
fast: "I  don't believe it.  Anything  like this  should  make  pictures,  a
detailed report. Something is terribly wrong."
     Pham  stared  at him a second, then returned to his  diagnostics.  Five
seconds  passed.  "You're  right.  Status  is  just  looping  through  stale
reports."  He began grabbing views from cameras all over the <I>OOB</I>'s interior.
Barely half of them reported, but what they showed...
     The  ship's  water  reservoir was a foggy,  icy  cavern. That  was  the
banging sound -- tonnes of water, spaced. A dozen other support services had
gone bizarre, and --
     --  the armed checkpoint outside  the  workshop  had  slagged down. The
beamers were firing continuously  on low power. And for all the destruction,
the diagnostics still showed green or amber or no report. Pham got  a camera
in the workshop itself. <I>The place was on fire.</I>
     Pham jumped  up from his saddle  and  bounced off  the  ceiling. For an
instant  she thought he might go racing off the bridge. Then he tied himself
down and grimly began trying to put out the fire.
     For the  next  few  minutes, the  bridge  was  almost  quiet, just Pham
quietly  swearing  as none  of  the  obvious  things  worked.  "Interlocking
failures,"  he  mumbled  the  phrase  a  couple  of  times.  "The  firesnuff
automation is  down.... I can't dump atmosphere from the  shop.  My  beamers
have melted everything shut."
     Ship  fire. Ravna had seen  pictures  of such disasters,  but  they had
always seemed  an  improbable thing. In the midst  of universal  vacuum, how
could a fire survive? And in zero-gee, surely a fire would choke itself even
if the crew couldn't dump atmosphere. The workshop camera had a hazy view on
the  real thing:  True,  the flames  ate the oxygen around  them. There were
sheets  of construction foam  that were only lightly scorched, protected for
the  moment  by dead  air. But the  fire spread out,  moving  steadily  into
still-fresh air.  In  places, heat-driven turbulence  enriched the  mix, and
previously burned areas blazed up.
     "It's still got ventilation, Sir Pham."
     "I <I>know</I>. I can't shut it. The vents must be melted open."
     "It's as likely software." Blueshell was silent for a second. "Try this
-- " the directions were meaningless to Ravna, some low-level workaround.
     But Pham nodded, and his fingers danced across the console.
     In the  workshop,  the surface-hugging flames  crept farther across the
construction  foam. Now they licked at the  innards  of the  armor  Pham had
spent so much time on. This  latest revision was only  half finished.  Ravna
remembered  he was  working  on  reactive  armor  now  .... <I>There  would  be
oxidizers there</I>. "Pham, is the armor sealed -- "
     The  fire  was  sixty  meters  aft and  behind a  dozen bulkheads.  The
explosion came as a distant  thump, almost innocent. But in the camera view,
the armor dismembered itself, and the fire blazed triumphant.
     Seconds  later,  Pham  got  Blueshell's  suggestion  working,  and  the
workshop's vents closed. The fire in the wrecked armor continued for another
half hour, but did not spread beyond the shop.






     It  took two days to clean  up, to  estimate the  damage, and have some
confidence that no new disaster  was on  the  way. Most of  the workshop was
destroyed. They would have no armor on Tines world. Pham salvaged one of the
beamers that had  been  guarding  the entrance  to  the  shop. Disaster  was
scattered all  across  the  ship,  the classic random  ruin of  interlocking
failures: They  had  lost fifty percent of their  water. The ship's  landing
boat had lost its higher automation.

     <I>OOB</I>'s rocket drive was massively degraded. That was unimportant here in
interstellar space, but their final  velocity matching would be done at only
0.4  gees.  Thank goodness  the  agrav worked; they  would have  no  trouble
maneuvering in steep gravitational wells -- that is, landing on Tines world.
     Ravna knew how close they were to losing the ship, but she watched Pham
with even greater dread. She was  so afraid that he would take this as final
evidence  of Rider  treachery, that this would  drive  him  over  the  edge.
Strangely,  almost  the  opposite happened. His pain  and  devastation  were
obvious, but he didn't lash out,  just  doggedly went about gathering up the
pieces. He was  talking to Blueshell  more now, not letting him  modify  the
automation,  but  cautiously accepting  more  of  his  advice. Together they
restored the ship to something like its pre-fire state.
     She asked Pham about it. "No change of heart," he finally said.  "I had
to balance  the risks, and I messed up....  And maybe there  is  no balance.
Maybe the Blight will win."
     The godshatter had bet too much on Pham's doing  it all himself. Now it
was turning down the paranoia a little.






     Seven  weeks  out  from  Harmonious  Repose, less  than  one  week from
whatever waited at Tines' world, Pham went into a multiday fugue. Before  he
had been busy, a futile attempt to run handmade checks on all the automation
they might need at Tines' World. Now -- Ravna couldn't even get him to eat:
     The  nav display  showed the three fleets as identified by the News and
Pham's intuition: the  Blight's  agents, the Alliance for  the Defense,  and
what  was left  of Sjandra Kei Commercial Security.  Deadly monsters and the
remains  of  a  victim.  The Alliance still  proclaimed  itself with regular
bulletins  on the News.  SjK Commercial Security  had  posted  a  few  terse
refutations, but was mostly silent; they were unused to propaganda, or -- as
likely -- uninterested  in  it. A  private revenge was all  that remained to
Commercial Security. And the  Blighter fleet? The News hadn't heard anything
from  them.  Piecing  together  departures  and  lost  ships,  War  Trackers
Newsgroup concluded they were a wildly ad hoc assembly, whatever the  Blight
had controlled down here at the time of the RIP debacle. Ravna knew that the
War Trackers analysis was wrong about one thing: The Blighter fleet  was not
silent. Thirty times over the  last weeks, they had sent messages at the <I>OOB</I>
... in skrode maintenance format. Pham had had the ship reject  the messages
unread  -- and  then  worried about whether  the order was really  followed.
After all, the <I>OOB</I> was of Rider design.
     But  now the torment in him was submerged. Pham sat  for hours, staring
at the display. Soon  Sjandra Kei  would  close  with the Alliance fleet. At
least one set of  villains would pay.  But  the Blighter fleet and  at least
part of the Alliance  would survive.... Maybe this fugue was just godshatter
getting desperate.
     Three days  passed; Pham snapped out of it. Except for the new thinness
in his face,  he seemed more normal than he had in  weeks. He asked Ravna to
bring the Riders up to the bridge.
     Pham  waved  at the ultradrive  traces that floated  in the window. The
three fleets were spread through a rough cylinder, five light-years deep and
three across. The display captured only the heart  of that volume, where the
fastest of the pursuers had clustered. The current position of each ship was
a  fleck of  light trailing an  unending  stream  of fainter lights  --  the
ultradrive trace left by that  vehicle's  drive. "I've  used  red, blue, and
green to mark  my best guess as to the fleet affiliation of each trace." The
fastest ships were collected in a blob so dense that it looked white at this
scale, but with colored streamers  diverging behind. There  were other tags,
annotations  he  had  set but  which he admitted  once  to  Ravna  he didn't
understand.
     "The front  edge  of that mob  --  the fastest of the  fast -- is still
gaining."
     Blueshell  said hesitantly.  "We  might get a little more speed  if you
would grant me direct control. Not much, but -- "
     Pham's response was  civil  at  least. "No, I'm  thinking of  something
else, something Ravna suggested a while back. It's always been a possibility
and ... I ... think the time may have come for it."
     Ravna moved closer to  the display, stared at the  green  traces. Their
distribution  was  in  near agreement with what the News  claimed to be  the
remnants of Sjandra Kei Commercial Security. <I>All  that's  left of my people.</I>
"They've been trying to engage with the Alliance for a hundred hours now."
     Pham's glance touched  hers. "Yeah," he  said  softly. "Poor  bastards.
They're literally the fleet  from Port Despair. If I were them, I'd -- " His
expression smoothed over again. "Any idea how well-armed they are?" That was
surely a rhetorical question, but it put the topic on the table.
     "War Trackers  thinks  that Sjandra  Kei had  been  expecting something
unpleasant  ever  since  the  Alliance  started talking  'death to  vermin'.
Commercial  Security  was  providing  deep  space  defense.  Their  fleet is
converted  freighters  armed  with  locally-designed  weapons. War  Trackers
claims they weren't  really a  match for what the other side could field, <I>if</I>
the  Alliance was willing to take some heavy casualties. Trouble is, Sjandra
Kei  never  expected  the planet-smasher attack. So when the  Alliance fleet
showed up, ours moved out to meet it -- "
     "--  and meantime the KE bombs  were coming straight in  to  the  heart
spaces of Sjandra Kei."
     Into my heart spaces.  "Yes. The Alliance must  have been running those
bombs for weeks."
     Pham Nuwen  laughed shortly.  "If  I  were  shipping with the  Alliance
fleet, I'd be a bit  nervous now. They're down in numbers, and those retread
freighters seem about as fast as anything here....  I'll bet every pilot out
of Sjandra Kei is dead set on revenge." The emotion faded.  "Hmm. There's no
way they could kill all the Alliance ships or  all the Blight's,  much  less
all of both. It would be pointless to ...
     His gaze abruptly  focused on her. "So  if we leave things as they are,
the  Sjandra Kei fleet will eventually match position  with the Alliance and
try to blow them out of existence."
     Ravna just nodded. "In twelve hours or so, they say."
     "And then  all that will be left is the Blight's own fleet on our tail.
But if we could talk your people into fighting the right enemies..."
     It was Ravna's nightmare scheme. All that was left of Sjandra Kei dying
to save the <I>OOB</I> ... trying to save them. There was little chance the Sjandra
Kei fleet  could destroy all the Blighter ships.  <I>But they're here to fight.
Why not a vengeance that means something?</I> That was the  nightmare's message.
Now somehow it fit godshatter's plans.  "There are problems. They don't know
what  we're doing or the purpose  of the third fleet. Anything we shout back
to them  will  be overheard." Ultrawave  was directional, but most  of their
pursuers were closely mingled.
     Pham nodded. "Somehow we have  to talk to them, and them alone. Somehow
we  have to persuade  them  to fight." Faint smile. "And I think we may have
just the ... equipment ... to do all that. Blueshell: Remember that night on
the High Docks. You told us about your 'rotted cargo' from Sjandra Kei?"
     "Indeed,  Sir Pham.  We carried one third of a  cipher generated by SjK
Commercial Security for their long-range  communications. It's still in  the
ship's safe, though worthless without the other two  thirds." Gram for gram,
crypto  materials were  about the  most  valuable  thing shipped between the
stars -- and once compromised, about the most valueless. Somewhere in <I>Out of
Band</I>'s cargo files  there was an SjK one-time communications pad.  Part of a
pad.
     "Worthless? Maybe not.  Even one third  would  provide  us with  secure
communications."
     Blueshell  dithered.  "I must not mislead  you. No  competent  customer
would  accept such.  Certainly, it provides  secure communication,  but  the
other side has no verification that <I>you</I> are who you claim."
     Pham's  glance slid sideways, toward Ravna. There was that smile again.
"If  they'll  listen, I  think we can convince them.... The hard part is,  I
only want one of them to hear us." Pham  explained what he had in  mind. The
Riders' rustled faintly behind Pham's words. After all their time  together,
Ravna  could  almost  get  some  sense of their talk  -- or  maybe  she just
understood their personalities.  As usual, Blueshell  was worrying about how
impossible the idea was, and Greenstalk was urging him to listen.
     But when Pham finished, the large rider did not launch into objections.
"Across seventy light-years, ultrawave comm between ships is practical, even
without our antenna swarm; we could even have live video. But you are right,
the  beam spread would  include  all the  ships in  the  central  cluster of
fleets.  If we could reliably identify  an outlying vessel  as  belonging to
Sjandra Kei,  then what  you are asking  might be done; that ship  could use
internal  fleet  codes to  relay to the others. But  in  honesty I must warn
you,"  continued Blueshell, brushing  back Greenstalk's gentle remonstrance,
"professional communications  folk would not honor  your request for talk --
would probably not even recognize it as such."
     "Silly." Greenstalk  finally spoke,  her voder-voice  gentle but clear.
"You  always  say things  like that -- except  when we are talking to paying
customers."
     "<I>Bra