He grinned his cocky smile. "Ha! And that's my point. Sure, in principle we gave them enough information to do the mod. It looks to me like making this expanded spec table is equivalent to solving a, hmm," he counted rows and columns, "a five-hundred-node numerical PDE. And little Jefri claims that all his datasets are destroyed, and that his ship computer is not generally usable."
Ravna leaned back from the display. "Sorry. I see what you mean." You get so used to everyday tools, sometimes you forget what it must be like without them. "You… you think this might be, uh, Countermeasure's doing?"
Pham Nuwen hesitated, as if he hadn't even considered the possibility. Then, "No… no, it's not that. I think this 'Mister Steel' is playing games with our heads. All we have is a byte stream from 'Jefri'. What do we really know about what's going on?"
"Well, I'll tell you some things I know. We are talking to a young human child who was raised in Straumli Realm. You've been reading most of his messages in Trisk translation. That loses a lot of the colloquialisms and the little errors of a child who is a native speaker of Samnorsk. The only way this might be faked is by a group of human adults… And after twenty plus weeks of knowing Jefri, I'll tell you even that is unlikely."
"Okay. So suppose Jefri is for real. We have this eight-year-old kid down on the Tines' world. He's telling us what he considers to be the truth. I'm saying it looks like someone is lying to him. Maybe we can trust what he sees with his own eyes. He says these creatures aren't sapient except in groups of five or so. Okay. We'll believe that." Pham rolled his eyes. Apparently his reading had shown how rare group intelligences were this side of the Transcend. "The kid says they didn't see anything but small towns from space, and that everything on the ground is medieval. Okay, we'll buy that. But. What are the chances that this race is smart enough to do PDE's in their heads, and do them from just the implications in your message?"
"Well, there have been some humans that smart." She could name one case in Nyjoran history, another couple from Old Earth. If such abilities were common among the packs, they were smarter than any natural race she had heard of. "So this isn't first-time medievalism?"
"Right. I bet this is some colony fallen on hard times — like your Nyjora and my Canberra, except that they have the good luck of being in the Beyond. These dog packs have a working computer somewhere. Maybe it's under control of their priest class; maybe they don't have much else. But they're holding out on us."
"But why? We'd be helping them in any case. And Jefri has told us how this group saved him."
Pham started to smile again, the old supercilious smile. Then he sobered. He was really trying to break that habit. "You've been on a dozen different worlds, Ravna. And I know you've read about thousands more, at least in survey. You probably know of varieties of medievalism I've never guessed. But remember, I've actually been there… I think." The last was a nervous mutter.
"I've read about the Age of Princesses," Ravna said mildly.
"Yes… and I'm sorry for belittling that. In any medieval politics, the blade and the thought are closely connected. But they become much more closely bound for someone who's lived through it. Look, even if we believe everything that Jefri says he has seen, this Hidden Island Kingdom is a sinister thing."
"You mean the names?"
"Like Flensers, Steel, Tines? Harsh names aren't necessarily meaningful." Pham laughed. "I mean, when I was eight years old, one of my titles was already 'Lord Master Disemboweler'." He saw the look on Ravna's face and hurriedly added, "And at that age, I hadn't even witnessed more than a couple of executions! No, the names are only a small part of it. I'm thinking of the kid's description of the castle — which seems to be close by the ship — and this ambush he thinks he was rescued from. It doesn't add up. You asked 'what could they gain from betraying us'. I can see that question from their point of view. If they are a fallen colony, they have a clear idea what they've lost. They probably have some remnant technology, and are paranoid as hell. If I were them, I'd seriously consider ambushing the rescuers if those rescuers seemed weak or careless. And even if we come on strong… look at the questions Jefri asks for Steel. The guy is fishing, trying to figure out what we really value: the refugee ship, Jefri and the coldsleepers, or something on the ship. By the time we arrive, Steel will probably have wiped the local opposition — thanks to us. My guess is we're in for some heavy blackmail when we get to Tines' world."
I thought we were talking about the good news. Ravna paged back through recent messages. Pham was right. The boy was telling the truth as he knew it, but… "I don't see how we can play things any differently. If we don't help Steel against the Woodcarvers — "
