^
^ Using w.bat and wc.com to do 1500words/day
!V ID It would be nice if there were some consistent name for the
!V refugee ship -- especially if it were short, clear, and everyone
!V could use it! -- TUF June 12, 1991
!RETRO INCON Make it clear that the first interiew with Tyrathect is
! before Steel looks inside the refugee boat. Also, decide in that
! scene whether you want Steel to gloat about the future
!V I don't think this is serious:
!General PRB loose packs are a very common thing, and also similar
! to what happens to Peregrine and to Flenser/Tyrathect. You should
! justify this more in the various appropriate place
!Some time review the matter-of-fact nitty-grittiness of
!On the Wings of Song.
!PRB So what makes Flenser different/worse than Woodcarver
! Pack-involuntary experimentation
! Heavy use of pack-wide operant conditioning
! Lots of pack murder and general totalitarian attitudes toward packs
!PRB ID General analog of a womanizer: rapists v those who want a puppy
! "I want to have your puppy"
! Tropic attribute
! How to work this in
! Seems like there are a lot of things that would probably go on that
! would really look like Steel inhumanity, but would be almost the
! norms for the race
!MG ID maybe agrav just got busted
!MG ID maybe this is analog of Sikorsky sky crane (ie container ship)
!MG PRB seems like big fleets would be produced in Transcend
! VSV various interesting consequences
!MG What about the transhumans' "polluting the waters" of the Beyond
!MG Engineers' dreams as nightmares
! A point for transhumans, argle-bargle points important here
! Related to the McGuffin and the Surge
!MG analogy with polluters causing algae bloom
!V BKG IMP :
!ID VSV some difference for packs between the "sexes"
! May be weak in several ways, but (among other things):
! Pack(s) that fissions is/are generally considered female
! Packs that have a majority of a one sex are often said to be of that
! sex (and their behavior often fits the other criteria)
! Trying to get others to bear/keep pups is male strategy. Note that
! this would change depending on replacement needs
!There may be cultural perspectives (and packish languages) that make
! entirely different classifications of pack personality modes and
! strategies.
!?RETRO intelligent behavior on the bimaran
!V NOTIME
!IMP ID Use of singleton guards in the castle RETRO
! Note that this could be a relatively humane use for the tragedy of
! fragments; however, it also calls for a fairly large amount
! of retrowriting MG suggested having tincan telephones used within
! the castle
!ID Fuzzy pink dataset. Why she didn't have a better one
! gives some interesting insight about the High Lab
!V: I think I have done some of this (see also my note about
!V having Johanna understand about the two Tinish views of everything
!General PRB with doors BKG TINES PROwrite: On private cabins, it seems to
! me the doors would be quite small.
! On public buildings, it would be impossible to make a door big enough
! for more than one pack to use at the same time (though there could be
! multiple doors. There might be some motive for having a door wide enough
! to admit a pack walking abreast (ceremony, safety of pack, to allow
! for freight). Some public building doors would be small for security.
!V I think this is okay now February 9, 1991 :
!IMP! Evolution of Steel's misconceptions about humans and his plans
! toward them
!
!
!
!T2.TXT as a whole covers the original p93-166 (74p), about 21837w
!This was second part of 05.txt, p93-100

CHAPTER 10 !V IMP INCON Should put in more reference to moon, maybe even a
! statement
!somewhere of what a month is (see BKG in t1) see notes in
!V c01
!RETRO say how the boat was provisioned
!BKG Here's the orientation:
! They're going south, so starboard is west, and port is east
! Johanna is in the starboard pod (see t1) with her feet pointing south

!V jrf, you mentioned that I should rearrange Johanna's priorities a
!V a little so that she is more concerned with Jefri than revenge.
!V I think that is a good idea, but I'm unclear just where to do it.
!V For instance, the revenge stuff works quite well on this boat
! scene.
!V Should I just insert her thinking more about Jefri, or do more
!V with the Jefri thoughts later on?
!jrf2 What's important to me is the way we perceive Johanna at first,
!jrf2 because first impressions last. (I know this isn't our
!jrf2 first look at her here on the boat, but it's the first one
!jrf2 with her under duress.) My big concern is that we don't see
!jrf2 her first in an unsympathetic light. So have her thinking about
!jrf2 Jefri, and then also do the revenge stuff.
!jrf2 See opportunity noted several paragraphs down.

Johanna was in the boat for a long time. The sun never set, though now it was low behind her, now it was high in front, now all was cloudy and rain plinked off the tarp covering her blankets. She spent the hours in an agonized haze. Things happened that could only have been dreams. There were creatures pulling at her clothes, blood sticking everywhere. Gentle hands and rat snouts dressed her wounds, and forced chill water down her throat. When she thrashed around, Mom rearranged her blankets and comforted her with the strangest sounds. For hours, someone warm lay beside her. Sometimes it was Jefri; more often it was a large dog, a dog that purred.
The rain passed. The sun was on the left side of the boat, but hidden behind a cold, snapping shadow. More and more, the pain became divisible. Part of it was in her chest and shoulder; that stabbed through her whenever the boat wobbled. Part of it was in her gut, an emptiness that was not quite nausea ... she was so hungry, so thirsty. !V I think it's okay February 9, 1991
!CHK that this isn't too much like her awakening after the assassination
! attempt later

More and more, she was remembering, not dreaming. There were nightmares that would never go away. They had really happened. They were happening now.






The sun peeked in and out of the tumble of clouds. It slid slowly lower across the sky till it was almost behind the boat. She tried to remember what Daddy had been saying just before ... everything went bad. They were in this planet's arctic, in the summer. So the sun's low point must be north, and their twin-hulled boat was sailing roughly southwards. Wherever they were going, it was minute by minute farther from the spacecraft and any hope of finding Jefri. !CHKd sp sailboat

Sometimes the water was like open sea, the hills distant or hidden by low clouds. Sometimes they passed through narrows, and swept close to walls of naked rock. She'd had no idea a sailboat could move so fast or be so dangerous. Four of the rat creatures worked desperately to keep them off the rocks. They bounded nimbly from mast platform to railing, sometimes standing on each other's shoulders to extend their reach. The twin-hulled boat tilted and groaned in water that was suddenly rough. Then they'd be through and the hills would be at a peaceful distance, sliding slowly past.
For a long while, she pretended delirium. She moaned, she twisted. She watched. The boat hulls were long and narrow, almost like canoes. The sail was mounted between them. The shadow in her dreams had been that sail, snapping in the cold, clean wind. The sky was an avalanche of grays, light and dark. There were birds up there. They dipped past the mast, circled again and again. There was twittering and hissing all around her. But the sound did not come from the birds. !mARK 05Jun89
!RETRO maybe you should mention that the dataset was on the travois

It was the monsters. She watched them through lowered lashes. These were the same kind that killed Mom and Dad. They even wore the same funny clothes, gray-green jackets studded with stirrups and pockets. Dogs or wolves she had thought before. That didn't really describe them. Sure, they had four slender legs and pointy little ears. But with their long necks and occasionally pinkish eyes, they might as well be huge rats.
And the longer she watched them, the more horrible they seemed. A still image could never convey that horror; you had to see them in action. She watched four of them -- the ones on her side of the boat -- play with her dataset. The Pink Oliphaunt was tied in a net bag near the rear of the boat. Now the beasts wanted to look it over. At first it looked like a circus act, the creatures' heads darting this way and that. But every move was so precise, so coordinated with all the others. They had no hands, but they could untie knots, each holding a piece of twine in its mouth and maneuvering its necks around others. At the same time, one's claws held the loose netting tight against the railing. It was like watching puppets run off the same control. !?gobbling?
!PRO Should be giving her lots of water?
!?PRO twilight life of the half dead
!PRO RETRO somewhere make it crystal clear why interpack speech is in
! the human range (there is a start in your early discussion of
! Hightalk (High Speech?)
!V again this could be related to Johanna's observation of the
!V two Tinish modes (c12) <modes>
!V Yes, IMP:
! Some of this could be related to using the external ears for interpack
! speech (this is also connected with why High Speech might be difficult
! to some). Some of this could also come up in the romance scene between
! Woodcarver and the injured Peregrine. <-- NÆH

In seconds they had it out of the bag. Dogs would have let it slide to the bottom of the hull, then pushed it around with their noses. Not these things: two put it onto on a cross bench, while a third steadied it with its paw. They poked around the edges, concentrating on the plush flanges and floppy ears. They pushed and nuzzled, but with clear purpose. They were trying to open it.
Two heads showed over the railing on the other hull. They made the gobbling, hissing sounds that were a cross between a bird call and someone throwing up. One of those on her side glanced back and made similar sounds. The other three continued to play with the dataset's latches.
Finally they pulled the big, floppy ears simultaneously: the dataset popped open, and the top window went into Johanna's startup routine -- an anim of herself saying "Shame on you, Jefri. Stay out of my things!" The four creatures went rigid, their eyes suddenly wide. ^ jrf2 in re Oliphaunt: Maybe have her think/worry here about Jefri
^ jrf2 reminded by this incident. Think fondly, for a change,
^ jrf2 parentally.

Johanna's four turned the set so the others could see. One held it down while another peered at the top window, and a third fumbled with the key window. The guys in the other hull went nuts, but none of them tried to get any closer. The random prodding of the four abruptly cut off her startup greeting. One of them glanced at the guys in the other hull; another two watched Johanna. She continued to lie with her eyes almost closed.
"Shame on you, Jefri. Stay out my things!" Johanna's voice came again, but from one of the animals. It was a perfect playback. Then a girl's voice was moaning, crying, "Mom, Daddy". It was her own voice again, but more frightened and childish than she ever wanted it to sound.
They seemed to be waiting for the dataset to respond. When nothing happened, one of them went back to pushing its nose against the windows. Everything valuable, and all the dangerous programs, were passworded. Insults and squawking emerged from the box, all the little surprises she had planted for her snooping little brother. Oh Jefri, will I ever see you again? ^ V June 3, 1991 tojrf Is there to much such silent wailing (Ravna does
^ V it several times about Pham, and Pham about Blueshell)

The sounds and vids kept the monsters amused for several minutes. Eventually their random fiddlings convinced the dataset that somebody really young had opened up the box, and it shifted into kindermode. !mARK 05Jun89

The creatures knew she was watching. Of the four fooling with her Oliphaunt, one -- not always the same one -- was always watching her. They were playing games with her, pretending they didn't know she was pretending. !mARK 06Jun89

Johanna opened her eyes wide and glared at the creature. "Damn you!" She looked in the other direction. And screamed. The mob in the other hull were clumped together. Their heads rose on sinuous necks from the pile. In the low sunlight, their eyes glinted red. A pack of rats or snakes, silently staring at her, and for heaven knew how long.
The heads leaned forward at her cry, and she heard the scream again. Behind her, her own voice shouted "Damn you!" Somewhere else, she was calling for "Mom" and "Daddy". Johanna screamed again, and they just echoed it back. She swallowed her terror and kept silent. The monsters kept it up for a half minute, the mimicking, the mixing of things she must have said in her sleep. When they saw they couldn't terrorize her that way any more, the voices stopped being human. The gobbling went back and forth, as if the two groups were negotiating or something. Finally the four on her side closed her dataset and tied it into the net bag. !IMP QU should I delete the fishing scene:
! It didn't move things forward
! They should know it could be quite dangerous
!DELETED, but you might put in in the fishing sequence
! The waterfall of her dreams was the sound of water cut by
! their
! bows.
!QU should I delete the fishing scene? and just have the canteen? NÆH

The six unwrapped themselves from each other. Three jumped to the outboard side of the hull. They gripped the edge tight in their claws and leaned into the wind. For once they almost did look like dogs -- big ones sitting at a car window, sniffing at the airstream. The long necks swept forward and back. Every few seconds, one of them would dip its head out of sight, into the water. Drinking? Fishing? !?QU Might readers get the following image confused with a description of
! the sea critterlets?

Fishing. A head flipped up, tossing something small and green into the boat. The other three animals nosed about, grabbing it. She had a glimpse of tiny legs and a shiny carapace. One of the rats held it at the tip of its mouth, while the other two pulled it apart. It was all done with their uncanny precision. The pack seemed like a single creature, and each neck a heavy tentacle that ended in a pair of jaws. Her gut twisted at the thought, but there was nothing to barf up.
The fishing expedition went on another quarter hour. They got at least seven of the green things. But they weren't eating them; not all of them, anyway. The dismembered leavings collected in a small wood bowl.
More gobbling between the two sides. One of the six grabbed the bowl's edge in its mouth and crawled across the mast platform. The four on Johanna's side huddled together as if frightened of the visitor. Only after the bowl was set down and the intruder had returned to its side, did the four in Johanna's hull poke their heads up again.
One of the rats picked up the bowl. It and another walked toward her. Johanna swallowed. What torture was this? Her stomach twisted again ... she was so hungry. She looked at the bowl again and realized that they were trying to feed her.
The sun had just come out from under northern clouds. The low light was like some bright fall afternoon, just after rain: dark sky above, yet everything close by bright and glistening. The creatures' fur was deep and plush. One held the bowl towards her, while the other stuck its snout in and withdrew ... something slick and green. It held the tidbit delicately, just with the tips of its long mouth. It turned and thrust the green thing toward her.
Johanna shrank back, "No!"
The creature paused. For a moment she thought it was going to echo her. Then it dropped the lump back into the bowl. The first animal set it on the bench beside her. It looked up at her for an instant, then released the jaw-wide flange at the edge of the bowl. She had a glimpse of fine, pointy teeth.
Johanna stared into the bowl, nausea fighting with hunger. Finally she worked a hand out of her blanket and reached into it. Heads perked up around her, and there was an exchange of gobble comments between the two sides of the boat. !mARK 08Jun89
!CHKd sp shellfish
!QU Is it okay to use "fillet" here?
!jrf YES

Her fingers closed on something soft and cold. She lifted it into the sunlight. The body was gray green, its sides glistening in the light. The guys in the other hull had torn off the little legs and chopped away the head. What remained was only two or three centimeters long. It looked like filleted shellfish. Once she had liked such food. But that had been cooked. She almost dropped the thing when she felt it quiver in her hand.
She brought it close to her mouth, touched it with her tongue. Salty. On Straum, most shellfish would make you very sick if you ate them raw. How could she know, all alone without parents or a local commnet? She felt tears coming. She said a bad word, stuffed the green thing into her mouth, and tried to chew. Blandness, with the texture of suet and gristle. She gagged, spat it out ... and tried to eat another. Altogether she got parts of two down. Maybe that was for the best; she'd wait and see how much she barfed up. She lay back and saw several pairs of eyes watching. The gobbling with the other side of the boat picked up. Then one of them sidled toward her, carrying a leather bag with a spigot. A canteen. !V March 30, 1991 "comnet" above (suggested by jrf2) is good but not
!V used elsewhere NO TIME June 12, 1991
!was 06.txt, p101-124
!RETROwrite loops in jackets for standing
!QU decided not to RETROwrite the Y-shape. Okay? Yes 03Feb91
!PRO RETRO Somewhere I what to be able to describe their jackets, the
! openings, the straps, etc

This creature was the biggest of all. The leader? It moved its head close to hers, putting the spout of the canteen near her mouth. The big one seemed sly, more cautious about approaching her than the others. Johanna's eyes traveled back along its flanks. Beyond the edge of its jacket, the pelt on its rear was mostly white ... and scored deep with a Y-shaped scar. This is the one that killed Dad.
Johanna's attack was not planned; perhaps that's why it worked so well. She lunged past the canteen and swung her free arm around the thing's neck. She rolled over the animal, pinning it against the hull. By itself, it was smaller than she, and not strong enough to push her off. She felt its claws raking through the blankets but somehow never quite cutting her. She put all her weight on the creature's spine, grabbed it where throat met jaw, and began slamming its head against the wood.
Then the others were on her, muzzles poking under her, jaws grabbing at her sleeve. She felt rows of needle teeth just poking through the fabric. Their bodies buzzed with a sound from her dreams, a sound that went straight through her clothes and rattled her bones. !CHK INCON? Did you earlier say/imply that the bolt had gone all the way
! through? -- can't find such a reference February 9, 1991
!CHKd sp arrowhead

They pulled her hand from the other's throat, twisting her; she felt the arrowhead tearing her inside. But there was still one thing she could do: Johanna push off with her feet, butting her head against the base of the other's jaw, smashing the top of its head into the hull. The bodies around her convulsed, and she was flipped onto her back. Pain was the only thing she could feel now. Neither rage nor fear could move her. !QU Is it plausible that she could still observe this clearly?

Yet part of her was still aware of the four. She had hurt them. She had hurt them all. Three wandered drunkenly, making whistling sounds that for once seemed to come from their mouths. The one with the scarred butt lay on its side, twitching. She had punched a star-shaped wound in the top of its head. Blood dripped down past its eyes. Red tears.
Minutes passed and the whistling stopped. The four creatures huddled together and the familiar hissing resumed. The bleeding from her chest had started again.
They stared at each other for a while. She smiled at her enemies. They could be hurt. She could hurt them. She felt better than she had since the landing. !jrf2 "... murders" too cool. How about "... since the landing"?