Read Online A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - Free Book Online Page A

pair or triple was almost always responsible for eloquence, another for spatial intuition. The virtues and vices were even more complex. No single member was the principal source of courage, or of conscience.
    Flenser's contribution to the field -- as to most others -- had been an essential ruthlessness, a cutting away of all but the truly important. He experimented endlessly, discarding all but the most successful results. He depended on discipline and denial and partial death as much as on clever member selection. He already had seventy years of experience when he created Steel.
    Before he could take his name, Steel spent years in denial, determining just what parts of him combined to produce the being desired. That would have been impossible without Flenser's enforcement. (Example: if you dismissed a part of yourself essential for tenacity, where could you get the will to continue the flensing?) For the soul in creation, the process was mental chaos, a patchwork of horror and amnesia. In two years he had experienced more change than most people do in two centuries -- and all of it directed. The turning point came when he and Flenser identified the trio that weighed him down with both conscience and slowness of intellect. One of the three bridged the others. Sending it into silence, replacing it with just the right element, had made the difference. After that, the rest was easy; Steel was born.
    When Flenser had left to convert the Long Lakes Republic, it was only natural that his most brilliant creation should take over here. For five years Steel had ruled Flenser's heartland. In that time he had not only conserved what Flenser built, he extended it beyond the cautious beginnings.
    But today, in a single circling of the sun about Hidden Island, he could lose everything.
     
     
    Steel stepped into the meeting hall and looked around. Refreshments were properly set. Sunlight streamed from a ceiling slit onto just the place he wanted. Part of Shreck, his aide, stood on the far side of the room. He said to it, "I will speak with the visitor alone." He did not use the name "Flenser". The whitejackets groveled back and its unseen members pushed open the far doors.
    A fivesome -- three males and two females -- walked through the doorway, into the splash of sunlight. The individual was unremarkable. But then Flenser had never had an imposing appearance.
    Two heads raised to shade the eyes of the others. The pack looked across the room, spotting Lord Steel twenty yards away. "Ah-h ... Steel." The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
    Steel had bowed when the other entered, a formal gesture. The voice caused a sudden cramp in his guts, and he involuntarily brought bellies to the ground. That was his voice! There was at least a fragment of the original Flenser in this pack. The gold and silver epaulets, the personal banner, those could be faked by anyone with suicidal bravado.... But Steel remembered the manner. He wasn't surprised the other's presence had destroyed discipline on the mainland this morning.
    The pack's heads, where they were in sunlight, were expressionless. Was a smile playing about the heads in shadow? "Where are the others, Steel? What happened today is the greatest opportunity of our history."
    Steel got off his bellies and stood at the railing. "Sir. There are some questions first, just between the two of us. Clearly, you are much of Flenser, but how much --"
    The other was clearly grinning now, the shadowed heads bobbing. "Yes, I knew my best creation would see that question.... This morning, I claimed to be the true Flenser, improved with one or two replacements. The truth is ... harder. You know about the Republic." That had been Flenser's greatest gamble: to flense an entire nation-state. Millions would die, yet even so there would be more molding than killing. In the end, there would exist the first collective outside of the tropics. And the Flenser state would not be a