He smiled. "I think Vendacious will be very taken aback to hear your critique." Scriber gave a weak laugh. He was flattered and boggled at the same time. Vendacious must count as the greatest spymaster of the age -- yet he, Scriber Jaqueramaphan, had almost seen through him. Scriber was mostly quiet the rest of the way back to the castle, but his mind was racing. Peregrine was more right than he knew; secrecy was vital. Unnecessary discussion -- even between old friends -- must be avoided. Yes! He would offer his services to Vendacious. His new role might keep him in the background, but it was where he could make the greatest contribution. And eventually even Johanna would see how helpful he could be. Down the well of the night. Even when Ravna wasn't looking out the windows, that was the image in her mind. Relay was far off the galactic disk. The OOB was descending toward that disk -- and ever deeper into slowness. But they had escaped. The OOB was crippled, but they had left Relay at almost fifty light-years per hour. Each hour they were lower in the Beyond and the computation time for the microjumps increased,
mbt staka dawn, and their pseudovelocity declined. Nevertheless, they were making progress. They were deep into the Middle of the Beyond now. And there was no sign of pursuit, thank goodness. Whatever had brought the Blight to Relay, it had not been specific knowledge of the OOB. Hope. Ravna felt it growing in her. The ship's medical automation claimed that Pham Nuwen could be saved,
复件 (9) air max1, that there was brain activity. The terrible wounds in his back had been Old One's implants, organic machinery that had made Pham close-linked to Relay's local network -- and thence to the Power above. And when that Power died somehow the gear in Pham became a putrescent ruin. So Pham the person should still exist. Pray he still exists. The surgeon thought it would be three days before his back was healed enough to attempt resuscitation. In the meantime.... Ravna was learning more about the apocalypse that had swept over her. Every twenty hours,
复件 (18) air max2, Greenstalk and Blueshell jigged the ship sideways a few light-years,
Justin Bieber Beats, into some major trunk line of the Known Net to soak up the News. It was a common practice on any voyage of more than a few days; an easy way for merchants and travelers to keep track of events that might affect their success at voyage's end. According to the News (that is, according to the vast majority of the opinions expressed), the fall of Relay was complete. Oh, Grondr. Oh Egravan and Sarale. Are you dead or owned now? Parts of the Known Net were temporarily out of contact; some of the extra-galactic links might not be replaced for years. For the first time in millennia, a Power was known to have been murdered. There were tens of thousands of claims about the motive for the attack and tens of thousands of predictions about what would happen next. Ravna had the ship filter the avalanche,
复件 (31) air max1, trying to distill the essence of the speculations. The one coming from Straumli Realm itself made as much sense as any: the Perversion's thralls gloated solemnly about the new era,
mbt imara black, the marriage of a Transcendent being with races of the Beyond. If Relay could be destroyed -- if a Power could be murdered -- then nothing could stop the spread of victory. Some senders thought that Relay was the ancestral target of whatever had perverted Straumli Realm. Maybe the attack was just the tail end of some long ago war, a misbegotten tragedy for the descendants of forgotten races.