The Children of the Sky

he’s the craziest, meanest of Woodcarver’s offspring. And he’s still all-male.”

“Still?” said Jefri. “Any other pack with that makeup would have self-destructed years ago. That’s Vendacious’ miracle and a disaster for everyone else.”

“Not necessarily,” said Amdi, “Even his minions hate him. In any case, Vendacious isn’t as smart as Old Flenser. And he’s nowhere near as smart as me.” Amdi’s voice filled with confidence. “It’s been scarcely a day, and I’ve already figured how to talk along paths Vendacious can’t hear. That’s how I contacted Ut, right under Vendacious’ snouts. That’s how we smuggled out Ut’s cloak during his off- duty time. Of course, it helped that most of Vendacious was barfing sick at the time.” His voice trailed off. “Vendacious has already figured out who Screwfloss really is. Vendacious, he capered when he learned the truth. Poor Screwfloss. Oh Jefri—” His voice collapsed into weeping, all confidence fled. “Oh, Jefri, this isn’t like my show in the circus.” The sounds of weeping abruptly stopped, and his voice continued: “Th-this is something I have to do. I’ll do my best; I promise.”

Jefri started to say something comforting, but was interrupted by another voice:

“I help.”

“Who spoke?” said Ravna. There was a moment of silence, long enough to be aware of oppressive meat breath and animal body heat. Finally:

“I’m sure that was some part of Utzekfyrforfurtariil,” said Amdi. “Every one of him hates Vendacious.”

“But I thought Mr. Radio was being used like a line? How smart can it be?”

Amdi said, “As a line or a ring or a star, he’s as dumb as you’d expect, just good enough for Vendacious’ purpose. I think if he were all in range of himself, he’d be smarter than most packs. But he hasn’t been together much since Vendacious’ broodkenners first assembled him.”

Jefri took a closer look at Zek. “But even partially connected, he’s still smart enough to learn some Samnorsk. Or is he just a blabber like Ritl?”

Amdi emitted a snort (via Zek): “He’s much smarter than that idiot singleton. In fact—and this is something Vendacious doesn’t know—big parts of Mr. Radio sometimes have mutual radio communication. Right now, there’s three of him on these two ships—not enough to be very smart. But depending on atmospherics, he can reach several others and be almost a complete person. That doesn’t happen very often, and so far, Mr. Radio has kept it a secret from all the packs who are using him.”

“Hmm,” said Ravna. “I wonder if he’s smart enough to play Princess Pretending.”

“Huh?” The word came from both Amdi and Jefri. After a moment Ritl chimed in with a mimic interrogative of her own.

“Sorry.” She had violated her personal ban on Princesses. “Straumers call it a ‘Man in the Middle’ attack.”

“Oh yeah,” said Amdi, “I thought of that. The problem is Vendacious has conditioned all the members to follow certain forwarding protocols. At best Mr. Radio is variably intelligent. From moment to moment, he may be smart enough for simultaneous lying. In between, he’ll drop the ball.”

Jefri nodded. “And if he fluffs even once, the game is over.”

“Right.”

Zek’s own voice spoke over Amdi’s: “Besides, I still not good to be a person, even when I can think with all of me.”

Amdi’s voice: “His whole life has been torture, but if he ever gets himself together, I’ll envy him. That’s our radio future! And I’ve never even gotten to use radio cloaks!”

Ravna smiled. Amdi had never given up on having his own radio cloaks. Even at the edge of a torture pit, that annoyance could still distract him. “Amdi, when we get out of this, I promise we’ll get you your own cloaks. You, you all have worked a miracle here.” Even Ritl.

“Yeah,” Jefri was nodding. “Can we meet again, Amdi? Safely?”

“I’ll figure something out. We’ve talked too long this time. One last thing. Vendacious and Tycoon are both scary, but they’re very different, and Vendacious is lying to Tycoon about lots of things. Vendacious doesn’t want you talking to Tycoon. Your greatest near-term danger is that Vendacious will assassinate you. He would have killed you back at Prince Puce’s, except it would have been too hard to disguise from Tycoon. He was very angry that you got put on Tycoon’s airship.”

There must be a bright side to this. “Could Tycoon be turned into an ally?” said Ravna.

There was a moment of silence. Then: “Maybe. But see, Tycoon really, really hates humans. And one in particular.”

Ravna thought of what Tycoon must have done to little Geri. If this was what the creature did to lesser enemies—

“So who is his number-one enemy?” asked Jefri.

“Johanna.”

“What!”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Amdi’s voice was plaintive. “Johanna has always been the most beloved human in the Domain—sorry, Ravna, but you know what Jo did for the veterans. You’d be second, though!”

“Ah, thank you.” She glanced at Jefri. “We’ve got to figure this out.”

“And not get killed.” That was probably Mr. Radio, but the point was valid, whoever made it.

“Yes,” said Amdi. “Now we gotta go. I…”

Amdi seemed to hesitate, then Zek gave a squeak and collapsed across Ravna’s middle. He remained silent as Ritl gobbled softly at him.

Jefri bent to stroke Zek with his own forehead, much the way a pack will try to rouse an injured member. Ravna was surprised that any good could come from a human making the gesture, but after a moment, Zek struggled back against the wall. He swayed, still disoriented.

“He must have lost comm very abruptly,” said Jefri.

Ravna heard no alarms from the hallway. Without Radio, their activity here might remain unnoticed for some time. “Amdi’s side could be fine,” she said.

Jefri nodded. “But we have to get these two back to wherever they’re supposed to be.” He said something to Zek. It sounded like he was humming and whistling at the same time, but different tunes. Ravna had never figured out how some of the Children could manage such coordination. But Zek waved his head uncomprehendingly. Next to Johanna, Jefri Olsndot might be the most Tinishly-fluent human, but it still took practice for a pack to make sense of humans attempting Tinish. “Okay,” said Jefri, speaking Samnorsk now, “can you understand me?”

“I hear,” Zek said.

“Amdi?”

“No.”

“He’s making sense,” said Ravna. “He may still have a link to some other members.”

Jefri nodded. “You alone now?”

Zek gave another uncomprehending shake of the head.

Jefri glanced at Ritl. “Together, these two could probably get back where they came from … at least if they don’t run into somebody who wants explanations.”

“They got here okay,” said Ravna.

“Yeah, but that was when Radio had most of his mind and Amdi was along for the ride.” He paused. “Well, if Zek is nearly single now, there is something that might work. After all, Ritl is already a desperate singleton and Mr. Radio Cloaks must be a loosely-held soul.” Jef reached out and softly patted Zek’s shoulder. Then he slipped his hand under the creature’s cloak, pushing it away from where it covered Zek’s shoulder tympana.

Zek flinched back with a whistling sound. Lots of needle-sharp teeth were just centimeters from Jef’s face.

“Not to worry,” Jefri spoke the words gently, calmingly … to whom? “If this is like Flenser and his cloaks, Zek has sores all around his tympana. I just have to be very gentle. And Zek has to trust me.” He lifted the cloak free of Zek’s left side. The creature was trembling, but it didn’t bite.

Jef folded the left side of the cloak over Zek’s back. “You’re really out of contact, aren’t you, kiddo?” He looked at Ravna. “This is a long shot, but I can’t think of anything else.” He waved for Ritl to come close. The