The Children of the Sky

All she could think to say was, “So why the gold plating?”

Tycoon suddenly was looking lots of places besides at her. “Yes, well, my local market likes them gold plated.”

Ravna raised an eyebrow. “The Choir?”

Godsgift was watching; it seemed amused: “Who but the Choir can know what is truly valuable?”

Tycoon made an irritated noise and snatched the radio out of Ravna’s hands. “They like shiny things,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve made many more of the usual kind. Come along and I’ll show you the production steps.”

Inside was much cleaner and—to Ravna’s ears—quieter than yesterday’s factory hall. That was not really a surprise considering this place produced a form of tech gear, and the power was electric. Tycoon was full of detailed explanations. This building was the final assembly point for the radios. More than the making of rain gutters, making the radios showed that production depended on physical networks of factories, going from raw materials, to components, to intermediate assembly, to a factory like this. No doubt each step was plagiarized from Oobii and Scrupilo, but the networking was a separate design achievement. Though Tycoon never said so, Ravna guessed that planning those networks was also his greatest limitation.

“And I have improvement plans,” said Tycoon, “not just for silly things like gold plating. I’m working on re- creating the design of full radio cloaks. Consider the use I have made of the single set of cloaks that Nevil, um, acquired for us. If radio cloaks were common and if we could use them safely, it would revolutionize my operations!”

Ravna almost laughed at this. You have improvement plans? So Nevil has not been able to dig up the original design for the cloaks, has he? They walked some meters further, Ravna silent and Tycoon blathering on. On the other side of the pack, Jefri was pulling Timor’s wagon. Close behind came the Ta singleton and, almost as close, Aritarmo and the godsgift. A gunpack or two drifted around behind them.

“Isn’t it so?” said Tycoon. Oops. His latest bit of bragging had ended with a question.

“I’m sorry sir, what—?”

“Isn’t it so, that my inventions surpass your own achievements?”

Perhaps it was time to approximate reality: “Sir, you and the Choir have accomplished miracles of production—”

Tycoon preened.

“—but the basic inventions, those are from the Domain.”

“Nonsense!” Tycoon was all glowering at her. But his heads weren’t weaving around; this was not the killing rage of their first meeting. After a moment, some of him looked away. “You are a little bit right. Much of my success, I owe to Vendacious and his superb espionage service.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you.” That was Vendacious, via Ta. The monster must think this tour was important, to be listening to every word.

Tycoon gave a gracious wave, where Aritarmo could see. “That said,” he continued, “when I was whole, I was an inventive genius. Over the last seven years, I’ve recovered that genius. I have ideas all the time. Inventions for flying, inventions for swimming beneath the sea. I keep notebooks full of them. But I am just one pack, and I’ve learned there are myriad details that must be resolved in order to go from insight to accomplishment. In fact, that’s what caused the breakup of the first me. My current success is based on three things: my genius and drive, the Choir, and the hints and details that Vendacious’ espionage service provides.”

“From us humans,” said Ravna.

Tycoon shrugged. “From the archives you stole. I doubt if you humans have ever invented anything for yourselves.”

Jefri was listening with an expression of unguarded surprise. Be cool, Jef! But no: “Humans have invented some form of every single thing you’ve made! We did it thousands of years ago! Every civilized race does as much—and then goes on to do the hard things!”

Tycoon was silent for a moment. “The … hard things?” He seemed more intrigued than offended.

“There’s always something more, sir,” put in Ravna, and gave Jef a look that she hoped would shut him down.

“Yes,” said Tycoon. “Spaceships. Starships.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I’ve had ideas for those, too.” They walked on a few paces, and perhaps honesty or sanity forced him to say, “Of course, I know those may take some years more work. Is that what the Johanna-brother means by ‘hard’ problems?”

Jefri replied, “Of course not.”

“What then?”

Vendacious popped up with the answer: “We’ve talked about this before, my lord. The sky maggots were trying to become god.”

Tycoon hooted, “Yes! The god thing.” He tilted a glance at Ravna. “That was our original wedge into human affairs, the religious warfare between your two factions.”

Vendacious gobbled enthusiastic agreement, then reverted to Samnorsk, “In fact, their superstitious beliefs are the best argument that they are fools.”

As usual, the godsgift had been drifting along at the edge of the walkway, mainly looking down at the assembly line. Now his heads looked up and he said mildly, “I object to this deprecation of religion. My god is real enough. If you doubt that, I invite you to take a walk on the factory floor.”

•  •  •

Tycoon mellowed as they proceeded down the production line, and Ravna managed to avoid any further criticism of his originality. It really wasn’t difficult; there was so much that could be honestly praised. By the time they reached the midpoint of the hall, it was raining again. The sound came as a distant drumming on the metal roof, and even the skylights were dark, except for occasional lightning. Electric arc lamps had come on over critical stations on the production line, rather like an automatic system responding to the environment.

Just as in yesterday’s factory, there was a terrace at the walkway’s midpoint. Today, Tycoon waved at the others to stay back, and took Ravna out onto the terrace as if to have a private conversation. She glanced back at the entourage. Private conversation? Certainly Timor or Jefri couldn’t hear what she and Tycoon might say—but the rest? Thunder crashed, and the sound of rain intensified. Okay. If Tycoon focused his voice properly, the others might not be able to hear his words.

On the other hand, maybe it didn’t matter: “You know,” he said, “You could do very well working for me.”

“I’m honored, sir, but I’m not sure I—”

“Oh, I think you understand; I’m really very good at taking the measure of potential employees. You’ve pointed out weakness in my operation, and quite frankly, I agree with you.” He paused, as if to let his high praise sink in. Then: “You know that I’m at the point of an alliance with Nevil Storherte and the Domain?”

“You mentioned something about that, yes. But what about Woodcarver?”

He waved dismissively. “A detail. I’m flying to the Domain in the next day or two, to make it official. My landing is timed to match the arrival of a shipment of 1024 radios, a gift demonstrating the power of my operation. Vendacious assures me that Woodcarver will be impressed by the implications. Cooperating with Nevil and with me will benefit her enormously. And for myself—well, finally coming out of the shadows will be as important as my original entente with Nevil. Now he can provide me with full and direct access to the archives that came with the starship Oobii.”

“Ah.” Tycoon mispronounced “entente” but his point was all too clear.

“Yes. And you could benefit immensely from this, as my employee. You would have protection from Nevil. You would have access to the Oobii archives. You would have access to Choir production for your own religious projects—though that would require separate trades with the Choir. There are two main things that I would ask in return. First, you would persuade your faction among the two-