The Children of the Sky

bottom looked to be a meter or two under water. There was one of the squidlike critters. And another. After a few seconds they seemed to swarming below her.

“We seem to be attracting them,” said Jefri.

“Yeah.” She reached her hand into the warm water.

“Hei, careful!” Jef grabbed her arm, holding her back.

“It’s okay. They get along well enough with the Tines.” Besides, she had a theory she wanted to test.

“But you don’t know what else is in the pond.”

The tiny bodies tumbled around her hand, the huge glossy eyes peering curiously up through the water at her. She felt tendrils tugging gently on her fingers. She waggled her hand, lifting the creature up for a better view. It was a small thing to be intelligent, but—

“Hei, hei, hei!” piped a small voice. All around it other voices chimed. “Hei human. Hei humans!” The one who had touched her let go. The crowd darted off, then a moment later was back in even greater numbers. Dozens of little voices were shouting simple Samnorsk greetings.

Jefri’s grip on her arm loosened and he dropped to his knees beside her. “So they really do talk! I wonder how they compare to singletons.”

“Oh, I think they’re considerably smarter.” It was still a theory, but—she glanced across the airfield. The approaching wagon was much nearer, trailed by another gunpack. She recognized the elaborate ornamentation on the wagon; this was Tycoon. Maybe it was time to try to use her little theory.

She and Jefri stood, but remained near the pool. Tycoon’s wagon slowed and came to a stop by the other wagon. When Ravna and Jefri did not move, there was some irritated gobbling. After a moment, Tycoon’s driver brought him over to the cuttlefish pool.

The eightsome came streaming out of the wagon, followed by a radio singleton—hei, it looked like Zek! Behind him was a more expected companion, Ritl. She was in her usual fine form, bitching loudly about something or everything. When Tycoon sent a be quiet in her direction, Ritl shifted to sporadic muttering. She walked along with Zek for a few paces—and then seemed to notice the pond. She ran off around it, and for a time the air was free of her complaints.

Tycoon ambled over to them with the air of a great leader slumming around without his entourage. Well, I’m just as glad not to see Vendacious or even Aritarmo, thought Ravna.

“It’s g-going to be a very warm day,” said Tycoon, his Geri voice as incongruous as ever.

“I’m sure it will be, sir,” replied Ravna.

The eight bobbed a smile. “Not that it matters. This afternoon I will be flying away. You know, the air is quite cool even a few hundred meters up. It’s nature’s own air conditioning. I expect I will be quite comfortable.”

“You’re not taking us then?” said Ravna, still trying make it sound like casual chitchat.

“The passenger list and ship assignment isn’t entirely decided,” he said. Two of him were staring pointedly at Jefri.

Ravna continued to play along. “Vendacious is going?”

“Of course. In the second airship.” He waved a snout in the direction of the hangars. “No room for Aritarmo, but we’ll still have the network. I’ll continue to supervise my worldwide operations.”

“And Ritl?” said Jefri, as if just passing the time of day.

Tycoon made an irritated noise. “Not Ritl. In close quarters, that little monster—I mean, that remnant of a loyal employee—is too difficult to deal with.” All his heads turned toward Ravna. “But that’s not the important question as far as you two are concerned.”

Ravna returned the look as best she could, having only one head. “Of course. There’s myself and Jefri, but also the Children you stole, Geri and Timor and—”

“No.” It was flat negation, even if spoken in his high-pitched, little girl voice. “They will stay here.”

“But—”

“I don’t want them getting in the way. I—” There was a subtle shifting around within the pack. Ravna could almost imagine that some faction was embarrassed and desired a bit of frankness. “Timor is a good worker, as honorable as a pack. He will be safe here. Geri will be safe as well. Protecting both of them is important to me, even if they are human. You should know, Vendacious dislikes humans even more than I, and sometimes I wonder if he realizes how fragile you are. Even I find it hard to understand what it means to be a truly new mind; it is not a natural state. Eventually, I promise to return them. In the meantime, they will be kept far from Vendacious.” He jabbed a snout at Ravna. “My inclination is to take you with me. The packs we captured with you will go north with Vendacious. They will provide a good cross check on assertions that you make.”

“And Jefri?” Ravna asked.

“That depends on you and him. I want to locate Johanna Olsndot. You two are hiding something; we could hear you all yesterday conspiring in your dungeon. Confess the truth, and you can both travel on my airship.”

“We have told the truth,” said Jef, “and we weren’t conspiring!” But they had spent hours trying to decide what to say if it all came to this. Much of that conversation had been silent spelling and cloaked allusions.

Tycoon’s words rolled on right over Jef’s: “Otherwise—it will be as I told you two days ago. Jefri will go north with Vendacious.”

“I’m sure I can make the Johanna-brother talk, my lord.” That was Vendacious’ voice, via Zek.

Ravna glanced at Jefri, saw his impatient look. The result of all their “conspiring” had been simple: You can’t win if you have nothing to confess and that fact is not accepted. Okay, you might postpone the nightmare simply by making a faux confession. Jef would have already started lying, except that she’d persuaded him to let her make the first move. There must be some other way. I just need a little more time. As if all of yesterday hadn’t been enough to find a way out, if one existed. She turned away from Tycoon and Jefri and Zek, and stared across the pond. There was something near the middle that she hadn’t noticed before. Here and there tentacles poked into the air, slowly moving. They weren’t jabbing at insects. They were larger and more frondlike than the cuttlefish limbs she had seen. They were hard proof for her theory about the cuttlefish. She felt a smile come to her lips; in other circumstances it would have been a joyous shout.

She looked back at Tycoon. She had nothing but the lies she and Jefri had agreed on, but damned if she was going to say them while she could still stall. “Out of the whole airfield, you had us brought here. You wanted us to see this pond, didn’t you? Why?”

An indignant chord came from Zek. That must be Vendacious, impatient with the change of topic. Tycoon, bless his various parts, was more easily distracted. He sidled around, some of him tilting a glance at the water. When he finally spoke, his geekiness seemed ascendant. “I noticed that you never asked hard questions about the cuttlefish, never said much about them even when you were alone with the Johanna-brother. I wondered if you would ever figure out how important they are to my program.”

Ravna nodded. “I had a theory. Now I think I know much more about the cuttlefish than you do.”

“Oh really?” Tycoon stepped closer, challenging. He didn’t seem angry, but she had the feeling that the pack’s enormous ego, both as businesscritter and inventor, was engaged. “And what is it that you think you know?”

“The cuttlefish are more than mindless repeaters. They’ve learned your language and more recently mine. They can speak both sensibly.”

“Yes. So?”

“The cuttlefish were how you originally made contact with the Choir, how you were able to communicate with the Choir when all packs before had failed.”

Tycoon emitted a string of clicks, mild applause. “Very good. You are absolutely right.” He settled down, continued almost chummily. “See Ritl playing with them?” On the other side of the pond, Ritl was racing back and forth, gobbling fiercely at the water. Tiny voices answered her. “It was Remasritlfeer who brought the creatures from the South Seas. It was my idea to use them here with the Choir. Remasritlfeer tried and failed, tried and failed. I don’t know how many of the creatures were eaten—though they don’t really seem to care about their own lives. Finally Remasritlfeer gave up—but I demanded he go back and try again. And as usual, my diligence and initiative paid off.” He looked up smugly. “It was a small start, but we found a few things to trade and were able to negotiate the first, tiny reservation here.” He waved expansively at the airfield, the palaces, the factories. “The rest is history.”