The Children of the Sky

“It never puzzled you that something so strange could talk, that it could have a mind?”

“Um, yes of course. I’m always thinking on deeper meanings. Early on, I had the theory that perhaps these were a baby form of whales. It’s well known that whales are smarter than weasels, almost as smart as singletons —and they swim in pods that may be even more intelligent.”

Over the last ten years, an occasional “whale” carcass had washed ashore in the Domain. Ravna had overseen the dissection of two of them. They were like seamals. She’d run simple phylogenetic programs on the results and concluded that the animals were a distant cousin of the Tines, one that had never returned to a life on the land. “No way are the cuttlefish young whales,” she said.

“Grmp. I know that. After a time it became evident that the creatures eventually lose their intelligence. The few who survive more than a year root themselves like plants and become mindless egg generators—making a new generation of cuttlefish. We almost lost the whole operation here before we figured that out. I sent an expedition back to the South Seas, found that single atoll where they spawn, uprooted all the mature egg-layers we could find. You can see the tops of them sticking out of the water.”

“I saw them.” Now the fronds were a little higher out of the water, and more of them were turned broadside towards the humans and packs at the edge of the pool. The sight was so familiar, so welcome … okay, Pham, so unnerving, too. In the bright sunlight, she could even see the eyespots on the fronds. Mindless they were, more or less—but evidence that children of a friend had survived. She walked slowly along the edge of the pond toward the side that was closest to the forest of fronds. “You uprooted them? Brought them here? You’re lucky they survived. They much prefer the surf by the open sea, not this silty, brackish water.”

“What? How would you know?” There was both anger and curiosity in Tycoon’s words. His sitting members scrambled up and he followed along behind her.

Jefri’s were wide with unbelieving surprise. “It can’t be, Ravna! The cuttlefish look completely different. The eyes, the—”

“They’re Rider larvae, Jef. I’d never seen riderlets before, so I wasn’t sure, but look what they grow up to be.” She waved at the fronds.

Tycoon came out around her. “What can you know? You guess that because they come from mid-ocean, that’s their ideal. I’ll have you know, since I brought them to the Fell estuary, their breeding has increased a hundredfold.”

Vendacious (via Zek, who was following along uncertainly): “My lord, what is going on?” His speech morphed into plaintive gobbling. Poor Vendacious, thought Ravna. He had his next round of torture all set up, and now it’s been delayed. The question was how to turn the diversion into something more lasting. She was still clueless about that.

All she could do was let the geekiness in her speak to the geekiness in Tycoon. She looked down at the eight around her and said, “Tell me, Tycoon, do you have any idea how rare it is that two intelligent races arise naturally on one world, and coexist there?”

“Of course I do! Vendacious’ spies have told us much about the other worlds. Multiple intelligent races are common everywhere.”

Ravna shook her head. “That’s on worlds of the Beyond, sir, where there is fast interstellar travel and decent technology. Down Here—where evolution runs at biological speeds, in its old bloody way—Down Here new intelligence does not tolerate competition. If two intelligent races arise naturally, one competes the other into extinction, usually before either begins its recorded history.”

“Nonsense!” But he brought himself together, thinking hard with all his heads close to one another. “So then this is a marvelous bit of good luck, or—”

“Or your cuttlefish are like us humans, recent arrivals from space. In fact, these are the children and grandchildren of two of my own shipmates.”

Tycoon dithered. “Implausible, but I don’t see how you would gain from lying. In any case, what difference does it make? The creatures have no technology. The adults—the egg-layers—have never spoken. They are vegetables.” He hooted. “What grand shipmates they must have been. Did you keep them as ornamental plants? Did you—” He paused, then gobbled something in Interpack, a question. The two gunpacks responded in the negative, but then they spread out … watching? listening?

Ravna wasn’t paying much attention. She looked out at the sessile-stage Riders, planted forever where the fate named Tycoon had stuck them. These would be the generation after Greenstalk. Without skrode devices, not even the do-it-yourself model that served Greenstalk, they would have almost no ability to form new memories. They’d be innocent, as nearly mindless as before their race was ever uplifted. But I’m glad your children survived, Greenstalk.

“What is that sound?”

“Huh?” Ravna looked back from the water, noticed that Tycoon was spread out along the edge of the pool, an alert listening posture. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

Tycoon made an irritated noise “Some of this is pitched where even you can hear. And it’s getting louder.”

“I hear something,” said Jefri.

“What’s going on?” That was Vendacious, more confused than anyone.

Now Ravna could hear the … buzzing. Such a familiar sound. Such an impossible sound. She looked across the pond, at the fronds that marked the immobile adults. Several of those slender blades had risen higher, just in the last few seconds. Impossible, impossible. But testable. She gave a little wave and took several quick steps along the edge, almost bumping into one of Tycoon. The tall fronds turned to follow her motion. They made a rattling noise against one another, a kind of language of its own, one that Ravna did not know. That didn’t matter; the buzzing became recognizable voder speech, though muffled by the water: “Ravna, oh Ravna! ”

“Greenstalk?”

“What’s this? The egg-layers don’t talk!” Tycoon scrambled up all around her. Some of his paws were on her shoulders, giving him a view down into the water from as high as possible. On either side of her, the gunpacks were closing on the edge of the pool. Ravna was only vaguely aware of Tycoon waving them back.

Maybe there are limits to miracles. Greenstalk said Ravna’s name again, but now the voder was scaling up and down, the syllables almost unintelligible. Was that disuse or disrepair? If Tycoon had not noticed the skrode perhaps it had been cut apart in the transplanting. Ravna reached out her arms, waving back to her friend.

“The egg-layers can’t move, either!” shrieked Tycoon. The part of him that was teetering on Ravna’s shoulders lost its balance and tumbled into the pond. The rest of the pack collapsed around her and dragged the fallen member out of the water—but all of him and all of Ravna had their eyes on the tall, blade-like fronds in the pool. Those were moving, a lurching progress, a meter forward then a half-meter back. As the Rider rolled closer, Ravna could see its body below the waterline. There was the swelling of Greenstalk’s stem, the lower fronds. The flat platform of the skrode was … not gone, but hidden. No wonder Tycoon’s employees had not seen the machinery. Now Ravna saw smooth composite surfaces where Greenstalk’s current efforts were cracking away the coral that had grown upon her during years of sitting alone by her little atoll.

Even before Greenstalk got to the edge of the pool, her fronds had slipped across Ravna’s arms, seeing and touching all in one motion. “I have been dreaming long,” buzzing obliterated a word or two as the voder glitched, “and now I’m not where I started. I always wondered what became of you.” More buzzing. “I’ve had so many children, and now children’s children. I’m sorry, Ravna. One thing I do remember is your kindness and my promise about limiting myself. I’m sorry.”

Ravna smiled. “I remember the promise too. But here you’ve been invited. By friends.” She waved at Tycoon standing all around her. “And your children have been protected and lived in greater numbers than you might ever expect.” Ravna looked at Tycoon. “Isn’t that so, sir?”

Tycoon was all crouched down, every eye on this magical, mobile apparition. It was the first time he’d seemed intimidated. Two of him looked up at her. “I’m sorry, what’s the question again?”

“I said that you are a friend, that you’ve invited Greenstalk and her children to live here in their numbers. Isn’t that correct?”

“I, hmm, never thought of it that way. But then I never thought that this, hmm…”

“Greenstalk,” Ravna supplied.