The Children of the Sky

Nevil.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Vendacious. “Of course, Nevil has no authority in this.”

Some of the eight were looking at Jefri. Even against the glare of the day, you could see that it was not a friendly stare. “We’ll get over these mountains by tomorrow at latest. The winds can change much faster than the tides.”

The great Tycoon was silent for a moment. All eight of him resumed their contemplation of the gleaming snowfields and jagged black rock. Knowing Tycoon, this was an heroic pose, mainly for their benefit. Maybe Ritl thought so, too: She emitted some belittling remark. Tycoon laughed and shrugged it off.

From way aft, the muffled buzz of the engines came slightly louder. Tycoon’s flight crew—presumably in the airship’s control gondola—was changing direction again. Ravna wondered what starting a day late would do to Tycoon’s plans and Nevil’s. And I wonder how often his crews have been over these mountains? It hadn’t happened before she was kidnapped; Oobii would have spotted the intruders instantly.

Partway through the long, slow turn, the deck dropped from beneath Ravna, then bounced back, knocking her across the deck. Jefri grabbed her under the shoulders, and they managed to ride out about thirty seconds of turbulence.

The Tines had it easier. They didn’t use tiedowns here, but those perches had rows of wooden bars, and every paw she could see had its claws securely wrapped around a grab hold.

Tycoon gobbled something at Zek.

Jefri translated: “He’s talking to Vendacious about the turbulence.”

Zek squawked something back. His radio cloak had slipped sideways, off-center from his tympana. The poor guy shrugged this way and that, finally got the cloak on properly. He slowly spoke seven separate sounds; they sounded like member names. Checking connectivity with the rest of himself?

Then Vendacious was back on line: “We’re fine, but the air is still bumpy. Tell the humans that their pack of puppies is feeling a bit under the weather…” Okay, a threat. Maybe Vendacious thought there were things she might say that could turn Tycoon.

Tycoon nodded soberly—missing the meaning that Ravna heard. “We must track back and forth across the front of these mountains. I am sure there are passes in the air, just like there are mountain passes for travellers on the ground. The difference is that the air passageways must be guessed at and they change from hour to hour. I say again, we’ll be over these mountains in the morning.” He spoke with the assurance of someone who is never contradicted.

They reversed course twice more, a long slow scan across the Icefangs. Except for fast and contrary windflows, they found nothing, certainly no airway over the mountains. Tycoon passed the time by unleashing his geeky side to pick Ravna’s brains about the “high spaces.”

“I used to wonder about the spaces beyond the sky,” he said, “but it never brought an ounce of profit and then I expelled that unproductive part of my imagination. Now I wish I had been more understanding. You humans give us new insights at the same time you do monstrous things. Someday we will visit the highest spaces, and not just scrabble over mountains.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ravna, “the stars are not too high.”

Talking about what that meant got them through another turn. He regarded her claims about the Zones and speed-of-light limitations as naive negativism—and he had even less interest when she tried to explain the Blight.

“No more religious nuttery!” he said. “I want humans of a practical mind, who are open to new concepts. We could do so much with my ideas, and your machine skills, and Nevil’s whatever—”

“And without Woodcarver’s interference,” put in Vendacious.

“Yes, of course,” said Tycoon. A head or two looked out at the mountains. The afternoon shadows were stretching deep across rock and glaciers. “This is insufferable!” he said. “There will be moonlight tonight, but I can’t risk as close flying as during the day.”

Ritl gobbled something.

“You be quiet!” Tycoon replied. The eight were not nearly so tolerant of Ritl as earlier in the day. He jabbed a snout in Zek’s direction. “What are the consequences of another day’s delay?”

Vendacious replied, but sounding more tentative than usual. “I’m afraid that Nevil Storherte is rather, um, insistent. He says that he’s set up a public meeting, and used various intrigues and coercion to persuade Woodcarver to attend. If we don’t arrive by tomorrow afternoon he’s afraid there’ll be catastrophe.”

“Damn that two-legs. I should talk to him directly!”

“That might not help, my lord. I think Nevil is being truthful in this. I know that Woodcarver can be very difficult to get the advantage of.”

“Is it just Woodcarver? Has Johanna surfaced? Or Pilgrim?”

“No, my lord.”

“Keep watch for surprises,” said Tycoon. He was silent for a moment. “Nevil aside, we need to arrive by afternoon. There’s our sea fleet to consider. That’s some tonnes of cargo, including 1024 radios, a gift that will surely impress both the humans and Woodcarver’s supporters. Heh, after all, it could just as well have been a thousand guns on the backs of gunpacks. You’re sure the fleet is to arrive by midday?”

“Yes, my lord. Its progress has been very steady. Nevil has been tracking it, and my own agents have now spotted it too.”

“Right,” Tycoon was nodding emphatically. “One thing I’ve learned about marketing. You have to have the pitch and the move and product all coordinated. I—”

Zek interrupted him, but the voice did not belong to Vendacious: “What I don’t understand, is why we haven’t heard directly from the fleet? They have radios; we should simply request that they delay landing till it fits the overall schedule.”

Vendacious replied to the unknown speaker: “It’s true, we haven’t had direct word. After all, the Choir is more a thing than an ally, and these rafts are only a small fragment of that. The fleet should never have left as early as it did, but it had the full merchant cargo on board.”

“Who is Vendacious replying to?” asked Ravna, the words just popping out. Whoever this was, it spoke pretty good Samnorsk, and sounded strangely familiar.

Tycoon said, “That’s partly the godsgift you knew in the Domain, relayed from the south via Zek/Ut/Ta/Fur/Ri. I asked him to replace the usual Tropical counselor. Even now, he understands the North better than most of us.”

“Oh!” Jefri looked as surprised as Ravna felt. “I’m glad, I’m glad he made it home.”

Zek shook himself and gobbled briefly. Then in Samnorsk: “I mostly survive, not the best talkers. No thanks to you murderous humans. If it had been Johanna—”

Zek was interrupting himself even before he finished, Tinish chords overlaying the Samnorsk. Poor Zek twisted this way and that. It seemed to Ravna as though he was shrinking from invisible blows. After a moment, Zek recovered and spoke with Vendacious’ voice. “Sorry, we hit a spot of turbulence here. My lord, I have various suggestions about how we might accommodate late arrival—but if you intend your two humans to be present at the landing, I suggest we carry on this conversation in private.”

There was a back-and-forth between Tycoon and the remote advisors, entirely in Interpack. At least four of Tycoon was looking out at the sunset colors that were deepening across the icefields. He gobbled something at the gunpack and Ravna and Jefri were led down the twisty stairs.

As they crawled along the main corridor toward their cell, Jefri said, “I wish we were even half as clever as Vendacious says.”

•  •  •

By now, Johanna had been at sea for six tendays. Since the crates of radios had revealed themselves, it had been a never-ending struggle to keep the mob away from the devices. Thank goodness, only this primary raft carried radios. (But why so many? She still hadn’t figured that out.) She’d persuaded her people to repair the crack in the crate that had split open, so the only loose radio was the one that had fallen out of it, the one she still “protected.”

You’d think that fooling a choir would either be impossible or trivial. In fact, Cheepers’ various associations