The Children of the Sky

She got close and looked back—just to see how everybody was doing, she told herself. Never mind that she was too weak to do much else.

Nowadays Scrupilo’s glassworks could turn out clear glass by the square meter. This little window was from the early years; for Johanna’s purposes, it was good enough. She could see humans and packs clustered around the raft. The second and third rafts were pulling in behind it. When the entire fleet arrived, the South End harbor would look like that jumble on the River Fell.

She could step outside and wave to the kids on the pier. She’d still be out of Oobii’s sight. The hell with further paranoia. As she reached for the door handle, she noticed several Tropicals climbing onto the pier, approaching the Children. They had recovered the radio!

No!

The side blast from the beam gun sent shards of glass ripping past her face. The shuddering wall bounced her off her feet. She rolled to her knees, her ears ringing with the thunder. No need for a door or a window now. In places the wood panels had been blown away from the wall studs. Thirty meters down the pier a cloud of steam was rising from a hole punched through the pier itself.

As Johanna struggled to her feet she tried to wipe the blood from her face, but the stuff kept dribbling. There were survivors, lots of wounded. She tottered a step or two toward the open pier. I should help! Yeah, and give crazy Nevil reason to shoot again.

She turned the other way and staggered up the passage, into the warehouse.

Chapter 38

Vendacious’ airship was slightly smaller than Tycoon’s. Tycoon could believe that he was the star of this operation. Inside, of course … that was a different story. Tycoon did not come here; Vendacious could do as he pleased. Tycoon had staterooms and crew quarters. Vendacious had room for cargo and cages and weapons. Crew could sleep at their posts. Tycoon had his command deck high in the bow, unbalancing his ship and isolating him from his servants. Vendacious ruled from his ship’s control gondola with just enough quilting so the crew didn’t interfere with his thinking. Instant discipline could be exercised. None of those silly speaking tubes for Vendacious. He often thought that Tycoon’s command deck was what the eight imagined of human automation. Though Tycoon would have fiercely denied it, he was a slavish admirer of almost all things human. That was just one more reason to keep humans and Tycoon from getting friendly.

“M’lord, the Pack of Packs is pulling away from us.” This news came from Vendacious’ ship’s captain, the sound focused so that only the nearest member of Vendacious could hear.

“Very good,” Vendacious replied. As he’d directed, his airship was lagging behind, keeping relatively close to the ground. Vendacious was watching with binocular telescopes, following as Tycoon flew blissfully on into the jaws of the mantises. Vendacious really didn’t want to follow, but soon he would have to expose himself to those same jaws.

He suppressed his trembling fear and concentrated on the audio from Ut. The singleton had its own perch, well away from the crew. Ut’s purpose in life had been very simple for some years now. He wore his prison around his shoulders, the radio cloak glistening black with hints of gold. Ut should be happy, though. He was treated better than most crew.

Tycoon bragged endlessly about the Radio Cloaks network. In fact, it was Vendacious who had persuaded Nevil to supply the cloaks. It was Vendacious who had winnowed hundreds of singletons to find the few who could wear the cloaks and still survive. It was Vendacious who controlled the network. All eight lived in proper fear of him. Vendacious had trained them to speak only along the paths he directed, when he directed. And he was just as careful to keep them from ever getting all their heads together. Now they were his ears across the empire: Earlier this day, he had spoken via the Ut/Ta/Fur/Il relay to Aritarmo down on the Tropical Reservation. An hour later he talked via Ut/For/Fyr to Dekutomon, on the mainland south of Hidden Island. Now he was simply listening via Ut/Zek as Tycoon used the network to make final preparations for the landing on Starship Hill.

Tycoon’s various pronouncements and directions were mainly directed at his crew. Vendacious paid a small amount of attention to that; mainly he was interested in any trouble the Ravna maggot might stir up. Abruptly, he realized that Tycoon was talking to him: “Where in hell are you, Vendacious? My lookouts have lost sight of you.”

Damn you, I’m not being a perfect target in the sky. But aloud, Vendacious said, “Sorry, my lord, sorry. We’ve had a bit of mechanical trouble, unable to make much altitude.” In fact, mountain walls loomed on either side of their path, thousands of feet of rock between his precious members and the maggots’ beam gun.

“Are you going to crash then?” said Tycoon. “I’ve told you to be more careful about repairs. It’s stupid to have your own maintenance crews.”

“Not to worry, sir. My people have a solution. You’ll be seeing us soon.” Vendacious glanced at the dataset display in front of him. The position map showed that he was running out of mountains to hide behind. He must soon decide between trusting Nevil Storherte and dropping out of the game.

“Very good then!” Their conversation was in Interpack and thus free of maggoty smart remarks. “Another thing,” continued Tycoon. “I need to talk to Nevil directly. There’s final planning—”

“I believe I’ve covered everything, my lord.” Vendacious did his best to be the middlepack in all contacts between Tycoon and humans, even—and especially—Nevil Storherte. Fortunately, Storherte really didn’t like to talk to packs. Keeping Tycoon from chatting with Nevil had been much easier than keeping the eightsome from talking to the various surviving prisoners.

Not today: “I’m sure you’ve done your best, Vendacious, but now you’re lagging and I’m less than an hour from landing. I want to ask Nevil some questions about just who is present, and the current status of the likes of Woodcarver and Flenser and—” Tycoon’s voice scaled up a couple of octaves as he spoke.

“Yes, my lord! Have you used your ordinary radio? Nevil is listening all the time via the orbiter. Now—”

“I’ve tried that! The two-legs is not replying.”

“I’ll look into it, my lord. I have agents on the ground.” And other means of communication.

“I need results on this quickly, Vendacious. As you know, the Ravna two-legs has been saying many harsh things about Nevil. Now is not the time to have her proven right.”

“I agree, sir. I’ll get back to you directly.” In this, he was utterly sincere. “I’ll be out of communication with you for a few minutes.”

“I understand. Use the cloaks network and whatever else is needed.”

Vendacious waved at Ut to stop relaying with Tycoon’s ship. Damnation. Too many problems were suddenly piling up. He should prepare for one of those problems immediately. Vendacious glanced down from his platforms, “Cargomaster!”

“Sir!”

“Bring up our special prisoners. The four goes in its usual cage, but I want Amdiranifani shackled around the bow hatch.”

The Cargomaster cowered slightly, then it hustled immediately off for the prison cells. The pack had been through this procedure before.

As for the more difficult problems: How to get in touch with Nevil? Was that maggot playing some new game? He thought he had Nevil figured out, but the prospect of facing the beam gun made him want to rethink everything. Dekutomon is close to Oobii. I could have him take Fyr and visit the maggot. If there’d been more time, that would’ve been the best approach; let Nevil know that Vendacious’ agents were everywhere, even on Nevil’s doorstep.

Or, he could use an ordinary radio to try to reach Nevil through his heavenly high orbiter. No, that was grovelling, and it hadn’t worked for Tycoon. Besides, ordinary radio might be overheard by the radio sets Tycoon had aboard Pack of Packs.

Vendacious glanced at his dataset. Right now it was displaying a map of his ground track, the ridges on either side of his ship marked with altitudes and proximity. In the early years of his exile, this dataset—Oliphaunt,