The Children of the Sky

Johanna had called it—had been his most precious possession, the true reason why he was so esteemed by Tycoon. Since his alliance with Nevil, the dataset had not been nearly so important an informational tool, and at the same time he had come to worry about the possibility that Nevil might be able to corrupt the device. Nevertheless, like his commset, the dataset was galactic technology, putting him on a par with the maggots. And now that Nevil controlled the starship, it was by far the most secret communication path between them.

Vendacious reached out a couple of noses and tapped the sequence of instructions that should change Oliphaunt from an atlas to a commset. Johanna had always been more adept at this than he, but then she had used it all her human life; Vendacious took considerable pride in how adept he had become with the device. There, he was in commset mode and … He noticed the red light blinking at the bottom of the display. That was the special signal he had installed; Nevil was trying to call him!

Vendacious startled into action. The parts of him nearest Ut pulled on cords that dropped heavy quilts on every side of the singleton’s perch. He checked it above and below. Now, properly pitched sounds would not be heard by Ut. Not that the Radio pack would dare to deliberately betray Vendacious, but stretched out as it was across the continent, the individual parts were scarcely more than relays. Vendacious had used that fact to snoop across hundreds of leagues—but he lived in horror that his innermost secrets might inadvertently be revealed to others.

He tapped a snout at the dataset, initiating a call, but with the sounds shifted way up into frequencies so high that they came close to interfering with thought. Such squeaking would never penetrate the quilts that surrounded Ut; no chance that dear Tycoon would be bothered by inadvertent relays.

“Vendacious here,” he said, squeaking soft and super-high himself. Oliphaunt dataset had Tinishly good hearing. Somewhere inside, it transformed Vendacious’ voice into digital (whatever that was) and boosted it out to Nevil. Vendacious’ heads hurt when he tried to imagine all the things the dataset did automatically. Somewhere out among the stars, there were things worth fearing.

Some seconds passed. Was he going to have to leave a message?

Then Nevil’s upshifted voice came from the dataset: “Why in hell are you flying so low, man?”

Vendacious suppressed a snarl. Aloud, he made a noncommittal human noise.

“Never mind,” the maggot continued. “We’ve got a problem. You told me Johanna was out of the picture.”

“Of course. Torn to pieces.” But suddenly Vendacious had a very bad feeling.

“She was on your frigging fleet!”

“But I saw her die. You were listening yourself.”

“Well, I just saw her alive through trusted video. Now we know why we haven’t had contact with the rafts. Powers on High, Vendacious! How could you?”

Vendacious’ jaws snapped. If the maggot had been physically present, he would have lost his one and only throat. “You think I arranged this complication?” he said.

“I, no.” Nevil’s voice was choppy, as if he were trotting or climbing stairs; humans were such simple animals that they couldn’t disguise that sort of thing. “Look, things are a bit dicey here. If we bring this off, Woodcarver will be so discredited that she won’t dare grab power. My sisters and brothers will be safe. We can make something of this miserable exile—with your help of course. You can have all this damn world when we are done with it, but —”

Vendacious’ spies often reported that Nevil was wonderfully persuasive with his fellow larvae. That was very difficult to believe. The maggot had never sounded like anything but a crude manipulator to Vendacious.

In a way, that was comforting. Vendacious let Nevil rattle on for a moment more. When the maggot came to a natural pause, Vendacious had something reasonable and constructive to say: “All agreed, of course. The question is, what should we do about this unpleasant surprise?”

“Well, I’ve already done what was necessary. That’s one reason I’m so pissed.” Nevil explained how he had blasted Johanna and a crowd of maggots into superheated steam. “The beam killed six of my brothers and sisters. We Children count, Vendacious! I need every one of them to work with me.” He was silent for a moment.

Was he inviting a reply? Vendacious couldn’t think of anything non-sarcastic; finally, he responded, “So this has damaged your credibility.”

Nevil gave a sour laugh. “I’m not an idiot. Used this way, beam gun targets just explode. You know, like a bomb. I’ve made a big deal of the terrorist factions within the Tropicals—it’s what today’s ‘peace treaty’ meeting is all about. So the story is, Tinish dissidents on the barge fleet tried to sabotage Tycoon’s generous gift. There are rough edges, but I can make it work. If anything, this will strengthen our current position—but that’s not the point!”

“Indeed not,” said Vendacious. “So you actually saw Johanna die?”

“Ah…” the human had the grace to acknowledge the irony. “Okay, not exactly. It looked like the guys on the pier were walking someone toward shore. And the instant I fired, Oobii lost contact with that broken radio we’d been tracking.”

“That sounds even less certain than what I managed in the Tropics.” Vendacious had hated Johanna Olsndot for so long. In a very real sense, she was responsible for the debacle of ten years ago. Tycoon might be surprised to learn that Vendacious hated Johanna even more than Tycoon did—and for much better reason. “Nevil, I think our problem may be more serious than explaining a little gunfire. At least we should plan for the possibility that Johanna is still out there, actively seeking allies.”

Nevil was silent for a moment. It sounded like he had just moved out of doors or turned up one of his mechanical sound-dampers. Then: “Yeah … Bili made pretty much the same point. He thinks we should switch over to my backup plan.”

Vendacious shrugged angrily and put a certain bluff irritation into his voice: “Nonsense. That’s defeatism.” Without Ravna’s technical support, and now with Woodcarver’s active opposition, Nevil’s position in the Domain had become steadily more difficult. In some ways that was good; it made the maggot easier to manipulate. Unfortunately, it also meant he had increasing interest in his “backup plan.” That scheme might make sense in the long run—for Nevil—but it would render him almost useless to Vendacious.

“Nevil, I, um, beg you to stick with our grand plan. Let’s think on other options we can exercise if problems arise.”

“Okay, suppose Tycoon lands and behaves even more the fool than usual. Suppose he insists that Bergsndot and Jo’s little brother accompany him on stage, in front of all the Children. And then—”

“Yes, that would be bad, but—”

Nevil’s voice rode over his words: “—and then suppose Johanna has miraculously survived and teamed up with Woodcarver? She could upstage us all—and I can’t kill everybody!”

Vendacious gave a derisive hoot. “Johanna couldn’t speak a single syllable before Tycoon would rip her throat out.” Nevil simply didn’t understand Tycoon’s hatred for that particular two-legs.

“Worst case, Vendacious, I’m talking worst case. I know the Ravna bitch is an idiot; she couldn’t convince a friendly audience that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. And Jefri Olsndot is just a follower. But they’ve had several days to chat up your idiot, right?”

Vendacious ground his teeth as he replied, “I’ve been following that; I’m in control of the situation.”

“You’re betting a lot on that assessment, my friend. What are we going to do if Tycoon gets turned?”

Vendacious didn’t have to think too hard on that. “Ultimately, Tycoon is simply a tool, a very very valuable tool. If he ever figures out the full truth of things, then he must be immediately destroyed.… Um.” And what would that mean in the present situation? “If you and I coordinate on this … we could cover all the possibilities. If I determine that Tycoon has gone bad, I will immediately tell you. So if your ‘worst case’ materializes—”

“Then I would fry them both?… Okay. I could say I was trying to protect Johanna but that Oobii glitched. The weapons Down Here are so crude I might be able to make that story work.”

“Fine. But remember, killing Tycoon is truly a last resort. We need him more than I think you know. Even if Johanna pops out in front of him, don’t just kill Tycoon. I’m confident he will quickly destroy her, but I’ll signal you otherwise.”

“Ah. So you’re going to come out of hiding then?”

Sigh. “Indeed. I’ll circle overhead in honor of this historic meeting of our races.”