The Children of the Sky

Several Children were on their knees, talking softly at him.

Ravna walked around in front of Jef, blocking his view downslope. “Jefri?” she said. “We think Johanna is still alive. We’ll get her back.”

Jef’s gaze came up to her face. She had never seen him so bleak, even in his deepest shame. After a moment his voice came low and hoarse. “We’ll do whatever we can? Yes, but…” but what good has that been so far? He staggered to his feet, helped by the kids around him. “The best I can do now is find what’s left of Amdi.” He would have stumbled away across the meadow if the others had not held him back.

There was no way they could keep Jefri from this search. There’s no way they can keep me away either. “We’ll all search,” she said.

•  •  •

It turned out that some Children and Best Friends had already taken the funicular partway to the water, then climbed down pilings to reach the cliff face. Now they were close to being stranded, their rescue operation in need of rescuing. Ravna and Woodcarver sent some of the older kids after them, with instructions not to get anybody killed.

There were safer ways down the cliff, and that was a proper reason for Ravna to come along. Oobii did not have a line of sight on the cliff face, but over the years, the area had been carefully surveyed. With her HUD, Ravna was probably a better scout leader than anyone.

Now they were moving from ledge to ledge, back and forth across the rock face. Before the funicular train, the trip from Hidden Island up to Newcastle had taken a good part of a day. The cliffs were a deadly attraction that over the years had maimed adventuresome packs and killed two Children. Today, the leaves of spring rose all around them, clothing the evergreens with extra softness, obscuring the teeth of stone.

“Here, take this,” said Woodcarver, passing a safety rope forward. The pack was mainly behind Ravna, but staying close. Nowadays, the Queen was young—maybe too young for this, with the two puppies—but she seemed to be having no problems. As she walked along, she was calling loudly to packs above her. In her own way, Woodcarver was coordinating operations, too.

Ravna took the safety line, passing the remaining loops forward to Ovin, the only human ahead of her in the party.

“Do you think there’s any chance that—” said Ravna, her voice low, for Woodcarver. Thank the Powers she had persuaded Jefri to stay with Magda and Elspa in the middle of the troop.

“—that any of Amdi survived?” Woodcarver finished the question. “I don’t see how. These springtime leaves are gossamer, and the evergreens beneath are like steel bars. But this … recovery is going to happen anyway.”

Ravna nodded. “We can make it safer.” For the next few minutes, she had no time for chitchat. Her head-up display was synched with her position. She could see through the trees to Oobii’s topo map—and guide Ovin Verring along the safest paths. At the same time, she had windows opened on other problems. Nevil’s people were making no attempt to mess with Oobii, but there was a plume of hot air rising from the Dome of First Landing. Ravna even had video from inside the castle! Apparently Nevil had diverted all the cameras into his spying—that was why she had only low-resolution information on the bodies’ trajectories. But she could snoop all around the castle. Bili or whoever had stuffed the Lander with flammables and lit it off. Woodcarver’s firefighters had already doused the fire, and she could see that the coldsleep caskets were unharmed.

Ravna pulled her attention back to the rocks ahead of her. “Ovin, don’t go down that way.” The higher ledge was narrow, but it became a real path a few meters further into the greenery.

“Okay.”

As Ravna sidled onto the ledge after him, a little red alert flag popped up in her HUD. Behind her, Woodcarver was talking loudly with unseen packs at the top of the cliffs. She translated for Ravna: “They say something’s happening at Newcastle town.”

“Yeah.” That red alert flag. As she followed along after Ovin, she accepted the alert: It was a view of the north road out of town. The Denier Children had returned to their houses after the debacle on the Meadows. Now they were on the move again—but not back to Murder Meadows or to Oobii. The ship counted seventy Children, including Bili and Merto, but not Nevil. The older ones had knapsacks or sling bags. There were a few wagons, but most were walking—out of town, toward the northeast. “You know, I think some of them are carrying guns,” exactly the human-style weapons Ravna had pictured for Nevil.

“My troops have many more guns,” said Woodcarver. “I could stop them. Does this look like a mass kidnapping?”

Ravna watched the scene for several seconds. “… No.”

“Then I suggest we let these people go. No civil war today.”

Ravna suddenly realized that while her attention had been on the other side of Starship Hill, she had walked along a ledge that had narrowed to thirty centimeters. Woodcarver was gently pulling her back from the edge. She came to a full stop and leaned against the sheer wall of the cliff face.

“You’re almost there, Ravna. Give me your hand.” She looked up and saw Ovin. He had reached the wider path that the topo map had promised. A second later she was standing beside him. She sat down for a moment and waited until the rest of their party came up. Woodcarver settled close around her. The new puppy was barely old enough to be a constructive member. It peeped out of a puppy pannier, whereas little Sht rode on an older member’s shoulders.

The Queen must have noticed her gaze. “The new puppy? It’s to balance Sht’s paranoid nature, a very old- fashioned bit of broodkennery. It was Pilgrim’s suggestion … and his last gift to me.” Woodcarver was silent for a moment, and then she spoke publicly loud: “I hear Scrupilo’s airboat.”

Ravna nodded. She had been following his progress via Oobii. “What’s become of his airship?” she asked.

“That’s a bit of history,” said Woodcarver, rolling her heads. “Nevil’s all-human crew crashed EA2—on their very first solo flight. There were no casualties, but that put an end to long- range searching for you. Opinion is divided on whether the crash was a real accident or a Nevil accident.”

“Ah.”

Now the boat’s little electric motor was audible to human ears. It wasn’t visible through the spring leaves until it flew directly overhead. Then she had a naked-eye glimpse of it—and two of Scrupilo’s heads stuck over the gunwales, peering down. A year ago I was up there with Scrup, looking down, trying to track Nevil’s thieves—only we thought we were chasing Tropicals.

She relayed through Oobii: “Scrupilo, we’re at—” she sent her map position. “Poul Linden and the other team are on another path about fifty meters below us.” The other path was a safer walk, but it didn’t extend as far into the region where Oobii figured most of bodies had come down.

“I see Linden, but not you,” Scrupilo’s voice boomed down from the sky. He wasn’t bothering with radio.

“Okay. Do you see any sign of, of the bodies?”

Scrupilo was as grumpy blunt as ever. “The birds know. They’ve found three places to swarm. I’ve got a crappy little camera here; I’ll send Oobii pictures of what I’m seeing.” The video was already showing in Ravna’s windows.

Two of Woodcarver’s foresters came up from the ledge below, and then—Jefri wobbled along the path, staring upward and ignoring all of them. “Scrupilo!” Jef shouted. “How many bodies are we looking for?”

The pack responded: “Most people say eight, but some of the younger Children say seven with one holding onto a member-sized object.”

Jefri stood silent for a moment, still staring up. Then he started up the path, walking past Ravna. She came to her feet, reached out to stop him. For an instant, she thought Jef would shrug away. Then he was trembling in her arms.

“I can lead us there, Jefri. You’ll see all we see, but stay in the middle for now. Please?”

Magda and Elspa caught up with Jefri and softly encouraged him to let Ravna and Woodcarver go ahead.