The Children of the Sky

her:

“You took long enough.” It was Tycoon’s new voice. He still liked Geri’s voice—said it sounded “pretty”—but he accepted that it tended to give human listeners the wrong impression. “Are you okay?” he continued. “I’ve had to slow some of the harbor operations. Even the Tropicals don’t like these really clear days.”

“I’ll bet those were Tines with too much pale skin. We humans are dark-skinned all over, perfect for hot, sunny weather.”

“Oh. Right. You know, sometimes the Choir isn’t very careful of itself. I wonder…” Tycoon hummed to himself, no doubt coming up with something crazy. Then, slipping back into bossy mode, he said, “That’s really neither here nor there. We need that camera you’re holding. And this time, set it up so it doesn’t get knocked down!”

“Hei, Tyco, if you want it perched at the top of everything, the mob is going to knock it down occasionally.” Johanna reseated the camera and righted the tripod. Actually, the assembly was sturdy and bottom-heavy. It would have taken a bump from a large Tine—or the concerted effort of a group—to knock it over. Well this is the heart of the Choir. Plenty of strange maybe-ceremonies happen here all the time.

She struggled to shift the tripod and camera closer to the edge of the parapet, where it would have an unobstructed view. A dozen Tropicals moved in close to her, but they weren’t objecting. Instead they bumped around among themselves. It was quite unlike the coordination of a real pack, but she could tell they were trying to help her move the equipment. Johanna and the moblet tipped the tripod this way and that, in effect walking the gear out onto the stony parapet.

She shooed them back and did the final placement herself, this time making sure that the tripod was wedged between the golden spikes of the parapet. Maybe Tycoon was watching her through his telescopes and the camera: “Be careful. If they think you’re harming the pyramid—”

Johanna had been watching the Tines as she worked, with just that concern. “Nobody’s complaining. You know I’m special to the Choir.” That was probably true; in any case, she liked to tease Tycoon.

Tycoon made a grumbling response, but in Tinish. Then in Samnorsk: “I don’t mind my employees risking their lives. I just want them to know that’s what they’re doing! Now, since you’re up there, how about pointing the camera so we can get some useful information. I want coverage of the north road.”

“Hei, I’m your advisor, not your employee,” she replied, but she turned the camera toward the northwest horizon. The “road” was really a system of clearings that changed from tenday to tenday, but it extended nearly a thousand kilometers into the deepest jungle of the Fell Basin. At first glance, the Choir was the chaotic saturnalia that Northern packs always claimed, but something more complicated than nonstop joy was going on. The coast needed an enormous hinterland to support itself. With cameras like this—and the remote reservations—Tycoon was beginning to figure it out.

This pattern of Tropical life had existed in some form for centuries, but Tycoon’s reservation had been a revolutionary upgrade—witness the Great Pyramid. Now that revolution was accelerating. Raw materials were flooding in and millions of manufactured items were streaming out. Woodcarver and the Domain saw this as a tidal wave of products. Ravna saw it as advancing her projects by decades in just a year or two. Johanna knew that what Northerners saw was just a fraction of what Tycoon’s factories were producing. Most of that output—and all of the output from the new, far reservations—was being used within the Choir. Just stand at the output end of the factories. Watch the wagonloads of fabric and radios and solar cells being carted off along the North Road and the River Fell. On a really clear day—like today—this camera could follow the road traffic for many kilometers, see it split into tributaries, apparently reaching every nook and cranny of the Choir’s domain.

Something had awakened here, the combination of the Choir and Tycoon and the shortcuts from Oobii. Jo knew it; Tycoon knew it. He never tired of bragging about the size of his “new markets”; sometimes the businesscritter in him literally rubbed its snouts together in glee. This camera and the reports that Mr. Radio made from the new reservations were all part of Tyco’s ceaseless efforts to anticipate his customers.

“Okay,” came the voice from the camera. “Point a little to south. That’s good! Nevil may have his eye in the sky, but I know what’s happening on the ground. And when I get better telescopes mounted on the video…” Tycoon’s voice drifted off, his technical imagination taking over. When he resumed, he was back to worrying about her. “Now that you’ve got the camera set up, you should get yourself back down here. I have a godsgift on a dumb radio from North One. He says there’s been some kinky moodshifting up there. If that propagates to us, there could be a sex riot on the Pyramid.”

Johanna looked down at the House of Tycoon. Tycoon’s audience hall was marked by a row of windows. The new ones were three meters high, but still tiny-looking at this distance. She’d bet Tyco was watching her from there. She gave a little wave. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen that before. No big deal.” That was a little bit of an exaggeration. “Besides,” she continued, “I didn’t come up here just to fix your silly camera. I want to sit and take in the scenery.”

“Grump. Mumble.” The tiny speaker on the camera couldn’t do justice to Tycoon’s response, the mix of indignation and concern and envy.

Jo gave the palace another cheery wave and sat herself down on the parapet. In this swelter, her most extensive piece of clothing was her sunhat, and now she plunked it on her head. Black hair and dark skin were all very fine, but she still needed some protection against this sun.

Johanna looked out, but she wasn’t watching the physical scenery. She liked to tell Tycoon that from here she had a clear view of the Choir’s innermost thoughts. Tyco claimed she was spouting superstitious nonsense—but then he tracked the moods that swept across the Tropics like superfast weather fronts. That was marketing information.

Here at the City of the Choir, it all came together, a million times bigger than what Johanna had seen on the rafts. She leaned her elbows onto her knees, and stared off toward the northern horizon. This world was in the Slow Zone, not the Beyond, not the Transcend. Most intelligent life in the galaxy had originated in this primordial ooze. Nothing much smarter than human could survive Down Here. So no way was the Choir a superhuman intellect. Right? It was the sort of question that made Johanna wish she knew more about Slow-Zone limitations. The subject had never been big in the High Lab. The grownups were too busy becoming God to waste their time on the problems of lesser minds.

Very soon the charade with Nevil must be abandoned; the cooperation between Tycoon and Woodcarver was too blatant to disguise. My friends will know I’m alive. I can visit them! Ravna would be able to come down here and see Greenstalk, and see what the Choir was really like. Commset chats were not enough. There were things Ravna didn’t understand—like that promise she’d asked of Johanna, to save the Choir from exploitation. In one sense that was an easy promise to keep. But at the level of individual Tines, of Cheepers —the problem was just the same as Johanna had argued with Harmony Redjackets and even with Pilgrim.…

Johanna drew herself a little further under the shade of her broad hat. It would be great when she could travel back to the Domain, but there were so few humans in the world; she couldn’t imagine finding anyone now. Even Ravna was better off, at least if my stupid little brother will get his act together. From what Johanna could tell, Jef alternated between thinking Rav was too good for him and regarding her as the agent of ultimate evil.

Finally, the sun was too much. Johanna stood and started slowly down from the summit. She often hit an emotional low just as she retreated from the pyramid. Sometimes she thought the Choir’s mood changed too. Maybe the Tines are unhappy to see me go! Hah, absurd of course. And yet, after losing the High Lab, losing her parents, losing the promise of Nevil … after losing it all, she had a fate that was kind of a marvelous thing. She knew that Nevil’s gang had called her the “Dog Lady.” Well, they were right. She had the fragments, the packs, and the Choir. It was a weird trade she had made, and maybe she didn’t care about the rest.

Chapter 45

Today was the longest day of summer. For many Tinish nations, that was a big holiday. Here in Woodcarver’s Domain, the holiday was celebrated, but it came in the middle of almost seven tendays when the sun