The Children of the Sky

She said, in an aside to Nevil: “Is Johanna close by?”

“Sorry, she’s on the mainland this afternoon.”

“Okay, check out our visitors.”

Nevil nodded, and began to gather a proper crew. Ravna glanced at Godsgift. “We’ll have you out of here very soon, Mr. Ambassador.”

The Tropical leader smiled broadly. “Excellent.” Quite evidently, it had no worries about its guilt being proven here.

Scrupilo was dancing with frustration. His gobbling chords broke into a hissed Samnorsk whisper. “This is all useless! I should phone the boat moorage, put out an island-wide alarm, and contact Oobii.”

They also needed some aerial surveillance.… She looked up at the airboat that had been the backdrop for this confrontation. “Is the Eyes Above flyable?” She pointed at the aircraft. “And does it have a radio on board?”

“What? No radio, but the motor is charged … hmm, grmm! Yes!” He started shouting to his ground crews, chords and Samnorsk all mixed together, in various loudnesses and different directions. What she could understand was: “Phone Woodcarver!”, “Nevil, move your investigation away from the Eyes Above! I have use for it.” And a whisper for her ears: “The craft is fully prepped. I wonder if Mr. Crapheads knew that.” He ran to the wicker basket as two of his helpers approached from the other side. They were fiddling with a row of gas valves, arguing with Scrupilo about details.

Nevil’s people and the Tropicals had moved twenty meters off. The suspects were grudgingly removing their panniers and jackets. Huh, the intricate body painting covered much of their bare skin. Some of the Tropicals were watching the airboat curiously, but they didn’t seem the least disconcerted by Scrupilo’s activity.

One of Scrup’s assistants came rushing out with the lab’s loose radio. The nearest of Scrupilo grabbed the box and passed it to himself, up the gangplank. Then he hesitated, looking around as though he had forgotten something critical. “Oh, if only Johanna were here. This will go better with a combo crew.” That is, a pack and a human. “Nevil!” he shouted.

Ravna put a foot on the gangplank. “That’s okay, I can help you as well was anybody here.” That was probably true; she’d been up with Scrupilo a number of times. Besides, she didn’t want to stay here and second- guess Nevil.

Nevil Storherte had started back in their direction. For a second, Ravna thought he was going to object. The boy—no, the man; he was only eight years younger than she—was always going on about her indispensable role in high planning. This time, he seem to realize that he already had a job and that seconds counted. He hesitated, then gave her a little wave. “Okay. Good hunting.”

She waved back, then shooed the rest of Scrupilo up the ramp, into the airboat’s narrow basket.

For once, Scrupilo was not arguing. He scrambled aboard, all the while shouting to his ground crew. The basket did its usual disconcerting wobble as Ravna climbed across into the chair at the stern. She wasn’t quite tied down when the ground crew cut the tethers and the balloon drew them firmly skywards.

This was almost like agrav—but steadier then Pilgrim’s flier. The ground simply fell away. Looking over the edge of the basket, she could see all the Tropicals’ gear laid out. No way that an entire set of radio cloaks could be hidden in that.

Scrupilo powered up the boat’s propeller and turned the rudder. They were over the dark ponds that filled the old mining pits and covered the lab’s tanks of stabilized hydrogen. The placid waters reflected the towering walls of the quarry. If she leaned further out, she’d be able to see the reflection of the airboat.

… But not just now. Ravna tied onto a safety harness and began crawling around the aft end of the basket. There were a number of equipment cabinets, mostly waterproofed wicker, with latches that could be released by hands or paws or jaws. She opened one after another, glancing in each: a heliograph (not enough radios to go around), maps, two telescopes. It suddenly occurred to her that there was something to check before anything else. She set the spyglasses down and turned to the stern cover.

“Highness,” Scrupilo shouted to her. She looked out, saw that they had cleared the top of the quarry. “Please handle the driving. I’m best with the telescopes.” Then he noticed that Ravna was trying to pull up the stern ballast cover. “Highness? The telescopes, please … What are you doing?”

“It just occurred to me—what if they stuffed the cloaks in the ballast tanks?”

“Uck.” The pack thought a second, no doubt imagining how this chase could wreck what they were trying to recover. It was a long shot, but—”I’ll check the bow and mid tanks.” A pair at a time, Scrupilo’s members released the various controls they had jaws on and poked around in the water tanks that were set along the length of the hull. The main rudder slid free and the propeller slowed till you could see its three blades. The Eyes Above slowly turned in the nearly still afternoon air, now pointing toward the outer islands, now at the north channel, now at Starship Hill. They were high enough that she could see the dome of the New Castle.

“There’s nothing in these tanks but water,” he said returning to his controls.

“Same back here.”

“Very well then. Time is wasting.” He angled both horizontal and vertical rudders and spun up the screw. Eyes Above’s stern gently bobbed upwards, and the airboat angled down, turning toward the island’s North End boat landings. “Can you circle us around the North End while I take a look?”

“Yes.” Flying was easy in air this placid. The backseat controls included two jaw levers by her chair and another pair set far enough forward that she could use them as foot pedals. Together they provided control of the rudders and propeller. It wasn’t as simple as a point-and-move interface, but Ravna had practiced.

Scrupilo hauled the two telescopes forward. The eyepieces were curved masks that could be rotated to fit either side of a member’s head. Midway down each barrel was a clasp suitable for the usual shoulder strap on Tinish jackets. In a matter of seconds, he had the scopes mounted on two of himself, and two of his other members were looking around for things to spy on. “Okay. Take us a little north.… Hah. Except for my construction barge, the moorage is almost deserted.”

The North End moorage had been mostly taken over by Scrupilo’s serious aircraft project, the creation of a rigid airship. The superstructure of the Eyes Above 2 was already evident in the spars and ribs rising from the construction barge. When completed, in another half year or so, the EA2 would be more than two hundred meters long, capable of transporting a dozen packs across the continent nonstop.

Most of Scrupilo was maneuvering the two telescopes like binoculars, sweeping across the piers and boat shelters. The rest of him lay together in the bottom of the basket, as if asleep. More likely, they were busy with the others, bringing all that two of them were seeing into a single, analyzed vision.

Scrupilo was humming to himself; at least the chords meant nothing to Ravna. “Ha! I see the pitter-patter of wet paws along the quay. See the gap in the moorage? Some pack was down here recently, departing in one of the single-hulled day fishers. So we know what to look for!” The two telescope bearers stood down. The others spread out to the ballast dumps. “Let’s get upstairs quickly, Your Highness!” He dumped some water. One way or another, they were going up.

Ravna angled them northwest, across the outer straits. The channel islands were numerous, forested, and largely uninhabited. If the thief made it there he could probably get away.

Scrupilo glanced at the gear-driven clock he kept on White Head’s jacket. “Take us to Ridgeline, that’s the only place the thief could have reached in this direction.” He was on his telescopes again, scanning the open water, all the way to where sea mist hung round the furthest islands. “Hmm, a couple of twinhulls, nothing like our fellow.”

They drove along for a few seconds, the propeller pushing them along at about five meters per second. The wicker basket was a cold, shadowed place, but at least the air stream was diverted by the basket’s bow cowling.

Ravna locked down the rudders and rummaged around for the radio that Scrupilo had brought aboard. These radios were one of the stranger of Oobii’s reinventions. Of course, the device had no onboard processors; it was totally analog, indiscriminately spewing across the entire radio spectrum. No matter. The starship monitored all aspects of the space around it.

“Ship. Can you see where I am?” Ravna asked into the microphone.

“Ravna. Yes,” acknowledged a pleasant male voice, something like Pham’s voice