The Children of the Sky

perhaps. But there wasn’t a bit of mind behind this voice. Oobii’s automation was simply the best computation that could run in the Slow Zone. By now she was almost used to the interface, and it was the best she could do when she wasn’t wearing the data tiara.

She described the problem situation in terms the starship could work with. “And watch for radio lights near my location.”

“Watching,” Oobii replied.

“What transmissions do you see, out to, ah, four thousand meters?”

“I see a number of—”

“Ignore the North End lab.”

“—I see one, your current transmission.”

“Do you see any radio light from Ridgeline Island?”

“The radio frequency energy from Ridgeline Island appears to be normal scattering.”

“Okay,” said Ravna. “Ongoing: report on artificial radio light seen within, um”—Here she really needed a better interface. She settled for something short and crude.—“everything within ten thousand meters of the north end of Hidden Island.”

“Done and ongoing. Do you want the reports streamed now?”

Ravna thought a second. “No. Report anomalies and forwarded transmissions.” There were several radios that might legitimately be in use at this end of the Domain. They were part of the clunky forwarding operation that Oobii managed.

“Very good,” replied Oobii. “I see nothing unusual at this time.”

“You know, Your Highness, praps you should let me manage the radio interface.” Scrup was almost as clever with voice comms as Woodcarver.

“No, keep your attention on the ground.”

Scrupilo grumped around the basket. Their path had taken them in a low sweep of Ridgeline’s shore, giving his telescopes a view beneath the tall evergreens. “There’s nothing down there, no marks in the sand, and this is about the only place they could have reached land by now. The thief is either holed up on Hidden Island or he’s on the inland channel, heading for the mainland. And now we’ll never catch up! We are useless.”

Scrupilo was like that, getting all frustrated and then giving up for a while. But Ravna was just getting interested in the problem. Given both the Eyes Above and the Oobii, there were some possibilities. She chatted with Oobii. It reported a mainland-trending windstream about five hundred meters up and a few hundred meters south. They dumped a little ballast. She brought the rudders around and drove the propeller as fast as its little electric motor could go. The airboat angled upwards, Ravna steering according to directions from the starship. It was fun as long as she didn’t dwell on the fact that she was reduced to being a mere servomechanism for her starship’s very dumb automation.

They climbed their invisible staircase, turning through 180 degrees as they went. Scrupilo looked out in all directions, then concentrated his attention on the Inner Channel, between the mainland and Hidden Island. Every few seconds he’d comment on the new areas he could see. “Still no sign of … But wow, the ground speed! Milady, your maneuver is worthy of Johanna herself!” The starship reported that the Eyes Above was driving along at almost twenty meters per second. “And I can see the whole of the mainland shore. Mark my words, we’ll catch this thief!”

They drilled along, airspeed no greater than before, but the North End lab passed below them and they were already cruising southward along the Inner Channel. Oobii reported no new radio emissions. Of course, it had been a long shot that the thief would try to wear the radio cloaks. To the Tines, the devices were almost religious icons. Wear them, and you’d most likely fry your mind—but if that didn’t happen then you were transformed into a godlike pack who could stride the world with kilometers between one’s pack members! Somebody like Godsgift might be arrogant enough to wear the cloaks in the middle of trying to steal them, but that was probably not true of his minions.

She looked out at the cliffs of the mainland, the shoulders that Starship Hill rested upon. If somehow the thief got ashore, it would be hiding in the evergreens that grew in the steepness. Oobii said there would be a summer rain shower in another few hours. Under cover of that, the thief might make it to whatever rendezvous the Tropicals had planned. She looked at the froth of dying spring leaves that floated in the evergreens’ crowns. In most places, the ground was hidden. Oobii had no line of sight on these cliffs. Even so … she gave the starship another call.

Scrupilo’s attention was on his telescopes; apparently he didn’t notice what Ravna was saying to the Starship. He pointed a snout downwards. “There are Woodcarver’s troops coming down to the mainland shore! We should tell them that I’ve covered the shore north of us. Forward a call to them, Your Highness.”

Then her science advisor noticed that she wasn’t making the call. “Your Highness!”

“Just a moment, Scrupilo. We may be able to detect the cloaks, even if they’re not turned on.”

“But we need to make that call to Woodcarver!” Even his telescope members were looking around at her. Then he gave a start and began to sniff at his fur. “Wow! Did you feel that, Your Highness? Like a tiny electric shock, but through all my members, all at once.”

Ravna hadn’t felt a thing; maybe that was because she didn’t have six fur-covered bodies. However, she had an explanation. “Oobii just hit us with a very bright pulse. Even if the cloaks are turned off and around a corner, they might give back an echo.”

“Ah!” One good thing about Scrupilo, he really admired clever surprises. “Well, in that case, I’m pleased to be your personal radio pulse sensor.”

Ravna grinned back and put through a call to her starship.

Oobii replied, “Except for known radios, no device echoes detected.”

Scrupilo stuck out his snouts from both sides of the basket and took a naked eye look at the passing scene. “I say we radio pulse every so often. No way this Tropical would guess your clever trick, Highness. Sooner or later he’ll move where Oobii can detect him.”

Ravna set up a surveillance plan with Oobii, got some more winds-aloft advice, and also forwarded Scrupilo’s observations through Oobii to Woodcarver. They continued southwards, climbing another hundred meters. They were almost even with the long row of telephone poles that marched off to the south along the Queen’s Road.

The Eyes Above wasn’t making good time anymore, but it was well ahead of Woodcarver’s search parties. Just a few hundred meters to her left, paralleling the telephone poles, were the “town houses” of older Children and wealthy packs. They might be her most visible achievement of the last ten years. Ravna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about that. The half-timbered houses were large, each big enough for a married couple, a young child or children on the way, and one or two pack friends. Oobii was able to keep the buildings warm by shining a very low-power beam gun on the hot water towers that stood next to each house. So the town houses were comfortably warm all year round, with hot and cold running water and indoor plumbing. A large part of Oobii’s tech rent had gone into paying for the Children’s town houses. The second-generation kids thought they were heavenly. Their parents regarded the houses as a small step up from purgatory.

“Ha. I felt another pulse,” said Scrupilo. Ravna called the ship. Still no joy.

“We’re almost to Cliffside harbor, Scrupilo. I think that’s beyond where the thief could have come.” In any case, the straits between Hidden Island and the mainland was far busier than the polluted water at North End. There seemed little hope of spotting a suspicious boat here.

“… Yes. I suppose we should turn around and”—Scrupilo had raised his telescopes, pointing them at the highlands ahead.—“but not just yet! The Tropicals may have outsmarted themselves. Something strange is going on near their madhouse. Can you fly there, quietly?”

The embassy compound was just south of the town houses, a fenced-in collection of ramshackle sheds perched on the edge of the Margrum Valley. “I’ll check.” She gave Oobii a quick call, then turned back to Scrupilo. “In that direction, we have a southbound breeze all the way to the ground.” She ran the propeller for another thirty seconds, long enough to put them on a path that would take them past the compound. They were just a few dozen meters above the heather now. She cut the motor, and they coasting along with the breeze, surrounded by eerie silence. “How’s that?”