The Children of the Sky

None of Scrupilo looked up from his intent surveillance. “Excellent. The bastards are up to something. They’re in a crowd off to the northwest of the compound.”

“What, they’re playing with their snow sleighs again?” There’d been heavy snowfall last winter, and the Tropicals had become enamored of large sleighs. Typical of the mob’s long-term planning, they had begged and worked to buy a number of sleighs—getting possession just in time for the spring mud.

“No!” said Scrupilo. “These fellows are by the fence, near the telephone trunk line. I wonder how close we can get before they see us.”

Ravna glanced behind her. The northering sun was peeking under the curve of the balloon. “We’re coming at them from out of the sun.” Ahead, she couldn’t actually see their shadow on the ground, but there was a bright spot, a glory shine, in the heather beyond the compound, marking just where their shadow must be. The roundish light had almost reached the edge of the valley. She vented a little hydrogen. As the Eyes Above sank, the bright spot moved into the compound.

“Brilliant, Milady! Can you keep us in the sun all the way down?”

“I think so.” When the spot of backscatter brightness drifted beyond the compound, Ravna vented a little more hydrogen. Goodness, this was like having a guide program! She felt a small thrill at finding something so convenient built into the raw nature of the world.

They were about 500 meters from the compound, and losing attitude. Ravna had to push up from her seat to see over the basket’s bow. The Eyes Above’s shadow was clearly visible now, surrounded by just a halo of backshine. She vented a bit more gas, brought the shadow to just beyond the Tropicals.

There were a bunch of them down there, standing at the edge of the Queen’s Road, right where it passed closest to the embassy. This crowd plus the ones at the lab would add up to most of the embassy’s total population, though the count was always vague. A number of Tropicals returned south when their wrecks finally slid back to sea. Others had probably been involved in Fragmentarium breakouts over the years.

Ravna could see their ragged jackets and leggings, the body paint on their exposed heads and tympana. There were probably twenty packs’ worth, all tangled together. Yup, an orgy in the making.

Now less than two hundred meters away, none of them looked up to see the Eyes Above. Ravna vented a little more hydrogen, keeping their shadow just out of the packs’ eyes.

Scrupilo had no need for his telescopes now. Five of him had heads stuck over the rim of the basket, staring down. He wriggled his White Head member back to Ravna. “Sst,” whispered White Head. “I can hear them!”

A few seconds passed—and now Ravna could hear them too. The sounds were clear in the wider silence, growing louder as the Eyes Above swept closer, the gobble and hiss of Tinish excitement. The chords were otherwise nonsense to her, but then she could understand very little of the local language, even when the packs were trying their best to be clear.

Scrupilo was not so limited. His White Head reached its nose close to Ravna’s face, where its fore-tympanum could whisper even more quietly. “You hear what they’re saying? The get of bitches already know about the theft! That’s solid proof they’re behind it. No way any of their party could be back from the lab this fast!”

Now the Eyes Above was coasting over them. There was no more point in careful navigation. Ravna left her pilot’s chair and leaned over the edge of the basket. They would pass dead even with the compound’s twisted tower. Directly below, not more than forty meters away, was the mob of Tropicals. These guys did look excited. Then there was a gap in the crowd and she saw the telephone resting on the ground. A thin wire hung down from the nearest telephone pole.

“Oh,” said Scrupilo. Well, that explained their excitement, and why they were standing here by the road. Memo: never give half a solution to these critters.

Just then, someone finally noticed the Eyes Above. Heads turned up all across the crowd, and the Tines started running around, making a racket that seemed impossibly loud coming from dog-sized bodies.

Scrupilo blasted back, and Ravna just hunched down and stuck her fingers in her ears. The battle of the noisemakers continued for several seconds, getting louder on both sides. Were the Tropicals running along beneath them? She was afraid to look and get a direct face full of that tormenting sound.

The Eyes Above slid out over the Margrum Valley. Behind them, Ravna could see the Tropicals ranged along the edge of the drop, still hopping up and down in apparent outrage. It was like human fist-shaking.

Scrupilo huffed indignantly: “Mindless prattlers! All they can talk about is how we’ve abused their ambassador, and how they have every right to splice into our phone lines.… Deceit! Deceit! Deceit!” This last, he chanted in time to the chords he was directing toward the enemy.

Ravna dropped some ballast and kicked on the propeller, bringing the Eyes Above into a long climbing turn that headed back north over the inner channel. By the Powers, it was amazing the range at which Scrupilo and the Tropicals could keep up their long-distance shouting match.

Chapter 08

Days passed. The affair of the stolen radio cloaks was not resolved. The search of the ambassador’s party at Scrupilo’s lab turned up nothing. Eventually, the lab and North End and all the accessible anchorages in the near islands and mainside were searched—without success. Ravna marvelled at the elegant way Godsgift managed Tropical indignation. The fellow hadn’t always been so smart. During the last eight years, the thing they called Ambassador had mixed and matched itself. Now he had almost-credible excuses for why his people spliced into the land line: they had expected a phone call from the ambassador to a nearby Domain house. When that homeowner brought no message to the embassy compound, the Tropicals became afraid for their ambassador’s safety and so undertook the splice (rather expertly done, on their very first try) and began raising hell up and down the phone line. Normally, Oobii’s routing advice made the system quite usable—but that depended on users honoring that advice.

At the same time he was complaining and excusing himself, Godsgift refused to allow any search of the embassy compound. Woodcarver responded with a siege. This lasted about a tenday—and ended when Godsgift accepted a year of free telephone access in return for his granting permission to search the building.

Of course, nothing was found in the Embassy search.

The oscillation between sneaky and clownish was both effective and suspicious. Scrupilo and Nevil lobbied for booting the Tropicals out of the Domain, strategic materials be damned. Johanna thought the Tropicals had never been mentally together enough for serious theft. Woodcarver figured they were being used by Flenser (natch!) or maybe by the long-missing Vendacious. Flenser denied everything.

Meantime Ravna concentrated on her main problem. She was doing her best to remove the dissatisfactions that gave support to the Disaster Study Group. She had to make changes, reforms. Unfortunately, even the simplest of the projects could have hidden gotchas. Take the idea of giving the Children more access to Oobii. Ultimately, that might slow the research program slightly, but that was a price she’d have to pay. Ravna had no trouble clearing the ship’s main cargo deck. It opened directly at ground level now, and what gear remained could be safely stored in the New Castle. It was even less of a problem—a simple request to the ship’s automation—to turn the inner walls into displays. Now the vaulting space of the cargo hold was a warm meeting hall. The Children were eager to decorate the space.

Soon, the inside of the cargo bay was a crude imitation of various places they remembered from before their world fell apart. There was actually an elected committee (democracy rearing its head) for deciding the ambiance of the tenday. The kids and their Best Friend packs showed up in crowds. Since they were effectively inside the starship, Oobii could manipulate the acoustics so packs could sit within a couple of meters without interfering with one another’s mindsounds. That was something magical and new for most packs, and it brought the place even greater popularity.

So the New Meeting Place was an overwhelming success, with unintended side effects that were themselves a benefit. Right? Not quite. There was a serious gotcha. It first showed up as Ravna was clearing out the cargo hold. When the carts carrying the gear from the hold (much of it Beyonder arcana that might someday be very