The Children of the Sky

that, Woodcarver had reneged on her peace treaty with Flenser. It was the only such incident Ravna knew of. The remains of Lord Steel were allowed to live, but as a slobbering, slashing threesome. The madpack had been kept in isolation, at the veterans’ fragmentarium.

For a time, it had looked like Flenser might restart the war over Woodcarver’s broken promise. Instead, he used the issue to win a number of concessions—including repossession of the Old Castle. But Ravna knew that the wily Flenser had not given up on Steel. In the early years, Flenser had often come down to these sub-basements to meet with Carenfret, a broodkenner at the Fragmentarium. That pack was unquestionably loyal to Woodcarver, and probably opposed to every one of the Old Flenser’s horrific experiments. Flenser and Carenfret had been conspiring all right, but only to persuade Woodcarver to make Steel whole. Maybe they would have succeeded eventually. Unfortunately, Steel’s problem was a torment from within; the poor wretch had fought itself to death, rendering the conspirators’ plans moot.

Ravna was certain that Woodcarver would not see things so forgivingly. Meeting down in the Old Castle catacombs was itself the stuff of treason. The chambers were steeped in horror. Woodcarver had once attempted an inventory of the place. Her packs had found at least five levels, with many fallen tunnels still unsurveyed.

In recent years, the catacombs had become much too intriguing to the Children. When they got to be ten or eleven years old, they just had to take a crack at exploring “Flenser’s Caves of Death.” If you counted natural erosion and rock falls, there were plenty of entrances, a new one discovered every few years. Sooner or later, some kid was going to fall down a hole and get killed. That and the onshore cliffs had been Ravna’s biggest day-to-day worries, until this Denier cult thing.

In tonight’s expedition, most of Flenser was carrying solar cell lamps. The light was scarcely brighter than tar torches, but it didn’t consume oxygen or make smoke. Ravna recognized the low-ceilinged cavern Flenser was passing through. Some kids had gotten lost here just last year. It was—she hoped—the most grisly place they would ever see. She remembered how it stank, even after all the years. The dark floor was punctuated with stone plugs that looked like small manhole covers. In the view Oobii synthesized from Flenser’s various heads, she could see the hexagonal pattern of dozens—hundreds—of covers stretching off into the darkness.

The picture stream froze. Oobii was waiting for signal or—more likely—had fallen behind in its analysis. Ravna didn’t rush it. She wanted the high-resolution video, and if it took a while for the clues to dribble in and be interpreted, that was fine. In fact, this sequence seemed usable. Sometimes, no matter how long she waited, all she could get was ambiguity.

So she stared idly at the still picture. There was a missing “manhole cover” just to the right of one picture. That was what had scared her when the kids went exploring. In the dark, you could fall into one of those open holes and break your neck. She idly merged the views from several of Flenser’s members. The synthesis gave her a view into the hole. The bottom was lost in shadow, but she knew each hole was about two meters deep, ending in a sewage sump. If Oobii was not interpolating from past experience, this particular hole was not empty.

She could see bones and desiccated flesh. Yech. No doubt about it, Old Flenser had been a monster. These holes were a combination of dungeon and rack. Flenser—and later Steel—would split a prisoner into its component members, sticking each of them into a separate hole. There, they could be fed and watered, physically tortured or simply left to go mad in the mindless closeness. Flenser called the process “recycling,” since once the individual members went mad or catatonic, they could be reassembled into “custom- designed” packs, the parts mixed and matched with those of other prisoners. A few of the recycled packs still wandered about the Domain. Most were sad, lobotomized freaks; a few were twitchy psychopaths. Recycling was Flenser’s grisliest, stupidest achievement.

Finally, the video stream came unstuck, and the various viewpoints moved past the ghastly hole. A tiny window by Ravna’s hand showed a diagram of how the various members were positioned and which field of view was being shown in the main display. As usual, Flenser’s crippled member was rolling along near the front. Its white-tipped ears showed at one point or another in most of the other views. White-Tips was the limiting factor in the Flenser-Tyrathect’s mobility. The critter had a crushed pelvis. It lay, swaddled in blankets, in a wheelbarrow-like contraption that the others pushed or pulled.

In recent years, White Tips’ eyesight had fogged over. The creature was getting old, and cataract cures were decades in the future. So the White Tips’ view showed what was ahead first, but even more hazily than most of Oobii’s reconstructions. Still, there was something in the way of the pack. Ravna switched back to a synthesis from all the members. There was another pack, just at the edge of the lamplight. It was Amdi!

Where was Jefri? Ravna looked carefully in all the windows. Nothing more could be seen in the shadows. She rolled back a few seconds, and did some pattern analysis.… No, there was no sign of Jef. She stifled the impulse to raise the humaniform probability and reanalyze.

Amdi hunkered down as the lamplight spread across him. White Tips’ wheelbarrow was rolled forward amazingly close, and the rest of Flenser-Tyrathect spread out, forming a semi-circle around Amdiranifani.

The video stream froze again; a diagnostic window showed that this delay was related to Flenser’s hearing. Till now, the sounds coming across the link hadn’t received much analysis. Ravna had heard the click of Flenser’s nails on the stone, the creak of the wheelbarrow, but Flenser’s mindsounds—ultrasonics from 40 up to 250kHz— were mostly ignored. Patterns that indicated startlement or anger would be reported, but constructing a detailed thought stream would have been impossible for the Oobii even in the Beyond.

Now Oobii heard the chords and gobble-hiss of Interpack speech.

After a moment more, video and synchronized sound continued, with Oobii’s best guess at translation appearing below the main window.

Flenser-Tyrathect:

You have my [time | curiosity],

[little one | little ones].

Why did you want this meeting?

Amdiranifani:

I [?] very sad. I [?] [?] scared.

What [?] me [?] [?]

Ravna replayed the audio a couple of times. By combining Oobii’s guesses with her own knowledge, she could often make sense of Tinish. Amdi’s last statement was pretty clearly: “What will become of me?”

But now Amdi switched to Samnorsk: “Could we please speak in human, Mr. Tyrathect? It’s the language I like best. My problems are hard to say right in Tinish.”

“Of course, my dear boy. Samnorsk will be fine.” Flenser’s human voice had its usual cordial tone, the manner of a clever sadist.

Surely Amdi recognized the mockery in Flenser’s tone? After all, the eightsome had known Flenser-Tyrathect since the final days of the Flenserist regime. But now the eight huddled together and edged forward a few centimeters, almost crawling on their bellies. “I’m so afraid. There are so many things to be sad about. Maybe if there weren’t so many, I could cope and not just be a silly self-pitier.”

Flenser-Tyrathect’s chuckle was gentle. “Ah. Poor Amdiranifani. You are enjoying the gift of genius. When ordinary people are confronted with multiple tragedies, the pain scarcely increases. They simply can’t feel the extra burdens. But you have a greater capacity for suffering. Even so—”

The diagnostic window showed serious relay problems. Some of the forwarding devices were probably riding