The Children of the Sky

The heather south of town was called Murder Meadows, but the actual killing field lay beneath the center of the New Castle, the central chamber where the Children’s Lander still sat upon charred moss.

Ravna had known none of those Children. They had died before she even knew they existed. Her pace slowed. There could have been more dead Children here; many of the surviving coldsleep coffins had suffered fire damage. Reviving Timor had taught her what she could safely do. Only a few of the original kids still slept in their caskets under the castle, along with the four miscarriages from the new generation, and two accidents; someday she would wake them all. Someday she would fix Timor, too.

Strange as it might seem, there were also a few Tines buried in the cemetery. Originally, that had been just twelve packs who had fully died in the Battle on Starship Hill. In recent years, Johanna’s Fragmentarium for Old Members had begun to change that—much to the chagrin of redjacket factions.

There was a thirteenth pack, buried just before Pham’s place: six little markers, each with the glyph of its one member, then a bigger one that marked the group: Ja-que-ram-a-phan and then the pack’s taken name, Scriber. Scriber was another whom Ravna had never met, but she knew his story from both Pilgrim and Johanna: Scriber, the gallant, foolish inventor who had persuaded Pilgrim to befriend Johanna, the pack that Johanna had reviled, and who had been murdered for his efforts. Ravna knew that Jo had her own midnight trips up here, too.

Just ten years, and so many people to remember. Sjana and Arne Olsndot. Skroderider Blueshell. Amdi was one of the few packs who came up here regularly—always with Jefri, of course.

Ravna had reached the huge glacial boulder that marked the end of the path. Pham’s stone made a shoulder in the hill, protecting the children’s graves from the north winds. But tonight, the air was almost still. The glowbugs didn’t need to hide in the heather. In fact, they were thickest in the air around Pham’s grave, so many that their pulsing was in sync. Every few seconds, there was a silent surge of lavender that washed around her like a welcoming tide. She had seen them in such numbers only once before. That had also been around Pham’s grave. It must be the flowers that she had planted here, now grown high. Ravna and the Children had put flowers round their classmates’ graves, but they had never taken quite so well as here. That was strange, considering Pham’s northern exposure.

Ravna turned off the end of the path, walking around to a special spot at the side of the rock. Funny thing about religion. At the Top of the Beyond, religion was the scary, practical matter of creating and dealing with gods. Down here in the Slow Zone, where humankind had been born … Down Here, religion was a naturally grown hodgepodge, mostly the slave of local evolutionary biology.

Still, it’s amusing how quickly our weakness makes us embrace these old ways.

It was dead dark between the slow pulses of lavender light, but Ravna knew exactly where she stood. She reached out and set her palm on a familiar stretch of smooth granite. It was so cold … and then after a long moment, her body heat warmed it. Pham Nuwen had been a little like that. Quite possibly, he had never existed but for the year or so that she knew him. Quite possibly, the Power that created Pham had made him as a joke, stocked with bogus memories of an heroic past. Whatever the truth, in the end Pham had made of himself a real hero. Sometimes when she came up here, it was to pray for Pham. Not tonight. Tonight was one of the despairing nights. Worse, tonight there was an objective reason for despair. But Pham had overcome worse.

She silently leaned against the rock for a time.

And then she heard footsteps crunching on the main path. She turned away from Pham’s stone, suddenly very glad that she hadn’t been sobbing. She wiped her face and slipped the hood of her jacket a little forward.

The approaching figure blocked an occasional light from up in New Castle town. She thought for a moment that this was Jefri Olsndot. Then the glowbugs pulsed together, a lavender haze that swept out around her and revealed the other. Not Jefri. Nevil Storherte was not quite Jefri’s height, and in all frankness, he was not as pretty-boy handsome.

“Nevil!”

“Ravna? I—I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“That’s okay.” She didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or just pleased to see a sympathetic face suddenly pop out of the void. “Whatever are you doing up here?”

Nevil’s hands were fumbling nervously with each other. He glanced over her head at the huge boulder. Then the light dimmed and there was just his voice. “I lost my best friends on Murder Meadows. Leda and Josj. I should care about all my classmates, but they were special.… I come up sometimes to, you know, to see them.”

Sometimes Ravna had to tell herself that the Children weren’t all children anymore. Sometimes they told her that themselves.

“I understand, Nevil. When things get bad, I like to come up here, too.”

“Things are going badly? I know there’s lots to worry about, but your idea with the ship’s cargo bay has been a wonder.”

Of course, he wouldn’t know about Woodcarver’s anger, much less about the terrible screw-up with her own special surveillance of Flenser.

Nevil’s voice continued, puzzled. “You shouldn’t keep to yourself if there are problems, Ravna. That’s what we have the Executive Council for.”

“I know. But I’m afraid that on this…” I’ve messed up so badly that certain Council members are the last people I can talk to. The glowbugs pulsed again and she saw Nevil’s intelligent, questioning gaze. Since Johanna and Nevil had been together—which was also since Nevil had been on the Council—she had rarely chatted with the fellow except when the two young people were together. Somewhere deep down she’d been afraid that Johanna might take the interest wrong. Tonight, that thought almost made her laugh. My problems are so much worse than all I used to worry about. “There are things that can’t really be brought up in the full Council.”

She couldn’t see his face now. Would he condemn her for plotting out of the Council’s sight? But his voice was sympathetic. “I think I understand. It’s a very hard job you have. I can wait to hear—”

“That’s not what I meant. Do you have a minute, Nevil? I’d like to … I’d really like to get some advice.”

“Why sure.” A diffident laugh. “Though I’m not sure how much my advice is really worth.”

Pulse of lights. It was as if they were suddenly standing in a field of lavender flowers, surely the most beautiful glowbug show she’d ever seen, so bright it lit the huge boulder almost to the top. Ravna scrambled up to a perch she had discovered years ago, and waved Nevil to a spot almost as comfortable. He nodded, clambered up in the dying light. The boy—the man—was sure-footed. He settled on the rock, half a meter down from her and almost a meter away. Good. Any crying on his shoulder would be safely metaphorical.

They sat silently for a moment. Then Nevil said, “It’s about the Disaster Study Group, isn’t it?”

“It started with the Disaster Study Group. That’s where I first realized how totally I was messing up.”

“That was my mess-up, and Johanna’s. We should be your objective pipeline to what our people are—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know Johanna has beaten herself up about that. But the DSG was only the beginning.” And then Ravna found herself letting go about the problems that had been weighing her down. It felt so good, and after a few minutes she realized this wasn’t just because it gave her a chance to say what she had said to no one previously. In fact, Nevil actually had intelligent questions, and insights that came close to being workable advice. He understood instantly why Woodcarver was so upset about the converting the cargo bay into a meeting place.

“The New Meeting Place is the best thing that has happened in years, Ravna. But I can see what you’re saying. The effect on Woodcarver is a negative, but that just makes it that much more important—not to retreat on the New Meeting Place—but to make it something that Woodcarver wants to buy into.”

It was the sort of thing that Ravna had thought, but hearing him say the words was heartwarming. She caught a glimpse of his face as he finished the sentence. Nevil Storherte had always had a kind of brash diffidence, and now she realized what that contradiction amounted to. Nevil Storherte had charisma. Even untrained and unplanned, it fairly oozed from him.