The Children of the Sky

blast a much stronger response signal back to Johanna’s commset.

The one full Council meeting had been mainly about that expedition:

“I’m glad we flew out here,” came Pilgrim’s voice. “The stories about Tycoon haven’t been exaggerated. He really has started his own industrial revolution.”

Flenser looked up from his accustomed place at the far end of the table. “Aha! Vendacious shows his claws!”

Woodcarver gave a little hiss, but didn’t otherwise respond. In fact, East Home was the only place there had been sure sightings of the misbegotten Vendacious. That had been eight years ago, shortly before a series of major disappearances from Scrupilo’s labs: printers, a telephone prototype, even one of the three printer interfaces. At the time, the thefts had been an even bigger scandal than the recent radio cloak theft, though two of the burglars had been caught—both former lieutenants of Vendacious. Since those thefts, Tycoon had been a steady source of “innovation.”

“We’ve talked about this before,” said Ravna. “Tycoon may regard himself as our rival, but any diffusion of technology will just speed up our overall progress. Keep in mind the main threat.” The Blighter fleet coming down upon us.

Flenser eyed himself slyly—a packish smirk. “The main threat won’t matter if you get the Domain murdered beforehand.”

“That’s why Jo and I are checking this out,” said Pilgrim. “What we’re seeing makes us think that over the years, Tycoon may have accomplished much more than he advertised. Now the true operation is too big to be disguised. I think Tycoon—or Vendacious—has spies high in the Domain.”

Woodcarver raised heads at this. Two of her—three if you counted her puppy, little Sht—were glaring at Flenser.

“These are real technical innovations,” said Johanna. “I think the leaks have to originate in the North End labs.”

“What!” Scrupilo’s interjection was an indignant squawk.

“Have you met this Tycoon fellow?” said Ravna.

“Not yet,” said Pilgrim. “Even his factory managers rarely see him. He doesn’t seem very involved in day-to- day operations.”

“We’re being very cautious about this,” said Johanna. “And me, I’m staying completely out of sight.”

“Good!” that was from both Ravna and Nevil, and very emphatic. There were things Johanna could do as a two-legs that gave the Pilgrim-Johanna team great advantages—that was Jo’s argument, anyway. Ravna was far from convinced that it justified her presence on a spy mission.

“I wish you were back here,” said Nevil.

“I’m fine, Nevil. Like I said, keeping a low profile.”

A strange sound came over the radio link, probably a chord from Pilgrim. Ravna smiled, imagining the pack and the girl hunkered down by their commset. It would be early morning on the east coast now. She wondered just where they were hiding.

Flenser-Tyrathect was shaking his heads, grinning.

“What?” Ravna said to him.

The pack gave a shrug. “Isn’t it obvious? There is no need for spies high in Scrupilo’s organization. Who stole the Oliphaunt computer? I know I could use Oliphaunt to engineer all—”

Woodcarver’s shriek would have been downright painful but for Oobii’s sound damping. Three of her leaped partway onto the table, their claws clicking on the surface. “You confess to treason, do you now?” she said.

Flenser showed lots of teeth even as he replied: “Don’t be an idiot. Ah, but I forgot, you’re already the idiot who didn’t kill Vendacious when you had the chance. You’re already the idiot who let him escape and who still blames me for stealing Oliphaunt.”

This brought another of Woodcarver onto the meeting table. There was a time when Ravna could have been the peacemaker in such confrontations. Now? Ravna fleetingly wondered if Woodcarver might take a swipe at her if she tried to intervene.

Nevil was braver, or faster, or perhaps just more foolish. As Woodcarver scrambled forward, he was already on his feet. “It’s okay, Your Majesty!” He started to extend a hand toward her, then seemed to realize he was cajoling someone who was seriously not human. “Um, this is just one of those burdens of a wise ruler.”

The stilted, medieval approach seemed to work. Woodcarver didn’t retreat, but her forward surge subsided.

“Flenser has a point,” said Johanna, sounding unperturbed, perhaps because the sounds of jaws and claws had not survived the low-quality radio transmission. “Tycoon may really be Vendacious plus Oliphaunt, but spies in Scrupilo’s labs could also explain his success.”

That satisfied all except Scrupilo: “I do not have spies in any of my labs!” But not surprisingly, he was perfectly happy to talk about technical fixes to such nonexistent espionage. Monitoring user access to Oobii was relatively easy. The problem was to correlate that with exactly what inventions were appearing elsewhere.

Nevil was looking more and more unhappy. “We have to get this nailed down. Surely there must be clues at the Tycoon end of this. You’re due to leave East Home almost immediately, aren’t you, Jo?”

“That was the plan.” There was mumbled conversation between Johanna and Pilgrim, too scattered for Oobii to clean up. “Our equipment is in good shape and we have a safe hidey-hole outside of the city. We’re good to stay a while if it will help, especially if you can feed us some clues to follow up on.”

Nevil was clearly torn. Ravna could guess how much he’d been looking forward to Johanna’s return.

“Do we have any clues to feed them?” Ravna asked.

Pilgrim said, “There’s Scrupilo’s lab logs. We could look for coincidences in detail.”

Woodcarver—now back on her seats—had a different angle. “From what Johanna and Pilgrim say, Tycoon grows steadily more powerful. If they come back now, we may have hard time getting this close again.”

“We should have a full-time gang of spies over there,” said Flenser-Tyrathect.

Woodcarver shrugged agreement. The two were almost talking to each other.

In the end, that meeting was almost the sort of Exec Council meeting they should be having these days— except that now Johanna and Pilgrim would be absent for at least another twenty days.

•  •  •

Twenty days. Johanna and Pilgrim wouldn’t be back till after Ravna’s big speech. Since that night by Pham’s grave, she had not had much chance to talk to Johanna. The younger woman had been off spying most of the time, and when she’d been back she’d been mainly with Nevil. Now Ravna would have virtually no chance to chat privately with her.

And Woodcarver seemed to be in a bigger snit than ever.

Ravna had written multiple drafts of her upcoming speech. There were so many issues to bring together. Some were joyously good news—how New Meeting Place could be used for increased participation, formal democracy. Some were hard truths—the Blighter threat that loomed in their future, the need to solve underlying technology problems before they took on prolongevity research. Some were proposals to make the hard truths more palatable. Without Woodcarver, now without Johanna and Pilgrim—it all came down to Ravna’s own best judgment and Nevil’s advice. Over and over, he showed her nuances that she would have missed on her own. For instance: “Arrange things so you can end the speech with the good news that gives realistic reasons to be optimistic about it all.” And: “We can merge this speech with your idea for a Public Council, Ravna. My Dad used to say that responsible people can deal with bad news if they have some control over the hardships.” So they would announce the meeting as occasion for her speech and as an opportunity for Children and Tines to feed back into the process. “I’ve talked to Woodcarver about this, Ravna. She thinks it will work.” And that was one of the best pieces of news. Woodcarver was still avoiding Ravna, but she was at least indirectly part of the planning.

Nevil and company had figured how to make the New Meeting Place seem bigger, and he was showing her dozens of variations on how they might decorate the place. Finally she just offloaded all that onto him and concentrated on polishing her speech, doing her best to implement his final suggestions.

And then it was the day before the “grand meeting.” Ravna was already thinking of the event in countdown terminology. They were at Meeting minus fifteen hours. She had a final chat with Nevil, going over what she would