The Children of the Sky

Ravna paced the length of the darkened space, not bothering to change the light level. On one side she had a window on her speech, especially the opening lines. Don’t botch the opening! On the other side, she had some windows Nevil had set up looking into the New Meeting Place itself. These were very temporary views, fisheye perspectives that were really more limited than was reasonable. Or maybe that was appropriate. She could peek out like an old-time performer gauging the crowd.

All the seats that Ravna could see were filled. Nevil would be there, somewhere in the first rows. It was only Woodcarver and Ravna who were to come from within the ship. Nevil said that was Woodcarver’s desire, more royal psychology apparently.

00:00:50. There was the faint metallic clatter of multiple tines on the floor behind her. Woodcarver. Ravna turned and bowed to her co-Queen. “Ready for the big day, Your Highness?” There was so much Ravna wanted to say to Woodcarver. If this day goes right, perhaps you will listen to me again, and be my friend once more.

Some of Woodcarver’s heads bobbed. That was a smile, though in the semi-darkness there seemed something strange in it. “Oh yes, though it’s you who seem to have prepared the most.” She jabbed a snout at the wall, presumably pointing at the meeting place beyond. “What an … extraordinary … place you have made for yourself.”

“For us, Woodcarver. For us all.”

00:00:00. Her tiara chimed unnecessarily in her ear. Such precision. A minute or two more or less should make no difference. But Ravna was terribly afraid that if she didn’t move forward on a schedule, she might never get herself on stage. So she didn’t try to say any more, but simply bowed for Woodcarver to proceed through the doors that were now opening wide.

Bright sunlight—totally artificial, of course—splashed down upon Woodcarver as the pack stepped through the doorway. The portal was as wide as a Tinish pack-level entrance. Woodcarver proceeded through, all abreast. For that matter, there was room for Ravna, too, but Nevil had learned that the co-Queen thought it best for her to appear and then Ravna separately.

So she waited till Woodcarver had cleared the opening and disappeared toward where her thrones waited on the left. For an instant, Ravna just hesitated, terrified. This is what happens when you truly realize what a make-or-break situation you’ve created for yourself. But it was time, and she had a schedule to keep. She stepped forward. Strangely, the traditional uniform gave her a kind of strength, and a purposeful stride.

As she stepped into the light, unseen trumpets blasted out a jaunty flourish. There was nothing Tinish about the music. It was the sort of honor that went to humans in old historicals. Oh no! That was Glitch Number 1. If there were to be any flourishes, they should have been for Woodcarver.

Ravna turned to the right, started toward her own throne. Then she remembered that she’d intended to turn and bow toward Woodcarver first. Okay, that was Glitch Number 2, but a small one. She had always known there would be glitches.

The stage was well above the level of the audience area. As Ravna walked across it, she looked out at the people and tried to give them a casual wave. It felt more like shaking a stick, but she heard friendly applause. Her eyes strayed upwards for a second and—my goodness what an enormous place this looked to be. She knew the precise dimensions of the latest build out, but Nevil and his friends had played clever little tricks with vision and perspective to make it seem even larger. Gone were the gaming nooks of days past. Today there were slender arches along the walls. They rose and rose into a ceiling so high that flying birds would not have been out of place. The fake sunlight spilled down through a crystal canopy. She recognized the style. This was rainforest architecture of the Middle Recovery on Nyjora. The Princesses had used building materials from the fallen ruins—hence the crystal skylight that would have been impossible for them otherwise. It was a scene that touched her heart, though it would mean nothing to most packs—and perhaps not much to Straumli children.

Fortunately, the speaker’s platform and the lectern were just what she had been rehearsing with up on the bridge. Ravna’s own queenly throne was just a few paces beyond the lectern, far closer to it than Woodcarver’s thrones. There were no other seats on the stage. She’d hoped that the Executive Council would all be part of this, but Johanna and Pilgrim were still on the East Coast. Apparently Nevil hadn’t been able to persuade Woodcarver to allow the others up here. Okay, so Woodcarver wanted governance to be simply the two Queens and the People.

Ravna hesitated at the steps ascending to her throne. The thing was a monster, two meters tall, not counting the steps, drenched in fake gems and precious metals and symbols that didn’t mean much beyond certain human legends. I really don’t want to go up there. Woodcarver can have the show, but —

Ravna glanced across the stage. What Woodcarver sat upon necessarily was different from Ravna’s setup. The pack needed a separate perch for each member. Woodcarver’s thrones were set at the same height as Ravna’s, but the total area was no more than Ravna’s single throne, and the individual perches were laid out in short straight rows, not at all the way a pack would arrange itself for forceful thought. This was Glitch Number 3 and far the most serious.

Belatedly, Ravna bowed toward Woodcarver. As she did so, it seemed like a great shadow moved across the wall behind the platform. It was … herself … her own image, towering across the ten meter expanse. Just staring up at it made Ravna a little dizzy. There was no place in the hall her image would not intimidate. And the camera must be a fixed tracker. Even when she looked back at Woodcarver, she could tell that the giantess on the wall was still herself, not her co-Queen.

This was when Nevil was to come on stage, introduce the two Queens and Ravna’s own very special speech. But Nevil was not to be seen. Surely Woodcarver will let him give his intros?

She gave Woodcarver a second bow, at the same time searching for a private voice channel.

Then Woodcarver showed mercy. She shifted a bit awkwardly on her human-style thrones, bringing her heads closer to one another. When she spoke, her voice seemed to come from everywhere, conversational tones that sounded as if she were just a meter or two away. Hopefully, she sounded like that to everyone here. “Welcome all to the New Meeting Place. I hope this place will bring openness and power to those who deserve it.”

Ravna’s face was still the one on the giant display, but Woodcarver was sitting only a few meters away. Ravna could see that her dress was Tinish queenly, but not much different from the fur cloaks and half jackets that she normally wore. As for her expression—a pack’s aspect lay mainly in the posture of its members: sitting on her thrones, Woodcarver seemed to have a sardonic expression. “So today, my co-Queen, Ravna, wishes to tell you what her rule may bring and what it will expect of you.” Woodcarver extended a snout in Ravna’s direction and waved her graciously toward the lectern.

For an instant, Ravna froze, thoroughly rattled. There were so many things, little and maybe not so little, that already had gone wrong. This is not how it was supposed to be! But she still had her speech and the ideas she had slaved over. And now she had the undivided attention of everyone she had hoped to reach. She turned and climbed the steps to the lectern. A window opened on the familiar, glowing words of her speech. For one moment, she ignored those words and simply looked out at her audience: one hundred and fifty humans, perhaps fifty packs. From her lectern, the main floor was almost three meters down. It spread into a misty, artificial distance. The seating was far plainer than anything on the stage, barely more than wooden benches and perches. Everywhere faces were looking up, and all—even most of the packs—were so familiar to her.

And there was Nevil, right in the first row! He was dressed in the same country-spun quilting as all the Children, and right now he looked cold and soaked and dripping—much like the rest, come in from this morning’s rain.

But he’d been here after all, just hidden from her view by the lectern. Sitting right beside him was Timor Ristling, for once without his possessive Best Friend pack. The boy had an enormous smile on his face. He seemed totally taken by Ravna’s image on the wall. Then he saw that she was looking at him and he started waving. Something going right at last. Ravna twitched her hand up to wave at them both and Nevil gave her back a wide grin of his own.

Now there was her speech to give. She slid the text window so that wherever she looked, the words were writ large and translucent across her view. If she had been Nevil or Woodcarver or Johanna, she could have ad libbed a new beginning to the talk, something that would mellow all the screw-ups, that would honor Woodcarver and maybe give everybody a good laugh. But she was Ravna Bergsndot and she knew that if she departed from her