The Children of the Sky

sysadmin activity of course. The compute-and-search allowance was minimal, and some of the archives were not visible.

On her third visit, Wenda Larsndot came over and asked for help. “Needles is in love with the idea of mass production. So I’ve been trying to see what Oobii says. There’s tonnes of stuff about numerical control tailoring, but I need something easy and low tech.”

So Ravna gave her a tour of the hybrid planning tools that she’d built on top of the ship’s archives. It was the sort of thing she’d pushed at the Children for years, even though it was awfully dull—at least by Straumer standards. There were millions of dead ends in such searches, and Oobii couldn’t prune them all away. But solving this problem might be easy! In her mad race to head off the Blight, Ravna had chosen to skip over mechanical automation.… It turned out that most pretechnical civilizations invented mechanical readers for pattern-driven looms. So Wenda’s real problem was simply to find one such that could easily fit the weaving equipment the Tines already had. Once Ravna had properly set up the Tinish constraints, it didn’t take long. Oobii dredged up some insect race whose ancient history included a gadget for driving a near perfect match for a Tinish loom.

“Wow,” said Wenda as she looked at the first-pass designs. “So now we can just hire a good artist, and turn out thousand-hour capes in less than a day!”

Ravna grinned back at her. “It still might not work. There are lots of small moving parts, and our weaving mills aren’t exactly the same as this. Oobii is weak on doing final coordination.” She waved at the design uncertainty flags that floated over the gears and cams. “You might have to ask Scrupilo to make a special purpose mill.”

“Oh, we’ll make this work.” Wenda was already lost in consideration of the options and parts lists. Somehow it made her look twenty again.

Ravna glanced up and noticed that Edvi Verring and some still-younger kids were clustered about. Edvi gave her a nervous smile, “I was wondering, Ravna, we’ve been having some trouble with a game…”

•  •  •

It had been so long since she’d had time for this. And helping the Children with games was fun. These games didn’t have the intransigence of reality. Ravna didn’t need the good luck she’d had with Wenda. When something didn’t work right, she could often just step back and tweak the game parameters. Sometimes, librarians—even with just an interim access credential—could have godlike powers.

“Ravna?” That was an adult voice, bringing her back from the depths of Edvi Verring’s game craft.

She looked up and saw Bili Yngva standing beside her. How long have I been playing around? Wenda was still here, working on the weaving mill gadget.

“Sorry to bother you, Ravna, but—”

Then she noticed various mail flags. “Oops, I didn’t notice.”

“No problem. I just got word from Nevil. He’d like to chat with you, if you can drag yourself away from the important business here.” He grinned at Wenda and the gamers.

•  •  •

About half of the New Meeting Place had been converted to offices. Yngva led her down tiny corridors. The construction was local timber and the lightweight plastic sheeting that Oobii could still extrude.

Ravna found herself lagging behind Bili. She could feel outrage thrusting up through her numbness. Sooner or later she and Nevil would have to talk, but she couldn’t imagine how he could face her, what he could say.…

Bili looked back at where Ravna had slowed to a halt. “It’s just a little further, Ravna.”

… so why am I the one who can’t face this meeting?

After a moment, Ravna nodded and followed along. Indeed, Nevil’s office was just around the corner. It looked no different from the others except that the display function showed his name in businesslike Samnorsk script.

Inside, Nevil Storherte looked unchanged, as handsome and calm as ever. He was seated at a plain workplace, surrounded by plain gray walls. “Come in, come in,” he said, waving Ravna to one of the chairs beyond his desk. He glanced at Bili. “This will be about ten minutes. Can you come back then?”

“Sure thing.” Bili departed.

And for the first time since The Day, Nevil and Ravna were alone, face to face. Ravna folded her arms and gave Nevil a long stare. Words wouldn’t quite come.

Nevil stared back mildly, and after a moment raised an eyebrow. “So you’re looking for an explanation, an apology?”

“The truth, before all else.” But she couldn’t help the strangled way her words came out.

“Okay, the truth.” Nevil looked away from her for a moment. “The truth is that you brought this on yourself, Ravna. In the early years, you did enormous good. You’re still the most important human being in the world. That’s why everyone let you run loose for so long, that and the fact that anyone who thinks about it knows how much we owe you. That’s also what makes your … quirks … so tragic.”

“You really don’t believe in the Blight?”

Nevil shrugged irritably. “I believe that we’re not in a position to know exactly what happened Up There. Our presence here is good evidence that a deadly accident happened at the High Lab. Your presence here, and what’s visible in Oobii’s files—those are good evidence that your home worlds and probably mine have been destroyed. The silence across the sky is proof that some terrible catastrophe has been visited upon the Beyond. But your obsession with the ‘Blight’ goes beyond reasonable logic.”

“What’s left of their fleet is just thirty lightyears out, Nevil.”

Storherte shook his head. “Thirty lightyears. Yes. Perhaps a hundred ships, moving at just a few kilometers per second on no coherent bearing and without ramscoop drives—all this by your own telling! Thousands of years from now, they may make planetfall, somewhere. When that eventually happens, whatever the facts behind all this uncertainty will be ancient history. Meantime—”

“That’s all wishful thinking, Nevil. The—”

“No. I’ve heard all this from you before, Ravna. Over and over. It’s your mantra, your excuse for hiding aboard this ship. The problem just got worse in the years since we older kids could take care of younger ones. You might still be in charge now, if you had not so totally lost touch with us.”

Ravna stared for a moment, vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging open. “No one complained—”

“You never would have listened.” He paused. “Understand me: I’m a moderate. We Children remember our parents, and we know they were not fools. The High Lab attracted the best minds of Straumli Realm. They would not have wakened a Great Evil. And yet, when we look at your ship’s records, we see how you and Pham Nuwen brought disaster wherever you went. You admit Pham Nuwen was infested by some part of a Power. You call it Countermeasure and admit it destroyed civilizations for as far as our eyes can see. Some of us look at these facts and conclude that everything you say may be true—but with the values of good and evil reversed.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I regard that position as extremism, as nutty as yours but not nearly as dangerous.”

“Not … as … dangerous?”

“Ravna, you were running wild, diverting more and more resources into your obsession. You had to be stopped. So yes. I lied to you. And I told Woodcarver of your deceit. I set you up for a fall. But however brutal it seems to you, it was the gentlest way I could find to make the change. It removed you from authority, but it left you in a position to contribute.” He was staring into her eyes, perhaps assessing, perhaps waiting for some response. When none came, he leaned forward and his voice was a little softer. “Ravna, we need you. You are beloved by all the younger ones. You were the only adult they had. On a coldly logical level, your importance is that you’re the only surviving professional, and a librarian at that. Some of my friends are smart and cocky. All their lives they’ve lived with decent computation. They’ve solved lots of problems—but at the Top of the Beyond. Now they are beginning to realize their cluelessness. You are on a different level from all of them.”

Nevil leaned back, watched her steadily for a moment. “Ravna, I don’t care that you hate my guts, but I’m desperate for your cooperation. That’s why I’ve tried to make your new quarters as comfortable as possible. That’s why I’ve tried to minimize the humiliation you may feel. Even if you can’t run the show anymore, I’m hoping you’ll help. Our projects are mundane and practical, but they’re essential for survival on this world.”