The Children of the Sky

“C’mon,” he said. Around her, she felt Amdi helping her up, bracing against Jefri. For just an instant she was aware of the warmth of his arms around her and the penetrating cold everywhere else.

Then she saw at least one pack come tumbling down the front steps of her town house. Another skittered, sprawling, down the alleyway. Amdi squeaked something unintelligible to Jef. Suddenly Jefri’s arms tightened around her, swinging her up and off her feet. “I’ve got her!” he called to them.

The other packs swirled surrounded them, steel tines and crossbows everywhere. She had a glimpse of an enclosed fodder wagon sliding into the lamplight.

“Stop her wiggling!”

Someone grabbed the back of Ravna’s neck and whipped her head against the side of the wagon.

Chapter 18

Johanna loved to fly in the anti-gravity skiff, but sometimes, such as right now, it could be a bit too thrilling. She swallowed her heart and glared across the tiny cabin at Pilgrim. “How much altitude do we have left?”

“Not to worry,” was his cheery response. “We still have plenty of clearance.”

Johanna leaned out into the rainy dark. They had flown—or, more accurately, fluttered and flailed—across hundreds of kilometers of Tropicals’ territory. Just before this rain, she’d spotted fires below—for cooking? sacrifices? She hadn’t seen any details, or smelled the fires, so she guessed the skiff was at least a thousand meters up. Maybe it was still jungle down there, but Pilgrim claimed he could hear unending Tinish chatter. If this was a city they were flying over, it must be as big as the urban terranes of Straumli Realm.

The skiff flipped forward, nearly tumbling over. It was doing that a lot on this trip. Pilgrim struggled to right the craft. If he failed, they’d be stuck once again with flying upside down. That got old very fast. This time, he succeeded in bringing them back to a normal attitude. They coasted serenely through the dark for several seconds, almost as if this was a proper aircraft.

“Actually,” Pilgrim said, “We’re at 750 meters.” All his eyes were on the flickering displays. Just looking at them gave Johanna a headache, and on this trip they were a constant reminder of larger problems. Over the years, most of the skiff’s onboard sensors had malfunctioned toward silence and arbitrary errors. About the only ground imaging left to them was their own eyeballs looking out open windows and through those parts of the hull that weren’t blocked by agrav repairs.

They should be less than ten kilometers from a more or less safe landing area, where the river swampland faded into the ocean. Normally, their best navigation information came from the orbiter, hanging out at synchronous altitude—and tonight they weren’t using that.

“Are you making up numbers again?” she asked.

A doggy head turned in her direction and a muzzle patted her on the hand. “Hei,” he said, “only the less significant digits.” And of course, when they got really low, Pilgrim could hear the ground. “A little imprecision is worth it,” he continued. “I’ll bet Nevil and Company haven’t even noticed we’re not going to Smeltertop tonight.”

“Yeah.” Tomorrow they’d take just a quick look and then skedaddle back home.

“Not to worry,” said Pilgrim. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

•  •  •

The rain was a steady torrent, but the air was virtually windless, and the skiff was smoothly sliding along at several meters per second. Pilgrim claimed that the controls were benefitting from the water pooling at the bottom of their little cabin.

They were really low. The air stank faintly of sewage and animals. Those particular smells were not surprising; mariners and Tropical fragments told of cities larger and more crowded than anything else in this world, a mindless urbanization that destroyed coherent thought. It wasn’t called the Choir of Choirs for nothing.

“They’re louder than ever,” said Pilgrim. “A mob all singing together. Sounds like they’re having a good time, though.… Heh, maybe there really is nonstop sex.”

They were so low that Johanna could see firelight again, but it was mostly shielded from sight, glints here and there and an occasional suffocating wall of hot smoke. She glanced off to her right and up. “Pilgrim! Is that something flying?”

The skiff fluttered as two of Pilgrim turned to look in the direction she was pointing. “I don’t see anything. There are some really strange noises though.”

Since the orbiter had been revived, there had been attempts at maintaining surveillance over the continent— including the tropical lands, where no packs had ever explored. The problem was that the orbiter’s optics were barely more than light sensors, with something like thousand-meter ground resolution—much worse than Oobii’s on-approach imaging from ten years ago. Right now, their agrav skiff should be overflying the mouth of the River Fell. That was the location of the densest settlements—both in Oobii’s imagery and maritime legend.

The mystery light was gone, but now she realized that, flickering and very faint, there was a constellation of lights on her left. It was something huge and motionless, its shape lost in the steady rain.

“We’re at four hundred meters, right on track for our swampy overnight hideaway. Hei, did I tell you how I —or something almost-I—spent a tenday there a couple hundred years ago? It’s the closest I ever got to the Choir.” He was silent again, listening. “The mob noise has faded. I’ll bet the swamp has spread further inland than we thought. We could probably land right here.”

“But don’t, okay?” said Johanna.

“Heh, okay. But tomorrow is going to be fun. Even if Tycoon hasn’t been messing around here, there is so much I’ve been dying to see for years and years—”

There was a loud noise. The skiff did a somersault and headed groundward.

“Pilgrim!”

“Not my fault!” the fivesome shouted back, obviously struggling with the controls. This was worse than anything she remembered, except for times—like his long-ago “accidental” trip to the moon—when Pilgrim was creating the problem himself. “Left side lift is—”

The craft flipped over and was swinging back and forth from a single support point on the right side. That was the good and the bad thing about agrav. The fabric could be like a lawyer, negotiating with the laws of physics. It was even possible that now they had more lift than before.

Or maybe not: something snapped and they were falling again. Pilgrim scrambled around her. Two of him leaned out, jaws snapping, into the rain. Somehow he didn’t lose anyone. A moment later he was back, gripping taut fabric. “Here!” he said. “Don’t let go!”

She was holding the edge of the remaining agrav fabric. It wriggled in her hands, like something alive, trying to pull free. Pilgrim grabbed the rest of it with all his jaws. He jerked it this way and that, trying to keep them airborne, but now without any automatic control whatsoever.

“We’re not going to make it!” he shouted. But they weren’t really falling anymore, just going down much faster than was healthy.

Something whacked them from the right, then the left and the right … down to a stunning impact from below. Maybe she blacked out. She remembered Pilgrim’s voice right by her ear: “You sound alive. True?”

Oh, not a memory after all. “Yes,” she finally replied.

“Ha. Another perfect landing.”

“Are you okay, Pilgrim?”

The pack didn’t answer instantly. Members could take more bouncing around than adult humans, but a whole pack had more opportunity for individual bad luck. “Mostly,” he finally answered. “I think my Llr banged a foreleg.” Another hesitation. “Never mind that. We are safely down and well away from Choir sound.”

“But we didn’t make it to the swamps.”

“True.” He chuckled. “Even you could probably hear the difference. We’ve come down between rocky obstacles. We gotta get out and look around.” Some of him was already on the ground outside.

“Yeah.” Something was still holding her down. She thought muzzily for a second.