The Children of the Sky

Oh. She unclipped her restraints and crawled out into the rain. Pilgrim was right, they’d come down on something hard. Her hands felt around. There were shallow puddles, no mud. This might have been glacier-scoured rock or—her fingers found regular cracks—or flagstones. She stood up, the blood-warm rain soaking her.

She felt the pack clustering close around her shins. Pilgrim’s big one, Scarbutt, leaned comfortingly against her.

“Let’s see what’s left of the skiff.” A light came on, faintly silhouetting one of Pilgrim’s heads. The lamp was turned down and he held it in his jaws so the gleam was in one direction. Pilgrim swept the glow across the skiff while two of him nosed around in the wreckage, doubtless probing with sound. “Oh my,” he said, “flying this will be a challenge.”

The skiff had never been a beautiful thing, and over the years, Pilgrim’s repairs had made it motley. But now, the hull itself was cracked. The remaining agrav fabric strained upwards in ragged shreds.

Pilgrim abruptly doused his light. “I hear packs talking.” His voice was a focused whisper in her ear. She felt him press the light into her hand. “Use it just bright enough for your eyes.”

Johanna nodded. She made the light violet and so dim that she could barely see the ground below it. It should be invisible to whatever packs were out there. All of Pilgrim except Scar had crawled back into the skiff and was bringing out the emergency supply panniers. They had lived off that gear for tendays in the past.

Pilgrim’s voice again: “I think the packs I hear are searching for us. We must have made quite a racket coming down.”

Johanna replied with a nearly subvocal whisper. Scar, with his head at the level of her waist, would pick it up fine. “Are these normal packs?”

“Yes, indeedy. We should be in the middle of mindless Choir chaos, but what I’m hearing is East Coast Interpack.” So even if they discovered nothing more, they had answered the big question behind this trip. Now the problem was how to get the news back to Ravna and Woodcarver. It might be nice to survive the mission, too.

“You have the commset?” she asked.

“Got it.” Pilgrim was urging her along, away from the crash site. Her pale violet light hinted that they were walking between high walls of stone. Walls of brick actually, with nice right angles and waterfalls every few meters. This was an alley, and somewhere above them were roofs with rainspouts.

“The end of this path is open—and there are no voices beyond that. There are some real advantages to this situation, you know.”

Pilgrim was jollying her along. He did that when things were … tense. Well, he had a couple of centuries of fairly successful survival experience. She played along: “You mean because we’re still breathing?”

“That, and I’m still thinking. No Choir-driven mental destruction. If we can find a hiding place, we can operate almost like on our other trips. Except for the flying, I mean.”

“Yeah, okay. And we can report back.”

“Right. This may be the best possible place to go snooping. We may actually be able to learn if these guys are manipulating your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she almost said that in full voice.

“Whatever,” said Pilgrim. “In any case—” The voice in her ear hesitated. “Wait up a second.”

Johanna swung her lamp around. Llr had fallen behind. The member had a clear limp and her pannier had slipped partway off her back. Johanna reached down and unclipped the pannier.

“Thanks—”

But Jo wasn’t done. She slipped her hands behind Llr’s forelegs and raised the creature into her own arms.

“Hei wait!” said Pilgrim. “I don’t need that much help.”

Johanna didn’t reply, just proceeded along with the pannier slung over her shoulder and Llr struggling in her arms like a big, fussy baby. After a moment, she heard Pilgrim give a resigned sigh. Llr relaxed in her arms, then reached up and nipped Johanna’s ear—but only with the soft tips of her mouth.

They followed the alley for another thirty meters, moving at a better pace than before. That was good, since now even Johanna could hear Interpack gobbling somewhere behind them. Pilgrim said there was also a “spiky hissing” noise, probably not part of their speech. Directly ahead something hulked a little brighter than the violet backglow of the rain. A stone wall.

“I thought you said this end of the alley was open?” said Johanna.

“There’s a turn,” came Pilgrim’s whisper, “to the right.”

Now Johanna could hear the strange noise Pilgrim had reported. Something bright lit up behind them. “Come on!” she said to Pilgrim. They ran for the end of the alley. Just as they made the turn, the noise sharpened and a brilliant light shone through the veil of rain, lighting up the walls behind them.

They had escaped the light, but—there was a chord that meant “After them!” and she heard the clatter of metal tines.

Johanna and Pilgrim kept running, with Llr passing Jo directions about which way to go.

High ahead of her, she saw occasional flashes of light as the pursuers swept their hissing spotlight back and forth. It must be some kind of electric arc. Scrupilo had wanted to make such things, till Ravna found a low-power design that was actually easier to make. Such arcs were bright, surely bright enough for Tines—if they pointed them accurately and didn’t blind themselves.

Pilgrim was leading her in a flat run along a stone way just a little higher than the puddles. By the light reflected from the enemy’s crazy arc lamp, she glimpsed brickwork and half-timbered walls—very much like northern buildings except for the mossy fungus that grew all over them. Maybe the northern style didn’t last long here. They ducked behind wooden sheds, out of sight of the probing light.

Jo felt Llr’s claws tighten, cautioning. Slow down. Now that they couldn’t be spotted, it was best to be as quiet as possible.

“But we need to get further away,” said Johanna.

Pilgrim’s Llr gave her a little pat on the shoulder, agreeing. But now their progress consisted of the pack moving a meter or two, testing for things that might cause noise, then signalling Jo how to bring herself and Llr forward. Behind them, the noise of the chase was slightly diminished. It sounded like several packs were pacing around, talking quietly to one another, almost as though they were embarrassed by all the noise they had made.

Meter by meter, Pilgrim edged away from the Easterners. Then light flared on a wall ahead of them, right where they would be in another minute or so. The light swept away, came back briefly a second later, then was gone again.

Johanna sat on the stone way, putting some of Llr’s weight on her knees. “Maybe we should just hide here for a while.”

She only mouthed the words, but that was enough sound for Pilgrim. He shook a head or two, then said: “See how tumbled down everything is in that direction?” Some of the structures were barely more than mounds of rotting timber. “I can hear Choir noise ahead. We seem to be moving out of whatever safety zone is protecting these East Coast bozos. Maybe we can go far enough to lose them, but not so far that the Choir destroys my mind.”

“Okay.” What else could she say?

Pilgrim’s Scar had crawled forward, edging his snout out to look at their pursuers. He froze, and Jo felt Llr tense. “Heh. You gotta see this, Jo.”

She set Llr down and crawled out behind Scar, all but hugging the slimy stone. She saw four packs about fifty meters away. One of them managed the electric arc light. It was a miracle that the contraption had not electrocuted anybody. The pack was swinging the arc around. Jo got a good view of the others. Two of the packs bristled with strange-looking pikes, all pointed at the ground. Huh! Those looked like miniature cannons, though nothing like Nevil’s design. A numerous pack stood in a commanding posture in the middle of all this. Its speech was almost inaudible, but clipped and demanding. What was so familiar about that one? Can it be? … The arc light swept carelessly across the packs. The leader was wearing lightweight cloaks, barely more than pockets on harnesses. One member was turned so she could see its complete right side, the white streak that extended from haunch to snout.

Ten years ago, that one’s teeth had hissed along Jo’s throat, while another poked a knife into her side, and