The Children of the Sky

by VernorVinge

  “It never puzzled you that something so strange could talk, that it could have a mind?”

  “Um, yes of course. I’m always thinking on deeper meanings. Early on, I had the theory that perhaps these were a baby form of whales. It’s well known that whales are smarter than weasels, almost as smart as singletons—and they swim in pods that may be even more intelligent.”

  Over the last ten years, an occasional “whale” carcass had washed ashore in the Domain. Ravna had overseen the dissection of two of them. They were like seamals. She’d run simple phylogenetic programs on the results and concluded that the animals were a distant cousin of the Tines, one that had never returned to a life on the land. “No way are the cuttlefish young whales,” she said.

  “Grmp. I know that. After a time it became evident that the creatures eventually lose their intelligence. The few who survive more than a year root themselves like plants and become mindless egg generators—making a new generation of cuttlefish. We almost lost the whole operation here before we figured that out. I sent an expedition back to the South Seas, found that single atoll where they spawn, uprooted all the mature egg-layers we could find. You can see the tops of them sticking out of the water.”

  “I saw them.” Now the fronds were a little higher out of the water, and more of them were turned broadside towards the humans and packs at the edge of the pool. The sight was so familiar, so welcome…okay, Pham, so unnerving, too. In the bright sunlight, she could even see the eyespots on the fronds. Mindless they were, more or less—but evidence that children of a friend had survived. She walked slowly along the edge of the pond toward the side that was closest to the forest of fronds. “You uprooted them? Brought them here? You’re lucky they survived. They much prefer the surf by the open sea, not this silty, brackish water.”

  “What? How would you know?” There was both anger and curiosity in Tycoon’s words. His sitting members scrambled up and he followed along behind her.

  Jefri’s were wide with unbelieving surprise. “It can’t be, Ravna! The cuttlefish look completely different. The eyes, the—”

  “They’re Rider larvae, Jef. I’d never seen riderlets before, so I wasn’t sure, but look what they grow up to be.” She waved at the fronds.

  Tycoon came out around her. “What can you know? You guess that because they come from mid-ocean, that’s their ideal. I’ll have you know, since I brought them to the Fell estuary, their breeding has increased a hundredfold.”

  Vendacious (via Zek, who was following along uncertainly): “My lord, what is going on?” His speech morphed into plaintive gobbling. Poor Vendacious, thought Ravna. He had his next round of torture all set up, and now it’s been delayed. The question was how to turn the diversion into something more lasting. She was still clueless about that.

  All she could do was let the geekiness in her speak to the geekiness in Tycoon. She looked down at the eight around her and said, “Tell me, Tycoon, do you have any idea how rare it is that two intelligent races arise naturally on one world, and coexist there?”

  “Of course I do! Vendacious’ spies have told us much about the other worlds. Multiple intelligent races are common everywhere.”

  Ravna shook her head. “That’s on worlds of the Beyond, sir, where there is fast interstellar travel and decent technology. Down Here—where evolution runs at biological speeds, in its old bloody way—Down Here new intelligence does not tolerate competition. If two intelligent races arise naturally, one competes the other into extinction, usually before either begins its recorded history.”

  “Nonsense!” But he brought himself together, thinking hard with all his heads close to one another. “So then this is a marvelous bit of good luck, or—”

  “Or your cuttlefish are like us humans, recent arrivals from space. In fact, these are the children and grandchildren of two of my own shipmates.”

  Tycoon dithered. “Implausible, but I don’t see how you would gain from lying. In any case, what difference does it make? The creatures have no technology. The adults—the egg-layers—have never spoken. They are vegetables.” He hooted. “What grand shipmates they must have been. Did you keep them as ornamental plants? Did you—” He paused, then gobbled something in Interpack, a question. The two gunpacks responded in the negative, but then they spread out…watching? listening?

  Ravna wasn’t paying much attention. She looked out at the sessile-stage Riders, planted forever where the fate named Tycoon had stuck them. These would be the generation after Greenstalk. Without skrode devices, not even the do-it-yourself model that served Greenstalk, they would have almost no ability to form new memories. They’d be innocent, as nearly mindless as before their race was ever uplifted. But I’m glad your children survived, Greenstalk.

  “What is that sound?”

  “Huh?” Ravna looked back from the water, noticed that Tycoon was spread out along the edge of the pool, an alert listening posture. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

  Tycoon made an irritated noise “Some of this is pitched where even you can hear. And it’s getting louder.”

  “I hear something,” said Jefri.

  “What’s going on?” That was Vendacious, more confused than anyone.

  Now Ravna could hear the…buzzing. Such a familiar sound. Such an impossible sound. She looked across the pond, at the fronds that marked the immobile adults. Several of those slender blades had risen higher, just in the last few seconds. Impossible, impossible. But testable. She gave a little wave and took several quick steps along the edge, almost bumping into one of Tycoon. The tall fronds turned to follow her motion. They made a rattling noise against one another, a kind of language of its own, one that Ravna did not know. That didn’t matter; the buzzing became recognizable voder speech, though muffled by the water: “Ravna, oh Ravna!”

  “Greenstalk?”

  “What’s this? The egg-layers don’t talk!” Tycoon scrambled up all around her. Some of his paws were on her shoulders, giving him a view down into the water from as high as possible. On either side of her, the gunpacks were closing on the edge of the pool. Ravna was only vaguely aware of Tycoon waving them back.

  Maybe there are limits to miracles. Greenstalk said Ravna’s name again, but now the voder was scaling up and down, the syllables almost unintelligible. Was that disuse or disrepair? If Tycoon had not noticed the skrode perhaps it had been cut apart in the transplanting. Ravna reached out her arms, waving back to her friend.

  “The egg-layers can’t move, either!” shrieked Tycoon. The part of him that was teetering on Ravna’s shoulders lost its balance and tumbled into the pond. The rest of the pack collapsed around her and dragged the fallen member out of the water—but all of him and all of Ravna had their eyes on the tall, blade-like fronds in the pool. Those were moving, a lurching progress, a meter forward then a half-meter back. As the Rider rolled closer, Ravna could see its body below the waterline. There was the swelling of Greenstalk’s stem, the lower fronds. The flat platform of the skrode was…not gone, but hidden. No wonder Tycoon’s employees had not seen the machinery. Now Ravna saw smooth composite surfaces where Greenstalk’s current efforts were cracking away the coral that had grown upon her during years of sitting alone by her little atoll.

  Even before Greenstalk got to the edge of the pool, her fronds had slipped across Ravna’s arms, seeing and touching all in one motion. “I have been dreaming long,” buzzing obliterated a word or two as the voder glitched, “and now I’m not where I started. I always wondered what became of you.” More buzzing. “I’ve had so many children, and now children’s children. I’m sorry, Ravna. One thing I do remember is your kindness and my promise about limiting myself. I’m sorry.”

  Ravna smiled. “I remember the promise too. But here you’ve been invited. By friends.” She waved at Tycoon standing all around her. “And your children have been protected and lived in greater numbers than you might ever expect.” Ravna looked at Tycoon. “Isn’t that so, sir?”

  Tycoon was al
l crouched down, every eye on this magical, mobile apparition. It was the first time he’d seemed intimidated. Two of him looked up at her. “I’m sorry, what’s the question again?”

  “I said that you are a friend, that you’ve invited Greenstalk and her children to live here in their numbers. Isn’t that correct?”

  “I, hmm, never thought of it that way. But then I never thought that this, hmm…”

  “Greenstalk,” Ravna supplied.

  “—that Greenstalk was a person to talk to.” His gaze was equally split between Ravna and Greenstalk. Finally he boomed out with, “Of course! You state the obvious. I am Greenstalk’s friend. I’m delighted she is here, doing as she is doing.”

  Greenstalk wisped a frond across Tycoon’s nearest head. “Thank you, sir. I think slowly and dream a lot. My skrode doesn’t make memories easily, but I and mine will be good servants? citizens?”

  “Employees,” Tycoon said firmly.

  “I am so glad to see Ravna again. It has been—?”

  “Years,” said Ravna. “I couldn’t find you.”

  “That time doesn’t matter so much to me. These are friends you are among now?”

  Ravna looked at Tycoon, at Zek who was surely relaying this conversation back to Vendacious. The truth, right now, could not be spoken and would not be understood. It would have taken tendays for Ravna to explain the situation to Greenstalk, repeating and repeating until the memories sat firm. She turned back to Greenstalk and said, “Tycoon here is my friend.” She gestured around to the eight.

  The voder buzzed. It might have been cheerful laughter if the device weren’t so old and under water. “Good. Good. I am glad. Sit and repeat it to me some times.”

  Ravna looked to the north, far past Greenstalk’s pond. While they had been talking, Tycoon’s great airship had been dragged clear of the hangar. It floated just clear of the ground, tethered by its landing pylon and dozens of tie-down cables. She glanced at Tycoon. “This will take a little time,” she said.

  Tycoon look around at himself and then back at Greenstalk. Finally he said, “So Greenstalk, this Ravna Bergsndot is your friend?”

  “She is my dearest friend in all the world.”

  —————

  The Great Tycoon’s expedition to the Domain was delayed by one day. During much of that time, Ravna and Jefri and Tycoon sat around the cuttlefish pool—the riderlet pool—and explained that they were going away for a brief time, but that they would be back, with interesting news and projects. One day of repetition was probably enough. Greenstalk would remember, and would cooperate in ways that already seemed to have Tycoon—both as inventor and businesscritter—vastly intrigued.

  At no time did Tycoon state any concessions, even when Ravna spoke to him alone. But when the two airships finally departed, Jefri and Ravna were both aboard Tycoon’s airship.

  CHAPTER 36

  As a child in the Beyond, Ravna Bergsndot had lumped everything before spaceflight and automatic computation into an amorphous romantic haze of “pre-technology.” Ravna’s years among the Tines were a never-ending discovery of how much the simplest advances could change one’s life. Tycoon’s airship was such a primitive machine, but Ravna had walked much of the ground they were now overflying. Land that had taken tendays of painful effort to traverse now passed below her in just a few hours. It would have been glorious, except that they spent the first day and night locked up in that familiar tiny cabin.

  On the morning of the second day, their progress slowed. The air was bumpy, and the shadows in the clouds below were pointing in the wrong direction. Sometime in the night, Tycoon had changed the ship’s bearing. In the distance, they could see Vendacious’ craft. It had been behind them, out of sight for most of yesterday.

  The steward foursome came tapping at their door, but not with breakfast. “This way, this way,” it said. Ravna crawled through the hatch. To her right, the steward was already a meter or two forward, walking along with only an occasional look back in her direction. Their gunpack was to Ravna’s left. Aboard the airship, it carried short-barreled weapons, all the barrels tucked downwards.

  “Beware the guns,” she said back to Jefri.

  “Hei, guy,” Jef gave the gunpack a little wave as he came into the corridor.

  Sandwiched between the steward ahead and the gunpack behind, the humans’ progress was slow. There were hatches at regular intervals along the corridor: more staterooms. The mantle lamp by each turnout was lit. Not for the first time, she gave a little prayer: I really hope these guys also stole the tech to stabilize hydrogen.

  The corridor extended the length of the carriage, gently curving along the belly of the ship. They were heading for the bow. Where else would Tycoon hold court?

  The ship’s passenger carriage did finally come to an end. The passageway opened onto a cross-corridor that ran the width of the carriage. There were the usual fifteen-centimeter portholes on either side, the sunlight trumping the light from the mantle lamps. In the middle of the open space was a Tinish version of spiral stairs, a fan-like helix of rungs, quite suitable for Tines ascending single file. The steward pack sent a member up the steps. Ravna heard it gobbling, announcing the humans’ arrival. After a moment it came scooting back down. “Go up now, please to go.”

  Ravna started up, winding herself around like some comedian in a cross-habitat comedy, but she didn’t quite get stuck. Finally she climbed out onto the carpet of the upper level and looked into bright daylight.

  Powers. With the most primitive technology, Tycoon had achieved a visual effect that would have done credit to a designer in the Low Beyond. This guy is a megalomaniac, but he has an imagination to match.

  Tycoon’s bowpoint audience chamber extended almost ten meters from port to starboard. Its ceiling followed the dirigible’s hull, curving upward so that parts of it were high enough for a human to stand upright. No portholes of dirty glass here. Tycoon hadn’t yet plagiarized the making of large sheets of clean glass, but he’d used the very best of his tiny portholes. Hundreds of them. The glass was fitted in a fine metallic mesh that surrounded the bow side of the room. Not surprisingly, Tycoon was perched on thrones, giving him the best view. Two of him might be looking in her direction. The rest were looking outward, into daylight so bright that they were just stark silhouettes.

  She was distracted from awe by Jefri’s unhappy swearing. Jef was halfway up the stairs, fully wound around the first turn, and just a little too big to get through.

  She reached down, grabbed both Jefri’s hands, and braced her feet on the far side of the stairwell. She pulled and Jefri pushed, rocking him upwards a centimeter at a time. With the sound of snapping metal, Jefri was freed. He sprawled onto the upper deck’s carpet and rolled into a sitting position.

  Someone spoke, with Vendacious’ voice. “Is that the big human tearing up your stairs? When I told you these humans would wreck whatever they touch, I didn’t expect such literal proof.”

  Someone else gobbled something dismissive. Ravna looked around. Ah, there was Zek, on a separate perch, draped in his radio cloak. So there were others listening in, offering advice. Was there anyone else physically present? Behind her, she noticed a head or two of the gunpack, sticking up from the stairwell. Wait. There was one more, not a pack or a Radio Cloak member: It was Ritl. The singleton was sitting in the sunlight, on the bow side of Tycoon’s thrones. There was something self-satisfied about her; she had gotten away with something.

  Ravna gestured at the singleton. “I thought you were leaving Ritl back in the Tropics?” she said to Tycoon.

  Tycoon made an irritated noise. “Yes. The creature popped out of a storage cabinet last night. Remasritlfeer was an excellent employee, but perhaps I’m honoring his memory too much.” He gave his employee’s remnant a speculative glare. Ritl wriggled insouciantly on her velvet perch and let loose with chords that sounded sassy even to Ravna.

  Tycoon ignored the comments. He waved grandly ahead. “We’re approaching t
he Domain.”

  From where she was sitting, all Ravna could see was sky. She came to her knees, and looked down over the edge of the bow windows. She saw painfully bright snow, patches of shade and dark stone. The glaciers and peaks of the Icefang Mountains spread out before them. She remembered the maps, Amdi planning their final run over these mountains. The valley below led to one of the Domain’s southern border posts.

  “I see you still have some hills to climb,” said Jefri.

  Vendacious said via Zek: “Enjoy the delay, humans. Nevil will take you soon enough.”

  Tycoon said something peremptory, and then in Samnorsk: “I will decide that, not Nevil.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Vendacious. “Of course, Nevil has no authority in this.”

  Some of the eight were looking at Jefri. Even against the glare of the day, you could see that it was not a friendly stare. “We’ll get over these mountains by tomorrow at latest. The winds can change much faster than the tides.”

  The great Tycoon was silent for a moment. All eight of him resumed their contemplation of the gleaming snowfields and jagged black rock. Knowing Tycoon, this was an heroic pose, mainly for their benefit. Maybe Ritl thought so, too: She emitted some belittling remark. Tycoon laughed and shrugged it off.

  From way aft, the muffled buzz of the engines came slightly louder. Tycoon’s flight crew—presumably in the airship’s control gondola—was changing direction again. Ravna wondered what starting a day late would do to Tycoon’s plans and Nevil’s. And I wonder how often his crews have been over these mountains? It hadn’t happened before she was kidnapped; Oobii would have spotted the intruders instantly.