The Children of the Sky

by VernorVinge

  —————

  Now Ravna could see Newcastle town and Oobii. Both Tycoon (with his telescopes) and Jefri claimed there were crowds on the heather southeast of town.

  “I have them in sight, too,” came Vendacious’ voice. His airship was rapidly catching up. “That’s where the great meeting is to be, my lord. Nevil has constructed a stage there and cleared a landing field, just as we agreed.”

  “And he’ll call the moment he arrives?” said Tycoon.

  “Yes, my lord, direct to your ordinary radio. Do you have—”

  “Hello? Hello?” That was Nevil’s voice, coming from an analog radio by Tycoon’s thrones. In the background there were human voices, and the sound of whipping wind.

  Tycoon leaned toward the radio box and said, “Greetings, Lord Nevil.” The portentous words sounded incongruous in his frightened little girl voice.

  “Yes. Well…Greetings to you, too.” Nevil’s voice clipped in and out. She heard snippets of confident-sounding advice he was giving to someone near him. Ah. Nevil must be wearing the single remaining HUD, using it to maintain two conversation streams. “Okay, I’m back. Everybody can see your airships now. They’re waving. I’m about to go up on stage, give everybody a pep talk. Woodcarver is already up there, but she’s cooperating. Too many other people really want this alliance. Everything is under control and per our previous discussions.” Ravna almost smiled. She had never heard Nevil Storherte sound, well, frazzled. “So, um, are you ready for our meeting, sir?”

  “We are on schedule as well,” said Tycoon, “but I have several questions.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “First, are you hiding Johanna Olsndot?” The whole pack was watching Ravna and Jefri.

  “What? No!” Nevil’s voice clipped out for a second. “Why in heaven’s name would you ask me that? Haven’t I—”

  “You’ve been very helpful on this issue in the past. I thank you for that.” Tycoon was still watching Ravna and Jef. “But at the same time I know you were—mutually promised? sex-involved?—with Johanna. Even humans must have some forms of loyalty, so I wanted to ask.”

  “Mister, I assure you that after what Johanna did, I have no loyalty towards her!”

  “Very well then. I just wanted to ask.”

  “Are your other questions as interesting?”

  “You can be the judge of that,” said Tycoon, and proceeded into the fine points of who would be seated where onstage, and where Woodcarver might have security packs, and how they were armed. Vendacious would circle overhead while Lord Tycoon was on the ground. Finally, Tycoon said, “This all sounds very good, my lord Nevil. Thank you. I will see you on the ground in a few minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Nevil, “I look forward to making our alliance official.” He was sounding something like his normal diplomatic self. “Ah, one other thing, my lord Tycoon. For best effect, I recommend that you not speak with your human voice. Use Tinish. More dignified, don’t you think?”

  Tycoon cocked his heads. “My use of your language is poor?”

  “Not at all!” protested Nevil. In fact, Tycoon spoke better Samnorsk than most Starship Hill packs. Nevil must be worried about the Geri voice; that by itself would betray Nevil’s lies. “It’s just that…um…speaking Tinish will seem so much more dignified. More powerful, too.”

  Vendacious put in, “I’ll be happy to translate, anonymously of course.”

  Tycoon admired himself for a moment. “Yes…I see your point. Very well.”

  “Excellent. I must go onstage now. Talk to you in person soon.”

  After a moment, the little analog radio emitted background static; no one was transmitting to it. Two of Tycoon picked up the device and a third head punched a button in the side; even the static ceased.

  Tycoon set down the device and looked around the command deck. “Of course, he’s lying about Johanna.”

  “Huh?” said Jefri. Vendacious gobbled similar surprise, and some kind of question.

  “Yes, Vendacious. Well you might ask.” Tycoon’s stare returned to Ravna and Jefri. “You see, since we’ve had specimens, I have become a great student of human nature. In fact, understanding them is not that difficult; they are such simple creatures, with such simple motivations. While I was talking to Nevil, I was watching these two here. Both realized that Nevil is lying.” He spoke with the confidence of a real expert—or a revenge-obsessed nutcase.

  “See?” He waved at Jefri. “The Johanna-brother is speechless. I have found him out yet again. And you, Ravna. Can you honestly say that Nevil was telling the truth?”

  How would I know? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Nevil telling the truth. Hope and fear chased around in her head, and she was as silent as Jefri.

  Vendacious was not so shy. “My lord, I would never have guessed, but it…it could be so. These next few hours, I will watch for signs of other lies.”

  —————

  They were about ten kilometers from Starship Hill. Ravna had flown over this area often enough—both with Pilgrim, and in recent times on Scrupilo’s little airboat. Below were the merged farms of the Margrum River Valley. To the west, the edge of the sea cliffs was obvious now. Just on this side of the edge, the town houses stood along the Queen’s Road. Newcastle town sprawled to the north, climbing right up to the marble dome of the castle itself.

  Tycoon’s attention was spread across several tasks, talking on the speaking tubes with his pilots, watching ahead, occasionally chatting with his advisors. Vendacious claimed to have Amdi on his ship’s command deck, and had persuaded him to cooperate in providing information. “I’ll trust the pack for nothing critical of course,” said Vendacious, “but he’s lived near Starship Hill all his life. And he knows that lying will be strictly punished.”

  “I don’t know,” Tycoon replied, even as he continued to talk to his own crew via speaking tubes. “I wouldn’t trust a prisoner’s word at a moment like this.”

  “Ah, but I also have agents on the ground.”

  “Dekutomon?”

  “He’s the most important, my lord. He’s near the landing spot and he is with the radio cloak Fyr.”

  “Good! I had wondered what you did with Fyr! So Nevil can’t hear what Dekutomon is telling us?”

  “Indeed, my lord.”

  Tycoon gobbled something that meant oops, and made some hasty correction to what he was saying to his crew of pilots. In Samnorsk he said, “Very good, Vendacious. Now I should concentrate on this landing.” Tycoon looked mainly forward, with two of himself on the binoculars. Apparently he intended to manage the landing directly, using the speaking tubes to specify every smallest detail to the real crew. It was typical Tycoon foolishness.

  Mercifully, Vendacious and the other various advisors were silent for a time. There was just Zek, every fifteen seconds or so, calling out range information in precise Samnorsk units:

  “Altitude 750 meters, range to touchdown 3300 meters.”

  “Altitude 735 meters, range to touchdown 3150 meters.”

  “Altitude 720 meters, range to touchdown 3005 meters.”

  None of Tycoon looked around, but he made an approving sound. “Very good, Vendacious! Your ranging information is making this much easier.”

  Ravna had seen no evidence that Tycoon’s operation had any location technology beyond the natural sonar Tines were born with. Where were those numbers coming from?

  Jefri gave her a little nudge and nodded in the direction of Zek. The singleton was looking back at them. It turned, stared for a moment at the landscape ahead—

  “Altitude 705 meters, range to touchdown 2850 meters.”

  Then its eyes were back on Ravna and Jefri. The creature was all but quivering with tension, as if to will them to understand something more than the numbers. What was behind those eyes? The two airships must be less than a kilometer apart, so Zek and Ut were essentially together. Dekutomon’s Fyr was probably closer than it had ever been before. That meant that Mr. Radio was at
least a threesome. There were likely two others fairly close, one that had been used for long-range relay to Fyr and one at the head of the chain to the Tropics. Right now the radio pack could easily be a fully-connected fivesome, perhaps even smarter than the night it had linked them with Amdi.

  Maybe such a pack couldn’t run a full Man-in-the-Middle, but all it had to do was not relay all it heard from here. If it was willing to risk its life…She glanced at Jefri. He was as pale as he could be, stricken. He gave her a nod, understanding.

  Meantime, Zek still looked at them, intent. The creature had made a brave offer. Okay. Ravna nodded at him, and quietly asked something that might be innocuous even if it were relayed to listeners up and down Mr. Radio’s network: “How many are you?”

  “I’m between five and eight,” Radio replied, “depending on sky bounce reception. We must be quick.”

  Tycoon was preoccupied with his speaking tubes and binoculars, but now one of him glanced up, curious at the strange conversation. He gobbled a query wrapped around the Tinish for “Vendacious.”

  Zek shrank back on his perch, but his reply was Samnorsk: “Not Vendacious at the moment, sir. This is myself, Radio.”

  Another head came up. “So you’re really all of one mind? Remarkable. What does Vendacious think of this?”

  Zek cringed a bit lower. “Vendacious doesn’t know, sir. I’m not relaying this conversation.”

  Tycoon made a surprised noise. He angled some heads at the speaking tubes and emitted a single chord that meant “carry on.” Then all his attention returned to Zek: “Why not?”

  “I…I’m his victim, sir. I beg you to keep this conversation secret.”

  Tycoon shrugged. “Perhaps. So you must be passing lies on to Vendacious then?”

  “No! I used your voice, but only to elaborate on what you said, that you need to concentrate on your landing.”

  “And the numbers you were saying to me? They are lies too?”

  “No, they come from combining the view from my Ut and Zek and Fyr. Just as I began the deception, I lost part of myself, and was afraid to say anything to you at all. Amdiranifani thought—”

  “Ah. Amdiranifani.” Tycoon nodded. “So he’s been operating right under Vendacious’ snouts. Amazing.”

  Zek’s voiced gained a little confidence. “Yes, sir. I couldn’t do this without him and the crazy soundpaths he dances around the control gondola. When my radio mind weakens, he makes suggestions.”

  Half of Tycoon was looking at Jef and Ravna now. The pack’s whole aspect was a ferocious smile. “I understand. Amdiranifani is even more remarkable than Vendacious claims. He has made a puppet out of my radio network.”

  “No, please! I am not a puppet—”

  Tycoon voice rolled over the protest: “Just listen to this, Amdiranifani!” He grabbed up his voice-band radio and waved it at Zek. The two airships were so close that this device would surely work.

  “No, no, no. Please don’t betray me—” Zek’s Samnorsk dissolved into Tinish, and then not even that. A bubbling noise emerged from the singleton’s mouth, a sound that Ravna had never heard from Tines before.

  Jefri was on his feet, shouting. Behind him, the gunpack had surged out of the stairwell.

  And they were both trumped by the squall of outrage that came from the other side of the chamber: Ritl bounced off her perch, blathering as loud as she had when Ravna first met her. She ran across the deck to Tycoon’s thrones, shrieking at him one and all. Then she danced sideways till she was standing in front of Zek. She turned, snapping belligerently.

  Tycoon waved the gunpack back. Then he shifted position slightly and focused a roar down upon Ritl. This level of sound was a weapon. The singleton was knocked off her feet. Even outside of the focus, the noise was a spike of pain in Ravna’s ears.

  Ritl lay on her back, twitching. Finally she rolled over and belly-crawled back toward her perch, Tycoon’s gaze following her centimeter by centimeter. When she was under the partial cover of the perch, she emitted a defiant little squawk.

  Tycoon stared at Ritl for a long moment. Then he put down the analog radio and said to Zek, “Have your say.”

  Zek didn’t reply immediately. He looked dazed, maybe by the splash of Tycoon’s roar, maybe by the terror of the moment before. “Thank you, sir,” The creature hesitated. “There will be interruptions. I wasn’t able to entirely disguise—” Abruptly he was gobbling Interpack, some kind of question.

  Tycoon answered in Samnorsk, “Give me a moment, Vendacious! This landing is tricky.” He gestured for Zek to relay his words.

  And Vendacious replied, “Indeed, my lord! Sorry for interrupting!”

  In fact, it looked to Ravna as though the Pack of Packs crew was doing just fine without any micro-managing from Tycoon. The ship wasn’t more than a thousand meters from touchdown. Ahead was familiar ground, Murder Meadows. It was the nearest open ground to the city. Today the heather was festive with crowds and banners.

  But Tycoon continued, “In fact, we may still be too high. I’m going to circle the landing area and try again. It will give me more time to be sure of the ground.”

  “As you say, my lord.” Then Vendacious’ voice brightened. “I imagine the maneuver will impress Woodcarver’s subjects.”

  “Follow me, then.” Tycoon didn’t say anything for a moment, but he was watching Zek.

  “I’ve resumed faking the relay, sir,” Mr. Radio Cloaks said.

  “Good. We’ll have few minutes to chat then.” Tycoon looked almost gleeful; the geeky side of him must find this deception fascinating. He said something into a speaking tube. Almost immediately the engines buzzed louder. The airship turned and they could see Newcastle town spread out below them.

  Tycoon sobered and he gave Zek a sharp look. “Well? You have your time. Speak!”

  Zek sat a little straighter: “Thank you sir. I’ve rarely been a person, and never for very long. But at this moment, I am eight. Vendacious can’t keep his secrets from me, not all of them. He is the king of lies, sir, and the king of death. He kills and kills—his own people!”

  “So? Overthrow him.”

  “You don’t know much about killing, do you, sir? If you kill often enough, and cleverly enough, you can build a palace of terror. Someday it may fall, but just the thought of that is enough to be murdered for.”

  “Until Amdiranifani came along?”

  Zek gave a one-headed nod. “Until Amdiranifani and the good radio conditions that my parts have been wishing for the last tenday. A word from you, sir, just a word of hope. It could make the difference. It could bring Vendacious down.”

  Tycoon made a disbelieving sound. “I know Vendacious treats his prisoners harshly, sometimes his employees too. I’ve curbed the worst excesses. And his spies gets results. He gets results. Can you gainsay that?”

  “Yes!” But now Zek seemed to lose track of the conversation. His eyes became unfocused. “Sorry. I’m down to three. A moment—”

  Murder Meadows slid beneath the airship. Now they could see downslope to Hidden Island and beyond, but the real spectacle was Oobii. They would be flying along the starship’s length. Oobii’s drive spines drooped around her and the ones underneath were crushed, but the ship still gleamed greenfly bright. Even packs who didn’t know what that ship had been were overcome by its beauty. Ravna noticed that Tycoon’s members were all staring at the ship, almost as distracted as Zek, but for different reasons.

  Mr. Radio resumed, “Vendacious murdered gobble and gobble”—these were names Ravna didn’t recognize—“when they gained too much favor with you. He murdered the human, Edvi Verring, ran him into the Choir land, then told you that he died of the bloat.”

  Tycoon turned a head back to Zek and commented, “Vendacious offered to let us see the remains.”

  “A ploy, sir. Recall, he made the offer to Ravna and Timor. He’s convinced Timor that Edvi might still live. Vendacious uses hostages for everything. Even when the hostages are dead, he still use
s them.”

  “That’s far-fetched. I could have asked to see the remains.”

  Mr. Radio replied abruptly: “You could have, but you didn’t. Even if you had, Vendacious would have had some explanation you would accept. In the year that I can remember, your gullibility has shown no bounds.” He hesitated and Zek shrank back from his standing posture. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Tycoon didn’t react except to raise one snout ironically, “You plead a little radio interference, do you?”

  “No, sir,” the words came softly, “that was from all of me.” Maybe, but Zek looked confused now. “In the time I have, I don’t know quite what more to say…” He glanced across at Jefri and then continued, “There is the murder and the lie that made all the rest possible. Vendacious killed Scriber Jaqueramaphan. Then he lied to say that Johanna—”

  “Yes, yes, you don’t have to repeat that claim.” Tycoon nodded at Jefri. “I hear your friend Amdiranifani behind these pleadings.” But Tycoon did not really sound enraged. Most of him was still staring outwards. Oobii filled the view, its stately curves sweeping past, its drive spines arching so close you might think to reach out and touch them. There was a kind of awed distraction in Tycoon’s posture. “Scriber would have loved you humans,” he said. “He was such an innocent and impractical person. Before we separated, I—we—were more creative than any sane businesspack. We were so successful we couldn’t keep up with all our ventures. So we decided to become two, one pack to specialize in practice and the other in farthest imagination. One was to be the steady businesspack, one the flying imagination. Scriber kept notebooks of his inventions. I worked to expand our businesses while he created.

  “In his notebooks, he had flying machines and tunnelers and submersible boats. There’s only one problem with going from a notebook idea to a salable product. Well, no. There are ten thousand thousand problems. Most of his inventions depended on materials that didn’t exist, on engines more powerful than any we could make, on precision of manufacture that he barely had words for. He diverted our company into debacle after debacle. We had been so beautiful before…” All Tycoon’s heads were drooping. “In the end, I—the creature of business and common sense—couldn’t tolerate Scriber’s endless, brilliant failures. I forced him out of the business. He was agreeable enough. I…think…he understood why we had come to an end. He cashed out and left for the West.” Tycoon jabbed a snout at Jef and Ravna. “I know Scriber befriended you people. I know he was both too clever and too naive to survive the meeting. What did he discover about you two-legs? Why would this Johanna murder him in pieces, till all of him was dead?”