The Children of the Sky (24 page)

There were other reasons for not having more Council meetings. Ravna had reviewed the early years of her Flenser surveillance; she was still certain the camera infestation had been accurate for the first few years. That and the patent absurdities of the most recent session made it very foolish to get paranoid about Flenser. And yet she was still a bit uncomfortable about seeing him at a Council meeting.

And finally, Pilgrim and Johanna were out of town, on what Ravna considered a dangerous and unnecessary adventure. The two had taken the agrav flier and were snooping around East Home, five thousand kilometers away. That was beyond direct radio range, but they’d reset one of
Oobii
’s few remaining commsets to transmit in the five-to-twenty-megahertz range. They splattered their radio emissions off the sky and let the planet’s ionosphere reflect them across the continent. On Starship Hill,
Oobii
was clever enough to pick out the signal even when the aurora hung its brightest curtains above the Domain—and to blast a much stronger response signal back to Johanna’s commset.

The one full Council meeting had been mainly about that expedition:

“I’m glad we flew out here,” came Pilgrim’s voice. “The stories about Tycoon haven’t been exaggerated. He really has started his own industrial revolution.”

Flenser looked up from his accustomed place at the far end of the table. “Aha! Vendacious shows his claws!”

Woodcarver gave a little hiss, but didn’t otherwise respond. In fact, East Home was the only place there had been sure sightings of the misbegotten Vendacious. That had been eight years ago, shortly before a series of major disappearances from Scrupilo’s labs: printers, a telephone prototype, even one of the three printer interfaces. At the time, the thefts had been an even bigger scandal than the recent radio cloak theft, though two of the burglars had been caught—both former lieutenants of Vendacious. Since those thefts, Tycoon had been a steady source of “innovation.”

“We’ve talked about this before,” said Ravna. “Tycoon may regard himself as our rival, but any diffusion of technology will just speed up our overall progress. Keep in mind the main threat.”
The Blighter fleet coming down upon us.

Flenser eyed himself slyly—a packish smirk. “The main threat won’t matter if you get the Domain murdered beforehand.”

“That’s why Jo and I are checking this out,” said Pilgrim. “What we’re seeing makes us think that over the years, Tycoon may have accomplished much more than he advertised. Now the true operation is too big to be disguised. I think Tycoon—or Vendacious—has spies high in the Domain.”

Woodcarver raised heads at this. Two of her—three if you counted her puppy, little Sht—were glaring at Flenser.

“These are real technical innovations,” said Johanna. “I think the leaks have to originate in the North End labs.”

“What!” Scrupilo’s interjection was an indignant squawk.

“Have you met this Tycoon fellow?” said Ravna.

“Not yet,” said Pilgrim. “Even his factory managers rarely see him. He doesn’t seem very involved in day-to-day operations.”

“We’re being very cautious about this,” said Johanna. “And me, I’m staying completely out of sight.”

“Good!” that was from both Ravna and Nevil, and very emphatic. There were things Johanna could do as a two-legs that gave the Pilgrim-Johanna team great advantages—that was Jo’s argument, anyway. Ravna was far from convinced that it justified her presence on a spy mission.

“I wish you were back here,” said Nevil.

“I’m fine, Nevil. Like I said, keeping a low profile.”

A strange sound came over the radio link, probably a chord from Pilgrim. Ravna smiled, imagining the pack and the girl hunkered down by their commset. It would be early morning on the east coast now. She wondered just where they were hiding.

Flenser-Tyrathect was shaking his heads, grinning.

“What?” Ravna said to him.

The pack gave a shrug. “Isn’t it obvious? There is no need for spies high in Scrupilo’s organization. Who stole the Oliphaunt computer? I know
I
could use Oliphaunt to engineer all—”

Woodcarver’s shriek would have been downright painful but for
Oobii
’s sound damping. Three of her leaped partway onto the table, their claws clicking on the surface. “You confess to treason, do you now?” she said.

Flenser showed lots of teeth even as he replied: “Don’t be an idiot. Ah, but I forgot, you’re already the idiot who didn’t kill Vendacious when you had the chance. You’re already the idiot who let him escape and who still blames
me
for stealing Oliphaunt.”

This brought another of Woodcarver onto the meeting table. There was a time when Ravna could have been the peacemaker in such confrontations. Now? Ravna fleetingly wondered if Woodcarver might take a swipe at her if she tried to intervene.

Nevil was braver, or faster, or perhaps just more foolish. As Woodcarver scrambled forward, he was already on his feet. “It’s okay, Your Majesty!” He started to extend a hand toward her, then seemed to realize he was cajoling someone who was seriously not human. “Um, this is just one of those burdens of a wise ruler.”

The stilted, medieval approach seemed to work. Woodcarver didn’t retreat, but her forward surge subsided.

“Flenser has a point,” said Johanna, sounding unperturbed, perhaps because the sounds of jaws and claws had not survived the low-quality radio transmission. “Tycoon may really be Vendacious plus Oliphaunt, but spies in Scrupilo’s labs could also explain his success.”

That satisfied all except Scrupilo: “I do
not
have spies in any of my labs!” But not surprisingly, he was perfectly happy to talk about technical fixes to such nonexistent espionage. Monitoring user access to
Oobii
was relatively easy. The problem was to correlate that with exactly what inventions were appearing elsewhere.

Nevil was looking more and more unhappy. “We have to get this nailed down. Surely there must be clues at the Tycoon end of this. You’re due to leave East Home almost immediately, aren’t you, Jo?”

“That was the plan.” There was mumbled conversation between Johanna and Pilgrim, too scattered for
Oobii
to clean up. “Our equipment is in good shape and we have a safe hidey-hole outside of the city. We’re good to stay a while if it will help, especially if you can feed us some clues to follow up on.”

Nevil was clearly torn. Ravna could guess how much he’d been looking forward to Johanna’s return.

“Do we have any clues to feed them?” Ravna asked.

Pilgrim said, “There’s Scrupilo’s lab logs. We could look for coincidences in detail.”

Woodcarver—now back on her seats—had a different angle. “From what Johanna and Pilgrim say, Tycoon grows steadily more powerful. If they come back now, we may have hard time getting this close again.”

“We should have a full-time gang of spies over there,” said Flenser-Tyrathect.

Woodcarver shrugged agreement. The two were almost talking to each other.

In the end, that meeting was almost the sort of Exec Council meeting they should be having these days—except that now Johanna and Pilgrim would be absent for at least another twenty days.

Twenty days. Johanna and Pilgrim wouldn’t be back till after Ravna’s big speech. Since that night by Pham’s grave, she had not had much chance to talk to Johanna. The younger woman had been off spying most of the time, and when she’d been back she’d been mainly with Nevil. Now Ravna would have virtually no chance to chat privately with her.

And Woodcarver seemed to be in a bigger snit than ever.

Ravna had written multiple drafts of her upcoming speech. There were so many issues to bring together. Some were joyously good news—how New Meeting Place could be used for increased participation, formal democracy. Some were hard truths—the Blighter threat that loomed in their future, the need to solve underlying technology problems before they took on prolongevity research. Some were proposals to make the hard truths more palatable. Without Woodcarver, now without Johanna and Pilgrim—it all came down to Ravna’s own best judgment and Nevil’s advice. Over and over, he showed her nuances that she would have missed on her own. For instance: “Arrange things so you can end the speech with the good news that gives realistic reasons to be optimistic about it all.” And: “We can merge this speech with your idea for a Public Council, Ravna. My Dad used to say that responsible people can deal with bad news if they have some control over the hardships.” So they would announce the meeting as occasion for her speech and as an opportunity for Children and Tines to feed back into the process. “I’ve talked to Woodcarver about this, Ravna. She thinks it will work.” And that was one of the best pieces of news. Woodcarver was still avoiding Ravna, but she was at least indirectly part of the planning.

Nevil and company had figured how to make the New Meeting Place seem bigger, and he was showing her dozens of variations on how they might decorate the place. Finally she just offloaded all that onto him and concentrated on polishing her speech, doing her best to implement his final suggestions.

And then it was the day before the “grand meeting.” Ravna was already thinking of the event in countdown terminology. They were at Meeting minus fifteen hours. She had a final chat with Nevil, going over what she would have to know about the physical setup of the New Meeting Place, rehearsing her presentation still again. “Don’t worry if the speech doesn’t come out one hundred percent perfect. I’ll be out there. The Public Council makes it easy for me to stand up, ask a question that gets things back on track—and just as easy for all your friends to show support.”

“… You’re right,” said Ravna. “I’m just chewing on my own nervousness.” Ravna glanced at the little clock window she’d been using to time her speech rehearsals. It also showed the countdown: 14:37:33 till show time. She and Nevil were up on the bridge, but they’d set the displays to make it look like her lectern in the New Meeting Place would be in … well, in 14:36:55. She looked across at Nevil. His face had a certain earnest nervousness of its own—and she decided he was mainly worried about her being so obviously worried. Johanna was so lucky to have this guy.

“Nevil, I want to thank you for everything. Without you, I would still be flailing.”

He shook his head. “You can’t do it all alone, Ravna. But what you are working toward is absolutely necessary. It’s what the rest of us, all the Children, should be helping with. If we pull together, we can’t lose.”

That was something like the language in her speech, and suddenly Ravna realized that Nevil must really live those words, even as they had come to seem platitudes in her ears.
Too much rehearsing, that’s for sure.

She stood and walked carefully around the fake lectern, toward where the bridge entrance was tonight. She waved the door open and turned back toward him. “So I’ll see you tomorrow then.” She smiled. “In a bit less than 14:35:21.”

Nevil stood. Maybe there was a little bit of relief in his smile. “That you will, my lady.”

He stopped within arm’s length from her. “Sleep well and don’t worry,” he said.

“Thanks, Nevil. G’night.”

He smiled. “G’night.” And then he was gone.

Of course, it was no surprise that sleep didn’t come. In fact, Ravna didn’t even head for bed immediately.
But I deserve a pat on the back for not doing another rehearsal.
She retreated from the platform and lectern and settled down with her usual analysis tools. Nowadays,
Oobii
ran elaborate threat detection software all the time—sometimes so intensively that it slowed Scrupilo’s research programs. During the last tenday, Ravna had not kept up with the security monitoring as much as usual. That fact supported one of her Theories of Worry, namely that every worrywart has a natural Worry Max. When there are other concerns—such as preparing for this meeting—normal obsessions weaken.

Nevertheless, she settled down for a bit of distracting logfile-surfing.
Oobii
had a system of prioritized alarms, but—as past debacles had shown—there was always the possibility it would miscategorize things.

After some tedious time with the logs, she suddenly realized she wasn’t nearly as obsessed with her speech. Ha! And there really wasn’t all that much that was troublesome in
Oobii
’s logs either!… She browsed on, through lower priority results.

Here was something interesting in the “old threats” department:
Oobii
was still watching for any sign of the stolen radio cloaks. Those gadgets were nothing like the Beyonder commset that Pilgrim and Johanna were using, or even the voice-band radios Scrupilo built nowadays. The cloaks made an analog smear of the wearer’s mindsounds across a big swath of the radio frequency spectrum. The resultant signal was fairly short range—and essentially impossible for
Oobii
to translate. Hate, fear, lust—those might be recognized, but mind reading was very much not possible.

The ship had heard none of that. And yet,
Oobii
had detected something very like cloak noise. By correlating with the changing footprint of the aurora,
Oobii
guessed the source was high in the Icefangs, about seventy kilometers to the east. The signal was sporadic and at its loudest scarcely more than a suspicious correlation. If this was a radio cloak, there was only one. It was even fainter than a cloak should be at that distance, and it was being worn for only a few minutes in every day.

Ravna played with the results for some minutes. There really wasn’t enough signal to do much analysis. If she asked for more, she might get another taste of
Oobii
’s wishful thinking.
No thank you.
… But what conceivable use was
one
radio cloak? Without the rest of a Tinish soul wearing the others, a single cloak was the sound of one hand clapping.

She leaned back, imagining: a party of thieves sneaking out of the Domain, travelling through a steep-shouldered mountain pass. Those passes could be deadly, even in high summer. An avalanche could have killed them all. Or perhaps they’d been ambushed by ordinary bandits. One way or another, the cloaks were lost, all but one. The theory almost made sense. But this remnant cloak would need a wearer, and occasional light for power. So how about this: The cloaks were beautiful things, the solar cells as dark as velvet but with glints of gold. Maybe some primitive pack was wearing the remaining cloak as a trophy, totally ignorant of the magic it was making.