The Children of the Sky (7 page)

Pilgrim stuck a head back into the room. “You may have trouble justifying your ‘hard decisions’ to soft-hearted western packs who want to carry on with their oldest members.”

Harmony steepled a couple of his heads judiciously. “It will ultimately be the choice of the packs involved. We’ll simply tell them our assessment of their weaknesses and point out that we no longer have the resources to care for their morbid members. They’ll be free to let us deal with them—or they can take that responsibility themselves, as decent packs have always done.” Traditionally, that meant that when a member could no longer keep up with normal hunting, well, it would fall behind. In fact, “to fall behind” was the Interpack euphemism for member death.

“And the ones you take care of, how do you kill them, hmm?” Johanna took another step back into the room, far enough that Harmony finally understood the threat.

Two of him surged forward, blustering, but the others were staring up at her a little nervously. “Th-there are traditional ways, not at all painful or distressing. You poor two-legs, trapped in a single mortal body, I can’t expect you to understand our point of view.” Now all of him seemed to have recovered courage. Five pairs of toothy jaws were waggling around in front of her.

Behind her, all of Pilgrim had grabbed her pants and the bottom of her jacket. No more subtlety; he was doing his best to drag her from the room. His voice was diplomatic, belying the effort: “Well, thank you for the advance notice, dear Harmony.”

The redjackets gave a gracious wave. “My pleasure—though it was the Queen’s suggestion that I inform you.”

“I’ll thank her myself,” said Pilgrim, “the next time we’re together.”

There were implications in Pilgrim’s words that should give the chief broodkenner pause. For packs, “being together” could mean literally “being of one mind.” It was certainly a stronger retort than anything Johanna could think of. She let her toothy friend lead her away.

Jo didn’t speak until they were out of the building, beyond even Tinish earshot. “I hope you meant what you said, Pilgrim. About talking to Woodcarver.”

“Oh yes indeedy. Harmony takes his redjackets much too seriously. His kind is the worst thing about the East Coast.” But Pilgrim sounded more amused than enraged.

“He’s a monstrous sonsabitches,” said Johanna.

Pilgrim was looking around at the multistoried barracks that stood on both sides of the path. From here, you couldn’t even see the exercise field and the valley beyond. “This place has really gotten overcrowded, you know,” he said.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in something unusual: a screaming argument with Pilgrim. Fortunately for her hearing, it was Johanna who did all the screaming. How could her best friend in the world be so lukewarm about the murders planned at the Fragmentarium? By sundown, Johanna was convinced that he was taking her case to Woodcarver just to keep Jo mellow. Pilgrim was certainly doing his best to avoid arguing the issues with her. He really
didn’t
understand why thinning the old members was murder. And he didn’t want Johanna to come along to talk to the Queen.

“It’s an intimate thing, Johanna. You know, sex and mindtalk.” He waggled his heads salaciously.

Normally that excuse worked. She certainly had no place in a Tinish love affair—but tonight she suspected Pilgrim thought that Jo and her weird human notions would just cause trouble. “Okay, then,” she said. “You do your thing with Woodcarver. But make her understand! This redjackets crap is just as bad as the Old Flenser.”

“Oh, I will, I promise. I’ll do my very best.” The fivesome danced around nervously, then finally chased himself out the door. Coward.

She should follow him up to the New Castle, maybe talk to Woodcarver herself. Pilgrim just didn’t have the proper fire.

Fortunately, some shred of common sense remained, and Jo stayed inside until Pilgrim was well gone. She could give Ravna Bergsndot a call. Along with Woodcarver, Ravna was Queen of the Realm. Ravna might not take her title seriously, but she was the most powerful person in the world. She could tell Woodcarver what to do about this, and by the Powers Above, her word would rule. Yeah, the trouble was that Ravna was too much of a compromiser. She would compromise about anything, as long as it didn’t get in the way of fighting the Blight.

Johanna stepped out into the twilight and took a few deep breaths. The northwest still held sunset colors, but elsewhere the sky was darkening blue, with stars already visible in the east. She cursed this world often enough, but summer was mostly a beautiful time. You could forget how deadly a natural world could be. You could even sometimes forget what you had lost. This little cabin that she shared with Pilgrim was an upper-class residence by the standards of the locals. If Ravna’s plans for heating water with the starship’s beam gun could be implemented, houses like this would be more comfortable than any old Tinish castle.

Maybe she should walk up to Newcastle town. That was where most of the Children lived, and all of the toddlers. Her brother might be up there. No, Jef and Amdi were in the north woods this tenday, learning to be scouts. But there were other Children she could talk to. Nevil? He was probably still down in Cliffside village. He’d be perfect to talk to; he’d understand. Too bad the phone lines hadn’t been strung that far, or else she’d call him for sure.

Johanna walked downhill, away from the New Castle and the town that surrounded it. There really was no one to talk to tonight. Maybe that was best; she was so bloody angry. Packs could be lovable, nicer than most humans. But even the nicest of them didn’t really see their members as persons. She walked a little faster, letting the old frustration grow. Today had brought a lot of that to a head, and she wasn’t going to let it go. In the past, she had seen members die; they were people, even if she could never convince the packs of that.

Well, if talking could not make a difference, maybe there were actions that would. She let that thought rattle around in her mind for a few moments, imagining what she could do if she had some of the powers that every Straumer—even every Straumer child—had had before they fell Down Here. Ravna’s starship, that was nothing compared to a few merge toys and braemsjers. She’d raise the fragments to mindfulness, give them tools that would wipe the smug expression from packs like Harmony.

It really felt good to imagine such a turn of fortune. And it would have all been possible, not dreaming at all, before they were cast down from the Top of the Beyond. Before everything had gone so terribly wrong at the High Lab.

She looked around, realized she’d walked more than a kilometer. She’d reached the edge of the Margrum Valley. The moon had risen, showing the far side of the valley afloat above an evening fog. The path—its official name was the Queen’s Road—became a bit twisty, zigzagging back and forth as it descended the north wall of the valley. During the day, there would be plenty of wagon traffic here, the kherhog handlers arguing about their right of way.

While she was imagining impossible revenge, her feet had carried her halfway back to the Fragmentarium. Maybe her feet were smarter than her head. Harmony complained about not having floorspace, and Woodcarver agreed. Well, there were ways of making floorspace. There were ways of making everyone look up and listen! Her pace picked up. Now both head and feet were cooperating—what a Tinish thing to say—as she realized how much change she could make all by herself. Somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice was saying that what she could do might be worse than not doing anything at all. But for the moment that voice was easy to ignore.

She came around the last turn before the Fragmentarium. The top of the cloud layer had just submerged the buildings, so all she could see were a few dim lights, probably from the old-members barracks. Admin would be hidden around on the other side of the compound. The Queens’s Road continued on its winding path down to Cliffside village, but the turnoff to the Fragmentarium was just another fifty meters or so. She walked forward, into the fog.

“Hei, Johanna.” The voice came from a little way ahead.

Jo gave a squeak of surprise, her mind cycling through variations on fight, flight, or make friendly social conversation. She peered into the mist. Aha. Friendly conversation was in order. It was a pack of four. No, five if you counted the puppy in a pannier.

“Hello,” Johanna said. “Do I know you?”

The four adult members brought their heads together. Even a meter or two of fog was enough to soak mindsound into silence; the pack was trying to think clearly. After a moment the voice replied: “Not understand, Johanna. Sorry.”

Jo made little sweep of her hand. Most packs seemed to take that motion to be like the Tinish head gesture for “That’s okay.” Of course, it might be too dark for the pack to see.

After a moment, they all continued along the path. As usual the fog was playing little tricks with sound. There was a buzzing sound that might have been some beat frequency of mindsounds. Or maybe it was just humming nervously. “I,
hmmm
,” it said—trying to think of the Samnorsk words? “I … am,” there was a Tinish chord that might have been familiar, “I … work … New Castle,
um
 … work stone.”

“You’re a mason at the New Castle?”

“Yes! Right word. Right word.”

Before the humans came, before the Children’s Academy, stonemason work was a fairly high-standing tech profession; it was still quite respectable. They walked together in silence, divided by a difficult language barrier. Now she realized that they were not alone; there was a pack pacing along behind them, and maybe another behind that. Certainly Mr. Stonemason had heard them, so it seemed more mysterious than sinister to Johanna.

“Turn. I turn … here,” said the stonemason. They were at the turnoff to the Fragmentarium. Johanna followed the pack down the flagstoned path. They passed a wick lamp and she got a look at the other two packs. One was just a threesome. The other was four but two of its members were scarcely more than puppies. So, mystery explained.

As they came near the old-members barracks, the other two packs both started gobbling. Various voices responded from within, and the packs were both racing off toward the building. The stonemason stayed with Johanna. As they came near the entrance, it spoke again: “You don’t remember me, but except for my puppy, I was with you and Pham Nuwen when you entered the New Castle. You know, the day Pham made the sun go dark.”

Johanna turned to the pack, struck by its sudden fluency. An old, balding member had limped out of the shadows. The stonemason had flowed around it, and now all heads were pressed close together. The pack must have been one of Woodcarver’s guards at the Battle on Starship Hill.

Jo smiled. She didn’t remember this particular pack, but—“I do remember the day. You were outside? You actually saw the sun go out?” Almost any technology could overawe a pre-tech civilization such as on Tines World, but what Pham had done, twisting the laws of nature across hundreds of lightyears … that was something that awed even the Children. It was no surprise that the act had sucked up all the output of the sun.

The five—even the little puppy—were nodding agreement. “A thousand years from now, it may only be a myth in the mind of the pack of me, but it will be the greatest myth of all. When I looked up at the dark of the sun, I felt the Pack of Packs.”

The stonemason, now including the halt member who lived in the Fragmentarium, was silent for a moment. Then it gave a shiver. “It’s too cold out here for some of me. Why don’t you come inside? There are several whole packs tonight. They don’t speak Samnorsk, but I can translate for them.”

Johanna started to follow the other into the hall, but then she realized that most of the critters within were not reunited. They really were falling behind. If she stayed more than a minute or two she would start blabbing about what Harmony had in mind … and too many would understand. She stopped at the door, and waved the stonemason through. “I’ll come here another night,” she said.

The pack hesitated a moment. “Okay, then, but you should know. I’m grateful to you. Part of me is very sick, but with her I am much more clever. I can plan better. Every night I come here, and I work better the next day. It’s partly the planning I do when I’m smart. It’s partly what my new puppy learns from my old part. Rich people do this all the time.” All the heads looked up at Johanna. “I think that’s part of how they stay rich. Thank you for suggesting this place to Queen Woodcarver.”

Johanna bobbed her head. “You’re welcome.” Her words came out strangled. She turned and walked stiffly away, into the dark.
Damn, damn, damn.

She wandered in the mists for some minutes, long enough for the guilt to boil back into rage. She needed a proper act of creative revenge against Harmony and all of his traditionalist ilk. Something that would kick even Woodcarver in the teeth if she couldn’t see sense.

Eventually she ran into the high fence that surrounded the exercise yard and the able-bodied barracks. She walked along the barrier, trailing her fingers against the wooden slats. So Harmony figured there wasn’t enough
room
. Yeah, it was crowded. Helping one’s old members was more popular than anyone had predicted. No doubt Harmony was also complaining about the various resources consumed too.
That
would make more of a difference to Woodcarver. But Woodcarver was rich. If she wasn’t rich enough, Ravna could kick in some of
Oobii
’s tech rents. This world was so poor, so stupid. In the High Beyond, caring for individual sophonts was one of the smallest costs of operations, handled invisibly for the most part. Wealth went for other things.…

She almost tripped over the creature that was digging under the fence. The Tine pulled its head and paws out of the dirt. Its jaws snapped shut just where Jo’s face had been before she startled back—but there was no further attack. The critter had no backup; it was a singleton. No, wait. There were a couple others, lurking about in the misty moonlight. They were all Tropicals. Glares were exchanged, but then the mangy critters backed down. The three wandered off—and in different directions. You’d
never
see a pack casually lose itself like that. How many of these troublemakers were lurking around the Fragmentarium? The notion of bundling the Tropicals off to a separate camp wasn’t completely stupid.