The Children of the Sky

The buildings sat on a small tableland in the side of the valley. Fences followed along the edge of the flat space, taller than any Tinish farmer would ever build. The buildings within were crammed together, leaving as much open space as possible for exercise and play. Woodcarver joked that it was actually to give enough space for Pilgrim to make a safe landing. Considering how often Johanna and Pilgrim came here, that was a good thing.

As they came fluttering downwards, she noticed that among the Tines drifting around the exercise yard there were some who looked suspiciously mangy. How had they gotten past the fence? She realized that she might not be the first person bringing word of the shipwreck. She began revising her sales pitch accordingly.

Three years after the

Battle on Starship Hill

Chapter   03

Usually, Johanna was mobbed by whatever singletons were out in the exercise area. Today a few of the more articulate called out to her, but most of the patients seemed more interested in the Tropical visitors. None of the place’s keepers—the broodkenners—were in evidence.

Johanna and Pilgrim left the exercise field and walked past buildings that Ravna Bergsndot called the “old folks’ home.” Pack members rarely lived longer than forty years. These buildings housed Tines that were too aged to live and work with their packs. The rest of theirselves would visit, in some cases stay for days at a time, especially if the old ones had been some special intellectual or emotional part of the pack. For Johanna, it was the saddest part of the Fragmentarium, since without decent technology none of these fragments would get any better. The rest of theirselves would visit more and more rarely, eventually incorporating younger members, and not coming at all.

Here and there a head raised to watch her. Some of the visiting packs—the ones who valued their old selves enough to be united—honked greetings and even whole sentences of Samnorsk. There were grateful folk here, but all in all it was too much like the dark ages of human prehistory, like what we Children ourselves must face Down Here.

The broodkenners’ office was at the upslope end of the encampment, beyond the exercise field and the barracks for able-bodied fragments. There was one more shortcut they could take, but Johanna and Pilgrim stayed well away from the war criminals’ compound. That was an institution that many Tinish kingdoms supported, though usually it was a public pillory where partially executed enemies of the state could be put on display. Woodcarver had never been such a sadist. Pilgrim often assured Jo that the Children were fortunate to have fallen in with the kindliest despot in the world. Since Flenser was rehabilitated and Vendacious had escaped, there was only one war criminal left in the Domain, and that was Flenser’s monster, Lord Steel. The original Steel had been cut down to three members. His remnant had a prison cell with its own little exercise yard. She hadn’t seen that fragment in two years. She knew her brother came here occasionally to talk to the threesome, but then Jefri and Amdi had personal issues with Steel. She hoped the visits were not meant to taunt the creature. Steel was thoroughly mad, surviving in a weird tug of war between Woodcarver’s caution and Flenser’s demand that the remnant not be destroyed. Today she heard shrieks of rage coming from the prison compound, demands to be released. The Remnant Steel knew something was going on, and apparently there was no keeper to let it out into its exercise yard.

“So where are the broodkenners?” said Johanna. Not even Carenfret was around, and she was obsessively dutiful.

“Harmony’s here. I can hear him talking.” Pilgrim jabbed a snout toward the admin office.

“He’s here?” Damn. Harmony was the chief broodkenner, a pack of the old school and a real jerk. Now she could hear Tinish gobbling ahead. It was loud enough; she’d mistaken it for the usual random shouting that came from the patients’ barracks. Yes, the pack was talking on the telephone. That was probably a good thing, since Harmony’s judgment could only benefit from outside advice. She lifted the high bar on an inner gate and let herself and Pilgrim through. The admin building was actually a dorm for the overnight broodkenners, most often Carenfret. It was big enough for two or three packs, but right now there seemed to be just the one voice within. The front door was open. She bent low and awkwardly waddled indoors, preceded and followed by Pilgrim.

Harmony was way in the back, in his official office. That wasn’t as large as Harmony would probably like, but it was the room with the telephone, and the Chief Broodkenner had claimed it his first day on the job. Johanna was pleased that no one had ever told him how easy it would be to wire the phone into a different room. She wasn’t the only one who thought ill of this pack.