The Children of the Sky

Harmony made a little “don’t go yet” gesture. “You know, I had an excellent chat with Her Majesty. I think that she and I have come to think very much alike on issues of probity and public health. After all, broodkenning is one of the foundations of a happy nation. I think we in the East understand that much better than most people here. The reaction against Flenser’s excesses was bad enough. You humans have added your own confused ethics to the mess.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Johanna, waving a gesture she was fairly certain Harmony would not recognize. She really had to get away from this guy.

Unfortunately, Harmony was the kind who liked to rub it in. Or maybe he thought that the time to press ahead is when you’ve already scored some points. “You should understand, Johanna, that your crazy influence on the Royal Broodkennery is coming to an end. We simply don’t have the resources for your notion of a Fragmentarium.”

That got her attention. “You’re giving up on the war veterans, the accident victims?” She took a step back in Harmony’s direction, pulling against Pilgrim’s jaws.

Harmony seemed oblivious to her tone. “No, not that. The Queen is quite explicit. Though the odds are against success, and merges of adult fragments are often ineffectual packs, even so we owe the veterans our best efforts. It’s the foolishness that has to go. Pack members get old, they get incurably ill, and they die. I’m sorry, I have to say it. Despite all your wishful thinking, members die. It’s not our job at the broodkennery to prolong that process—and we simply do not have the resources to do so.”

“But the old ones die in any case, Harmony. Why should you care that their last year or two is pleasant?”

The redjackets shrugged. “That’s why, when I first came to this job, I thought your foolish ideas were harmless. But have you noticed? Your unhealthful approach has just encouraged normal packs to linger over their dying parts. We have more and more of these sick and unproductive parts here. They aren’t getting any better. We agree, they never will get better. But they are filling up our floorspace, taking away from the cases—including those adult singletons you so seem to love—that we could save. Someone has to make the hard decisions. There needs to be a thinning.”

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.

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