The Children of the Sky

On the other side of the tiny cabin, Ritl gobbled softly. It wasn’t an alarm, just a variant of her usual scolding. Amdi’s voice was resigned: “That Ritl. Even when she’s helping, she’s a pain.” Then he continued, “We had to try and talk, Jefri. There are things you have to know, things we have to plan.” To Ravna these assertions had a rushed, questioning quality.

Certainly, Jefri heard that too. His tone was reassuring: “It’s okay, Amdi. How did you manage this? Who—what—is Mr. Radio Cloaks?”

“Utzekfyrforfurtariil is a Vendacious creation—though Tycoon doesn’t know that. Vendacious figures that by controlling the Mr. Radio network, he’s the puppetmaster of everybody.”

Ravna looked at Zek suspiciously. “So what went wrong?”

Zek relayed Amdi’s very human, little-boy laughter. “What do you think? Vendacious himself. He’s smart, but he’s the craziest, meanest of Woodcarver’s offspring. And he’s still all-male.”

“Still?” said Jefri. “Any other pack with that makeup would have self-destructed years ago. That’s Vendacious’ miracle and a disaster for everyone else.”

“Not necessarily,” said Amdi, “Even his minions hate him. In any case, Vendacious isn’t as smart as Old Flenser. And he’s nowhere near as smart as me.” Amdi’s voice filled with confidence. “It’s been scarcely a day, and I’ve already figured how to talk along paths Vendacious can’t hear. That’s how I contacted Ut, right under Vendacious’ snouts. That’s how we smuggled out Ut’s cloak during his off-duty time. Of course, it helped that most of Vendacious was barfing sick at the time.” His voice trailed off. “Vendacious has already figured out who Screwfloss really is. Vendacious, he capered when he learned the truth. Poor Screwfloss. Oh Jefri—” His voice collapsed into weeping, all confidence fled. “Oh, Jefri, this isn’t like my show in the circus.” The sounds of weeping abruptly stopped, and his voice continued: “Th-this is something I have to do. I’ll do my best; I promise.”

Jefri started to say something comforting, but was interrupted by another voice:

“I help.”

“Who spoke?” said Ravna. There was a moment of silence, long enough to be aware of oppressive meat breath and animal body heat. Finally:

“I’m sure that was some part of Utzekfyrforfurtariil,” said Amdi. “Every one of him hates Vendacious.”

“But I thought Mr. Radio was being used like a line? How smart can it be?”

Amdi said, “As a line or a ring or a star, he’s as dumb as you’d expect, just good enough for Vendacious’ purpose. I think if he were all in range of himself, he’d be smarter than most packs. But he hasn’t been together much since Vendacious’ broodkenners first assembled him.”

Jefri took a closer look at Zek. “But even partially connected, he’s still smart enough to learn some Samnorsk. Or is he just a blabber like Ritl?”

Amdi emitted a snort (via Zek): “He’s much smarter than that idiot singleton. In fact—and this is something Vendacious doesn’t know—big parts of Mr. Radio sometimes have mutual radio communication. Right now, there’s three of him on these two ships—not enough to be very smart. But depending on atmospherics, he can reach several others and be almost a complete person. That doesn’t happen very often, and so far, Mr. Radio has kept it a secret from all the packs who are using him.”

“Hmm,” said Ravna. “I wonder if he’s smart enough to play Princess Pretending.”

“Huh?” The word came from both Amdi and Jefri. After a moment Ritl chimed in with a mimic interrogative of her own.

“Sorry.” She had violated her personal ban on Princesses. “Straumers call it a ‘Man in the Middle’ attack.”

“Oh yeah,” said Amdi, “I thought of that. The problem is Vendacious has conditioned all the members to follow certain forwarding protocols. At best Mr. Radio is variably intelligent. From moment to moment, he may be smart enough for simultaneous lying. In between, he’ll drop the ball.”

Jefri nodded. “And if he fluffs even once, the game is over.”

“Right.”

Zek’s own voice spoke over Amdi’s: “Besides, I still not good to be a person, even when I can think with all of me.”

Amdi’s voice: “His whole life has been torture, but if he ever gets himself together, I’ll envy him. That’s our radio future! And I’ve never even gotten to use radio cloaks!”

Ravna smiled. Amdi had never given up on having his own radio cloaks. Even at the edge of a torture pit, that annoyance could still distract him. “Amdi, when we get out of this, I promise we’ll get you your own cloaks. You, you all have worked a miracle here.” Even Ritl.

“Yeah,” Jefri was nodding. “Can we meet again, Amdi? Safely?”