The Children of the Sky

Jef shook his head. “Hei! At least tell us the names of the surviving—”

Tycoon shifted forward, all heads weaving in Jefri’s direction. “You dare make demands of me, Jefri-brother-of-Johanna?” His Geri voice climbed in pitch, stretching into an inhuman hiss. “Jefri-brother-of-Johanna-who-killed-my-brother.”

Jefri came up off the bench, but his anger seemed swept away by shocked understanding. “Brother? Powers above, you’re Scriber Jaqueramaphan’s brother?”

Tycoon swarmed down upon Jefri. Maybe what saved Jef was the fact that godsgift was still sitting close around him. That pack emitted a surprised squeal and exploded in all directions, incidentally getting in the attackers’ way and knocking Jef backwards over his bench.

Ravna dove sideways along the bench, trying to block the surge. She felt two of Tycoon slam into her, then had a glimpse of his members lunging under the bench, claws reaching. At the edge of the fray the gunpack was maneuvering around in confusion—trying for a safe shot?

“Wait! Stop it! Stop!” she shouted, but in fact the madness had ended. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two or she wouldn’t have been around to shout. Tycoon was all around her, but his jaws weren’t snapping. Four of him were on the other side of the bench now. They dragged Jefri Olsndot off the floor, set him on the bench behind Ravna’s. Their claws made little spots of blood where their grip sank through his clothes, and two of them had jaws right by Jef’s throat.

For his part, Jefri was sitting very still. Ravna remembered when he was little, how Jef and Amdi would mock fight. Sometimes that would get out of hand, and Jefri had learned the safest thing to do was just become still and submissive. It was certainly the right strategy now.

Tycoon held him tightly for several seconds. The eightsome’s voice boomed around the room, hissing and screaming that certainly wasn’t Samnorsk, and wasn’t Interpack either. Finally he gave Jef a hard push and backed away from him. All eight stared at Jefri for a moment more, then dabbed at the froth that dribbled from various jaws. Finally, he turned a couple of heads toward the uncertain gunpack and gobbled at him. Ravna recognized an imperative and the word “dungeon.”

So maybe no factory tour today.

Chapter   34

The “dungeon” was actually a suite of rooms near the audience chamber. It had running water and air conditioning. Was there any closed area in this palace that wasn’t air conditioned? Dinner was delivered—more yams and beer.

Once they were alone, Ravna walked around the high-class accommodations. “I assume these walls have ears pressed against them,” she said.

Jefri shrugged. “The truth is one thing that jackass really needs to hear.” Jefri had a long bloody slash on his face where one of Tycoon’s claws had grazed him. He thought a second and then shouted: “Jo didn’t kill your brother, damn it!”

“But do you think he really is Scriber Jaqueramaphan’s brother?”

Jefri sat back on his chair. The seat actually had a back to it, though not quite what would suit a human. “Once upon a time, I think he was. Now, I think the pack is a rebuild.”

“A what?”

“That’s a word Johanna came up with for something she saw occasionally at the Fragmentarium. Sometimes a pack—usually a rich, foolish pack—tries to recover a prior form of its personality by incorporating several new members.”

“Wouldn’t that just be a merge pack?” These creatures had more reproductive modes than any dozen races she had known in the Beyond.

“Not exactly. Rebuilds are much rarer; the broodkenners find puppies that are likely to contribute such skills and mind styles as were in their client’s former personality. Then the client tries to mold itself and the puppies into what it was before. You noticed that four of Tycoon are a lot younger than the others?”

Ravna shook her head. “They all looked grown to me.”

“They’re all adults, but—my theory is that the four older ones really were a fission sibling of Johanna’s Scriber. The pack is trying to recover what it was before the split.” Jef’s face twisted into an unhappy smile. “Scriber and Pilgrim were Jo’s first friends here. You know how she always talked about him: Scriber Jaqueramaphan, the mad inventor. He was a fairly recent fission product, and he always seemed a bit unhappy about it—like a human regretting a broken marriage.”

“And it looks like the other half of the fission felt the same way.” Ravna was quiet for a moment; now here was a story for Amdi’s collection of romance novels!

Jefri was nodding. “This would explain a lot: the commercial empire building—that’s from the old entrepreneurial half; the wild inventiveness—that’s what the pack imagines of Scriber; and even the murderous hatred of humans—somehow Vendacious has convinced him that Johanna killed Scriber.”