The Children of the Sky

Tycoon dithered. “Implausible, but I don’t see how you would gain from lying. In any case, what difference does it make? The creatures have no technology. The adults—the egg-layers—have never spoken. They are vegetables.” He hooted. “What grand shipmates they must have been. Did you keep them as ornamental plants? Did you—” He paused, then gobbled something in Interpack, a question. The two gunpacks responded in the negative, but then they spread out … watching? listening?

Ravna wasn’t paying much attention. She looked out at the sessile-stage Riders, planted forever where the fate named Tycoon had stuck them. These would be the generation after Greenstalk. Without skrode devices, not even the do-it-yourself model that served Greenstalk, they would have almost no ability to form new memories. They’d be innocent, as nearly mindless as before their race was ever uplifted. But I’m glad your children survived, Greenstalk.

“What is that sound?”

“Huh?” Ravna looked back from the water, noticed that Tycoon was spread out along the edge of the pool, an alert listening posture. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

Tycoon made an irritated noise “Some of this is pitched where even you can hear. And it’s getting louder.”

“I hear something,” said Jefri.

“What’s going on?” That was Vendacious, more confused than anyone.

Now Ravna could hear the … buzzing. Such a familiar sound. Such an impossible sound. She looked across the pond, at the fronds that marked the immobile adults. Several of those slender blades had risen higher, just in the last few seconds. Impossible, impossible. But testable. She gave a little wave and took several quick steps along the edge, almost bumping into one of Tycoon. The tall fronds turned to follow her motion. They made a rattling noise against one another, a kind of language of its own, one that Ravna did not know. That didn’t matter; the buzzing became recognizable voder speech, though muffled by the water: “Ravna, oh Ravna!”

“Greenstalk?”

“What’s this? The egg-layers don’t talk!” Tycoon scrambled up all around her. Some of his paws were on her shoulders, giving him a view down into the water from as high as possible. On either side of her, the gunpacks were closing on the edge of the pool. Ravna was only vaguely aware of Tycoon waving them back.

Maybe there are limits to miracles. Greenstalk said Ravna’s name again, but now the voder was scaling up and down, the syllables almost unintelligible. Was that disuse or disrepair? If Tycoon had not noticed the skrode perhaps it had been cut apart in the transplanting. Ravna reached out her arms, waving back to her friend.

“The egg-layers can’t move, either!” shrieked Tycoon. The part of him that was teetering on Ravna’s shoulders lost its balance and tumbled into the pond. The rest of the pack collapsed around her and dragged the fallen member out of the water—but all of him and all of Ravna had their eyes on the tall, blade-like fronds in the pool. Those were moving, a lurching progress, a meter forward then a half-meter back. As the Rider rolled closer, Ravna could see its body below the waterline. There was the swelling of Greenstalk’s stem, the lower fronds. The flat platform of the skrode was … not gone, but hidden. No wonder Tycoon’s employees had not seen the machinery. Now Ravna saw smooth composite surfaces where Greenstalk’s current efforts were cracking away the coral that had grown upon her during years of sitting alone by her little atoll.

Even before Greenstalk got to the edge of the pool, her fronds had slipped across Ravna’s arms, seeing and touching all in one motion. “I have been dreaming long,” buzzing obliterated a word or two as the voder glitched, “and now I’m not where I started. I always wondered what became of you.” More buzzing. “I’ve had so many children, and now children’s children. I’m sorry, Ravna. One thing I do remember is your kindness and my promise about limiting myself. I’m sorry.”

Ravna smiled. “I remember the promise too. But here you’ve been invited. By friends.” She waved at Tycoon standing all around her. “And your children have been protected and lived in greater numbers than you might ever expect.” Ravna looked at Tycoon. “Isn’t that so, sir?”

Tycoon was all crouched down, every eye on this magical, mobile apparition. It was the first time he’d seemed intimidated. Two of him looked up at her. “I’m sorry, what’s the question again?”

“I said that you are a friend, that you’ve invited Greenstalk and her children to live here in their numbers. Isn’t that correct?”

“I, hmm, never thought of it that way. But then I never thought that this, hmm…”

“Greenstalk,” Ravna supplied.

“—that Greenstalk was a person to talk to.” His gaze was equally split between Ravna and Greenstalk. Finally he boomed out with, “Of course! You state the obvious. I am Greenstalk’s friend. I’m delighted she is here, doing as she is doing.”