The Children of the Sky

Powers. With the most primitive technology, Tycoon had achieved a visual effect that would have done credit to a designer in the Low Beyond. This guy is a megalomaniac, but he has an imagination to match.

Tycoon’s bowpoint audience chamber extended almost ten meters from port to starboard. Its ceiling followed the dirigible’s hull, curving upward so that parts of it were high enough for a human to stand upright. No portholes of dirty glass here. Tycoon hadn’t yet plagiarized the making of large sheets of clean glass, but he’d used the very best of his tiny portholes. Hundreds of them. The glass was fitted in a fine metallic mesh that surrounded the bow side of the room. Not surprisingly, Tycoon was perched on thrones, giving him the best view. Two of him might be looking in her direction. The rest were looking outward, into daylight so bright that they were just stark silhouettes.

She was distracted from awe by Jefri’s unhappy swearing. Jef was halfway up the stairs, fully wound around the first turn, and just a little too big to get through.

She reached down, grabbed both Jefri’s hands, and braced her feet on the far side of the stairwell. She pulled and Jefri pushed, rocking him upwards a centimeter at a time. With the sound of snapping metal, Jefri was freed. He sprawled onto the upper deck’s carpet and rolled into a sitting position.

Someone spoke, with Vendacious’ voice. “Is that the big human tearing up your stairs? When I told you these humans would wreck whatever they touch, I didn’t expect such literal proof.”

Someone else gobbled something dismissive. Ravna looked around. Ah, there was Zek, on a separate perch, draped in his radio cloak. So there were others listening in, offering advice. Was there anyone else physically present? Behind her, she noticed a head or two of the gunpack, sticking up from the stairwell. Wait. There was one more, not a pack or a Radio Cloak member: It was Ritl. The singleton was sitting in the sunlight, on the bow side of Tycoon’s thrones. There was something self-satisfied about her; she had gotten away with something.

Ravna gestured at the singleton. “I thought you were leaving Ritl back in the Tropics?” she said to Tycoon.

Tycoon made an irritated noise. “Yes. The creature popped out of a storage cabinet last night. Remasritlfeer was an excellent employee, but perhaps I’m honoring his memory too much.” He gave his employee’s remnant a speculative glare. Ritl wriggled insouciantly on her velvet perch and let loose with chords that sounded sassy even to Ravna.

Tycoon ignored the comments. He waved grandly ahead. “We’re approaching the Domain.”

From where she was sitting, all Ravna could see was sky. She came to her knees, and looked down over the edge of the bow windows. She saw painfully bright snow, patches of shade and dark stone. The glaciers and peaks of the Icefang Mountains spread out before them. She remembered the maps, Amdi planning their final run over these mountains. The valley below led to one of the Domain’s southern border posts.

“I see you still have some hills to climb,” said Jefri.

Vendacious said via Zek: “Enjoy the delay, humans. Nevil will take you soon enough.”

Tycoon said something peremptory, and then in Samnorsk: “I will decide that, not Nevil.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Vendacious. “Of course, Nevil has no authority in this.”

Some of the eight were looking at Jefri. Even against the glare of the day, you could see that it was not a friendly stare. “We’ll get over these mountains by tomorrow at latest. The winds can change much faster than the tides.”

The great Tycoon was silent for a moment. All eight of him resumed their contemplation of the gleaming snowfields and jagged black rock. Knowing Tycoon, this was an heroic pose, mainly for their benefit. Maybe Ritl thought so, too: She emitted some belittling remark. Tycoon laughed and shrugged it off.

From way aft, the muffled buzz of the engines came slightly louder. Tycoon’s flight crew—presumably in the airship’s control gondola—was changing direction again. Ravna wondered what starting a day late would do to Tycoon’s plans and Nevil’s. And I wonder how often his crews have been over these mountains? It hadn’t happened before she was kidnapped; Oobii would have spotted the intruders instantly.

Partway through the long, slow turn, the deck dropped from beneath Ravna, then bounced back, knocking her across the deck. Jefri grabbed her under the shoulders, and they managed to ride out about thirty seconds of turbulence.

The Tines had it easier. They didn’t use tiedowns here, but those perches had rows of wooden bars, and every paw she could see had its claws securely wrapped around a grab hold.

Tycoon gobbled something at Zek.

Jefri translated: “He’s talking to Vendacious about the turbulence.”