The Children of the Sky

The conversations were fragmented and one-sided. Nevil was using Oobii or the orbiter to reach individual radios—as well as sense their weak emissions. Johanna couldn’t hear Nevil except when he aimed his silly automatic message at her, but as the rafts got closer to the heart of the Domain, she was in range of the nearest of the other senders:

“Yeah, Nevil, there’s ten barges, just where you said. What?… How should I know? They look like junk to me.” That was Tami Ansndot, as argumentative as ever. “One is only halfsize, like it got split down the middle.… So why don’t you have Scrupilo fly over in that gasbag of his, and take a look?”

Scrupilo lives! Consequences, consequences …

There was a pause, probably for Nevil’s explanation of why Scrupilo couldn’t help. Johanna bit her lip, trying to imagine just what lie was being peddled, and what it covered up. If I hadn’t busted my send button, I’d give Tami a piece of my mind! It was bad enough that Tam was a Denier, but worse that she believed the rest of Nevil’s lies.

She recognized all the voices, Deniers with some forest experience. Nevil must think these rafts were important. So where was her brother’s voice?

Throughout the afternoon, Johanna continued to listen. Here and there, she picked up useful information. Her flotilla was indeed important; somehow it would reveal Woodcarver as the “obstructionist fool we’ve always suspected”—that tidbit from some idiot obviously parroting Nevil’s current propaganda. A great treaty was about to be consummated; these ten rafts would seal the bargain and show the way to the new future. Yeah, but only if they can get control of my mobs!

At one point Tami said something like, “Too bad about Jo and Ravna. If only they could be here, to see how wrong they were about everything.”

Johanna was just as glad she couldn’t hear the choked up, false grief coming back from Nevil.

“The last raft just passed my position.” This was a new voice. It sounded like Bili Yngva. No, it was his little brother. Merto probably knew all about the murders and betrayal, but he wasn’t quite as smooth as Bili or Nevil. Right now, he sounded furtive. “No. Like I told you, there’s no sign of a human on any of the boats. Why don’t you just send someone out to check on them before they land?… Yeah, yeah. Well after today, that’s all gonna change.”

Chapter   37

For the next twenty hours, Tycoon’s airship buzzed back and forth, knocking at the door of the mountain airs, hoping to finally find the winds asleep or at least flowing in the proper direction. Somewhere before dawn, Tycoon’s strategy paid off—or maybe Nevil figured out how to coordinate the orbiter’s observations with Oobii’s programs, and guided the airships to the right mountain pass at the right time.

In any case, by late the next morning both airships had made it over the top of the Icefangs and were descending. On this side of the mountains, the day was a gloom of towering clouds, clouds above and below. The chop and the buffeting was not clear air turbulence, but the violence of thundering squalls.

When the ship’s steward came for Ravna and Jefri, the light was still as dim as dawn—except for an occasional flash of lightning. The three of them, with gunpack trailing behind, made their way along the main corridor, which was swaying far more than usual.

Ravna wriggled up the spiral stairs into Tycoon’s bow chamber. Behind her, Jefri climbed up almost as easily. Apparently, Tycoon had removed some of the railings, widening the stairway just enough for him.

As usual, the view from the bow was spectacular, but there were no sun-dazzled glaciers this morning. Tycoon’s airship was scudding through the bottoms of clouds. From moment to moment there was zero visibility—then they would see forested valleys, and meadows that were impossibly green beneath deep clouds and rain.

Most of Tycoon was gazing out at the sky, as usual pretending to ignore such trivia as the arrival of his prisoners. Stretching off to port and starboard were ranked kilometer after kilometer of clouds. Lightning played between them and the ground below. Every few seconds, the bow was lit by a blinding flash, and thunder shook the grid of the windshield. Tycoon flinched, then turned a head or two back in the direction of Ravna and Jefri. “There is nothing to be alarmed about. Vendacious tells me that we’ll come out of the storm area in less than half an hour.”

Fifteen minutes of very bumpy ride followed this assurance. Tycoon and his various remote advisors exchanged occasional remarks, but it was all Interpack gobble. There were at least four packs talking through Zek. One of them was clearly Vendacious; another seemed to be the godsgift who had been on the network the day before. She heard Nevil’s name popping up now and then.