The Children of the Sky

After a moment, the little analog radio emitted background static; no one was transmitting to it. Two of Tycoon picked up the device and a third head punched a button in the side; even the static ceased.

Tycoon set down the device and looked around the command deck. “Of course, he’s lying about Johanna.”

“Huh?” said Jefri. Vendacious gobbled similar surprise, and some kind of question.

“Yes, Vendacious. Well you might ask.” Tycoon’s stare returned to Ravna and Jefri. “You see, since we’ve had specimens, I have become a great student of human nature. In fact, understanding them is not that difficult; they are such simple creatures, with such simple motivations. While I was talking to Nevil, I was watching these two here. Both realized that Nevil is lying.” He spoke with the confidence of a real expert—or a revenge-obsessed nutcase.

“See?” He waved at Jefri. “The Johanna-brother is speechless. I have found him out yet again. And you, Ravna. Can you honestly say that Nevil was telling the truth?”

How would I know? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Nevil telling the truth. Hope and fear chased around in her head, and she was as silent as Jefri.

Vendacious was not so shy. “My lord, I would never have guessed, but it … it could be so. These next few hours, I will watch for signs of other lies.”

•  •  •

They were about ten kilometers from Starship Hill. Ravna had flown over this area often enough—both with Pilgrim, and in recent times on Scrupilo’s little airboat. Below were the merged farms of the Margrum River Valley. To the west, the edge of the sea cliffs was obvious now. Just on this side of the edge, the town houses stood along the Queen’s Road. Newcastle town sprawled to the north, climbing right up to the marble dome of the castle itself.

Tycoon’s attention was spread across several tasks, talking on the speaking tubes with his pilots, watching ahead, occasionally chatting with his advisors. Vendacious claimed to have Amdi on his ship’s command deck, and had persuaded him to cooperate in providing information. “I’ll trust the pack for nothing critical of course,” said Vendacious, “but he’s lived near Starship Hill all his life. And he knows that lying will be strictly punished.”

“I don’t know,” Tycoon replied, even as he continued to talk to his own crew via speaking tubes. “I wouldn’t trust a prisoner’s word at a moment like this.”

“Ah, but I also have agents on the ground.”

“Dekutomon?”

“He’s the most important, my lord. He’s near the landing spot and he is with the radio cloak Fyr.”

“Good! I had wondered what you did with Fyr! So Nevil can’t hear what Dekutomon is telling us?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

Tycoon gobbled something that meant oops, and made some hasty correction to what he was saying to his crew of pilots. In Samnorsk he said, “Very good, Vendacious. Now I should concentrate on this landing.” Tycoon looked mainly forward, with two of himself on the binoculars. Apparently he intended to manage the landing directly, using the speaking tubes to specify every smallest detail to the real crew. It was typical Tycoon foolishness.

Mercifully, Vendacious and the other various advisors were silent for a time. There was just Zek, every fifteen seconds or so, calling out range information in precise Samnorsk units:

“Altitude 750 meters, range to touchdown 3300 meters.”

“Altitude 735 meters, range to touchdown 3150 meters.”

“Altitude 720 meters, range to touchdown 3005 meters.”

None of Tycoon looked around, but he made an approving sound. “Very good, Vendacious! Your ranging information is making this much easier.”

Ravna had seen no evidence that Tycoon’s operation had any location technology beyond the natural sonar Tines were born with. Where were those numbers coming from?

Jefri gave her a little nudge and nodded in the direction of Zek. The singleton was looking back at them. It turned, stared for a moment at the landscape ahead—

“Altitude 705 meters, range to touchdown 2850 meters.”

Then its eyes were back on Ravna and Jefri. The creature was all but quivering with tension, as if to will them to understand something more than the numbers. What was behind those eyes? The two airships must be less than a kilometer apart, so Zek and Ut were essentially together. Dekutomon’s Fyr was probably closer than it had ever been before. That meant that Mr. Radio was at least a threesome. There were likely two others fairly close, one that had been used for long-range relay to Fyr and one at the head of the chain to the Tropics. Right now the radio pack could easily be a fully-connected fivesome, perhaps even smarter than the night it had linked them with Amdi.

Maybe such a pack couldn’t run a full Man-in-the-Middle, but all it had to do was not relay all it heard from here. If it was willing to risk its life.… She glanced at Jefri. He was as pale as he could be, stricken. He gave her a nod, understanding.