The Children of the Sky

Ravna nodded. “We can make it safer.” For the next few minutes, she had no time for chitchat. Her head-up display was synched with her position. She could see through the trees to Oobii’s topo map—and guide Øvin Verring along the safest paths. At the same time, she had windows opened on other problems. Nevil’s people were making no attempt to mess with Oobii, but there was a plume of hot air rising from the Dome of First Landing. Ravna even had video from inside the castle! Apparently Nevil had diverted all the cameras into his spying—that was why she had only low-resolution information on the bodies’ trajectories. But she could snoop all around the castle. Bili or whoever had stuffed the Lander with flammables and lit it off. Woodcarver’s firefighters had already doused the fire, and she could see that the coldsleep caskets were unharmed.

Ravna pulled her attention back to the rocks ahead of her. “Øvin, don’t go down that way.” The higher ledge was narrow, but it became a real path a few meters further into the greenery.

“Okay.”

As Ravna sidled onto the ledge after him, a little red alert flag popped up in her HUD. Behind her, Woodcarver was talking loudly with unseen packs at the top of the cliffs. She translated for Ravna: “They say something’s happening at Newcastle town.”

“Yeah.” That red alert flag. As she followed along after Øvin, she accepted the alert: It was a view of the north road out of town. The Denier Children had returned to their houses after the debacle on the Meadows. Now they were on the move again—but not back to Murder Meadows or to Oobii. The ship counted seventy Children, including Bili and Merto, but not Nevil. The older ones had knapsacks or sling bags. There were a few wagons, but most were walking—out of town, toward the northeast. “You know, I think some of them are carrying guns,” exactly the human-style weapons Ravna had pictured for Nevil.

“My troops have many more guns,” said Woodcarver. “I could stop them. Does this look like a mass kidnapping?”

Ravna watched the scene for several seconds. “… No.”

“Then I suggest we let these people go. No civil war today.”

Ravna suddenly realized that while her attention had been on the other side of Starship Hill, she had walked along a ledge that had narrowed to thirty centimeters. Woodcarver was gently pulling her back from the edge. She came to a full stop and leaned against the sheer wall of the cliff face.

“You’re almost there, Ravna. Give me your hand.” She looked up and saw Øvin. He had reached the wider path that the topo map had promised. A second later she was standing beside him. She sat down for a moment and waited until the rest of their party came up. Woodcarver settled close around her. The new puppy was barely old enough to be a constructive member. It peeped out of a puppy pannier, whereas little Sht rode on an older member’s shoulders.

The Queen must have noticed her gaze. “The new puppy? It’s to balance Sht’s paranoid nature, a very old-fashioned bit of broodkennery. It was Pilgrim’s suggestion … and his last gift to me.” Woodcarver was silent for a moment, and then she spoke publicly loud: “I hear Scrupilo’s airboat.”

Ravna nodded. She had been following his progress via Oobii. “What’s become of his airship?” she asked.

“That’s a bit of history,” said Woodcarver, rolling her heads. “Nevil’s all-human crew crashed EA2—on their very first solo flight. There were no casualties, but that put an end to long-range searching for you. Opinion is divided on whether the crash was a real accident or a Nevil accident.”

“Ah.”

Now the boat’s little electric motor was audible to human ears. It wasn’t visible through the spring leaves until it flew directly overhead. Then she had a naked-eye glimpse of it—and two of Scrupilo’s heads stuck over the gunwales, peering down. A year ago I was up there with Scrup, looking down, trying to track Nevil’s thieves—only we thought we were chasing Tropicals.

She relayed through Oobii: “Scrupilo, we’re at—” she sent her map position. “Poul Linden and the other team are on another path about fifty meters below us.” The other path was a safer walk, but it didn’t extend as far into the region where Oobii figured most of bodies had come down.

“I see Linden, but not you,” Scrupilo’s voice boomed down from the sky. He wasn’t bothering with radio.

“Okay. Do you see any sign of, of the bodies?”

Scrupilo was as grumpy blunt as ever. “The birds know. They’ve found three places to swarm. I’ve got a crappy little camera here; I’ll send Oobii pictures of what I’m seeing.” The video was already showing in Ravna’s windows.

Two of Woodcarver’s foresters came up from the ledge below, and then—Jefri wobbled along the path, staring upward and ignoring all of them. “Scrupilo!” Jef shouted. “How many bodies are we looking for?”