The Children of the Sky

Ravna locked down the rudders and rummaged around for the radio that Scrupilo had brought aboard. These radios were one of the stranger of Oobii’s reinventions. Of course, the device had no onboard processors; it was totally analog, indiscriminately spewing across the entire radio spectrum. No matter. The starship monitored all aspects of the space around it.

“Ship. Can you see where I am?” Ravna asked into the microphone.

“Ravna. Yes,” acknowledged a pleasant male voice, something like Pham’s voice perhaps. But there wasn’t a bit of mind behind this voice. Oobii’s automation was simply the best computation that could run in the Slow Zone. By now she was almost used to the interface, and it was the best she could do when she wasn’t wearing the data tiara.

She described the problem situation in terms the starship could work with. “And watch for radio lights near my location.”

“Watching,” Oobii replied.

“What transmissions do you see, out to, ah, four thousand meters?”

“I see a number of—”

“Ignore the North End lab.”

“—I see one, your current transmission.”

“Do you see any radio light from Ridgeline Island?”

“The radio frequency energy from Ridgeline Island appears to be normal scattering.”

“Okay,” said Ravna. “Ongoing: report on artificial radio light seen within, um”—Here she really needed a better interface. She settled for something short and crude.—“everything within ten thousand meters of the north end of Hidden Island.”

“Done and ongoing. Do you want the reports streamed now?”

Ravna thought a second. “No. Report anomalies and forwarded transmissions.” There were several radios that might legitimately be in use at this end of the Domain. They were part of the clunky forwarding operation that Oobii managed.

“Very good,” replied Oobii. “I see nothing unusual at this time.”

“You know, Your Highness, praps you should let me manage the radio interface.” Scrup was almost as clever with voice comms as Woodcarver.

“No, keep your attention on the ground.”

Scrupilo grumped around the basket. Their path had taken them in a low sweep of Ridgeline’s shore, giving his telescopes a view beneath the tall evergreens. “There’s nothing down there, no marks in the sand, and this is about the only place they could have reached land by now. The thief is either holed up on Hidden Island or he’s on the inland channel, heading for the mainland. And now we’ll never catch up! We are useless.”

Scrupilo was like that, getting all frustrated and then giving up for a while. But Ravna was just getting interested in the problem. Given both the Eyes Above and the Oobii, there were some possibilities. She chatted with Oobii. It reported a mainland-trending windstream about five hundred meters up and a few hundred meters south. They dumped a little ballast. She brought the rudders around and drove the propeller as fast as its little electric motor could go. The airboat angled upwards, Ravna steering according to directions from the starship. It was fun as long as she didn’t dwell on the fact that she was reduced to being a mere servomechanism for her starship’s very dumb automation.

They climbed their invisible staircase, turning through 180 degrees as they went. Scrupilo looked out in all directions, then concentrated his attention on the Inner Channel, between the mainland and Hidden Island. Every few seconds he’d comment on the new areas he could see. “Still no sign of … But wow, the ground speed! Milady, your maneuver is worthy of Johanna herself!” The starship reported that the Eyes Above was driving along at almost twenty meters per second. “And I can see the whole of the mainland shore. Mark my words, we’ll catch this thief!”

They drilled along, airspeed no greater than before, but the North End lab passed below them and they were already cruising southward along the Inner Channel. Oobii reported no new radio emissions. Of course, it had been a long shot that the thief would try to wear the radio cloaks. To the Tines, the devices were almost religious icons. Wear them, and you’d most likely fry your mind—but if that didn’t happen then you were transformed into a godlike pack who could stride the world with kilometers between one’s pack members! Somebody like Godsgift might be arrogant enough to wear the cloaks in the middle of trying to steal them, but that was probably not true of his minions.

She looked out at the cliffs of the mainland, the shoulders that Starship Hill rested upon. If somehow the thief got ashore, it would be hiding in the evergreens that grew in the steepness. Oobii said there would be a summer rain shower in another few hours. Under cover of that, the thief might make it to whatever rendezvous the Tropicals had planned. She looked at the froth of dying spring leaves that floated in the evergreens’ crowns. In most places, the ground was hidden. Oobii had no line of sight on these cliffs. Even so … she gave the starship another call.