The Children of the Sky

“Yeah, yeah, I know Johanna has beaten herself up about that. But the DSG was only the beginning.” And then Ravna found herself letting go about the problems that had been weighing her down. It felt so good, and after a few minutes she realized this wasn’t just because it gave her a chance to say what she had said to no one previously. In fact, Nevil actually had intelligent questions, and insights that came close to being workable advice. He understood instantly why Woodcarver was so upset about the converting the cargo bay into a meeting place.

“The New Meeting Place is the best thing that has happened in years, Ravna. But I can see what you’re saying. The effect on Woodcarver is a negative, but that just makes it that much more important—not to retreat on the New Meeting Place—but to make it something that Woodcarver wants to buy into.”

It was the sort of thing that Ravna had thought, but hearing him say the words was heartwarming. She caught a glimpse of his face as he finished the sentence. Nevil Storherte had always had a kind of brash diffidence, and now she realized what that contradiction amounted to. Nevil Storherte had charisma. Even untrained and unplanned, it fairly oozed from him.

“Your mother was the chief administrator at the High Lab, wasn’t she?”

“Actually, it was my dad. Mom was the vice chief, or chief of vice when she was feeling mischievous.”

Ravna had her low opinion of the Straumers’ High Lab. At best it was good intentions gone cosmically wrong. But the Lab had been the pinnacle of the Straumer civilization. It had been mind-boggling hubris, but it had also enlisted the best and the brightest of their entire civilization. Very likely there had been other heroes besides the parents of Johanna and Jefri. “Your Dad must have been a management superstar.” A more talented leader than anyone on this poor world.

Nevil gave an embarrassed laugh. “If you go by the selection process, he was. I remember how it dragged on through most of my grade school years, all the hoops my folks had to jump through. But Dad said it didn’t matter, that there were so many geniuses at the Lab that ‘administration’ was more like herding cats.… You know? You had cats at Sjandra Kei, didn’t you?”

Ravna smiled in the darkness. “Oh, yes. Cats go back a lot farther than Sjandra Kei.”

Nevil Storherte might have only childhood recollections to go by, but he’d grown up among real leaders. And obviously, he had the magic touch himself. And stupid me, all self-pitying, ignoring resources that were here all the time. She took a deep breath and launched into something more than the shallow confidences of a minute before: “You know, Nevil, the most important thing in the world—maybe in this part of the Galaxy—is our raising a civilization here in time to face the Blighter fleet.”

“I agree.”

“But the DSG thing has made me realize how much our long-term goal distracted me from what’s happening in the here and now. I fear I’ve screwed up so badly that we may lose the main game before it ever begins.”

Silence, but then in a moment of pale light she saw that it was a thoughtful, attentive silence, and she continued: “Nevil, I’m trying to correct my mistakes, but what I’ve tried so far has had unhappy side-effects.”

“Woodcarver’s reaction to the New Meeting Place?”

“That’s just one.”

“Maybe I can help on that. I don’t have a private channel to Woodcarver, but Johanna certainly does. And I’ll bet my friends can think of changes to the New Meeting Place that will convince Woodcarver that it honors the whole of the Domain.”

“Yes! That would be great.” Thank you. “Let me fly the other changes by you. Most are a lot scarier to me than the New Meeting Place seemed.” Maybe you can show me which is dead wrong and which can somehow be made to work. One by one she described her ideas for reforms, and for every one Nevil’s reaction was like warm sunlight, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not, but always illuminating.

About instituting formal democracy: Nevil was in favor. “Yes, that’s something we must do, and fairly soon now that so many of us are adults. But I think it’s something that has to grow up naturally, not imposed from above.”

“But the only traditions the Children—I mean you all—have experienced are embedded in heavy automation and large marketplaces. How can the idea come from within?”

Nevil chuckled. “Yeah, lots of nonsense can emerge too. But … I trust my classmates. They have good hearts. I’ll talk this around. Maybe we can use the New Meeting Place to model how things were handled in the most successful of the Slow Zone democracies. And figure out how to do it without offending Woodcarver!”