The Children of the Sky

“Good!” that was from both Ravna and Nevil, and very emphatic. There were things Johanna could do as a two-legs that gave the Pilgrim-Johanna team great advantages—that was Jo’s argument, anyway. Ravna was far from convinced that it justified her presence on a spy mission.

“I wish you were back here,” said Nevil.

“I’m fine, Nevil. Like I said, keeping a low profile.”

A strange sound came over the radio link, probably a chord from Pilgrim. Ravna smiled, imagining the pack and the girl hunkered down by their commset. It would be early morning on the east coast now. She wondered just where they were hiding.

Flenser-Tyrathect was shaking his heads, grinning.

“What?” Ravna said to him.

The pack gave a shrug. “Isn’t it obvious? There is no need for spies high in Scrupilo’s organization. Who stole the Oliphaunt computer? I know I could use Oliphaunt to engineer all—”

Woodcarver’s shriek would have been downright painful but for Oobii’s sound damping. Three of her leaped partway onto the table, their claws clicking on the surface. “You confess to treason, do you now?” she said.

Flenser showed lots of teeth even as he replied: “Don’t be an idiot. Ah, but I forgot, you’re already the idiot who didn’t kill Vendacious when you had the chance. You’re already the idiot who let him escape and who still blames me for stealing Oliphaunt.”

This brought another of Woodcarver onto the meeting table. There was a time when Ravna could have been the peacemaker in such confrontations. Now? Ravna fleetingly wondered if Woodcarver might take a swipe at her if she tried to intervene.

Nevil was braver, or faster, or perhaps just more foolish. As Woodcarver scrambled forward, he was already on his feet. “It’s okay, Your Majesty!” He started to extend a hand toward her, then seemed to realize he was cajoling someone who was seriously not human. “Um, this is just one of those burdens of a wise ruler.”

The stilted, medieval approach seemed to work. Woodcarver didn’t retreat, but her forward surge subsided.

“Flenser has a point,” said Johanna, sounding unperturbed, perhaps because the sounds of jaws and claws had not survived the low-quality radio transmission. “Tycoon may really be Vendacious plus Oliphaunt, but spies in Scrupilo’s labs could also explain his success.”

That satisfied all except Scrupilo: “I do not have spies in any of my labs!” But not surprisingly, he was perfectly happy to talk about technical fixes to such nonexistent espionage. Monitoring user access to Oobii was relatively easy. The problem was to correlate that with exactly what inventions were appearing elsewhere.

Nevil was looking more and more unhappy. “We have to get this nailed down. Surely there must be clues at the Tycoon end of this. You’re due to leave East Home almost immediately, aren’t you, Jo?”

“That was the plan.” There was mumbled conversation between Johanna and Pilgrim, too scattered for Oobii to clean up. “Our equipment is in good shape and we have a safe hidey-hole outside of the city. We’re good to stay a while if it will help, especially if you can feed us some clues to follow up on.”

Nevil was clearly torn. Ravna could guess how much he’d been looking forward to Johanna’s return.

“Do we have any clues to feed them?” Ravna asked.

Pilgrim said, “There’s Scrupilo’s lab logs. We could look for coincidences in detail.”

Woodcarver—now back on her seats—had a different angle. “From what Johanna and Pilgrim say, Tycoon grows steadily more powerful. If they come back now, we may have hard time getting this close again.”

“We should have a full-time gang of spies over there,” said Flenser-Tyrathect.

Woodcarver shrugged agreement. The two were almost talking to each other.

In the end, that meeting was almost the sort of Exec Council meeting they should be having these days—except that now Johanna and Pilgrim would be absent for at least another twenty days.

•  •  •

Twenty days. Johanna and Pilgrim wouldn’t be back till after Ravna’s big speech. Since that night by Pham’s grave, she had not had much chance to talk to Johanna. The younger woman had been off spying most of the time, and when she’d been back she’d been mainly with Nevil. Now Ravna would have virtually no chance to chat privately with her.

And Woodcarver seemed to be in a bigger snit than ever.