The Children of the Sky

Here was something interesting in the “old threats” department: Oobii was still watching for any sign of the stolen radio cloaks. Those gadgets were nothing like the Beyonder commset that Pilgrim and Johanna were using, or even the voice-band radios Scrupilo built nowadays. The cloaks made an analog smear of the wearer’s mindsounds across a big swath of the radio frequency spectrum. The resultant signal was fairly short range—and essentially impossible for Oobii to translate. Hate, fear, lust—those might be recognized, but mind reading was very much not possible.

The ship had heard none of that. And yet, Oobii had detected something very like cloak noise. By correlating with the changing footprint of the aurora, Oobii guessed the source was high in the Icefangs, about seventy kilometers to the east. The signal was sporadic and at its loudest scarcely more than a suspicious correlation. If this was a radio cloak, there was only one. It was even fainter than a cloak should be at that distance, and it was being worn for only a few minutes in every day.

Ravna played with the results for some minutes. There really wasn’t enough signal to do much analysis. If she asked for more, she might get another taste of Oobii’s wishful thinking. No thank you.… But what conceivable use was one radio cloak? Without the rest of a Tinish soul wearing the others, a single cloak was the sound of one hand clapping.

She leaned back, imagining: a party of thieves sneaking out of the Domain, travelling through a steep-shouldered mountain pass. Those passes could be deadly, even in high summer. An avalanche could have killed them all. Or perhaps they’d been ambushed by ordinary bandits. One way or another, the cloaks were lost, all but one. The theory almost made sense. But this remnant cloak would need a wearer, and occasional light for power. So how about this: The cloaks were beautiful things, the solar cells as dark as velvet but with glints of gold. Maybe some primitive pack was wearing the remaining cloak as a trophy, totally ignorant of the magic it was making.

What sad irony. She made a note. She should bring up this with the Executive Council—better yet, take it to Woodcarver directly. It might get them talking again. In any case, they should send a search party to the location before winter came crashing down.

Now her countdown window said 13:25:14. She had frittered away an hour, not thinking about her speech once. I really should review it some more, maybe do another rehearsal. She had never been so nervous about talking to the kids. But in the past, it had always been one on one, to small groups; now she would be talking to them all. If she properly made the points that she and Nevil had worked so hard on, so many problems would be solved. But if I mess up …

Chapter   11

The morning was a dark and blustery thing, perhaps the last rainstorm of the year and autumn’s chill goodbye. Ravna had the bridge’s windows looking out on a panorama of the gloom, and she gave it all a kind of vague attention as she dressed. Down the hill toward the dropoff, there was a scudding fog, parting now and then for a gray-on-gray glimpse of the inner channel and Hidden Island. The rain came slanting in from the north. Ship’s sensors showed it was liquid water, not hail, but it froze as it splashed across Starship Hill, turning the streets of the New Castle’s town to ice.

She could see the Children and Tines of the Domain were coming south from Newcastle town and north along the Queen’s Road. In the westward view, she could see others emerging from the fog at the top of the funicular. Ravna paused a second, zoomed in on those muffled figures, the clumped packs that accompanied them. They must have left Hidden Island almost an hour earlier—all to make it here on time for the beginning of Ravna’s speech. In just 00:25:43.

At least they would be warm and comfortable once they got in their New Meeting Place.

The sight gave her pause. Shouldn’t I be dressed as plainly? Not like this: She looked at herself front and back. Somehow the outfit had not seemed so much like a uniform when she and Nevil had decided on the design. Even though Woodcarver wasn’t talking to her, she had relayed her desires through Nevil: The Queen intended to wear all her crowns and regalia and she expected that Ravna would show a formal aspect as well. Okay. The Children of the Sky could surely see through such material spin—but if Woodcarver didn’t buy into the New Meeting Place as a kind of thrones room then her hostility might never melt.

Ravna looked at herself for a moment more. In fact, this style had an honorable history—even if she was only person in the world who really understood. Blysse herself had worn something like this when she went out to win the support of the archeologists and software engineers.