The Children of the Sky

by VernorVinge

  “My boss’s brilliant plan?” Remasritlfeer kept all doubt and sarcasm out of his voice. “Tell me, Chitiratifor, do you realize where we are?”

  Chitiratifor emitted a hiss. “We’re stuck just above the heart of the packs-be-damned largest Choir in the world!”

  “Precisely. No explorer has ever come so close. Tycoon’s fleet is anchored two thousand feet offshore. That is the closest of all explorations. Over the ages, who knows how many explorers have attempted to reach the heart of the Tropics from the North, either on foot or sailing the River Fell. There’s pestilence and strange beasties on that approach—but those are survivable. I’ve survived them. And yet the explorers who go further south all disappear, or return in pieces, near mindless but for the stories that have made the Tropics legend. And now, you and I are here, just a thousand feet from the center of it all.”

  “Your point being?” Chitiratifor tried to make the question sound lofty and impatient, but there was a quaver in his words. Maybe the guy had finally gotten a good view of the creatures below, the unceasing roil of the mob around the clearing. Given the heat, it was no surprise that the creatures wore only random trinkets and splotches of paint. But clothing aside, most of them could never be mistaken for Northern Tines. Tropicals’ pelts were thin. Many had puffs of fur near their paws but were almost hairless on their sides and bellies. There were so many Tines that even up here you could hear some mindsound. That vast chorus was truly the most unnerving thing about this place, and probably what had put Chitiratifor into his near-panic.

  Now most of Remasritlfeer’s gaze was on the trade basket below. By protocol, the three Tines should not touch it until the rope went slack, but he was taking things slow and easy. He interrupted their descent and took a very careful look with two of his heads gazing down from opposite sides of the gondola. It looked like the basket was twenty feet up. It was time for touchdown. And then…Remasritlfeer had no idea what would happen then.

  “My point?…Um, can you imagine what it would be like to be down on the ground here?”

  “Madness,” said Chitiratifor, and it was hard to tell if that was his answer, or his reaction to the question. Then: “A coherent pack down there, surrounded by the unending millions of the Choir? The mind would disintegrate in seconds. It would be like a lump of coal tossed into a vat of molten iron.”

  “Yes, that’s what it would be like if you or I were dropped into the Choir, but look: The result of our previous trading is that we have a clear space down below. There are just three Tines in that space, the rope handlers. The nearest parts of the mob are almost thirty feet away. The situation would be uncomfortable and you’d have to keep an absolute grip on your mind, but a pack could survive down there.”

  Chitiratifor emitted a dismissive tone that warbled into the sound of fear. “I can hear the pressure all around. That open space is a tiny bubble of sanity in the middle of hell. The Choir doesn’t tolerate foreign elements. If you were on the ground, that precious open space would disappear in an instant.”

  “But no one really knows, right? If Tycoon can get packs safely on the ground, this tedious trading process might be speeded up.”

  “Oh. But that’s a theory you could easily test. Just drop a pack”—Chitiratifor hesitated, choosing his words with care—“just find a condemned criminal, give it the offer of freedom if only it will descend to this clearing and have a chat with the delightful Tines we see below.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any condemned prisoners to help us out. Tycoon thinks that these talking cuttlefish might be the next best thing…” The reasoning sounded very thin even to Remasritlfeer. That was Tycoon for you: he had lots of ideas, but most of them were absurd. The only people the Tycoon had convinced in this case were the cuttlefish themselves, who seemed endlessly eager to talk to new strangers. You had to wonder how creatures like that survived in the world; tasting bad was surely not a sufficient defense.

  Chitiratifor forced a chuckle. “This is the brilliant solution Tycoon has been hinting at? And you’ll honestly report what happens?”

  Remasritlfeer ignored the patronizing tone. “Of course,” he said.

  “Well then, let’s land these fish!” Chitiratifor honked laughter.

  Okay, little friends. I wish you well. From a thousand feet up, the last few feet were always tricky, but Remasritlfeer had had plenty of practice. The little guys would come to no harm from the Choir’s mindsound; the cuttlefish minds were as silent as the dead. The real question was how the Choir would react to the presence of non-Choir talkers. The parts of him that were watching the edge of the open space could see a strange kind of tension spreading out through the mob. Remasritlfeer had seen this sort of thing before. The Choir was not a coherent mind, and yet small parts of it clearly thought to one another, and those mindsounds percolated for hundreds of feet, creating patterns of attention that were wider than he had ever seen except in sentry lines.

  “The Choir’s mindsound,” came Chitiratifor’s voice, filled with overtones of awe. “It’s getting louder!” Chitiratifor was shifting around on the passenger platform, beside himself with fear. He was causing the entire gondola to bounce and sway.

  Remasritlfeer hissed, “Get ahold of yourselves, fellow!” But in fact, the mindsound of the Choir did seem louder, a mix of lust and rage and pleasure and intense interest, a rising madness. If all those Tines below could think together…well then maybe they could focus this high. And destroy them even aboard the Sea Breeze. Then he realized that although the mindsounds were louder and more unified, something else had changed. Almost all low-frequency sounds had ceased. Gone were the moaning and fragments of Interpack language that had been a ceaseless churn from the mob. It was so quiet in the low sounds that he could hear the sigh of the River Fell as it swept past the mudbanks and grass trees of the delta.

  Even the cuttlefish—both here in the kettle and down below in the trade basket—had ceased their tinkling chatter. It was as if the entire world had taken a moment to watch and see what would happen.

  Remasritlfeer’s wide-spaced eyes told him that the trade basket must be on the ground. At the same time, the cord he’d been paying out went slack in his jaws. Yes, touchdown!

  Now as clear as tiny bells, he could hear the cuttlefish chattering at the three Tines who stood by the landing spot. They were saying exactly the sales pitch that Tycoon had worked out for them, exactly what Remasritlfeer himself would have said if he had the courage to land in the middle of this hell (though Remasritlfeer would have spoken with a single voice rather than the dozen spouting from the little cuttlefish).

  The three Tines by the basket didn’t immediately react. The eerie, low-sound silence continued a moment more. Then there came a spike of mindsound that near froze Remasritlfeer’s hearts, anger so loud it seemed to come from his own mind. From all directions, the myriad Tines broke the fragile protocol Remasritlfeer had worked so long to construct, rushing inwards upon the trade basket.

  The lash of anger numbed Remasritlfeer’s mind, but he saw and remembered what happened next: The mob surged in like some monstrous wave, five and ten Tines deep. They came in from all directions, the open space vanishing in less than two seconds. Somewhere under the mob was the trade basket. Myriad voices screamed. The frenzy lasted almost a minute, so that for a time the attackers were piling up on themselves. Finally the mob retreated, leaving something like the agreed-upon open space. By some miracle, the Sea Breeze’s tiedown line remained in place, but the trade basket was reduced to splinters.

  “What happened? Where are they now? What happened?” came the voices of the rest of the cuttlefish in their bannerwood kettle.

  “I…I’m sorry, guys.” The trading space was almost restored, those who remained in the space were limping back toward their fellows. He could see no signs of cuttlefish in the churned-up mud.

  Chitiratifor gave out a satisfied laugh. “An excellent test. It’s exactly as I predicted. Okay, fellow. It’s time to drop
the tiedown line and get ourselves back to sanity.”

  —————

  Four hours later, Remasritlfeer, the surviving cuttlefish, and Chitiratifor were safely back on Tycoon’s steamship. Three of those hours had been spent fighting through the worst afternoon storm Remasritlfeer had seen so far. Even now, the wind was lashing across the deck of the Pack of Packs, making the balloon recovery job almost impossible. Hell, the landing crew had better cut it loose before the lightning finally set its remaining lift gas afire.

  Remasritlfeer had his heads down, pushing the bannerwood kettle across the deck toward shelter. The rain had long ago soaked him; it was amazing he could think at all.

  The cuttlefish were still complaining: “Why-why-why didn’t you let us try again? again?”

  “You shut up!” Remasritlfeer hissed back. Multiple tries had been part of Tycoon’s orders. Before the storm came up, at least four of Remasritlfeer would have sacrificed the rest of these suicidal maniacs; the fifth of him had some weird maternal sympathy for the cuttlefish. Between that and the storm and Chitiratifor, they had not done quite all Tycoon planned. Leaving early had probably saved all their lives.

  He tied down the kettle and sprinkled the water with fish food. Behind him, he could see most of Chitiratifor clustered at the railing, barfing into the sea. Far beyond the railing the swamplands of the coast were a dark shadow behind the rain. These last few tendays, Remasritlfeer had accomplished more than any explorer in the history of the Tropics, but now he knew he would never stand on the ground there. No pack would, not and live to tell the tale.

  Remasritlfeer shook himself. Now to get cleaned up, dried off. There remained the toughest job of the day—to convince Tycoon that no matter how big the market, no matter how great the desire, there were some dreams that were just not going to come true.

  Ten years after the

  Battle on Starship Hill

  CHAPTER 05

  Woodcarver’s Domain stretched along the continent’s northwest coast. The Domain’s northern part, the lands around Starship Hill, had been taken in the conquest of Flenser’s empire. That was two hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle. Tines World was a mellow and beautiful place, very much what Old Earth had been for humankind’s first civilization. Of course “mellow and beautiful” were relative terms. The arctic winters, even on the coast with its warming ocean stream, were frightful things. The islands were lost in the ice, the snow piled deep, and night was unending, usually so stormy that you couldn’t even see the stars.

  The summers, however…Ravna Bergsndot had not imagined there could be such contrast in a natural place. The snow mostly went away, or hid in the higher hills and the glaciers above them. This year there had been plenty of spring rain, and bright green spread across the forests and heather and farmers’ fields, across all the world below the tree line. And today, today was beautiful beyond that. The rains had ended, and the sky was clean, with only a few chunky white clouds hanging beyond the seaward islands. Here, on a clear day in summer, the sun was above the horizon for the dayaround. At noon, it climbed almost halfway up the sky and the rest of the day was like an endless afternoon.

  It was warm! It was even hot!

  More by luck than anything else, Ravna and Johanna chose this day for a visit to the markets on the South End of Hidden Island. They’d taken the funicular down from Starship Hill and then the ferry across the fifteen-hundred-meter inner channel that separated Flenser’s old capital from the mainland. Now they were walking down wide, cobbled streets, just enjoying the sun and the light and the warmth.

  Most of the town packs had taken off their jackets and leggings. A work gang of three packs was in a line along one side of the street, digging up the gutter drainage. On a task as simple as ditch digging, the three packs could work with a kind of superpack coordination, the dirt being hoisted from ground to shovel, into buckets and then away, in perfect synchrony.

  These weren’t the slaves of the time of Flenser and Steel. When Ravna and Johanna came strolling along, the super-pack seemed to notice and for a moment resumed its three coherent identities, shouting greetings with human voices. Ravna recognized the one in the middle as Flenser-Tyrathect’s city planner.

  Johanna chatted with the two who didn’t speak very good Samnorsk. Ravna had a few words with the city planner, learning what these repairs were all about, answering the pack’s question about the tools that had been promised for more than a year. “It’s the power supplies we’re having trouble with, of course. But you’ll see them in time to help with the snow.”

  And then the two humans continued on, toward Hidden Island’s very own high street. “Johanna, I think this may be the most beautiful day we’ve ever had.” Beyond low roof lines, the inland hills stood tall. The New Castle on Starship Hill might have been something out of a fairy tale, and downslope from the castle, the hull of Oobii sparkled greenfly bright.

  The younger woman was smiling. “It’s a winner, all right.”

  Packs walked past them in both directions, avoiding each other as much as they could. Wagons and kherhog traffic were banned in this part of town, leaving just enough room for the packs. There were even a few humans up ahead, the oldest of the refugee children, now adults and working in local businesses. For a moment, Ravna could almost imagine…“It’s almost like something back in civilization.”

  Johanna was still smiling, but now her look was puzzled. “The High Lab was nothing like this.” From what Ravna knew, the High Lab had been a grid of barracks on the airless planet of a red dwarf star. “And before that,” Johanna continued, “well, we were mostly on Straum. That was cities and parks. This? I’m more used to it now than anywhere else, but how does it remind you of civilization?”

  Ravna had her own opinion of Straumer civilization; she’d had ten years of practice in keeping that opinion to herself. So all she said was, “Some are little things, some are big. There are both humans and aliens here; outside of civilization, that can rarely happen. The streets are clean and quaintly wide. I know the packs need the extra space, but…this place looks almost like some historical city park on a multi-settled world. I can pretend the technology is just hidden away, perhaps in those little shops we’re visiting today. This could be at Sjandra Kei, kind of a happy tourist trap.”

  “Well, that’s fine then, because I’ve come to shop for a birthday present!”

  Ravna nodded. “Then we have a constructive purpose for this trip.” The Children took their “birthday” parties seriously. However arguable the calendar dates, birthdays gave them a bridge to their past. She hesitated. “So whose birthday are we talking about?”

  “Who do you think?” There was something about Jo’s look that made the answer obvious.

  “Nevil?”

  “Yup. He’s out of town today, checking out trade prospects on the East Streamsdell. Nevil has such a wonderful way with humans; I know he’d like to be just as good with Tines. In any case, we can get him a present without his ever knowing.”

  Ravna laughed. She had been so patient with these two, but Jo was twenty-four, and Nevil would be twenty-six as of this birthday. They were the most perfect couple she could imagine among the older Children. “So, what are you thinking to get him?”

  “Something princely and charming, of course.” Actually Johanna had several ideas. It turned out she had been down here more often than Ravna, and she’d quizzed both Woodcarver and Pilgrim about the things that might be available from far parts of the world. Hidden Island was not the imperial capital the Old Flenser had planned, but it had come to be the heart of Woodcarver’s Domain—and this side of the Long Lakes, it was the place to go for exotica.

  So the two of them visited one after another of the high street shops, as well as the summer markets that occupied the cobblestone plazas. Johanna had a list, not just from Woodcarver and Pilgrim, but also from her friends Rejna and Giske—themselves already married—and partly from Nevil himself. Johanna bought some mosaic f
abric that showed landscapes that could be separately viewed by each of the wearer’s members.

  “This is not really very human,” said Ravna.

  “Ah, but Nevil might like the pointillist staining. It reminds me of Ur-digital.”

  In another shop, they looked at semiprecious gems set in statuary of gold and brass. Ravna was technically royalty, but there were no free gifts, nor even requests to be “officially sponsored” by the co-Queen of the Domain. For a medieval ruler, Woodcarver was something of an economic innovator.

  “You could have something made special, maybe out of the mosaic cloth.”

  “Yeah!” said Johanna. They turned down Wee Alley. At the back was Larsndot, Needles & Co. The store was a two-story affair, now extended out on tent poles into the street. Wenda Larsndot Jr. was on her knees, pinning velvet around a customer’s new puppies.

  “Hei, Johanna! Hei, Ravna!” The seven-year-old was full of cheer, but she didn’t get up. “Can’t talk now. The slavedrivers are riding me hard.” Then she chirped something at her customer, some kind of reassurance.

  “But you’ll be at school tomorrow, right?” said Ravna.

  The little girl—oldest of all the second generation—rolled her eyes. “Yup, yup. This is my day off. I like tailoring better’n multiplication. Dad’s over there. Mummy’s in back.” Those would be Ben and Wenda Larsndot, Junior’s chief “slavedrivers.”

  Ben was even busier than Junior. The place was so crowded that—for packs—it must be mind-numbingly noisy. Was it beautiful days like this that brought on a buying frenzy?

  They gave Ben a wave and walked through the tent toward the back. Larsndot, Needles & Co. had Tinish employees. In fact, “Needles” was a mostly young sixsome who had been the original owner. Needles had done quite well by the partnership, for tailoring was one of the “problematical professions.” If standing close to another pack is mind-numbing, then there are only a few things that packs could easily do at such close quarters—chiefly, make war, make love, or just generally blank out. Humans were ideal for close-up work. Each human was as smart as a pack, and each could work mindfully even right next to the customer. It was the perfect combination—though Ravna was afraid the Larsndots had gone too far. Fitting in, being needed by the locals, that was terribly important. At the same time, the humans should be building a tech civilization, not measuring cloth to fit.