Zones of Thought Trilogy

by Vernor Vinge

  “But what bearing will you take? And—”

  “What bearing? That’s the easy question, though we’ll have a couple of centuries to think it over. But look, Humankind has been staring at the stars with high technology for thousands of years. At one time or another, almost every Customer civilization has mounted arrays of hundred-meter mirrors, and undertaken all the other clever ways to snoop on things far away. We see some far enigmas. Here and there across this galaxy we see ramscoops and ancient radio transmissions.”

  “So if there were anything more, we would have seen it,” said Ezr, but he clearly knew what was coming. The arguments were ancient history.

  “Only if it’s a place we can look. But parts of the galactic core are plenty shrouded. If our supercivilization doesn’t use radio, if they have something better than ramscoops…down by the core is the one place they might have escaped our detection.” And OnOff’s eccentric orbit had at least passed through those unseen depths.

  “Okay, Pham. I agree, it all fits. But you’re talking about thirty thousand light-years to the core, almost that far to the umbral clouds.”

  Gonle: “That’s a hundred times farther than anything the Qeng Ho have tried. Without depot civilizations in between, your ramscoops will fail in less than a thousand years. We can dream of such a mission, but it’s totally beyond our ability.”

  Pham grinned at them all: “It’s totally beyond our ability now.”

  “That’s what I said! It’s always been beyond us.”

  But the light was beginning to come on in Ezr’s eyes. “Gonle, he means that it may not be beyond us in the future.”

  “Yes!” Pham leaned forward, wondering how many of them he could capture in this dream. “Do a little mind experiment. Put yourself back in the Dawn Age. Back then, for a few brief centuries, people expected things to become radically improved in the future. With Arachna, you will bring a little bit of that spirit back. Maybe you don’t believe it now. You don’t see the civilization that you are building. Ezr and Qiwi, you’re founding a Great Family that will outshine any in Qeng Ho history. Trixia and Victory and all the Spiders will be the greatest thing that ever happened to our business. And you’re just beginning to understand the contradictions of Arachna. You’re right; today, talk of ’faring toward the core is like a child wading in the surf and talking of crossing an ocean. But I’ll lay you a wager: By the next Bright Time, you’ll have the technology I need.”

  He looked at Anne beside him. She smiled back, a grin that was both happy and a little mocking. “Anne and I and those on our fleet of three intend to take down the Emergent system. If we succeed there—when we succeed—what’s left will still be a high-tech civilization. We’ll make a larger fleet, at least a fleet of twenty. And Anne will let me rename her flagship the Wild Goose. And we will return here and outfit to go…a-searching.” And would Anne really come with him then? She said she would. Would tearing down the Emergents’ tyranny lift the geas that drove her? Maybe not. Winning would leave whole worlds like the deFocus ward in Hammerfest’s Attic. Maybe she would find it impossible to leave the people she had rescued. What then? I don’t know. Once upon a time, he was very good at being alone. Now, how strangely I have changed.

  Anne’s smile was gentle now. She squeezed his hand and nodded at the pact he had just described. Pham glanced from face to face: Qiwi looked stunned. Ezr looked like someone who desperately wanted to believe, but had more than a life-full of other endeavors to distract him. As for the Spiders, their aspects ranged from Underville’s truculent “show me” to—

  Throughout his speech, Victory Lighthill had sat still and silent, even her eating hands motionless. Now she spoke, a burring warble, soft and sad and wondering, that needed Trixia to translate the words: “Daddy would have loved this plan.”

  “Yes.” Pham’s voice caught. Underhill had been a genius and a dreamer, straight out of the Dawn Age. Pham had long since read Trixia’s “videomancy diaries,” the story of Underhill’s counterlurk. The cobber had dug deep into the Emergents’ automation, sometimes so deep that the Focused Anne Reynolt had noticed the tampering and thought it evidence of human conspiracy. At the end, Underhill knew what Focus was; he knew the humans didn’t have AI or any technology enormously beyond his own. Sherkaner Underhill must have been very disappointed to learn the limits of progress.

  Beside him, Anne started to nod, hesitated. And that was when she surprised them all, herself included, but the Spiders most of all. She cocked her head, and a slow smile started across her face. “And what makes you think he didn’t survive? He had as much information as any of us—and a good bit more imagination. What makes you think this isn’t his plan, too?”

  “Anne, I’ve read the diaries. If he were alive, he’d be here.”

  She shook her head. “I wonder. Wanderdeep is something we humans aren’t built to understand, and Sherkaner thought sure that Smith was dead. But Sherkaner Underhill confounded both humans and Spiders more than once. He took Spiderness in unthought directions—he saw the deepness in the sky. I think he’s down there somewhere, and he intends to outlast all the mysteries.”

  “It could be…it could be.” The words, ultimately Trixia’s or Victory’s, Pham could not tell, were spoken in soft awe. “We don’t really know where he landed on the altiplano. If it was something he had scouted out before, he would have a chance.”

  Pham looked outward, at Arachna. The planet spread across thirty degrees, a vast, black pearl. Traceries of gold and silver gleamed all across the continent into the southern hemisphere, and across the faint luster of the eastern sea. And yet, there were still large areas of unrelieved dark, protected lands that would remain still and cold until the end of the Dark. Pham felt a sudden thrill of understanding. Yes. Somewhere down there the old Spider might still sleep, waiting for his lady lost…and beginning on his greatest Lurk of all.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE CHILDREN OF THE SKY

  Copyright © 2011 by Vernor Vinge

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by James Frenkel

  Map by Ellisa Mitchell

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Vinge, Vernor.

  The children of the sky/Vernor Vinge.-1st ed.

  p.cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 978-0-312-87562-6 (hardback)

  1. Life on other planets—Fiction. 1. Title.

  PS3572.I534C47 2011

  813'54-dc22 2011024210

  First Edition: October 2011

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Carol D. Ward and Joan D. Vinge

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful for the advice and help of:

  David Brin, John Carroll, Cyndi Chie, Howard L. Davidson, Robert Fleming, Mike Gannis, Cherie Kushner, Keith Mayers, Sara Baase Mayers, Tom Munnecke, Diana Osborn, and Mary Q. Smith.

  I am very grateful to my editor, James Frenkel, for all the time he has put into this book. Jim and Tor Books have been very patient with me in the long process of creating The Children of the Sky. (I know I said that about my last novel—but this one was about four times as much work.)

  Two years after the

  Battle on Starship Hill

  CHAPTER 00

  How do you get the attention of the richest businessperson in the world?

  Vendacious had spent all his well-remembered life sucking up to royalty. He had never dreamed he would fall so low as to need a common merchant, but here he was with his only remaining servant, try
ing to find a street address in East Home’s factory district.

  This latest street was even narrower than the one they had left. Surely the world’s richest would never come here!

  The alley had heavy doors set on either side. At the moment, all were closed, but the place must be a crowded madness at shift change. There were posters every few feet, but these were not the advertisements they had seen elsewhere. These were demands and announcements: WASH ALL PAWS BEFORE WORK, NO ADVANCE WAGES, EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS AHEAD. This last sign pointed toward a wide pair of doors at the end of the alley. It was all marvelously pompous and silly. And yet … as he walked along, Vendacious took a long look at the crenellations above him. Surely that was plaster over wood. But if it was real stone, then this was a fortified castle hidden right in the middle of East Home commercialism.

  Vendacious held back, waved at his servant to proceed. Chitiratifor advanced along the alley, singing praise for his dear master. He had not quite reached the wide doors when they swung open and a hugely numerous pack emerged. It was nine or ten and it spread across their way like a sentry line. Vendacious suppressed the urge to look up at the battlements for signs of archers.

  The huge pack looked at them stupidly for a moment, then spoke in loud and officious chords. “Employment work you want? Can you read?”

  Chitiratifor stopped singing introductory flourishes, and replied, “Of course we can read, but we’re not here for—”

  The gatekeeper pack spoke right over Chitiratifor’s words: “No matter. I have application forms here.” Two of it trotted down the steps with scraps of paper held in their jaws. “I will explain it all to you and then you sign. Tycoon pay good. Give good housing. And one day off every tenday.”

  Chitiratifor bristled. “See here, my good pack. We are not seeking employment. My lord”—he gestured respectfully at Vendacious—“has come to tell the Great Tycoon of new products and opportunities.”

  “Paw prints to suffice if you cannot write—” The other interrupted its own speech as Chitiratifor’s words finally penetrated. “Not wanting to apply for work?” It looked at them for moment, took in Chitiratifor’s flashy outfit. “Yes, you are not dressed for this doorway. I should have noticed.” It thought for a second. “You are in wrong place. Business visitors must visit to the Business Center. You go back five blocks and then onto the Concourse of the Great Tycoon. Wait. I get you a map.” The creature didn’t move, but Vendacious realized the pack was even more numerous than he had thought, extending back out of sight into the building; these Easterners tolerated the most grotesque perversions.

  Chitiratifor shuffled back in Vendacious’ direction, and the nearest of him hissed, “That’s a two-mile walk just to get to the other side of this frigging building!”

  Vendacious nodded and walked around his servant, confronting the gatekeeper directly. “We’ve come all the way from the West Coast to help Tycoon. We demand a courteous response, not petty delays!”

  The nearest members of the gatekeeper stepped back timidly. Up close, Vendacious could hear that this was no military pack. Except at dinner parties, it probably never had killed a single living thing. In fact, the creature was so naive that it didn’t really recognize the deadly anger confronting it. After a moment, it reformed its line, and said “Nevertheless, sir, I must follow my orders. Business visitors use the business entrance.”

  Chitiratifor was hissing murder; Vendacious waved him quiet. But Vendacious really didn’t want to walk around to the official entrance—and that wasn’t just a matter of convenience. He now realized that finding this entrance was a lucky accident. Woodcarver’s spies were unlikely this far from home, but the fewer people who could draw a connection between Tycoon and Vendacious, the better.

  He backed off courteously, out of the gatekeeper’s space. This entrance would be fine if he could just talk to someone with a mind. “Perhaps your orders do not apply to me.”

  The gatekeeper pondered the possibility for almost five seconds. “But I think they do apply,” it finally said.

  “Well then, while we wait for the map, perhaps you could pass on an enquiry to someone who deals with difficult problems.” There were several lures Vendacious could dangle: “Tell your supervisor that his visitors bear news about the invasion from outer space.”

  “The what from where?”

  “We have eyewitness information about the humans—” that provoked more blank looks. “Damn it, fellow, this is about the mantis monsters!”

  ─────

  Mention of the mantis monsters did not produce the gatekeeper’s supervisor; the fivesome who came out to see them was far higher in the chain of command than that! “Remasritlfeer” asked a few sharp questions and then waved for them to follow him. In a matter of minutes, they were past the gatekeeper and walking down carpeted corridors. Looking around, Vendacious had to hide his smiles. The interior design was a perfection of bad taste and mismatched wealth, proof of the foolishness of the newly rich. Their guide was a very different matter. Remasritlfeer was mostly slender, but there were scars on his snouts and flanks, and you could see the lines of hard muscle beneath his fur. His eyes were mostly pale yellow and not especially friendly.

  It was a long walk, but their guide had very little to say. Finally, the corridor ended at a member-wide door, more like the entrance to an animal den than the office of the world’s richest commoner.

  Remasritlfeer opened the door and stuck a head in. “I have the outlanders, your eminence,” he said

  A voice came from within: “That should be ‘my lord’. Today, I think ‘my lord’ sounds better.”

  “Yes, my lord.” But the four of Remasritlfeer who were still in the corridor rolled their heads in exasperation.

  “Well then, let’s not waste my time. Have them all come in. There’s plenty of room.”

  As Vendacious filed through the narrow doorway, he was looking in all directions without appearing to be especially interested. Gas mantle lamps were ranked near the ceiling. Vendacious thought he saw parts of a bodyguard on perches above that. Yes, the room was large, but it was crowded with—what? not the bejeweled knickknacks of the hallway. Here there were gears and gadgets and large tilted easels covered with half-finished drawings. The walls were bookcases rising so high that perches on ropes and pulleys were needed to reach the top shelves. One of Vendacious stood less than a yard from the nearest books. No great literature here. Most of the books were accounting ledgers. The ones further up looked like bound volumes of legal statutes.

  The unseen speaker continued, “Come forward where I can see you all! Why in hell couldn’t you use the business visitor entrance? I didn’t build that throne room for nothing.” This last was querulous muttering.

  Vendacious percolated through the jumble. Two of him came out from under a large drawing easel. The rest reached the central area a second later. He suffered a moment of confusion as Chitiratifor shuffled himself out of the way, and then he got his first glimpse of the Great Tycoon:

  The pack was an ill-assorted eightsome. Vendacious had to count him twice, since the smaller members were moving around so much. At the core were four middle-aged adults. They had no noble or martial aspect whatsoever. Two of them wore the kind of green-tinted visors affected by accountants everywhere. The other two had been turning the pages of a ledger. Pretty clearly he had been counting his money or cutting expenses, or whatever it was that businesscritters did.

  Tycoon cast irritated looks at Vendacious and Chitiratifor. “You claim to know about the mantis monsters. This better be good. I know lots about the mantises, so I advise against lies.” He pointed a snout at Vendacious, waving him closer.

  Treat him like royalty. Vendacious belly-crawled two of himself closer to Tycoon. Now he had the attention of all Tycoon’s members. The four small ones, puppies under two years old, had stopped their pell-mell orbiting of the accountancy four. Two hung back with the four, while two came within a couple feet of Vendacious. These pups
were integrated parts of Tycoon’s personality—just barely, and when they felt like it. Their mindsounds were unseemly loud. Vendacious had to force himself not to shrink back.

  After a moment or two of impolite poking, Tycoon said, “So, how would you know about the mantis monsters?”

  “I witnessed their starship Oobii descend from the sky.” Vendacious used the human name of their ship. The sounds were flat and simple, alien. “I saw its lightning weapon bring down a great empire in a single afternoon.”

  Tycoon was nodding. Most East Coast packs took this version of Woodcarver’s victory to be a fantasy. Evidently, Tycoon was not one of those. “You’re saying nothing new here, fellow—though few packs know the name of the flying ship.”

  “I know far more than that, my lord. I speak the mantis language. I know their secrets and their plans.” And he had one of their datasets in his right third pannier, though he had no intention of revealing that advantage.

  “Oh really?” Tycoon’s smile was sharp and incredulous, even unto his puppies. “Who then are you?”

  An honest answer to that question had to come sooner or later, fatal though it might be. “My lord, my name is Vendacious. I was—”

  Tycoon’s heads jerked up. “Remasritlfeer!”

  “My lord!” The deadly little fivesome was clustered around the only exit.

  “Cancel my appointments. No more visitors today, of any sort. Have Saliminophon take care of the shift change.”

  “Yes, my lord!”

  Tycoon’s older four set their ledger aside and all of him looked at Vendacious. “Be assured that this claim will be verified, sir. Discreetly but definitively verified.” But you could see Tycoon’s enthusiasm, the will to believe; for now, the puppies were in control. “You were Woodcarver’s spymaster, convicted of treason.”