The Children of the Sky (11 page)

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 fabric 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.

Today there was far more business than the humans could help with. The company’s three Tinish tailors sat on thickly padded platforms. On the floor, each of the customers had a single tailor member doing its best with fitting. To human eyes, the process was comical. The isolated members were decked out in flamboyant uniforms studded with big-handled needles, and tailor’s measuring tapes looped from spools on their collars. They were not quite mindless—the rest of their packs were up on the pallets, peeking down, trying to maintain contact without numbing the customers. The groundside members had a lot of practice and significant guidance from above—but physically they were not much more adept than dogs. The lips at the tip of their jaws could squeeze like a pair of weak fingers. Their paws and claws were what you’d expect of dumb animals, though the creatures often wore tools or metal claws—hence the human name for the race: Tines.

These tailors had plenty of experience. Their groundside parts could pull measuring tape from their shoulder spools, could pass it to the customer. With spoken directions from the tailor above, the customer—if not too befuddled by having a foreign snout in its midst—could hold tape properly while the tailor marked the measurement. In other circumstances the customer held the draped fabric and the tailor’s groundside member grabbed a pinhandle in its jaws and carefully inserted it.

Ravna and Johanna passed through an older section of the building that had
not
been built with humans in mind. They bent low to clear the ceiling and walked awkwardly down a short hallway toward the sewing room. Indoors, in a Tinish building, the whiff of packs was overpowering. Ravna had dealt with many races in the High Beyond—but with good air control. Here there were no such amenities.

She heard Wenda Sr.’s laughter right ahead. Wenda Sr. handled most of the business management, except for the accounting. Like most of the refugees, she was no good at manual arithmetic.

“Hei Johanna! Ravna!” Wenda was standing by one of the sewing tables. Those were lined up below high windows of smoky glass. Sunlight fell on the work tables. Larsndot, Needles & Co. had three seamsters; right now all were busy. Wenda moved back and forth, adjusting the measures, rolling in additional bolts of cloth, some of it the precious
Oobii
weave, the last functional output of the starship’s reality graphics display.

Wenda’s younger child, Sika, was sitting on the table beside her, evidently “helping to supervise.”

“Hei Wenda! I’m looking for advice.” Johanna laid the mosaic cloth down on a display table. “I want to get something for Nevil. His birthday, you know. Would this look too silly on a human?”

“Sika, you stay put, okay?” said Wenda, Sr. For a wonder, the three-year-old did as requested. Whatever the Tinish seamster was doing fascinated her.

Wenda came over to their table, turning sideways to fit between the heavy wooden stools. She nodded respectfully at Ravna, then lifted Johanna’s fabric sample, turning it in the sunlight. “Ah, this is the real Down Coast stuff, isn’t it, Johanna?”

The two woman chattered about the fabric. Wenda had been sixteen when the kids escaped from the High Lab, and one of the first to be wakened. That made her as old as any of the refugees, as old as Nevil Storherte. She was twenty-six. Her face and her voice were happy, but there was gray in her hair, the beginnings of age in her face. Ravna had read human histories obsessively since their exile began. In a state of nature, untreated humans began to decline almost immediately upon reaching adulthood. Wenda had never complained, but more than most—certainly more than the boys her age—she bore the burden of living Down Here. And yet she was luckier than some. She was old enough that, before the escape, she had almost completed the usual prolongevity treatments. Most of her cohort would last a couple of centuries.

The youngest kids—and certainly the new generation—had not even begun their medical treatments before the escape. They would age quickly, probably not live more than a century.
They might not even last long enough for the new technologies to save them.
In that case, a return to coldsleep might be their only hope.

One of the seamsters came around the table. Four of it scrambled up on the stools, leaned over to look at the fabric from all directions. The pack was a mostly old fivesome. He understood some Samnorsk, but spoke in careful Interpack. The chords were largely unintelligible to Ravna, but she could tell the fellow was pleased to be chatting with Johanna. This guy was a veteran of Woodcarver’s long march up the coast and the Battle on Starship Hill. Johanna had more Tinish friends than anyone Ravna knew, and among many she was a paramount hero. Maybe that was why Woodcarver had forgiven Jo for running amok back in Year Two.

In the end, Johanna and Wenda and the Tinish seamster came up with a bizarro cape and pants scheme that Wenda claimed would please both fashion and Nevil. It was the best evidence Ravna had ever seen for the absence of a universal esthetic.

“… and I’ll bring you those buckles,” said Johanna.

“Fine, fine,” Wenda was nodding. “Most important, what I need right away, are Nevil’s fitting measurements.”

“Right, I’ll get them. But remember, this is a surprise. He knows there’ll be a party, but—”

“Hah. Taking a tape measure to him will likely make him guess.”

“I’ve got my ways!”

And that got both Wenda and Johanna laughing.

Back on the street, Johanna was still laughing. “Honest, Ravna, no double meaning.” But when she stopped laughing, she was grinning like a loon.

The afternoon went on forever, the shadows turning and turning without ever lengthening into sunset. They stopped by a couple of silversmiths, but what Johanna wanted might have to be done one-off. Now they were at the north end of the high street. The warren of merchant tents was still as crowded as packs could tolerate, not more than a few meters separating one from another.

“Seems like more foreigners than ever,” commented Ravna. It was partly a question. She could recognize East Home packs by their funny redjackets. Others were distinguished by their scattered posture or their scandalous flirtation. Getting all the details explained was just another reason why she liked to go on these walk-arounds with Johanna Olsndot.

Today Johanna wasn’t quite the perfect tour guide: “I … yeah, I guess you’re right.” She looked around into the tented chaos. “I wasn’t paying proper attention.” She saw the smile on Ravna’s face. “What?”

“You know, today you only stopped to chat with every fourth pack that we came across.”

“Oh, I don’t know everybody—wait, you mean I really haven’t been up to my usual social standard? Well, huh.” They walked on a few paces, out of the tented area. When Johanna looked at her again, the girl’s smile was still there but perhaps it contained a touch of wonder. “You’re right, I haven’t been feeling the same lately. It’s strange. Our lives I mean. Things were so tough for so long.”

When Ravna Bergsndot was feeling most sorry for herself, she tried to imagine what life had been like for Johanna and her little brother. Like all the Children, these two were orphans, but their parents had made it all the way to the ground here. Johanna had witnessed their murder, and then the murder of half her classmates. At just thirteen Johanna had spent a year in this wilderness, often befriended, sometimes betrayed. But she and her little brother had still guided the
Oobii
through the battle on Starship Hill.

Some of the Children had accepted all this too readily, forgetting civilization. Some others couldn’t make any accommodation with their fall from heaven. It was the ones like Jo that gave Ravna faith that—given time—they might survive the fate coming down upon them all.

They had left the merchants behind, were walking toward the part of town where in recent years public houses had been established. Johanna didn’t seem to notice; she was still far away, smiling that small wondering smile. “Things were tough, and then we unmasked Vendacious and won against Lord Steel. And since then…” surprise rose in her voice “… why, now I’m generally having a great time. There’s so much to do, with the Fragmentarium, with the Children’s Academy, and—”

“You’re wrapped up in making the new world,” said Ravna.

“I know. But now things are even better. Ever since I started dating Nevil, lots of things are more fun.
Human
-type people seem much more interesting than before. Lately, Nevil and I have been even, um, closer. I want this birthday to be special for him, Ravna.”

Hah!
Ravna reached out, touched Johanna’s arm. “So when…”

Johanna laughed. “Ah, Nevil is so traditional. I really think he’s waiting for me to propose.” She looked at Ravna, and now her smile was both merry and sneaky. “Don’t you tell, Ravna, but after the birthday party, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”

“That’s wonderful! What a wedding that will be!” They stopped and just grinned at each other. “You can be sure Woodcarver will invent new ceremonies for this,” said Ravna.

“Yeah, she uses my reputation unmercifully.”

“Good for her. In fact, this means even more to us than to the Tines. You and Nevil are so popular, he with the Children, you with the Tines. Maybe—”
Maybe this is the time.

“What?”

Ravna drew Jo toward the middle of the street as they continued along their way—she didn’t want to be snooped upon by passing packs. “Well, it’s just that I am so tired of being co-Queen.”