The Children of the Sky (46 page)

Amdi was nodding,
yes, yes, yes
.

Jefri wasn’t finished: “And now, I’ll do whatever it takes to get you safely back to the Domain, and to … deal with … Nevil. But when that is done”—his gaze was defiant and desperate all at once—“there are still the Greater Threats, and I’m afraid they’ll leave us as absolute enemies.”

Oh, Powers.
These last ten years, Ravna had imagined the future as a long climb to a faraway confrontation. What deadly foothills stood in the way of that! “Okay, Jefri. One step at a time. Don’t worry about being enemies someday.”

Blessed Amdi. He brightened instantly. “Yes! Let the future take care of itself.” He bounced to his feet and flowed around Jefri to sit in snuggly closeness with both humans. Clouds of gnats followed him along. The bugs really did like Tines more than humans. “We have serious problems in the here and now.”

Ravna leaned forward, counting noses. “Where’s the rest of you, Amdi?”

“Oh! I’m strung out into bushes that way,”—he jabbed a nose—“making sure that Screwfloss is okay. He won’t let me come close, but I can hear him splashing around. If he has a problem, we can come running. Meantime, we’ve got to decide what to do next.” He wriggled against her and patted her hand. “We should take inventory…”

Amdi was right. Thinking about the problems of the next day and tenday was almost a comfort. They might be caught, they might be killed, but at least they weren’t busy betraying each other.

They didn’t go any farther the first day. Ravna was nervous about that; parts of several packs might still be following them. But the kherhogs were exhausted and the day remained clear and bright. What they could see of the forest ahead provided very little cover, at least where they could drive the wagons. A few days ago she would have prayed to be spotted by one of the Domain’s aircraft. Now she was terribly afraid that Nevil had control of the air.

When Screwfloss came back from his bath, Amdi asked him about the safety of camping here. The remnant gave every impression of understanding. It looked almost as cocky as when it had been five, emitting a Tinish laugh at Amdi’s question. Okay, then.

Amdi gobbled some more at the remnant, asking it to stand guard while they went down to the stream. The pack wandered off, hopefully to do as it was asked.

The day was much too cold for real bathing, but washing off the blood and the sweat suddenly was about the most important thing that Ravna could think of. Jefri insisted on going first, with Amdi making a watch line between the stream and the wagons. “You just stay with this end of Amdi, okay, Ravna?”

She shrugged. “Sure.” She had known these two since they were little kids. Modesty was an absurd notion here.

But when Jef returned, all of Amdi went down to the stream with her and kept watch. She knelt, drinking from the edge of the fast-moving water, away from the standing water and the gnats. She stared for a long moment at her reflection. This was the first time she had seen her face since Gannon smashed her. It was even worse than her touch had promised. Well, the blow had practically killed her. She shouldn’t be surprised that her face was a disaster area.

She took off her awful, stinky clothes. The pants and shirt were padded canvas, oversized and misshapen—what Tines might create based on a description of human form. Clearly,
some
of the kidnappers had intended to take her alive. What nice fellows. She soaked the fabric and soaped it, then soaked it again. Cleaning her own skin was easy by comparison, though that was like scrubbing with ice cubes. Amdi had brought unfilthy cloaks as towels and temporary wraps. They felt so good. Funny how much this improved her outlook.

When she returned to the campsite, she discovered Jefri pacing about impatiently. Amdi looked back and forth between them and said, “So, I thought we were going to start an inventory?”

“Of course,” said Jef, a bit abruptly. “I was just keeping watch.” He walked off toward the wagons, Ravna and Amdi trailing behind. Maybe Jef had been afraid she’d accuse him of hiding things if he started the inventory without her. Ravna realized she had still not figured out Jefri Olsndot.

The two cargo wagons were big enough for gear and supplies. And for hiding places—such as for those maps that Chitiratifor and Remasritlfeer had been using. Jefri broke into the locked cabinets. There were no maps, but one of the boxes held clean blankets and two more changes of crude human clothes! The main supply bays were more familiar territory. The food was mostly gone, especially the kind that humans could eat. There had been one unexpected human on this expedition, but even so, maybe Chitiratifor had expected an end to this trip—or to the humans—relatively soon.

Ravna had seen most of the camping hardware before, but rarely in good light. Some of this equipment was not the sort that Scrupilo’s factories made, but neither was it medieval. Jefri held up two canteens. They looked identical, stamped from tin or pewter. “You noticed the logo, right?” Both canteens bore the same impression, a godlike pack surrounding the world.

“That’s the mark of Tycoon,” said Ravna. Johanna had shown the design at an Executive Council meeting. At the time it had seemed a very poor payoff for three tendays scouting Tycoon’s East Coast headquarters.

“A twelvesome,” said Amdi. “He’s a confident fellow.” God was usually shown as twelve. Any more and there were comical implications of a choir. “I’ll bet no one has ever seen Tycoon because he’s really just a wimpy four.”

The middle wagon contained Nevil’s technological gifts. Nevil had not been overly generous: there was a camera and the lamps, all originally from
Oobii
. The radio was locally made, one of Scrupilo’s creations. It was as dumb as a rock, but still the Domain didn’t have enough of them. “The radio we’re going to have to dump,” she said regretfully. It was something that Nevil could track via the orbiter. If he was clever, he could probably pulse the orbiter’s transmitters hard enough to get an echo even if the radio’s charge had leaked away.

“Yes,” said Jefri, looking nervously at all the equipment. “We should get rid of all this gear.” To him, a child of the High Beyond, machines were capable of unfathomed sneakiness.

Ravna gathered up the camera, and poked around under the lamps. “The cam will have to go.” She was no High Beyonder, but anyone from a tech civilization had default assumptions about such machines. “On the other hand, I’ve used these lamps. They’ve got a security local mode. I’ll set that. If we’re careful when we use them, they should be fine.”

“Okay,” said Jefri, looking dubious.

Amdi was still snouting around in the cabinet. “I want to know where the maps were. This should be where Chitiratifor and Remasritlfeer kept them.”

Their hour or so of direct sunlight had passed. Even the snow dazzle from high peaks was fading. “What in hell are we going to do?” said Jefri, sounding very tired.

“One way or another,” said Ravna, “we have to get back to the Domain, on our own, without getting ‘rescued.’ If we can get close to
Oobii
, I can—” It hurt that she was afraid to tell them all that she could do.

Jef didn’t seem to notice the hesitation. “Well, I don’t want to go back the way we came. Parts of various nasty packs may still be alive. And I don’t want to go forward. I’ll bet there are some
complete
nasty packs waiting for us ahead.”

Amdi emitted annoyed squeaking sounds. “So help me find the maps!”

“Okay.” Jefri walked forward to where Amdi had climbed up on himself to rummage in the wagon. “Though maybe Chitiratifor had them in-pack.”

“No! Not yesterday. They’re in this wagon.”

Jefri leaned over the pack and looked down into the compartment. “There really is nothing more there, Amdi. Trust my human vision on this.”

“Well then, it must be above or below. I watched Chitiratifor almost every time he got the maps.”

“A secret compartment then.” Jefri walked along the side of wagon, tapping it above and below. “It must be small and well shielded. I could get one of the axes and open this thing up a little.”

Some of Amdi was trailing along behind him. “Maybe there’s no need. I’ll hear it eventually. You keep tapping on the wood, and I’ll…” He built a little pyramid of himself and snuggled close to the hull of the wagon. The rest of him had climbed up on the wagon and hunkered down in various places. “… and I’ll listen.”

Now the snow in the higher hills was just a lighter shade of gray against the sky. Ravna heard something behind her. She looked around with a start, saw four dark shadows gliding toward the wagons. It was Screwfloss, returning from sentry duty. She gave him a little wave, and wondered at the remnant’s on-again off-again diligence. Screwfloss lolled about, watching Amdi and the two humans. If this had been the entire Screwfloss, she would have been sure that he was amused by their searching. He had his old personality, less the cheeky repartee.

She cocked her head at him and asked, “So you can do better?”

Screwfloss emitted a burbling sound, probably a chuckle. Then he got to his feet and shambled past her. He nosed around under the wagon.

She heard a metallic click, but from the top of the wagon.

“Nice camouflage sound!” said Amdi.

“He did something down here,” said Ravna, and she ducked under the wagon. Screwfloss was standing around, his aspect smug. One of him was pointing at a narrow wooden platform that had swung down from the belly of the wagon. Ravna reached up, felt a narrow ledge. She felt silken paper within.

“Aha!” She drew a heavy, flat object into the open. “Huh?”

Yes, she was holding oilskin paper, but it was just a bag. Jefri helped her open it. Inside was … the most opulent suite of Tinish clothing she had ever seen, clean and new as if never worn.

Jefri thumbed through the thin wooden holders. “Six sets,” he said. “What was crazy-asses Chitiratifor thinking?”

“This is for when he returned to his boss in triumph.”

“Maybe, but—” Jefri felt further into the bag, pulled out a small, bejewelled disk. It glittered even in the dim light, showing Tycoon’s logo in tiny gems. “Packs use this kind of badge the way we would a comm token, to establish authority. I wonder—”

Amdi had swept around them. “Never mind. Where are the maps?” He stuck a couple of snouts deep into the secret space, sweeping back and forth as a human might search with hands. “I found them!”

Ravna and Jefri set the fancy clothes on the top of the wagon, then helped Amdi bring his finds into the open. They stepped aside so Amdi could unscroll them. Ravna had a glimpse of suspiciously fine graphic artwork. Okay, it was Nevil’s data, but who did the print job?

“Wow!” said Amdi, then after a second, “But it’s so dark now, I can’t see the details; we need those lamps.”

“I don’t want to use the lamps when the night is clear,” said Ravna—though maybe it didn’t matter, if Nevil was tracking the radio.

Jefri reached past Amdi and lifted the maps up to a flat surface on the back of the wagon, where the last light of day was brightest. In a moment, Amdi was topside, heads weaving about to get the best view.

“Ha!” he said. “This is
really
detailed.”

“Now if we only knew where
we
were,” said Jefri.

Amdi glanced up into the twilight. “With maps this good, we should be able to match to landmarks. Meantime”—three of him were still peering nearsightedly at the map—“I know we’re about here.” He tapped the paper with a nose.

Jefri was standing by the wagon; he was tall enough to see the map. He looked at the spot Amdi had indicated and said, “Oh-oh.”

“What?” asked Ravna. She should get up there with Amdi.

As she climbed up top, Jefri enlightened her. “There’s a snout-drawn ‘X’, just a few kilometers ahead. I bet we’re almost to Chitiratifor’s welcoming committee.”

“Yup,” said Amdi.

She settled down with Amdi and looked where Jef was pointing. The ‘X’ was in a widening of the valley one to three days’ drive ahead, depending on their own precise location. “They have a fort this near the Domain?”

“I don’t think there’s a fort there,” said Jefri. “That looks like a wide place in the valley, not a choke point. And the ‘X’ mark is in the middle of the open area. I’ll bet Chitiratifor—or Remasritlfeer—intended to meet some larger party there.”

“Ha, yes,” said Amdi. “They may even think Chitiratifor is doing fine, on schedule … except he won’t be checking in with them tonight.”

Ravna shrugged. “So we can’t go forward. And we can’t stay here. We haven’t seen anything of Chitiratifor. Surely it can’t be that dangerous to go back?”

“Okay,” said Jefri, but he was shaking his head. “You realize that once the bad guys realize we’re free, that’s just the route they all will be searching.”

Amdi was still snuffling at the map, oblivious to their dilemma. “This valley doesn’t stay steep and cliffy forever,” he said. “See, right before the ‘X’, there’s all sorts of paths up the eastern wall. We could wriggle out sideways. Who’d ever think?”

Johanna Olsndot roamed the strange raft, and watched her fellow-travelers. She had no sailing skills herself, but she had been aboard seacraft of the Domain. A common design was the multiboat, a meshwork of pack-sized boats; individual packs could retain their identity. Multiboats might have a central structure for larger cargo items and be big enough so a number of packs might comfortably meet.

Even the largest Northern multiboats were smaller than the rafts in this flotilla of ten. Johanna wondered how the mess managed to sail together. Every raft had masts and sails, but nothing like packs to manage them. On her raft, the mob wandered here and there, collecting in little groups that might tug on a tiller, while others climbed in the rigging (and sometimes fell off into the sea!). The squeaks and chirrups from above might have been directions, though very few of those below paid any attention.

One by one, these rafts must surely founder, perhaps the last ending up on some faraway shore, like the shipwrecks that used to wash up on the rocks below Starship Hill.