Vernor Vinge - The Children of the Sky

Pilgrim ran around in front of her, now leading the way. “Okay, then. But keep in mind. The Tropicals can’t live here very well. The packs they make are loose, even when they try to form them.”

“So you’ve lived in the Tropical Choir?” That was something that Pilgrim had never quite claimed.

Pilgrim hesitated. “Well, for a time I lived on the fringes—you know, in the Tropical collectives. The true Choir of the deep jungles would be very quickly fatal for a coherent pack. Can you imagine being surround by such mobs, no one caring to keep a decent distance? Thought is impossible … though I suppose if the stories of nonstop orgies are true, it might be a happy way to dissolve oneself. No, I just meant that these shipwrecks have happened before. We’ll have a year or two of nuisance, far more singletons wandering around than normal old age and accidents would account for—more even than after the war with Steel and Flenser. But eventually the problem will take care of itself.”

“I’ll bet.” They were walking between house-sized boulders now, scrambling over lesser rocks that had fallen in between. This was not the safest place to promenade. All those rocks had come from somewhere above them. Sometimes after a spring thaw you’d see the rocky avalanches adding to the talus. At the moment, that was just a passing thought in the back of Johanna’s mind, another reason to fly away from here. “So after a year or two, these poor animals are mostly dead and Woodcarver’s folk have solved the problem?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. Or almost nothing like that. Over the centuries, Woodcarver and her people learned that if they waited till a good chill autumn and a surface current that was mainly southerly, you could get rid of most of the survivors in an almost friendly way: just repair their rafts or make new ones. After all, it’s not that hard to make junkwork like that out of the flotsam that is always rolling in.”

“You mean the surviving Tropicals can just be led aboard and put out to sea?”

“Not quite, though sometimes that’s enough. What the Old Woodcarver learned was that the Tropicals are like jaybirds. They like shiny things. They like firemakers—which doesn’t make sense since those go bad so fast in humid weather. They like all sorts of silly things. And long ago, folks around here figured what those things were. So pile the trinkets up on the rafts. Put some food aboard—and if the tide is right you can coax the remaining Tropicals aboard. Then just push them out into the southerly stream. Hei, problem solved!”

Johanna reached for the smooth silvery metal of the agrav flier. Her touch caused the side hatch to flip upwards, and a ramp to slide out. The craft had been designed for wheeled creatures. Entrance was easy for the likes of humans or Tines. She climbed aboard and settled into her usual slot (which was not so well designed for the human form).

Pilgrim came scrambling over the rocks, and one after another padded up the ramp. “It’s not as if they are whole people, Johanna. You know that.”

“You of all people don’t really believe that, do you, Pilgrim?”

The fivesome was busy seating himself all around the flight cabin. The agrav’s user interface might have been flexible in the Beyond, but down here in the Slow Zone, it defaulted to the form most fit for its original owners. Those had been Skroderiders. There might not be a single one alive on the whole planet. Too bad, since that default user interface had the flight controls scattered around the periphery of the cabin. Maybe a human crew could have flown the agrav—if that crew had trained their whole lives for the instabilities of the flight system. A pack, on the other hand, if it were as practiced and crazy as Pilgrim, could fly the thing, but just barely.

As the door closed and Pilgrim busied himself resetting the boat’s agrav fabric, part of him looked around at her, considering her last question. He made his human voice a little bit sad sounding, “No, they’re more than animals, Johanna. My love Woodcarver might say that they’re also less , but you know I don’t believe that. I’ve been in pieces often enough myself.” He pushed at one of the dozens of control holes set in the console. The agrav lifted up on the left side, then on the right. They slid sideways, smacking into the cliff face. He corrected, and the boat sagged left, coasting away from the cliff but bouncing against the largest of the rocks below. By then Pilgrim had the rhythm, and the boat fluttered upward, only occasionally scraping the cliff. Two years ago, after it became apparent that someone like Pilgrim was needed to fly the boat, Pilgrim had made a hobby of scaring the pee out of his passengers. Partly that was pilgrim humor and partly it was to give him an excuse to fly wherever he pleased. Johanna had been on to his game even if Ravna was fooled. She had called him out on the issue, and she was pretty sure that nowadays when the boat behaved insanely it wasn’t Pilgrim messing around. The problem was that the agrav fabric was weakening and becoming less rational. More and more, the best performing parts of the fabric were salvage from Oobii . Pilgrim was forced to constantly relearn the boat’s flight characteristics. He didn’t have time for his old hoaxing around.

The skiff slid down five meters, but well away from the cliff. It was twenty meters above the rocks now, with enough clearance all around so that its wobbling was not a concern. This was really not a bad takeoff at all.

As they drifted generally upward, most of Pilgrim turned to look at her. “I forgot to ask. Where is it you want to go?”

“We’re going to get these sailors a decent home,” Johanna replied.

• • •

Woodcarver’s Fragmentarium was perched in the lower walls of the Margrum Valley, not far above Cliffside harbor, where the Tropicals were being herded. Pilgrim’s flight path was more or less straight toward the Fragmentarium. That is, it wobbled in all directions, but the average was straight. At higher altitudes he could have risked supersonic speeds, but for short little hops like this, a running pack might outpace him.

Though the boat looked like silver metal from the outside, Pilgrim kept the hull transparent for those within. The view remained surprisingly bad. The scavenged agrav fabric was stubbornly opaque, a patchwork of russet scraps. In some places the repair work was so extensive that it looked like a Tinish muffling quilt sewn together by a crazypack. It was that pattern of obstacles that determined Johanna’s favorite perch. Her seat really wasn’t a seat—she had to lean forward to clear the ceiling—and the safety harness was ad hoc . On the other hand, she had a good view straight down.

They were just passing over the Children she had seen down by the shipwreck. Five boys and two girls. From this altitude she could recognize every one. Yeah, these were the ones. Johanna shook her head, muttering to herself. “You see that?” she said to Pilgrim.

“Of course I see.” Pilgrim had three snouts pressed close to one clear spot or another. He had no trouble seeing in multiple directions. “What’s to see?”

“The Children. They were throwing stones at drowning Tines.” She checked off the names in her mind, vowing to remember. “Øvin Verring. I never dreamed he would do something like that.” Øvin had been exactly her age. They’d been evenly matched at school, and friends in a non-romantic way.

The skiff performed a tooth-rattling dip and bounce. Johanna had learned to keep her tongue from between her teeth when she rode this gadget. Nowadays she barely noticed the acrobatics, except when they were close to hard objects.

Pilgrim recovered control; he didn’t seem to notice the bouncing either. “To be honest, Jo, I don’t think Verring was throwing stones. He was hanging back.”