Poor Jefri was beyond indignation, perhaps beyond rage. He sat back, his mouth opening and closing in silent shock. Ravna put her arm across his shoulders. Let me try, one more time. She looked at Tycoon. “I never met Scriber Jaqueramaphan,” Ravna said. “But I know him through Johanna. She loved him. Her greatest shame is that she didn’t respect him enough. He died because he was trying to protect her, but it was Vendacious who murdered him. Won’t you even consider that possibility? Even after an, an employee has risked his life to tell you?”
Tycoon hesitated. “If that really is my employee and not just Amdiranifani’s speaking tube…You and I have talked about this before. I have always taken these matters seriously. I have interviewed witnesses. Nevil himself—”
Zek interrupted with a long gobble, complaining about something or other.
Tycoon visibly pulled himself together. Then two of him leaned out from their thrones, looking almost straight down from the vertex of the bow. “Yes, Vendacious. I see it.”
There was more gobbling from Zek.
“Oh?” said Tycoon. “Woodcarver thinks that, does she? Well you tell Nevil to tell her that—” and then he was speaking Interpack, too.
Ravna glanced at Jefri. He gave his head a little shake, but kept silent. A moment later, she saw what was under discussion. There was a third aircraft, below and ahead of them. It was Scrupilo’s little airboat, the original Eyes Above. The boat was flying in its own circle over the field.
As the Pack of Packs continued on its course, the two craft came closer, but now the airboat was turning away, heading over the Inland Straits, perhaps to Scrupilo’s labs on Hidden Island. She glimpsed a pack in the gondola; it flipped a member impudently at them. I’ll bet that’s Scrupilo himself. She could imagine him and Woodcarver desperately trying to put the brakes on Nevil’s “Alliance for Peace.”
Zek was making genial laughing noises. Then he spoke in Samnorsk, with Vendacious’ voice. “Woodcarver’s balloon has run away, my lord. One little threat from Nevil was all it took.”
“Indeed,” said Tycoon, though he watched the departing airboat with only a single pair of eyes. The rest of him was looking ahead. “In less than half a turn we’ll be back in landing position, Vendacious.”
“We are still tracking directly behind you, my lord. We’ll continue on our course as you land. Please keep in touch via the network.”
Tycoon turned a couple of heads to look at Zek. The poor creature had collapsed on his perch. He looked very tired, past coherent fear. Ravna guessed that relaying was all he could manage now. More of Tycoon looked around, glancing at Jefri and Ravna. He cocked his heads as if indecisive. Would he betray Zek and his peers? But then all he said was, “Very good. I’ll keep Zek close.”
—————
Airships might look like some flyers of the Beyond, but the only real similarity was that both could float in the air. Airships were fragile balloons, slaves to the atmosphere. Landing an airship was an enormously awkward exercise, at least if you didn’t have reasonable automation, or trained ground crews.
As they descended upon the meadow, Tycoon had six heads forward, staring down and forward. This time, he wasn’t bothering his pilot. Every meter of descent was a balance of ballast and fine maneuver. They were now so low that most of Newcastle town was above them. Nevil’s open-air stage was at far end of the field, but dozens of humans and even more packs were running along below the airship. Ahead were clusters of younger Children let out of their Academy classes. The colors were festival cheerful, as if the crowds were welcoming back far explorers.
Suddenly the ship’s engines buzzed louder, and the deck shivered beneath her. She could see the tiny heather flowers just beyond the bow window. Still under power, the ship was motionless. Depending on how much lift gas the pilot had vented, they might be floating like thistledown. Then the engines died. She heard crunching noises as the airship was drawn down to the vegetation.
Humans and Tines rolled tie-down weights across the ground just in front of the bow. She recognized faces. These were people from Scrupilo’s ground crew. Tycoon watched with nervous twitches.
Zek was relaying assurances in Tinish, presumably from Vendacious circling above, but Tycoon seemed more interested in what he could see and what he was hearing via the speaking tubes from his own crew. Now he hopped down from his thrones and padded past Ravna and Jefri to the spiral stairs. He was giving orders in all directions, though Ravna could understand only a little.
Jefri looked surprised by something the pack was saying. “Hei, I think Tycoon wants us to accompany him.”
Zek got down from his perch and almost tripped on his cloak. Ritl ran to him and made encouraging noises. Zek didn’t seem especially frightened; he rearranged his cloak and walked over to Ravna and Jefri. When he spoke, it was Vendacious: “Ah, the humans. What to do with you? M’lord Tycoon says it’s safe to take you outside, that your presence will disarm the likes of Woodcarver.”
The gunpack had two heads stuck up from the stairwell. It waggled a snout in Zek’s direction, evidently telling him to get a move on. Zek started toward the stairs, but he seemed to be getting conflicting orders. He stopped to relay one more piece of advice from Vendacious: “I hope my lord Tycoon is right in this—but keep in mind that I am watching from above. I will use Amdiranifani to assure that you do not make trouble.” Then he followed the gunpack down the stairs.
CHAPTER 39
That afternoon, Johanna Olsndot discovered some true friends. The surprise and the life-saving miracle was that they were exactly everyone she met. Within ten minutes of Nevil’s attack on the pier, she was in the Larsndots’ apartment above the tailor shop on Wee Alley. Ben Larsndot had found her tottering down back alleys.
“I was just at the front of the crowd. I saw you peeping out of the stormwalk and then the world blew up.” He was half-carrying her. “Did those Tropicals bring a bomb ashore?”
“No. It was…beam gun.” She could barely gasp the words that should have been screamed.
Even so, Ben stopped in surprise. “But—even Nevil wouldn’t do something like that!”
“But it’s the truth,” she said. This conversation was the story of Nevil’s life.
Ben didn’t say too much after that, but she sensed his rage. When they got to the apartment, he stayed just long enough to tell his wife what had happened, and then he departed to go back to the pier. Wenda went tight-lipped when she heard the story, but she let him go. She looked at Johanna, “Ben has to help out. On the other hand, I’m the one with political savvy in the family.”
Johanna was lying limply on a sofa, under a nice warm cloak. She was vaguely aware of Wenda, Jr., and Sika hovering about. They didn’t seem frightened, just generally awed by all the sudden activity. “Political savvy is what I need. I want to get the word out about what’s really happened—without any more innocents getting killed.”
—————
Wenda gave her clean clothes, warm and good for hiking. Over the next two hours, Johanna learned what the tailor family could really do. Indeed, the Larsndots had spent these years going native. Wenda and her kids knew the backstreets of the South End. They were merely being properly paranoid, not using the telephone system, but not worrying about automatic surveillance. The kids, especially Wenda, Jr., seemed to know just where Deniers might be looking, and more than once took Johanna on little detours to avoid revealing encounters. “We play these games every day now,” said Wenda, Sr. “We don’t like Deniers down here on the South End. Since you disappeared and Ravna was kidnapped, things have been…”
Johanna was still limping, but she had no trouble keeping up with the three. “Jefri. What about him and Amdi?”
Wenda, Sr., looked away. “Both gone. The same night Ravna was grabbed. We…we don’t know about them, Jo. You know those two had dealings with Nevil and Gannon Jorkenrud. Gannon’s gone too.”
They were walking in deep shadow now, down a narrow alley between Tin
ish-style half-frame buildings. These had been built since the Children landed—most of the South End dated from then, but the style was medieval. Out of the shadows, ahead and behind, a couple of packs materialized. Johanna recognized Benky ahead and Wretchly behind.
Jo faltered. Benky was Woodcarver’s most reliable lieutenant, but—“Hei, Wretchly is—”
Wenda nodded, waved at her to keep walking.
From behind, Wretchly’s voice wafted forward. “Heh, yup. Now that Screwfloss is gone, I’m Flenser’s number-one flunky and hatchetman.”
There was quiet giggling from Junior and Sika. Junior slipped forward to be with Benky. Sika dropped back and walked among the Wretchly foursome. They took several sharp turns, skirting the Ferryside market and heading downslope. Around them was the faint scent of garbage. Now Sika wanted her mother to carry her. The timber-frame dwellings gave way to stone slab buildings, two and three stories tall. Here and there, packs crossed their path, but Jo didn’t see any humans. In fact, the market sounds were sparse. Maybe that was no surprise.
After one last turn, the alley opened out onto a view of the ferry docks. They were just a meter or two above the water. The Straits was a flat silver line across their view. Ordinarily, there would be a ferry or two in the moorage. Another ferry might be out in the Straits, and a couple more would be parked on the mainland side. Today, not a single ferry was pulled up on the Hidden Island side. Jo looked across the water at Cliffside, just a couple thousand meters away. She counted five ferries there.
Benky settled one of himself beside her. “That’s where everybody went. Most all are up on Starship Hill where Nevil’s gonna bring us all peace.” Benky was a fluent Samnorsk speaker. He did sarcasm very well.
“But if we can get you up there, maybe we’ll have a chance against his lies.” That was Wretchly, crouched around the Larsndots on Johanna’s left.
Jo looked back and forth at the two. “Woodcarver and Flenser are allies now?”
Benky nodded, but the gesture was also a ripple of suspicion. “That’s the theory.”
Wretchly was more emphatic: “Of course we’re allies! Always have been, even if your Queen Woodcarver never trusted us.”
Benky emitted a sniffing noise. “You’re also allied with Tycoon and Vendacious.”
“Falsely so, but yes. And where would you be now, Benky, without all the inside information we’ve supplied?”
It was Flenser’s justly famous slippery nature. Johanna gave Benky a look: “Has Woodcarver decided to trust Flenser?”
Benky rolled his heads in a kind of embarrassed shrug. “Yeah. Woodcarver has always been too soft with her misbegotten offspring; it may be her fatal flaw. I’d oppose this alliance, except that”—he sent a glance in Wretchly’s direction—“we’re really desperate.” He gave Johanna all of his gaze. “In any case, there’s no way I can get you safely across the Straits.”
“Ah.” If Johanna couldn’t get across to the mainland and up the cliffs to Starship Hill, her great confrontation would have to wait for some other day. Like after the bad guys had won. She looked back at the Ferryside docks. There were utility twinhulls tied up there. She could use one of those to get to the mainland—all out of sight of the beam gun. The ferry crossing was one of the few blind spots in its coverage; that had always bothered Ravna Bergsndot.
Wretchly followed her gaze. “Don’t think for a minute that makes you safe, Johanna.”
“What?” but she guessed what he meant.
Wretchly elaborated anyway: “There are other ways of killing folks besides beam guns. And they don’t need Oobii’s super telescopes to spot you. If Nevil knows you’re here on Hidden Island, he’ll expect you to try to get across. That’s more than a kilometer of open water. Even if we take you across in a box, he’ll see the boat and we’ll be stopped the moment we land.”
Johanna glared at the pack. Even Flenser’s flunkies had their boss’s talent for causing irritation. There were lots of little moorages along the eastern side of Hidden Island, but none were any less exposed than this. The alternative was to hike across town to the west side, then island hop around the north—maybe thirty kilometers of skulking. A two-day trip. “Okay then, do you have a better way?” She saw the gloating smile hiding in Wretchly’s aspect. “Oh, of course you do.”
The smile bloomed. “Oh yes. My lord Flenser has not been idle these ten years. Woodcarver penned him in with her various unjustified attempts at house arrest. What was he to do with such restrictions? Well, in fact, he dug some tunnels.” Wretchly pointed a snout in the direction of the ferry crossing. “I can get you right across, under the Straits.”
Wenda Larsndot gave a little squeak of surprise. “So that’s where all the cheap fill dirt came from,” she said.
Johanna looked at Benky. “Woodcarver knew about this?”
“Not…until very recently. Flenser fessed up after Ravna was kidnapped and you and Pilgrim disappeared.”
Wretchly nodded. “He did it to finally win Woodcarver’s trust.”
“That and save his own necks,” said Benky. He pointed across the Straits, zigzagging a path upwards. “See, it’s not just the understraits tunnel, though I’ll bet that was the hardest piece of work. Flenser also dug a stairway inside the cliffs, up to a warehouse in Newcastle…We should have guessed. Flenser was out of sight much too often.”
“Yeah.” So those mainland tunnels had been just part of Flenser’s construction. The guy was as sneaky as Woodcarver always claimed.
“But now we’re all trusting buddies,” said Wretchly. “I can get you up to Newcastle. In fact, if you want, I can probably sneak you right on stage with Nevil himself.”
“You have Flenser’s okay to do all that?”
“Um, well, this morning he’d only heard a rumor you were down here. I’m…interpolating a bit, but we’ll know more once we’re up there, won’t we?”
Benky looked mostly glowerful, but he didn’t speak. Johanna glanced at Wenda. The woman shrugged. “This is Hidden Island, Jo. Flenser has been a decent landlord. The last of his monsters died several years ago.”
Jo had never been sure of Flenser, but: “Okay, take me up to Newcastle town.” There, at least, she might be able to figure out the right thing to do.
—————
Jo left the Larsndots at Ferryside. Junior had been outraged, but fortunately Wenda Senior was around to rein her in. It was Benky who was the biggest problem. “I’m coming too.”
But what could Benky do if things went bad, in particular if Wretchly went bad? “Stay here, and be around to tell the truth,” said Johanna.
“I’m coming. If—once we get atop Starship Hill, I’ll get Woodcarver.” He glared at Wretchly.
The neo-Flenserist just smiled. “That’s okay with me.”
Wenda, Sr., took her two youngsters back along the alley. When they were out of sight, Wretchly led Johanna and Benky along a winding path behind garbage bins and down passages that were barely more than cracks between buildings. They passed through a well-concealed door and down steep stairs. The darkness was total.
“Keep bent down, Johanna. This isn’t made for two-legs.”
“I guessed that,” said Johanna. Her fingers traced along the stone just ahead. In Tinish structures, you never trusted for headroom. “How come no lights?”
Wretchly said, “Oh, you want a light? I brought one.” A glow appeared ahead, silhouetting a couple of members. Wretchly didn’t try to turn around. He just set the lamp on the ground and continued on.
“Thanks.” Johanna picked it up. The glow made it a little easier to avoid the irregular ceiling, though now her main view was the hindmost of Wretchly’s rear member.
They walked for some minutes, long enough that the inconvenience of being bent over grew toward intolerable soreness. Wretchly merrily chatted away, claiming that he could hear the water shushing by overhead. He seemed totally confident that no intruders were lurking ahead. “Hei, I can hear all the way to the other s
ide.” By the time they reached the mainland stairway, Benky was talking too, curious as to how Flenser and company managed to keep the tunnel from getting flooded. Johanna ached too much to pay much attention.
“Ta da!” Wretchly’s voice came back to her. “The front of me has reached the mainland.” Another few steps and: “See? You can stand up straight now.”
Glory! Johanna stretched tall, reaching as far as she could into the empty air.
“Now we just have a little climb up the nice stairs.” That would be more than five hundred meters.
The stairs zigzagged irregularly, following natural drainage faults. Some flights were thirty or forty meters, with the spring runoff almost a waterfall down the side gutters. She did better on the stairs than either of the packs. Both Benky and Wretchly had to accommodate ageing members. Very soon, those were huffing and puffing.
It took almost an hour to reach the top. In that time, Johanna got a rather complete summary of all the crap that had happened in her absence. And she had the information from what were probably the top lieutenants of Woodcarver and Flenser.
“Woodcarver and Nevil have been teetering on the edge of a civil war for more than a tenday,” said Benky, speaking over the wheezing of his members. “There have been rumors of your fleet, sightings when you passed the old capital.”
“The Tropicals are just bringing trade goods.”
“That’s what Nevil claims…officially. Unofficially, the Deniers are saying, ‘what if it’s all guns?’ They’re claiming that Tycoon has boosted our world into the bottom end of technology, that if we don’t make peace with him, we’ll be swept away.”