The Children of the Sky

Chapter 03

Usually, Johanna was mobbed by whatever singletons were out in the exercise area. Today a few of the more articulate called out to her, but most of the patients seemed more interested in the Tropical visitors. None of the place’s keepers—the broodkenners—were in evidence.

Johanna and Pilgrim left the exercise field and walked past buildings that Ravna Bergsndot called the “old folks’ home.” Pack members rarely lived longer than forty years. These buildings housed Tines that were too aged to live and work with their packs. The rest of theirselves would visit, in some cases stay for days at a time, especially if the old ones had been some special intellectual or emotional part of the pack. For Johanna, it was the saddest part of the Fragmentarium, since without decent technology none of these fragments would get any better. The rest of theirselves would visit more and more rarely, eventually incorporating younger members, and not coming at all.

Here and there a head raised to watch her. Some of the visiting packs—the ones who valued their old selves enough to be united—honked greetings and even whole sentences of Samnorsk. There were grateful folk here, but all in all it was too much like the dark ages of human prehistory, like what we Children ourselves must face Down Here.

The broodkenners’ office was at the upslope end of the encampment, beyond the exercise field and the barracks for able-bodied fragments. There was one more shortcut they could take, but Johanna and Pilgrim stayed well away from the war criminals’ compound. That was an institution that many Tinish kingdoms supported, though usually it was a public pillory where partially executed enemies of the state could be put on display. Woodcarver had never been such a sadist. Pilgrim often assured Jo that the Children were fortunate to have fallen in with the kindliest despot in the world. Since Flenser was rehabilitated and Vendacious had escaped, there was only one war criminal left in the Domain, and that was Flenser’s monster, Lord Steel. The original Steel had been cut down to three members. His remnant had a prison cell with its own little exercise yard. She hadn’t seen that fragment in two years. She knew her brother came here occasionally to talk to the threesome, but then Jefri and Amdi had personal issues with Steel. She hoped the visits were not meant to taunt the creature. Steel was thoroughly mad, surviving in a weird tug of war between Woodcarver’s caution and Flenser’s demand that the remnant not be destroyed. Today she heard shrieks of rage coming from the prison compound, demands to be released. The Remnant Steel knew something was going on, and apparently there was no keeper to let it out into its exercise yard.

“So where are the broodkenners?” said Johanna. Not even Carenfret was around, and she was obsessively dutiful.

“Harmony’s here. I can hear him talking.” Pilgrim jabbed a snout toward the admin office.

“He’s here?” Damn. Harmony was the chief broodkenner, a pack of the old school and a real jerk. Now she could hear Tinish gobbling ahead. It was loud enough; she’d mistaken it for the usual random shouting that came from the patients’ barracks. Yes, the pack was talking on the telephone. That was probably a good thing, since Harmony’s judgment could only benefit from outside advice. She lifted the high bar on an inner gate and let herself and Pilgrim through. The admin building was actually a dorm for the overnight broodkenners, most often Carenfret. It was big enough for two or three packs, but right now there seemed to be just the one voice within. The front door was open. She bent low and awkwardly waddled indoors, preceded and followed by Pilgrim.

Harmony was way in the back, in his official office. That wasn’t as large as Harmony would probably like, but it was the room with the telephone, and the Chief Broodkenner had claimed it his first day on the job. Johanna was pleased that no one had ever told him how easy it would be to wire the phone into a different room. She wasn’t the only one who thought ill of this pack.

Harmony was just racking the phone when Pilgrim and Johanna stuck heads into his room. “Well, well,” he said, sounding cordial. “Here is the source of so many of my problems.” He gestured at the floor in front of his desk. “Do please have a seat, Johanna.”

Jo settled herself on the floor. Now she had to look up to see Harmony’s heads. Well, it beat standing stooped over to avoid the ceiling beams. Pilgrim settled himself in the hall, with just one head poked around the door. He could participate in the discussion without his mindsound interfering too much.

Johanna had put together a little speech, but this phone call might change things. “So,” she said, winging it, “you’ve heard about the shipwreck.”

“Of course. I just finished discussing the matter with the Tinish Queen Herself.”

“Oh.” So what did Woodcarver say? Harmony looked too self-satisfied for it to be anything good. “There are almost two hundred surviving Tropicals, sir. Pilgrim tells me that’s substantially more than in the average South Sea wreck.”

Harmony gave an irritated little ripple of his heads. “Yes. I understand you are largely responsible for this problem.”

“Well, I helped too,” Pilgrim put in cheerily.

Harmony waved a dismissive snout at Pilgrim. The Chief Broodkenner always tried to ignore Pilgrim. The two packs were about as different as packs could be, one as tightly held as a human’s clenched fist, the other so loose that sometimes it seemed to dissolve into lesser parts. Unfortunately for Harmony, Pilgrim was the queen’s consort, had been for more than two years. Part of the queen herself was now from Pilgrim. Harmony was far too cautious to say anything reportable against him. All his heads turned back in Johanna’s direction: “No doubt you’re wondering where my assistants are this afternoon.” He meant the other broodkenners, most of whom were very nice people.

“Well, yes.”

“You’re the reason for their absence. That’s what I was just discussing with the Queen. It’s bad enough that you’ve transformed this shipwreck from a commonplace opportunity into a serious inconvenience. But it’s inexcusable that you directed them to come here for refuge.”

“What? I did no such thing.”

Pilgrim said. “Hei, I was there, Broodkenner. Of course, Johanna did no such thing. I doubt if any of the Tropicals knows a word of Samnorsk.”

Harmony all came to his feet, his various members adjusting the trim red jackets of his uniform. Two of him came partway over his desk, gesturing emphatically at Johanna. “Forgive me then. This is simply what I would expect of you. It’s what my assistants thought too. Every one them is downhill from the broodkennery right now, holding off the onslaught of Tropical riffraff. We all speculated just who put the creatures up to this.”

Johanna crossed her arms and leaned forward. She knew that the main body of the mob was still on the beach being herded toward Cliffside village by the shore patrol. There couldn’t be more than thirty or forty who had slipped free—and those would be wandering across the hillsides. As for the idea that she had suggested the Tropicals come here: well, bunk. Harmony had done this sort of thing to her in the past, making wild accusations that turned out to be exactly what she was about to suggest. This time she refused to be disarmed. “Sir, if your staff thought I directed the Tropicals here, maybe that’s because it’s a good idea. The Tropicals are creatures just like your own members, just like the singletons whom we help here at the Fragmentarium.”

“Here at the broodkennery,” Harmony corrected. Broodkenning was an essential part of Tinish civilization, a cross between marriage counsellor, animal breeder, and reconstructive surgeon. Johanna respected most broodkenners, even hardclawed ones who couldn’t stand the sight of her. It took real skill to properly recommend which puppies should go with which packs or whether a whole new pack should be made. It took even greater talent to create well-functioning packs from adult singletons and duos. Some of the local broodkenners were geniuses at their craft. Harmony Redjackets wasn’t one of them. He was an East Coast expert who had somehow flimflammed Woodcarver when she was in the dumps for having lost two of her oldest members. The redjackets of the East took a harsher attitude toward individual members than most packs out here. In a way, they were like the Old Flenserists—though she would never suggest that straight out to Woodcarver.

“That’s the fundamental problem with your meddling,” continued Harmony. “Your notion of fragments as patients. I can understand it. It’s based on the fundamental human weakness. You simply can’t help it.”

Johanna almost interrupted with a sneering comment. If we Children weren’t lost in this pre-tech wilderness, we could replace any part of our bodies, and easier than you, Mr. Harmony, can imagine. Unfortunately, that might tend to support Harmony’s main point. At a loss for a cutting response, Johanna let the other’s argument roll on.

“We packs can choose what we are. We can live beyond our members of the moment and always be the best that can be.”

At least Pilgrim had a reply: “I’ve been around long enough to know that’s not always true.”

“Loose pack that you are,” said Harmony.

“Ah, true. But a loose pack who has the ear of the Queen. So tell me, Harmony, you’re just going to turn away the mob that came ashore this morning?”

“Yes.” The redjackets was smiling.

“There’s more of them than usual,” said Pilgrim. “As a Choir, they’re a loud nuisance. As singletons and duos they’ll soon be drifting around our towns, making an even bigger nuisance of themselves. Neither villagers nor merchants will approve. And I know Woodcarver would not approve killing them.”

Harmony was still grinning. “That would not be such a problem if you two had only let nature take its course with the superfluous ones.” He shrugged. “No one is talking about killing the survivors. I’m quite aware that eventually the remnants will sail away with what trinket garbage we provide. Woodcarver has told me that it happens every few decades.” He gave a pointed and unanimous look in Pilgrim’s direction. “You are not the only one with the ear of the Queen.” He waved at the telephone. “Marvelous instrument, this. Certainly the best toy you two-legs have brought to civilization.”

Damn, fumed Johanna. I could have called both Woodcarver and Ravna during the flight up here. Instead I just wasted my time fuming.

But Harmony was still talking. “The Queen and I agreed it would be absurd to cram more bodies into the Royal Broodkennery. Without extensive enlargement, there is simply not enough room. More important, housing a Choir of Tropicals is quite the opposite of the purpose of this institution.” He paused, as if inviting Johanna or Pilgrim to object. “But you need not worry about them burdening the alleys and markets of Newcastle town or Hidden Island. I’ve suggested an alternate option to Her Majesty, and she has enthusiastically blessed it. The Tropicals will be guided to a new enclave, built specially for them.”

“A second Fragmentarium?” asked Pilgrim.

“Not at all. This will be at the south edge of Starship Hill, far from all the places where such creatures can make trouble. It will need no staff, since it’s for containment, not treatment.”

“So, a prison camp?”

“No. An embassy! The Tropicals’ Embassy. Sometimes absurdity is the best solution.” Honking laughter backed up Harmony’s words. Tines could do that, provide their own audio accompaniment. Mostly it was cute, but then there was Harmony Redjackets. “Of course, there will be some fences needed, and in the early days guarding the exterior will be good practice for all those soldier packs the Queen keeps on payroll. But the compound will include a little farmland, enough for hardicore grass and a yam garden. We all know that Tropicals don’t like meat.”

Johanna glared back at the pack. Tines were omnivores, but they all loved meat. The only vegetarians among them were the very poor. Harmony had definitely won the argument if that was all the comeback she had. She glanced at Pilgrim. “Well, then,” she finally replied, “I suppose that’s a solution.”

In fact,” said Pilgrim, “it might even be a good solution, depending on the details. You have to realize, this situation could go on for several years. I’m not sure that—”

“And that,” interrupted Harmony, “is, thank goodness, not my problem. You can take your concerns about the future to the Queen, as I’m sure you will continue to do.”

“Um, yes,” Pilgrim replied.

Behind her, Johanna could feel one of Pilgrim pulling gently at her waistband, telling her it was time for an orderly retreat. Pilgrim was afraid she would try to get the last word. He knew her too well. Okay, this time she would prove Pilgrim wrong. She came to her feet, careful not to crack her head on the ceiling. “Well then, Sir Harmony. Thank you so much for solving this problem in such a timely and, um, graceful way.” See, I can be diplomatic. She bent a little more, but it wasn’t a bow; she was just trying to back out of the office.

Harmony made a little “don’t go yet” gesture. “You know, I had an excellent chat with Her Majesty. I think that she and I have come to think very much alike on issues of probity and public health. After all, broodkenning is one of the foundations of a happy nation. I think we in the East understand that much better than most people here. The reaction against Flenser’s excesses was bad enough. You humans have added your own confused ethics to the mess.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Johanna, waving a gesture she was fairly certain Harmony would not recognize. She really had to get away from this guy.

Unfortunately, Harmony was the kind who liked to rub it in. Or maybe he thought that the time to press ahead is when you’ve already scored some points. “You should understand, Johanna, that your crazy influence on the Royal Broodkennery is coming to an end. We simply don’t have the resources for your notion of a Fragmentarium.”

That got her attention. “You’re giving up on the war veterans, the accident victims?” She took a step back in Harmony’s direction, pulling against Pilgrim’s jaws.

Harmony seemed oblivious to her tone. “No, not that. The Queen is quite explicit. Though the odds are against success, and merges of adult fragments are often ineffectual packs, even so we owe the veterans our best efforts. It’s the foolishness that has to go. Pack members get old, they get incurably ill, and they die. I’m sorry, I have to say it. Despite all your wishful thinking, members die. It’s not our job at the broodkennery to prolong that process—and we simply do not have the resources to do so.”

“But the old ones die in any case, Harmony. Why should you care that their last year or two is pleasant?”

The redjackets shrugged. “That’s why, when I first came to this job, I thought your foolish ideas were harmless. But have you noticed? Your unhealthful approach has just encouraged normal packs to linger over their dying parts. We have more and more of these sick and unproductive parts here. They aren’t getting any better. We agree, they never will get better. But they are filling up our floorspace, taking away from the cases—including those adult singletons you so seem to love—that we could save. Someone has to make the hard decisions. There needs to be a thinning.”

Pilgrim stuck a head back into the room. “You may have trouble justifying your ‘hard decisions’ to soft-hearted western packs who want to carry on with their oldest members.”

Harmony steepled a couple of his heads judiciously. “It will ultimately be the choice of the packs involved. We’ll simply tell them our assessment of their weaknesses and point out that we no longer have the resources to care for their morbid members. They’ll be free to let us deal with them—or they can take that responsibility themselves, as decent packs have always done.” Traditionally, that meant that when a member could no longer keep up with normal hunting, well, it would fall behind. In fact, “to fall behind” was the Interpack euphemism for member death.

“And the ones you take care of, how do you kill them, hmm?” Johanna took another step back into the room, far enough that Harmony finally understood the threat.

Two of him surged forward, blustering, but the others were staring up at her a little nervously. “Th-there are traditional ways, not at all painful or distressing. You poor two-legs, trapped in a single mortal body, I can’t expect you to understand our point of view.” Now all of him seemed to have recovered courage. Five pairs of toothy jaws were waggling around in front of her.

Behind her, all of Pilgrim had grabbed her pants and the bottom of her jacket. No more subtlety; he was doing his best to drag her from the room. His voice was diplomatic, belying the effort: “Well, thank you for the advance notice, dear Harmony.”

The redjackets gave a gracious wave. “My pleasure—though it was the Queen’s suggestion that I inform you.”

“I’ll thank her myself,” said Pilgrim, “the next time we’re together.”

There were implications in Pilgrim’s words that should give the chief broodkenner pause. For packs, “being together” could mean literally “being of one mind.” It was certainly a stronger retort than anything Johanna could think of. She let her toothy friend lead her away.

Jo didn’t speak until they were out of the building, beyond even Tinish earshot. “I hope you meant what you said, Pilgrim. About talking to Woodcarver.”

“Oh yes indeedy. Harmony takes his redjackets much too seriously. His kind is the worst thing about the East Coast.” But Pilgrim sounded more amused than enraged.

“He’s a monstrous sonsabitches,” said Johanna.

Pilgrim was looking around at the multistoried barracks that stood on both sides of the path. From here, you couldn’t even see the exercise field and the valley beyond. “This place has really gotten overcrowded, you know,” he said.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in something unusual: a screaming argument with Pilgrim. Fortunately for her hearing, it was Johanna who did all the screaming. How could her best friend in the world be so lukewarm about the murders planned at the Fragmentarium? By sundown, Johanna was convinced that he was taking her case to Woodcarver just to keep Jo mellow. Pilgrim was certainly doing his best to avoid arguing the issues with her. He really didn’t understand why thinning the old members was murder. And he didn’t want Johanna to come along to talk to the Queen.

“It’s an intimate thing, Johanna. You know, sex and mindtalk.” He waggled his heads salaciously.

Normally that excuse worked. She certainly had no place in a Tinish love affair—but tonight she suspected Pilgrim thought that Jo and her weird human notions would just cause trouble. “Okay, then,” she said. “You do your thing with Woodcarver. But make her understand! This redjackets crap is just as bad as the Old Flenser.”

“Oh, I will, I promise. I’ll do my very best.” The fivesome danced around nervously, then finally chased himself out the door. Coward.

She should follow him up to the New Castle, maybe talk to Woodcarver herself. Pilgrim just didn’t have the proper fire.

Fortunately, some shred of common sense remained, and Jo stayed inside until Pilgrim was well gone. She could give Ravna Bergsndot a call. Along with Woodcarver, Ravna was Queen of the Realm. Ravna might not take her title seriously, but she was the most powerful person in the world. She could tell Woodcarver what to do about this, and by the Powers Above, her word would rule. Yeah, the trouble was that Ravna was too much of a compromiser. She would compromise about anything, as long as it didn’t get in the way of fighting the Blight.

Johanna stepped out into the twilight and took a few deep breaths. The northwest still held sunset colors, but elsewhere the sky was darkening blue, with stars already visible in the east. She cursed this world often enough, but summer was mostly a beautiful time. You could forget how deadly a natural world could be. You could even sometimes forget what you had lost. This little cabin that she shared with Pilgrim was an upper-class residence by the standards of the locals. If Ravna’s plans for heating water with the starship’s beam gun could be implemented, houses like this would be more comfortable than any old Tinish castle.

Maybe she should walk up to Newcastle town. That was where most of the Children lived, and all of the toddlers. Her brother might be up there. No, Jef and Amdi were in the north woods this tenday, learning to be scouts. But there were other Children she could talk to. Nevil? He was probably still down in Cliffside village. He’d be perfect to talk to; he’d understand. Too bad the phone lines hadn’t been strung that far, or else she’d call him for sure.

Johanna walked downhill, away from the New Castle and the town that surrounded it. There really was no one to talk to tonight. Maybe that was best; she was so bloody angry. Packs could be lovable, nicer than most humans. But even the nicest of them didn’t really see their members as persons. She walked a little faster, letting the old frustration grow. Today had brought a lot of that to a head, and she wasn’t going to let it go. In the past, she had seen members die; they were people, even if she could never convince the packs of that.

Well, if talking could not make a difference, maybe there were actions that would. She let that thought rattle around in her mind for a few moments, imagining what she could do if she had some of the powers that every Straumer—even every Straumer child—had had before they fell Down Here. Ravna’s starship, that was nothing compared to a few merge toys and braemsjers. She’d raise the fragments to mindfulness, give them tools that would wipe the smug expression from packs like Harmony.

It really felt good to imagine such a turn of fortune. And it would have all been possible, not dreaming at all, before they were cast down from the Top of the Beyond. Before everything had gone so terribly wrong at the High Lab.

She looked around, realized she’d walked more than a kilometer. She’d reached the edge of the Margrum Valley. The moon had risen, showing the far side of the valley afloat above an evening fog. The path—its official name was the Queen’s Road—became a bit twisty, zigzagging back and forth as it descended the north wall of the valley. During the day, there would be plenty of wagon traffic here, the kherhog handlers arguing about their right of way.

While she was imagining impossible revenge, her feet had carried her halfway back to the Fragmentarium. Maybe her feet were smarter than her head. Harmony complained about not having floorspace, and Woodcarver agreed. Well, there were ways of making floorspace. There were ways of making everyone look up and listen! Her pace picked up. Now both head and feet were cooperating—what a Tinish thing to say—as she realized how much change she could make all by herself. Somewhere in the back of her mind a little voice was saying that what she could do might be worse than not doing anything at all. But for the moment that voice was easy to ignore.

She came around the last turn before the Fragmentarium. The top of the cloud layer had just submerged the buildings, so all she could see were a few dim lights, probably from the old-members barracks. Admin would be hidden around on the other side of the compound. The Queens’s Road continued on its winding path down to Cliffside village, but the turnoff to the Fragmentarium was just another fifty meters or so. She walked forward, into the fog.

“Hei, Johanna.” The voice came from a little way ahead.

Jo gave a squeak of surprise, her mind cycling through variations on fight, flight, or make friendly social conversation. She peered into the mist. Aha. Friendly conversation was in order. It was a pack of four. No, five if you counted the puppy in a pannier.

“Hello,” Johanna said. “Do I know you?”

The four adult members brought their heads together. Even a meter or two of fog was enough to soak mindsound into silence; the pack was trying to think clearly. After a moment the voice replied: “Not understand, Johanna. Sorry.”

Jo made little sweep of her hand. Most packs seemed to take that motion to be like the Tinish head gesture for “That’s okay.” Of course, it might be too dark for the pack to see.

After a moment, they all continued along the path. As usual the fog was playing little tricks with sound. There was a buzzing sound that might have been some beat frequency of mindsounds. Or maybe it was just humming nervously. “I, hmmm,” it said—trying to think of the Samnorsk words? “I … am,” there was a Tinish chord that might have been familiar, “I … work … New Castle, um … work stone.”

“You’re a mason at the New Castle?”

“Yes! Right word. Right word.”

Before the humans came, before the Children’s Academy, stonemason work was a fairly high-standing tech profession; it was still quite respectable. They walked together in silence, divided by a difficult language barrier. Now she realized that they were not alone; there was a pack pacing along behind them, and maybe another behind that. Certainly Mr. Stonemason had heard them, so it seemed more mysterious than sinister to Johanna.

“Turn. I turn … here,” said the stonemason. They were at the turnoff to the Fragmentarium. Johanna followed the pack down the flagstoned path. They passed a wick lamp and she got a look at the other two packs. One was just a threesome. The other was four but two of its members were scarcely more than puppies. So, mystery explained.

As they came near the old-members barracks, the other two packs both started gobbling. Various voices responded from within, and the packs were both racing off toward the building. The stonemason stayed with Johanna. As they came near the entrance, it spoke again: “You don’t remember me, but except for my puppy, I was with you and Pham Nuwen when you entered the New Castle. You know, the day Pham made the sun go dark.”

Johanna turned to the pack, struck by its sudden fluency. An old, balding member had limped out of the shadows. The stonemason had flowed around it, and now all heads were pressed close together. The pack must have been one of Woodcarver’s guards at the Battle on Starship Hill.

Jo smiled. She didn’t remember this particular pack, but—“I do remember the day. You were outside? You actually saw the sun go out?” Almost any technology could overawe a pre-tech civilization such as on Tines World, but what Pham had done, twisting the laws of nature across hundreds of lightyears … that was something that awed even the Children. It was no surprise that the act had sucked up all the output of the sun.

The five—even the little puppy—were nodding agreement. “A thousand years from now, it may only be a myth in the mind of the pack of me, but it will be the greatest myth of all. When I looked up at the dark of the sun, I felt the Pack of Packs.”

The stonemason, now including the halt member who lived in the Fragmentarium, was silent for a moment. Then it gave a shiver. “It’s too cold out here for some of me. Why don’t you come inside? There are several whole packs tonight. They don’t speak Samnorsk, but I can translate for them.”

Johanna started to follow the other into the hall, but then she realized that most of the critters within were not reunited. They really were falling behind. If she stayed more than a minute or two she would start blabbing about what Harmony had in mind … and too many would understand. She stopped at the door, and waved the stonemason through. “I’ll come here another night,” she said.

The pack hesitated a moment. “Okay, then, but you should know. I’m grateful to you. Part of me is very sick, but with her I am much more clever. I can plan better. Every night I come here, and I work better the next day. It’s partly the planning I do when I’m smart. It’s partly what my new puppy learns from my old part. Rich people do this all the time.” All the heads looked up at Johanna. “I think that’s part of how they stay rich. Thank you for suggesting this place to Queen Woodcarver.”

Johanna bobbed her head. “You’re welcome.” Her words came out strangled. She turned and walked stiffly away, into the dark. Damn, damn, damn.

She wandered in the mists for some minutes, long enough for the guilt to boil back into rage. She needed a proper act of creative revenge against Harmony and all of his traditionalist ilk. Something that would kick even Woodcarver in the teeth if she couldn’t see sense.

Eventually she ran into the high fence that surrounded the exercise yard and the able-bodied barracks. She walked along the barrier, trailing her fingers against the wooden slats. So Harmony figured there wasn’t enough room. Yeah, it was crowded. Helping one’s old members was more popular than anyone had predicted. No doubt Harmony was also complaining about the various resources consumed too. That would make more of a difference to Woodcarver. But Woodcarver was rich. If she wasn’t rich enough, Ravna could kick in some of Oobii’s tech rents. This world was so poor, so stupid. In the High Beyond, caring for individual sophonts was one of the smallest costs of operations, handled invisibly for the most part. Wealth went for other things.…

She almost tripped over the creature that was digging under the fence. The Tine pulled its head and paws out of the dirt. Its jaws snapped shut just where Jo’s face had been before she startled back—but there was no further attack. The critter had no backup; it was a singleton. No, wait. There were a couple others, lurking about in the misty moonlight. They were all Tropicals. Glares were exchanged, but then the mangy critters backed down. The three wandered off—and in different directions. You’d never see a pack casually lose itself like that. How many of these troublemakers were lurking around the Fragmentarium? The notion of bundling the Tropicals off to a separate camp wasn’t completely stupid.

Jo continued toward the entrance to the able-bodied barracks. There was plenty of noise from inside the building. Outside, on her side of the fence, she saw occasional shadows move, heard an occasional howl. Harmony must still have his broodkenners playing dogcatcher all over the valley; she was here all by herself. The thought was not frightening, quite the opposite. The Tropicals weren’t especially friendly, but they also seemed to be total scatterbrains. And the fragments in the barracks ahead were Johanna’s friends—at least to the limits of their intelligence.

In fact … being alone here, she was in a position to get that proper revenge she’d been thinking of. She walked faster, purpose informing her direction. The idea was crazy, but it would create plenty of the precious “room” that Harmony was complaining about. It would show that sonsabitches and Woodcarver, too, that the fragments weren’t to be pushed around.

The racket from within the barracks was really loud. Johanna came up here a lot, and in the wintertime her visits were necessarily after dark—but she had never heard this much angry gobbling. Of course, these frags were never as civil as whole packs. They had the moods and whimsies of hundreds of separate animals. Most in this barracks were big and healthy, and desperate to be part of whole packs. That was why the fence and the barred gate were necessary. Most of the time, most of the frags were a little bit frightened of escape—even at the same time they yearned to run out into the wide world and find some likely pack. Over the last two years, Jo had made such matchmaking her business. Carenfret actually called Johanna the “littlest kenner.” Johanna could walk right into the barracks and chat with singletons and duos who knew a little Samnorsk. Even when speech wasn’t possible, the frags enjoyed having something as smart as a pack that they could come near to, that they could pretend with. Any number of times, she had started new packs by pairing duos or getting a singleton together with a duo. At least as often, she had chatted up damaged packs on Hidden Island, or Newcastle town, or Cliffside, and persuaded them that she had an ideal completion for them.

It was that sort of effort, both by her and the decent broodkenners, that made the escape attempts very half-hearted.

Tonight sounded very different.

The wick lamp mounted over the gate showed dozens of fragments milling around just inside the entrance. More were coming by the second, pushing and shoving against the fence.

As she came into view (or hearing, which perhaps was more important for Tines) there were the usual calls of “Hei, Johanna!” “Hei, Johanna!” Those shouts were drowned out by angry gobbling, by howling and yapping that almost sounded like the baying of dogs.

The more articulate actually made sense. The occasional Samnorsk matched what Interpack she could understand: “Let us out. We want to be free!”

Now she saw what might be the explanation for all the incautious wanderlust: the Tropicals that had sneaked inside the fence. She could spot only a couple, but they were in the loudest clusters. Apparently, their attitude had tipped the overall consensus.

She’d never seen so many fragments simultaneously eager to break out. Besides banging the fence, some were digging at the foundations of the barrier. Right at the entrance, a knot of singletons had piled up, trying to reach over the top. If they had been a coordinated pack, wearing jackets with paw straps, they could have boosted some of themselves out. As it was, the pyramid would reach about two meters fifty and then fall back on itself.

“Hei, Johanna! Help us.” The voice came from those piling against the entrance.

“Cheepers!” said Johanna. She recognized the white splash of fur on the back of its head. This was the most fluent of the Samnorsk speakers; sometimes he actually made sense. The poor guy would have been a big plus to almost any pack, but he was from one of Steel’s recycled monster packs. He had memories that eventually repelled whomever he was intimate with. Cheepers himself was gentle and friendly, and as smart as a singleton can be, which made his situation that much sadder to Jo. She went to one knee so she could look at the singleton eye to eye, through the tiny gaps in the fence. “What’s up, Cheepers?”

“Get us out, get us out!”

Johanna rocked back. How could she explain? Nuance was rarely a singleton’s strong point. “I—” she started to make some excuse and then thought, Well, why not? Slowly, she stood up. Yes, she really could have revenge. And it would end the crowding, and it would give Cheepers and his friends what they wanted.

She looked at the gate. It was barred on the outside, but with a simple timber and clasp. It was almost two meters off the ground. An escaped singleton couldn’t reach the bar. She was vaguely aware of the three Tropicals on her side of the fence, watching her. No doubt they were too scatterbrained to figure out the mechanism, but any coherent pack on this side of the fence could have opened the gate easily, just by climbing up on itself. Johanna could open it most easily of all.

Jo stepped forward, already gloating about imagined consequences. She reached for the gate bar, then hesitated. Consequences, consequences. There was a reason these poor creatures had been brought here. Where else could they go? In the towns of the Domain, a very few might find new minds, but the rest would be cuffed about, some killed, some enslaved. There was a reason for having the Fragmentarium. She herself had fought to make Woodcarver’s wartime field hospital into this institution. Releasing the patients would be vengeance mainly on these patients themselves. She glanced to her left, at Cheepers bouncing up and down, urging her on. If they hadn’t been all whipped up tonight, these frags would mostly shrink from escape.

Johanna stepped back from the gate. No, there were some things too loony even for her, even in a rage. But I could have, and the look on Harmony would have been—

Something came streaking in from her left, knocking her off her feet. All three Tropicals bounded past. They clambered over each other even as she scrambled to her feet. Maybe they had seen what she was going to do, maybe they were that smart by themselves. In any case, the top one eased its snout under the bar and flipped it loose. The pressure from within swung the gate open, knocking the three’s pyramid in all directions. The crowd within stampeded through, some of them knocking Johanna down again, most flowing smoothly around her. Some even said “Hei” on their way past.

Johanna curled forward, protecting her face behind her knees and arms.

Finally the thundering herd had passed. Their shouts and caroling echoed back from the hills as they chased themselves both south and north along the Queen’s Road.

Jo got back on her feet. The damp ground had been trampled into mud. The open gate hung at an angle. She saw a half dozen figures near the entrance.

“Guys?” Johanna walked toward the remaining Tines. It wouldn’t be surprising if the departure had left some injured behind.

Even close up, she didn’t see any blood. None of the Tines were limping, except the one she called Dirty Henrik, and he’d had a bad forepaw ever since the rest of his pack got squished in a rock fall. No, these six just couldn’t decide whether they were staying or going. They milled in and out of the entrance, making nervous noises as they looked out into the dark.

Jo stood by the gate for a moment, feeling just as uncertain as the remaining Tines, and thinking through her reasoning of moments before—before the Tropicals had put everyone on the other side of the question. Finally she said, “You gotta make up your minds, guys, cuz I’m gonna close this gate.”

None of them understood Samnorsk, but when she put her hands on the gate and began to push it shut, they seemed to get the message. All but Dirty Henrik quickly slipped inside. Henrik remained half in and half out, his nose twitching as he smelled the night air. His pack had been a lumberjack; maybe he could do all right in the outside. Dirty Henrik wobbled back and forth, then realized the gate was still closing on him. He gave a little squeak and retreated within.

Jo had to force the gate upwards to overcome the bent hinge, and then it was shut. She left the lock bar on the ground. Hell, if he wanted to badly enough, Henrik could probably push his way out.

And now … Johanna stood in silence for a moment, trying to make sense of what had happened and decide how she should feel about it. Finally she shook her head and started up the steps that led to the admin building. She had some phone calls to make.

The other Children called the events of that night “Jo’s great jailbreak.” Some of them thought it was all very funny. The consequences? Maybe they were as bad as Johanna had imagined, though not quite so obvious and visible. For the next year or so, the back alleys and garbage dumps of villages all around had a surplus of singletons and duos, aimless beggars who importuned and incompetently burgled and robbed. A few came back to the Fragmentarium. A very few found refuge in the new Tropical “embassy,” though the Tropicals seemed much less happy to have recruits than they were to raise hell with the local singletons.

The majority of the runaways simply disappeared into the awesome wilderness. Pilgrim thought that more than a few of the disappeared had survived and made packs of themselves. “I can tell you from personal experience,” he told Jo some tendays later, when he caught her crying, “when times get really tough, you’ll patch up with parts you could never imagine sharing even a single thought with. Hei, look at me.” That turned her sobs into a hiccupping laugh; she knew what he meant better than most humans. Nevertheless, she was sure that the wide, deep silence of the northern forests had swallowed the lives of most of the runaways.

And consequences for Johanna Olsndot herself? Leave aside her most idiot classmates who thought it was all a joke. Her little brother seemed to regard the incident with uneasy awe. She was the sister who corrected his foolishness. In his view, this situation upset the natural order.

Woodcarver actually stopped talking to Jo for a time. Her Majesty knew the odds against singletons in the wild. She had allowed the Fragmentarium from the same good will that she extended to her war veterans—and Harmony’s plans had been an attempt to make room for those healthy singletons to remain in safety. More, she knew that the escape was a slap not just at Harmony Redjackets but at Woodcarver herself.

Maybe it was because of good words from Pilgrim to Woodcarver, but the Fragmentarium remained open. Indeed, one happy consequence was exactly as Johanna had imagined: now there was plenty of room in the institution. Woodcarver did not move to boot the old members out of the place. Mr. Stonemason and the others had a place for their elderly parts, even doomed as they were. That crowding problem was postponed for a while—and Harmony looked like the ineffectual, pompous assholes that he was!

Any time in the first days after the Breakout, Johanna could easily have proclaimed her innocence. After all, the evidence against her was circumstantial, with Harmony the loudest proclaimer of her guilt. The only eyewitnesses were very confused singletons, and some of them apparently thought she had been the one to throw the gate open. She almost told Pilgrim the truth—except that she soon guessed that he already knew. Johanna came even closer to telling Ravna Bergsndot. It hurt to think that Ravna saw her as just a stupid little teenager; the poor lady had to deal with too many of those already. But the days passed, and Johanna’s reputation grew and solidified. Yeah, she was very glad she hadn’t done what people thought she had. But hell, it had happened—and in the future, maybe people like Harmony would think twice before they crossed the Mad Bad Girl of Starship Hill.