"Alas, she is so untrusting!" He paused, struggling to roll the little wheelbarrow through a shallow snow drift. "And now I fear we are dealing with a new Woodcarver. No, not something evil, but maybe something worse. Something foolish." He layered a regretful chuckle over his words.

"Foolish? I'm sure Woodcarver knows that Nevil is trying to manipulate her."

"Of course," said Flenser. "And she thinks she is in control of the situation. She's dead wrong and-well, I'm here to rescue you both. I'm cleverer than Woodcarver ever was. And you-"

"I'm the utter fool who didn't see even the most obvious parts of all this conspiracy."

Flenser's wheelbarrow came to a halt. All of his members were staring up at her, and his voice was suddenly somber and uncoy. "No, Ravna. You're not a fool. You're an innocent, too pure of heart to live on this real world. Outside of damaged packs and saints, I've never seen that among my people. Tell me. Is this a feature of star-born culture? Are there places where such minds as yours can survive?"

I'm doing my best to change! Aloud she said, "You packs have your innocents. What about Tyrathect?"

"Heh. But she didn't survive as a mind, did she?" Flenser shrugged, looking back and forth at himself. "Tyrathect graduated to being an attitude, the bane of my otherwise happy life." He pointed a snout at his maimed member. That creature's rear was hidden in blankets, but its eyes were large and dark, and right now it was staring at Ravna. "If White Tips dies before the rest of me, things will suddenly become very interesting for the Domain." He gave a theatrical sigh. "In the meantime, I would find it quite amusing to be your special secret advisor. Please, I'm at your disposal."

They walked some paces in silence. Powers! There were consequences, good and bad, stretching in all directions. What if Woodcarver thought Ravna and Flenser were conspiring against her? What if Flenser was using Ravna just as Nevil had? There was that little threat analysis program she'd found the other day; it could probably list a hundred more possibilities. I have to talk to Pilgrim and Jo. Meantime, here and now, what was she going to say?

The wily pack just let her stew....

"Okay, Flenser. Your advice would be welcome. Not that I feel any obligation in receiving it."

"Oh, of course, of course. And this first meeting was mainly to establish our trusting relationship. I have one major insight and few minor facts for you. You see, Nevil has made such a mess of you."

"That's an insight?"

"Even now you don't truly know. And Woodcarver, my overconfident parent, is equally ignorant. She thinks Nevil is just a simple-minded dilettante."

"You think he's more."

"In himself? Certainly not. But what you're both missing is that Nevil is the tool of persons much more clever than he is."

"Huh? I know the Children, and there's no one else in Nevil's league."

"I agree. Nevil's senior partners are Tines-and not in the Domain at all."

Flenser rolled on, leaving Ravna to stand for a moment in the falling snow. "Impossible!" she said, then trotted to catch up. "Most of the older Children don't have close contacts with packs. Nevil Storherte certainly doesn't." Nevil treated packs cordially enough, but she suspected he was as much a racist as all extreme Straumers, hell-bent on achieving their special form of Transcendence.

Flenser shrugged. "I didn't say they were his friends. They use him and he thinks he uses them. The combination is dangerous, especially if you and Woodcarver don't know about it."

Ravna slowed again, boggled by the possibilities-but there were things about the claim that didn't make sense.

Flenser wasn't slowing. He said something in Interpack. She couldn't pick apart the chords, except to understand that it was an interrogative. A second later there was a reply from ahead of them. "Ah," said Flenser, talking to her again. "I fear we'll have to cut this short. We're almost to the exit of this convenient alleyway-and you should be back on the road ahead of Nevil's spy. I'll get all the details to you soon." One of him came back to her and grasped her mitten in its jaws, drawing her forward.

"But, but..." All the minutes he had spent on build up and now he had no time for the details! That was Flenser for you! She dug in her heels. "Wait!" her whisper was almost a hiss. "This doesn't make any sense. An international Tinish conspiracy? Who is involved? And how could you know the details?"

Flenser didn't relax his hold on her mitten, but his voice came from all around her. "How do you think, my dear? The conspirators think I'm on their side." Two more of him came back and gently pushed her out onto the Queen's Road.

"Now, shoo." His last words faded into the sound of the falling snow.

CHAPTER 15.

Johanna and Pilgrim both agreed that Flenser's news should be passed on to Woodcarver immediately. Pilgrim reported back the next evening: "I told her the claims Flenser made, leaving out the details of just where and how the meeting happened."

"Did she believe you?" asked Ravna.

"What is she going to do to Flenser?" asked Johanna.

Pilgrim gave a little laugh. "I don't think Flenser has any more to fear than before. At least, the Woodcarver of the moment is mellow. She told me she had always figured that Flenser was conspiring with Vendacious and/or Tycoon, and she's not surprised that they're doing their best to manipulate Nevil. She asked me to congratulate you, Ravna."

"For what?"

"'Tell that silly Ravna she's a step closer to understanding what a mischievous threat Flenser is.'" Pilgrim was suddenly speaking with Woodcarver's voice; it was more a playback than an imitation.

Ravna realized her mouth was hanging open. "So why would Flenser come to me with this story, now?"

Pilgrim shrugged. "Woodcarver thinks it's just Old Flenser sadism; after all, he didn't provide you with any details. Personally, I don't think Flenser-Tyrathect is truly sadistic. He just wishes he was."

Johanna waved away his point. "But if this is more than Flenser games, if Vendacious is playing with Nevil..."

The comment seemed to bring Pilgrim up short. He was quiet for a moment and then his voice was serious. "Okay. You're right. We need to squeeze some of those details out of Flenser."

Johanna's look was haunted. "We know Nevil is a self-convinced son of a bitch. But Vendacious is a monster. A soft little politician like Nevil wouldn't stand a chance with him. Maybe ... maybe we should warn Nevil. There are games that are too deadly to play."

CHAPTER 16.

"So what does this word 'crone' mean?" Belle pointed a snout at the page in Timor's storybook, Fairy Tales of Old Nyjora.

"Um, I don't know," Timor replied. His brow furrowed the way it did when he was puzzled. "We can look it up the next time we're over at Oobii." When she had first known this Child, such a question would have provoked a panic attack. Timor's eyes would get wide at the shock of realizing there was a question for which he didn't instantly have an answer. Such was the best evidence Belle had that these human creatures had once been something like all-knowing.

Nowadays, when confronted with a question, Timor would ask someone else or go to the public place on Oobii or devise the answer from materials at hand. Right now, the boy was paging back and forth through the storybook, his nimble human fingers flipping the pages. "Okay!" he said. "Here on page thirteen, the wise archeologist is talking about the lady who was called a 'crone' on page forty. He says she's a 'beldame.'"

"Belle means beautiful," said Belle. It was her taken name, one of the earliest any pack had chosen in the human language. That had been a bold move, even if it was right after she was kicked out of Woodcarver's cabinet, when her former name, "Wise-Royal-Advisor," became a mockery.

Timor squinched his mouth in a smile. "I know. Hei, and I remember from the story of the 'Princess and the Swamp Lilies'-'dame' is just a word for lady. So 'beldame' must mean 'beautiful lady.'"

"Hmm." Maybe she could become "Beldame" or "Beldame Crone." Those had possibilities for chords and trills. She played with the possibilities even as Timor returned to reading the story aloud. There was a time when Belle had really concentrated on learning from books such as these, the Two Queens' mass-printing project. Such books would surely give insights into Ravna Bergsndot's clever plans. That was before Ravna had been deposed.

And the stories in this particular book? If you discounted the ugly tropical background, and the necessary weirdness of humanity, they were very much like the folktales of Tinish realms. In her speeches, Ravna had talked about Nyjora again and again, claiming it was a model for what she was trying to do here. That had snared Belle's early interest in stories of Nyjora. But even though Timor liked this latest book, it had turned out to be frankly fictional. From eavesdropping on the older Children, Belle had gradually come to realize how stupid Ravna Bergsndot was. The history of Nyjora meant something deep to her, but to the Children it was as much a myth as this little book. If anybody had asked Belle (the Crone Belle Dame, that sounded even better), she could have told them that Ravna Bergsndot was headed for a fall. Which now had come.

One big difference between Ravna and Belle: Ravna still lived in what was nearly a palace. Belle had gradually figured out the politics behind that. There would come a time when Nevil Storherte could not continue to ignore Belle and her Timor- "I'm sorry what crone turns out to mean," said Timor, closing the book and reaching around to hug her nearest shoulders. "Do you want to read another story tonight?"

Usually Belle paid more attention to what this Child was saying. But all any of her remembered was how Timor had looked around at her a few minutes ago, when she was deep into her little fugue. Timor could rattle on for hours about this and that even when he wasn't reading aloud. It wasn't natural-or at least it wasn't Tinish-how many different things he could talk about, all without making the tiniest mindsound. For a moment, she considered confessing her inattention. He seemed to guess at it occasionally. But no, she could sneak back later, when he was asleep, and find out what "crone" was all about. Maybe she should read the whole book tonight and be done with it. But then the next few evenings would be really boring.

Outside something big was banging along the street. It sounded like a six-kherhog team, pulling multiple wagons. It had to be something big to be heard through the noise-quilting that was built into the walls. There were high-pitched screeches and pings, as if the wagon wheels were throwing up pebbles against the walls of the houses. Their little house was at the south edge of town, right on Haulage Way. When it had first been built, Belle had thought Woodcarver had fallen into imperial madness: the way was so wide and so perfectly graded. Now, after she'd seen the freight that streamed along it, bound for Cliffside harbor, Belle acknowledged (to herself) quite a different opinion.

She was half-minded to go outside and scream at the drovers. Instead she fell back on something more practical. "Timor, don't you think it's unfair that we live in this hovel?" Never mind that it had brightness and warmth at the click of a claw, even in the northern winter. Never mind that it was more comfortable than anything that royalty owned before the Sky Children came. It was the comparison with what some others had that made it poverty.

Timor stroked her shoulders, trying to comfort her. It was strange that he had actually been with her long enough that it really did comfort. She did her best to shrug away the thought. He should despise their situation even more than she did. It was Belle's great good fortune that she had her own personal human; it was her bad fortune that Timor Ristling was the most accepting and even-tempered and reasonable creature she had ever met: "We could live in the general dorms, Belle, with the other kids and their Tinish friends. Or we could probably room with one of the new families. You know, like with the Larsndots, down on Hidden Island. I thought you wanted us to have our own place?"

If Timor had been one of the other counselors back when Belle was still "Wise-Royal-Advisor," she would have been sure that this was a devilishly clever counterattack. Instead, with Timor, she knew it was absolute innocence. Of course, Belle wanted to have private quarters! How else could she keep this Child for herself, keep him from falling in with human friends or even with some other pack? Timor had been her meal ticket for almost nine years now. If she lost her status as his official caregiver, she couldn't even afford to live in this house.

"No," she said and made the sound of a human sigh. "I just think you deserve better. You know I only think of what's best for you."

"Oh, Belle." Timor set the book down and wiggled back among the four of her. "If you really want a better place, I could complain to Ravna. I just don't like to do that."

Who cares about Ravna? thought Belle, but she didn't say that aloud. The Bergsndot human was out of power, at best a minor player. On the other hand, Timor himself was becoming an important one, even if he didn't realize the fact. Down in the New Meeting Place, Belle often lay at his feet pretending to sleep while eavesdropping on the humans.

As far as Belle could tell, Timor's parents had had roughly the same social status as did offal collectors in the Domain. Timor had inherited their talents-and somehow those abilities were rare and precious down here. Nevil and his friends didn't like Timor. They didn't like his innocent opinions or the effect he had on the other Children. One way or another, Timor is my lever! The main thing was to pick the right time and issue to use against Nevil and his pals. She was already planting the seeds for that: "Maybe we could complain to Nevil, or that nice Bili Yngva."

The boy yawned. "I guess." He gave a little shiver. "I'm too tired to read any more now. I need to go to bed."

When Timor had been just a puppy of a Child, she had tucked him in every night. It had become an unnecessary ritual. But the boy was still as small as he had ever been. He hadn't grown like the other Children. And there were other problems. He weakened so easily, and he still needed a lot more sleep than any human or pack she had ever known. Even if he stayed loyal to her, she might still lose out.

She led and followed Timor up the stairs to the tiny sleeping loft. At the top was one of those wonderful little light switches. With a tap of a snout, there was a bluish glow from a ceramic square mounted on the wall.

"Huh, the light's kinda dim," she said.

"It's okay," said Timor. "But the room is colder than usual. I'll bet there's some problem with the steam pipes." That happened often enough. Their little house had been one of the first with a heating tower, hence it had one of the crummiest of the devices.

Tonight's cold was something substantive they could complain about. She checked the small glass windows. They were all shut tight, no trace of a breeze. The nearest street lamp was broken, so there wasn't much of a view either. They'd have a very nice list when they finally went complaining.

The rest of her was busy tucking Timor in. "We'll use extra blankets," she said. She topped them with a frayed green quilt, her only prize from the last real shipwreck. She had almost lost Timor's loyalty over that. He'd accused her of robbing from the dying. Hah! But who had been dying? Not a single pack. And what was left of the Tropical mob was sitting pretty now, in its semi-mindless way. Besides, no one ever came looking for goods lost in the sea.

She had used her old bone needles to make a quilt out of the green fabric, stuffing it with froghen down. It was a crude job, the stitching irregular; not a single member of herself had direct memory of sewing skills. After eight years, the stitches were coming loose, and the fabric was riddled with insect holes. Now it was Timor who insisted they keep the thing.

"Is that warm enough?" she asked.

"Yes, it'll be enough." He patted her nearest head.

"I'll just listen for a while then." This was part of the ritual too. One of Belle scooched down to the end of the bed and sat on the covers. Another lay on the floor by the bed. The other two sat a few feet away, listening and watching. She flicked off the light. "G'night, Timor."

"G'night, Belle."

Now the room was really dark. On this winter night with the street lamp gone and the clouds she had noticed earlier, it was probably too dark even for Timor to see. On the other hand, she could hear everything in the room, and when she emitted squeaks up in the range of Tinish thought, she could hear the walls and the floor. With work she could have even made out the shape of Timor's face. And Timor's heart and lungs made so much noise that even without such effort she could make out his form under the covers.

Eight years ago, when Timor was just out of coldsleep, he had cried himself to sleep every night, cried for his lost parents, cried for things he couldn't explain. In those first years, Belle would sometimes sit two of herself on his bed, cuddling him. He hadn't cried in years now, and he said he was too old to cuddle, but he still liked her to lie in the dark and listen for a while.

She didn't mind. She'd always been a planner and a schemer. She'd never been fast at thinking on her feet, even when she'd been Belle Ornrikakihm and not Belle Ornrikak. With Ihm dead, she was down to four. A pack of four could be a clever person. More often it was dull and unimaginative. Sometimes, sitting here in the dark, slowly slowly creating strategy, she wondered if she was only fooling herself to think her plans were clever.

Timor was still awake and restless, but she could tell he really was tired. Funny how much she knew his mind even though his thoughts were silent. Sometimes even silent, he could be almost member useful: Without climbing, he could reach higher than some of her. His fingers could solve problems that her Tinish snouts would just fumble over. At the same time he was as smart as a whole pack, and like all the humans he had the strangest ideas.

A clever pack could see the power in those ideas.

If only I was a royal advisor once more. That damned Woodcarver had always favored Scrupilo and Vendacious, her own offspring packs. If I had guessed that Vendacious was a traitor, I could have unmasked him and now I would be second in the realm. Sigh. She was edging toward that waking nightmare, where she came more and more often: she might never climb back from the trap she had made for herself. She had not the cleverness, and with Ihm gone she had lost the last of herself who was fertile.

While Ihm was still alive, she had the possibility of trading puppies with some other pack. But she had not tried hard enough for a match, or maybe even when she was five, she still was not attractive. Now she was four barren old ugly females. Her schemes would never carry her so high that she would have the pick of a decent litter. In truth her choices were very few. She could go to the Fragmentarium, adopt some dregs. She could run away from herself. Or she could simply die off one by one, until she was nothing, as dead as poor Timor would someday be.

Timor still wasn't sleeping. This might be one of those rare nights when he stayed awake longer than Belle. Then she noticed that he was shivering. The room must be too cold for him, even with all the blankets. He hadn't complained, but then he rarely complained. This just proved that there was something seriously wrong with the house's features. Tomorrow she'd advance her schedule and stuff Timor's torment down the throat of Nevil Storherte. She and Timor would pry some really nice digs out of this outrage....

But what if the cold made Timor really sick? He was so fragile, and he could die all at once. She'd be left with nothing.

Okay, something had to be done about this tonight. She could call in and complain-assuming the phones weren't broken too. She thought for a moment about how these homes were powered. The teachers at the Children's Academy had talked about that in mind-numbing detail, more than the four-sized Belle could properly remember. Hot water boils into steam, which can "do work." So a water pipe had been laid all along the Queen's Road, with an outlet at every house on nearby streets. The skyfolk magic was in the fact that they didn't need a thousand bonfires to keep the water from freezing-or to make it steam. The starship Oobii had limitless fire somewhere inside and it could deliver the heat of that fire to any point that was visible from its upper hatchway. (Think on that, enemies of the Domain! Belle had often wondered why Ravna and Woodcarver didn't make more of Oobii's awesome deadly power. Back when she had still had Ihm, Belle had concluded that the only explanation for the humans' meekness must be that there was an upper limit on the rate that the heat could be pumped out. She no longer understood the reasoning, but she held the conclusion close in her remaining mind.) Anyway, all the homes near the Queen's Road had a view down upon Oobii. They should never lack for warmth, and the steam also powered the smaller magics like the lights. And the telephones?

She slipped off the end of Timor's bed and all of her headed quietly for the stairs. She was mostly on the steps when Timor's voice came to her, soft and half asleep. "You're a good person, Belle."

"Um, yes," she replied. "G'night." What did he mean by that?

Now back in the downstairs sitting room, she flicked on the light. The glow lamp came on, but it was so faint she could barely see it. The steam pressure must be near zero. She walked across the room, easily avoiding the knickknacks that she and Timor had collected. There were just too many books, too. She shuffled them out of the way, digging down to the telephone. It was made for both humans and Tines. A foursome could easily manage it. She was still smart enough to voice some righteous indignation on behalf of Timor Ristling. The poor Child could die with these terrible housing conditions! One way or another they were going to get the house they deserved. Just don't waste your rage on the starship's call director. The Oobii had a perfect imitation human voice (at least at low frequencies), but it was almost as dumb as a talky singleton. Once she had mistaken the telephone call director for a real human. She'd railed at it for five minutes, uselessly of course. No, she would just say she was Belle Ornrikak, Best Friend to Timor Ristling, with an emergency call to, hmm, Nevil? In any case, save the rant for some real person.

She held down the base and raised the receiver to one of her low-sound ears. There was no wire tone, and none of the little clicks and sputters she had grown used to. She hissed an ultrasonic obscenity. So steam pressure really was necessary for telephone service! Belle stomped around the crowded little room, whacking at whatever was in claw range-but quietly, so it wouldn't disturb Timor. It would be hours before she could unload her wrath on the incompetents who were running things. A proper politician would use that time to sharpen its rhetoric, but she wasn't in the mood. And in fact ... Belle opened all her mouths and waggled her heads. She could feel the bite of frost on her tongues. It really was getting cold. Without cloaks, even a pack would be uncomfortable.

She hunkered down and tried to think things out. Why would steam pressure go away? Well, because the water wasn't hot anymore! Maybe Oobii had screwed up; maybe it wasn't targeting the heaters in this area. Since she didn't hear anyone out in the street, complaining, the failure might be just affecting this one house. She could just go up the street and ask around. Maybe Timor could stay overnight at one of the houses that still had heat.

Belle sat in the dark for several minutes, painfully trying to figure the pros and cons of the scheme. Such an emergency move in the middle of the night would certainly prove how seriously Timor had been abused. But she was very afraid that someone like Ravna or Nevil might use it as an excuse to permanently move Timor in with others.

That thought should have vetoed any plan to get help from the neighbor Children. But now, where Belle was sitting nearest to the window, she was chilled. All this strategy is worthless, if Timor dies. The thought was strangely terrifying, even worse than the silence of mind she'd felt in Ihm's last days.

Belle stood up, pulled her cloaks tight around her bodies. As she filed out the house's back door, she was already plotting just how she should put the situation to the neighbors. They were Children, a married couple. She didn't remember their names. In fact, she had done her best to keep them out of Timor's way. Now she would have to be nicey-nice.

She latched the door behind her-and was immediately struck by the quality of the air. This cold might be deadly to an unprotected human, but it wasn't that bad for a winter night. The clouds blocked out any possibility of aurora or starlight or moonlight, but she could feel a thick fog all around her, the humidity bringing a profound silence to all the upper reaches of sound. There was also a new sound, a hissing, low-pitched and mechanical. She had a moment of prideful insight. Maybe Oobii was still sending its ray to the local heater-but there was some leak that was stealing steam before it could get in the house. I might even be able to fix this!

She walked around the side of their little house, trying to imagine just how a fix might be accomplished. Her negativity was complaining like it always did. She really didn't know anything about steam technology, much less leak-fixing. But she could easily sound out the leak. Maybe she could just push a proper-sized rock into the hole.

So dark, so silent in the higher sounds. Except for the hiss of the leak there were no sounds but her own breathing and her paws on the ice. Without echo location she was reduced to feeling her away along like some dumb deaf human.

She slid down the gully on the north side of the house. The leak was just a yard or two ahead, almost at ground level. Right here there was faint illumination from a street lamp way up the street. It glinted off something stringy, hanging from the wall above her. It was the house telephone line. Cut.

She took a step or two more before the implications hit her. Then for a second she froze in terror. Living with all this sky magic made you forget the life and death things you learned in your earlier life. Fog masks mindsound. In olden days, fog was weather's arbitrary contribution to war and treachery. Now all that ambushers need do was puncture a steam pipe and they could have all the fog they wanted.

Belle quivered with the effort to see and hear. What could she do? Killers could be all around. But they hadn't acted. Maybe if she just ignored the silence they would let her be. Surely they didn't care about a worthless pack of four.

She turned, casually she hope it looked, though two of her started to turn in the wrong direction, straining to run off to the street below the house. As she returned to the back door, she played a human humming tune, sounds pitched low enough to pass through this fog. She strained for the echoes and at the same time listened way higher up for some telltale of Tinish thought. Now that she was searching, the clues all came together, the echoes of flesh and the faint skirling of mind. She could even see some silhouettes of heads against the dim white fields of the snows uphill. There was one pack nearby, though it might be as small as four. Perhaps one or two more packs lurked at the edge of the snow.

And still they didn't act. If she turned again, she could walk off into the street. They could get what they wanted.