Zek cringed a bit lower. "Vendacious doesn't know, sir. I'm not relaying this conversation."

Tycoon made a surprised noise. He angled some heads at the speaking tubes and emitted a single chord that meant "carry on." Then all his attention returned to Zek: "Why not?"

"I ... I'm his victim, sir. I beg you to keep this conversation secret."

Tycoon shrugged. "Perhaps. So you must be passing lies on to Vendacious then?"

"No! I used your voice, but only to elaborate on what you said, that you need to concentrate on your landing."

"And the numbers you were saying to me? They are lies too?"

"No, they come from combining the view from my Ut and Zek and Fyr. Just as I began the deception, I lost part of myself, and was afraid to say anything to you at all. Amdiranifani thought-"

"Ah. Amdiranifani." Tycoon nodded. "So he's been operating right under Vendacious' snouts. Amazing."

Zek's voiced gained a little confidence. "Yes, sir. I couldn't do this without him and the crazy soundpaths he dances around the control gondola. When my radio mind weakens, he makes suggestions."

Half of Tycoon was looking at Jef and Ravna now. The pack's whole aspect was a ferocious smile. "I understand. Amdiranifani is even more remarkable than Vendacious claims. He has made a puppet out of my radio network."

"No, please! I am not a puppet-"

Tycoon voice rolled over the protest: "Just listen to this, Amdiranifani!" He grabbed up his voice-band radio and waved it at Zek. The two airships were so close that this device would surely work.

"No, no, no. Please don't betray me-" Zek's Samnorsk dissolved into Tinish, and then not even that. A bubbling noise emerged from the singleton's mouth, a sound that Ravna had never heard from Tines before.

Jefri was on his feet, shouting. Behind him, the gunpack had surged out of the stairwell.

And they were both trumped by the squall of outrage that came from the other side of the chamber: Ritl bounced off her perch, blathering as loud as she had when Ravna first met her. She ran across the deck to Tycoon's thrones, shrieking at him one and all. Then she danced sideways till she was standing in front of Zek. She turned, snapping belligerently.

Tycoon waved the gunpack back. Then he shifted position slightly and focused a roar down upon Ritl. This level of sound was a weapon. The singleton was knocked off her feet. Even outside of the focus, the noise was a spike of pain in Ravna's ears.

Ritl lay on her back, twitching. Finally she rolled over and belly-crawled back toward her perch, Tycoon's gaze following her centimeter by centimeter. When she was under the partial cover of the perch, she emitted a defiant little squawk.

Tycoon stared at Ritt for a long moment. Then he put down the analog radio and said to Zek, "Have your say."

Zek didn't reply immediately. He looked dazed, maybe by the splash of Tycoon's roar, maybe by the terror of the moment before. "Thank you, sir," The creature hesitated. "There will be interruptions. I wasn't able to entirely disguise-" Abruptly he was gobbling Interpack, some kind of question.

Tycoon answered in Samnorsk, "Give me a moment, Vendacious! This landing is tricky." He gestured for Zek to relay his words.

And Vendacious replied, "Indeed, my lord! Sorry for interrupting!"

In fact, it looked to Ravna as though the Pack of Packs crew was doing just fine without any micro-managing from Tycoon. The ship wasn't more than a thousand meters from touchdown. Ahead was familiar ground, Murder Meadows. It was the nearest open ground to the city. Today the heather was festive with crowds and banners.

But Tycoon continued, "In fact, we may still be too high. I'm going to circle the landing area and try again. It will give me more time to be sure of the ground."

"As you say, my lord." Then Vendacious' voice brightened. "I imagine the maneuver will impress Woodcarver's subjects."

"Follow me, then." Tycoon didn't say anything for a moment, but he was watching Zek.

"I've resumed faking the relay, sir," Mr. Radio Cloaks said.

"Good. We'll have few minutes to chat then." Tycoon looked almost gleeful; the geeky side of him must find this deception fascinating. He said something into a speaking tube. Almost immediately the engines buzzed louder. The airship turned and they could see Newcastle town spread out below them.

Tycoon sobered and he gave Zek a sharp look. "Well? You have your time. Speak!"

Zek sat a little straighter: "Thank you sir. I've rarely been a person, and never for very long. But at this moment, I am eight. Vendacious can't keep his secrets from me, not all of them. He is the king of lies, sir, and the king of death. He kills and kills-his own people!"

"So? Overthrow him."

"You don't know much about killing, do you, sir? If you kill often enough, and cleverly enough, you can build a palace of terror. Someday it may fall, but just the thought of that is enough to be murdered for."

"Until Amdiranifani came along?"

Zek gave a one-headed nod. "Until Amdiranifani and the good radio conditions that my parts have been wishing for the last tenday. A word from you, sir, just a word of hope. It could make the difference. It could bring Vendacious down."

Tycoon made a disbelieving sound. "I know Vendacious treats his prisoners harshly, sometimes his employees too. I've curbed the worst excesses. And his spies gets results. He gets results. Can you gainsay that?"

"Yes!" But now Zek seemed to lose track of the conversation. His eyes became unfocused. "Sorry. I'm down to three. A moment-"

Murder Meadows slid beneath the airship. Now they could see downslope to Hidden Island and beyond, but the real spectacle was Oobii. They would be flying along the starship's length. Oobii's drive spines drooped around her and the ones underneath were crushed, but the ship still gleamed greenfly bright. Even packs who didn't know what that ship had been were overcome by its beauty. Ravna noticed that Tycoon's members were all staring at the ship, almost as distracted as Zek, but for different reasons.

Mr. Radio resumed, "Vendacious murdered gobble and gobble"-these were names Ravna didn't recognize-"when they gained too much favor with you. He murdered the human, Edvi Verring, ran him into the Choir land, then told you that he died of the bloat."

Tycoon turned a head back to Zek and commented, "Vendacious offered to let us see the remains."

"A ploy, sir. Recall, he made the offer to Ravna and Timor. He's convinced Timor that Edvi might still live. Vendacious uses hostages for everything. Even when the hostages are dead, he still uses them."

"That's far-fetched. I could have asked to see the remains."

Mr. Radio replied abruptly: "You could have, but you didn't. Even if you had, Vendacious would have had some explanation you would accept. In the year that I can remember, your gullibility has shown no bounds." He hesitated and Zek shrank back from his standing posture. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Tycoon didn't react except to raise one snout ironically, "You plead a little radio interference, do you?"

"No, sir," the words came softly, "that was from all of me." Maybe, but Zek looked confused now. "In the time I have, I don't know quite what more to say..." He glanced across at Jefri and then continued, "There is the murder and the lie that made all the rest possible. Vendacious killed Scriber Jaqueramaphan. Then he lied to say that Johanna-"

"Yes, yes, you don't have to repeat that claim." Tycoon nodded at Jefri. "I hear your friend Amdiranifani behind these pleadings." But Tycoon did not really sound enraged. Most of him was still staring outwards. Oobii filled the view, its stately curves sweeping past, its drive spines arching so close you might think to reach out and touch them. There was a kind of awed distraction in Tycoon's posture. "Scriber would have loved you humans," he said. "He was such an innocent and impractical person. Before we seperated, I-we-were more creative than any sane businesspack. We were so successful we couldn't keep up with all our ventures. So we decided to become two, one pack to specialize in practice and the other in farthest imagination. One was to be the steady businesspack, one the flying imagination. Scriber kept notebooks of his inventions. I worked to expand our businesses while he created.

"In his notebooks, he had flying machines and tunnelers and submersible boats. There's only one problem with going from a notebook idea to a salable product. Well, no. There are ten thousand thousand problems. Most of his inventions depended on materials that didn't exist, on engines more powerful than any we could make, on precision of manufacture that he barely had words for. He diverted our company into debacle after debacle. We had been so beautiful before..." All Tycoon's heads were drooping. "In the end, I-the creature of business and common sense-couldn't tolerate Scriber's endless, brilliant failures. I forced him out of the business. He was agreeable enough. I ... think ... he understood why we had come to an end. He cashed out and left for the West." Tycoon jabbed a snout at Jef and Ravna. "I know Scriber befriended you people. I know he was both too clever and too naive to survive the meeting. What did he discover about you two-legs? Why would this Johanna murder him in pieces, till all of him was dead?"

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 Tinish-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.