“We’ve guessed that,” said Øvin, his voice flat and deadly.
Wilm Linden waved at Ravna. “But you could prove it, right? Oobii must have logs.”
“Yes.” Short of an underlying software failure, she could uncover any attempt Nevil had made to hide his actions. “I’ll get the logs, but I’m afraid Nevil will just say they’re faked.”
Wenda made a dismissive gesture. “Jo’s main point was that we owe these Tropicals. They may not have minds like packs or humans, but she says it was their decision to rescue her and their sacrifice that saved her life. She asked—ah, actually the word she used was ‘demand’—that we treat them well and help them return home if that’s what they seem to want.”
Woodcarver raised several heads, all looking in Ravna’s direction. “If I may?” she said.
“Yes. Please.”
“I’ve already moved most of this mob up to the old embassy. Ten raft crews is more than in any past shipwreck. It’ll be very expensive to adequately enlarge the place.… but I’m willing to do so. That’s partly because they’re innocent parties”—a nod in Wenda’s direction—“and partly because if we mistreat Tycoon’s creatures, we increase the risk to my Pilgrim and all the other poor souls Tycoon is holding.”
Ravna nodded. “Thank you, Woodcarver. Was there anything else, Wenda?”
“Oh! Yes. We have a little inventory problem down at the South End. One thing Nevil wasn’t lying about was the rafts’ main cargo.”
“Oh yeah,” someone said, “the peace offering from Tycoon.”
“Well, whatever you call it, this cargo is not junk. There’s about fifteen tonnes of fabric.” Wenda rolled her eyes in distress. “It’s as good as anything we currently make. There are other things; we’re still going through the containers. So far we count nine hundred and five voice-band radios.”
Tycoon would have been pleased by the stupefied expressions that Ravna saw around the room. Wenda shrugged. “Okay, that’s all my news.” And she sat down.
One by one, everyone had their say. Most of the kids seemed to realize that Tycoon was both out of reach and a new kind of problem. The concern about the Denier exodus was different. Giske said, “There have always been Deniers, but Nevil made the idiocy deadly. My Rolf was such a good person. I’d never have married him otherwise. But he bought into everything Nevil was peddling. We argued about it every night, especially after Ravna disappeared. Now he has my kids, and I want them back!”
There was a muttering of agreement, not just about Giske’s family, but about everyone’s experience.
Ravna glanced at Jefri. Jef was also a good person. That wasn’t sufficient to solve the problem.
“In the end, they’ll come crawling back,” said Wenda Larsndot, sounding much less gentle-minded than usual. “Most Deniers never bothered to learn how to live here. The idea of them living in the wild is a joke!”
“That’s not the point!” said Giske, her voice rising, “So far no one has overestimated Nevil’s capacity for evil. Maybe he’s one of those nutso-freakos who loses big time and then takes his followers into a corner and murders them! I want my children back! Now!”
The meeting went on for another half hour and then there were separate chats with Woodcarver and various Children. But not with Jefri; he left right at the end of the meeting.
Scrupilo’s radio had failed, but Oobii could see that both the airboat and Scrupilo were well enough. He would be back in an hour. Maybe he could add something pro or con to Giske’s unpleasant theory. Ravna straggled off for a short nap.
As she settled down in her old room by the command deck, she wondered again at her success in the meeting. Not since the Children were little—and rarely even then—had the kids deferred to her as they had this afternoon. Maybe they saw her as a competent hero who had been to hell and back. Ha. If they only knew how little of that was her doing. It still bothered her the way the kids winced when they looked at her crushed nose and cheek. But what if that wasn’t revulsion? What if the kids saw the injury as proof of tremendous sacrifice? Then sympathy and admiration all worked their magic in her favor. If it had been Nevil in her shoes, he’d squeeze that advantage as hard as he could, as long as he could. She thought about the notion for a moment, struggling to hold back sleep. Maybe she was a fool but, “Ship!”
“Yes, Ravna?”
“Please call Lisl Armin and tell her I’m a go for the face repair.”
And then she slept.
Scrupilo’s overflights didn’t support Giske’s worst-case theory. Ultimately, Nevil might be as crazy as Giske thought, but the Denier caravan was well equipped, and well prepared. Considering all the gear they had stolen, “well equipped” was no surprise. As for being well-prepared—Bili Yngva had something to do with that. The logs showed that Bili had spent a lot of time up here on the command deck, planning. He had recognized some of the gear in the Lander—what Ravna had mistaken for junk—and figured that it might still have limited functionality. That accounted for the strange thefts from the Newcastle catacombs. As for the fire they set in the Lander—Nevil and Bili really did believe in Countermeasure. The details were lost in a chaos of corrupted log files—what looked like a system failure, not encryption. Maybe she could unscramble the mess eventually, but for the moment she concentrated on trying to contact Tycoon and trying to break into the orbiter.
Meantime, Nevil was probing back at Oobii. The Chief Denier—that was her most polite term for him—had most of the commsets, and access to the orbiter. Ravna deliberately left the Denier user accounts in place, but in virtual cages. Nevil was all over them, probing for security holes, posting Nevilish propaganda. The incompetent hacking was very informative—to Ravna.
Woodcarver sent scouts with truce flags after the Deniers. They were peacefully received and allowed to talk to whomever they pleased. They even persuaded six from the caravan to return.
But when Ravna walked the streets of Newcastle town, the empty houses were everywhere, tears in the thin fabric of humanity. Denial had hijacked almost half of the human race, and there was yet a trickle of Children still departing, trying to catch up with the main group.
After five days, Nevil’s exodus reached its destination, a warm-springs cave system more than one hundred kilometers to the northeast. Woodcarver recognized the place. She told Ravna that she’d known about it for about a century and always believed it too dangerous for long-term settlement.
The place was beyond the range of Scrupilo’s little airboat. Three days passed, where the only word was Nevil’s voice reporting and happy messages from various of his followers. He was promising pictures any day now. When it came down through the orbiter, Ravna put the video in the Meeting Place.
Ravna and Woodcarver were present at the first showing, along with almost all the remaining Children and their Friends.
Nevil’s “Best Hope” settlement was near the edge of a hanging valley set in the wall of the Streamsdell river valley. It was in the Icefangs, just beyond Woodcarver’s territorial claims in that direction. Those highlands were not much favored by Tinish hunter-farmers, but Nevil was optimistic. In fact, the first video showed him near the middle of the Streamsdell Valley. “This land is ideal for humans, for independence and growth. Come see this in a year. There will be the green buds of our new hardicore grass, a chartreuse carpet stretching all the way to the edge of the Nordhus glacier.”