Anvil of Stars

PART THREE

Martin found Twice Grown in the schoolroom, coiled in deep discussion with Erin Eire and Carl Phoenix. Paola squatted on a cushion to one side and knitted a blanket, clarifying when necessary.

“But you don’t have fiction in your literature,” Carl was saying. “And you don’t have poetry. You have these symphonies of odors… I suppose they’d be like music to us. But nothing comparable to literature.”

“It has made things difficult for learning,” Twice Grown said. “I we have adjusted to thoughts that things described in your literature, in fiction, did not actually happen. Even your recorded history is indefinite. Is it not better to know something is truth before communicating?”

“We like experiencing things that didn’t happen,” Erin Eire said. “There’s a difference between writing fiction and lying.”

“Though I’ll be damned if I can pin it down,” Carl said, smiling.

“Carl means,” Paola said, lifting her chin but keeping her eyes on her knitting, “he can’t easily describe what the difference is between writing stories and lying. But there is a difference.”

Erin turned to Martin. “We’re having difficulty explaining this to him,” she said.

“We we do not create situations for our stories,” Twice Grown said. “It seems possible to confuse, especially the young.”

“I we—” Erin cleared her throat. “I think we know the difference. Fiction is relaxing, like dreaming. Lying, not telling the truth, is to gain social advantage.”

“We we do not dream,” Twice Grown said. “We our method of sleep is unlike yours. We we sleep rarely, and are not braided when sleeping, but we our cords are inactive for a time every few days.”

“Do cords dream?” Paola asked, looking up from her knitting.

“Cords have mental activity not accessible to braided individuals,” Twice Grown said. “They are not smart, but behave on programmed paths.”

“Instinct,” Carl Phoenix suggested.

“Does this make fiction a kind of waking dream, something two or more people do together?” Twice Grown asked, smelling of peppers and salt sea. He was intensely interested; but Martin also detected a whiff of turpentine, and that might have been nervousness.

“I suppose,” Erin said. “One or more people make up a story—”

“But it is known to resemble the real?” Twice Grown interrupted, coils rustling.

“Fiction is based on real settings, sometimes,” Carl said.

“We’re getting into pretty abstract territory,” Martin warned.

“Based on real behaviors, such that it is not unlikely for humans to behave in such a fashion?”

“Well…” Martin said.

“Characters in fiction sometimes do things real people would like to do, but don’t dare,” Erin said, pleased that she had scored a point of clarification.

Twice Grown did not understand. “I we have a question about this. I we have read short stories, and are now reading novels, which take long to eat.”

“Finish,” Paola suggested.

“To finish a novel. In some pages, I we see closeness with human behavior in a story, and in reality. But in other pages, other texts, behavior surpasses what I we have experienced. Are these behaviors not available to the humans we we know?”

“Which behaviors?” Erin asked.

Martin wished he could end the conversation now. The smell of turpentine had intensified. Twice Grown was either nervous, feeling threatened, or wanted to flee.

“Harming and other violences,” Twice Grown replied. “The wishing to kill, to inactivate. I we have read Beowulf, and I we have read Macbeth. I we have also read The Pit and the Pendulum.”

“Physical conflict is important in fiction,” Martin said. “It plays a much smaller role in our everyday life.”

Erin gave him a look that as much as said, Always the politician. “Some humans are capable of violence,” she said. “Sometimes, when we’re frightened…”

“This fear emotion, when you wish to flee or hide,” Twice Grown interrupted, “it is different from we our fear. You not only wish to flee and hide, but to destroy the thing which causes fear.”

“That makes sense, doesn’t it?” Carl asked.

“But I we do not know this fear emotion. Is it akin to wishing to flee, or is it akin to a wish to do violence?”

“It’s part of getting ready to run or fight back,” Carl said. “An urge to protect oneself, or one’s family and friends.”

“But is it also awareness of the unknown? We we find the unknown powerful, like a stimulant. We we willingly sacrifice to the danger of unknown for experience in knowing, understanding. You do not?”

“We’ve had people willing to do that,” Martin said.

“But they’ve been rare,” Erin said. “Mostly, we try to conquer or protect ourselves against danger.”

“That is difficult,” Twice Grown said. “Are new friends not unknown? Do you wish to conquer new friends?”

“I think maybe we should put together a discussion group later,” Martin said. “We need to think through our answers and not give wrong impressions.”

“Need for more thinking, yes,” Twice Grown said. “For looking at humans, there is a mystery not like looking at we ourselves; a wondering if perhaps there is death here, without cause, like a sharkness in the waves.”

Erin’s eyes widened. “Oh, no,” she said. “Fiction is a way of letting off steam.”

“What?” Twice Grown asked.

“She means, releasing personal and cultural tensions,” Paola said. “I think Martin’s right. We should think this over and let humans and Brothers debate and ask questions. We’re just making things muddier.”

Twice Grown grew still and tightened his coils. His odors had dissipated; Martin could smell nothing now. “I we would enjoy such a debate,” he said. “To rid of the mud.”

A snake mother and a mom awaited Martin, Paola, and Ariel, and two Brothers—Stonemaker and Eye on Sky—in empty quarters along the boundary between human and Brother territory.

Paola Birdsong seemed surprised that Martin had chosen her for this meeting, but Martin had grown more and more impressed with her skills in dealing with the Brothers.

Ariel was quiet, alert, and slightly nervous. Neither asked why they were chosen; he did not volunteer to tell them.

Martin had conferred with Hans about the meeting; he had been a little surprised when Hans had decided not to attend.

“I’m sure I’m a little tainted right now, having worked with Rex too closely,” Hans had said. “You go. Ask some pointed questions.” He had seemed subdued, even sad.

Martin put that from his mind as the snake mother and the mom settled themselves before them. Stonemaker and Eye on Sky sat in formal coils, rustling faintly. They emitted no scents Martin could detect.

“We may begin,” the mom said.

“We have important decisions to make,” Martin began. “But first we have to agree on overall strategies. And I think we have to… clear the air a little.”

He hadn’t meant to bring up the problem of trust; but now there was no way to avoid it.

Stonemaker said, “It is good we all we meet now. But for we us, clear air is ominous. Can you explain?”

“The more we learn about Leviathan, the more confused we become,” Martin said. “It looks like a thriving stellar system.”

“Like a shoreline marketplace,” Paola said by way of enhancement for the Brothers.

“Yes,” Eye on Sky said.

“We haven’t seen visitors come from outside, so perhaps it’s an isolated market,” Martin continued. “But there’s evidence many different races live there. If this isn’t another illusion, or if we can’t penetrate the illusion from this distance, what are we going to do next?”

“Do you ask us?” the mom inquired.

“Not really. I’m just throwing the question open.”

“We we are opposed to passing judgment without conclusive evidence,” Stonemaker said.

“So are we,” Martin said. “But we’re also fairly convinced this is another blind the Killers are hiding behind.”

“We all we must be more than fairly certain to condemn these worlds,” Eye on Sky said.

“I think we’re in agreement,” Martin said. They still have no scent; what’s going on? “So we have to design the mission accordingly. How many ships can we make out of Dawn Treader and the Journey House?”

The mom said, “As many as are required. How many do you contemplate?”

“At least three. Humans have talked about entering the Leviathan system in disguise, as visitors. Could we create a different kind of ship, something that doesn’t look at all like a Ship of the Law?”

“Yes,” the mom said.

“Would it be within the Law for the ships’ minds to help us create such a disguise?”

“An interesting question, I we agree,” Stonemaker said.

“It would be no more inappropriate than providing you with the original Ships of the Law,” the mom said.

“I think we should assume Leviathan is not what it seems,” Martin said.

“A reasonable beginning,” Stonemaker said.

“Just to be cautious,” Martin added.

“Agreed.”

“Acting under such an assumption, we also should assume that the beings behind the disguise are Killers…”

“Agreed,” Stonemaker repeated.

“And the Killers probably have some knowledge, perhaps extensive knowledge, of the civilizations in this vicinity, and what they’re capable of,” Martin said.

“You wish to design a ship that might come from such a civilization,” the mom said.

“Yes. A ship that couldn’t be destroyed without interstellar repercussions,” Martin said.

“You are assuming,” Eye on Sky began, “that this disguise is meant for senses other than we all our own. That the Killers of worlds assume they are under scrutiny from others besides we all ourselves.”

Martin nodded.

“He means yes,” Paola said.

“It is remarkable insight,” Stonemaker said. A faint smell of peppers and baking bread: interest, perhaps pleasure for one or more of the Brothers. “I we see this is related to your literature, as a fiction or strategic lie. Would all this joined Ship of the Law be part of play-act?”

“Hans and I believe the ship should divide into several parts,” Martin said. “One part will enter the system, disguised but essentially unarmed, to investigate; the other two will orbit far outside. If a guilty verdict is reached, weapons can be released by the ships outside. We can try to finish the Job. If the Killers no longer live here—”

“Or if we can’t hurt them without hurting innocents,” Ariel said. Martin cringed inwardly. Yes, but what if?

“Or if we can’t find them or recognize them,” Martin amended, “then we’ll rejoin and change our plans.”

“That is feasible,” the mom said. “Useful information will be made available. Do you wish to design the vessel that enters the Leviathan system, or do you wish us to design it for you?”

“We can do it, but I think we’ll need assistance,” Martin said. Ariel was about to add something, but he looked at her dourly and she clenched her jaw.

“Your designers should think about these things,” the mom said. “The ship to enter Leviathan’s system must not appear overtly threatening, nor should it appear to come from a weak civilization. It should not, however, appear to have technology equal to that possessed by the Ships of the Law, specifically, the ability to convert matter to anti-matter. Your crew must appear innocent of all knowledge of killer probes.”

Martin agreed.

“When will your groups make their decisions?” the mom asked.

“In a couple of days, maybe sooner,” Martin said.

“Separation and super-deceleration will have to begin within a tenday,” the mom said.

“Is there anything else we’d find useful?” Martin asked.

“There is no possibility that the Killers, if they still exist around Leviathan, have knowledge of humans,” the mom continued. “No killer probes escaped Earth’s system. There is a small possibility they have knowledge of the Brothers. Transmissions by the killer probes from the Brothers’ system were monitored, information content unknown.”

“We we would like to be part of the crew of any entry vessel,” Eye on Sky said. “This might be a difficulty?”

“It might,” the mom concluded.

The snake mother arched and floated a few centimeters above the ground, a purple ladder field faintly visible beneath. In this, too, they differed from the moms; Martin had never seen a mom display its field. Its voice sounded like a low wind interpreted by the string section in an orchestra. “Brothers may play key roles in ships that stay outside the system,” it said.

“Is that something they will vote on?” Paola asked, brow wrinkling.

“It is something to be decided by the Brothers in private,” the snake mother said.

Eye on Sky and Stonemaker produced strong smells of salt sea air. “So is it,” Stonemaker said. “There will be a Triple Merging for objectivity and decisions will be made before next day comes.”

“I have one more question,” Martin said, feeling his chest constrict. “It isn’t an easy one, and I hope for a straightforward answer.”

Silence from the robots. Eye on Sky and Stonemaker rustled faintly.

“Some of us have been given the impression—rather, we’ve observed—that the Brothers’ libraries are much more extensive than our own. Why are they more extensive?”

The mom said, “Each race is given the information necessary to carry out its part of the Law.”

“We feel the ships’ minds may not think humans are as trustworthy as the Brothers,” Martin continued.

“Every race differs in its needs and capacities,” the mom said. “Information differs for that reason.”

“Will we be denied any of the information contained in the Brothers’ libraries?” Martin asked.

“You will be denied nothing you need, as a group, to complete your Job.”

The snake mother said, “Your Ship of the Law is older than the Brothers’ ship. There are design differences.”

“I thought that might explain part of the…” Martin said, trailing off.

“Attitudes and designs change,” the snake mother added.

“We have discussed this before,” the mom said.

Martin nodded. “I’d like to have it made more clear. Do you trust humans as much as you trust the Brothers?”

“We are not designed to trust or distrust, or to make any such decisions regarding character,” the mom replied.

“Please,” Martin said through clenched teeth. Ariel reached out and touched his hand, and he gripped hers tightly, feeling her support, her strength. “We do not need evasive answers. The Benefactors could not have known our character before you sent your ships into the Earth’s system… You must have made some judgment, reached some decision about our capacities.”

The ship’s voice spoke. Martin was startled. “The ships’ minds can’t make such decisions. If such a decision was made, we didn’t make it.”

He felt tears on his cheeks and gritted his teeth, ashamed at showing such emotion. “Are we inferior to the Brothers?”

Stonemaker became agitated. His rustling increased until his entire length vibrated. Eye on Sky coiled and uncoiled twice, weaving his head. “Offense is given here,” Stonemaker said. “We we do not wish we our partners to feel offensed.”

“Offended,” Paola corrected automatically.

“We need to know whether we are trusted,” Martin repeated, it seemed to him, for the hundredth time.

“Both libraries will be open to those who wish to conduct research,” the ship’s voice said. “What is shared and is not shared is up to humans and Brothers, not to the ships’ minds.”

“We came close to the edge,” Paola said sadly as they walked toward Hans’ quarters. “Maybe we don’t want to know the whole truth.”

“Maybe the Brothers are afraid of us,” Ariel said. “Of what we might become.”

“What do they think we’ll do?” Paola asked.

Martin’s voice shook with anger—and with more than a little guilt. “They might think we’ll become planet killers,” he said.

Ariel shivered to untense her muscles. “Rex certainly didn’t convince them otherwise,” she said. “What about the moms?”

“Maybe they think so, too,” Martin said.

“Wouldn’t they have dumped us or killed us or something?” Paola objected.

“Not if they’re forced to enact the bloody Law,” Ariel said. “We were victims. They rescued us. They need us to finish the Job.”

“Why not push us aside, and let the Brothers do the Job?” Paola asked. “They only need one set of victims.”

“So maybe we’ve scared the Brothers. What have we shown them to the contrary?” Martin asked.

Paola stared back at him, jaw quivering. “Me,” she said, pointing to herself. “You. We’re not all like Rex.”

“How could they know?” Ariel asked. “Let’s just ask ourselves that.”

“By looking at me!” Paola said, crying openly now. “I’m not like that!”

“Do they expect to send pacifists out to kill worlds?” Martin asked, feeling his anger build, then deflate. He let his shoulders slump. “What are we? Allies, or just bad cargo?”

Hans examined the designs for the Trojan Horse, nodding and humming faintly. Martin, Hakim, Cham, Donna Emerald Sea, and Giacomo had spent the better part of two days working out the design and details with Dry Skin, Silken Parts, and Eye on Sky; even now, in the Brothers’ quarters, Eye on Sky presented the design to Stonemaker for his approval.

“It certainly doesn’t look like a Ship of the Law,” Hans concluded. “It looks like a pleasure barge.”

Eighty meters long, with a brilliant red surface, laser/solar sails folded and rolled along its length, two curving arms reaching from a spindle-shaped body, small, heavily shielded matter-anti-matter drives mounted fore and aft, the Trojan Horse would appear to be the product of a relatively youthful technology, star travel on the cheap.

Humans and Brothers had come up with something unarmed, innocuous—in so far as any starship could be innocuous, heralding the arrival of potential rivals or partners—and even jaunty.

“The moms say it can be built,” Martin said. “They say it will fly, and it will be convincing.”

“Do they say anything about our fitness to be allies?” Hans asked. The circles under his eyes had darkened. He spent much of his time alone in his quarters, as he sat now, in the center of the room, legs crossed.

A second cushion waited empty nearby; Rosa might still share his quarters occasionally. Yet the condition of a few vases of sickly flowers showed that she had probably not been here for several days.

“Are we fit for the Job?” Hans asked.

“I don’t know what they think,” Martin said. “Rex caused a lot of bad feeling. If the Brothers can experience something like bad feeling…”

“What would they have thought if I’d executed Rex right there, on the spot?” Hans said. “Would that have made them happy?”

“Would have made things much worse,” Martin said.

“Well, if they don’t like us now, they’re going to really have it in for us in a couple of days,” Hans said.

“Why?”

“Rosa’s on her own,” Hans said. “You should have been here, Martin. She refuses to slick, she looks me right in the eye, and she says,” he began to do a fair imitation of Rosa’s strong, musical voice, “ ‘I have been shown what you are. I have been shown that you are mocking me, and holding me back from my duty.’ ” Hans grinned. “At least it took her this long to catch on. Not bad for delaying action, right?”

Martin looked away.

Hans’ grin vanished. “She’s going to start up again, Martin, and this time she really has something good for us. She’s damned near psychic, and she’s tuning in to our inadequacy. ‘We have sinned. We are not worthy of the Job.’ Good stuff to toss out now, right?”

“Where is she?” Martin asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll ask Ariel to look out for her.”

“Yes, but who will keep her under control? She should be the one banished and locked away. Before she’s done, she’ll have us all at each other’s throats.” Hans picked up the wand and projected the ship’s design again. “Who’s going to be on board?”

“The moms and snake mothers think there’s a small chance the Killers might have information about the Brothers. The Brothers are willing to let the crew be human—”

Hans laughed with a bitter edge that set Martin’s neck hair on end. “It’s probably a suicide mission. How kind of them.”

Martin’s jaw worked. “Don’t underestimate them, Hans. They want to go. They want to do the Job as much as we do.”

“I’d rather survive to see it done.”

“At any rate,” Martin said, “I thought, subject to your approval, that it would be better psychologically and politically if we took the chance, and had Brothers on the crew.”

Hans rotated the ship’s image, poked his tongue into his cheek, rolled it over his teeth beneath closed lips. “How do we explain two species aboard, if we party with Leviathan’s citizens?”

“Hakim and Giacomo are working up a whole fake history. Two intelligent species from one star system, cooperating after centuries of war. The alliance is still fragile, but the crew is disciplined—”

“We’re better at making up stories than the Brothers, I hear,” Hans said.

“After a fashion.”

“Where’s the origin?”

“Hakim has found a buttercup star about forty light years from Leviathan. For the Trojan Horse, that would mean a journey of about four hundred years. The crew will have just come out of deep freeze.”

“They get this bucket up to, what, one fifth, one sixth c? What’s the drive?”

“In theory, laser propulsion and solar sail to the outskirts of the home system, primitive matter-anti-matter beyond, no sumps, no conversion technology,” Martin said.

“And the Killers won’t know this is all crap? Can’t they detect drive flares at forty light years? Didn’t their probes hit on this star system?”

“For a ship this size, detection of drive flares at forty light years would be almost impossible. The moms say the chosen system shows no signs of being visited. They say the ruse probably will work.”

Hans rolled his tongue across his teeth again, looked away. “If they say it, it must be so.”

“Do you approve the design?”

Hans shrugged. “It looks fine to me. Who’s going?”

“That’s your decision, of course,” Martin said.

“I’m glad you’ve left me something to do.”

Martin did not rise to the gibe. “If you’re having a problem with any of this, or with me, best to talk it out now.”

Hans looked at Martin darkly. “I’m worried about crew morale. I’ll be damned if I can find any easy solution, or any solution at all.”

“Isolate Rosa,” Martin said.

“There are about twenty Wendys and Lost Boys who would be very upset if we isolated Rosa. She’s been quiet, but busy.”

Martin raised his eyebrows, baffled.

“I’m working on it,” Hans said with forced cheer. “You seem to be doing well with this stuff. Keep it up.” He waved his hand as if shooing a fly and made a wry face. “Hell with it. Forget what I said. Brothers and humans. You choose the human crew. I’d like to be on the ship, but I don’t think that will be possible. So pick yourself. You’ll be number one again, at least aboard the Trojan Horse.”

Martin stood beside Hans for a few more seconds, but Hans had nothing more to say, lost in his thoughts.

Two days before separation, humans and Brothers exhausted from endless drills and conferences, Leviathan a growing point of light and remotes spread to their farthest extent, Martin was overwhelmed by far more information than he could possibly absorb. In his rest periods—now reduced to one or two hours a day—he slept fitfully, images of Leviathan’s bizarre coterie of fifteen worlds haunting his dreams.

Theodore Dawn sat in a wood-paneled library with him and pulled out book after book, opening them to pictures of ill-defined threats and dangers until, with a laugh, Theodore simply tossed the books into the air. “We always knew we’d die, didn’t we, Marty?”

“You’re already dead,” Marty said.

“We’re Brothers under the skin. But even if we die, so will they,” Theodore said.

“Who?” Martin asked, wondering if he meant the Killers of Earth, or the Brothers.

He awoke with wand clutched in his hand, and no answer.

“Three ships, Greyhound, Shrike, and Trojan Horse,” Hans said, projecting the designs of all three before the seven occupants of the schoolroom: Eye on Sky, Silken Parts, Stonemaker, Twice Grown, Paola, Ariel, and Martin.

Eye on Sky and Ariel would be going with the Trojan Horse and Martin. Stonemaker would be in charge of Shrike.

Hans said, “You’ve all worked out the Trojan Horse’s mission: envoy and explorer for a young, naive two-species civilization, four hundred years in space. Enough clues to make the Killers think that in the four centuries since Trojan Horse left its system, the civilizations have probably become much, much stronger, and would not appreciate having their early explorers destroyed… Donna Emerald Sea and Silken Parts are designing costumes reflecting the cultures.” He smiled. “Sounds like the Brothers are learning the art of fiction.”

“But this is lying,” Stonemaker said. “The difference was clear, we we thought.”

“Strategically, no difference,” Hans said. “Greyhound and Shrike have enough weapons and fuel to cook four of the fifteen planets, or enough to blow one planet completely apart, into orbit about itself if we aren’t interfered with—no defenses—a big if… The human crews are ready.”

“Brothers are ready,” Stonemaker said, smelling of ripe fruit and cut grass.

“Then we bring the plan to both crews.” Hans raised his hands and the Brothers lifted their splayed heads high. “Courage!” he said. “Does that translate well?”

“It is the smell of being born,” Stonemaker said.

“Couldn’t put it better myself,” Hans said.

Martin came awake to a soft touch on his shoulder. He had fallen asleep in the schoolroom, leaning against a wall. He rubbed his eyes and saw Erin Eire kneeling beside him. “Too much drill?” she asked.

He stood and stretched. They had two days until the split; preparations had come flooding down on them, and he was embarrassed that his exhaustion had made him drop off in a public place. “Trying to sleep before super deceleration.”

“Uh huh,” she said, unconvinced. “Donna guided the Wendys and a few Lost Boys in costume manufacture. Moms provided the fabric and did some assembly. We thought you’d like to see them. I think they’re pretty neat, myself.”

“Sure,” Martin said. Erin led him past groups of other humans, sleeping. Many Smells and Dry Skin conferred with Giacomo near the star sphere; everybody looked exhausted except Erin Eire, who as always was bright-eyed, calmly confident.

“Where’s Hans?” Erin asked as she walked steadily ahead.

“Putting together battle plans with Stonemaker, last I heard,” Martin said.

“Trojan Horse’s crew won’t know the battle plans?” Erin asked. “In case they’re captured?”

Martin shook his head. “No strategic weapons. What can we do?”

“Pray, I suppose,” Erin said tersely. “We’ve been working in Kimberly Quartz’s rooms, just up ahead…”

Rosa stepped from a side corridor, Jeanette Snap Dragon close behind. They blocked Erin and Martin’s way. “We need to talk to Martin,” Jeanette said.

Erin stepped aside. “Don’t take too long. I’m going to show off the costumes.”

“For a masquerade?” Rosa asked caustically. She looked if anything even more exhausted than Hans.

“You should leave,” Jeanette said pointedly to Erin. Erin looked to Martin.

“If she wants, she can stay,” Martin said.

“This is a private audience,” Jeanette said.

“Who’s giving the audience?” Martin asked.

“I thought you might have some promise,” Rosa said. “Now I have my doubts. Let her stay, men. Word will get around faster.” Rosa turned her full attention on Martin. “There’s a separate crew forming. We’re choosing a new Pan.”

Martin folded his arms, too tired to express much surprise. “Oh?”

“I’m inviting you to join the crew. Some have said you’d be an asset.”

“I said you would,” Jeanette added, as if defying him to disappoint her.

“What good is a separate crew?”

“The ship is splitting,” Rosa said. “Those who go with me have their freedom, Those who go with Hans… That’s up to them. Will you join us?”

“We’re dividing in three to perform a mission,” Martin said. “There’s no plan to let you or anybody take a ship.”

“We’ve voted to split,” Jeanette said, face flushed, left hand quivering. “You shouldn’t stop us. Hans shouldn’t. It would only prove how much freedom we’ve lost.”

“I have concluded that Leviathan is innocent. We’re in the wrong place,” Rosa said.

“You’ve been told?” Martin asked without sarcasm.

“I’ve been told,” Rosa said. Erin lifted her eyes and tilted her head to one side.

“Let’s talk with Hans about it,” Martin suggested.

“Hans is our enemy,” Jeanette said. “He’s—”

“Please,” Rosa said, touching her arm. “Nobody’s our enemy.”

“How many agree with you?” Martin asked.

“Enough to make a difference,” Rosa said.

“I’ll meet with your people, then,” Martin said.

“Without telling Hans?” Jeanette asked.

Rosa watched him closely, expression taut but not agitated.

“Without telling Hans. Erin, I’ll see the costumes a little later.”

Erin nodded and marched off.

“This is strictly between you and me,” Martin called to her.

“Of course,” Erin said. “Your secret.”

“I’ll call the people,” Jeanette said.

“Do that,” Rosa said. Jeanette ran down the corridor, vanished around a corner. “Hans taught me that extremes accomplish nothing. If I receive privileged information, I’m not about to give it to just anybody.”

“Good,” Martin said.

“You needed my words once, didn’t you?” Rosa asked.

Martin saw no reason to lie. “They were attractive.”

“But Hans’ influence soured you. You thought I supported him and his plans, that he had co-opted me.”

“It seemed that way.”

“It wasn’t that way. Hans took what he wanted from me, and I learned what I needed to learn. I must say, I miss the innocence of those first few weeks, when I could behave as the word took me.”

“The word of God,” Martin said.

Rosa shrugged. “Something speaks to me. Call it God if you need a name. For me, it’s just a very powerful friend to all of us. We live in confusion… It clears away the confusion.”

Jeanette returned. “We’re meeting now,” she said.

Rosa had made new quarters for herself on the perimeter of the ship’s second homeball.

Fifteen Wendys and five Lost Boys had gathered among the flowers. Rex Live Oak squatted on the floor next to a potted rosebush, glancing at Martin, turning away after a brief staring contest. The air thickened with an unpleasant mix of flower scent and stress.

Rosa took the center of the room.

“I’ve brought Martin here to explain our position,” she said. “We are not planning a mutiny. We are simply asking to be allowed to go our own way. We opt out of the Law.”

How can they? Don’t they feel it, the dying Earth, hear it in their blood and flesh?

“We’d hate to lose so many of you,” Martin said. “I’m willing to listen, though.”

“The aliens who have joined us are not acceptable,” Rosa said. “They don’t like us, and frankly, most of us don’t feel comfortable with them.”

“We’re working with them,” Martin said. “We’re getting along pretty well, I think. Most of us.” He looked at Rex, but Rex did not meet the challenge.

“I have been told their work does not fit with our own,” Rosa said. “They have a different moral standard.”

“If anything, their moral standard seems a little higher than our own, from what I’ve seen,” Martin said.

“It is different, and that’s sufficient. I have been told that it is not right to mix our destiny with the destinies of those not human.”

So what is it, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord? That was Theodore Dawn talking in his head, tone bitter, voice nasal, a caricature of all that Theodore had hated.

“I don’t see that at all,” Martin said.

“I have been told, and for us, that’s enough,” Rosa said.

He conceded that for the moment. “We can’t spare you. If you leave, we might not get the Job done.”

“The Job is merely vengeance, and I have been told the races of Leviathan are innocent.”

“I wish I had your sources,” Martin said, trying to smile without showing his exasperation.

“You do,” Rosa said, nodding. “I tell you.”

“Does anybody else hear what Rosa hears?” Martin asked.

Five Wendys and two Lost Boys, Rex included, raised their hands. Jeanette said, “I don’t hear the words myself, but I see the truth.”

Others agreed with Jeanette.

“We won’t punish the innocent,” Rosa said. “Revenge is the straight road to spirit death. We cannot carry out the Law if the Law is cruel and wrong.”

Martin could not think of a wise and circumspect method of dealing with Rosa now. “You’ve done this before,” he began, conflicting impulses making the words thick in his mouth. He swallowed and held out his hands as if he might grab someone’s neck. “Rosa, there’s real danger here. You could tear this crew apart. You say you’re talking to God—”

“I never said that,” Rosa interrupted.

“You say you have direct access to the truth. That makes you… what, the fount of all knowledge, we have to come to you to be told what to do?”

“Better me than Hans,” Rosa said.

“You want to take away everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve devoted our lives to—”

“If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.”

“But where’s your evidence, Rosa? Divine authority?”

“That’s enough for us,” Jeanette said. “It makes more sense than you do.”

“Are you all willing to throw in with… divine authority? Hand everything, your grief and your… will power, your self-respect, everything, to Rosa!”

Kai Khosrau said, “We’re tired, Martin. Revenge is useless.”

“Revenge against the innocent is evil,” Jacob Dead Sea said. Attila Carpathia, Terry Loblolly, Alexis Baikal, and Drusilla Norway all nodded, looked to each other for support and confirmation, some with expressions of beatific obedience, human sheep having given up their higher selves.

Rosa had eaten them.

She had once come close to eating Martin. He shivered and wondered what would have happened had he tipped, had he undergone a conversion to Rosa’s faith; would he be with them now, working to undermine the Job, to protest the enactment of the Law?

“It is not up to you alone to judge innocence or guilt,” Martin said. “The crews make that judgment.”

“We’ve judged already,” Rosa said. “We will not abide by what others say.”

“We can’t afford to lose you,” Martin said, realizing that he would lose this confrontation; that Rosa for the time being was stronger.

“You’ve lost us already,” Kai Khosrau said. “What can you do about it—lock us up?”

“Lock us all up,” Rex said. “At least you’ll keep us away from the Brothers.”

“None of us will have contact with the Brothers,” Rosa said. “There will be—”

“What is this, a list of demands?” Martin asked.

“You listen to her,” Rex said in his most threatening tone. Rosa lifted her hand.

“A list of facts,” she said quietly, firmly. “We are autonomous now. We make our own rules. We will live apart, and have no contact with the Brothers. There are places in this ship where we can live apart, without hindering anybody.”

“You won’t prevent others from coming to us,” Jeanette said.

“Anyone who needs to join us must be free to do so,” Rosa said.

“No Brothers,” Rex said. “We stick with each other.” Kai Khosrau nodded.

“The family is dissolved,” Rosa said. “Our new family is born.”

Martin reported to Hans alone in his quarters. The vases and dead flowers had been removed, as well as the second pad. Hans lay in his net, arms behind his head, eyes closed tightly, wrinkles forming at their corners. “She’s got me in check,” he said gloomily. “I’m open to suggestions. Everything I’ve done this far has turned to shit. We don’t have time to set up a tribunal. We split tomorrow—and who’s going to take them? Kai had volunteered to go on the Trojan Horse.”

“And Terry Loblolly,” Martin added.

“We can get two to replace them, easily enough,” Hans said.

“They won’t work with me Brothers. They have to be isolated,” Martin said.

Hans looked at Martin with an expression Martin might once have characterized as shrewd, but now realized was defensive. Hans could not look frightened; it was not in his repertoire, hadn’t been since he was a child, since Earth’s death perhaps. What that took from all of us; bits of ourselves, our flexibility, our nature.

“I could resign,” Hans said. “I wish I could.”

“Jeanette would suggest that Rosa take your place,” Martin said.

“Then she could deal with herself. What would the moms do, I wonder? I mean, if we just stood down and refused to enact the Law. Would they drop us into space for being cowards?”

Martin didn’t answer.

“Is this what happened to the death ship? They just ate themselves up, no fight left for the enemy? Jesus, I didn’t expect this.”

The narrowed eyes, the shrewd expression; not just defensiveness, Martin saw. Hans seemed expectant.

“Whatever happens, it will have to be fast,” Hans said.

“You’re Pan,” Martin said.

Hans looked up at Martin and pulled himself from the net. “You’re telling me Pans do what they must,” he said. “I’m telling you, I’m open to suggestions.”

Paralysis.

“If you give up, Rosa wins.”

“Be a lot easier just to rush into her motherly arms, wouldn’t it?” Hans said, crossing his legs and flopping back on the pad. “Let it all go. Slick the Job. Slick the Law. Just grab for whatever youth we have left. Gott mit uns.” Hans gave him a fey smile. “You think I’m pretty ignorant, don’t you? Not nearly as well-read as you or Erin or Jennifer or Giacomo. But I’ve studied my share of history. Frankly, it’s depressing as all hell, Martin. Just one long series of blunders and recoveries from blunders. Blindness and death. Now it’s on a universal scale.”

“You’ve done some startling things since you’ve been Pan,” Martin said. “I know you’re not stupid.”

“That’s some satisfaction. Truth is, I feel I march in your shadow. The crew judges me against your standard. That’s why I asked you to be second when Rex wasn’t making the grade. So it’s good to know I can still surprise you.”

Martin shook his head. “We’re still not solving our problem,” he said.

“Time wounds all heels,” Hans said, his tone suddenly light. “One step at a time, am I right?”

“None of the planets around Leviathan seem affected by the explosion of Wormwood,” Giacomo said, “but if Trojan Horse doesn’t show some damage, I think they’ll have reason to be suspicious. We’ll come in broadcasting a distress signal.”

“On radio?” Hans asked.

“Why not?” Giacomo said. “We’re innocents, unseasoned voyagers, right?”

Hans grinned and acknowledged that much. “Will we use the noach to talk to each other?”

Giacomo looked to Jennifer, then to Martin. “I don’t see why not. Secretly, of course.”

“Noach can’t be detected between transmitter and receiver. No channel, right?” Jennifer said.

“The ships should be close enough part of the time,” Martin said.

Giacomo projected the orbits of the three vessels. “Shrike will be out of touch with Trojan Horse, beyond the ten-billion-kilometer range, for about four tendays, just when Trojan Horse goes into orbit around the green world. Greyhound and Trojan Horse will be out of touch for about a month, unless we arrange for a remote to act as relay.”

“That can be arranged,” Hakim said. “But it increases our chances of being detected.”

“Otherwise, no transmissions of any kind. Complete silence.”

Paola stepped forward at Martin’s encouragement. She looked nervously between him and Hans. “Paola has the crew assignments,” Martin said.

Paola projected the roster for each vehicle. “Twice Grown and I worked through our crew lists and picked out the best combinations. Where we couldn’t decide, we did a kind of lottery. The list is subject to approval by Hans and Stonemaker, of course.”

“Rosa and her group?” Hans asked.

“I’ve put them on inactive within Greyhound,” Paola said. “I talked with Rosa. She didn’t agree or disagree.”

Hans shook his head. “We’re treating her like another head of state.”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to do,” Paola said tremulously.

Hans crinkled his face in irritation. “Forget it. Not your fault. I just don’t like her thinking she has any say in what we do. She and her group go where we put her, that’s it. We may need to put together a little police force if they try civil disobedience.”

Brief silence.

“Who’s on the pleasure cruise?” Martin asked, hoping to distract them from the unpleasantness.

Paola projected the list.

Ten humans and ten Brothers had been assigned to Trojan Horse: Martin, Ariel, Paola, Hakim, Cham, Erin, George Dempsey, Donna Emerald Sea, Andrew Jaguar, and Jennifer. Twice Grown, Eye on Sky, Dry Skin/Norman, Silken Parts, Green Cord, Double Twist, Many Smells, Sharp Seeing, Strong Cord, and Scoots Fast were on the Brothers’ list.

Hans would be on Greyhound, Stonemaker on Shrike. The preponderance of humans would be on Greyhound with Hans; Brothers, on Shrike. Paola projected these lists as well.

“I approve, for now,” Hans said after running his fingers down the names as they hung in the air. “I’ll need time to think about it. Everybody out. Martin, you stay.”

After the others had left, they went over the list name by name. Hans voiced his concerns about suitability; Martin tried to answer as best he could.

“You and Cham on the same ship—two past Pans. Can you work with each other?”

“I’ve had nothing but support from Cham,” Martin said.

“Can you all work with Eye on Sky?”

“The Brothers aren’t hard to get along with,” Martin said. “You know that.”

“Pardon my nerves. Ariel?”

Martin cocked his head to one side. “She’s changed.”

“I’ve noticed. She’s gone sugar on you, Martin.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You should take advantage. She’s smart, a good fighter, she has a strong instinct for survival. You could do worse. You slicked Paola once, I hear…”

Martin tried to keep his expression passive. Hans smiled as if scoring a point.

“Paola’s not for you, believe me.”

“I never thought she was. We comforted each other.”

Hans pushed his lips out. “Right,” he said. “If I were you—and I won’t repeat this again—I’d take up with Ariel, even if she did shovel you shit when you were Pan.”

Martin looked away stonily.

“All right. Sometimes you’re a stubborn bastard, but that’s okay. Anybody here you think will give you trouble?”

“No,” Martin said.

“Then it’s on.”

Hans’ wand chimed. Erin urgently asked to be let in. Hans casually motioned for the door to open and she entered, Ariel and Kai Khosrau behind her.

“Rosa’s dead,” Erin said, gasping for breath. “We found her body in her room just a few minutes ago.”

“You killed her,” Kai said, pointing to Hans, then to Martin. “You killed her!”

“How did she die?” Hans asked. He sat up on the pad and got to his feet.

“She was clubbed to death,” Kai said. “You clubbed her to death!”

“Shut up,” Ariel said. “Martin, she was beaten.”

“How long ago?”

“Less than an hour,” Erin said. “There’s…” She turned away and choked.

“The blood isn’t dry yet,” Ariel said.

“Who found her?” Martin asked.

“I did,” Kai said in a child’s voice, eyes glassy, in shock.

“Who else knows?” Hans asked.

“I have to tell the others.” Kai stepped uncertainly to the open door.

“Hold it,” Hans said. “We’ll all go look. Nobody tells anybody until we’ve seen what happened. Kai, stick with us.”

Kai stared at Hans. “You think I killed her? You slicking insect.”

“Stop it, stop it!” Erin cried, head still bowed. Her body trembled as she tried to control her nausea.

“Martin, we should get a mom. Now,” Ariel said.

Martin called on his wand and asked for a mom to meet them in Rosa’s room.

Rosa lay face up, one arm tucked under her back, the other outstretched, hand forming a limp claw.

Red hair outspread, mixed with clots of blood; lip split, blood smeared down her jaw and chin. Face terribly slack, the innocent relaxation of death, eyes indolent.

Martin bent over her as the others stood back. Hans kneeled beside him, scowling, squinting, head tilted to one side.

The mom hovered above Rosa’s head. Martin reached out to check the pulse on her bloody neck. None.

“She is dead,” the mom confirmed.

“We’ll need to roll her over,” Martin said softly. He looked around the quarters, as if asking for someone to object, so he would not have to do this. Nobody objected.

Kai stepped forward. Hans stepped back. Kai and Martin took her by one side. She hung limp, flesh cooling but not yet at room temperature. Martin grasped her shoulder, Kai her leg. As gently as possible, they rolled her over.

She had been struck from behind, on the back of the head. The occiput was misshapen. Beneath the red hair a pool of blood had gathered, and sticky strands of blood and hair clung to the floor, breaking loose silently as she rolled face down.

Jeanette moaned. Erin seemed fascinated now, past her nausea.

“What should we do?” Martin asked the mom.

“Rosa Sequoia is no longer useful,” the mom said.

“Do you know who killed her?” Erin asked the robot.

“We do not know who killed her.”

Kai looked up at Hans. “Where were you?”

“He was with me for the past couple of hours,” Martin said. “I don’t think she’s been dead more than an hour.”

“She has been dead for fifty-two minutes,” the mom said.

Kai’s face wrinkled in grief. “How do we know you’d tell the truth?” he asked Martin.

“I believe Martin,” Jeanette said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Somebody else killed her.”

“Why?” Erin asked.

“Because she was speaking God’s truth,” Kai said. “Will you let us tell the others, or are you going to pretend this didn’t happen?”

“Everybody will know.”

“Even the Brothers?” Ariel asked.

“They’re our partners,” Hans said. “We have no secrets from them.”

Martin and Kai rolled Rosa over. Nobody’s thinking straight, Martin told himself. He looked at the pots of flowers, the pad off to one side, seeking evidence of who had been here. The room around the body was normal but for the drops of blood sprayed in one corner; empty except for Rosa’s things, and the nonessential parts of Rosa.

“Do you wish to have a ceremony?” the mom asked.

“Yes,” Jeanette said.

“I’d like you to make arrangements,” Hans said to her.

They don’t want to know who killed her, Martin realized. They aren’t looking. He alone was examining the room closely. He wished they would all leave so he could talk with the mom in private.

“Martin, you and Jeanette clean her up,” Hans said. “Wipe her down, dress her in her best… What should she wear?” Hans asked Jeanette.

“I don’t know,” Jeanette said. “I don’t…” She finished with a sob.

“Gown,” Hans said. He looked at the faces one by one. “She was my lover,” he said, eyes hooded, lips downturned. “We’ll find out who did this.”

The others left. Martin and Jeanette silently, grimly stripped Rosa and washed her with water. Martin used his wand surreptitiously to record the body’s condition, and swept the room for more details as Jeanette reverently dressed her, weeping. “She’s a martyr,” she said. “Rosa died for us.” Martin nodded. That was probably all too true. The moms didn’t stop this. But they had learned this very hard fact many months, many centuries before: the crew of a Ship of the Law was free.

Free to die, and now free to kill.

The human crew took the news much as Martin had expected. Some wept, some cried out in anger, others held on to each other; still others listened in stunned silence as Hans revealed the details.

Only Twice Grown had been invited to join the humans as Hans spoke. Coiled, without scent, he listened to Hans and to Paola’s quiet re-Englishing.

Hans finished by saying, “Rosa was murdered. That much is known. We know nothing about who murdered her, and we will not have time to find out before the ship splits and we move on to the next part of the Job. I wish our partners, our Brothers, to know…” He seemed to search for the right words, the diplomatic expression, but shook his head. “This was an aberration—”

“The failure of a broken individual,” Paola said softly to Twice Grown.

“A hideous wrong.” Hans shook his head again, lips pressed tight. “Rosa is going to be recycled by the moms in a few hours. Her family and associates will wait in her quarters to receive those who wish to grieve.”

Martin stood before the mom alone as it entered his room. “Do you know now who killed Rosa Sequoia?” he asked after the door had closed.

“Hans has asked me the same question,” it answered.

“Do you?”

“We do not track or survey individuals.”

“You keep medical records—”

“We monitor health of individuals when they are in public places.”

Martin knew that, but he would not let his questions go. One by one, he would ask them, and that would be his peculiar grief; for he had in a sense been relieved by Rosa’s death, and he was sure Hans had been relieved as well, and a kind of guilt drove him now.

“Could you detect who had been in her room?”

“It is possible to identify numbers of presences in a room, after the fact, but we lack the means to identify individuals.”

“How many people were in her room before she died, before she was found?”

“One person was in her room with her,” the mom said.

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“There had been sexual activity,” the mom said.

Martin had noticed dried fluid around Rosa’s vulva and spots still damp on her pad. “Was she raped?”

“No.”

He took a shuddering breath, stomach twisting and his neck hard as rock, head aching intensely. “But you don’t know who was with her.”

“We are aware of sixty people who were not with her,” the mom said. “Four others were in private quarters, not their own, including the one with Rosa, and were not tracked.”

“Can you list their names?”

“Their names are in your wand now.”

“Thank you,” Martin said.

The mom departed and Martin examined the list. One or more of the four could have killed her, and Martin noted that Rex was among them. Giacomo, Rex, Ariel, Carl Phoenix; he could not help returning to Rex Live Oak’s glowing name.

Hans insisted Martin attend the service. Jeanette Snap Dragon delivered a brief and surprisingly cool talk, and there was no mention of Rosa’s supernatural interactions, no mention as well of Rosa’s disciples.

Jeanette spoke instead of Rosa the storyteller, of the early awkward Rosa who had blossomed into her own kind of maturity late in the voyage.

Before Jeanette was finished, Martin’s eyes filled with tears. We’ve lost our final illusions.

After the service, Jeanette and Rex Live Oak were the last to leave. Rex glanced at Martin in the corridor outside Rosa’s quarters, his eyes red and swollen, his mouth a broken curve.

Rex had never been a very good actor. He was not acting now. “Too much,” he said, edging past Martin in the corridor. “Too slicking much.”

Rosa’s room was sealed, her body still inside. Out of sight, the ship did its work silently and quickly, and the last of Rosa vanished.

Jeanette approached Hans and Martin when the others had dispersed. “We’re still agreed,” she told him. “None of Rosa’s people will fight. We’re standing down.”

“I understand,” Hans said.

“We won’t vote on judgment, we won’t go on the Trojan Horse, we won’t engage in support services.”

“That’s all been planned for,” Hans said. Jeanette looked between them, her unlined features appearing much older than before. She turned slowly, eyes lingering on Hans, and walked inboard.

Hans’s hair stood up in spikes from constant pushes of his hand and his eyes were dark and puffy. “It’s over,” he murmured to Martin. “Let it go.”

There wasn’t much else Martin could do.

Separation was less than six hours away.

Martin walked beside Hans into the schoolroom. Hans carried the list of the names of the ten humans who would accompany ten Brothers aboard the Trojan Horse as it dipped into Leviathan’s system. The crew assembled in the center before the star sphere, all but Rosa’s party, who stood to one side in ranks of five.

Hakim and Giacomo had arranged for the most recent results of the search team to be projected within the sphere: the best images of the worlds, like God’s marbles dropped carelessly on velvet, beautiful and alive.

Hans called out the names without referring to the list.

Those chosen smiled and shook fists high in the air. Others looked disappointed until Jimmy Satsuma said, “Into the valley of death rode the ten… The rest of us will just have to wait outside to kick ass.”

The crew cheered. Martin thought, Remarkable how little the rhetoric of war changes, as if it’s built into our genes.

“Twenty,” Hans said. “Don’t forget the Brothers.” But word of possible doubts among the Brothers had circulated with unfortunate speed, and Hans had done nothing to cool their anger.

“Yeah,” Satsuma said, without enthusiasm.

“The ship will split in one hour,” Hans said. “I will ride Greyhound. Martin will ride the Trojan Horse. For the time being, all is in the hands of the moms. But we’ll get our chance soon enough.”

He paused, looking at the floor. “I have an intuition.” The crew kept a tense silence. “I think we’ll find what we came for. We’ll find it here. We share this with the Brothers, whatever our physical differences: we share the need to see justice done.

“I am not as good with words as other Pans have been. I don’t know if a pep talk from me will do you any good. We have our own tragedies to face, our own… evil to deal with. But all that has to be put aside for now. It can’t knock us off the road.

“This is the anniversary of the day we left the solar system. The road takes us to meet Earth’s Killers. I know what I have to do. You all know what you have to do.”

Enough was enough. “Let’s go,” he said.

Humans and Brothers, the crew of the Trojan Horse entered the cafeteria. Martin sat against the wall. Hakim sat beside him. “I am not frightened,” Hakim said, eyes glittering, face flushed as if with fever.

“I am,” Martin said.

“It would be more polite for me to be frightened with you,” Hakim said, shaking his head. “But I am not. I feel as if I have lived a very long time. If I must face Shaitan, now is the time to do it. Allah will have pity on us all, and we will…” He swallowed. “This talk of God does not disturb you?”

“No,” Martin said, gripping Hakim’s shoulder.

“Rosa did not take Allah away from us.”

“Of course not.”

“We will grow in Allah’s sight, after this,” Hakim said. “Allah loved Earth, and loves his frail children.”

Martin nodded. He watched Ariel sitting at a table, getting up as table and benches sank into the floors. He smiled at her. She looked around, held up her arms, Where am I going to sit ?

Martin patted the floor beside him.

She sat. “I think we should take another vote… on who should be Pan. After the Job.”

Martin nodded absently.

“Poor Rosa,” she said, drawing up her knees.

Martin closed his eyes. Hakim murmured a sura from the Koran. The ten Brothers coiled near the middle. Eye on Sky approached Martin.

“We we are sorry for the tragedy of the death,” he said. “We we are hoping this does not make you less efficient.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Martin said.

Paola put an arm around Eye on Sky. “We’ll do our work well.”

Martin looked up into its “face,” like the frayed end of a rope with eyes and a bouquet of claws. “Times past, an observation was made by one of yours,” Eye on Sky said. “In we our hearing. That humans might know more about death and killing than Brothers. This is not so. Brothers have fought with each other, though not for many thousands of years.”

Paola hovered nervously, looking between them.

“We we and you will share the guilt for this vengeance,” Eye on Sky said. “It is agreed, as the Brothers agreed when we ourselves set this mission along, this Job.”

He smelled of tea and woodsmoke, a combination Martin had not experienced before.

“I’m glad to have you with us,” Martin said.

“Until we our world was destroyed,” Eye on Sky continued, “Brothers thought the stars to be peaceful, places of unity and being sure-footed. We we have learned, those of other stars are only like we ourselves.”

“We’re a team,” Martin said, rising and extending his arms. Eye on Sky leaned forward, and Martin hugged the sinewy braid as well, feeling the leathery dry ness of its cords ripple beneath his fingers.

The ship began its sounds of dividing, familiar to them all. The door to the cafeteria admitted a mom and a snake mother, and then smoothed shut, its outlines vanishing into the wall. Fields appeared automatically around each of them, vibrating faint pastel colors. Martin watched Eye on Sky return to the center, followed by his field. The humans stayed on the periphery.

“End of deceleration in twenty seconds,” the mom said.

Their weight passed from them until they floated. Martin automatically did the exercises that controlled his inner ear and his stomach.

“Separation will begin in fifteen seconds,” the mom said. The snake mother made low string sounds and percussive clicks for the Brothers.

The ladder fields grew brighter. Muffled sounds of matter being rearranged, fake matter growing; Martin’s hair stood on end. He thought of the decaying death ship lost in endless cold void, its fake matter fizzling away after ages, mummies of the crew surrounded by eternal haloes of cold dust, undisturbed in the interstellar medium until their arrival.

The cafeteria closed in. Fields jostled them within the smaller, rearranged space. They now occupied the sleeping quarters of the Trojan Horse.

“I told them about the Iliad,” Paola whispered to Martin and Ariel. “They were very impressed. And we chose another name for the ship, when we’re in disguise, so we don’t have to explain Trojan Horse: Double Seed.”

More sounds, sliding and scraping, something vibrating like a broken pitch pipe. Trojan Horse/Double Seed broke free of Greyhound and Shrike.

All three ships spread apart, each on a different course and schedule, each with a different mission, fifty billion kilometers from Leviathan, still racing at close to light-speed.

“Super deceleration in ten seconds,” the mom said.

They had been through this many times before, enough to be used to it, but Martin felt a deep sense of dread: dread of the poised dreamstate, his every move second-guessed by the volumetric fields. He felt them creep around his molecules, taking inventory of his body. And dread as well for what they all would have to face if they succeeded, when the ships came back together: the lies and deceit he knew had been perpetrated on the crews.

“Good luck,” Ariel said.

He tried to think of a pleasant scene on Earth, to lock this into his thoughts and avoid visions of the dead.

Instead, he saw as if through a grim documentary that the entire crew had been fed fake matter food, that they were now made of massless coerced points in space; that when the Job was done they would simply dissolve like the Red Tree Runners’ Ship of the Law.

The Law would be done at the cost of their being; in fact, they were nothing right at this moment, merely illusions on a ghost ship falling again into brightness to bring death.

His unvoiced moan seemed to echo behind his closed eyes. If he opened his eyes, he would see the others, trying to do little tasks, conversing or just sitting, waiting out the constrained hours. He preferred to be alone with this nightmare.

Twenty-two hours passed.

An hour before super deceleration ended, as planned, Hakim broadcast their first message to the beings around Leviathan. He had created a simple binary signal repeating pi and the first ten prime numbers, without the Brothers’ help; the moms had indicated Brother mathematics was most unusual, and not likely to be easily understood.

The signal was adjusted to disguise their velocity. It would reach Leviathan’s worlds in twenty-three hours; Trojan Horse/Double Seed would be twenty-two billion kilometers from the system by then, easily visible to Leviathan’s masters.

The mom informed them that Greyhound and Shrike were doing well, that all was going as planned.

Martin listened to the mom’s voice, acknowledged with a nod that he had heard the news and understood it, closed his eyes again, waited, still not convinced of his reality, his solidity.

Ariel touched his arm. “You don’t look happy,” she said.

“Nightmare,” he said, shaking his head.

“You’re not asleep,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Want to talk?”

“About what?”

“About after.”

He smiled. “After we get the Job done? Or after we’ve decelerated?”

“After anything,” she said.

Martin opened his eyes completely and wiped them to clear his mottled vision. What he saw was still not sharp; Ariel leaned on her elbow a meter away, face blurred, eyes indistinct, mouth moving. He made an effort to listen.

“The Wendys will make their gowns. We’ll marry a planet. Do you ever think about that?”

He shook his head.

“I do. I’d like to let it all down, relax, sit in a thick, fresh atmosphere with the sun in the sky… just not worry about anything. Do you think people on Earth ever did that?”

“I suppose.”

“I wonder if I’d make a good mother. Having babies, I mean.”

“Probably,” he said.

“I’ve just started thinking about being a mother. My thoughts… I’ve been young for so long, it’s hard to imagine actually being grown-up.”

“Ariel, I’m not thinking too clearly right now. We should talk later.”

“If you want. I don’t mind if you don’t answer. Do you mind listening?”

“I don’t know if I mind anything right now.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll wait. But we’re going to be so busy.”

“That will be good,” Martin said. “Not having time to think.”

“Do you have a voice…” She trailed off. “It sounds so silly, like something Rosa might say. Do you have a voice that tells you what’s going to happen?”

“No,” Martin said.

“I think I do. We’re going to survive, Martin.”

“Good,” Martin said.

“I’ll be quiet.” She lay back and folded her hands on her stomach. Martin looked down at her from his seat against the wall.

“She’s not as pretty as Theresa,” Theodore said, standing over them. “But she’s honest. She’s resourceful. You could do a lot worse.”

“Shut up,” Martin said.

Ariel opened her eyes languidly. “Didn’t say anything.”

“Not talking to you,” Martin said, slumping until his legs bumped hers, then sidling up next to her. He reached out and hugged her. She tensed, then sighed and relaxed, turned her face toward his, looked him over from a few centimeters, eyebrows arched quizzically.

“I know I’m not as pretty as Theresa,” she whispered. Her vulnerability pricked deep beneath his lassitude.

“Shh,” he said.

“You two were good,” she said.

He patted her shoulder. “Sleep,” he said.

She snuggled closer, gripping his hand with her long fingers.

Trojan Horse ended super deceleration at ten percent light-speed. Volumetric fields lifted. They would coast for five days, then begin a more leisurely deceleration to enter the system.

The first response to their signal came on tight-beam transmission from the fourth planet, content simple enough: a close match, with subtle and interesting variations, of Hakim’s repetitive code. The first twelve prime numbers were counted out in binary.

Martin examined the message while still dazed from the constraints. Simple acknowledgement, without any commitment or welcome.

Salutary caution in a forest full of wolves. Or supreme confidence mixed with humility…

Hakim sent another message, this time with samples of human and Brother voices extending greetings, his own voice counting numbers, and a list of mathematical and physical constants.

Martin ate his lunch of soup in a squeeze bulb and a piece of cake as he looked over fresh pictures of the fourth planet. Huge and dark, touched with streamers of water vapor cloud, wide black oceans and lighter gray continents.

“When will the other ships finish super deceleration?”

“Shrike in fifty-four minutes, and Greyhound in one hour, fifty-two minutes,” Hakim said. “We can noach them now, if you wish, of course.”

“No need,” Martin said. “Let them recover first. We need time to work on our disguise. We need to rehearse.”

“Sounds like the class play,” Erin said, moving in for a closer look at the projected fourth planet.

“We’ll follow the script closely,” Martin said. He looked around the compartment, making sure the Brothers had recovered from deceleration. They took the process harder than humans and needed two hours disassembled to bring themselves out of funk.

Eye on Sky came forward, Paola at his side. He smelled of some exotic spice Martin couldn’t identify: wine and cinnamon, hot resin.

“We are ready,” Eye on Sky said.

The bridge of Double Seed took shape, Brothers and humans orchestrating the final practical and decorative touches.

The crew compartment made sleeping nets for humans and ring beds for Brothers—a series of hoops within which a braid could disassemble and the cords could hang, one or two claws attached to each ring.

Silken Parts and Paola translated the proceedings for all the Brothers.

“We’ll have four more days to rehearse,” Martin said. “Hakim and Sharp Seeing will keep track of our interchanges with whoever’s down there. We’ll have an all-crew briefing every twelve hours. If you’re not on duty, you’re free to contribute to the background. Ariel and Paola will coordinate with Scoots Fast.”

“Scoots Fast has requested a name change,” Paola said. “He wants to be called Long Slither. It’s more accurate. And more dignified.”

“Fine by me,” Martin said. He followed Hakim and Eye on Sky into the noach “inner sanctum,” a small interior compartment screened against outside examination. There was barely room for the three of them.

Eye on Sky contacted Shrike first. At the extreme edge of noach range, text messages were most reliable, and Shrike’s message was projected flat before them. Silken Parts translated the Brother text, a short row of closely spaced curved lines: “We we are safe and still joined in the giant braid. Swift work and firm sand.”

The last contact with Greyhound before entry was short and sweet as well: “In orbit and recovered,” Giacomo transmitted. “Everybody impatient. Good luck!”

“Giacomo needs to work on his poetry,” Erin said wryly. “We’re being outclassed.”

Hakim, Martin, Paola, and Eye on Sky gathered on the new-made bridge. Panels pulled back to show steady blackness, a close-packed haze of stars.

“This is very splendid,” Hakim said, touching the new bulkheads, so different in style from the moms’ usual architecture. “Like being on a ship that might have been made by humans, begging the Brothers’ pardon!”

“We we also feel that if traveled to the stars, it might have been on such a ship,” Eye on Sky said.

Hakim nodded pleasantly, “For the time being, we still use the moms’ remotes on a wide baseline, advanced eyes and ears…”

An image of the fourteenth planet, nearest to the Trojan Horse, grew before them in a small star sphere. Martin leaned forward. Mottled, cold blue and green, a gas giant fifty thousand kilometers in diameter, the fourteenth planet was surrounded by twenty-one moons, and more besides. Its mushy upper atmosphere sprouted floating platforms hundreds of kilometers in diameter, needle-like proboscises extending down through the haze to high-pressure regions below. From the center of each platform, a crystal plume of white rose through a ring that glowed bright as fire in the upper, clear atmosphere. Hyperbolic lines of plasma shot from the ring, like threads from this distance, but hot as the filament in a light-bulb.

“Gas wells,” Martin said. “Tens of thousands of them. Raising gas from the depths, packing it—somehow—accelerating it in those rings, retrieving it in orbit. Impressive.”

“They reveal matter-conversion technology right here,” Hakim said. “They do not care to hide it. No platform parts made of normal matter could survive in those depths, nor contain the gases under such conditions. We see the bottom of the fuel chain, which leads to the top—the technology of the platforms themselves.”

Eye on Sky rustled and smelled of camphor and pine.

The scene shifted to the next planet nearest to them, number twelve, half a billion kilometers closer to the star, this one a rocky world with a diameter of ten thousand kilometers. The color of the planet’s crescent—viewed in close-up—was dark brown with scattered patches of tan and white. “Resolution of about four hundred kilometers,” Hakim said. “It may be made of rock and ice. It is cold enough for ammonia and methane to lie solid on the surface, and the atmosphere appears to be mostly nitrogen and argon. There is no large-scale construction—”

Abruptly, the planet darkened as if the illuminated limb were obscured by shadow. Then, within the shadow and along the limb, thin lines of brilliant white appeared like molten silver poured over a surface of carbon soot. The lines curved into circles and ovals, scribed contours, ran straight as great circles. The density of lineation increased, thinner lines within thick, until the entire planet glowed hot silver. Just as abruptly, color returned—but a different color, with different details, grayish-tan with green patches.

Jennifer giggled abruptly, then clapped her fingers to her mouth. “Sorry,” she said.

“What in the hell was that?” George Dempsey asked.

Dumbfounded, Hakim looked between his colleagues, then read the fresh chemical analysis. “Pure argon atmosphere. The surface appears to be mostly silicates, fine sand perhaps, small rocks. The green patches are very cold, much colder than the rest of the planet—four or five kelvins.”

“I hope Giacomo saw that,” Jennifer said, face ghostly. She could not stop her hands from touching her shoulders, her elbows, her knees. She seemed terrified. “If Hans is looking for proof of illusion…”

“Let’s not draw conclusions yet,” Martin said.

Jennifer giggled again.

The next planet inward that shared the same quadrant of the Leviathan system, number two, orbited scarcely one hundred and fifty million kilometers from the star, barely within a “temperate” zone allowing liquid water. Pale brownish-red, lacking any thick atmosphere, this planet was lumpy with structure. Even with a diameter of over twenty-one thousand kilometers, its outline was remarkably uneven.

“They’re showing off again,” Paola said. “How tall are those… whatever they are?”

“Hundreds of kilometers tall,” Hakim said. “Tens of thousands of them. Cities, perhaps?”

“Are we getting any communications between the planets?” Jennifer asked.

“No artificial radiation leakage,” Hakim said. “Except for the energies used to ship gas up from the giant planets. But even those are of a frequency easily interpreted as solar flares. From a few light months away, the system is rich with planets, but quiet.”

“So they’re not hiding, but they’re not attracting attention, either. What about commerce between the worlds?”

“It is ripe with ships like seeds in shore fruit,” Eye on Sky said. “Tens of millions of vessels rising up, falling down. Every world takes ships but the twelfth. It orbits alone. The fourth planet is most visited.”

“Can we tell if there’s any commerce not using ships?” Martin asked. “Matter transmission—something more sophisticated?”

“Not found any such signs,” Eye on Sky said. “If they are using noach, of course we we are not detecting them.”

Martin rubbed the side of his nose. “Let’s send two messages, one after the other, video with speech accompaniment, the next with Brother text/sound. Coded pictures in polar and rectangular coordinates, one hundred shades, no color, of our ship seen from outside, a Brother assembled and disassembled, and a human male and human female seen from the front, naked. Show our origins related to the three nearest stars. Our fictitious origins, of course…”

“A Voyager message,” Paola said, smiling. She explained for the Brothers. Silken Parts had already researched this small bit of human history.

When it was finished, Martin projected the message for all to see. Silken Parts and Paola quickly worked to translate it into Brother text, which Eye on Sky approved. He suggested, “Let us add full set of symbols from each written language.”

They waited twelve hours. At some six billion kilometers from Leviathan, the first response to their inquiry came from the fourth planet, ten pictures in coordinate video. The mom quickly translated and projected them, one after another.

The pictures showed five different beings. The crew examined the portraits in sequence. The first type was four-legged, slender and graceful looking, with a long, slim neck topped by a short-nosed head with two prominent forward-facing eyes. But for a few features, it might have been a smaller, less stocky version of the Red Tree Runner sauropods. “Where are the hands?” Erin Eire asked.

Nobody answered. The second type stood upright on two thick, almost elephantine legs, with a barrel chest and a small head without apparent eyes. Two sets of arms emerged from its barrel chest, equipped with two sets of many-fingered hands.

“These are the ones who met with the Red Tree Runners,” Erin said.

“Sure looks like them,” Andrew said.

The third type seemed to be aquatic, having no legs or arms as such, elongated, shark shaped, with wide wing-like fins along their sides, narrow, ridged pointed” heads” with no visible eyes, and fins with finger-like extensions just behind the head. The fourth was a nightmare, a nest of tentacles or legs jointed dozens of places along each length, some tipped with smaller tentacles, others with three-part pincers. The body, dwarfed by the tentacles, was squat and dark.

The image of the fifth type brought gasps from the humans. Reptilian, with a long crested head and a short trunk, and limbs that folded backward at the lower joints, the fifth was much smaller than the preceding types.

Erin reached out to take Ariel’s hand. The humans stared in shock and disbelief.

“God damn them,” George Dempsey said.

“They don’t know where we come from,” Cham said. “They’ve screwed up royally.”

Martin nodded. Paola began to explain to Eye on Sky, but the Brother rustled and emitted a strong rosy odor of sympathy. “We we recognize,” Eye on Sky said. “This is from your endtime history.”

“We’ve found them,” Martin said.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Ariel said softly.

“What other conclusions are there?” Martin asked.

“How many beings have they investigated, how many forms might they have stolen? We still can’t be positive.”

Martin wanted to bask in this sense of discovery, have the peculiar satisfaction of watching the Killers make a mistake, reveal a weakness. “I want to be positive,” he said ambiguously.

“Then think,” Ariel said, glancing nervously at the others, as if anticipating a sudden wave of emotion overriding reason. “This could be the original they stole their design from.”

“Not likely,” Martin said. “If the Killers knew them well enough to copy their… bodies, their designs, they’d be dead by now, almost surely…” He turned to the mom. “Do you recognize this type from any of the worlds the Benefactors saved, or any other worlds you know?”

“It does not match any in our records,” the mom answered.

Martin turned back to Ariel. “Any other theories?” he asked.

Ariel raised her hands. “I still think we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

“This is the one,” Martin said. “It’s the creature they used as a decoy outside the spaceship in Death Valley. I know it is.”

Cham laid his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Let’s say it is, for now. Doesn’t change our plans any. Just another piece of evidence.”

“Right,” Martin said, shivering off his emotion. “Noach it to Shrike and Greyhound. Noach all the pictures.”

“Let’s finish looking at them ourselves, first,” Cham suggested evenly, still patting Martin’s shoulder.

Martin pulled himself back from his anger. “Sorry,” he said.

“We all feel it, Martin,” Erin said.

“All of us,” Ariel said. She took a deep breath and squatted on the floor.

The next two pictures sketched an orbital path in relation to the fifteen planets, astrogational hints given by binary number measurements triangulating on the nearest stars.

“Very friendly. They’re suggesting we decelerate at five g’s,” Cham said, tracing his finger along the projection, “and go into orbit around the fourth planet.”

“Can we survive there?” Andrew asked.

“It is the inexplicable one,” Hakim said. “Far too light to be solid, one hundred two thousand kilometers in diameter, there is a cool, solid surface and a thin atmosphere, ten percent oxygen, seventy percent nitrogen, fifteen percent argon and other inerts, five percent carbon dioxide, about six tenths of ship’s pressure. Not good to breathe. The surface temperature is fine, a range of ten to twenty degrees centigrade. The gravitational pull is high, however, about two g’s.”

“The mom can’t wrap us in fields,” Andrew Jaguar said. “We’re not supposed to have that kind of technology.”

“We we might disassemble,” Eye on Sky warned. “With such weight, there is often no braid control over cords.”

Martin held up his hand to cut the discussion. His head hurt abominably. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, one way or another. If they treat us like guests, they’ll probably have ways to make us comfortable. If not—” He looked around the cabin. “Why worry?”

“We don’t know we’ll be invited to the surface,” Paola said.

“Not very neighborly if we aren’t,” Erin said.

“Or they might just kill us,” Andrew Jaguar said. “These worlds look like a lot of very sweet candy for curious flies.”

“Andrew,” Jennifer said testily.

“Nobody can tell me they don’t look… just very interesting! Gingerbread house and witch!”

Paola tried to explain this to the Brothers, but Eye on Sky showed with a flourish of head cords that explanation was either not needed or not wanted. No more of our violent fairy tales, Martin thought.

He turned to Eye on Sky. “Do we go in?”

“What is your opinion?” Eye on Sky rejoined. Some of the Brothers smelled of cloves.

Martin nodded. “Sure,” he said. “That’s why we’re here. Jennifer, is this diagram clear?”

“Clear enough,” she said. “Silken Parts and I can tell the ship where to go.”

Martin turned to the mom. “I assume you’ll vanish into the woodwork, so to speak, when the time comes.”

“When the time comes,” it said, “my presence will not be obvious.”

Without warning, the mom made a peculiar noise like a trumpet blat and gently toppled to one side, rebounding against the floor. The crew stared in surprise; before anyone could react, it made a similar noise and rose again, stabilized. “This vessel has been searched for high-density weapons. Examination may have been conducted by noach. My functioning was temporarily interfered with.”

“How do they search by noach?” Jennifer asked, voice squeaky.

“They may query selected atoms and particles within our vessel for their state and position.”

Jennifer looked as if she had just opened a wonderful Christmas present, and she turned to Martin, gleeful, clearly believing that her work and theory had been confirmed.

Martin was struck by how much they acted and sounded like eager, frightened children, himself included.

“Will they know the ship has a fake matter core?” he asked the mom. “Could they know you’re here?”

“Unless I am mistaken, which is possible but not likely, such a noach examination can only reveal extremes of mass density.”

Jennifer slapped her right hand against her thigh; it was obvious she wanted to do more momerath and plug in these new clues.

“Jennifer,” he said, “you have work to do?”

“Pardon?”

“Go do it. You’re making me nervous.”

Jennifer grinned and left the bridge.

“So they know we’re not armed with anything lethal,” Martin said. “Why did you quit for a moment there?”

“I am not sure.”

Martin looked at the mom intently, then returned his attention to the projected images. “Put us into orbit around the fourth planet,” he told Hakim and Silken Parts.

Hakim did his momerath and drew the best path and points of drive bursts; the path closely matched that suggested on the transmitted charts. “Steady deceleration of five g’s, we will be in orbit within five days, thirteen hours and twelve minutes,” Hakim said.

Silken Parts did the same calculations using Brother math, reported the results to Eye on Sky, then turned to Martin. “We agree within a few seconds,” he said.

“Noach our plans and the messages to Shrike and Greyhound,” Martin said.

Martin’s cabin aboard the Trojan Horse was less than a fifth the size of his previous quarters and contained only his sleeping net. The crews had not yet finished adding homey touches to the masquerade; he scanned the walls and imagined perhaps posters of Brothers and humans frolicking on beaches beneath a blue-green sky. That isn’t too bad. He’d mention the idea to Donna Emerald Sea, who with Long Slither was in charge of ship design now.

He twisted into the net and closed his eyes. He was instantly asleep and in no time at all, it seemed, his wand chimed. It was Jennifer. In long-suffering silence, he crawled from the net, assumed a lotus in mid-air to keep some sort of dignity, and told her to come in.

“Their noach is better than ours,” she said. “Much higher level, more powerful than the moms’ noach, I mean.”

“That’s obvious,” he said, still groggy.

“I just had a long talk with Silken Parts. We swapped theories on Benefactor technology. Martin, we’re going to be way outmatched down there—far more than we were around Wormwood. What these folks had around Wormwood is like a steel trap, and this, this is an atom bomb.”

“What do you think they have?” Martin asked.

“They swept us with something—no, that’s not right; sweep isn’t the right idea, not the right word. They queried our ship’s matter and particles from six billion kilometers. From what I can work out, we couldn’t manage that intense a scan at all, ever—and if we could, we couldn’t transfer that much data in less than a few weeks.”

“Impressive, but what does it imply?”

“If the moms are right, and these folks don’t know everything there is to know about us now—and frankly, I can’t think of a reason why they shouldn’t, except maybe bandwidth—”

“Jennifer, I’m not thinking too clearly. You woke me up and I haven’t slept since coming out of deceleration.”

“I haven’t either,” Jennifer said, blinking.

“Well, you’re superhuman, we all know that.”

“Flattery won’t get answers any faster,” she said much too brightly, her face flushed as if with fever. “Sorry. I’m a little giddy, too. What I’m getting around to saying is, they could turn us into anti-matter right now. Or just enough of us to blow our ship to pieces.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. I’m not sure. And obviously, they haven’t. But—”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“I know,” she said. “I know that.”

“Can you give me any advice about what we can do?”

“Of course, we can’t let them know we understand what noach is.”

“That’ll be easy. I don’t understand.”

“Or that we know it exists,” she said, knitting her brows in irritation. “Silken Parts is working over other implications, and one of them… Are you going to pull a Hans on me?” she asked suddenly.

“Pardon?”

“I’m going to tell you something really big, really scary. Are you going to pull a Hans and vanish into some macho shell right now?”

“I promise, I won’t do that,” Martin said.

“We thought maybe the twelfth planet changing character, color, maybe that was more proof that parts of this system are illusory. A projection or something. Martin, if they can do what I think they can, it doesn’t matter, there isn’t any difference. They could make a shell of fake matter around an entire planet, an entire star, just as solid as this ship is. They could redirect or manufacture images as wide as this system in any direction they desired.”

“Do they have the energy?”

“I’m guessing yes. They might be tapping the star. From what we can see, the system seems to be rich with volatiles.

Maybe they’ve held all their resources in reserve, waiting for the main assault.”

“Do you have any good news?” Martin asked.

Jennifer grinned. “Not fond of endless David and Goliath?”

“It’s a living,” he said dourly.

“I can do without it myself. But I do have some wild-ass ideas that might be encouraging. I want to noach with Giacomo and do some momerath with him, and I want to hook into the ships’ minds. I’m hoping we can collaborate. This is something moms and Brothers and humans need to do together.”

“I’ll get you some private time with Giacomo. No sweet nothings, though,” he chided.

“Strictly business,” Jennifer said.

Martin saw the Trojan Horse/Double Seed as an ant crawling into a kitchen, staring all unknowing at giant appliances, instruments of unknown utility, technologies beyond the capacity of its tiny brain to comprehend…

There was so much that made no sense whatsoever.

The twelfth planet continued to change its character every few hours, alternating between three different sets of features, all the same size, all rocky, but radically different in all other ways.

The ninth planet had an eccentric orbit, carrying it outside the orbit of the tenth planet. It was small, perhaps a former moon, though with no surface features. It had an albedo of one, a perfectly reflective mirror at all frequencies.

The eighth planet, a bright orange-yellow gas giant with a diameter of seventy-five thousand kilometers, possessed three large moons. Cables two to three kilometers in diameter hung from the moons to the planet’s fluid surface, leaving great whorls in their wakes, like mixers in a fantastic bakery.

The sixth planet, eight thousand kilometers in diameter, appeared to be covered with dandelion fluff, each “seed” a thousand kilometers tall. Incoming space vessels never ventured below the crowns of the seeds. In close-up, between the seed pillars, storms churned a thick atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen and water vapor. Hakim thought this might be a giant farm of some sort, for raising unimaginable creatures or plants, but Martin thought that seemed archaic; one wondered if such powerful beings would still need to eat, much less eat formerly living things.

“Then the creatures might have other uses,” Hakim said, eyes glittering with speculation.

“None of which we can guess,” George Dempsey cautioned.

“Let us have our fun,” Erin said peevishly.

Peering deeper down Leviathan’s well, to the fifth planet, nine thousand kilometers in diameter, dull gray, and like the ninth, smoother than a billiard ball, but far from reflective.

And perhaps the most fascinating of them all: the fourth planet, one hundred and two thousand kilometers in diameter, with six moons, three of them larger than Earth, its dark reddish-brown surface radiating heat steadily into space, covered with liquid water oceans with narrow ribbons of continent and low mountains between like stripes on a basketball.

“Thirty-two billion square kilometers,” Ariel said in wonder. “If the land is ten percent of the surface, that’s over three billion square kilometers.” Pause for quick figuring. “Earth had about one and a third billion square kilometers of land. How many people could live here?”

“At two g’s, not me,” Cham said.

“The physics don’t make sense,” Hakim said. “Not dense enough to support a solid surface… The density below the rocky shell must be less than one and a half grams per cubic centimeter. How is this done?”

“How is any of it done?” George Dempsey asked.

The images and charts were noached to Greyhound and Shrike. Hans’ voice replied: “We’re almost at maximum range. Soon be out of touch for a while. How is it?”

“I think they must be treating us like nursery school kids—if not like stray insects.”

“We’ve been looking over the mug shots of the citizens of Leviathan,” said Hans. “The crested critter is pretty audacious. They like to repeat themselves, don’t they? Anybody prepared to make a judgment now?”

“I think we’re close.”

“What more do we need?”

“The final dotted i and crossed t.”

Hans chuckled. “I’ll settle for frontier justice and getting the hell away.”

“We’ve come this far,” Martin said. “We’ve been invited to orbit the fourth planet, and we’ve already set our course. We’ll be down there in twenty-seven days.”

“Godspeed,” Hans said.

“How’s politics?” Martin asked hesitantly.

“My worry, not yours, Martin.”

“Just curious.”

“We’re prepared for whatever you ask of us. Count on it.”

“Any idea who killed Rosa?” Martin asked.

“Time enough after the Job’s done.”

“Jennifer wants some extended time with Giacomo. She thinks she may have something interesting to present to the ships’ minds.”

“I can’t wait,” Hans said. “Not more super-physics doom and gloom, I hope. We’re getting enough of that here, every time we look at those damned planets.”

“She says it might be good news.”

“Put her on, then. Giacomo’s in the nose with me.”

Jennifer came forward and said she wanted the bridge empty while she talked with Giacomo. Humans and Brothers left, all but Silken Parts, who was collaborating on the problems using Brother math.

“Hans doesn’t sound good,” Erin told Martin in the hall outside the bridge.

Ariel concurred. “I hope he’s keeping it together.”

“Maybe he’s depressed because of the show,” Erin suggested. “It’s gotten to me.”

“Maybe,” Martin said. He was empty of either optimism or gloom. The sheer weight of superiority of Leviathan’s worlds made it hard for him to breathe, much less think.

Silken Parts and Jennifer left the noach chamber after three hours. Jennifer could hardly talk. She hung on to a net in the crew quarters and thirstily gulped a bulb of juice. When Martin approached, she held up her hand and shook her head.

“Please,” she said. “My head hurts. Giacomo’s found ways to—”

“You don’t have to talk now if you don’t want to,” Martin said. She ignored that.

“He’s found ways to use Brother math to describe Leviathan’s noach physics. Silken Parts and the ships’ minds are collaborating.

“It’s just too fast, much too fast. We see something, maybe the way number twelve changes or the number eight has big suspended cables, and Silken Parts comes up with a hypothesis… Giacomo runs it through… I look it over. Ah, God. I’m dead tired.”

Jennifer waved her hand again weakly, closed her eyes, and instantly fell asleep.

“I think we’ve broken through,” Hakim said. “I give them all the credit. They’re sending us basic math now, which means they understand the symbols… the human symbols.”

“Is there any of interest in the math?” Silken Parts asked.

“All very innocuous, child’s stuff,” Hakim said. “More like human math than Brother math.”

Silken Parts made a noise like leaves on pavement.

Eye on Sky examined the projected records of the transmissions from the fourth planet. Still shaky after four hours’ sleep, Jennifer peered around the Brother at the records. “They’re echoing most of what we send, but making changes, some… improvements? The notation is altered a little… here and here.” She pointed to equations describing n-dimensional geometries. Martin couldn’t begin to interpret what she was seeing.

“They learn fast and soon,” Eye on Sky said. “We can seed the beach now, I we think.”

“Time to test them on language,” Martin said. “Transmit a Brother and an English dictionary, and a full audio record of speech sounds for both languages.”

“Like opening our book to them,” Ariel said.

“Baiting the hook,” Martin said. He turned to the mom and snake mother. “Can you arrange for the Trojan Horse to have some supernova damage?”

“Yes,” the mom replied.

“Cham, you and Erin design our damage and report to Eye on Sky and me when it’s done.”

“Got it,” Cham said, and they left the bridge.

“It looks dark and heavy,” Ariel said, staring at the projection of the fourth planet. “I’ve got a name for it, if anybody cares,” she said.

“What?” Martin asked.

“Sleep. The other planets… the bristling world, looks to me like Puffball. The flipping world…”

“Masque,” Martin suggested.

“Blinker is better,” Erin said. Within ten minutes, they had named each of the planets, according to their characteristics, working outward from Leviathan itself:

Frisbee, orbiting barely half a million kilometers above the surface of Leviathan, a rapidly rotating white disk seventy-two hundred kilometers in diameter, its circumference fringed with tangled, outward-streaming “hair” of unknown purpose and composition.

Big City, surrounded by red acid haze, covered with architecture to a depth of four hundred kilometers.

Lawn, a blanket of blue-green vegetation divided by artificial rivers, Earth-like but for the fact that the average surface temperature was three hundred degrees Celsius, the rivers ran deep with liquid fake matter (so Giacomo and Eye on Sky speculated), and the atmosphere consisted largely of carbon dioxide and steam.

Sleep, a dark funeral bouquet of wilted roses packed into a ball one hundred and two thousand kilometers in diameter…

Cueball, featureless gray.

Puffball with its thousand-kilometer-high seeds.

Pebble One, barely a thousand kilometers wide, empty gray rock and water ice au naturel.

Mixer, cables hanging from three moons stirring its gaseous surface into a beautiful abstraction of swirls and eddies.

Mirror, perfect and apparently pointless.

Gopher, like a huge lava bomb from a volcano, riddled with holes impossibly deep and wide, green lights winking in the holes like baleful eyes.

Pebble Two, very much like Pebble One: in fact, exactly alike in every detail.

Blinker still flipping like the display on a cosmic clock, changing its character between three different worlds.

Pebble Three, duplicate of Pebbles One and Two.

Gas Pump, blue green, a slushball of methane and ammonia and hydrogen and helium, its glowing wells tossing billions of tons of volatiles into orbit every hour.

And at the farthest extremes of the system, Magic Lantern, covered with oceans of perfectly smooth water ice, interspersed with polished iron and crystal land masses, the land and solid seas studded with black domes hundreds of kilometers across.

Naming Leviathan’s fifteen planets did not bring any cheer or sense of control.

Martin hung in his net, watching with half-closed eyes the image of Sleep fill his cabin. Savages canoeing up the Hudson River, walking into New York City. Look up: the skyline. Pad on moccasins down the asphalt streets. Threaten to destroy the city with bows and arrows. Laughing, the mayor invites them into his office.

On the bridge, Jennifer, Hakim, Cham and Ariel floated at different angles, heads turning toward Martin as he entered. They all wore the same half-terrified expectant look Martin had become familiar with in the past few days. “Play it back,” Cham said. “This is new,” Hakim said. “Ten minutes ago.” The transmitted voice sounded flat, sexually neutral, a little harsh, diction precise and almost chilly. “Hello,” it began. “You have entered cooperative areas and are welcome to the gathering of partners.”

“Not perfect,” Jennifer commented. “But good enough.”

“Many different kinds of intelligence work and play in union. Your kind may join, or may visit. There are no requirements except peaceful intentions. As you no doubt are aware, the local star group is a dangerous territory, populated by machines and intelligences not of good will. Weapons are not allowed in our neighborhood. If you have any weapons, even defensive weapons of low power, you must notify us and dispose of them under our direction, instructions to follow. Further informative discussions will follow. Is this understood?”

Eye on Sky listened intently to the same message delivered in Brother audio. “It is hollow and smells like space,” he said. “But it is understandable.”

“They’ll be suspicious if we’re completely unarmed,” Cham said.

Martin nodded. “I think we should make some weapons and hand them over. Nothing impressive. Defensive projectile weapons, chemical…”

“The ship should have something, too,” Erin said.

Martin looked at Ariel. “Lasers,” he said.

“Right,” she said.

“You direct the mom and snake mother,” he said. “We’ll need something convincing to hand over or jettison soon. It’s time we put on our costumes and start getting used to our roles. In a tenday or so, I think we’re going to be in their control…”

Martin asked Eye on Sky, “How do we answer them?”

“Enthusiasm and charm,” Eye on Sky said. “We all we must be eager to learn. We all we are young, loving to splash the shore, and they will teach.”

Martin smiled. “Who’s deceiving the other, more?”

Eye on Sky rotated his head in a figure eight with a particularly equine motion. “We all ourselves, let it be hoped.”

There was no time to think. Exhausted, pushing himself and the others hours past their sleeps, Martin prepared the human crew as best he could, doing what Erin called hearsing and rehearsing.

The roles they played did not stray too far from truth, but reflected a mixing of cultures, human and Brother, still prickly with potential conflict—close enough to reality. Tensions were high and human tempers flared as they critiqued each other over long hours, working to perfect their act.

In the charged atmosphere, the Brothers tended to separate without warning, forcing braids to chase down cords, bag them, and lock them in quiet rooms until reassembly occurred.

Silken Parts apologized to Martin for the inconvenience and confusion; Martin, as always, held his irritation in check… Knowing that humans might do something similar at any time, fight with each other, break into tears, or worse.

But the disassembling stopped after a few days, and the humans held together remarkably well.

Trojan Horse/Double Seed put on scars from supernova damage: radiation erosion on its outer skin, a crippled drive motor, damaged electronics within. The ship manufactured convincing guns and lasers. Martin locked them away, with only himself and Eye on Sky given the combinations necessary to unlock them.

He could hardly keep his eyes off the growing disk of Sleep, drawing faces in the lines of mountains, disquieting patterns in the broad seas. He imagined himself drifting on a raft down rivers a hundred kilometers wide, navigating twisty cracks in the crust between sheer walls of obsidian black and rust red…

A day before noach cut-off with Greyhound, Martin spoke with Hans in private. “We’re doing well. We know our roles. Cham and Erin have worked up a primer of human- Brother history. It’s pretty entertaining. We’ll noach it to you…”

“Anything for a little distraction,” Hans said. “Giacomo’s had a problem. I’d call it a nervous breakdown, but he says it’s just exhaustion. He’s still trying to riddle what Jennifer sent him.”

“She wants to talk with him some more…”

“We’ll be in blackout… He’s really out of it, Martin.”

“What they’re doing might be important.”

“I’d force him if I could, but he’s like a zombie. Anything more and he’ll break.”

“Then she’s on her own for a while,” Martin said.

Hans made an ambiguous humph. “I’m feeding you more data from our remotes. The whole system is a circus. Don’t tell anybody I said so, but I think we’ve more than met our match. The moms say they’re not going to confuse us with guesses.”

“I just can’t figure any of it,” Hans said. “Wouldn’t it be safer for them to destroy all intruders and visitors? Especially after the supernova—they know something’s in the neighborhood.”

“I’m willing to make some guesses,” Martin said. “I think they could have destroyed us already, but they’re keeping up appearances. If they don’t believe our disguise, they still can’t be positive it’s a disguise. Maybe they’re extra cautious, in case we’re backed up by something even more powerful.”

But no amount of discussion could make them feel any more certain, or any easier.

The ships’ distances grew, and blackout with Greyhound, and then with Shrike, left them completely on their own.

Jennifer began to brood, and spent most of her off-duty time in her quarters, shared with Erin Eire. Martin worried she was on the same course as Giacomo.

The Brothers discovered chess, and it became a release for them. One entire day, all the Brothers aboard Trojan Horse played chess without eating or sleeping. Losing a game caused a humiliating shock and momentary separation; by the end of the day, to Martin’s surprise, cords were playing cords. The cords seemed much better at the game than braids, touching the projected pieces with their claws to make them move, minimized mentalities fully focused, undistracted by organized higher intelligence. So much for cords having no intellect, he thought.

The first complete communication, face to face, began three days before entering orbit around Sleep. Martin and Eye on Sky stood on the bridge, a flat screen monitor hissing faintly in front of them, a video camera focused on them, befitting their level of technology. Martin almost felt at home with the equipment; like Trojan Horse/Double Seed, this was something on a human scale, something he could imagine his own people building and doing.

The standards for transmission had been established four days before. Communication had been sporadic since; a kind of formality, perhaps an interspecies shyness, wariness, keeping the channels of communication closed most of the time, except for essential information. At this distance, there was an hour’s delay.

The speaker mounted beside the screen crackled faintly, and then fell into silence as a many-layered digital signal was received and translated. The cool, neutral voice spoke, musical and dry like wind-blown sand. Symbols and numbers passed across the screen, to be translated into final orbital adjustments.

“We are speaking to you from the fourth planet,” the voice announced. “All is ready now. Our first meeting will occur in orbit. You will be fitted with apparel for a journey to the surface of the fourth planet, as agreed. We are ready to transmit picture as well as sound.”

A vivid moving image appeared on the screen. The most human-like of their hosts’ species—the crested, pale green being first encountered on Earth as the Death Valley decoy—lifted its miter-shaped head. Three amber eyes arranged in a small triangle on the snout of the miter sank into flesh, reemerged in a kind of blink. The knobby shoulders behind the crest moved slowly back and forth. Two six-fingered hands gripped a bar before it.

The miter-head shifted to one side. “We are anticipating a physical meeting, and have made equipment to prevent biological contamination. When you enter orbit around the fourth planet, we will learn the qualities of your atmosphere and chemistry, and suit our equipment to your needs. We will tell you how to put your weapons in our safe-keeping before you enter orbit.”

Martin froze the last image of the miter-head creature and examined it thoughtfully, goosebumps rising on his arms. This one shape so symbolized deception and betrayal, but in fact on Earth this creature had spoken a kind of truth, as part of the deadly, playful testing of humanity: it had warned American scientists of coming destruction.

They used it on Earth, they use it still, how many thousands of years since they launched the killer probes? No wasted effort; is their creativity depleted?

The delay still prevented practical two-way communication, but Martin thought it best to maintain an atmosphere of ceremonial observance, as befitted a truly historic occasion: the first communication between intelligent species, for humans and Brothers, since their own meetings centuries in their fictitious past.

The red light on their camera blinked and Martin took a deep breath and delivered his reply: “We are proud to be a part of this meeting. All individuals on Double Seed are prepared to follow your instructions. Your civilization seems much more capable than our own, and we entrust ourselves to your superior reasoning and technology.” Let them digest and react to humility—or abject innocence.

He stepped aside and let Eye on Sky deliver his message in Brother audio language. Paola stood beside Martin and translated.

“We are most impressed by your partnerships,” Eye on Sky said as the camera light blinked. “We have learned to work in partnership ourselves, two very different kinds of life and intelligence, and we have hopes of exchanging useful knowledge.”

Hakim turned off the camera. “It is sending,” he said. Martin looked around the bridge at Brothers and humans, at the mom and snake mother out of camera range, soon to disappear into the ship’s fabric.

Martin could not help thinking of themselves as sacrifices, less Trojan Horse than trussed lamb waiting for the knife.

He was prepared for that. Death would bring certainty, even an ultimate relaxation. But too many others had gone before them to make the prospect of death in defeat attractive.

William and Theresa. The five billion dead of Earth.

The frozen image of the miter-head creature remained on the screen. Ariel floated beside Martin, swimming against the air with gentle hand motions to stop her axial rotation. “We were taught to hate that thing on the Ark,” she observed. “I hope our hatred doesn’t show.”

“Two hours until our next deceleration,” Cham said. “We’ll have to be ready—it’s going to be four g’s and no fields. A big burn.”

Eye on Sky and Silken Parts deftly removed a cord apiece and set them down to play chess while they watched. Jennifer, George Dempsey, and Donna Emerald Sea also observed, faces dreamy.

Jennifer said very little now but her eyes were large and her cheeks had hollowed; she slept fitfully, Erin said, and never more than an hour any given time before coming wide awake with a jerk, sometimes a little shriek.

“What did the Killers do to your people when they came?” Ariel asked Dry Skin/Norman. So far, he was the only Brother who had taken a human name, and seemed the most willing to speak about Brother history.

“We our worlds, already in space, already commerce between worlds, all knew when our moons were taken, planets injected. Death was large and quick. We we made our own escapes. The Benefactors found us and told us the Law.” Norman weaved a little, releasing a scent of almonds and turpentine: distressed grief. This was not something any Brother enjoyed talking about.

“We know that much,” Ariel said. “But did they try to hide themselves, to… play with you?”

Norman jabbed suddenly with his head at the projected chessboard, and the cords engaged in deep concentration jerked, clacked their claws in agitation, resumed. “No deception, no playing false,” Norman said.

“I wonder why?” Ariel asked.

“Why play cat and mouse with us, and not with you?” George Dempsey added.

“Perhaps no learning in we us,” Norman said. “Perhaps they already met us our kind before, and knew enough.”

“You were stronger and more developed than we were,” Cham said. “You actually got away from them.”

“But we we hate this as much as you,” Norman said, “a hate to ungather a braid for multiple fury.”

This was the first time Martin had heard a Brother speak of hatred. His face flushed and his heart raced, hearing these words; humans were not alone in their passions. “We’re partners,” Martin said. “We feel the same way.”

“Cords have no hatred of abstractions,” Norman said. “We all we must take their example now. They play better chess, no fury, no hate. United, we we become weaker in some ways.”

“Hatred is strength,” Cham said. “That’s what I feel. Without hating this… without hating them…” He bared his teeth like a wolf at the image on the screen. “Let’s not underestimate hating.”

Norman weaved back and forth and made a smell like burning sugar and cut grass. “I we believe there is strength in you we we have not. I we say never these thoughts to others, but know we we worry them.”

Paola questioned him in crude Brother audio, straining her voice to make the scrapes and tones and piped air hums.

“Norman’s saying he thinks we might have done better in their situation. Our literature leads him to believe we’re better at getting angry. Better at killing.”

“I we hope we can learn from you,” Norman said.

“I we think we all our aggression suffices,” Eye on Sky said, watching his cord push a holographic bishop three squares diagonally.

“How about names for these… creatures or beings or whatever?” Donna asked, breaking the awkward silence that followed. “I have one for it.”

“What?” Paola asked.

“Bishop vulture,” Donna said. “Sanctimonious diplomat, eater of carrion. Color of sick vomit.”

“Yuck,” George Dempsey said.

Jennifer came onto the bridge after a few hours’ absence, glanced at the chess game in progress, turned to Martin, and projected a series of charts with her wand.

“They can project false light paths,” she said. “They can convert matter to anti-matter at billions of kilometers—maybe up to and beyond our noach limit—and they can disarm neutronium bombs. They have it all, or they want us to think they have it all.”

“This is what you worked out with Giacomo?”

“And with the ships’ minds.”

“Then we can’t do anything to them.”

The crew, human and Brother, fell silent.

Jennifer stiffly turned her shoulders with her neck, looking at her crewmates apologetically. “Sorry,” she said. “Before the blackout, this is all we could figure, all we could deduce, given what we’re seeing.”

“Any chance you’re wrong?” Ariel said.

“Of course,” Jennifer said meekly. “We can always be wrong.”

“You say the ships’ minds worked with you,” Cham said. “Do they agree?”

“This last part I worked through on my own, after the blackout, after the moms went away, so I can’t be sure they would agree,” Jennifer said.

“Then there’s some hope?” Paola asked plaintively. The Brothers remained silent, waving like grass in a soft breeze.

Jennifer bit her lip. “I’m not perfect at this sort of thing,” she said.

“But you’re damned good,” Cham said.

Martin reached for the last thread before the void, if only to keep the crew from something they did not need at all: complete despair. “Can the ships’ minds—on Greyhound or Shrike—learn from this… advance our technology, add to our defenses, our weapons?”

Jennifer seemed grateful for the suggestion. “That’s what we were… I mean, we wouldn’t figure this out just to show everybody things were hopeless. We can’t do anything on Trojan Horse, but I’m hoping Giacomo and the ships’ minds, and all the others…” Tears broke from her eyelids and drifted in front of her face. She batted at them absently. “There just isn’t much time, and we could have figured wrong so many different ways.”

“But there’s hope,” Paola persevered. “Real hope.”

Jennifer looked at Martin, saw the beseeching in his eyes, and said, “I think so. I haven’t given up.”

They endured the four-g deceleration for a day. They had created liquid-filled couches for these times; Martin and all the humans kept to their couches and tried to sleep through it. The Brothers’ cords clutched their rings.

Orbital insertion was now assured without any further action.

The craft that came alongside a day before they entered orbit gleamed white as snow, a sand-blasted, spherical purity of forty or fifty meters.

The dry voice and image of bishop vulture instructed them, and they pushed their made-up weapons through the mechanical airlock.

The sphere opened a black mouth and swallowed the weapons like a big fish after a school of sprat. Its brightness dulled to charcoal gray; almost lost against the stars, visible only as shadow, it slipped away.

“Nothing lost,” Eye on Sky said. “They were not good weapons. They gave no comfort.”

Actually, to Martin, holding a laser rifle had afforded a kind of comfort. He hadn’t held an actual gun since target shooting with his father when he was seven; the smooth gunmetal blue and gray lines of the laser rifle, though cinematic, had at least given him the sensation, however illusory, of doing something for immediate defense.

None of the weapons had ever been fired. Compared to the ability to control mass at billions of kilometers, a high-powered laser beam and chemical kinetic bullets seemed less than a stone axe against an atomic bomb.

One of the cords died playing chess. It belonged to Sharp Seeing. A brief ceremony was held before the Brothers, alone in their quarters, ate it, separating into their own cords to do so. After, with only twelve hours to go before orbiting Sleep, Sharp Seeing explained that the cord had died of frustration, facing potential checkmate and unable to find an escape. “I we begin to think perhaps this game is bad,” Sharp Seeing said. The cord he had lost was not, so he claimed, an essential part.

Paola was the only human allowed to attend the ceremony, after which she emerged both deeply moved and very proud.

Sleep filled the screen in hypnotic detail. Hakim and Sharp Seeing busily gathered information, expressing each in his way the excitement of witnessing and recording such an extraordinary object.

The fourth planet’s supply of internal heat was sufficient to keep its surface at a constant twenty degrees centigrade, except where molten material and hot gases leaked through, chiefly along the mountain ridges, which seemed to show where massive rocky plates ground against each other.

The physics, as Hakim had already said, was incomprehensible, pointing to massive technological adaptations. Possibly the entire planet was artificial, but the crudity and violence of its design said otherwise… and there was no way to unravel the contradiction, given what they knew and what they could see.

Sleep’s crudity lay in the uncertainty of its surface. With an area of thirty-two billion square kilometers, nine tenths of it under water, hundreds of millions of square kilometers of land churned in apparently useless turmoil. Angry black clouds rose where molten material flowed into the broad seas, rolling from the wall-like mountain ridges.

The air was moist and high in carbon dioxide, low in oxygen. Martin thought it might be an atmosphere adapted for plants.

Hakim and Sharp Seeing used the Double Seed’s primitive instruments to capture images of ocean-going forests of dark green, rising from the water like drifting continents, the largest of them wallowing for ten thousand kilometers across a smooth sea.

Low, rounded quartz-like mountains punctuated the dark basaltic crust, topped by thick crests of pink and orange.

“The colors are probably phosphates, volcanic sulfur compounds, and hydrocarbons,” Hakim said. “Wonderful sights, wonderful knowledge, but our instruments are so limited!”

“Time for an open meeting, all of us, now,” Martin said.

All twenty of the Double Seed’s crew gathered in the cafeteria, humans and Brothers mingling easily.

Eye on Sky and Martin floated at the center. Eye on Sky spoke first in a rich sequence of odors and sounds, head cords stretching wide, claws clicking for the third, almost musical, component. Paola might have been able to understand some of this; to Martin, who knew only a few of the less sibilant sounds, the speech was interesting, but empty of meaning. Then Eye on Sky switched to English.

“Decided days ago that we we should speak before we our hosts in language we all us may understand. All we our ten on this ship now speak English enough to be understood, with Paola Birdsong giving help. Thus, we we now will use English exclusively when we are together.”

“We appreciate the gesture,” Martin said.

“It is some stifling,” Eye on Sky said, “but necessary.”

“We’re going to take some important precautions after our first contact with our hosts,” Martin said. “We don’t know what they can learn about us at a distance, but we can be pretty sure that once they’ve actually touched this ship, secrecy may be impossible. We’re going to have to be circumspect. We’re reasonably sure the noach chamber can’t be breached. If we have anything to say to each other that we don’t want our hosts to hear, we say it there.

“But if we allow anybody or anything into the Double Seed, we’ll have to assume no place is safe.”

“Micro-scale listeners,” George Dempsey said. “They could even be in our bodies.”

“Right. We’ll assume they can’t be detected. That means no written messages, no winks or nods, nothing suspicious… or out of character.”

Humans murmured and nodded, Brothers undulated slightly.

“The play’s the thing,” Martin said. “From now on, we’re actors.”

Double Seed entered orbit ten thousand kilometers above Sleep, and the bishop vulture appeared again. There was no discernible delay in communications now. “We have asked you to orbit this fourth planet because it is the safest. Your ship would not be safe near any other planet in our gathering, for there is much activity—exchange of forces, coming and going of other ships. But the fourth planet is not especially comfortable for your kind. We ask that you give us samples of your atmosphere and tissues and nutritional requirements, that we may prepare vehicles and implements for your use.”

Martin had already drawn blood from himself and Ariel with the Double Seed’s medical kit. Silken Parts took tissue samples from one of his cords.

On the screen, the bishop vulture lifted its long nose, revealing breathing and speech orifices beneath. Its chest expanded and it hissed slightly while saying, “We are very interested in your aggregate species. We have no such intelligent beings in our gathering. You will be very valuable and respected among us, and you will teach us much.”

Erin glanced at the ceiling. Martin stared fixedly at the camera, face blank.

“A ship will attach to your ship in a few minutes,” the bishop vulture said. “The samples will be collected by a sterilized machine within your ship.”

“Maybe we should introduce ourselves and exchange names. We prefer to use names,” Martin said.

“We have no need for names, but names can be assumed for your convenience.”

“My name is Martin.”

“I can be called Amphibian, since I seem to most resemble, in my biology, that class of animals you call amphibians.”

“A better name might be Frog,” Martin suggested.

“Then I will be called Frog. You will meet other representatives, and assign them names and categories, as you wish.”

“Ship is approaching,” Sharp Seeing announced.

With a gentle scraping sound, the ship attached to Double Seed, a thick extrusion surrounding the mechanical airlock like lips. Martin took a deep breath. Here it was—intrusion, and all the dangers that might bring. He wondered, too late, if they should have resisted direct contact—decided that would have been impossible.

Eye on Sky opened the exterior door. A gray cylinder with rounded ends entered. Then he closed the exterior door and opened the interior. The cylinder propelled itself into the bridge area with quiet spurts of air drawn through small slits in its middle, and expelled in similar slits arranged around its length.

Paola opened a small refrigerator and passed the samples in their transparent plastic container to Silken Parts, who swung around to release the container in front of the cylinder.

An arm extruded from the cylinder and took the container. The cylinder propelled itself softly to the airlock, and the door closed behind.

On the screen, the bishop vulture—Frog, Martin corrected himself—turned away for a moment, head cocked, then turned back. “We have several possibilities open to us. You may come to the surface of our fourth planet, to meet directly with our representatives, or you may remain within your ship. If you choose to visit the surface, you may use equipment we supply to make your stay comfortable; this is recommended, as testing of your samples tells us you would soon grow tired under this planet’s gravity.”

They’ve analyzed the samples already… Martin’s neck and shoulders tensed and he shivered.

“You may also choose your mode of conveyance. These decisions may be made at your leisure. I will remain available to you at any time.”

The screen blanked.

“Are we still sending?” Martin asked.

“I cut off when they did,” Hakim said.

“It’s a little abrupt,” Martin said, “but it seems clear. We’re going to spend some time getting used to them. If they’re as smart as they seem, maybe we should expect them to get used to us.” He made this speech in complete expectation of being overheard. He stumbled over the next few words, trying to say and do what they might be expected to say and do by the unimaginable minds that might be listening. “We’ve adapted to each other, but we were nearly equal when we fought our wars… How much harder to understand species much more advanced?”

He visualized tiny machines in the cylinder’s exhalation, hiding in the ship like dust motes, transmitting by noach. Nothing at all compared to what we’ve already seen.

“It took us centuries to grow together,” Silken Parts said, with no discernible unease. “We we hope for no atrocious deals here.”

High-school students emoting before master critics. How long could it last?

The most important moment arrived: the first meeting, face to face, between the crew of Double Seed and some of the beings who seemed to control the Leviathan system.

Donna Emerald Sea had devised fancy uniforms for the humans to wear, and decorative sashes and ribbons for the Brothers. She adjusted Martin’s particularly resplendent garb, winked at him briefly, stood before him with hands on hips, and said, “You look perfectly barbaric, Captain.”

“Thank you,” Martin said, and turned to Eye on Sky, who resembled a young girl’s braided pony tail done up with ribbons, brought to life perhaps by Godpapa Drosselmeier for a joke. The Brothers and humans did look splendid—and naive; he hoped Frog and the others would find the display amusing, whatever passed for amusement among them—and convincing.

Donna went among the others, pinning, fidgeting. Martin remembered her adjusting the projected world-wedding gown on Theresa and became acutely aware once more of human limitations—and human beauties. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

Paola helped Donna with her uniform, black and red with gold sash, crew style.

Hakim wore his outfit stiffly. He reached up as Martin approached and stuck his finger between neck and high collar, Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin throat. “Many years since we have worn these,” he said. Hakim might be the least convincing of them.

The Brothers seemed natural actors. Not once had they broken character or showed the strain of their roles.

“We’re ready, Captain,” Donna said.

Six—three humans and three Brothers—would leave Double Seed and descend to Sleep’s surface: Silken Parts, Strong Cord, and Eye on Sky; Martin, Paola, and Ariel. Martin appointed Erin Eire to replace him. Sharp Seeing would replace Eye on Sky.

They caught a glimpse of a white sphere in the screen, heard it scrape midships and seal itself around the airlock. The inner airlock door opened. Single file, they entered the smooth green interior of the transfer ship. Beyond a transparent panel, visible only as they turned a corner, stood another bishop vulture, not—Martin guessed—Frog itself.

“I am your helper now,” the new bishop vulture said. “I have taken your word Salamander as name.” It hissed faintly beneath its words. “If it does not offend or bring wrong meanings, you may so call me.”

Eye on Sky introduced his companions. Martin and Eye on Sky had decided it might be best for a Brother to serve as primary leader on this excursion. Paola seemed up to the task of interpreting between two non-native speakers—the Brothers and their hosts.

There was method to this inconvenience: it could masquerade as power sharing, and the inevitable misunderstandings could hide their own confusion.

They drifted weightless in the middle of a small cabin. Martin noted a sensation of motion as the vessel separated from Double Seed. Invisible constraints much like fields surrounded them; their hosts’ technology had advanced in parallel with the Benefactors at least to this degree. But then, fields were as logical and inevitable as fire had once been for humans.

Salamander hissed faintly again, said, “We descend now. There should be no discomfort. Would you like to examine conveyances for walking on the surface?”

“We we would like so now,” Eye on Sky said. A panel of curved wall became transparent, revealing Salamander against a dark backdrop.

Another panel to Salamander’s right cleared. Beyond, motionless white skeletal frames stood like robots made of elegant bones, one set for humans, another for the Brothers.

Martin was particularly impressed by the design for the Brothers’ suits. Like padded snake ribs tied to two backbones, they would allow braids to move much as they did naturally, in normal gravitation, with a sinuous caterpillar motion.

“We hope these are suitable,” Salamander said. “They are made to go unnoticed while worn.”

“We we are assured,” Eye on Sky said.

“There will be one for each member of your party.”

“As expected,” Eye on Sky said.

“And they will be fitted to each individual’s shape and size,” Salamander said.

“As expected.”

“Your schedule for surface excursion…” Sharp hissing intake of breath, raising of the miter’s nose, “winking” of the three amber eyes into the pale green flesh. “Upon landing and suiting up, there is orientation to teach you with more basics of how we behave and work. Then a meeting under shelter with representatives of the five primary races. Followed by proper induction ceremony for entry into the Cooperative of Fifteen Worlds. Exchange of information in a formal meeting with secretaries of the Living Council. I will accompany you and explain what is necessary, what you have questions for.”

Ariel looked at Martin with a brief expression of boredom. Martin lifted his eyebrows in concurrence. Whatever excitement this meeting might have had—under any other circumstances, should have had—was lost in the tincture of overwhelming ceremony, not to mention awareness of its almost certain insincerity.

Camouflage upon masquerade upon deception.

Do these beings believe they are real, and free? Martin wondered. Are they? Have the Killers faded into their decoys?

Salamander lowered its head and gripped the metal bar before it, freezing suddenly like a museum display. After a moment, as the skeletal white suits disappeared behind opacity, it lifted its head again. “We have refreshments, liquids and foods, which we hope are palatable. Landing will be in fifteen minutes. You will not need to inconvenience yourselves, and you will not experience any discomfort beyond mild sensations of motion. We have provided food. You may dine after landing.”

“Thank you,” Eye on Sky said. “Reasons of religious nature, we all we must eat our own food.”

They had taken enough risks already. There was no sense inviting microscopic spies into their bodies, or anything else they could avoid.

“Religious nature,” Salamander repeated with some savor. “Rules dictated by perceived higher beings?”

“Food for humans and Brothers must be specially prepared. We all we will send food from our ship when needed, with we our food handler.”

“That will be done,” Salamander said. “Is this religious requirement very strong?”

Eye on Sky glanced at Martin and wove a small figure eight with splayed head cords. It seemed to want his help.

“Very,” Martin said. Then, innocently, “Don’t you have religious food laws? We assumed all civilizations would… obey higher authority.”

Salamander did not answer for a time. It—or something listening through it—was obviously thinking over this question thoroughly. “We do not observe specific religious rules,” it answered. “Nor do most of us absorb nutrition by eating. There is one exception, a type living on the fourth planet.”

Martin’s expedient, and little test, had been neatly sidestepped. Martin said, “Are… most of you mechanical?”

“No,” Salamander said. “We are organic.”

“We we foresee such things as artificial bodies,” Eye on Sky said, back on track. “Are you naturally born, or artificial?”

“These questions can be answered later,” Salamander said. “They are not as simple as they might seem.”

Martin curled his legs and folded his arms, floating within his protective field. He could feel little of the ship’s motion; no obvious acceleration. But the always-sinking sensation of weightlessness changed in a way he couldn’t quite describe; as if his arms and legs might be getting heavier, yet not his torso.

The odd sensation faded, replaced by something they hadn’t experienced in years—the heaviness of being in a planet’s gravitation. Theory told them there was no difference between weight caused by acceleration and the heaviness brought on by gravity, but Martin had the eerie sensation of knowing the difference.

The protective fields did not diffuse through their bodies; they provided support for externals, but not for internal muscles and organs, and the heaviness immediately became oppressive, almost nauseating.

“Are you comfortable?” Salamander asked.

Eye on Sky made a squeaking sound. Martin looked to the Brother’s hind section and saw cords letting go. The Brother smelled like a pine forest—euphoria and fear, he guessed.

“I feel a little sick,” Martin said. Ariel said she was not comfortable.

The fields glowed and sparkled briefly, and the disparity faded. The Brothers did not completely disassemble; the cords grabbed hold again. Paola’s face took on color and Ariel let her fists relax.

“Better,” Martin said.

Where the skeletal support suits had been displayed, an equally convincing view of the planet’s surface appeared. They seemed to descend from an altitude of nine or ten kilometers. The horizon showed no curvature; the atmosphere, only a few kilometers thick, glimmered in a thin bright line between the dull red, black, and dark blue expanse of Sleep, and the starry blackness of space.

Martin saw orderly features below, triangles, circles, lines of gray against the dull red and black, circles of white lying on the blue expanse of sea. Mountains appeared against the horizon, white rock capped with orange and pink, deep in shadow now.

Dawn was breaking, and from three hundred million kilometers, Leviathan’s light poured over Sleep’s sea and land, setting ablaze streamers of cloud and smoke from crustal vents.

Martin heard a faint whining noise-—perhaps their craft singing through Sleep’s atmosphere. Puffs of cloud shot past. He felt the planetary pull more intensely, but without much more discomfort.

He avoided thinking about how they were being manipulated. There was no practical way they could protect themselves against tampering. The Killers can change matter from a great distance. They could change parts of our own bodies to suit their purposes… kill us immediately, fill us with tiny spies, even control the way we think.

He looked at Ariel, trying not to let his misery and fear show. She held out her hand, and he took it without hesitation. Paola held out her hand, too, and then Silken Parts extended a cord, and Paola took hold of that, and Ariel grasped a cord offered by Eye on Sky. Strong Cord connected with Martin and the circle was complete.

He didn’t feel any less afraid, but he certainly felt less alone.

“Are you disturbed? Not comfortable?” Salamander asked.

Eye on Sky, who should have answered for the group, said nothing.

“We’re comfortable,” Martin said hoarsely, and cleared his throat.

“We are not familiar with that communication,” Salamander said, and repeated the sound of his throat clearing. “What does it mean?”

“An… organic sound,” Martin said. “No meaning.”

“Like my hissing and breathing,” Salamander offered.

“Right,” Martin said.

“Do my extraneous sounds bother you?”

“No,” Martin said. Under other circumstances—if this masquerade were real—he thought he could feel affection for Salamander, so solicitous was the bishop vulture, trying to make their journey easier.

The wonderful, withdrawing blink of the beautiful amber eyes, the flushing pink of patches of the pastel green skin; the creature was actually quite beautiful. I’m flipping back and forth. Emotional strain. Keep it even.

The exposed crust of Sleep was incredibly rugged, a chaos of broken black rock, some blocks hundreds of meters wide, lying over and across each other with glassy extrusions sharp as knives. Between the blocks lay drifts of orange and pink powder, from which winds blew streaming hazes that glittered in the sunlight.

The ship still flew a few kilometers from the surface. Into their view came a stretch of sea, mottled blue-green, kilometer wide white poker-chips floating motionless amid low, oily waves.

As they watched, a distant section of crust collapsed like an edge of glacier calving on Earth. A thick plume of black smoke arose, splaying out into a low anvil in seconds. Red highlights glowed through the murk.

“We will land on a platform in the ocean in three minutes,” Salamander announced. “This must be very unfamiliar to you. Do you have any questions?”

“Thousands of questions,” Martin said. “There just isn’t time to ask them all.”

“I we have one question,” Eye on Sky said. “Is this planet natural, or artificial?”

“Both,” Salamander said. “Once it was a small star. We have been changing it for thousands of years. First it was used as an energy and fuel source. Now, the easiest answer would be to say that it is artificial. It supplies commodities to the rest of our system.”

The ocean filled more and more of their view, until only a line of black cliffs separated ocean from lurid, cloud-stripped sky.

“We are now on the platform. Your suits are in another room. We will leave the craft when you are prepared. At no time will you be exposed to the actual atmosphere, which is not suitable for your biology, and rich with small organisms that might be dangerous to you, besides.”

Part of the wall moved aside and they stepped carefully, aided by the fields, into another room, this one equipped with a low stage. The skeletal suits hung from the ceiling above the stage.

“Do you think we’re alone?” Paola asked. “Everything projected, remote-controlled?”

“Could be,” Martin said.

Eye on Sky produced a smell of tea and soil. “Useless to make guesses,” he said.

Salamander’s voice instructed them to stand on the stage. Wrapped by their fields, they moved, with some difficulty, to spots marked by faint glows of light. A small, perfect image of each of them appeared next to the appropriate suit, like a nametag. Martin stood before his suit, facing it. “Turn around, please, with your backs to the suits.”

He turned. The suit whispered behind him and his neck hair bristled. Its fluid “bones” wrapped around him, gripping him comfortably.

He moved experimentally. The suit moved effortlessly with him.

Useless to make guesses. Everything a mystery. Ants in a kitchen.

“You will be surrounded by invisible barriers when outside. Your breathing should be natural, and you should not worry. We caution against these things only: do not move rapidly, and do not move away from the path or away from your group.”

“Right,” Martin said. He watched the Brothers getting used to their suits, flexing them, raising three fourths of their lengths from the stage. Ariel lifted her arms experimentally, cocked her head, looked at Martin sidewise.

“Comfortable?” he asked. Ariel and Paola nodded; Strong Cord and Eye on Sky put their suits through more tests before concurring. “We’re ready,” Martin told the unseen Salamander.

“The ship will debark you in an open area. You should enjoy experiencing the surface as directly as possible. It is quite beautiful. There is no danger, but if you would like to avoid this, we can remove this part of your journey.”

Eye on Sky answered, “We we would like to see the surface.”

Martin didn’t disagree, but he was not enthusiastic. He had seen enough marvels and spectacle already to be spiritually exhausted.

The spacecraft opened around them and stowed itself like a folding screen, leaving them on the white stage, surrounded by an immensity of gray and black sky, midnight blue ocean, dark cliffs rising thousands of meters above the sea. He could feel the flesh-thumping sound of distant explosions, grindings of crust; hear noise like giants groaning and whistling. The sudden openness was unnerving. His hands trembled within the pliant grip of the skeletal suit.

“Wow,” Ariel said, her face pale. The air within Martin’s field was self-contained, and he could not smell the Brothers. But he could smell his own reaction—rank fear.

The weight on his stomach and lungs gave him sharp twinges of pain, as if strings tied to pins in his organs were being tugged. Martin doubted he would want to spend more than a few hours on the surface of Sleep.

A causeway reached across the sea to a broad white disk. Salamander’s voice spoke in his right ear: “Your suits will walk you over this distance. The disk is a kind of ferry. You will be taken to a shore station, and there will meet with more of our representatives. Are you experiencing discomfort?”

“I’m fine,” Martin said.

The suit nudged him and he tried to walk but it resisted. Finally he relaxed and the suit did all his work for him, moving him like a puppet, a sensation he did not enjoy. They were all guided over the causeway to the disk, which promptly disengaged and moved smoothly through the thick, rapid waves.

Martin’s vision coarsened and the landscape became more vivid. This might have been an effect of gravity; it also might have been an effect of the field containing his atmosphere.

Useless to make guesses.

The ferry skirted a thick mass of green covering a few hundred square meters, undulating on the seas, large bubbles rising and breaking through like explosions in fibrous mud.

“One of our types finds these waters comfortable,” Salamander said. “An individual would enjoy seeing you. Is this okay with you?”

“Acceptable,” Eye on Sky said.

Seconds later, a bright red nightmare of jointed arms pushed through the water and heaved part of itself onto the ferry. Paola gave a little squeak and backed close to Martin. The Brothers seemed frozen in place, making no comments, weathering this surfeit of experience.

The nightmare’s arms parted with a motion combining the curl of a squid’s tentacles and the up-and-down pistoning of a spider’s legs. A remarkable “face” appeared, four glittering egg-shaped eyes in a mass of glossy black flesh, surrounded by alternating fleshy rings of yellow and gray.

“This type serves a capacity like a farmer in these seas, but makes many decisions in our political framework,” Salamander explained. “Its kind denies the value of artificial enhancements. Like you, it eats, and is very strict about what it eats, and when, and how. Perhaps in the future you may hold discussions. You may share sympathies.”

“Sure,” Martin said dubiously. He very much wanted it to go away.

The simple expansiveness of sea and sky bothered him more than he could have imagined. He was so used to the confines of the ships, enclosed universes…

To his relief, the creature pushed away from the raft and vanished into the waves.

“It had at least thirty arms,” Paola said. “I couldn’t count them all!”

Another voice spoke in his ear: Erin Eire on Double Seed. “How’s the trip, Martin?”

He stuttered for a moment, surprised by the communication. “We’re healthy,” he said. “It’s big down here. Wide open spaces.”

“Sounds lovely,” Erin said. “You look a little tied up in those suits. We’re all watching here—both crews. The transmissions are clear. We’re overhead now. Look up and you might see us.”

Martin looked up but saw nothing in the muddy blackness. “No visual,” he said.

“Too bad. Don’t feel lonely.”

Salamander’s voice returned. “We will pass around this promontory.”

Waves slid up against jagged blocks of crust with tremendous force but little spray, rivulets of water fleeing quickly back to the ocean. The ferry came within a hundred meters of the turmoil, and passed around a high point of black and brown rock rising like a squat tower.

Beyond the promontory, at the far side of a deep harbor, three rocky tunnel mouths opened, each about fifty meters high and perhaps forty wide. Square tongues of polished gray stone pushed out of the tunnels into the harbor.

Even from a few kilometers, Martin heard the deep breath of the tunnels, felt the airborne shudder of water rushing in, pushing out.

The ferry crossed the harbor quickly and the tunnels loomed, making sounds such as Odysseus might have heard approaching Scylla and Charybdis. The light of Leviathan fell behind the headland now, and murky shadow surrounded them, broken by the white luminosity of their ferry. Ariel’s face appeared ghostly, shadows of cheeks, chin, and nose rising across her eyes.

“Are we going in there?” Paola asked.

“Yes,” Salamander answered. “We will dock at the second tunnel from your left. Transportation will arrive soon. Within the station, there are type individuals of some of the beings occupying our system. They will speak with you.”

“Martin,” Paola said, “I think the Brothers are having problems.”

Martin looked at Eye on Sky and Silken Parts, both shivering within their suits. Strong Cord seemed fine, sliding beside his companions with solicitous sounds, squirks and clatters. “What’s wrong?” Martin asked.

“This is what is seen when disassembled,” Eye on Sky said, voice harsh and uneven. “This is the cave of youth on the shore, where young come together as braids after cords fight.”

“Paola, what do you know about this?”

“Something about adulthood rituals… Nothing in their literature that I’ve found. Maybe it’s deep memory.”

“It is intimate,” Strong Cord said. “Difficulty buried in minds of cords. I we are disturbed, but we we more disturbed.”

“Salamander, some of us are having problems,” Martin said.

“How may we help?” Salamander’s voice asked.

“Can you block off the view, cover us?” Martin asked. A white canopy rose from the disk like a pleated piece of paper and unfolded over them, blocking the sky but not the view ahead.

Eye on Sky’s trembling stopped. Silken Parts continued to shiver for a few more seconds, then writhed spasmodically and became still, again in control.

What else can go wrong? Martin faced the immense tunnel openings without the Brothers’ deep-seated concerns, but also without any enthusiasm. This entire journey seemed calculated to overawe, and despite Eye on Sky’s agreement to this journey, that said nothing good about their hosts. Rather than manufacture comfortable surroundings, they seemed to want to test their guests—

Test. Gather information about reactions to strenuous conditions. The Killers had done that on Earth with even less mercy.

The disk bumped gently against the edge of the dock. A ramp smoothed out to join with the disk.

“You may walk by yourselves,” Salamander’s voice informed them. Eye on Sky went first, skeletal white suit rippling. Paola followed, then Martin, and finally all stood on the hard dark gray surface.

The disk sank beneath the fast thick waves. No way back—is that the meaning? Is there any meaning, or just insensitivity to aliens whose psychology they know nothing about?

The tunnel’s ceiling hung over them like the edge of a black void. The floor beneath advanced into shadow.

Silken Part’s dark cords became part of the obscurity beyond; his suit seemed to stand by itself, moving like a cartoon spook. Ariel stepped closer. “I think we should get back to the ship in a couple of hours,” she said to Martin.

A tiny simulacrum of a bishop vulture—Frog or Salamander—appeared in the tunnel, perfect in every detail. Martin adjusted his focus to learn whether the image was floating deep back in the tunnel, or nearby, and found it was only a meter from his face, a few centimeters in size. Surprised, Ariel dodged the simulacrum as if it were an insect. She straightened in her suit with a pained expression.

“Salamander, we need to be back in our ship within two hours,” Martin said. The simulacrum grew larger, like an object seen in a zoom lens. Martin heard Salamander’s voice from that direction.

“The meetings will last only twenty minutes this first time,” it said. “You will be returned to your ship after that, and other meetings will be planned.”

A bright red circle appeared deep in the tunnel. “Please move toward the circle. You will see,” Salamander assured them.

The three Brothers slithered ahead, apparently recovered from their initial difficulties.

At first, Martin could see nothing beyond their immediate surround. The six of them—and Salamander’s floating image—were clearly visible. As his eyes grew accustomed, he made out more and more, seeing first an uncertain wave-like motion on the distant walls, then shades and details.

The walls churned. Blocky shapes crawled up in lines like geometric slugs, deflected by obstacles that extruded into their paths. Near the edge of the floor, splashing, sucking sounds told him that water flowed either in hidden gutters or through deep channels beneath.

“What is it?” Paola asked. Martin had no answer. The red circle grew. Spots of dim green and blue light appeared on the walls, moving with the blocky shapes but not issuing from them.

“What are those?” Paola asked.

“Living machines that process and store chemicals made in the seas,” Salamander said. “The seas are factories. There is much traditional industry on this world.”

The red circle faded. “You may stop now,” Salamander said.

This is it. They’ll kill us now, then dissect the ship at leisure, torturing, misleading, learning what they can.

Walls lifted from the floor around them, bright blue like clear sunny skies on Earth, and a kind of music played, without melody but very pleasant.

“You will meet first with four representatives,” Salamander announced. The simulacrum vanished and Salamander entered, full sized, through a door in a luminous wall.

“Is this your physical form?” Eye on Sky asked, head cords splayed wide, the eyes on each cord glittering.

“This is my form,” Salamander said. “Individuals are not limited to single bodies. There are many versions of myself working. This is true of nearly all the type individuals you will meet.”

Safety in numbers. No sense attacking—you can’t kill us all, we have copies, backups stashed everywhere.

Martin pretended to be impressed, but in fact the children had been told about this early in their voyage, along with other facts about advanced technological species.

The surprise was that, given their abilities, the inhabitants of these worlds still had physical form at all.

Their hosts fit few norms.

“Are you prepared to meet with these representatives?”

“Yes,” Martin said.

“Yes,” Eye on Sky said.

Martin felt a sting of anticipation.

Through the door came a being with two elephantine legs, two three-jointed arms emerging from a barrel chest, and a small, eyeless head. Despite having seen it in still images before, Martin’s throat tightened and his heart-rate increased. The creature stood at least three meters high, well adapted to this kind of gravity, moving with a curious waddle like the gait of a fat human combined with the ponderous grace of an elephant. It wore no clothing and carried no equipment.

Salamander walked beside the thick-legged elephantoid, striding on four limbs, bat-like, crest rising and falling.

The door widened and a tube of fluid pushed through, forming a cube beside the elephantoid. Within the cube floated two creatures, elongated, shark-shaped, with broad wing-like fins along their sides. Their heads were pointed, sensory organs arranged in rings back from the snout. Fins just behind the head ended in radiances of finger-like tentacles. Martin had assumed these creatures were related; their appearance in the same field seemed to support that opinion. The cube of water arranged its passengers beside the others.

Last to enter was a second bishop vulture. The door closed. To Martin, the assembly seemed hasty at best, not what he would have expected for a historic moment; not a first meeting with a newly arrived race of intelligent beings, more like a gathering of executives to iron out business matters.

Ariel rubbed the palms of her hands together, glanced at Martin with a wry expression, and dropped her hands to her sides. Paola seemed transfixed, eyes wide, looking from one being to the other. Eye on Sky, Silken Parts, and Strong Cord at least seemed calm and in no difficulty.

“I am Frog, who first spoke to you,” the second bishop vulture said. “Are you well?”

Eye on Sky slid across the gray surface to raise himself beside Martin. “We we are mystified,” the Brother said. “What is your purpose?”

“Your deceit is more than matched by our own,” Frog said.

Martin’s chest went hollow and he held his breath, waiting for extinction; he had known it would come, that childsplay would not suffice.

“We exist at the sufferance of greater powers,” Frog said. “Since we are neither of us anything more than surrogates, there is no need for ceremony.”

Paola closed her eyes. Ariel’s lips moved, her face ashen.

“It is no coincidence that your ship arrives in the train of destruction from an exploding star. You represent higher powers as well. Your artificial construction is convincing, but the coincidence is too great to be accepted.”

Do they know about the other ships?

“We serve as extended eyes,” Salamander said, lifting its crest. “Do you have access to your creators?”

Martin tried frantically to understand what they were saying. They seemed to believe that Brothers and humans were themselves created, artificial…

“We we do not understand,” Eye on Sky said.

“You are representatives of higher intelligences, as are we. Are we communicating clearly?”

“We’re still confused,” Martin said. “Are you saying others control you, like puppets?”

“We are not puppets. We have a separate existence,” Frog said.

The elephantoid stepped forward. “There are four hundred and twelve types of intelligent being in this planetary system.” Its voice sang high and rough, but intelligible. “Those of us before you serve political and other roles. We speak with our creators and represent the other types. Do you have a direct connection with your creators?”

“We we are autonomous,” Eye on Sky said.

“But you are created,” Salamander continued. Martin’s body ached as if with fever; they might be undergoing the interstellar equivalent of interrogation, the third degree.

“We understand now,” Martin said, hoping Eye on Sky and the others would let him take the lead, catch on to the implications. “If the time has come to drop all pretense, we are ready.” Ariel’s face stiffened with apprehension. Paola closed her eyes languidly, as if ready for sleep.

“It is clear that precautions are necessary in high-level interstellar relations,” the elephantoid said.

I’ll call him a babar, Martin thought, and held his jaws together tightly to keep from laughing. He couldn’t believe they had traveled for centuries, across so many hundreds of trillions of kilometers, to stand in this place, in this situation, meeting layer upon layer of lies with more lies. It was comic in an acutely painful way.

William and Theresa and Theodore and so many others had died to bring them here; had been killed by these things, or by their higher authority.

Eye on Sky said nothing, deferring to Martin. Martin wondered what the Brothers were thinking, but he could not turn back now. “That seems to be the rule,” he answered. “We appreciate your not harming us.”

“It would not be courteous,” Salamander said. “Do you understand the intentions of your creators?”

“If you’re asking whether we can… discuss issues with you, make decisions, the answer is yes, to a limited degree.”

“Are your superiors in this vicinity, within our planetary system?” Frog asked.

“No,” Martin said.

“Are they listening through you?”

“Not directly,” Martin said.

“Can you provide a more direct means of communication, to allow more rapid agreement?”

“No,” Martin said.

“This much all seems true,” the elephantoid babar said. “Are you tiring, or do you wish to make preliminary agreements now?”

“Let’s get something agreed to now,” Martin said.

“We feel it is best, if you are prepared, to meet directly with our creators, that you may carry more accurate knowledge to your own.”

Martin could not speak for a moment. Eye on Sky swiveled his broad head, cords held tightly together in a defensive posture, and said to Martin, “We we are ready.”

“All right,” Martin said, ant in kitchen, diapered infant on a diplomatic mission. “Let’s meet them.”

The white walls bent inward and sank out of sight.

The five representatives moved closer to the humans and Brothers.

“This is not dangerous,” the babar said in its high, irritating voice, “but it is difficult to fold one’s thoughts around, even if you have witnessed it before.”

“This fourth world is a home and reservoir,” Salamander said. Martin much preferred listening to the bishop vultures. “Our creators live inside, in layers around the dense core, where there is much flow of energy.”

“Did they always live here?” Paola asked.

“Since we have existed,” Frog said.

“How long is that?”

“Two thousand years by your measure,” Salamander said.

The killer probes may have been made long before that, Martin thought.

The red circle appeared again, larger this time, and gracefully dropped to the floor of the tunnel. The edge of the circle rested less than two meters from Martin’s feet.

“I reassure you, there is no danger,” Salamander said. “We will witness a part only of one of our creators.”

The floor vibrated as if with the passage of a train. Something shimmered within the red circle. The shimmer extended into a tube rising to the top of the tunnel. The red circle vanished. Within the shimmer lifted a multi-colored brightness, dazzling in the tunnel’s obscurity.

The brightness took a helical form, like a staircase of light. Along its length dripped brilliant colors, yellows and oranges dominant, as if the light itself congealed and condensed and evaporated again.

The sight was intense and beautiful, but Martin was far beyond being impressed. He stifled urge upon insistent urge to laugh.

He could see little more than the brightness. It became a staircase with dancing beetles. His vision faded in and out. He wondered how much time he had before he fainted or lost control…

The next voice shocked him to full alertness. Richly feminine, fully human, it sounded like Theresa, but the similarity was more his making than real. He stood straight in the skeletal suit and saw the others motionless around him, all but Silken Parts, who swung to look in Martin’s direction, head cords drawn almost to a point with fright.

“Only you and I we,” Silken Parts said. “Others…”

Their companions were all frozen, locked into immobile fields. Ariel and Paola had become posed mannequins within the still white cages of their suits.

The voice again, without age, smooth as ice and equally cold. Not unfriendly. Not friendly. Not caring. Not aloof.

A voice to be described only in negatives and absences.

“Tell me why you are here.”

Martin could not summon enough spit to answer. Silken Parts made no effort to speak English. Martin faced the helical staircase of light and saw jeering faces ascending its twist.

“Why are you here?”

“We were invited,” Martin finally managed. Silken Parts’ cords had reached their limit and struggled in elemental panic, hanging from the ribs of the skeletal suit; the braid, no longer connected, would not witness or answer.

Martin was alone now, fully accountable to whatever this was.

“Where are your superiors, your other vessels?”

“There are no other ships.”

“Imagine if you will all the minds you have ever known, speaking to each other without animosity and without interruption, leaving out accumulated error. I speak to you as something of that scale. You must realize that disguises and lies are easy to penetrate.”

“I’m not lying,” Martin said hopelessly. His fear was not enough to keep him from fading.

“You are part of a force of ships sent to destroy this system. More correctly, you have been sent to destroy people who designed and built certain robots. You are not the first. There will be others.”

Martin could hardly see.

“Those who made the robots have all died. Their direct descendants long ago became part of larger forces you could not hope to understand. I am not one of the descendants; I, too, am a creation, but they have left us their history.”

“History,” Martin said. He raised an arm with great effort, pointed to the bishop vultures, sharks, and babar. “They think you created them.”

“We did not create them. That is their chosen delusion, their faith.” Pause. “You are in physical distress.”

“Yes.”

“What do you need?”

“Rest. Time to think. Sleep. Water.”

That was all he could manage, and he felt shame at saying so much, at being so weak before his enemy.

“I will adjust your surround to make you lighter. Is that better?”

Martin seemed to float. Blood began to flow again, and he could see again, but his body still ached.

A fountain of water rose before him, and his suit leaned forward, dashing his face into it. Despite his apprehensions, he drank deeply. Strength seemed to radiate from his tongue and cheeks, from his throat.

“Better,” he said.

“Can you listen now?”

“Yes.”

“These representatives know a little, but for their sake, they do not know all. Are you a hunter?”

“Yes,” Martin said, eyes fixing on the helix.

“You hunt to avenge the death of others?”

“My world.”

“It was destroyed by robots?”

“Yes.”

“We sympathize. Those who made us are distant descendants of those who made the machines that probably destroyed your world. But they are gone, enlarged. They have packed their minds into massless forms that will last beyond the end of the universe.

“They have left us here, greater than you, but still limited, because creating us pleased them. My kind live within this world, surviving in deep energy flows. I do not think there is time to explain our existence to you. We number in the tens of trillions.

“We did not make the machines that destroyed your world.”

“The makers aren’t here?” Martin asked.

“No. There are many more trillions of created intelligences in this system, none of them responsible for the destruction of your world.”

Martin watched images of species upon species flash before him, stacking like cards, filling the tunnel; more forms than he could have ever imagined.

“Kill them, and you kill innocents. I am one.”

The helix of light descended through the glimmer. The glimmer sank into the red circle. The red circle faded.

The others began to move again. Silken Parts’ cords squirmed, grasped by his suit; only a few had fallen to the floor, where they curled like threatened millipedes. The bishop vultures swiveled their miters, eyes sinking and rising within their fleshy noses.

“You have been visited,” Salamander said. “Who was chosen?”

The twenty gathered on the bridge of Double Seed, where Martin floated with eyes closed, still exhausted. Ariel and Paola squatted in mid-air nearby, sucking juice from squeeze bulbs.

The journey back had followed the same tortuous procedures, leaving Martin more confused, and finally angry at everything, a thick, clogging anger that seemed to reach back to the Ark and before, to Earth, to his childhood.

He had finished explaining what he had seen less than an hour before, and the twenty surrounded him in silence, as if in mourning.

Erin broke the hush. “You were the only one who saw… and heard.”

“I we am embarrassed I did not maintain,” Silken Parts said. “But I we saw the first appearance of the master.”

“It wasn’t the master,” Martin said. “Or so it claims. Its kind may control the fourth planet… May control everything in this system. But it denies it is responsible for the killer probes.”

“Did it say it would defend itself?” Cham asked.

Martin looked at him with a squint. “Against what?”

Cham rubbed his chin with his thumb. “If we carry out the Law.”

“We didn’t talk about it,” Martin said.

Eye on Sky curled along a pipe like a snake around a tree limb. “The Law is not for taking lives of the uninvolved.”

“You’d think they’d make the facts known to all of us,” Cham said, looking at his thumb as if he may have rubbed away some dirt. “Why choose just two?”

“Serious disinterest, I’d say,” Erin commented.

“Aloof,” Donna added.

“Maybe we can’t destroy them—the ones inside Sleep,” George Dempsey said.

Eye on Sky spread his face cords and arched the upper part of his body to face Martin. “You as one are sure of what you gathered?”

“Are you positive you saw and heard correctly?” Paola interpreted.

Martin nodded. “No sham,” he said. “It was as real as anything else we saw. It was real.”

“But you were exhausted…” Cham said. “The others saw nothing.”

“It felt like super deceleration,” Ariel said. She put her hand on Martin’s shoulder, gripping it to keep from giving him a slight spin, and locked her foot under a brace. “I think Martin saw and heard what he’s described.”

Jennifer had kept silent since their return. Upside down to him, feet locked in ceiling grips, she folded her arms.

“Do we vote on it?” George Dempsey asked.

“No,” Martin said. “When we can noach again, we tell our story to Hans and Stonemaker.”

“We should go down again,” Paola said, and bit her lower lip, looking around the group like a frightened deer. “We should try to talk again with… Martin’s staircase gods, whatever they’re called, inside Sleep. It’s our duty.”

“What are you going to recommend?” Ariel asked.

“I don’t know,” Martin said. “I need to sleep, or I’m going to be sick.”

In his cabin, Martin slumbered in total darkness without dream or memory, a deathly bite of nothing. He awakened abruptly once, knew precisely where he was and what had happened, remembering all too easily—and closed his eyes again to return to nothing. He was not so exhausted now, however, and as he rotated within his net, pulling his arms in, he knew there was somebody else in the room with him.

For a moment he assumed it was that old companion of his sleeping existence, Theodore, but it was not. He smelled a living person, a woman.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Ariel said.

“I don’t think you did.”

“I was too tired to sleep. I came here. I’ve been listening to you breathing. It’s like… When you breathe, it’s like…”

He heard her neck bones quietly pop in the dark. She was shaking her head.

“Soothing,” she finished. “Can I be in your net with you?”

“I’m still tired.”

“I need to sleep, too,” she said.

“All right.” He opened the net and she pushed in beside him, an elbow in his ribs, her buttocks against his knees, and then they were parallel in the net and he could smell her more strongly. The sweet musty scent of her hair. He had never thought of Ariel as physically pleasant, but he found her so now. She did not move or speak. Finally her breathing smoothed and he listened to her sleeping. It was soothing, simple and basic and human, what someone might have experienced lying in bed next to a woman thousands of years ago, or nearly so: the hug of Earth subtracted.

She wore shorts and top of loose terry. He wore nothing. She had not come into his room to make love, but he knew she would not stop him if he chose to begin making love. The inevitability intrigued him.

He thought of the spiral of plasma and dancing lights, Silken Parts breaking down under the experience of meeting the staircase god.

Bishop vultures, babar, sharks, staircase god.

He lightly touched the stretch of her shorts, withdrew his finger. She still slept.

Reaching down, he touched the flesh between her thighs, centimeters below her pubis, not sexually aroused, simply touching, familiarizing. He did not even think about her consent. He was far from convention and the courtesy of human courtship; he had spoken with a staircase god, and drunk water from the fountain of Sleep.

If there had been something in that water, and if he was now a haven for microscopic listeners and watchers, they could not judge his indiscretion, touching while she slept this woman he had once disliked intensely. No staircase god or bishop vulture, no babar would understand.

Martin could not begin to recall all the races he had been shown, the immense fecundity of the Killers’ creation.

“What are you doing?” Ariel asked. He pulled his hand away and pretended to be asleep. “It’s okay.”

He still pretended to sleep.

She shivered slightly. “You’re not asleep,” she said.

“No.”

“May I touch you?”

“Yes.”

She rotated beside him and faced him, then wrapped both arms around him without pressure and touched his back with fingertips, small of back, ribs, where ribs meet spine from each side, fingers gently prodding. “It’s okay,” she said, voice sleepy. “We feel good.”

“Your legs feel nice,” he said.

“Not asleep,” she chided.

“You have pretty legs,” he said.

“They’re not fat,” she said.

“They’re strong,” he said.

“It’s okay for you to think I’m not pretty.”

“I don’t think you’re not pretty.”

“It’s okay.”

“You smell good.”

She hugged him tighter. It was not cold, but both began to shiver, exhaustion compounding excitement. He felt her removing her shorts and then she was on him.

“Ah God,” he said. Simple.

She had wrapped her toes in the net left and right of him, and he held himself with fingers and one set of toes above and below her.

She moved strongly and put pressure on him and the result was quick and not particularly intense. She held him then and moved back and forth but did not find herself as Theresa might have. He sensed her weary frustration and even a little anger, angry Ariel, resentful of his ease and her difficulty. But he did not want to put his mouth to her, still reserving that for the memories of Theresa and William.

He put his hand between her legs and she held his wrist and moved his hand and herself, and it was not his doing really when she shuddered in quiet but for a small squeak.

Nothing in the way of finesse, there hadn’t even been the voluptuousness of impersonally slicking Paola. But it was enough.

He felt her relax into floating sleep, and willed blanket nothing over himself again. If we all die now and nothing is accomplished, I can at least say

I have met

staircase god

and babar

Pretense seemed useless now. The mom and snake mother emerged from the fabric of Trojan Horse, and now all gathered on the bridge to decide what could be done next.

“If they know, they know,” Martin said. “We can’t convince them otherwise.”

Cham looked around the cabin with a stern, wild face. “Why haven’t they blown us to quarks?”

The Brothers curled together in a ten-strand super-braid that filled one side of the room, an imposing knot of knots. Eye on Sky’s head swung closest to the sphere of humans, but so far the Brothers had said nothing.

“They could go a lot finer than quarks,” Jennifer said. “They could grind us to metrons.”

“Whatever those are,” Ariel said.

“I just made them up,” Jennifer said.

Martin could sense the fraying fabric and he extended straight as a board and stretched his arms, in this way imposing on the whole group, most of whom had lotused or curled in the cabin.

“They haven’t destroyed us because they don’t know where our other ships are. And we won’t tell them. We won’t even talk about it.”

“The possibility of invisible spies,” Cham said.

“Right.”

“You drank water …” Donna accused.

“We all breathed the air,” Ariel said with a touch of scorn. “We knew that would be a problem…”

“So what can we talk about?” George Dempsey asked.

“That’s what we’re going to establish,” Martin said. “When we’re in the noach chamber, nothing can transmit out…”

“But the… little spies, whatever, could store up a message and send it after we’re out of the chamber,” Jennifer said.

“Assuming something that small can transmit without our detecting it,” Cham said.

“Maybe the little things can use noach, too…”

Martin held up his hand and turned to the mom and the snake mother. “First things first. Can you tell whether we’ve been contaminated?” he asked them.

“Possibly,” the mom said. “But an exhaustive procedure would not be easy. Miniature devices might be as small as molecules, made from one kind or another of super-dense matter. This was a risk we decided to take.”

“Great,” Jennifer said.

“A better plan than detection would be to change the design of the ship, and protect all spaces against unwanted transmission, in or out,” the mom suggested.

“We can do that?” Martin asked.

“It can be done, with a reduction in available fuel,” the mom said.

“There’s something else,” George said. “If they wanted to kill us, they could give us a disease we pass from one to the other… these spies, miniature machines, something deadly.”

“Killing us won’t stop the others,” Paola said.

“Unless the disease doesn’t strike until we rejoin them,” Donna said.

“We we do not feel contaminated,” Eye on Sky said. But the super-braid uncoiled and the braids drifted apart.

Ariel said, “Maybe those of us who went down should be in quarantine…”

“As no fields were present when the first contact was made by their machine,” the mom said, “it seems more likely we are all contaminated.”

“We tripped ourselves up,” George said. “Too clever for our own good. We shouldn’t have tried to fool them.”

“No time for regrets,” Martin said. He took a deep breath, reluctant to say what he had to say. “I’m going down again, if they let me. Just me. To talk. We won’t be out of noach blackout for another day… I need to know more before I make my recommendations to Hans.”

“Ask them,” Eye on Sky said.

“About what?”

“Ask them if we all we have been contaminated.”

“Why should they tell us?” George asked, shivering, agitated.

The second meeting was granted, to Martin’s surprise.

He knew now with a certainty beyond intuition why they had not been killed, why the unarmed Double Seed had not been destroyed; they were the only connection their hosts had to the invisible ships now moving back in toward Leviathan, ships with unknown weapons, unknown strengths. The more that could be learned, the longer their action could be delayed, the more advantage for their hosts.

Deception piled upon deception… Their hosts could not know how much of a lie was being told, any more than humans and Brothers.

Martin waited for the white sphere to arrive and carry him, alone, back to the surface of Sleep. He took advantage of the solitude in his cabin to scan Sleep and the other worlds in the Leviathan system, aimless observation, lips pursed, brows drawn together. Ant in kitchen: trying to understand why one planet would be set to change like a clock display, blink one moment, different the next. Why others would be spiky with massive constructs, others barren and smooth. Why Sleep existed at all—perhaps simply to house the staircase gods, all other creatures an afterthought, all other purposes secondary…

The second journey to Sleep followed the exact pattern of the first. He boarded the shuttle and was immediately met by his skeletal suit and by Salamander. He put on the suit—or rather, it put itself on around him.

Salamander gripped its bar behind the transparent wall.

“We are told you are very dangerous to us,” Salamander said, hissing faintly behind the words.

Martin did not reply.

“The creators tell us you are an illusion, that you are much stronger than you appear, and that you will try to harm us.”

Still, Martin kept silent.

“They tell us you caused the star explosion.”

“It was a trap meant to kill us,” Martin said, watching the oceans come up beneath them in the display beside Salamander’s panel.

“Are we such a danger to you that you would wish us gone? We have never left this system. Nor have we harmed your kind.”

“You haven’t been told everything,” Martin said, face flushed. “Machines came to my world and destroyed it. Other machines destroyed other worlds, maybe thousands of worlds, thousands of races. Whoever made you probably made those machines.”

“We are aware of no such history,” Salamander said.

Martin shook his head, irritated to be explaining any of this to what might be a puppet, a sham. Still, the instinct to communicate pushed him. If Salamander was anything like a human, the truth might not have much effect… But at least Martin would have done his best.

“Before my world was destroyed,” he said, “the robots, the machines, created diversions to test our abilities. They made some of my people believe that a spacecraft had landed in a remote area, and an unknown… being, an individual, came out of the craft, to warn us of our destruction. It didn’t tell the entire truth. It was part of an experiment.” Anger at the memory made his throat close. He swallowed, then faced Salamander. “It looked like you. They made it look like you.”

Salamander lifted its head, brought the knobs of its shoulders together.

“No individuals of my kind have been to your world.”

“I’m not making myself clear,” Martin said. “Whoever made you destroyed my world. When I look at you, I am reminded of that crime. That’s why we’re here. To see if any of the guilty still exist.”

“I do not believe our creators have done this thing, nor are we guilty,” Salamander said. “What will you discuss with our creators?”

“They say they did not create you.” Martin shook his head. “Anyway, that’s between me and them.”

“Are they the guilty ones?”

“I don’t know,” Martin said. “They say they aren’t.”

“They claim to be made by others, as we are?”

“Yes,” Martin said.

“Would you kill us, knowing we did not harm your world?”

Martin swallowed again, feeling his weight grow as the ship entered Sleep’s atmosphere, descending slowly, deliberately and with vast power. “I don’t know.”

“You do not know anything about us.”

“I’m here to learn.”

“We are independent. We have a rich existence. Whoever made us did not give us the need to destroy.”

Martin stared at Salamander behind the barrier, empathizing for the first time.

“We are not illusions,” Salamander continued. “We have separate existence.”

Its reiteration made Salamander even more sympathetic. Martin tried to strengthen his resolve, but in Salamander’s words there was also sorrow, as well as frustration and perhaps confusion.

“Do you have the power to destroy us?”

Martin said they did, lying.

Salamander’s shoulder knobs touched, jerked back, and its six-fingered hands grew tight on the steel bar.

“What will I tell my kind, that we face extinction when we have extended a hand of information and giving?”

“Ask your superiors,” Martin said.

“We seldom confer with our creators. We assume they made us. Some have thought perhaps they didn’t make us. You say they didn’t.”

“I don’t want to talk to you any more,” Martin said.

Salamander’s wall darkened.

The dark sky, thick blue sea, walls of jagged rock; the white disk on its journey around the sharp headland; the triple tunnel mouths, the dock and gray stone floor, into the darkness. Martin carried his water in a plastic bottle, and felt more prepared this time to withstand the heaviness, the weariness in his blood and behind his eyes.

An hour from leaving the ship, he stood within his skeletal suit deep in the tunnel, before the red circle.

The helix of light within its glimmering cylinder rose from the floor.

“Have you contacted your leaders?” the staircase god asked.

“I have more questions,” Martin said.

“Why should your questions be answered?”

“If we’re going to go to war against each other, we should know more, shouldn’t we?”

“That implies an exchange. What do you offer?”

“I’m giving you another chance to convince me you aren’t the enemy we’ve been hunting for.”

The staircase god produced its display of cascading lights and colors, but no voice came from the pillar for long seconds. Martin thought of the Bible in his father’s library, and reflected that this was a particularly biblical moment. But he did not feel like a prophet facing the burning bush.

What he did feel was not awe, but fear, and not fear for his life. He feared screwing up. He could just begin to see the scale of the blunders they might make here.

“Why should we make the effort?” the staircase god asked bluntly. Language was a true handicap here; nuances and subtleties could not be expected, and bluntness could not be interpreted as… anything.

“Do you believe we can hurt you?” Martin asked.

“It is possible you can destroy us, despite precautions we might take.”

“Then accept my offer. Tell me about your past. I’m here to learn.”

“In absorbing the information you have given us, I have tried to understand both those you call humans and those you call Brothers. You did not come from the same star systems; your chemistries differ in reliance on certain trace elements. This told us that your story was not true, and we had no difficulty putting facts together. But it did occur to some of us that your gesture of making a lie, of sending a disguised ship, was magnanimous. Your kinds seem to believe in deliberation before reckless action.

“But surely anything we tell you cannot be convincing. What compelling evidence can we provide? We could rearrange your brains, change you so that the beings on your ship would all believe we are innocent. How would you know the difference between compulsion and compelling evidence?”

“I hope to be able to tell the difference,” Martin said.

“Your innocence, your ignorance, reminds me of many of our smaller neighbors that live on planet surfaces. There is an attractiveness, you might say a beauty, to their limited lives and thoughts, but unfortunately, faster and more capable minds can’t share such illusions.”

“Why did you tell Salamander and his people, all the hundreds of others, that you made them?”

“We did not. They concluded that we are their makers. We have chosen not to contradict their beliefs.”

Martin was getting nowhere. Still, he would keep asking questions, keep probing. He could not, for justice’ sake, do otherwise.

“Do you remember your makers?”

“No.”

“They never met with you after making you?”

“They made us as growing potentials within this world. By the time of our maturity, they had changed, and they have not returned or looked at us, so far as we can sense.”

“Why did they make you?”

“We do not know.”

Martin looked up again. “Can you understand how frustrated I am, not being able to judge? Not having enough evidence?”

“No.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Choose different masters, different guides,” the staircase god replied. “It is obvious to me, and to many of our smaller surface species, that you have been poorly informed and poorly led. Those who seek revenge for wrongs committed in ages past are not thinking correctly.”

“It’s part of a system of justice,” Martin said. “If you make machines that kill living planets, you know that you or your descendants will be punished.”

“Has this prevented the creation of such machines, and the destruction of worlds like yours?”

“No,” Martin admitted.

“Then such a law is useless. Ask yourself if there is only one law, or if others have made other laws; ask yourself why we feel that if there are many joined civilizations of the kind you describe, they must to us seem immature, not capable of judging.

“It seems likely now that you cannot harm our worlds, that you are weaker than we. You are not a threat. Any further discussion is wasted effort.”

The vision faded, helix of light and glimmer dropping to the red circle.

Martin’s audience was over.

Salamander, frozen throughout the dialog, lifted its crest and advanced a step toward Martin.

“You have talked? Have you what you need?” it asked.

Martin relaxed his clenched fists. An involuntary spasm clenched them again. He sucked in breath, shuddering with frustration and rage.

“Have you what you need?” Salamander repeated. Martin looked at the creature sharply, trying to see behind the barriers of physical form, language, his prejudice. He could not help but conclude that Salamander was not an illusion.

The creature in the Death Valley spaceship had been a kind of prototype of the bishop vultures, designed by the Killers, who also created all these beings now experienced… Creators of whom Salamander knew nothing.

To Salamander, Martin represented a monster as frightening as the neutronium bombs that had whizzed through the Earth had been to his father…

Martin was Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

“I should go back,” Martin said.

Salamander advanced again, fingers held up. “You have not enough,” it said. “You still think we are guilty.”

“No,” Martin said. What could he say? Nothing to reassure it; nothing to mislead.

“What can we do to defend ourselves?” Salamander asked, with sufficient ambiguity of meaning to confuse Martin.

“I need evidence that those who built the machines are no longer here,” Martin said. “Your superiors either can’t or won’t supply me with the evidence.”

“We know nothing of them,” Salamander said. “There will be meetings. We must meet with you again.”

“Please take me back,” Martin said. In Salamander he recognized a type not so inhuman after all; diplomat, organizer, representative of many interests and individuals. He could not hate Salamander, or by extension, any of the others he had seen.

“You must recognize what is to be lost,” Salamander said, waddling closer, fingers curling as if in threat.

“I know,” Martin said.

“You are not capable of knowing, you are too small and limited,” Salamander said. “I must teach you now, immediately, what can be lost. There is no time. What must I do?”

Martin did not want to confront Salamander. “We’ll try to arrange another meeting.”

“You have met with the superiors twice, and that has never happened in our history.”

“Maybe there can be a third meeting.”

“They have told you what you need. They will not speak to you again,” Salamander said.

“How do you speak to them?”

“We send signals into this planet, and they respond, or do not respond.”

Like calling monsters from the deep with songs. Leviathan, indeed; the staircase gods were great energy leviathans basking on the deep energy slopes of paradise, thinking unknown thoughts, disdaining surface creatures.

Noach blackout would end within hours. Martin had to speak with the other ships as soon as possible.

Salamander drew back its arms, dropped them to the floor, backed away, miter head bowed as if in supplication.

“I have been ordered to let you return,” it said. It walked on all fours toward the opening of the tunnel. Martin followed, the timeless wash of the vast blue ocean growing louder.

With Martin’s return and explanation of what had happened, Double Seed altered radically in design and ability. The crews stayed on the bridge as the ship drew in its extensions, armored itself against possible direct assault, and shielded itself against transmissions into or out of the ship’s interior. Martin knew the ship’s transformation could be taken as a sign of aggression, but they had to take the risk.

While they waited, Hakim and Silken Parts selected and displayed some of the, huge volume of information sent to the Double Seed in the past two hours from the surface of Sleep.

Images of planet-spanning cities on the inner worlds, scenes of daily life whose meaning they could hardly guess without reference to hundreds of thousands of pages of text, expertly Englished; the varieties of races, sounds of over twenty spoken languages, biographies and portraits of highly accomplished individuals, including long sequences on Salamander and Frog, more than just diplomats or representatives—creative artists famous throughout the Leviathan system, experts in planetary architecture, responsible for Puffball’s construction over the past few hundred years, as well as designers of philosophical systems regarded as complex games…

They’re trying to personalize themselves, be more to us than unfamiliar creatures and opponents. It’s a tactic almost human… and it implies some understanding of or congruence with our psychology.

“They have opened their archives,” Eye on Sky said, and curled to face Martin. “They are very afraid of we us.”

Martin nodded.

“He knows that,” Paola said.

“They couldn’t give me proof that the Killers have gone,” Martin said.

“Is that kind of proof possible?” Ariel asked. “They could only prove the Killers are still here if the Killers themselves talked to us—admitted they were here. Right?”

“Right,” Martin said. “I’m thinking of the decision Stonemaker and Hans have to make. We’ve tracked the Killers, we’ve found conclusive evidence they once lived here…”

Talented Salamander and Frog, betrayed by their physique; leftovers from centuries, millennia of frantic creativity—and to what end? To make up for the Killers’ sins, creation to atone for destruction?

Hans would not see it that way. Martin could not predict Stonemaker’s reaction, but Eye on Sky was clearly sympathetic to the pleas of innocence, the urgent appeal for multitudes of intelligent beings, far more than just the leftovers of Killer habitation.

Hakim touched Martin on the shoulder. “We will be able to noach in two minutes,” he said. “We will communicate with Greyhound directly. Through them, of course, Shrike as well, but Shrike is still out of direct range.”

“What would you do?” Martin asked Eye on Sky.

“As a group? We we must decide—”

“By yourself,” Martin said. “If you had the choice.”

“What would you do if you alone, as a braid—” Paola tried to interpret.

“I we understand,” Eye on Sky interrupted her. “It is not a question I we enjoy answering.”

Martin stared at him and gave the merest nod.

Paola looked between the Brothers, who had stopped moving, waiting for Eye on Sky’s answer.

“I we have not reached a decision,” he finally said.

“You’re wavering,” Cham said. Cham pushed off from the ceiling and rotated to a reverse, landing with his feet on the floor, then performed the maneuver in reverse, exercising with nervous energy. “I think it’s a trap,” Cham said. “The very worst trap, perfectly designed to snare us. I think you should tell Hans that.”

Ariel curled in mid-air. Martin could not read her expression.

“Nobody’s asked the mom or the snake mother what we should do,” George Dempsey said.

“George, you’ve always been a little dense,” Donna told him.

“Hell, I know they’re not supposed to influence us…” George said with a pained expression. “But they brought us here, they’ve given us this opportunity, and if we screw it up, if we decide wrong…” He blocked Cham’s accelerated exercise with an arm, causing Cham to tumble and grab a stanchion. Cham mumbled something unintelligible but stopped bouncing back and forth and curled beside Erin. “If we decide wrong…” George repeated, but did not finish.

“We’re guilty of a crime worse than the death of Earth,” Paola said.

“Right,” George said.

“Just what they want us to think,” Cham said. “Perfect disguise.”

“I don’t think it’s a disguise,” Martin said.

“Nor do I we,” Silken Parts agreed.

“Nor do we all,” Eye on Sky concluded. Cham pushed his lips together and shook his head.

“Well, I’m in my place,” he muttered.

“Stop it,” Martin said. “We could argue for years and not know for sure. I’m goddamned confused myself.”

“Amen,” Erin said.

“But I’m not Pan. We don’t make the decision alone. We present what we have to all the others…”

In the quiet, cool noach chamber, Hakim, Eye on Sky, and Martin sat, waiting for signals to be coordinated.

Stonemaker and Giacomo appeared first, three-dimensional noach images growing out of the air. Giacomo’s face was pale and drawn, his eyes dark and tired. Stonemaker received Eye on Sky’s report as Hakim prepared to transmit their findings.

“We’re having trouble,” Giacomo told Martin. “Hans will be here soon. He can tell you about it. I need to speak with Jennifer right away.”

“After Hans and I talk,” Martin said.

“Martin, this is really important. We’ve made some significant advances. The moms are making new equipment for us. I have to talk with Jennifer, and Silken Parts, too.”

“I understand,” Martin said. “Strategy first.”

Giacomo’s face reddened. “God damn it, Martin, Hans isn’t here yet, and we don’t have much time. We’ve learned a lot in the past few tendays, stuff I wouldn’t have believed!”

“So tell me about it while we wait for Hans,” Martin said.

“Bring Jennifer in. We’ll all talk.”

Martin did not relish being bogged down in technical details, but he relented and asked Jennifer to enter the noach chamber. Her expression softened when she saw Giacomo, then became worried as she saw the strain he was under.

“Jenny, we think this system is armed to the teeth. Blinker is probably a giant noach generator, but it isn’t used for communication. The entire planet changes every few minutes… The moms have studied it, I’ve been working through the momerath…”

“Give us the important stuff,” Jennifer said, glancing at Martin. “We’ll talk momerath later.”

“Blinker is their Achilles’ heel,” Giacomo said. “It controls a lot of things around Leviathan. We think we can use noach as a weapon against Blinker. If we can persuade Blinker, it’ll be like their turning our ships into anti em, only much more powerful. Wormwood was deliberately primitive, compared to Leviathan. That’s what I’ve told Hans, and the moms seem to agree. They’re making noach weapons right now. I don’t think we’ll have time to test—”

“What can they do?” Martin asked.

“We might survive Blinker if it tries to attack us. Our neutronium weapons are probably useless. They can nullify them, even… I’m not positive about this, Jenny, but the momerath says they can convert our bombs to the limits of the system, or even after they enter a planet.

“That’s the glory of Leviathan. Just looking at these planets long enough, we can think of a thousand new things, a thousand possibilities. The ships’ minds are working all the time. All our weapons and delivery systems are being redesigned.”

Hans entered and sat next to Giacomo, facing Martin across over nine billion kilometers. Martin was shocked by how thin and wiry Hans appeared, as if he had lost all unnecessary flesh to prepare for some intense conflict. His eyes focused on Martin’s chin, then drifted down to his neck.

“Martin and I need to be alone. Jennifer, whoever else is there but Martin, and the Brothers… leave now,” he said. “They can talk science in a few minutes.”

Giacomo withdrew. Jennifer swore under her breath and left Double Seed’s noach chamber. Hakim followed after he was sure the transmission was stable. Martin nodded to him apologetically. Eye on Sky continued to confer with Stonemaker in two-part Brother language, clicks and violin sighs.

“You actually went down there, had a one to one?” Hans asked, unable to project more than a hint of feeling.

“We did. Twice,” Martin said.

“Face to face with the enemy.” Hans shook his head in dull-eyed wonder. “That’s something, Marty.”

Martin’s eyes grew moist but he did not reach up to wipe them. Even now, when his instincts told him something horrible had happened, even Hans’ flat and listless approval meant something.

“We’ve had shit up to our necks here,” Hans said. “Giacomo’s probably told you some of it already.”

“No details.”

“Twenty-one of our crew mutinied. They tried to elect their own Pan. I told them there couldn’t be any proceedings until the Job was over and the crews were reunited, but Jeanette Snap Dragon and a few others kept at it until they broke the others down.”

Martin doubted that was the entire story. “What about the Brothers?”

“They’re going to take Shrike, leave us with Greyhound. I’ve agreed to that.”

“They’re not doing the Job with us?”

“We’ll coordinate, but they’ve decided not to be on the same ship.”

Martin shook his head in disbelief. “What in hell happened, Hans?”

“Rex is dead,” Hans said. “He killed himself a tenday ago. He confessed to killing Rosa and said he couldn’t live with it.”

“Why did he kill her?”

Hans leveled his gaze on Martin. “Necessities. She took him in as her lover. Something happened. Has Giacomo explained what the moms are doing?”

“What about the rest of the crew?”

“They’re with me. They want to do the Job. I make the decisions. What have you got for me?”

Martin stared at the floor for a moment, trying to see beyond what he was being told. “I’m noaching a big batch of information given to us by the representatives from Sleep. All of you should look it over very carefully, as much as you can absorb.” He quickly explained the circumstances: the hundreds of races, trillions of individuals, the representatives, the staircase god, and what they had told him…

Hans listened intently, eyes growing more focused, more alive.

“Is it real?” Hans asked when Martin was done.

“I don’t think it’s illusion. They’re real. The information is more than I can assimilate. Salamander—”

“That’s the other vulture, isn’t it?” Hans asked.

“Yes. Salamander seemed distressed. We couldn’t know each other’s expressions, understand emotions… but it clearly thinks I’m the bringer of something terrible.”

Hans folded his arms, straightened his back as if in satisfaction. “Good. But they don’t know where I am.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t tell them.”

“No, but I was dealing with minds way beyond me. I felt like an ant. What they can deduce or learn, how fast they can draw their conclusions or put evidence together, I don’t know. We have to vote and make a decision fast. If we stay here much longer, they’ll get tired of our uselessness and find some way to kill us.”

“Peaceful types, am I right?”

“Even if we believe all they say, they have every reason to destroy us. We’re a massive threat.”

“Yeah,” Hans said. “I’d like your opinion, Martin, but the group is past voting now. I make the decision. We do the Job, we get the hell out. We go live the rest of our lives.”

Martin didn’t know what to say.

“We can still do it,” Hans said softly. “Are you with me?”

“You have to look at the information.”

“It’s all shit,” Hans said briskly.

“You have to look at it,” Martin repeated firmly.

“I will,” Hans said. “Dot the i’s and cross the t’s, am I right?”

Martin had come to hate that sequence of three words; had come to hate Hans at the same time Hans could bring tears to his eyes.

Put a stop to it now. Refuse to let it go any further. But then they’ll have you; the ruse will have worked. The ultimate defense fogs the mind.

“Giacomo’s itching to talk with Jennifer. My say is over for the time being,” Hans said. “I’ll look at the info. Get back to you in a couple of hours. Watch your tail, Martin. Move out soon. They can get you.”

“I don’t think they will until they’re sure we’re not going to bargain,” Martin said.

“Maybe not. Maybe they’re just too damned smart for their own good. Like you, Martin.”

Martin lowered his eyes, then raised them again, met Hans’ gaze, his face reddening with constrained fury. He would gladly have killed Hans then.

Hans looked away, as if Martin did not matter, nothing mattered, his expression casual and deadly. “Well, if Giacomo and the moms have it worked out, we can do some impressive damage.” Hans stepped out of the image. Giacomo replaced him.

“Where’s Jennifer?” Giacomo said.

Martin called her in, staying in the noach chamber to listen.

Through the technical detail and exchanges of momerath, he saw the broad outlines of what had been learned, and the theories woven from the scant clues.

Blinker was a massive noach station, capable of altering the physical character of unprotected mass to a distance of at least fifty billion kilometers in all directions—five times what noach theory had allowed until now. Its own changing character was likely a continuing pattern of tests.

The inhabitants of Leviathan’s worlds, and the regions between those worlds, almost completely controlled the hidden or “privileged” channels between particles. They could alter three fourths of the character bits in any particle within fifty billion kilometers, quickly and efficiently, using Blinker or other noach stations, some perhaps hidden inside Sleep. Alterations could be as minor as the spin of a single particle; as major as converting to anti-matter all the mass within the volume of a large moon.

The ships’ minds were working now to ensure that noach interference with ship character could be shielded against. Shields were being constructed for both Shrike and Greyhound.

Giacomo said to Martin, “The ships’ minds are on a continuous link with Trojan Horse now. They’re telling Trojan Horse how to shield. It won’t take more than a few hours.”

“We we agree this must be done,” Eye on Sky said.

“We’re going to have a whole new arsenal to work with in just a day or so,” Giacomo said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay on the sidelines. Trojan Horse is too small to support weapons of the kind being made on Greyhound.”

“Is Shrike making weapons?”

“Yes,” Giacomo said. “Jennifer, I’ve missed you. We could have done this a lot faster with you and Silken Parts here.”

“I doubt it, if the ships’ minds are working on it,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn,” Giacomo said. “We’re really in it now, Martin. We’re pariahs. The Brothers won’t have anything to do with us. They’re outfitting Shrike as their own ship.”

“Hans told me,” Martin said.

“What else did he tell you?”

“That you’re supporting him, and he makes all decisions. No voting.”

Giacomo looked acutely unhappy. “We came out here to do the Job. Hans holds us together—the ones who are left with any convictions at all.”

“Did Rex kill Rosa?”

“He left a message on his wand saying he did.”

“Did Hans put him up to it?” Martin asked.

“Rex didn’t say. The Brothers think—Stonemaker thinks he did, and it’s really… it’s pushed them away from us, Martin. The Brothers here won’t speak to humans now unless they have to.”

Martin looked at Eye on Sky and Silken Parts. The Brothers seemed oblivious, locked in a luxury of three-part exchange, but Martin knew they were listening. Doubtless Stonemaker was listening as well.

There was no reason to hide anything.

“What about the dissidents?”

“They have their own part of Greyhound. They refuse to follow Hans, and they refuse to fight. They tried to persuade the rest of us. It was real close, but… Martin, we came here to do this Job. We’re here. The evidence is strong. Now’s the time.”

“So it seems,” Martin said.

“I don’t know what kind of person Hans is.”

I do, Martin thought.

“But without him we’d be in even worse shape. You want to know what I think?”

Martin smiled at Giacomo’s fecklessness. “You’ve told me everything so far.”

“I think Hans made Rex…” Giacomo shook his head. “Talk to Hans about it. It really isn’t my place. I need to talk with Jennifer again.”

“All the time you need. But when you start getting sentimental, it’s time to open the noach to others.”

“Got you,” Giacomo said. “Martin, don’t get me wrong. What we’ve learned in the past few tendays, and what the moms have done to upgrade our weapons—it’s absolutely fantastic. Just the right combination—Jennifer’s theories about noach, learning how radically Leviathan has changed… Putting the Brothers’ non-integer math to work… And then, seeing Leviathan’s planets… It’s a revolution.”

Martin gestured to Eye on Sky and they left the noach chamber to find a private place to talk. Martin asked Paola to join them.

“We we are told by Stonemaker, high likelihood Hans chose Rex to become loose cord, outsider,” Eye on Sky said. “Stone-maker and others, we they do not conceive to be experts on human behavior.”

“The Brothers don’t think they’re experts on human behavior,” Paola interpreted.

“Got that,” Martin said.

“But there is a deviosity, a curliness—” Eye on Sky continued.

“Perversity,” Paola suggested.

Don’t make it worse, Martin did not say, cringing inwardly.

“There is character that makes humans avoid the obvious, and take the twisty tunnel to a goal, rather than the straight tunnel.”

Martin nodded, reserving comment until Eye on Sky had had his say.

“Hans achieves something by making Rex an outside cord, for Rex is punished by Hans, Hans does not take blame for Rex’s actions, Rex feels strong kin for Hans, Hans keeps a secret braid-cord—”

“Wait a minute,” Martin said, turning to Paola. She, too, had difficulty with the lengthy statement. “I think he’s saying, Rex was deliberately alienated by Hans, to make him appear to be an outsider, not in favor with Hans.”

“That is so,” Eye on Sky said. “This is difficult for we us to track, must follow we our own curled tunnel to know. Humans afraid of their own kind. Of female Rosa. She was maker of large fictions, which make you dream.”

Paola started to interpret, but Martin raised his hand; This much was clear.

“Hans wanted female Rosa dead,” Eye on Sky said.

Paola wrinkled her face and looked away.

“Rex is weapon for Hans,” Eye on Sky concluded.

Martin couldn’t fault the logic. What Hans said: necessities.

“We’re our own enemies,” Paola said. “Like the Red Tree Runners.”

“Brothers don’t have anything like this in their society?” Martin asked.

“Oh yes, larger we do.”

“What?” Martin asked.

“Wars between cords,” Eye on Sky said. “Times when braids unwind, and cords kill each other. Not control these times, or know when. We we must shun the curled path and those who take it, for we they bring on own unwinding, own cord wars.”

“You think we’re going to break down, as a society,” Paola said.

“Not known,” Eye on Sky said. “But if larger we stays with you, fear of catching, fear of influence.”

“You think we’ll… make you ill?” Paola asked.

“Break us down.”

Martin’s stomach contracted. He tightened his fingers on the ladder field.

“We have to work together,” he said. “Whatever the risks. We still have the same goals.”

“This not yet decided. Separate ships, working together—that is decided, for now. Working apart may be decided later.”

Division of the crews had not yet taken place-on Trojan Horse.

Eye on Sky, Martin, the mom, and the snake mother curled in the dark and watched the methodic replay of information from Sleep. Martin’s eyelids drooped with weariness, overloaded again with the wonders of what these artificial beings had made, or inherited, or both.

Hans had not spoken with Martin for seven hours. Stonemaker and Eye on Sky had conferred several times. Martin hoped this meant Hans was seriously reviewing the data.

Ariel and Erin entered the cabin and positioned themselves on each side of Martin, who reached out and squeezed their hands, then resumed watching.

In groups or alone in their cabins, Brothers and humans studied the information. “It’s staggering,” Erin said. The life-cycles of two related species passed before them; eggs carefully deposited in the deep waters of Sleep, hatchlings rising to the surface like jellyfish to be harvested by fisher parents, who injected capsules of their genetic material; the injected hatchlings forming eggs again, being deposited in green and purple forests on the third planet, hatching again to become lake- and stream-dwellers, finally joining in villages, and the villages themselves maturing, changing social structure, until they were ready to be “harvested” and trained into adult societies…

There was much more information on the staircase gods within Sleep. This appeared to be incomplete, however; where and how they obtained their energy was not clear.

“Jennifer thinks they could shift neutronium to quark matter at the core,” Ariel said. “We were just in her cabin. She’s going to make herself sick if she doesn’t get some rest.”

The Double Seed still adapted as the ships’ minds updated each other hour by hour. The mom and snake mother kept Martin and Eye on Sky informed as major changes were made, but explanations were kept simple. Logistics, not theory, were paramount now. Jennifer could not stand ignorance; she engaged in momerath continuously.

“They’re pleading with us to understand them, appreciate them,” Ariel said, pulling herself out of the maze of Leviathan’s fecundity.

“They’re desperately afraid,” Erin said. She had changed in the past few days; intense green eyes duller, hair matted, face more slack. It takes life out of all of us. “But they’re so enormously powerful…” she added.

Ariel cocked an eyebrow. “A few savages invade your house. There might be thousands of them outside, in the dark. They’re smart, and they’ve seen what your technology is like… They’re making new weapons. Would you be afraid?” she asked.

“They could squash us like bugs,” Erin said, curling her lip.

“Then why bother convincing us? Why not squash us now?”

“Maybe they value us. Maybe they’ve renounced their past so totally—”

“They had nothing to do with the past!”

Martin closed his eyes. “Please, that’s enough,” he said. He turned to the mom. “We have to resolve some things. We need advice from you.”

“Advice about what?”

“What to do,” Martin said, simply enough. “I’m snowed. I can’t see anything clearly now. Can you?”

“I ask again, what sort of advice are you seeking?”

“Are all these creatures innocent, or guilty?” Martin asked.

“They say they were created by the Killers. We can’t confirm or deny this,” the mom answered. Martin’s stomach contracted again; he had not eaten since speaking with Hans.

“You wonder if the Killers are still here,” the mom said, “and whether there is a way to seek them out, and punish only them.”

“Right.”

“We have no more information than you,” the mom said.

Eye on Sky listened quietly, and when the conversation halted, interjected, “Snake mother and ships’ minds agree. The evidence for presence of Killers is lacking.”

“They could have changed themselves… even destroyed their memories, their histories, to escape punishment,” Martin said.

“That is possible,” the mom agreed.

“Do you think it’s probable?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“But if we make the wrong decision, and kill… them, all of them, or some of them, we’re criminal, aren’t we? Won’t we violate the Law?”

“The Law is simple,” the mom said. “Interpretation is not so simple.”

“ ‘Destruction of all intelligences responsible for or associated with the manufacture of self-replicating and destructive devices,’ ” Martin quoted.

“That is the Law,” the mom said. It floated in the dark cabin, projected data glittering in reflection on its coppery surface.

“ ‘For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,’ ” Erin quoted.

“ ‘The cord is part of the braid,’ ” Eye on Sky quoted in turn, “ ‘and suffers the shame of the braid.’ ”

Martin’s frown deepened. “Does the Law demand vengeance on succeeding generations?” he asked.

“I do not interpret the Law,” the mom said. “That is your responsibility.”

Martin held up his hand to stop Ariel and Erin from saying more. Ariel frowned and drew up her knees, touching them to her crossed arms like a little girl exiled to a corner. Erin tilted her head to one side, lost.

“Why haven’t we been attacked?” he asked the mom. “They have the means… They could have destroyed us when we first arrived.”

“Your thoughts may be as informed as those of the ships’ minds,” the mom said. “However, some possible explanations occur to the ships’ minds. The inhabitants of these planets may be supremely confident they can destroy us, so they toy with us, wishing to learn as much as they can. They may try to capture and control us to learn more about the potential threat. The Killers may no longer be in residence. The beings we have encountered may be waiting for the first signs of our aggression. They may in fact abhor destructive behavior, and take extreme risks to avoid harming our ship. Though this possibility seems remote, the power displayed may be a bluff. There are other hypotheses, but they decline in usefulness.”

“They could have weapons they haven’t even revealed.”

“That seems likely,” the mom said.

“They must be planning something,” Martin said.

The mom did not contradict him.

Hans and Martin spoke in private on the noach. Thirteen hours had passed since the end of noach blackout. “I’ve held a council here,” Hans said. “We’ve gone through most of the information you passed along. I thought we’d get you folks in the loop.”

“You’ll have to talk with Eye on Sky, too,” Martin said.

“The Brothers will make their decision separately,” Hans said.

“We haven’t divided our crews yet,” Martin said.

“Have you made up your mind?”

Martin hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten much. He blinked rapidly, eyes pink with strain, unable to shake a particular image from the thousands he had viewed: harvesters collecting young after hatching in the oceans of Sleep, Leviathan at dusk flaming red through a bank of crustal fissure smoke. Strange and serene and beautiful, just part of the richness, part of the flavor.

“Yes,” Martin said.

“And?”

“If the Killers are gone, I don’t think the Law applies. And if they’re still here, to get to them, we’d have to kill a thousand times more people than lived on Earth. It doesn’t make sense. We can’t risk it.”

“That’s part of a very good armor,” Hans said, eyes heavy lidded, fingers working in rhythm on his knee.

“I know,” Martin said.

“We’ve come a long way and lost our own good people.”

Martin did not dignify that reminder with a reply.

“And you think we should move on.”

“I think we should wait for more evidence. Two ships could orbit Leviathan at safe distance, hidden, the crews in cold sleep—”

“Until our fuel is gone and we become a death ship,” Hans said.

“We wouldn’t have to wait very long.”

“We wouldn’t?” Hans asked. “How long is very long, centuries, thousands of years? What kind of evidence would satisfy you? They’ll never show themselves. I can’t afford to be so careful. I’m Pan. I’m sworn to enact the Law.”

“At what cost?” Martin asked.

“What did Earth pay?” Hans asked in return.

“And the Brothers—?”

“I think they’ll decide with you. They’ve been remarkably weak partners, am I right?”

“I—”

“When you met the staircase god, the Brother just crumpled. Kind of sums them up.”

“We have to understand their differences.”

Hans smiled thinly and rubbed his scalp with straight fingers. “We’re here, the evidence is here, the Law is clear. We’re making the necessary weapons. Marty, if we don’t do it now, it will never get done. If we’re wrong, the moms will stop us.”

“I don’t think they will stop us,” Martin said.

“Why in hell not? They’re upholding the Law, too.”

“Hans, they don’t judge. They give us the tools. They don’t make decisions.”

“Then we’re really no better than the Killers, are we? Just more puffed up.”

Martin avoided that argument. “Can we do it without Shrike? he asked. “We’d have half the strength, half the fuel.”

“Giacomo thinks we can do a lot of damage with just one ship. The moms seem to agree with him.” Hans smiled, but there was little life in it. The lines in his face hardened. “We’re starting to worry the moms. If we survive, we’ll be awfully big and strong. Maybe they’ll just snuff us. But we’ll get the Job done.”

“We should let the crews debate.”

“No,” Hans said. “If we back off now, we’ll fragment.”

“I think—”

“No,” Hans interrupted. “The Law is clear. These creatures are descendants of the Killers. Hell, for all we know, the Killers have imprinted their memories on them, or maybe they’re hiding like a tree in a forest. Anything to avoid being found and destroyed.”

“I don’t believe that. You should have seen what I saw.”

“Maybe the Killers are staircase gods now.”

“I… don’t know about that.”

“Why should we listen to anything they say? Can you answer me that?”

Martin had no answer.

“They put you through a real gauntlet, ground you down. Just what I would have done if I were them.”

“We’re not them. They may be unfathomable to us.”

“Enough,” Hans said. “We need you to play a part. We need you to stall for us while we maneuver and prepare our weapons.”

“What weapons?” Martin asked. “Noach weapons?”

“It’s best we don’t give specifics… You might be captured. The longer you keep them guessing, the more time we’ll have to get our act together. You aren’t going to mutiny on me, are you, Martin?”

There was no humor in Hans’ voice, no trace of badgering. Hans believed this was a real possibility.

Am I going along with him against my better judgment, my own wishes?

“No.”

“You’ll ask for another meeting,” Hans said. “It’ll take a tenday for me to get everything in place. Plenty of time for you to learn more, salve your conscience.”

“I don’t think they’ll accept another meeting.”

“Try them. Give them hope. Play the right cards.”

“They’ll kill us,” Martin said.

Hans acknowledged that possibility with a slow nod.

“I’m not finished, with the information they gave you,” Hans said. “Maybe they’ll inadvertently tell us something important, something we can use against them. And if you’re right… maybe I’ll find something that convinces me, too. I’ll keep it in mind, Martin. I owe you at least that much.”

Martin knew Hans was pulling his strings. Hans knew Martin’s capabilities and limits, the limits of the Lost Boys and Wendys, even the Brothers, with a clarity that must have been difficult to live with.

“I’ll ask for another meeting,” Martin said.

Hans smiled, eyes widening. “You never disappoint me, Martin. I love you for that. Let’s do it.”

Ariel clenched her teeth; Erin floated beside Cham, face deliberately bland, Hakim beside Donna, George behind them.

“We’re not in the loop,” Martin said. “Not really. But I’ve told Hans we’ll play our part.”

“You didn’t consult with us,” Ariel said.

“No,” Martin said.

“You should have,” Erin said.

“I presented our views.”

“But you told him we’d go along,” Erin said.

“What else can we do?” Martin asked.

“Stand down,” Ariel said. “Encourage them to choose another Pan.”

“Hans may be right,” Martin said.

“We could put a name on what we’re going to try,” Ariel said. “We could call it genocide.”

“Bolsh,” Cham said.

“The potential for this is in the Law,” Hakim said. “We have sworn to uphold the Law. I believe it possible the Benefactors knew killer civilizations might hide behind such screens, and worded the Law—”

“We’re way beyond our limits,” Ariel said. “I did not travel this far to kill innocents.”

Hakim calmly persisted. “It is probable some Killers remain here.”

“We haven’t seen them!” Ariel shouted. Martin felt a pleasant tremor at her return to form; perversely, he found her more appealing.

“It was inevitable,” Hakim persisted. “No villain comes in black, screaming obscenities. All evil has children, homes, regard for self, fear of enemies.”

“I did not agree to kill innocents!” Ariel shouted. She spread her arms, opened her fists. “I don’t care what the moms do, or what they don’t tell us.”

“You’ve been a bit strong about the moms all along,” Cham said. “I don’t think they’re holding anything back. They’re building new weapons, snowing us how to use them—”

“Ah, bolsh, yourself!” Ariel said, face wrinkled in disgust. “I thought some of you would have the brains to figure it out.”

“What?” Hakim asked.

“The moms aren’t inventing new weapons! They’re not suddenly discovering new principles and applying them—what utter crap!”

Martin’s admiration quickly turned to irritation.

“They’ve known about these big, impressive technologies all along,” she said. “They just don’t want to show their cards any more than they have to. Nobody trusts us, nobody tells us more than we absolutely have to know. That’s the way it’s been from the beginning. If we want to believe we’re helping them develop wonderful new toys, who’s going to disabuse us? Not the moms.”

Martin’s irritation turned on himself now. He hadn’t even considered that possibility; and why not? Because there was no evidence for it; Ariel was reverting to paranoid suspicions. He preferred the direct—the easier—approach. Believe what you’re told.

She curled her knees and wrapped her arms around them, again like a little girl sitting in a window, weary, disappointed by Martin, by herself. “We’re getting ready to kill trillions of intelligent beings who might be innocent. We just can’t take that chance, and Martin shouldn’t have agreed for us.”

“He’s in command of this ship,” Cham said.

“Not true, not true,” Ariel said, closing her eyes, rubbing them, staring at Hakim side wise. “He shares command with Eye on Sky, and the Brothers are breaking with us.”

Cham looked at Martin. “She’s right.”

“They haven’t decided yet,” Martin said.

“That’s what they’ll decide,” Cham said with resignation.

Martin’s wand signaled. Eye on Sky requested a meeting.

“We have to make our own decision, whatever Hans says,” Ariel concluded.

In the Brothers’ quarters, Martin hung from a net beside Eye on Sky. The Brothers coiled around them, cords’ skins gleaming in the offset lighting, the upraised foreparts of the braids casting shadows around Martin like a larger net. The presence of so many large serpentine shapes might have been threatening; but for him, the Brothers represented a gentleness and humanity Hans didn’t think they could afford. He felt no threat from them.

Eye on Sky splayed his head and crawled along the net closer to Martin, smelling of cut grass, fresh-baked bread: smells of strength and firmness, of assurance. “Listening to we our fellows on Shrike and Greyhound, we we decide there is a chance to learn more, and so will act with yours.”

“I should ask for another meeting?”

“Yes,” Eye on Sky said.

Martin chewed his upper lip thoughtfully. “Do you think the Killers are still here?”

“Perhaps not possible to know.”

“Some of us think we should have expected this problem from the beginning,” Martin said.

“Questions without answers. Expected, not anticipated in detail.”

“We were young,” Martin said.

“We all we are young, this problem is ancient. It eats we us as a sweet, with delight.”

“Will you go down with me?” Martin asked. He did not say this out of cruelty; rather, as a kind of test, as if he stood in Hans’ place for the moment.

“Not I we,” Eye on Sky said. “We we disassemble in that condition, that world. You have named it Sleep. For we us, it is a true kind of sleep. You must go for we us, if permitted.”

Martin took a deep breath.

“You are disturbed?” Eye on Sky asked.

He shook his head. “No, no more than… Yes, I am,” he reversed himself. “In a way, Hans is right about Leviathan. Everything we see here seems tailor-made to divide us, confuse us. If Hans is right, and the Killers are still here…”

“Not happy,” Eye on Sky said.

“They’ll make us much more unhappy before they’re done with us.”

Hakim repeated the message several times without reply from Sleep. Martin stood behind him as he went through the procedure again, panel projected before him, fingers touching controls glowing in the air.

“Nothing still,” Hakim said. “They were prompt before.”

Martin nodded.

Beyond the projected control panel, small images of Leviathan’s planets hung against the dark aft wall of the bridge. Blinker caught Martin’s eye.

It no longer blinked. It maintained a steady sandy brown color.

“Something’s changed,” Martin said. He pointed to Blinker. Hakim’s face darkened with excitement.

“How long does it take a light signal to reach us from Blinker?” Martin asked.

“Three hours twelve minutes,” Hakim said.

“Can you play back the records?”

Hakim quickly replayed ship’s memory of the planetary images until they found the precise moment when the planet had stopped its fluctuation. “Three hours ago,” Hakim said.

“What else has changed?” Martin asked.

Hakim expanded the planetary images one by one: Mirror turning milky, its perfect reflectivity catching a hot moist breath; Frisbee, its edges browning like burned bread dough, the unknown “hair” shedding into space; Cueball unchanged; Gopher’s gleaming lights within impossibly deep caverns burning brighter, bluer, like torches.

They came to Puffball, with its immense bristling seed-like constructions. Some seeds had lifted away from the planet’s surface, one, three, six of them, and more on their way. Spikes at the top of the seeds also broke free, flying outward at high speed.

“Are they attacking?” Hakim asked.

“I don’t know. Pass this on the noach to Greyhound and Shrike.”

“Done,” Hakim said. A moment later, his mouth went slack. “There is no noach connection,” he said. “They are not receiving. I do not know where they are.”

Paola and Erin entered the bridge.

“We’re in trouble,” Martin said. “Hakim, pull out of orbit…”

Silken Parts pushed through the door as Hakim ordered the ship away from Sleep.

“What’s happening?” Erin asked.

“We don’t know, but I’m taking us out of here.”

“We have a reply now,” Hakim said. “From Sleep…”

Salamander’s voice filled the bridge. “There have been disruptions on four of our worlds.” Salamander’s image appeared in flat projection. Crest pointed straight out, three eyes open, hissing loudly behind its words, the bishop vulture managed to convey its disturbance.

“We don’t know what’s happening,” Martin said.

“There is tampering with balances. These worlds are delicate and many lives are in danger.”

“We haven’t communicated with our…” He couldn’t finish the deceptive wording, his tongue caught in too many prevarications. He simply stared at Salamander’s image. The bishop vulture lifted its crest, hissed softly.

“You are a lie and a deception,” Salamander said. “We have no further need of you.”

The image and voice faded. “End of transmission,” Hakim said. “Still no success with noach to Greyhound.”

The rest of the crew crowded the bridge, watching the long drama play itself out over the next half hour.

The three identical planets—Pebbles One, Two, and Three—abruptly glowed dull orange, then red, then white, in sequence according to their distances from the ship. Their surfaces diffused like paint in water, glowing specks rising and falling.

“Who’s doing that?” George Dempsey asked. “Them, or us?”

The seeds of Puffball twisted about as if blown in a gentle breeze. On such a scale, that simple motion spoke of immense energies.

Martin could hardly think in the ensuing babble noise. The cabin filled with Brother smells, stinging his eyes. He saw a cord scramble past him, then watched as a Brother—he could not identify which—disassembled. Silken Parts immediately began gathering up the cords, which clung to fields waving their feelers helplessly.

They didn’t even know what weapons Greyhound now possessed, or what their effects would be. One effect was obvious—the attack had been launched on many targets almost simultaneously, judging by the arrival of light-borne information at intervals determined solely by distance. That spoke to Martin of noach; and the first object to change its character had been the massive noach station, Blinker.

What are they up to?

“I know what’s happened,” Ariel said just loudly enough for Martin to hear, bracing herself on a field behind him.

“What?”

“Hans has started the war without telling us.”

With a momentary sense of dizziness, as if he had been through all this before, he realized she was probably right.

Hans had used them to give Greyhound an edge.

“Then why aren’t we dead?” Martin asked. His entire back prickled, waiting for imminent death.

Ariel shrugged. “Give them time.”

The mom and snake mother came onto the bridge. “This ship has been under steady attack for an hour, and our ability to armor against their weapons is diminishing. We assume control now. Super acceleration is called for,” the mom said.

“We don’t have the fuel,” Martin said.

“We will convert as much as we can,” the mom said.

“Can you communicate with the other ships?”

“Yes,” the mom said.

“Greyhound and Shrike?” Martin asked.

“Yes.”

“Are they attacking?”

“Yes.”

“You knew they would attack?”

“No.”

“But you must have known… You must have known when they began?”

The mom did not reply. The volumetric fields expanded. Martin felt their molasses grip, the jerky impediment to all bodily motion.

All slowed in the mire. Martin tried to keep the threads of his attention together. He examined the bridge carefully, separating effect from true perception.

The bridge changed. Walls grew and separated them into pairs. Martin saw that Ariel would be enclosed with him. She stared at him and he turned his head away, the volumetric fields giving permission for every particle to move, move slowly.

“Can you hear me?” Ariel asked.

“Just barely.”

“I think we’ve split up. Trojan Horse.’”

“You’ve been right so far,” Martin said.

“Don’t hold it against me,” Ariel said.

He shook his head. “Never.”

“He’s taken our rights away,” she said, rather irrelevantly, Martin thought.

Super acceleration ceased two hours later. Martin had barely regained his wits when the ship’s voice said, “First attack repelled. We are being followed.”

“What in hell has happened?” Martin asked, trying to kick-start his brain by shaking his head, stretching his body in the directionless weightless meaningless walled-in cubicle.

Another voice, Hans caught in the middle of a triumphant yell. Ariel gave a small shriek like a doomed rabbit.

“We’re doing it, Martin! Trojan Horse has gotten the hell away and split up. We haven’t forgotten you. We’re keeping track of you. But you’re being followed.”

The cubicle lacked screen or star sphere. “Show us something, tell us what’s going on!” Martin cried.

The ship tried to speak, but Hans interrupted. “We’ve gone black, made our moves. Sorry about not telling you.” As casual as that. Sorry about not telling you.

“What the hell is happening, Hans?”

Ariel pushed herself into a corner as if to stay out of his way.

“Trojan Horse broke up and split. Something’s following you. It sure isn’t bothering to hide, and it’s right on your ass. You and two others are all they’ve managed to tail. I’d say they’re using you to try to find something bigger. If you don’t lead them to us—and you won’t, my friend—you’re dust.”

“We have broken this vessel into ten units and accelerated them in different directions outward from Leviathan,” the ship’s voice said, almost irrelevantly at this point.

We are still more valuable as clues to where the big ships are. They know us. They know our psychology; they figured it out right away, that we wouldn’t deliberately sacrifice ourselves, that at some point a rescue would be attempted.

“Hold on a moment,” Hans said.

Ariel reached out a hand and Martin took it. “He’s going to sacrifice us,” she said.

“Show me something,” Martin told the ship, whatever kind of ship it was, whatever size. “Show me the outside. What’s following us.”

A small screen appeared against one wall. A white sphere filled the screen, pocked by glowing blue dots.

“Harpal has your tagalong’s coordinates,” Hans said. “We’ll get it. You should see this, Martin. It is in-credible!”

The white sphere blistered like a plastic ball hit by a torch. The blisters spread open and the sphere diminished. Curls of darkness blanked the whirling stars, streaming from the sphere, reaching toward them.

“Super acceleration,” the ship’s voice said. Fields seized again, and Martin screamed. The scream was forbidden and died as a hollow glurp in his throat.

He heard and saw again an unknown time later.

Harpal’s voice in his ears. “We got your dog, Martin. Thought you should know.”

They have Gauge on Greyhound. My dog is waiting for me? No—

“We noached it straight to hell,” Harpal said. “It’s a beautiful streamer of plasma about fifty thousand klicks long. Christ, these weapons are unbelievable.”

The craft following them had vanished. In its place wafted a wide, striated shower of glowing debris, each piece fanning out in a straight line, vapors like rays of sun through clouds.

Martin still held Ariel’s hand. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at him with an expression of intense grief.

“You’re safe for the time being,” Harpal said. “You’re really rocketing. Can’t talk now. They haven’t pinned us yet, but they’re trying, wow are they trying…”

Silence, long minutes, before Martin realized the noach message had ended.

Martin let go of Ariel’s hand.

“They’re doing it, aren’t they?” she said.

Martin nodded. “They divided Trojan Horse.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t give any order. The moms. The ship itself.”

“We’re out of the action. Hans screwed you over double,” she said.

Martin shook his head. “What?”

“By not letting you do the Job with him. And by cutting all of us out of the decision.” She turned away. “Will they pick us up?”

“I don’t know.”

Magnified images: a rocky planet, Lawn, sparkling fire snaking over its surface. Greater magnification: strange superheated forests burning like carpets of magnesium, ribbons of shredded land rising as if cut from paper, something moving over the surface, dark and immense, not a shadow, more like a finger drawing chaos in the rock.

Another: Big City, the finger moving yet again. God’s finger taking vengeance.

Much smaller in the screen, another rocky world, not immediately familiar to Martin, this one dying in a particularly violent display, throwing chunks of itself into darkness as if being chewed apart by immense beasts.

“Blinker,” the ship’s voice said. “It will consume itself. Nothing living or ordered will survive.”

“How?” Martin asked. “How can we do this?”

“Remote manipulation of forces within atomic nuclei,” the ship’s voice said. “Blinker is particularly vulnerable, as a noach station of immense power. Greyhound has found the main weakness, and exploited it.”

“How much can Greyhound destroy?” Martin asked.

“Uncertain. Defenses are not fully deployed.”

Sleep appeared, surrounded by immense seeds with brushy tops, much like those released from Puffball, reminding Martin of immune response in humans, although on an astronomical scale. “Explain.”

“Not clear. White objects in orbit around this world may try to confuse targeting of noach weapons.”

Noach weapons. Confirmed.

A haze as fine as dust in air spread out with incredible speed—visible even on this scale—-from the scattered seed-puffs. A seed-puffs crown glowed brilliant orange, then faded to green and vanished, leaving the thousand-kilometer “stem” to precess slowly. As the minutes passed, another headless stem came into view around the limb of Sleep and fell toward the planet. Its lower extremity touched atmosphere. Slowly, slowly, across more minutes, the stem bent over and laid itself in the atmosphere and across the surface, surrounded by ripples of mixed crust and ocean, all vapor now, glowing dull red with bursts of pink and white.

Soon all of Sleep became enveloped in a nacreous halo, plasma thousands of kilometers thick turning it into a dim star. Radiation scoured the surface; falling seed-puffs stirred it like mud, a mud of continents and oceans.

Martin could not believe that Greyhound alone was responsible for this.

“Are we getting help… from somebody outside?” he asked, face pale. Memories of watching Earth. Same scale, but even more destruction.

“There are no other combatants,” the ship’s voice said.

Gas Pump showed in the display now, immense plumes of mined volatiles spreading out of control, white plasma shooting through, green and blue surfaces turning muddy yellow.

“What can we do?” Martin asked.

“Escape is our only option,” the ship’s voice said.

Martin’s fingers curled. Ariel wrapped her arms around herself, watching with haunted eyes.

Hours.

Neither Martin nor Ariel expressed hunger, but they were fed anyway, a meager paste that tasted of nothing in particular.

The display projected their path across a diagram of the system. They were actually moving closer to the star at this point, but a journey across the width of the system would take them almost three days, through the thick of the battle, across the orbits of thousands of vehicles they had never had time to catalog or examine, whose purposes they might never know.

“Are we going to accelerate again?” Martin asked.

“All fuel is expended,” the ship’s voice said. “Reserves are for keeping you alive.”

During his thousands of hours of research into war and human history, Martin had read about a man with a striking name-Ensign George Gay. Ensign Gay had flown an airplane in the Battle of Midway, during the Second World War. He had been shot down, and had floated for hours in the midst of ships and planes trying to destroy each other.

“How long is it going to take?” Ariel asked.

“The war? I don’t know. Could be weeks. Months.”

“It doesn’t look like it will take nearly that long. I’m tired.” She sounded like a child.

Martin cradled her in his arms.

Number eight, the gas giant Mixer, expanding like a sick, bruised balloon, shell upon shell of brilliant gases like the petals of flowers. Thousands of years of construction and technology and how many individuals, how many beings even more developed than the staircase gods? Imagine so many possibilities not shown. Who is winning

Eat sleep share a part of the wall that sucks away our wastes

Ship no larger than an automobile

How many survived from Trojan Horse

Most of the seed-puffs gone now exhausted or served their purpose. Four worlds dead or dying, others under siege. God the power. What will we do after, knowing this? Maybe Hans is right they will snuff us.

Gas giants ripping apart in slow motion can it be we did this? They are like suns now, spinning tails of brilliance from poles and equator, prominences. Did Hans know we could do this

No messages and two days have passed. We sweep away from Leviathan. Sleep much of the time, eat rarely now, there is no space to exercise. Breathe slowly, watching worlds writhe and die across hours and days.

All the rocky planets and moons seething surfaces uniform deep red

All! All! Jesus, ALL of them!

Ariel leaned over him, hand on his shoulder. “I can’t get the ship to talk,” she told him. “It won’t answer.”

Martin tried. Still no answer.

“That means we’re going to die, doesn’t it?”

“I hope not,” he said.

Ariel pounded a fist on the gray wall. “Hey! Talk to us!”

No images no information. Try exercising, pushing against each other, feet to feet, wrestling she is almost as strong as I am strain a muscle.

Tell her I’m dreaming more now of Earth. Of forests and rivers, of our house in the woods in Oregon with the broad patio. My toys, soldiers my parents bought me. We talk until we get thirsty. Trickle of water from the wall, wastes still sucked away something is working but the mom does not speak and we can’t see anything outside. Sleep most of the time and talk of spaces outside, times past, places gone.

Getting cold actually now. We hug each other but no energy left to exercise. Saw Theodore in the cabin playing cards with himself. Smiled at me. Offered a deck to me. Maybe he’s a ghost and the dead are going to greet us soon.

Such a great tide of dead rising from this place, trillions we’ve killed. What do staircase gods look like reporting to the afterlife, already stripped of material bodies? No battlefield so crowded with dead in long lines and we stand in queue waiting our turn to be inspected passed through. Salamander and Frog ahead of me; the babar and sharks up ahead, looking angrily at us. Don’t get too close to them don’t want fights in line Theodore says.

“Martin, wake up. There’s a little water now. Drink.”

“Did you have yours?” he asked.

“I’ve had mine. Drink.”

He sucked globules from the air. One got in his eye, burned a little. The water didn’t taste good. But it was wet.

No food.

For some time, Martin felt no hunger, until he saw Ariel looking visibly thinner, and felt hungry in her place, for she did not complain.

“It’s been at least six days,” Martin said.

“It’s been eight days exactly.”

“How do you know?”

She held up her right hand and pointed to the middle ringer. “Eight. I trim my fingernails with my teeth. See? These two are long.”

Are my parents dead? How would I know? Maybe we’ll meet them soon. Is Rosa in this line? I see her. Won’t look at me, won’t give up her place to come talk to me. Theodore goes over to talk with her. He doesn’t care about his place.

“Who is Theodore?” Ariel asked. Her lips had cracked and bled sluggishly. She looked elfin with hunger, eyes large and high cheeks gaunt.

“He died.”

“On the Ark?”

Martin shook his head and his neck muscles hurt, bones grinding. Muscles atrophying. No exercise no energy. “On Dawn Treader. Killed himself.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He killed himself.”

Ariel wrinkled her face in concentration. “Maybe my mind is going. I don’t remember him.”

Martin looked at her and felt something cold. His lips were parched and cracking and he licked them. “Very smart,” he said. “Smarter than me.”

Ariel shook her head, and the coldness grew in him.

“I remember him,” Martin said, but there wasn’t enough energy for either of them to carry the question farther.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Captain Bligh in his boat

arving up a bird between the men

.

.

.

.

sound

.

.

.

.

Water dripped onto his lips like rain.

“Martin?”

Moved, lifted, weight. Pressing of hands weight on his back. Voices familiar.

“Twenty-two days.”

“Martin.”

Small pain in his arm nothing compared to a chorus of fresh pains all over his body. Tingles, stabs, bones grinding, eyes opened to whiteness no detail.

Then snakes of lights. Freeway rain in Oregon with tail-lights last year of the world. Snakes of lights in a cabin, ceiling and floor, weight.

“Hello.”

No longer in line of dead.

“Hello,” he said, voice like rocks in a slide.

“You look pretty shitty, my friend.”

So who was it? Familiar.

Shadow in the light, another shadow. “I can’t see.”

“You both died, you know that? I mean literally, your hearts were stopped and something in the ship, the ship’s last energy, wrapped you in a field so you couldn’t, you know, decay. Absolutely incredible. Martin, come forth.”

Who would talk like that.

Joe Flatworm.

“I’m on the ship?” Martin asked. “Greyhound?”

“We picked you up five days ago. The sores are gone. You’re looking a lot better. We got four of the other ships. Saved seven Brothers, seven of us.”

“Ariel.”

“She’s alive. It’s been a season of miracles, Martin.”

He saw Joe’s face more clearly. “The war?”

“It’s still going. We’re still here.” Joe’s broad, pleasant face, supple brows, wide smile. He held Martin’s hand firmly between his hands. Skin warm, dry, like sunned leather.

Martin craned his neck and looked at himself, wrapped in a medical field, surrounded by warmth, an electric tingle moving from place to place through his body. Relaxed his neck. Swallowed. Throat raw. “Hans?”

Joe’s smile vanished. “Hey,” he said. “We’re getting it done. That’s enough.”

Add to the list: Hakim Hadj, Erin Eire, Cham Shark. Silken Parts, Dry Skin/Norman, Sharp Seeing, missing or dead as well. Presumed dead after so many days.

Still weak, Martin insisted on leaving the medical field to join Hans and view the war. The war had been on for twenty-four days; most of the damage, Joe said, had been done. “We’ve whipped them,” he said with an uneasy smile. Then he took Martin to the nose of Greyhound.

Hans hung in a net before dozens of projections. His appearance shocked Martin; hair almost brown with sweat and oil, face thin, stinking of sweat and tension. Hans wore only shorts and a sleeveless shirt. His arms seemed knotted with muscles, empty of fat; legs likewise. He did not turn around as Martin and Joe entered.

Giacomo curled asleep in a rear corner, hand reflexively grasping a net.

“Martin’s back,” Joe announced. Hans shivered and looked around.

“Good,” he said.

The projections showed planetary cinders, wreaths of fading plasma, oblong chunks of moons, seed structures scored and headless and broken like sticks.

Hans kept his shrewd and weary eyes on Martin, evaluating, smiling faintly. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Martin said. He had never imagined they would ever summon such destruction.

“Kind of stirring, isn’t it?” Hans said, nodding at the projections.

Martin shook his head.

“Hard to take it all in, sometimes,” Hans said. “I’ve spent hours up here just… assessing damage, looking for something we haven’t destroyed. It’s complete. Last two days, even Sleep has broken up.” He pointed to a large image of scattered masses, some dark, some flickering with light, floating in a gray, hazy void. Within the debris, a piece of what must have been crust, thousands of miles wide, rippled like fabric, its edges crumbling away. “No more staircase gods.”

Martin forced himself to breathe again. The intake of breath sounded like a groan. Hans chuckled. “Glad to see you’re impressed.”

Martin shook his head. Tides of conflicting emotion pulled him one way, then another. We’ve done the Job. How do we know? We’ve done it. It’s over.

“Whenever you’re ready to lend a hand, there’s a lot of scut work to get done,” Hans said. “We’re taking a break now. Ship is on relaxed alert. You should have seen us at the peak. Every Wendy and Lost Boy had their hands on some weapon or another. Giacomo and the ships’ minds… the ships’ minds, mostly, once the evidence was in… really went to town on new weapons. Long-range noach conversions, quark matter pitfalls, spin shattering, they made a whole new arsenal.”

Did they? Or had the ships’ minds kept them hidden, waiting for necessity?

“We sent out fifteen craft, mostly for reconnaissance. We got twelve of them back.”

Martin nodded, eyes still fixed on the abstract complexity of Sleep’s corpse, muted colors horribly beautiful. He could not connect the debris with what he had seen on the two journeys to Sleep’s surface. Somewhere in the dust, scattered atoms of Salamander and Frog, the babar, the red joint-tentacle creature that had crawled up onto their disk ferry for a look.

Trillions.

Hans motioned for Martin to come closer. “I’ve got my suspicions,” he said as Martin laddered forward and hung beside him. “I think the moms held back on us at first. Maybe we’ve been lied to all along. But frankly I don’t give a shit. In the end, they gave us the tools, and that’s what counts.”

Giacomo stirred, opened his eyes, and saw Martin. “Hakim didn’t make it. Erin. Cham.” Giacomo nodded and set his lips, then shook his head.

“I know,” Martin said. Resentful that he could be expected to react. He could not feel grief yet. None of this seemed real. He expected to wake back on Dawn Treader and know they still had the Job ahead of them.

Giacomo blinked slowly. “We saved Jennifer,” he said. His eyes seemed darker, deeper, wrapped in exhausted, bruised flesh. “She’ll be all right.”

Martin shouldered Hans to peer into Hans’ display. Hans made space for him without complaint.

“It’s done,” Giacomo said. He shook his head in disbelief. “It was a shell. Sixty percent of what we saw was fake matter. We think there were only four real planets. Sleep was one of the real ones.”

“Don’t cheapen our victory,” Hans said.

“It was just a shell,” Giacomo repeated. “We found the projectors, we figured out how to make them echo our energy, subvert the system from within… we found a few points where we could start chain reactions… We couldn’t have done it before. It wasn’t nothing and it wasn’t easy. We used up nearly all our fuel.”

“Real fireworks,” Hans said. “Did you see it?”

“Is there enough real mass, are there enough volatiles for us to refuel?” Martin asked.

“Plenty,” Hans said. Martin looked to Giacomo for a second opinion.

“We’ll have enough,” Giacomo said.

Hans reached out and grabbed Martin’s shoulder, fingers hard and painful. He shook Martin lightly. “You going to fault me for this?”

Martin looked aggrieved, or perhaps simply confused.

Hans smiled. “We can go marry a planet now.”

“We can’t leave yet, actually,” Giacomo said. “We have to finish the examination—”

“Autopsy,” Joe said from the rear.

“Make sure it’s dead. Do some research,” Giacomo continued. “The moms need a death certificate. We still haven’t talked about being released. We don’t know where we’re going—”

“Shit,” Hans said. “Let’s savor the moment. We’ll have time enough for the bureaucratic stuff later.”

Giacomo seemed not to hear him. “We’ve got to transfer Greyhound’s Brothers to Shrike.”

“Shrike stayed out of it,” Hans said. “Can you believe it? They didn’t do a thing.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” Martin said.

“You opened the door, Martin.”

Giacomo agreed. “You put yourselves in much more danger than we did. You lost many more…” He saw Martin’s expression and lifted his eyebrows, cocked his head. “Sorry.”

“We should hold a service. Honor the dead,” Martin said.

Hans did not answer; calling up projections, baring his teeth in a grimacing smile, shaking his head in victorious wonder. “Look at that,” he murmured. “Look… at… THAT.”

Eye on Sky, Double Twist, Rough Tail, Strong Cord, and Green Cord had all agreed to Martin’s request for a meeting in the Brothers’ recovery quarters.

He visited Paola Birdsong in her quarters to ask that she interpret for him again.

Paola had spent less time in space than Martin and Ariel, fewer than eighteen days, but she had been with Strong Cord and Green Cord, and Joe told Martin that the time had been very hard for her. None of the braids had held together; she had been alone for eighteen days with twenty-eight hungry, confused cords.

“At least they didn’t chew on me,” she said, her voice weak and rough. She had thinned considerably, but her color was good and she moved without apparent pain. “I’m fit enough to work. I never do eat much.”

Martin smiled admiringly. “You’re a tough one. My joints still ache.”

“Have you visited Ariel?” Paola asked.

He shook his head. “I asked, but she’s in seclusion. We spent a lot of time together. I’m not sure she wants to see me again.”

“She’s been sweet on you for months,” Paola said.

“We’ve been lovers,” Martin admitted.

Paola raised her eyebrows. “Better than having cords squirm all around you,” she said. “I’m glad it was me. Anybody else might have come unglued. Is Ariel going to join Rosa’s people and go with Shrike?”

Martin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Paola said. “You?”

“Hans got it done,” Martin said.

Paola sucked in her lips dubiously, decided against arguing the point, and took his arm. “Let’s go,” she said.

Eye on Sky and the other Brothers resembled bundles of dry sticks. Recovery was harder for the Brothers; the cords had to heal themselves, which meant frequent disassembly and individual care for each cord.

Martin began to understand why war and conflict had played a much smaller role in the Brothers’ history. Braids were not robust; their existence as intelligent beings was delicately balanced, and violence quickly reduced them to an animal level. Wars fought between cords could not last long.

So why did the Benefactors send them in the first place?

Because everybody deserves a chance at justice, no matter how slim the chance might be.

“We we congratulate you on survival,” Eye on Sky said.

“We’re sorry to see you leave,” Martin said. He touched Eye on Sky’s broad trunk. The Brother shivered but did not shrink back.

“I’m very sorry,” Paola said.

“You can join us,” Strong Cord said.

“I won’t,” Martin said.

“I haven’t decided,” Paola said.

“You, Paola Birdsong, would be very welcome,” Eye on Sky said. “You as well, Martin.”

“Thank you,” Martin said.

“The destruction is frightening,” Eye on Sky said. “Simply thinking of it risks disassembly. We hold such power now.”

“If the moms let us keep it,” Martin said.

“Will they?”

“I hope not.”

“Where will humans go now?”

“We’ll survey the system. See what evidence we can find.

The ships will scoop up fuel. Then… we’ll explore. Find a planet we can live on.”

“You will not return to your world, to Mars?”

“I don’t think so. We’ll vote on it, but by the time we get back, almost a thousand years will have passed. Nobody we know will be alive… At least, I don’t think they will.”

“Other humans have come to visit we us,” Eye on Sky said. “Have expressed regret. Perhaps more will come with Shrike than go with Greyhound.”

Martin didn’t think, when it came right down to it, that anybody would accompany the Brothers. The mood had changed since the war.

“How many humans can you stand?” Martin asked with a faint grin.

“It is a problem,” Green Cord said. Eye on Sky slapped his flanks with tip of tail—something Martin had never seen a Brother do to another. Green Cord expelled a faint odor of turpentine, then baking bread. Upset, propitiation.

“Martin, your presence would be good, as well,” Eye on Sky said. “I we think of this, and to have you with we all us, that would not cause pain or upset, but linking and harmony.”

Martin shook his head. “I appreciate the invitation, but I don’t think I’ll go with you.”

Eye on Sky smelled of licorice and salt air.

“Polite disappointment,” Paola murmured.

“Thank you for asking,” Martin told Eye on Sky.

It was a dangerous time, but Martin could no longer be circumspect. He had survived too much, seen too much, to let certain small things go by.

On the bridge, Hans ate his meal with measured motions, ignoring Martin. Martin crossed his legs and folded his arms, watching Hans toss bits of cake to his mouth and grab them. When he finished, Hans wiped his hands on a towel stuck in a field, pushed himself around with one hand, and faced Martin squarely.

“Well?”

“I’m asking for an investigation,” Martin said.

“Of what?”

“Rosa’s death.”

Hans shook his head. “We know who did it.”

“I don’t think that’s enough.”

“Martin, we’ve done the Job. We’ll finish here and go find someplace to live. That has to be enough.”

Martin’s face flushed. He felt as he had when confronting the moms. “No,” he said. “We need to clear the air.”

“Rex is dead.”

“Rex left a message,” Martin said.

“It’s guilt-crazed shit.”

“The crew… needs to know, one way or the other.”

“You want to be Pan again?” Hans asked, deceptively calm. Martin could read the signs: neck muscles tight, one hand opening and closing slowly, grasping nothing.

“No,” Martin said.

“Who should be Pan?”

“That isn’t my point.”

“If you believe I had something to do with Rosa’s death, then I should be… what? What penalty do you suggest?”

“Did you put Rex up to it?” Martin asked.

“Whoa. Shooting pointblank, Marty. What makes you think I did?”

“Did you?”

Hans kept his eyes focused firmly on Martin’s, said, “No, I did not put Rex up to it. I don’t know what was going on in his head. He was confused. Rosa took him in—made him a part of her group. That was her mistake, not mine.”

“You didn’t tell Rex to attack the Brother?”

“Christ, no. What good would that have done me?”

Martin blinked. Got to keep it up. Can’t give up now.

“You saw Rosa as a real threat, somebody who could divert the whole mission.”

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

“You saw yourself as the only one capable of finishing the mission.”

Hans spread his arms, stretching. “Okay. Not too far wrong.”

“Rex was your friend. He was devoted to you.”

“Bolsh. Rex was his own man.”

“You wanted to make it look that way. You ordered him to attack the Brother, take the blame, isolate himself. He agreed.”

“So now I’m some sort of hypnotist. Why would I isolate him? You think Rex wasn’t smart enough to see through such a crazy scheme? He’d know why I wanted him isolated. He was no idiot. He’d know it would be so I could jump clear if he was caught. That’s just plain crazy. Rex was not crazy.”

“Devoted,” Martin suggested.

“I don’t know about that.”

“There’s sufficient question to make an investigation necessary,” Martin said.

Hans wagged his head back and forth, eyes wide, silently mimicking him. “ ‘Sufficient question.’ ‘Investigation necessary.’ Christ, you’re an intellectual giant. Do you think the crew would have followed you into something like Leviathan? We were pissing in our pants, Marty.”

Martin could feel the nastiness building. “Will you agree to an investigation?”

“Is this revenge for my not telling you when we’d attack?”

“No,” Martin said.

“I think it is. You know why I did it that way. You were in the middle of things. There could have been little ears everywhere. Did you think I would drop all our plans right in their laps?”

“This is beside the point, Hans, and you know it.”

“Sure,” Hans said, lifting his hands. “Anything for you.” He leaned forward, one hand pushing on a field, the other pulling, and released his grip to jab a finger at Martin. “They wouldn’t have followed you, Martin, because you get people killed. You’re a regular goddamn McClellan—did you read about him, Martin? American Civil War. Made an army but refused to really go out and fight. Your instincts are bad. You think leadership is a game with justice and rules. It isn’t. Leadership is getting the most people through a hell of a time, and doing the slicking Job!”

He called up images of Leviathan’s ruined worlds until they filled his quarters like hanging sheets. “My parents didn’t make it onto the Ark. Nobody I knew made it. They were all blown to atoms. Everybody I knew!

“The Killers had thousands of years. They sent out their clever machines, then they sat back. They built their pretty castles and made their pretty creatures, they laid their traps. They defended themselves to the max because they were afraid, they were guilty, they knew we’d come for them, and someday we’d get them. How many like us failed? We didn’t fail!”

Beads of Hans’ spittle hung between them like tiny jewels. Hans leaned back, face blotched with red and drawn with white. He withdrew his finger. “I didn’t fail. I got the Job done. If you want to be Pan, you can have it. I resign. You lead us to the promised land.”

“There needs to be an investigation,” Martin said.

“I said yes. Get out of here. Let someone enjoy what we’ve accomplished.

“We lost so much,” Hans said to his back as Martin passed through the door. “So goddamned much. What more do you want?”

In his quarters, Martin folded himself in a net and stared at the dead worlds, then some of the pictures transmitted by Salamander.

Hans had ripped his heart open. He did not know exactly why he persisted in asking for an investigation, but something of his father and something of his mother pushed him. He was motivated by lessons he barely remembered learning on Earth and on the Central Ark. Primal things in his life.

In the nose, Giacomo, Eye on Sky, Anna Gray Wolf, and Thorkild Lax worked to assess the damage, tally the results, before making their final report to Hans. Unable to sleep, Martin came to them and sat in silence while they worked. They played back the war at high speed, tracking the destruction, the ineffective counter-measures, the sheer disproportion of the victory.

Martin saw again the shadowy curled ribbon writing across Leviathan’s worlds like a finger, moving even more rapidly in the playback. Picture stacked over picture, Giacomo observing with a critical half-squint, Eye on Sky coiled with head cords attentive.

They came to the endgame.

“Doers and makers seeding here and here.” Giacomo pointed to a magnified image of planetary rubble blooming against darkness. Flash of that awful finger. Tiny sparks glowed in the image like fireflies in a storm cloud. “Making interceptors from the cores of Blinker and Cueball. Now—they’re not even hiding themselves. Interceptors go out on anti em plumes.” Radiant lines of white fanning out, trails fading behind them.

The wands quickly counted interceptor traces: fifty, sixty, seventy thousand in this region alone, each no larger than a car, each seeking a Leviathan ship. No targets were visible in this image, but in another, the interceptors had found their ships, and the points of light were sharp and intense. The torch glare reflected from expanding clouds of dust and gas, like welding torches deep in a cave, on and off, winking, until they became a starfield. Enacting the Law at a distance.

Completely different rules.

Hundreds more images. Torches flickering, dying, starfields of destruction vanishing.

“I we see no surviving escape vehicles,” Eye on Sky said, scenting the air with something like cinnamon and fresh-dug dirt.

“I don’t either, but we have to expect them. The ones we took out might even be decoys. Maybe they transfer to some point outside the system by noach. You know, wholesale pattern transfer. Mind across the void.”

“That is not a confirmed possible,” Eye on Sky said.

Giacomo shrugged. “I’m trying to think of everything.”

“Ship has already thought of everything,” Eye on Sky said.

“I won’t argue that,” Giacomo said. At the heart of a planet’s dust corpse, he pointed to more sparks and red glows. “Signature of quark sex reactions, right?”

Martin had no idea what that might be.

They worked for an hour, ignoring Martin. When they took a break, however, Giacomo climbed along a field to hang beside Martin. Eye on Sky and the others went aft.

“Jennifer’s back with us tomorrow,” he said. “She told me what happened on the Trojan Horse.” He clenched his jaw, lowered his voice. “Not right, Martin.”

“You didn’t know about it?”

Giacomo looked away, tilted his head. “I had so much new stuff to think about, having the ships’ minds really open up, go all out for us… Hans made the decision. The weapons were ready, we’d already seeded some planets with noach engineering while you were down there talking. Hans said he wouldn’t let them trap us this time, wouldn’t let them fool us.” His eyes gleamed.

“Hans said nothing about our not knowing… that it was starting?”

Giacomo shook his head, still fired by the buzz of memory. Nostrils flared. “You should have been here. It was a real circus. I mean, I had worked out some of the momeraths, and so did Jennifer and Silken Parts and a lot of the others… But the ships’ minds are working, then the moms and snake mothers bring out these plans… Makers at a distance, nothing in between. Just delude some matter into rearranging its form, ordering itself by your design. Fantastic.

“That was what the Killers were trying to do to us. But they couldn’t find us. We were small, they were big. Our chief advantage.”

“Did we discover these new weapons with the help of the moms, or were they already in the ships’ minds?”

Giacomo shrugged. “I asked the moms that question twice. No real answer.” He mimicked the flat neutrality of a mom’s voice: “ ‘You are given what you need to enact the Law.’ I’ll say this much—I had a long time to think things over, even before Jennifer and I jammed. The momeraths I did pointed to some pretty scary things.”

“Like?”

“All by myself, seeing the planets, trying to figure out Sleep, and Blinker, I came up with”—he circled his hands—“persuasion. It’s a principle, like deluding matter through hidden channels. Space is like matter—has its own bookkeeping, its own channels. I don’t think the moms knew what I was thinking, I mean, I don’t think the Benefactors… the ships at least… Christ, Martin. I’m getting all tangled.”

“They didn’t know about persuasion, whatever it is.”

“Right… until we saw Blinker, saw their noach range out to fifty billion klicks.”

Martin nodded. Giacomo was still drunk with the knowledge, the power.

“Space can be persuaded to get out of the way, shrink its metric, collapse atomic diameters to create quark matter. All by myself, without the ships’ minds, I saw that quark matter makes neutronium look like a gas. By tweaking internal bits in the quarks—a whole level below particle bits—quark matter can be split into really fanatic lovers. One must have the other, or, you know, the universe will end. You put anything between the lovers… what stands between ceases to exist. The privileged bands get incredibly vicious. The books must be balanced.

“Martin, the way it went, I don’t think the moms or the ships’ minds had to know anything. I saw it. The ships’ minds worked through a couple of hundred lifetimes of my thinking. They were way ahead of me. I talked to the moms, the ships’ minds talked to me, I talked to Jennifer, compared notes, and… There it was. Then the ship went to work making the weapons.”

Giacomo took a deep breath and shivered some of his energy away, chuckled at his state. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t care. But sometimes I felt as if we were forcing God to make mistakes, and there was this… this indignant power making things right again, at any cost. The Killers got in the way.”

“Of God,” Martin said.

Giacomo’s cheek twitched, then he grimaced. “Whatever. All this deluding and persuading. Like seduction, playing a game. We played the game better than the Killers did.”

“Maybe they were tired,” Martin said.

“As good an explanation as any,” Giacomo said. He shook his arms put, toes poked into the field. Jittered, hunched his shoulders, eyes dancing with energy beyond exhaustion.

He’s had his religious experience.

“I keep seeing something in the playbacks,” Martin said. “It can’t be real—it looks like a big finger.”

Giacomo grinned, nodded. “The finger. That’s scary, isn’t it? Reaching out.” He curled his finger and poked the air. “It shows up wherever there are large masses of separated quark components. That’s what made me think maybe God was getting really angry and putting things right.”

Martin looked unconvinced. “God again.”

“It looks like it’s moving really fast, but that’s an illusion. It’s a chain of spatial contortions upsetting ionized hydrogen, a real barometer of quark separation. That’s one theory… or it’s a string of some sort pulled out of the universe’s sub-basement. You know, the glue that keeps us on the canvas? I haven’t even begun to think about what that implies. Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Do you think the Killers were still at home?” Martin asked softly.

Giacomo narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. “Not my call, Martin. Back to work. Hans wants this day after tomorrow. We’ll go after anything that looks like survivors.”

“It isn’t over,” Martin said.

“Justice must be complete,” Giacomo said. Swinging away, he paused, glanced over his shoulder, said, “You think the moms will let us keep what we know?”

Martin lightly tapped his temple.

“Right,” Giacomo said. “They’ve never asked us to forget.”

Ariel sat in the cafeteria with Donna and Anna Gray Wolf. Twenty others off Hans’ strict watch schedule ate in clusters. Ariel looked up as Martin entered, nodded to him almost curtly and looked away. She had cut her hair very short and wore colorless overalls. Self-consciously, Martin pushed himself in their direction.

“I’m off to help Giacomo in a few minutes,” Anna said pointedly. “You two should be alone, compare notes.”

Ariel’s color was good, and she did not appear much thinner than he. “No hurry,” she said.

“We’re having a wake at day’s end,” Donna said. She swallowed a last bite of something green from the air and gathered her crumbs with a small field.

None of this seemed apropos of anything to Martin. “Do I make you uncomfortable?” he asked Ariel. This was the first time he had seen her since they had been removed from their escape craft. The awkwardness disturbed him.

“Park here,” Ariel said. Donna moved over, and Martin drifted between them. “I’m glad you were with me,” Ariel said. “You helped me stay sane.”

Martin nodded, the tension not yet diminished.

“But we need to know where you stand. You know that Hans has put together a political squad.”

“I’ve heard about it,” he said.

“Nobody’s enthusiastic, but they’re still keeping track of us.”

“Right.”

“So we’re talking right here in the open,” Donna said. “We’ll call his bluff.”

“We need to know which side you’re on,” Ariel said.

“No sides,” Martin said.

“You can’t be neutral,” Anna said, righteous anger in her voice. “Hans has gone way beyond his charter.”

“He’ll call it martial law,” Donna said. “The crew went along with him during the war. But we want him to resign as Pan.”

“Why?” Martin asked. “He got the Job done.”

Ariel searched his face for a sign of what he actually meant, but he was stubbornly blank. “Maybe,” she said. “I doubt we’ll ever really know.”

“I’ve told him there should be an investigation of Rosa’s death and Rex’s suicide.”

Ariel shook her head. “I sympathize, but that’s kind of trivial now, Martin.”

“It should be done,” Anna said.

“Compared to what happened here, it’s damned near meaningless, a gnat in a hurricane.”

“She was crew,” Martin said.

“Come on,” Anna said. “It’s still necessary. Martin’s right.”

“What will it accomplish?” Ariel said. “It’s just part of a larger crime. First, he doesn’t let us vote on this particular case. Twenty of us go down to Sleep to play ambassadors, and he knocks us out of the circuit, doesn’t even bother to keep us informed—”

“He says that was because we could have been spied upon,” Martin said. “Or even controlled.”

Ariel brushed that aside. “And he executes without having a proven case. Have you seen the destruction, Martin? Can you even begin to absorb it?”

“I’ve seen it,” Martin said, “and no, I can’t.”

David Aurora approached their group on a ladder field. “I’d keep it down, folks,” he said in a low voice. “Patrick keeps his ears open.”

“Patrick’s replaced Rex,” Anna said. “There are others.”

“What we want to do,” Ariel said, “is get Hans out one way or another, elect a new Pan, and try to convince the Brothers to stay with us, to combine ships. We think we’d have a better chance to find a home that way.”

David, having issued his warning, shook his head and pulled himself to another group on the far side of the cafeteria.

“You think Hans has really gone off the deep?” Martin asked. “You think he’s going to squash dissent?”

“You want to investigate Rosa’s death, but you ask a question like that?” Anna asked.

“Pardon me, but I’m very confused,” Martin said.

“It’s pretty clear,” Ariel said. Her coldness toward him was like a slap. She’s reversed course again. Who can ever know her?

“It’s the new order,” Donna said, thin hands rubbing her thin forearms. “He cut us loose on the Trojan Horse. He used us. I don’t care, I don’t trust him, and we need a Pan we can trust, and we need the rest of our crew. We can’t just split and go in two directions. It isn’t right. We need the Brothers, too.”

“You mean, we need their resources,” Martin said.

“Actually, that’s not strictly true,” Anna said. “We’ll be able to mine enough stuff around Leviathan to take us anywhere we want to go. Even add to the ship if we want.”

“Psychologically, we need the Brothers,” Ariel agreed. Martin was about to ask her to explain that when Patrick Angelfish came into the cafeteria, doing a bad job of looking as if he had some purpose there. Martin waved his hand to catch Patrick’s eye; Patrick looked away with too much effort. Martin spread his arms and waved them in semaphore for him to join them. Ariel’s face went pale and even colder.

Patrick approached cautiously, not expecting the open invitation.

“Are you spying for Hans?” Martin asked him.

“I wouldn’t call it spying,” Patrick said. “A Pan needs to know what’s going on.”

“Tell Hans I’m putting together a committee to investigate Rosa’s death,” Martin said. “I’m asking for volunteers now. He gave permission, and I’m acting on that permission.”

“He hasn’t told me he gave permission,” Patrick said, clearly out of his depth.

Martin’s sudden deep anger took him by surprise. “That’s because you’re a lackey,” he said with a grim smile. “Like Rex. Tell him if he wants to challenge me, do it in the open, himself, and not just send you to keep an eye on me.”

Patrick left with a shake of his head and a grim, sidelong smile.

Donna and Anna’s faces had gone pale and stiff. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of,” Anna said.

“Maybe not,” Martin said.

“Don’t be a martyr,” Ariel said.

“Why not?” Martin asked.

“Then don’t be a fool,” she added, but her chilly tone had passed.

“I’m flying on instinct,” Martin said. “So is Hans. The question is, who has the better instincts?”

The roll call of the new dead. The human crew in the small schoolroom. Brothers elsewhere, preparing to transfer to Shrike. The defectors attended, breaking their isolation in the Brothers’ section to honor those who had not survived.

Perhaps it was the last time they would be together.

Hans came into the schoolroom with face ashen, hair unkempt, eyes large and hungry. He seemed to look in every face, ask everyone a question: Are you happy now? Is this enough, or do you want more?

Without using his wand, Hans recited the names of the dead. Some of the crew wept. Martin closed his eyes and tried to remember Hakim’s face, the calmness and deliberation, his precise way with words. Erin Eire… intense green eyes and noble balance of defiance and sense. He wished they were here now to help him.

Jeanette Snap Dragon lifted her arm in a clenched fist, and the defectors followed her example.

Hans did not look at Martin after, though he passed close on his way out. Patrick glanced in his direction, face troubled.

The delegation came to Martin’s quarters in the middle of his sleep. His wand woke him, chiming insistently. He opened the door and Patrick stepped in, Thorkild Lax behind him, then David Aurora, Carl Phoenix, and last—making Martin’s heart ache, for he knew what was happening—Harpal Timechaser. None of them met his eyes but Patrick, who said, “It’s time to put everything behind us.”

Patrick in front, Carl on one side, David on another, Harpal slightly above him, Thorkild below; a cage of men. Martin smelled their tension.

“Everything?” he said.

“It’s history,” Patrick said. “Besides, you’ll get no support. Nobody wants to dig any more. We need to forget and get on with our lives.”

“Forget what?” Martin asked mildly, but his heart pumped strong and fast. His body was very frightened, but the fear hadn’t yet reached his head.

“Your investigation.”

“We know who killed Rosa, and he’s dead, and Hans had nothing to do with it, at least no more than the rest of us,” Carl said.

“She would have stopped us,” Thorkild said.

“We did the slicking Job,” Patrick hissed, and Martin knew the quincunx of his danger. Patrick was the center who would radiate to the other four. “We did what we came here to do.”

“Let’s just give it up, huh?” Harpal asked. “We’re tired.”

Martin rotated in mid-air to face Harpal. Nobody would look straight into his eyes. Harpal managed to focus on Martin’s cheek. “Why are you here? Power?” he asked.

“Beg pardon?” Harpal seemed to sleepwalk, only half-listening.

“I’m asking you why you’re here.”

“I thought we could talk some sense into you. You know as well as I what Hans did. He drew us together.”

“That doesn’t absolve him…”

“After what we’ve just done,” Harpal said, pain and dismay passing over his face but not disturbing the simple, stolid exhaustion behind any expression, “you want to investigate a… what? A murder, you think? It’s insane, Martin. Let it lie.”

“You’ve got the finger of God working for you,” Martin said, not too rationally. “That’s all you need?”

“We couldn’t have done it without Hans,” Patrick said, “and now you want him punished for something he didn’t do.”

“I just want to know,” Martin said.

“We know already,” Patrick said.

“It takes five of you to tell me this?”

“We’re your friends,” Harpal said. “We don’t want anything bad for you.”

“Hans asked you to watch out for me?”

“You be careful,” Carl said, but Patrick reined him in with a sharp look. Who is more stupid, Carl, Patrick—or David? I know Harpal and Thorkild… I don’t know the others nearly as well. Odd some of us are still strangers. Then maybe I don’t know any of them. Why are they here? They were my friends. We worked together.

“We worked together,” Harpal said. “We don’t want you to be the center of trouble.”

“You were a Pan,” Martin said.

Harpal tightened his lips, jaw working, relaxing. “I know the responsibilities, the decisions. So do you. I know what Hans is capable of. So do you. Rex was the one who went rogue, not Hans.”

“Besides,” Patrick said, “Rex is dead, everybody who could know is dead.”

“Rex said Hans put him up to it,” Martin reminded them.

“He was crazy. He fell in with Rosa’s group, they twisted him…”

“All the defectors are crazy, too?”

“They’re ineffective,” Harpal said.

“They don’t understand. They’re weak links,” David said.

Martin still could not tell how far they would go. Surely not all five would attack him. One or two, the others standing back, ashamed, but caught.

“We’re ready to go on,” Thorkild said, glancing at the others. “Get out of here and marry a planet.”

Patrick’s eyes were dead. He seemed half asleep.

“We don’t want to dig it all up. It’s the past. It’s dead.”

“It smells,” Martin said. “It will not stop smelling. We can’t cut clean from the past.”

“We still have mopping up to do,” Harpal said, trying to sound persuasive, reasonable. “The defectors aren’t helping, and the Brothers turned out to be real liabilities.”

“The Brothers helped us.”

“Forget that,” Patrick said. “Let’s just keep it simple.”

Rage colored fear, and the mix made his whole body burn. He wanted them all gone, if not gone then dead, and he could smell the same wish in their breath, their sweat.

David’s eyes had become still, lifeless.

Thorkild and Harpal looked like the ones most likely to back off. He moved closer to Harpal. “I’m not out to cause trouble,” Martin said. “That’s Hans’ doing. Some of us want him to stand down. That’s all. That’s our privilege as crew.”

My, you sound rational, clever. That will increase their deadness, their anger. It decreases your anger, to talk so, to try to reason with friends so. You don’t really hate or fear them. That makes you weaker. They’ll kill you for that, for acting like a victim.

“Not if it puts all of us in danger,” Harpal said, reacting to the reasonable tone with his own reason. Harpal will not act with them. “What if the Killers have a surprise waiting for us? If we drop our discipline, lose our edge, they’ll have us. We’re not ready to check out now.”

“Not after all we’ve been through,” Thorkild said. “Come on, Martin.” Thorkild won’t attack.

Patrick drifted closer, hand gripping a thin ladder field. Martin raised his wand.

“Get me Hans and Ariel, triple link,” he said.

Patrick made a grab for the wand.

“Hans does not reply,” the wand said as Martin swung it out of Patrick’s reach. Patrick lunged again, and again Martin swung it away. Anything can happen now.

Ariel’s voice came on, sleepy.

“Witness!” Martin said. “Tie us in to everybody.”

“What?”

Patrick and David grabbed for the wand.

“Martin?”

Patrick got the wand and wrenched it from Martin’s grasp. David and Thorkild held him, Carl made a grab for a leg but missed and then backed away. Carl’s out.

Patrick tried to smash the wand against the floor, but it would not break. Stupid stupid

“Martin!” Ariel’s voice called out. “I’m tying you in.”

Harpal moved in before Martin could back away and struck him in the kidneys. It might have been a deadly blow, but Harpal’s ladder field was just far enough away that the peak of his blow came before his fist actually struck.

Martin kicked with both legs backward, hands on the floor, and one bare foot caught Harpal in the teeth, cutting Martin’s heel and spinning Harpal away to the ceiling. It was a mess, fighting weightless, grabbing fields, all instincts useless. They had done enough sports to know the right moves for most activities, but fighting engaged an older brain with less savvy, and the result was sloppy.

Patrick slammed his head against the floor. Martin grabbed the wand and tossed it away from the group of them.

“We see!” Ariel cried out.

“WE SEE!” other voices cried.

“Stop it!” Jennifer screamed. “Thorkild, stop it!”

Other voices joined in. David had Martin around his neck and shoulders, beyond hearing. He forced Martin’s neck down with his hands, jerking spasmodically, trying to really hurt him, crack his spine. Martin felt the jerks as explosions of pain. He reached behind and lifted his thumb rigid and slammed it into David’s crotch. The grip relaxed and David grunted, fell away.

For a second, they all flailed helplessly, unable to connect. Drops of blood from Harpal’s lip and Martin’s foot smeared against overalls.

All the ladder fields in the room vanished. His face like a desperate little boy’s, Patrick still clawed at Martin, at the air. Jewels of blood swirled in the vortices of their limbs.

“Stop it.” Hans’ remote voice in Martin’s room.

“Stop it, now!” Hans again.

Patrick stopped flailing.

“What in the fuck are you all doing?” Hans shouted.

Patrick’s expression, Martin thought, was priceless: dismay mixed with deep anxiety, vacant look gone. None of them looked blank now.

The killing time was past.

Martin had survived.

“I’ve lost it,” Hans said.

Martin hung beside Hans in a net, alone with him in his quarters.

“I sent Patrick to do something and he didn’t think he could do it alone. So he asked for some backups,” Hans said, closing his eyes, leaning his neck back. “I should have known he’d be weak.”

“What did you send him to do?” Martin asked.

“Talk sense into you.” Voice low, drained. “I need to sleep, Martin. All I want to do now is sleep.”

“They could have killed me,” Martin said, wonder in his voice. “You didn’t see what Patrick…”

“I’m tired, hey.” Hans shook his head. “I still don’t see why so many joined him. Maybe I was doing better than I thought. But… It isn’t worth it now. You’ve won. I’ll resign.”

“Nobody’s asked you to.”

“Did you see their expressions?” Hans asked. “The Wendys in particular. Even Harpal.” He shook his head. “Poor Harpal. No. I’ll resign.”

“You did it yourself,” Martin said.

“I did it all by myself,” Hans said, head lolling. “I didn’t want you dead.”

“How could you have miscalculated?”

“ ‘Miscalculated.’ ” Hans laughed softly. “That’s your problem, Martin. Good soul, but still too intellectual. You think first and see second. I see first and think about what I see. I didn’t ‘miscalculate.’ I slicked up.”

“Did you ask Rex to kill Rosa?”

Hans jerked his head forward. “I did not. I swear I did not. But I might have.”

Martin shook his head, not comprehending.

Hans rubbed the palms of his hands together, tapped one palm with an index finger. “Could we have done the Job with Rosa breaking the crew into little bitty pieces?”

“She could have been dealt with.”

“You’re wrong. Rex broke from me because I slammed him. He didn’t know who he was, and he thought we all hated him. Rosa preached love. He came to her. She used him. I didn’t ask him to kill her. She wasn’t what her people think she was. She was a lot like me.”

“Rosa didn’t deserve to die.”

“We wouldn’t be here if she had lived.”

Martin did not want to argue the point more. “When will you resign?”

“Right now. You take me someplace public, drag me on a chain if you like. I’ll give a sad speech. Old Pans never die.”

“I don’t understand you,” Martin said.

“I understand you,” Hans said. “I only ask for one thing. I want to still be Pan when the report is made.”

The surviving crew of the Dawn Treader came to the schoolroom in two groups. Martin entered with the larger group, behind Hans, which drew looks of surprise. Ariel seemed to have gathered her own small cluster of people. Martin saw a power center forming; none of them knew of his talk with Hans.

Watching the way the people associated, Martin saw a swirl of sentient particles working according to certain principles far from fixed, far from immutable; but still, he saw the interactions, and could understand some of their import. He had thought long hours about the conversation with Hans. When he looked now, he saw first, thought about what he saw; he did not impose wishes and patterns and ideals.

The new ability saddened him a little. Of all the illusions of childhood, the one he hated to lose most was this: that humans worked according to unspoken but noble goals, that they followed an intrinsic path to justice, that they would resist error and move toward self-understanding.

Two moms hung on each side of the star sphere, four in all. The ruins of Leviathan’s worlds filled the sphere, passing in slow, sad scale, majestic rubble, caverns of nebulosity shot through with the glows of cooling chunks of worlds, sparks of fake matter disintegration not yet complete.

“The analysis is not finished,” the ship’s voice said, neutral and close in each of their ears. “There is no precedent in memory for the use of weapons of this power and type. Nor is there precedent for a civilization of precisely this character. The after-effects are difficult to judge. Destruction appears to be complete, but a definitive assessment cannot be reached, perhaps for centuries to come.”

Martin had suspected this. He had dreamed of unexpected survivals; of civilizations encoded in tumbling boulders, hidden in the rubble, waiting for a chance to rebuild; of staircase gods buried deep in Leviathan itself.

“The Law requires certainty. It does not require that you devote more of your time, however. You have made your judgment and enacted the Law.”

“We want to know,” Hans said.

“That is understandable,” the ship’s voice said.

“We need to know.” Hans’ face was even more drawn; he had expected something final. In this, at least, Martin had been more realistic than he.

“Then you should decide to stay and devote more time.”

“What are the choices?” Martin asked.

“Your alternative is to continue with your lives. As promised, we will either return you to your solar system, or you may seek another system, find another world not yet inhabited that is suited to your needs.”

“That’s another phase, another part of the journey,” Martin said. He looked at Hans.

Hans pulled himself closer to the sphere. “I’ve decided my time as Pan is finished. I had hoped to know for sure whether we’ve finished the Job, but… I don’t think I should be Pan any longer. I resign.” His tone was calm, but his face seemed even more drawn, almost wizened.

“Time to nominate,” Anna Gray Wolf said. Martin saw the vortex more clearly.

The Wendys and Lost Boys of the larger group immediately conferred. Jeanette’s group seemed at a loss, left out. Martin moved toward Jeanette. She held her ground, lips set tight.

“You’re still with us, if you want to be,” Martin said in an undertone. “We can’t divide now.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t enough for Hans to step down.”

“You can nominate from your own group,” Martin said. “Come back in. I want you to.”

“You were part of the atrocity,” Jeanette said, brows knit, mouth drawn up in anger. “Coming back is like condoning what happened. We’d rather go with the Brothers.”

“Ask them,” Martin said, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the dissidents. “You can’t make that decision by yourself.”

Knots of activity formed, low voices rose in debate, sank again into conspiratorial discussion.

“You want to be Pan again,” Jeanette accused, uncertain.

“Not in a joke,” Martin said.

She turned away, and the defectors formed their own knot, which then broke into smaller knots.

Hans stayed away from the activity. He looked longingly at the star sphere, as if trying to find his own answer. Martin decided it would be best for now to leave him by himself, not to associate with Hans at this time; Hans was a sink of influence, an outcast. But that went against Martin’s instincts.

He ignored his instincts.

“We nominate Patrick Angelfish!” said David Aurora. Six of the crew stood around Patrick, who looked frightened. Harpal was not one of the six; he stayed close to Anna Gray Wolf.

“We nominate Leo Parsifal,” said Umberto Umbra.

Good. Totally off the beaten path, Martin thought.

Jeanette came forward, even less certain now, looking scared. “We nominate Mei-li Wu-Hsiang Gemini.”

“I nominate Ariel,” Martin said. She looked at him with a frown so intense he interpreted it at first as anger.

“Good,” Harpal said softly.

Hans did not look away from the star sphere.

“Vote for new Pan,” Kirsten Two Bites called out.

Martin watched the vortices break apart, reform, watched power and decision move from one group to another, discussion, debate, watched Ariel surrounded by her group, yet still looking very alone. She was not angry. She was terrified. She could not bring herself to refuse.

She felt the power, as well.

The vote was about to be taken when Eye on Sky entered the schoolroom with a snake mother. Paola went to the Brother and spoke with him. Then she pulled herself to Martin.

“Eye on Sky says the Shrike has found something important. Should he tell us now? He seems to think it’s an emergency.”

“Then let’s hear it,” Martin said. He called for their attention.

Eye on Sky uncoiled, smelling faintly of turpentine and dry grass. “We we have spoken with Shrike. Something important found hidden. Greyhound’s help is requested.”

Ariel appeared greatly relieved.

The remains of Sleep smeared out in an arc that in a few million years would form a ring of asteroids around Leviathan. Already, Leviathan’s radiation and particle winds pushed the lighter elements in the arc outward.

Greyhound accelerated to join with Shrike at the nearest terminus of this arc, a journey of sixty-two million kilometers.

At ten g’s, Greyhound would reach Shrike in less than three hours. The crews endured the field restraints; the acceleration was not so extreme as to completely inhibit activity.

They had enough time to vote. The nominees spoke briefly; Mei-li withdrew, saying she was much too confused and uncertain to exercise leadership. Martin noted with some satisfaction that Ariel did not withdraw.

Hans watched silently, standing by himself to one side.

The vote was conducted secretly by wand. Martin tallied the results.

“Ariel is Pan,” he announced.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Starting now?” she asked.

“Starting now,” Martin affirmed.

“I choose Jeanette Snap Dragon to be my second,” she said.

The defectors were not prepared for this, and left the schoolroom to talk.

Ariel stood beside Martin, distinctly nervous as the crew congratulated her singly and in groups. “I shouldn’t have accepted the nomination,” she said to him in a brief free moment. “This is awful. You really have it in for me, don’t you?”

“You’ll do fine,” Martin said.

“Oh, God, I chose Jeanette. Why did I do that?”

“Brings unity,” Martin assured her, though he had his doubts.

“Are you going to help me, or just gloat?”

“Both,” Martin said.

She squinted one eye and curled her lip. “I deserve it,” she said. “Oh, God, I’m an idiot.”

Shrike sent no more transmissions. Martin thought this might be a small game on the part of the Brothers, and his interest was piqued. Eye on Sky refused to say any more, even with Paola’s urging; the Brother smelled strongly of turpentine.

What could possibly compel them to ask for human help? The Brothers were convinced destruction of the Leviathan system had been wrong, or at the very least premature…

Martin studied the crew in the schoolroom. He could see no more vortices of power, and wondered if he had hallucinated them. What he saw now was quiescence, waiting. Even Ariel drew no more attention than she might have before she was Pan. She sat talking quietly with Anna Gray Wolf and Martin felt a stab of loneliness; she had needed him, the need had passed. He had not nurtured it very well.

Hans squatted in a lotus before the star sphere, ragged, thin, pale, fingers tapping the floor lightly. His face seemed religious with concentration and something like fear: fear that what the Brothers had found might prove they had acted incorrectly. Fear of responsibility for the deaths of trillions…

Trillions of what? Martin asked himself. Ghosts? Shells? Robots? Deceptions? Real, intelligent beings? Innocents?

The last possibility was more than he could bring himself to contemplate.

Scouts continued to work through the detritus like little fish swimming through a swirl of sand and mud, sending information by noach to Greyhound. Shrike no doubt had its own scouts, but the arc was huge, three million kilometers from end to end and several hundred thousand kilometers broad, and the area studied by Shrike was still relatively unknown to them.

Giacomo approached Martin and kneeled beside him. Martin looked up; surprised himself by having napped. He glimpsed the star sphere; Greyhound was very near Shrike. “What is it?” Martin asked.

“We’re here. Stonemaker won’t talk to any human but you. He’s on the noach, and he wants it private.”

“Did you tell Ariel?” She was not in the schoolroom.

Giacomo nodded, biting his lower lip. “She told me to get you. Search team doesn’t see anything. We don’t know what they’ve got or what they’re up to.”

A field had wrapped around him automatically while he slept, to restrain him as the acceleration ended. He converted it to a ladder and followed Giacomo to the nose.

Ariel met him outside the nose. She smiled quickly. “The Brothers like you, Martin.”

He made a wry face and pushed into the nose.

Even to the naked eye, the destruction of Sleep was impressive. Greyhound seemed to hang motionless beside Shrike about ten thousand kilometers above the arc of Sleep’s corpse, a glittering, mottled span of dust and rubble like a layer of oil and dirt on a pond. Glowing commas of molten stuff haunted the arc. One comma disintegrated before his eyes, a silent leap of puckering orange. Beyond the arc, closer in to Leviathan, two diffuse blotches marked other ruins, like swift strokes of watercolor on wet black paper.

“I’ll project the noach here,” Thorkild said, refusing to meet his eyes. “You know how to use it. Of course you do.” He looked as if he was about to cry. “Martin…”

Martin held his finger to his lips, shook his head reassuringly, falsely. He didn’t know how long it would take the wounds to heal, but he did not want to deal with Thorkild now.

Eye on Sky slid into the nose as Thorkild departed. “I we told Stonemaker you have stayed sensible,” Eye on Sky said. “Do not know others as well.”

“Thanks,” Martin said. “What’s happened?”

Eye on Sky splayed his head cords, very attentive. A noached image of Stonemaker shimmered into solidity before them.

“I we am thankful you survived,” Stonemaker said. “You should see what we we have found. Judge with and mark we our opinions.” Stonemaker faded and was replaced by a roller-coaster ride through glowing rubble, wisps of hot gas, into a dark void.

“Record of scout sending,” Eye on Sky explained, making a scent of sharp cinnamon and warm animal. The smell aroused homesickness, deeper loneliness. Gauge. He smells a bit like Gauge.

The void was a great hollow, perhaps ten thousand kilometers wide, cleared somehow in the middle of the arc like a bubble. He was about to ask if it was natural when he spotted a speck at its center, little more than a dust mote in the tarry darkness. The mote glowed green.

Human measurements appeared to the left of the image. The mote, now fist sized and growing rapidly, was about a hundred kilometers in diameter. He could not discern clearly what it was; the ghoulish green spot seemed made of many smaller versions of itself. Enlarged, the mass revealed cluster upon cluster of much smaller needle-like objects, in all manner of arrangements; rolled, bundled, pointing outward in pincushion radiants.

Martin’s throat shrank around his voice and breath. He coughed, covered his mouth with a fist, tried to control his horror, the excruciating churn of emotions within.

Millions upon millions of needles, each fifty to a hundred meters long. He had grown up with their design, their measure; the moms had displayed them again and again to the children in training.

“We our scouts have found forty-one of these collections,” Stonemaker said. “They waited within Sleep. All we we have examined appear to be recent manufacture, not old artifacts.”

Wrapped in protective fields like frog eggs in gelatin cases, survivors of Sleep’s destruction, the needles were not thousands of years old, not artifacts of a bygone and indiscreet age.

They were new. Waiting.

“Do you agree with we our suspecting?”

“Yes,” Martin croaked, and coughed again. “Oh, God, yes.”

“We we are hoping these are the last, that no more have escaped to find and destroy other worlds.”

Martin nodded, speechless with fury and a high, horrid sadness.

“Should we we finish the Job?” Stonemaker asked.