Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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Silken Parts gave off an odor of wet clay. Stonemaker said, "We we will regroup, assemble Makers of Agreement, make a decision."

"Grand," Hans said. He looked at Martin. "We need to talk," he said. "Alone."

They went to Hans' quarters, passing four Brothers and five humans as they exercised in a corridor. The humans tossed balls to the Brothers, who passed them along their backs from cord to cord and flipped them with their tails. The contest—a kind of football—was desperately uneven; the Brothers were winning handily, and the humans cheerfully shouted their complaints.

"Competitive, aren't they?" Hans said. He opened the hatch to his quarters. Within, Martin saw a room as spare as his—except for vases of flowers. Rosa's touch. Hans lay on a pad and motioned for Martin to get comfortable.

"You've been quiet lately," Hans said. "I should be grateful…"

"Why grateful?" Martin asked.

"That you're not screaming your head off. The ex-Pans don't approve of my style, do they?"

Martin didn't answer.

"Ah," Hans said, nodding. "There it is."

"Not really," Martin said softly. "Every leader finds fault with the next in line. I argued with Stephanie."

"Never mind," Hans said, dismissing the subject with a wave. He stared up at the blank ceiling, as if talking to someone far away. "Harpal has resigned. I need a second—let's not use the name Christopher Robin any more, all right?"

"Fine," Martin said.

"Rex is loyal as hell, but I need somebody critical right now. A balance. Cham grates on me as much as Harpal. I keep coming back to you."

"Why?" Martin asked.

"Because when you keep quiet, I wish you'd talk. If you're my second, it'll be your duty to talk to me, and I won't wonder what you're thinking. Besides, Stonemaker already acts as if you're next in command. Might as well make it official."

Martin sat on the bare floor, crossing his legs. "That doesn't seem reason enough."

"I said it before, I'll say it now; you weren't responsible for the Skirmish going wrong. Nobody could have seen it coming. We got away. We did what we came to do. I think you got blamed for all the wrong reasons."

"I don't worry about it," Martin said.

"You lost someone you loved."

"More than one," Martin said.

"I think you were perhaps the best Pan we had, or at least a close match with Stephanie. She was hot, she had guts. You were quiet and deliberate. I'm flying on instinct through a thick fog. You know what my problems are."

Martin took a deep breath.

"We're friendly with the Brothers. That's a relief. They scared the hell out of me, just looking at them the first time. That cord crawling on Cham…" Hans chuckled. "I would have wet my pants. I think they're good for us. But they're different, too. They screwed up royally in battle. They hesitated, they gave the Killers every benefit of the doubt… And they're going to do it again. I can just smell it coming from Silken Parts and Stonemaker. They see this blind, this big cooperative solar system, all bustling and peaceful… And Christ, Martin, they want to hugthe slicker, not kill it."

"We can work around that," Martin said.

"Can we?" Hans turned to glare at him.

"I think so," Martin said.

"But you agree it's a blind."

"Hakim seems to have his doubts. Hakim's smart—"

"Hakim's too goddamned gentle," Hans said.

"He's not a coward," Martin said.

"I didn't mean that. He'll be turned by the Brothers. They'll put all kinds of doubts into his reasonable head. I wish sometimes they'd chosen a bunch of dumb-ass soldiers and not all these mental high-performance types." Hans slapped the floor with his palm. "I could lead a bunch of blockheads anywhere, do anything, come out with most of us alive. But not thinkers and doubters. And if I add Rosa…" He pointed to the flowers, tossed his head back dramatically. "You noticed? God save me. She's pretty good in bed, you know that?"

Martin shook his head.

"But I don't do it for my health," Hans said, tone softening. "She scares me more than the Brothers. She's a cipher, Martin. I think maybe she actually does talk to God. If so, God's on theirside, not ours. If I let her loose—and I can't control her for long, Martin—I have no idea what will come out of her. A whole new religion. Am I right?" He stood and stretched, restless as a caged leopard. "She almost sucked you in, didn't she?"

Martin's face reddened. "I was hurting," he said.

"Don't be ashamed. If I weren't so goddamned cynical, I'd have got down on my knees, too."

"I don't want to be second in command. I served my time."

"You were cut short," Hans reminded him.

"It was fine by me," Martin said.

"Bolsh," Hans said. "You have as deep a sense of duty as anyone here. You feel more deeply than anyone but maybe Ariel." Hans grinned. "She's sweet on you, I think."

Martin didn't respond.

"Well, I can choose my own second if the elected one doesn't work out. I've made my choice. It's you. You'll replace Harpal."

"I don't—"

"Sorry, Martin," Hans said, putting his hands on Martin's shoulders. "I need help. I need balance. I don't want to make mistakes now."

The drills began first with physical exercise, humans and Brothers cooperating in gymnastics. The result was comic at first, and Martin worried the Brothers might be offended by the confusion, but they were not.

The entire crew involved in the exercises seemed to take it as a game, even while, performing the drill to the best of their ability.

Cham served as drill leader. Eye on Sky translated for the Brothers.

"We're going to get used to each other, get formally introduced," Cham said. "You can call me coach."

The humans hooted and jumped around, pretending to shoot a few hoops or pass and intercept a clothes-wad football.

"First thing is, we have to know what we can do, and what we feel like, in terms of strength, resilience, where we're vulnerable, where we can be hurt, how we can help. Got that?"

Silence and attention indicated assent.

"We have no idea what we'll be getting into this time. Everything we've drilled for, all we've trained for, may have to be turned upside down soon. That's my feeling, anyway, and I think the bosses agree. Looks like Leviathan is going to be a corker. Target-rich, the old military folks on Earth used to call it. So we have to work together closely."

Rich smells like a seashore filled the room. Martin noted a few who seemed to find the smells unpleasant: Rex Live Oak was among them, still made uneasy by the Brothers.

Harpal stood beside Martin. He had not said a word since resigning. At least he showed no resentment against Martin. Martin was grateful for that.

"First exercise," Cham said. "A carry. Two humans will take a single Brother across the schoolroom. The Brother will then carry the two humans back. I don't have any idea how you'll do these things; just do them, and learn."

Cham and Eye on Sky picked the teams. Each team had two Brothers and two humans; Martin and Ariel teamed with two braids, one a small individual called Twice Grown, the other a medium called Makes Clear. Neither of the braids had honed their human communication skills, and both often resorted to odors rather than human words, which added to the confusion and—Ariel seemed to think—to the fun. Martin had not seen her laugh so much before.

"We have a new second in command," Cham said gleefully. "The Brothers will pardon me if I push rank forward. Martin, your team goes first."

Makes Clear slithered forward. "Carry long ways," he suggested, then coiled like an upright spring. Martin and Ariel tried to find safe places to grab him, but the cords squirmed beneath their grasping hands.

"Be still," Ariel suggested.

"Not accustomed," Makes Clear sighed. The others watched with interest as Martin finally found the least ticklish section of a cord, about three quarters toward the rear, near the most firmly gripping claws. The skin of the cord changed texture beneath his hands, from hard slick leather to easy-to-grip rubber.

Makes Clear straightened and stiffened. Ariel fumbled, recovered her grip, and they hefted Makes Clear to hip level. "Let's go while we've still got him!" Martin shouted, and they started to run across the floor.

Makes Clear vented a particularly sharp turpentine smell that stung Martin's eyes. To let go and rub his eyes would be disastrous; but he was almost blind. Ariel was little better off. "Where are we?" Martin asked.

"You tell me!"

"I we tell! I we tell!" Makes Clear chirped. "Left, right, right."

"What?"

"Go to the left more," Ariel said. They narrowly missed a line of Brothers, who arched like startled serpents, adding more turpentine scent.

Martin strained his head back, teeth bared, eyes almost shut, arm muscles corded with effort. The Brother weighed at least eighty kilos. Ariel was strong, but her grip was failing, and Makes Clear slipped lower on her side. Just as they finished the trip across the chamber, they all fell and slid into the wall.

Makes Clear rustled and rose upright, then swiftly bent down, unlimbering two pairs of cords along the sides of his upper body. The cords' claws grabbed Martin's and Ariel's arms and legs, and Makes Clear hoisted them from the ground with a loud buzz of effort, tossed them, and caught them around their mid-sections.

"Shit!" Ariel cried out. Makes Clear reversed course and undulated along the weaving track they had followed with comic exactness, again forcing his fellows to arch. Martin felt the claws pinching deep into skin and muscle and grimaced with pain.

The return trip was much faster. The traction of multiple cord claws along a Brother's underside was truly wonderful, like a living tank tread, or a supercharged caterpillar. Makes Clear lowered himself and they scrambled to their feet beside Twice Grown.

"They we did well?" Twice Grown asked, his head rearing to chest level on Martin, smelling like stale fruit.

"Well enough," Martin said, recovering his breath and feeling his ribs.

"Better next when," Twice Grown said, weaving toward Ariel and tapping her arm with an extended cord.

"That's affection," Martin said, looking to see her reaction.

"I know," Ariel said, glaring.

Cham announced the next team, and the exercise worked its way to a rather dull conclusion. By the end, they knew much more about each other, and even the most reluctant—Rex among them—had been forced to come in contact with, and to cooperate with, the Brothers.

Martin sat with his back against the wall. Ariel approached him, examining his face cautiously. "May I?" she asked.

He gestured for her to sit beside him.

"Hans didn't pick Rex," she said quietly.

In the middle of the schoolroom, several men and women showed the Brothers where they had been bruised, and suggested more gentle methods of handling. The Brothers, in broken English and with smells of onion and fresh bread, lodged more courteous, but no less pointed, complaints.

"My luck," Martin said. "Getting ready to jump all over me again?"

"You're a prick, a real prick," Ariel said. A child-like tone of pique took some of the sting out of her words. "You don't deserve my anger." She squatted, lay her back against the wall, straightened her legs one at a time, and slumped beside him.

Rosa had stayed apart from the exercises; Hans had privately instructed Cham not to include her. She seemed dreamy, unfocused; Martin saw her leave the room. "How's Rosa?" he asked.

"Like a volcano," Ariel answered. "Hans isn't helping her any. He may think he is, but she knows what he's doing."

"What do you think he's doing?"

"Typical masculine shit. 'What she needs is a good slicking.'"

"What do you suggest we should do?"

"About Rosa?" She lifted her shoulders, inhaled. "She has a mission. She doesn't pay attention to me now—I'm not in her circle, if you haven't noticed."

"I noticed."

"She doesn't pay attention to anybody, really, except Hans—she's like a tape-recorder with Hans."

"You said she knows what he's up to."

"She's using him as much as he's using her. He's given her official status, Martin. She's strengthening her position. If Hans thinks he's smarter than Rosa… But you're co-opted now, aren't you? You can't talk about Hans or what he's thinking."

"I didn't ask to be second."

"Right," Ariel said, nodding emphatically. "Do you disapprove of Hans?"

Martin didn't answer.

"Right," she said again, and stood. "Everything's working out with the Brothers. But there are some of us besides Rosa who are on the edge, and being with the Brothers isn't helping. You know the ones I mean. They're traveling without any compass, Martin."

"Thank you for believing I have some intelligence."

"You're welcome." She rubbed her hands on her pants and looked at him with an expression between concern and irritation. "I know you won't swallow the bait," she said. "Spit it back. Rosa isn't the most dangerous person on this ship." Martin pretended to ignore her.

Rex lost it first.

Martin was laddering between the first and second homeballs when he heard shouts echoing from below. He clambered down to the neck join and saw a radiance of cords streaming from a pile that had just seconds before been a braid.

Rex stood to one side with a metal baseball bat, face pale and moist. He stooped and swung the bat lightly from one hand. With the other hand he fanned a sharp odor of turpentine and burned sugar.

He turned and lifted his eyes to Martin's face. "Help me," he said, voice flat. "This slicker attacked me."

The braid had completely dissolved. The cords tried to climb the walls and fell back with sad thumps. Three cords lay writhing in the middle of the join, smearing brown fluid on the floor—the first time Martin had seen cords bleeding. "What the hell happened?" he asked.

"I just told you," Rex said, pointing the bat at Martin. "It grabbed me. I had to fight it off."

"Who was it?" Joe Flatworm asked, dropping from a ladder field behind Martin. "Which Brother?"

"I don't know and I don't give a damn," Rex said, lowering the bat and standing straight. "It was a big one."

Two of the three injured cords had stopped moving. Two more Brothers wriggled through cylindrical fields from the level below. They immediately set about bagging the uninjured cords.

Ten more humans and three more Brothers gathered in the dome. Paola Birdsong stooped beside the still cords. Twice Grown slid forward and gently picked up one of the two, not bothering to bag it.

"Is it dead?" she asked.

"It is dead," Twice Grown said.

"Who did it belong to?"

"A cord of Sand Filer," Twice Grown said.

"What is this, a goddamned funeral?" Rex shouted.

Martin approached Rex carefully, holding out a hand and wriggling his fingers. "Give me that," he said.

Rex dropped the bat and stepped away. "Self-defense," he said. Martin picked up the bat and handed it to Joe.

"He was part of your training team," Martin said. "Are you sure he attacked you?"

"It put its claws on me and it pinched like it was going to break my arm," Rex said, backing away from Martin, who kept edging closer.

"Was he trying to do more exercises with you?" Martin asked, working to contain his anger.

"How the fuck should I know?" Rex said. "Stop pressing me, Martin, or I'll—"

"You going to knock his brains out, you slicking baboon?" Hans pushed through the humans and sidled around Martin, then grabbed Rex's sleeves and shook him once, twice. "You—are—a—piece—of—SHIT!" Hans shouted, then dropped Rex and turned back to the middle of the room. "Twice Grown, is Stonemaker coming here?"

Twice Grown consulted his wand. "I we have requested such," he said.

"I hope this one's not badly injured."

"Two cords still, one hurt," Twice Grown said. "Will not be complete Sand Filer."

"We're very sorry," Hans said. "Martin, Joe, take Rex to his quarters. Joe, watch and make sure he doesn't leave."

"What?" Rex cried indignantly. "I said it was self-defense, damn it!"

"Do it," Hans repeated coldly.

Rex did not fight them. Rosa watched, hanging from a field in the neck as they passed. "What happened?" she asked.

"Fuck you," Rex said.

Joe grabbed Rex's shoulder with his free hand. "You're swimming in sewage, buddy," he said firmly. "Don't stop paddling or you'll sink."

Rex wiped his eyes and forehead and shook Joe's hand off. He walked between them in silence.

The inquest was held a day later, Stonemaker, Eye on Sky, Hans, Cham, Joe, and Martin presiding. Rex stood between Cham and Joe, considerably subdued. Hans had interviewed him for an hour after the incident.

Stonemaker made the first remarks. "I we have asked the individual Sand Filer for a telling, but memory is degraded. Sand Filer does not see what happened. We we must rely on your individual for testimony."

Hans sat on a rise in the schoolroom floor and folded his arms. "Tell us, Rex."

Rex looked at the humans in the room, all but Hans. "It's a misunderstanding," he said.

"Tell us," Hans said, tone neutral, eyes downcast.

"We met in the neck join. I was going my way—"

"Carrying a bat?" Hans asked.

"The moms made it for our games. We were going to play baseball in the gym."

"We?" Hans asked.

"We were going to choose teams," Rex said.

"Who?"

"Four or five of us. We wanted to see how baseball was played. Do some normal, Earth-type games."

"You met Sand Filer in the join," Hans prompted.

"Yes. I didn't recognize it—"

" 'Him,' " Martin said softly, "That's the accepted pronoun. 'Him.' "

Rex swallowed hard but was not about to argue. Martin saw the apprehension in him, and something else—a blunt kind of defiance, no admission to himself that he had done anything wrong.

"I didn't recognize him," Rex said. "I didn't know who it… he was. He was big, though. We passed and he reached out to grab me. It hurt. He hurt me."

"Did he give you any warning?"

"He said something, but I couldn't understand. I can't understand any of them."

"Do you understand I we?" Stonemaker asked.

"Mostly, but you speak the best English," Rex said. "It was an accident. He frightened me."

"Did you figure out later what he might have been trying to say?" Martin asked.

"Gentlemen, we have procedures here," Hans interrupted with a heavy sigh. "I'll ask my questions, and Stonemaker will ask his questions."

Martin agreed to that.

"It's a good question, though," Hans said. "What was he trying to say?"

"I don't know," Rex said.

"Something about being on your team in the exercises, the grab races?"

"Maybe," Rex said. "I just didn't hear him clearly."

"Then what?"

"He got me with those claws… Grabbed me around the chest. It hurt like hell. I thought he was attacking me."

"And?" Hans pursued.

"I defended myself."

"Was there any reason he would want to attack you?"

"How should I know?" Rex said.

Here it is, Martin thought. Plain as can be.

"You mean, the Brothers are unpredictable," Hans said, face clouding.

"I don't know them," Rex said, smiling as if on firmer ground.

Hans turned to Stonemaker. "Rex Live Oak has been to Brother orientations. He participated in the grab races. He's carried Brothers, and been carried by them."

"It wasn't like that," Rex said. "It—he tried to crush me."

"You have bruises?"

Rex dropped his shoulder straps and showed livid bruises around his ribs and abdomen.

Stonemaker rustled, rearranged his coils. Hans put his chin in one hand and bent to examine the bruises. "Did you do anything to frighten him?"

"Nothing. I swear."

"No reason for him to attack you."

"Hey," Rex said, his smile broad now, shoulders lifted.

"Stop smiling, you asshole," Hans said. "Stonemaker, can you tell me how Rex might have frightened Sand Filer?"

"We we have not experienced aggression from our partners before," Stonemaker said. "We we do not understand capacity for being frightened, for giving fright."

"I don't think that's clear," Hans said.

"We we do not expect aggression from you," Eye on Sky said. "There is no reason for we us to be afraid, whatever you do, unless we we are injured. Then we we lose trust and may be afraid."

"Makes sense," Hans said. "It's a pity Sand Filer doesn't remember. I'm open to suggestions from our partners."

The Brothers said nothing, weaving and scenting the air with baking bread, new-mown grass.

"I don't have any guidelines myself," Hans said. "I'm very angry at Rex. Personally, I'd throw his ass outside, if the moms would let us. Would they, Martin?"

Martin shook his head.

"You don't know?" Hans pursued, as if shifting his anger to Martin now, Rex being such a pitiful target.

"I don't think they would let us," Martin clarified.

"Damned lucky for Rex. Stonemaker, I don't know how to make up for this breach, however it happened. I think we should be blunt and say that some of our people are still frightened by your people. Rex seems a simple-minded sort, and anything can happen with idiots." He fairly jammed the name down Rex's throat, standing with face pressed a few centimeters from Rex's nose. Surprise or emotion made Rex's eyes water and he stumbled back a step.

"It wasn't anything I planned," he said. "It just happened."

"Will Sand Filer recover?" Hans asked Stonemaker.

"Damage to Sand Filer will not mean breakdown and adoption by others. He will be an individual, and useful to his friends."

"That's… very good," Hans said, taking two sharp and broken breaths, as if he were about to hiccough. He seemed infinitely weary as he returned his attention to Rex. "We take care of our own. Brothers judge Brothers, and humans judge humans. You're banned from the Job. I suppose later you might try something really impressive and heroic, and get back your duty. But I wouldn't waste my time thinking about it."

Rex closed his eyes. "Hans—" he said.

"Please go," Hans said.

"I was defending myself, for Christ's sake!"

"You're a liar," Hans said. "I can't prove it, but you've lost my confidence, and while I'm Pan, you have no work to do. You're a free man, Rex. Leave before I decide to beat the shit out of you."

Rex left the room, shaking his head, fists clenched. He slammed a wall just before stepping through the hatch.

Hans bowed very low to Stonemaker and Eye on Sky. "I beg forgiveness for my people," he said. "We must work together. We have no choice."

"We we shall work together, and this shall be lost in we our minds," Stonemaker said.

"If we judge again, if we take a vote to enact the Law," Hans said, standing in the middle of a wealth of planetary images, "the Brothers will probably vote to investigate. Am I right?"

Martin, Hakim, Joe, and Cham sat circled before Hans in the nose of the ship. Joe and Cham nodded. Hakim kept still and quiet.

"Martin? Will they vote to go in and learn more?"

Martin said he thought they would.

"Because the more we learn, the more ambiguous this all is," Hans said softly. "I don't think it's going to get any better."

"Terribly ambiguous," Cham said. He pulled down a more detailed image of Leviathan's third planet. Smooth, lovely green continents and blue oceans, no visible cloud cover, surface temperature about twenty Celsius, land masses checked with immense tan squares. Surrounding it like a fringe: huge puff-ball seeds, perhaps a thousand kilometers long, touching ocean and continent. The seeds did not limit themselves to the equator; a few even rose from the poles.

Fourth planet, huge and dark, surrounded by seas butting against dark continents spotted with glowing lava-filled rifts. The fifth planet: volatile-rich gas giant, surface temperature of eighty five kelvins, two point two g's, hints of wide green patches and black ribbons, rotating storms. Again enormous structures studded the upper atmosphere, these shaped like giant nested funnels. The sixth: a smaller gas giant, about the size of Neptune, artificial constructs floating in orbit like braided hair, brilliantly reflective. Thick streamers of gas rose from the giant's surface along the equator, drawn up by the constructs.

"Looks like paradise for the fuel-hungry," Cham said.

"A very masterpiece of bullshit," Hans said. "Designed to do just what it's doing to us."

"Or—" Joe said.

Hans raised an eyebrow.

"I can think of two or three ways what we're seeing could actually be what's there."

"Camouflaged with real races and cultures," Hakim said, taking Joe's hint.

"Explain, please."

"Well, Hakim seems on my wavelength," Joe said.

"I think I see it, too," Cham said.

"Somebody should explain it to the poor old boss-man," Hans said.

"The Killers have given up sending out probes," Hakim said. "They have aligned with other cultures, made alliances, and now hide among them."

Hans cocked his head to one side, squinting one eye dubiously.

"Or they've died out," Joe said, "and other spacefaring races have taken over the system."

"If we don't accept that these planets are all projections or something as crazy as that," Hans said. He slumped his shoulders and closed his eyes. "Has anybody asked the moms what they think?"

"I've asked for a formal meeting with a mom and a snake mother," Martin said. "I've asked that Stonemaker and whoever he wants to bring should be there, too."

"Shouldn't I be there?" Hans asked, opening one eye.

"Of course," Martin said.

Hans pinned Martin with a fishy gaze, then smiled. "Good. We've been exercising for a tenday now. Everything's smooth."

"There are still problems with some of our crew," Martin said.

"But they're doing the work," Hans said.

Martin hesitated, then agreed.

"Let me deal with just a few hundred things at a time." Hans stood and stretched. He had put on weight around the stomach and his face seemed puffy. "Rex is staying out of sight. I hope his example keeps the others in check. I need a plan. What are we going to do if the decision is to investigate, get right in close before we drop weapons?"

"Split the ship," Joe said.

Cham agreed. "Maybe into two or three ships, dispersed to swing back at different times, from different angles. All black, all silent."

"My thoughts exactly," Hans said. "Martin?"

"The ship that goes in first… it's a fantasy to think it will stay hidden for long, if at all."

"So?"

"Maybe it should go in openly. Maybe it should be disguised. A Trojan horse."

Hans leaned his head back, looking at Martin over his short nose and open mouth. "Uh, Jesus is simple, Satan is complex. We come in openly, we're traveling merchants, we're not hunting killer probes. We've just come to show our wares—"

Cham cackled and slapped his legs. Hakim looked around, still bewildered. "Don't you see?" Cham asked him.

"I am not—"

"Slick them at their own game," Joe said. Hakim caught on but suddenly frowned.

"They know we were at Wormwood," he said. "They know—"

"They may not know anything," Martin said, energized by his own idea, and Hans' elaboration. "They could easily assume Wormwood killed us in the trap. They're more vulnerable, but for that reason, they can't afford to throw off their disguise—if it is a disguise—"

"Because traveling merchants might tattle on them, or be expected somewhere else, and missed if they don't show," Hans said. "And they have a reputation in the neighborhood to maintain. They let the Red Tree Runners go… Martin, my faith in you has paid off. Anything after this is bonus."

"It is not a bad idea," Hakim agreed, smiling at Martin.

"But it needs development," Hans said. "I want a full proposal, with details, before we talk with the Brothers."

Giacomo and Jennifer picked up quickly around their compartment, embarrassed that Martin had come to visit unexpectedly. Clothing, scrap paper waiting to be run through the ship's recycling, sporting equipment for joint human-Brother games, were quickly stacked into piles and shoved aside. "This would be a real mess if we were coasting," Jennifer said.

"Don't worry about it," Martin said, waving his hand. "I'm just dropping by on my own initiative. Hans hasn't asked for a report on the translations, but I thought I'd inquire…"

"We're working with two of the Brothers now, Many Smells and Dry Skin," Jennifer said.

"Those are complimentary names," Giacomo said, smiling.

"Dry Skin has even chosen a human name. He wants to be called Norman. Sometimes Eye on Sky helps."

"So what do we have?" Martin asked. "Are their libraries better than ours?"

"They're certainly different," Giacomo said. "We've barely begun to translate the really technical stuff, but the snake mothers seem more open with their facts, more trusting. There's less fear of influencing the Brothers, I think—that is, taking away their freedom to choose by overawing them. The Brothers are pretty solid, psychologically."

"Can we learn anything more from their libraries?"

Jennifer looked at Giacomo. "Possibly, if they help us translate."

"Shouldn't you know one way or the other by now?"

"If their libraries stored key concepts in words, yes," Jennifer said. "I'm sure we'd know. But the reason we had to call on Many Smells and Dry Skin/Norman is because we were having such a tough time dealing with the synesthesia—with translating smells and music into human language. Their math is disintegrated, literally—no integers. They deal with everything in probabilistic terms. Numbers are smears of probability. They don't see things separated from each other, only in relations. No arithmetic, only algebras. How many planets around Leviathan? It's expressed in terms of Leviathan's history, the shape of its planet-forming cloud ages past… Only after a Brother understands everything there is to know, will he have an idea how many planets there are. Even their most simple calculations are mind-wrecking, to us—parallel processing of cords in each braid. It's math for much more powerful minds than ours."

"We talked about that already," Giacomo said. "But the definite article is also missing from their languages. They have three languages, auditory, olfactory, and written—but writing is supplementary to the rest. All we've gotten access to is the written, so far. Norman is trying to convert olfactory into written, but he says it's the most difficult thing he's ever done."

"What do the annotations tell us?" Martin asked.

"They're intriguing," Jennifer said, leaning forward, eyes narrowing with enthusiasm. "The snake mothers trust the Brothers—"

"Like we said," Giacomo interrupted.