Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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"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'screw 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 youto 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 Horsedoesn'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. " Shrikewill be out of touch with Trojan Horse, beyond the ten-billion-kilometer range, for about four tendays, just when Trojan Horsegoes into orbit around the green world. Greyhoundand Trojan Horsewill 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 Greyhoundwith 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 relievedby 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 Horseas 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 knowwhat 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 Horseentered 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.