Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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"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 Seedaltered 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 Seedin 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 Greyhounddirectly. Through them, of course, Shrikeas well, but Shrikeis 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 myplace," 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 lookingat 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'snoach 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 Shrikeand Greyhound.

Giacomo said to Martin, "The ships' minds are on a continuous link with Trojan Horsenow. They're telling Trojan Horsehow 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 Horseis too small to support weapons of the kind being made on Greyhound."

"Is Shrikemaking 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 Shrikeas 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 Seedstill 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.