Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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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'tdestroyed. 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 Treaderand 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'sBrothers to Shrike."

" Shrikestayed 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 Shrikethan 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 hermistake, 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 hadhis 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 seenthe 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.