Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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Martin shook his head. "I never wanted to be Pan."

"You didn't turn it down. You know what a general does? Contrary to the gossips' wisdom on this ship, he doesn't slick with all the troops. He watches them from outside, and he learns how to use them. How to keep them safe. And how to sacrifice some of them to save the rest, or sacrifice all to get the Job done. Any child who reads history knows that. You read history, Martin. Do you agree?"

Instinctively, Martin did not agree, but he had never voiced his instinct.

"Do you agree?" William asked again.

"One for all, and all for one," Martin said, knowing that was not quite the same thing. William seemed to think it was.

"Good. You need someone to stand beside you."

"William, this is so much drift, I can't be isolated and be any good…"

"Not isolated. Just outside a little bit. With a partner who can trim your sails now and then. I approve of Theresa, but you can't—I suppose I'm getting around to what I really want to say, finally—you can't be what you were with me, and have something even stronger with Theresa."

"I don't want to lose you, or hurt you."

"You don't want to lose anythingor hurt anybody," William said. He floated forward with an ankle kick against corner pads and took Martin's shoulders. "But you're still a general, and you've got to do both.

"Listen to wise old William. Here's your fault, Martin. You think that if you slick with someone, you must fall in love with them, and they mustfall in love with you. You think that if you lead someone, you must be gentle, and never hurt them, or make them angry."

"Bolsh," Martin said sharply, jerking his head back.

"And if they don't love you, you feel rejected and hurt. You want to love everybody, but you don't, and that's hypocrisy. You want too much, I think. You want your lovers' souls."

"Not so wise, William," Martin said. He pushed him back with an ungentle hand. "You've completely misunderstood me."

"Theresa's perfect for you," William said. "She's a little smarter than you and a little looser, and she sees something in you that I see as well. But I'll stand aside. I don't want to be second with you; it's a losing game."

Martin saw the tears in William's eyes and reacted with his own. "I'm sorry," he said, floating closer. He stroked William's cheek. "You're a brother to me."

"Brothers we'll be, but don't give me charity slicks, "William said. "Respect me enough to believe I can get along without you."

"You still don't make sense, but if that's what you want…"

"That's the way it already is," William said. "We're going to be soldiers and generals, and we have a Job to do, and I think it's going to be tougher on all of us than we imagine or fear. So no nonsense, no drift. We're not reallyour own masters, Martin, whatever we like to believe, whatever the moms do or don't do, except in whom we love and whom we call brother and sister."

Martin opened the door, rotated in the frame, and said, "Please don't avoid any more meetings."

"I won't."

Erin Eire was a puzzle to Martin; intelligent, reasonable in conversation, clear-eyed, agreeable for the most part, but with a strong and sometimes arrogant streak of independence. Martin found her in the swimming hall, filter mask strapped over her mouth against the spray. He had to call her twice to get her attention.

"Sorry," she said. She paddled out of an oblong of water and across the green ladder field that kept water and spray from the anteroom. The water rebounded through the spherical space; one swam in air sometimes, in water most of the time, the rest of the time in spray and fine mist like clouds.

Martin didn't particularly enjoy swimming. He had almost drowned in the river beside his family home in Oregon when he was four; that memory tainted any enjoyment of the swimming hall.

"I should have been at the meeting, right?" Her smell was brisk, clean and tangy. Though she was naked, her manner removed any ambiguity about sexual arousal. She was straight-forward, natural, not in the least coy with him. The thought simply did not cross her mind. Martin compared her quickly to Theresa; with Theresa his instincts were clear. Though Erin was well-formed, he simply did not feel much sexual attraction to her.

"Right," Martin said. He hated being stern. "Why weren't you?"

"I trust your judgment, Martin."

"That's no excuse, Erin."

She shrugged that off, smiled again. "Theresa's very nice. I hope she takes the sting out of working with people like me."

Martin was exhausted from the strain of the day. His face reddened. "Erin, why are you so bloody obtuse?"

Eyes level, she said, "Maybe because I'm afraid." She wrapped herself in a towel, took an end of the towel and dried her short hair. Most of the Wendys kept their hair short but Erin's was little more than bushy fuzz. Her startling green eyes emerged from behind the folds of towel, anything but nervous or afraid. Whatever she felt, her appearance betrayed nothing. "I'm not questioning your authority. I don'tside with Ariel. Not many of us do."

"I count my small blessings," Martin said.

"Did she agree with the others? About the decision? I'm curious."

"She's withholding judgment. Did you listen to the meeting on your wand?"

"Of course. I'm not a shirker. I just didn't feel like being there. I hate formalities."

"It's important all the same," Martin said. "We do the Job together. I need your input like I need everybody else's."

"I appreciate that, even if I don't believe it." She folded the towel and let it float while she put on her shorts and shirt and tied the tails below her sternum. Over these she slipped the obligatory overalls. Then she looked away. "I won't make things any tougher on you."

Martin started to add something but decided enough was enough. With a nod, he left the anteroom, glad to get away.

The Wendys' party had gone on longer than expected, and Martin, fresh love exaggerated to a peak during the past few hours, worked alone in his quarters, digging through the training and resource materials available in the ship's libraries.

Unable to wait any longer, he went in search of Theresa, and found her where she had said she would be. His relief was balanced by his chagrin at being so driven, by impatience and longing and an unspecified worry that something, anything, could go wrong.

The Wendys were making garments from materials supplied by the moms. Thirty had gathered in Paola Birdsong's quarters; the door was open, and he entered. Theresa kneeled at the periphery of four women. Kimberly Quartz projected patterns from a wand onto a wide, bunched sheet of cloth on the floor. Theresa held one corner of the cloth, smoothing it as Paola drew on it with a blue marker. A few of the women noticed him, smiled politely. Paola glanced up, and then Theresa saw him. For a moment, he was afraid she would be angry, but she gave her corner of the billowing fabric to Kimberly Quartz and came to hug him.

"Time passes," she said. "Sorry I was late."

"No problem. I've been hitting brick walls."

"Can you wait just a few more minutes?"

He took a seat near the door and looked over Paola's quarters, which he had never been in before. She had covered her walls with paintings of jungles, wide green leaves, flowers, insects. A parrot flapped around the room, delighted by the view.

Only two children not at the meeting. It could have been much worse.

Martin shook out of his musings and saw the cutout pieces of cloth suspended in a translucent, colorless field for inspection. Other Wendys talking or singing or working on quilts started to break up and wander out now, nodding cordially to Martin as they passed.

"Come see," Theresa said. She manipulated the projected images of the pattern, assembling them in the air. Paola Birdsong and Donna Emerald Sea smiled as they watched their design take shape. Donna's cockatoo preened itself on a rack that held samples of cloth the moms could manufacture.

"It's a gown. This is what it will look like, when it's cut and sewn together," Paola told him, smoothing the sheet of fabric.

He had never paid much attention to her, but in Theresa's presence, he felt a sudden affection for her, and by extension for all the Wendys, and he regretted not having that kind of loose, undemanding, insightful affection.

"Paola and I designed it," Donna said. She was quick and nervous, with generous eyes and a small mouth and short blond hair.

The final design showed a long white gown covered with tiny glass beads, glittering magnificently in a rotating light unseen beyond the projection. "A ceremonial gown," Theresa said. She stepped into the projection.

"My turn," Paola said. Theresa adjusted it for the smaller woman.

"It's for when we find our new Earth, after we do the Job," Paola said. "The first Wendy to step on the planet will wear this. The wedding of the children to the new Earth. "

Martin had heard nothing of these plans and he found himself suddenly filled with emotion. "It's beautiful."

"Glad you like it," Theresa said. "Do you think the Lost Boys would like an outfit for their first step?"

"I don't know," he said. He had never given much thought to that time. Then, "We'd love them. Will everybody wear them?"

Donna looked at Theresa. "We were only making one…"

"Martin's right. Everybody will want them," Theresa said.

"Then we'd better plan more," Donna said. "A good excuse for more parties."

They tried a few more fittings, then Theresa made her farewells.

Martin escorted Theresa down a shadowed hall. They passed Rosa. She edged around them with a furtive nod. Martin wondered when he would have to talk with her, deal with her; she had few friends and no lovers. She was slowly opting out of their tight-knit society.

Theresa said, "It would be nice to make a gown for her," looking back at Rosa. "She needs something, Martin."

"I know."

Theresa took his earlobes in her fingers, pulling him lightly down to kiss her. "We're alone here," she said. "You've been very patient. Talking to everybody… It must have been difficult. Ariel can be tough."

Martin looked up and down the corridor. "Let's go… to my quarters," he said between her kisses.

"Why?" she asked, teasing with her hips.

"Because I'm shy. You know that."

"Somebody will see us?"

"Come on." He tugged her hand gently as he led the way.

"It's because you're Pan, isn't it?"

"Theresa…"

"All right," she said wistfully. "Nothing adventurous for a Pan's lover."

He frowned, then pulled her toward him and unsnapped her overalls. "You'll make me do anything, won't you? Shameless," he said into her ear.

"Somebody in this dyad has to be adventurous."

He kissed her while mulling over that word, dyad. They certainly were that; he had not called their relationship such, reserving the word for what he and William had had, but what he felt for Theresa deserved it more.

"Wedding dress," he said, holding her high to suckle.

"For all of us," Theresa said, eyes closed, grinding her hips against his stomach. "Lower me."

"Not yet. Not until you say I'm adventurous."

"You're adventurous."

Martin heard something, a breath or a rustle of cloth, and turned to see Rosa coming back. Her quarters were somewhere near here; they were in her path. She looked both sad and embarrassed, reversed, laddered back around the curve.

"Sorry," Theresa called after her. "It's your hall, too, Rosa."

But she was gone. Martin lowered Theresa and made a face.

"You were right," Theresa said, chagrined. "She's so shy… she didn't need to see us. But it's nothing to do with your being Pan." She pulled up her overalls. "Your quarters," she said.

He lay beside Theresa in the darkness, awash in an abandonment he had not known in some time. He was free of care, loose in body luxury, all demands satisfied or put aside where they would not nag. Theresa lay still, breathing shallow, but she was not asleep. He heard her eyelids opening and closing. Long, languid blinks. Such sated animals.

"Thank you," he said.

She caressed his leg with hers. "You're so quiet. Where are you?"

"I'm home," he said.

"Thinking about Earth?"

"No," he said. "I'm home. Here with you."

And it was true. For the first time in thirteen years, here in the darkness, he felt at home. Home was a few minutes between extreme worries and challenges; home was a suspension outside any place or time.

"That's sweet," Theresa said.

"I love you."

"I love you, Martin. But I'm not home. Not yet."

He pulled her to him. The moment was fleeting and he wanted to grab it but could not. Temporary, ineffable. Not home. No home.

Martin entered the nose dressed in exercise shorts, neck wrapped in a sweat towel. He had just worked out with Hans Eagle and Stephanie Wing Feather in the second homeball gym when Hakim signaled that they might have enough information to make the next decision.

The Dawn Treader'slong nose extended a hundred meters from the first homeball, a slender needle only three meters wide at the point. Hakim Hadj and three of the search team—Li Mountain, Thomas Orchard, and Luis Estevez Saguaro—kept station in the tip of the nose, surrounded by projections.

Transparent to visible light, the tip of the nose revealed a superabundant darkness, like an unctuous dye that could stain their souls.

The remotes, four thousand tiny sensors, had departed from the third homeball two days before, returning their signals to the Dawn Treaderusing the same point-to-point "no– channel" transmission their weapons and craft would use when outside the ship. Within a distance of ten billion kilometers, information simply "appeared" in a receiver, and could not be intercepted between; hence, no channel. The effective rate of transmission was almost instantaneous. The children called the no-channel transmissions noach.

Moms, ship's mind, and libraries were unresponsive to inquiries on the subject of noach; it was one of the tools bequeathed without explanation.

With the remotes, the "eye" of the Dawn Treaderhad expanded enormously, and was now nine billion kilometers in diameter, nearly two thirds as wide as the solar systems they studied.

Hakim pushed through the haze of projections and glided toward Martin. Li Mountain and Luis Estevez Saguaro watched, fidgeting with their wands, but controlling their enthusiasm enough to let Hakim take charge.

"It's even better," Hakim said. "It's very good indeed. We have resolution down to a thousand kilometers, and estimates of energy budgets. The nearest system is inhabited, but it's not consuming energy like a thriving high-tech civ should. Still, it's the most active, and it's where we might expect it to be."

Hakim's wand projected graphics and figures for Martin. Assay fit very closely indeed. "We've been looking through the stellar envelopes and we've put together a picture of the birthing cloud in this region. Shock-wave passage from a supernova initiated starbirth about nine billion years ago, and the supernova remnants seeded heavy elements along these gradients… " Hakim's finger traced a projected purple line through numbers describing metals densities, "metals" meaning elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. He jabbed at a clustering of numbers. "The Buttercup is right in this gradient, right in this magnetic pool, to receive the only dose of exactly these proportions." Red numbers bunched within a dip in the galaxy's magnetic field, where gases might collect, waiting to be condensed into stars. "No other star system within a hundred light years matches the Buttercup's assay."

Martin felt numb, not yet realizing with all of his faculties how significant this was.

"Time for another gathering," he said thoughtfully.

"I'll report to the moms," Hakim said.

* * *

They had never before seen more than three moms together, although they had suspected there could be many more. Several times the children had kept track of their whereabouts in the Dawn Treaderand tried to count them, as a kind of game, but they could never be surehow many there were. Now, all eighty-two children—Lost Boys and Wendys–gathered in the schoolroom to make the final decision, and there were six identical moms, all with the same patient, neutral voices.

More than anything that had happened before, this gave Martin chills. He had personally estimated there were no more than four moms in the entire ship. It seemed likely to him now that the Dawn Treadercould manufacture the robots at will; but that meant the ship itself was a kind of giant mom.

Putting six into the schoolroom was a symbolic action, surely… And it communicated to Martin, at least, with full force.

Four moms hovered at the periphery of the schoolroom, silent and unmoving, like sentinels. Two moms floated in the center of the schoolroom, beside the star sphere. They waited patiently until the children were quiet, which took less than a minute. Martin saw Ariel enter with William and Erin just as the first mom began to speak.

The mom at stage left advanced and said, "The information on the candidate stellar group has increased. If the ship alters its course now, and begins deceleration, you are less than three months from this system, ship's time. Deceleration will use most of our reserves, and we will need to refuel within one of the stellar systems, the Buttercup or the Cornflower. There are unlikely to be sufficient volatiles available in the Firestorm system."

A diagram of their orbital path and velocities spread before the children. Deceleration for three tendays at one g, ship's reference, which would drop their speed to about ninety percent c and increase their tauconsiderably, bringing them into a position to enter the Buttercup system. Then deceleration of two g's for twenty-three days. They would enter the system at just over three fourths the speed of light, crossing the system's diameter of eleven point two billion kilometers in just under fourteen hours.

Martin noted that their trajectory would take them through the dark haloes of pre-birth material, through the plane of the ecliptic, and then under the Buttercup's south pole, considerably below the plane of the ecliptic. They would pass within two hundred million kilometers of one rocky world, and a hundred million kilometers of the second, directly between them, when both were nearly aligned on one side of the system.

"The remotes have given your search team more information. You will now be provided with the expanded figures to make your next decision."

Ariel watched Martin from across the room. Her expression said nothing, but he could feel her disapproval.

Hakim Hadj pushed forward from the search team. "The information is wonderful… Very provocative." He raised his wand, and the wand of each sang in tune, and projected images into their eyes.

They saw:

That the two yellow stars had altered stellar envelopes—that the streams of particles flowing outward from the stars' surfaces were being gathered and twisted like hair in braids, forming streamers above and below the poles. The magnetic fields of the stars were being altered to control their surface activity, and to allow fine tuning of their radiation output. None of the planets were swept by particle storms any more, nor were they subjected to the vagaries of stellar interiors. This helped explain the altered stellar signature—spectrum versus size and brightness—that had first pointed to the presence of an advanced civilization.

Other details could be discerned around the nearest yellow star, the Buttercup: altered planetary orbits, with a single gas giant world pushed in closer to the Buttercup, perhaps to allow easier mining of volatiles. The gas giants were even more depleted of volatiles than they had first estimated; refueling would be difficult around this star.

Between the Buttercup's outermost rocky world and the nearest depleted gas giant orbited a million-kilometer-thick halo of flimsy structures largely made of silicates. One or more rocky worlds, or perhaps an entire asteroid belt, might have been sacrificed to make the halo; what purpose it served could not be known yet. Hakim speculated they might have been enormous mirrors to refocus energy on the inner planets, or perhaps to deflect radiation from the red giant in its more violent phase.

The farther yellow star showed no high-tech activity. "Someone might be hiding," Hakim said, "but we have no way of knowing that."

He saved the most impressive displays for last.

"Some of the information we're about to show you was gathered by the Benefactors long before Earth was destroyed," Hakim said. "Several thousand years ago… The moms have given this to us."

In simulation, they saw dim flares around the two yellow stars, as viewed from hundreds or even thousands of light years away: the expenditure of vast energies necessary to move the planets and alter the stars. The flares had lasted only for a matter of decades—a mere instant on the time-scale of the galaxy, but obviously, eager eyes and ears had caught the flicker.

The transformation of the two solar systems had taken place simultaneously, about a hundred years before the Firestorm—twice the mass of Sol—went through helium flash to become a red giant, a hideous lively bloating that swallowed five planets. They watched in silence as the red giant cast away immense cloaks of gas, its face becoming pocked and ragged like a burning, decaying skull.

Hans Eagle spoke out. "If the Killers live here, did they send out machines before or after they made these changes?"

"Probably before," the first mom said. "In our experience—"

"Nobody knows how much experience you've had, or how long," Ariel said, voice chilly.

"Please, Ariel," Hakim said, infinitely patient.

"In our experience," the mom continued, "beings who build killer probes usually do so before they have mastered the techniques necessary to perform large-scale stellar reconstruction."

"Then it's been thousands of years since the probes were launched," Hans continued.

"Very likely."

Hans nodded, satisfied.

The last display traced the paths of intercepted killer machines, but covered a thousand light years rather than a dozen; their known and postulated victims were marked by red dots, and the systems they had merely passed through glowed green. Approximate dates relative to Earth's death and distances of these events from the three-star group were given in flashing white.

Martin was astonished by the wealth of data; a partial answer to Ariel's doubts. His mind raced to gather the implications: sometimes the Ships of the Law didbreak silence, to transmit the locations of killer machines, to broadcast their captures and triumphs. The transmissions would not have been hidden; the distances are too vast for the noach… They would have risked revealing themselves…

Hakim concluded by placing all the displays around the star sphere for their contemplation. "That is all we have for now," he said.

Again, the children did their momerath, and the schoolroom fell silent.

Martin visualized the spaces of probability behind tight-closed eyes, hands opening and closing, seeing the numbers and the paths, making them converge and diverge. Each time he repeated the momerath he concluded there was a high probability—perhaps ninety-five percent—that the Killers came from this stellar group. The probes had probably been manufactured in the system of the Buttercup, the near yellow star.

After sufficient time had passed—perhaps two hours of steady concentration, in complete silence—the moms gathered at the center of the schoolroom, and the first mom said, "What is your judgment?"

"Comments first," Paola Birdsong insisted.

The comments were more expressions of personal involvement and emotion than substantive questions or objections; this much Martin had expected. He had watched the group reach consensus on other matters far less important than this, and this was how they worked: speaking out, finding individual roles.

Mei-li Wu-Hsiang Gemini, a small, quiet woman with the Starsigns family, asked whether there were other civilizations within the close vicinity of this group. Hakim called up a display already shown: all stars that might have harbored planets with life, within twenty-five light years of the group. None had shown even the most subtle signs of civilized development. That was not conclusive evidence one way or another; left alone, the planets might not have developed intelligent life—though the chances were two in five, for so many stars, that at least one civilization would have evolved.

There was always the possibility that the intelligences might have been smarter than humanity, keeping silent even in their technological youth.

But added to the other evidence, the lack was significant.

"What are the chances that civilizations would die off or abort themselves, in so many planetary systems?" George Dempsey asked.

The first mom said, "Given the number of systems with planets, and the probability of life arising, and the probability of that life developing technological ability—" The figures flashed before them again. Martin did not bother doing the momerath; he had done it already, the first time around. Chances were, so had Dempsey. This was socialization, not serious cross– examination.

Time of accepting what they all knew must come next…

More questions, for yet another hour, until Martin's eyes and tense muscles burned. He could sense the group's fatigue. He glanced at the remaining children in his mental queue, decided they would not have anything substantive to add, and said, "All right. Let's get down to it."

"You're prepared to make a decision?" the first mom asked.

"We are," Martin said.

Grumbling and rustling, the children rearranged themselves into their families and drill groups. They felt much more comfortable among their chosen peers; this was not an easy thing and none was happy to be hurried along.

"You are deciding whether to decelerate, at substantial fuel cost, and direct this Ship of the Law into the stellar group we have observed, to investigate the intelligent beings there, and to judge whether they built the machines that destroyed your world," the first mom said. "Pan will count your votes."

One by one, they voted, and Martin tallied. There could be no more than ten abstentions in the entire group, or the process would begin again. Seven abstained, including Ariel. Sixty-one voted to go in and investigate. Fourteen voted to pass the group by, to search for something more definite.

"We need an opposition Pan," Ariel insisted. Paola Bird-song, who had voted to investigate, disagreed.

"We've followed procedures," she said. "It's done."

"We've followed the moms'procedures," Ariel said.

"They train us and instruct us," Ginny Chocolate said. "I don't see what you're after."

"Are we puppets?" Ariel asked, glaring around the groups.

The other children seemed confused. The grumbling increased. Martin felt his stomach twist.

Jorge Rabbit intervened. Olive skinned, with thick black hair, quick with jokes, Jorge was popular in the group. "This is enough, poor children, Martin is right. We are here to do this work. We are not puppets; we are students."

Ariel tightened her jaw and said no more. Martin felt a sudden perverse tug for her.

"It's done," he said. "The children have voted. We go."

Martin ate in the cafeteria with the day's drill group when the maneuvers began.

The children felt it first as a deeper vibration through the ship, singing in their muscles and bones.

"Oh, man," Harpal Timechaser said. He brought out his wand and let it drift in the air. Slowly, precessing this way, then that, as the ship maneuvered to bring its drives to bear, the wand spun slowly, drawing their complete attention.

The vibration increased. The Dawn Treader'shull made a melodic singing noise, deep and masculine, as all the stresses of the drive pushed through its fabric. The wand began to settle, first toward one wall. They felt themselves "pushed" with it, and they yelled with excitement, then groaned as the room oriented within the ship, as if spun on gimbals, one flat wall becoming a floor, the other a ceiling.

A gentle ten percent g as the drives came alive, stretched, clearing their throats.

"I'm going to be sick," Paola Birdsong said. "Why don't they smooth it for us?"

"Because we hate that more than this," Martin reminded her.

Half an hour later, the ship sang again, on an even deeper note. Martin saw the ship in momerath, felt its load of fuel decreasing steadily, flare of particles and radiation disappearing into the bottomless darkness of the ship's external sump, a way to conceal their wastes by scattering them across the surrounding light years as an increase in the energy of the vacuum.

They were going where fuel would be difficult to find.

Full gravity returned. The halls and quarters filled with complaints, more excitement; painted, half-dressed children running, stumbling, cursing, grimacing, trying to leap; falling, cursing again.

Two children broke bones in the first few hours. Their casts, applied by a mom in the dispensary after bone-knitting therapy, served as warning notice for the rest. Martin called a general meeting in the full-gravity schoolroom and the injured showed off their trophies.

The injured would be well within two days… The moms' medicine was potent. But until the casts were off, they could not participate in most of the drills.

The ship transformed itself subtly like a living thing, usually when no one was watching. Throughout, rooms oriented to the end of weightless coasting.

Once past their initial excitement, the children did not find the change disturbing. Psychologically, it was a return to the old patterns of the Ark, and to their year-long acceleration to near light speed away from the Sun. Not to mention their years on Earth…

More changes would come soon—two g's, a heavy burden—and if they decided to go for orbital insertion into the Buttercup system, the action would be spectacular.

They had never before experienced the Ship of the Law demonstrating its full power and sophistication…

The Dawn Treaderwas a single virus about to enter a highly protected and extremely powerful host, with unknown capabilities. Martin would report to the moms every day now, and a mom would be constantly available in the schoolroom; the same mom, with an identifying mark painted on it by Martin, at the suggestion of Jorge Rabbit and Stephanie Wing Feather, who thought it would boost morale.