Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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Jeanette Snap Dragon lifted her arm in a clenched fist, and the defectors followed her example.

Hans did not look at Martin after, though he passed close on his way out. Patrick glanced in his direction, face troubled.

The delegation came to Martin's quarters in the middle of his sleep. His wand woke him, chiming insistently. He opened the door and Patrick stepped in, Thorkild Lax behind him, then David Aurora, Carl Phoenix, and last—making Martin's heart ache, for he knew what was happening—Harpal Timechaser. None of them met his eyes but Patrick, who said, "It's time to put everything behind us."

Patrick in front, Carl on one side, David on another, Harpal slightly above him, Thorkild below; a cage of men. Martin smelled their tension.

"Everything?" he said.

"It's history," Patrick said. "Besides, you'll get no support. Nobody wants to dig any more. We need to forget and get on with our lives."

"Forget what?" Martin asked mildly, but his heart pumped strong and fast. His body was very frightened, but the fear hadn't yet reached his head.

"Your investigation."

"We know who killed Rosa, and he's dead, and Hans had nothing to do with it, at least no more than the rest of us," Carl said.

"She would have stopped us," Thorkild said.

"We did the slicking Job," Patrick hissed, and Martin knew the quincunx of his danger. Patrick was the center who would radiate to the other four. "We did what we came here to do."

"Let's just give it up, huh?" Harpal asked. "We're tired."

Martin rotated in mid-air to face Harpal. Nobody would look straight into his eyes. Harpal managed to focus on Martin's cheek. "Why are you here? Power?" he asked.

"Beg pardon?" Harpal seemed to sleepwalk, only half-listening.

"I'm asking you why you're here."

"I thought we could talk some sense into you. You know as well as I what Hans did. He drew us together."

"That doesn't absolve him…"

"After what we've just done," Harpal said, pain and dismay passing over his face but not disturbing the simple, stolid exhaustion behind any expression, "you want to investigate a… what? A murder, you think? It's insane, Martin. Let it lie."

"You've got the finger of God working for you," Martin said, not too rationally. "That's all you need?"

"We couldn't have done it without Hans," Patrick said, "and now you want him punished for something he didn't do."

"I just want to know," Martin said.

"We know already," Patrick said.

"It takes five of you to tell me this?"

"We're your friends," Harpal said. "We don't want anything bad for you."

"Hans asked you to watch out for me?"

"You be careful," Carl said, but Patrick reined him in with a sharp look. Who is more stupid, Carl, Patrick– or David? I know Harpal and Thorkild… I don't know the others nearly as well. Odd some of us are still strangers. Then maybe I don't know any of them. Why are they here? They were my friends. We worked together.

"We worked together," Harpal said. "We don't want you to be the center of trouble."

"You were a Pan," Martin said.

Harpal tightened his lips, jaw working, relaxing. "I know the responsibilities, the decisions. So do you. I know what Hans is capable of. So do you. Rex was the one who went rogue, not Hans."

"Besides," Patrick said, "Rex is dead, everybody who could know is dead."

"Rex said Hans put him up to it," Martin reminded them.

"He was crazy. He fell in with Rosa's group, they twisted him…"

"All the defectors are crazy, too?"

"They're ineffective," Harpal said.

"They don't understand. They're weak links," David said.

Martin still could not tell how far they would go. Surely not all five would attack him. One or two, the others standing back, ashamed, but caught.

"We're ready to go on," Thorkild said, glancing at the others. "Get out of here and marry a planet."

Patrick's eyes were dead. He seemed half asleep.

"We don't want to dig it all up. It's the past. It's dead."

"It smells," Martin said. "It will not stop smelling. We can't cut clean from the past."

"We still have mopping up to do," Harpal said, trying to sound persuasive, reasonable. "The defectors aren't helping, and the Brothers turned out to be real liabilities."

"The Brothers helped us."

"Forget that," Patrick said. "Let's just keep it simple."

Rage colored fear, and the mix made his whole body burn. He wanted them all gone, if not gone then dead, and he could smell the same wish in their breath, their sweat.

David's eyes had become still, lifeless.

Thorkild and Harpal looked like the ones most likely to back off. He moved closer to Harpal. "I'm not out to cause trouble," Martin said. "That's Hans' doing. Some of us want him to stand down. That's all. That's our privilege as crew."

My, you sound rational, clever. That will increase their dead-ness, their anger. It decreases your anger, to talk so, to try to reason with friends so. You don't really hate or fear them. That makes you weaker. They'll kill you for that, for acting like a victim.

"Not if it puts all of us in danger," Harpal said, reacting to the reasonable tone with his own reason. Harpal will not act with them. "What if the Killers have a surprise waiting for us? If we drop our discipline, lose our edge, they'll have us. We're not ready to check out now."

"Not after all we've been through," Thorkild said. "Come on, Martin." Thorkild won't attack.

Patrick drifted closer, hand gripping a thin ladder field. Martin raised his wand.

"Get me Hans and Ariel, triple link," he said.

Patrick made a grab for the wand.

"Hans does not reply," the wand said as Martin swung it out of Patrick's reach. Patrick lunged again, and again Martin swung it away. Anything can happen now.

Ariel's voice came on, sleepy.

"Witness!" Martin said. "Tie us in to everybody."

"What?"

Patrick and David grabbed for the wand.

"Martin?"

Patrick got the wand and wrenched it from Martin's grasp. David and Thorkild held him, Carl made a grab for a leg but missed and then backed away. Carl's out.

Patrick tried to smash the wand against the floor, but it would not break. Stupid stupid

"Martin!" Ariel's voice called out. "I'm tying you in."

Harpal moved in before Martin could back away and struck him in the kidneys. It might have been a deadly blow, but Harpal's ladder field was just far enough away that the peak of his blow came before his fist actually struck.

Martin kicked with both legs backward, hands on the floor, and one bare foot caught Harpal in the teeth, cutting Martin's heel and spinning Harpal away to the ceiling. It was a mess, fighting weightless, grabbing fields, all instincts useless. They had done enough sports to know the right moves for most activities, but fighting engaged an older brain with less savvy, and the result was sloppy.

Patrick slammed his head against the floor. Martin grabbed the wand and tossed it away from the group of them.

"We see!" Ariel cried out.

"WE SEE!" other voices cried.

"Stop it!" Jennifer screamed. "Thorkild, stop it!"

Other voices joined in. David had Martin around his neck and shoulders, beyond hearing. He forced Martin's neck down with his hands, jerking spasmodically, trying to really hurt him, crack his spine. Martin felt the jerks as explosions of pain. He reached behind and lifted his thumb rigid and slammed it into David's crotch. The grip relaxed and David grunted, fell away.

For a second, they all flailed helplessly, unable to connect. Drops of blood from Harpal's lip and Martin's foot smeared against overalls.

All the ladder fields in the room vanished. His face like a desperate little boy's, Patrick still clawed at Martin, at the air. Jewels of blood swirled in the vortices of their limbs.

"Stop it." Hans' remote voice in Martin's room.

"Stop it, now!" Hans again.

Patrick stopped flailing.

"What in the fuck are you all doing?" Hans shouted.

Patrick's expression, Martin thought, was priceless: dismay mixed with deep anxiety, vacant look gone. None of them looked blank now.

The killing time was past.

Martin had survived,

"I've lost it," Hans said.

Martin hung beside Hans in a net, alone with him in his quarters.

"I sent Patrick to do something and he didn't think he could do it alone. So he asked for some backups," Hans said, closing his eyes, leaning his neck back. "I should have known he'd be weak."

"What did you send him to do?" Martin asked.

"Talk sense into you." Voice low, drained. "I need to sleep, Martin. All I want to do now is sleep."

"They could have killed me," Martin said, wonder in his voice. "You didn't see what Patrick…"

"I'm tired, hey." Hans shook his head. "I still don't see why so many joined him. Maybe I was doing better than I thought. But… It isn't worth it now. You've won. I'll resign. "

"Nobody's asked you to."

"Did you see their expressions?" Hans asked. "The Wendys in particular. Even Harpal." He shook his head. "Poor Harpal. No. I'll resign."

"You did it yourself," Martin said.

"I did it all by myself," Hans said, head lolling. "I didn't want you dead."

"How could you have miscalculated?"

" 'Miscalculated.' " Hans laughed softly. "That's your problem, Martin. Good soul, but still too intellectual. You think first and see second. I see first and think about what I see. I didn't 'miscalculate.' I slicked up."

"Did you ask Rex to kill Rosa?"

Hans jerked his head forward. "I did not. I swear I did not. But I mighthave."

Martin shook his head, not comprehending.

Hans rubbed the palms of his hands together, tapped one palm with an index finger. "Could we have done the Job with Rosa breaking the crew into little bitty pieces?"

"She could have been dealt with."

"You're wrong. Rex broke from me because I slammed him. He didn't know who he was, and he thought we all hated him. Rosa preached love. He came to her. She used him. I didn't ask him to kill her. She wasn't what her people think she was. She was a lot like me."

"Rosa didn't deserve to die."

"We wouldn't be here if she had lived."

Martin did not want to argue the point more. "When will you resign?"

"Right now. You take me someplace public, drag me on a chain if you like. I'll give a sad speech. Old Pans never die."

"I don't understand you," Martin said.

"I understand you," Hans said. "I only ask for one thing. I want to still be Pan when the report is made."

The surviving crew of the Dawn Treadercame to the schoolroom in two groups. Martin entered with the larger group, behind Hans, which drew looks of surprise. Ariel seemed to have gathered her own small cluster of people. Martin saw a power center forming; none of them knew of his talk with Hans.

Watching the way the people associated, Martin saw a swirl of sentient particles working according to certain principles far from fixed, far from immutable; but still, he saw the interactions, and could understand some of their import. He had thought long hours about the conversation with Hans. When he looked now, he saw first, thought about what he saw; he did not impose wishes and patterns and ideals.

The new ability saddened him a little. Of all the illusions of childhood, the one he hated to lose most was this: that humans worked according to unspoken but noble goals, that they followed an intrinsic path to justice, that they would resist error and move toward self-understanding.

Two moms hung on each side of the star sphere, four in all. The ruins of Leviathan's worlds filled the sphere, passing in slow, sad scale, majestic rubble, caverns of nebulosity shot through with the glows of cooling chunks of worlds, sparks of fake matter disintegration not yet complete.

"The analysis is not finished," the ship's voice said, neutral and close in each of their ears. "There is no precedent in memory for the use of weapons of this power and type. Nor is there precedent for a civilization of precisely this character. The after-effects are difficult to judge. Destruction appears to be complete, but a definitive assessment cannot be reached, perhaps for centuries to come."

Martin had suspected this. He had dreamed of unexpected survivals; of civilizations encoded in tumbling boulders, hidden in the rubble, waiting for a chance to rebuild; of staircase gods buried deep in Leviathan itself.

"The Law requires certainty. It does not require that you devote more of your time, however. You have made your judgment and enacted the Law."

"We want to know," Hans said.

"That is understandable," the ship's voice said.

"We needto know." Hans' face was even more drawn; he had expected something final. In this, at least, Martin had been more realistic than he.

"Then you should decide to stay and devote more time."

"What are the choices?" Martin asked.

"Your alternative is to continue with your lives. As promised, we will either return you to your solar system, or you may seek another system, find another world not yet inhabited that is suited to your needs."

"That's another phase, another part of the journey," Martin said. He looked at Hans.

Hans pulled himself closer to the sphere. "I've decided my time as Pan is finished. I had hoped to know for sure whether we've finished the Job, but… I don't think I should be Pan any longer. I resign." His tone was calm, but his face seemed even more drawn, almost wizened.

"Time to nominate," Anna Gray Wolf said. Martin saw the vortex more clearly.

The Wendys and Lost Boys of the larger group immediately conferred. Jeanette's group seemed at a loss, left out. Martin moved toward Jeanette. She held her ground, lips set tight.

"You're still with us, if you want to be," Martin said in an undertone. "We can't divide now."

She shook her head. "It isn't enough for Hans to step down."

"You can nominate from your own group," Martin said. "Come back in. I want you to."

"You were part of the atrocity," Jeanette said, brows knit, mouth drawn up in anger. "Coming back is like condoning what happened. We'd rather go with the Brothers."

"Ask them," Martin said, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the dissidents. "You can't make that decision by yourself."

Knots of activity formed, low voices rose in debate, sank again into conspiratorial discussion.

"You want to be Pan again," Jeanette accused, uncertain.

"Not in a joke," Martin said.

She turned away, and the defectors formed their own knot, which then broke into smaller knots.

Hans stayed away from the activity. He looked longingly at the star sphere, as if trying to find his own answer. Martin decided it would be best for now to leave him by himself, not to associate with Hans at this time; Hans was a sink of influence, an outcast. But that went against Martin's instincts.

He ignored his instincts.

"We nominate Patrick Angelfish!" said David Aurora. Six of the crew stood around Patrick, who looked frightened. Harpal was not one of the six; he stayed close to Anna Gray Wolf.

"We nominate Leo Parsifal," said Umberto Umbra.

Good. Totally off the beaten path, Martin thought.

Jeanette came forward, even less certain now, looking scared. "We nominate Mei-li Wu-Hsiang Gemini."

"I nominate Ariel," Martin said. She looked at him with a frown so intense he interpreted it at first as anger.

"Good," Harpal said softly.

Hans did not look away from the star sphere.

"Vote for new Pan," Kirsten Two Bites called out.

Martin watched the vortices break apart, reform, watched power and decision move from one group to another, discussion, debate, watched Ariel surrounded by her group, yet still looking very alone. She was not angry. She was terrified. She could not bring herself to refuse.

She felt the power, as well.

The vote was about to be taken when Eye on Sky entered the schoolroom with a snake mother. Paola went to the Brother and spoke with him. Then she pulled herself to Martin.

"Eye on Sky says the Shrikehas found something important. Should he tell us now? He seems to think it's an emergency."

"Then let's hear it," Martin said. He called for their attention.

Eye on Sky uncoiled, smelling faintly of turpentine and dry grass. "We we have spoken with Shrike. Something important found hidden. Greyhound'shelp is requested."

Ariel appeared greatly relieved.

The remains of Sleep smeared out in an arc that in a few million years would form a ring of asteroids around Leviathan. Already, Leviathan's radiation and particle winds pushed the lighter elements in the arc outward.

Greyhoundaccelerated to join with Shrikeat the nearest terminus of this arc, a journey of sixty-two million kilometers.

At ten g's, Greyhoundwould reach Shrikein less than three hours. The crews endured the field restraints; the acceleration was not so extreme as to completely inhibit activity.

They had enough time to vote. The nominees spoke briefly; Mei-li withdrew, saying she was much too confused and uncertain to exercise leadership. Martin noted with some satisfaction that Ariel did not withdraw.

Hans watched silently, standing by himself to one side.

The vote was conducted secretly by wand. Martin tallied the results.

"Ariel is Pan," he announced.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Starting now?" she asked.

"Starting now," Martin affirmed.

"I choose Jeanette Snap Dragon to be my second," she said.

The defectors were not prepared for this, and left the schoolroom to talk.

Ariel stood beside Martin, distinctly nervous as the crew congratulated her singly and in groups. "I shouldn't have accepted the nomination," she said to him in a brief free moment. "This is awful. You really have it in for me, don't you?"

"You'll do fine," Martin said.

"Oh, God, I chose Jeanette. Why did I do that?"

" Brings unity," Martin assured her, though he had his doubts.

"Are you going to help me, or just gloat?"

"Both," Martin said.

She squinted one eye and curled her lip. "I deserve it," she said. "Oh, God, I'm an idiot."

Shrikesent no more transmissions. Martin thought this might be a small game on the part of the Brothers, and his interest was piqued. Eye on Sky refused to say any more, even with Paola's urging; the Brother smelled strongly of turpentine.

What could possibly compel them to ask for human help? The Brothers were convinced destruction of the Leviathan system had been wrong, or at the very least premature…

Martin studied the crew in the schoolroom. He could see no more vortices of power, and wondered if he had hallucinated them. What he saw now was quiescence, waiting. Even Ariel drew no more attention than she might have before she was Pan. She sat talking quietly with Anna Gray Wolf and Martin felt a stab of loneliness; she had needed him, the need had passed. He had not nurtured it very well.

Hans squatted in a lotus before the star sphere, ragged, thin, pale, fingers tapping the floor lightly. His face seemed religious with concentration and something like fear: fear that what the Brothers had found might prove they had acted incorrectly. Fear of responsibility for the deaths of trillions…

Trillions of what? Martin asked himself. Ghosts? Shells? Robots? Deceptions? Real, intelligent beings? Innocents?

The last possibility was more than he could bring himself to contemplate.

Scouts continued to work through the detritus like little fish swimming through a swirl of sand and mud, sending information by noach to Greyhound. Shrikeno doubt had its own scouts, but the arc was huge, three million kilometers from end to end and several hundred thousand kilometers broad, and the area studied by Shrikewas still relatively unknown to them.

Giacomo approached Martin and kneeled beside him. Martin looked up; surprised himself by having napped. He glimpsed the star sphere; Greyhoundwas very near Shrike. "What is it?" Martin asked.

"We're here. Stonemaker won't talk to any human but you. He's on the noach, and he wants it private."

"Did you tell Ariel?" She was not in the schoolroom.

Giacomo nodded, biting his lower lip. "She told me to get you. Search team doesn't see anything. We don't know what they've got or what they're up to."

A field had wrapped around him automatically while he slept, to restrain him as the acceleration ended. He converted it to a ladder and followed Giacomo to the nose.

Ariel met him outside the nose. She smiled quickly. "The Brothers like you, Martin."

He made a wry face and pushed into the nose.

Even to the naked eye, the destruction of Sleep was impressive. Greyhoundseemed to hang motionless beside Shrikeabout ten thousand kilometers above the arc of Sleep's corpse, a glittering, mottled span of dust and rubble like a layer of oil and dirt on a pond. Glowing commas of molten stuff haunted the arc. One comma disintegrated before his eyes, a silent leap of puckering orange. Beyond the arc, closer in to Leviathan, two diffuse blotches marked other ruins, like swift strokes of watercolor on wet black paper.

"I'll project the noach here," Thorkild said, refusing to meet his eyes. "You know how to use it. Of course you do." He looked as if he was about to cry. "Martin…"

Martin held his finger to his lips, shook his head reassuringly, falsely. He didn't know how long it would take the wounds to heal, but he did not want to deal with Thorkild now.

Eye on Sky slid into the nose as Thorkild departed. "I we told Stonemaker you have stayed sensible," Eye on Sky said. "Do not know others as well."

"Thanks," Martin said. "What's happened?"

Eye on Sky splayed his head cords, very attentive. A noached image of Stonemaker shimmered into solidity before them.

"I we am thankful you survived," Stonemaker said. "You should see what we we have found. Judge with and mark we our opinions." Stonemaker faded and was replaced by a roller-coaster ride through glowing rubble, wisps of hot gas, into a dark void.

"Record of scout sending," Eye on Sky explained, making a scent of sharp cinnamon and warm animal. The smell aroused homesickness, deeper loneliness. Gauge. He smells a bit like Gauge.

The void was a great hollow, perhaps ten thousand kilometers wide, cleared somehow in the middle of the arc like a bubble. He was about to ask if it was natural when he spotted a speck at its center, little more than a dust mote in the tarry darkness. The mote glowed green.

Human measurements appeared to the left of the image. The mote, now fist sized and growing rapidly, was about a hundred kilometers in diameter. He could not discern clearly what it was; the ghoulish green spot seemed made of many smaller versions of itself. Enlarged, the mass revealed cluster upon cluster of much smaller needle-like objects, in all manner of arrangements; rolled, bundled, pointing outward in pincushion radiants.

Martin's throat shrank around his voice and breath. He coughed, covered his mouth with a fist, tried to control his horror, the excruciating churn of emotions within.

Millions upon millions of needles, each fifty to a hundred meters long. He had grown up with their design, their measure; the moms had displayed them again and again to the children in training.

"We our scouts have found forty-one of these collections," Stonemaker said. "They waited within Sleep. All we we have examined appear to be recent manufacture, not old artifacts."

Wrapped in protective fields like frog eggs in gelatin cases, survivors of Sleep's destruction, the needles were not thousands of years old, not artifacts of a bygone and indiscreet age.

They were new. Waiting.

"Do you agree with we our suspecting?"

"Yes," Martin croaked, and coughed again. "Oh, God, yes."

"We we are hoping these are the last, that no more have escaped to find and destroy other worlds."

Martin nodded, speechless with fury and a high, horrid sadness.

"Should we we finish the Job?" Stonemaker asked.