Текст книги "Anvil of Stars"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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Within twenty hours, they would begin separation into Tortoiseand Hare. Martin would be in charge of Tortoise, Hans in command of Hare. Thirty-five children would accompany Martin, including Theresa and William and Ariel; Hakim and the search team would go with Hans. Harewould plunge through Wormwood's system ahead of them, collecting information to be relayed back to Tortoise.

Martin felt someone behind him and turned to see Ariel. She looked angry or frightened, he could not tell which, and she was out of breath.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Rosa's seen the dark shape again. In the second homeball. Alexis Baikal saw it before she did, in the third homeball, close to the neck and the stores."

"Shit," Martin said.

"Both think it's real. They're talking to others… I was the first to get here."

"Why in Christ's name now?"

"Maybe it is real," Ariel said. "Maybe it knows when to disrupt us."

"Where are they? Did they see it do anything or go anywhere?"

"I don't know. I came up here as fast as I could."

"Why not use the wand?"

"The moms…" She seemed slightly abashed, but still defiant. "Nobody wants them to know."

"Why in hell not?" Martin said.

She shook her head briskly. "I'll take you to where they are. They think maybe the moms have been… taken over. That we're being forced to suicide."

Martin took his wand and called for Hans and the five ex-Pans. "That's so slicking stupid," he said under his breath, following Ariel down the long nose to the central corridor passing through the first homeball. He noted the fissures already formed, stretching in thin grooves along the walls of the necks and around key pipes and protrusions, as the ship carved itself ahead of time for the likely partition. "If people are going to be this paranoid, they should at least use their heads…"

"I know," Ariel said, echoing ahead, then using ladder fields to propel herself quickly up the long corridor. "Most of what they're saying doesn't make sense. Martin, I don't agree with much of it. But some… it's frightening. They saw something."

Martin laddered grimly behind her.

She preceded him to the corridor leading to Rosa's quarters on the outer perimeter of the second homeball. Hans joined them, glancing at Martin inquisitively. Martin shrugged and said, "Shadows again." Hans pulled a disgusted face.

Stephanie Wing Feather and Harpal Timechaser waited outside the closed door to Rosa's quarters. Martin took up his wand and tried to communicate with Rosa.

"She won't be listening," Ariel said. "They're very frightened."

"They can't cut themselves off." Martin and Hans banged on the door, creating a dull, hollow boom. He did not know whether those inside would hear.

The door opened silently and Rosa stood before them, her face radiant with some new-found assurance, tall and stately, red hair tied back, dressed in an opaque gray gown that made her appear massive, formidable.

"What in the hell—" Martin began, his anger getting the best of him.

"You shut up," Rosa said, her deep voice cracking with emotion like a boy's. "You made me feel like a fool, and now somebody else has seen it. What can you say to that? It's real."

Martin tried to push past her, but she blocked his entrance with an arm. "Who told you to come in?" she said. "Who do you think you are?"

He suddenly realized the extent of the problem and backed away, throttling his anger. "If you saw something, I need to know what it is."

"Martin is Pan, Rosa, and he hasn't done anything to you at all," Stephanie said. "Don't be an ass. Let us in."

"Let them in," Alexis called behind Rosa. Rosa reluctantly moved aside, glaring at them as they entered her quarters. Martin had never seen the inside of Rosa's quarters before; few had. What he saw now startled him.

The cabin was filled with flowers, profusions of pots and bouquets, real flowers and synthetic, made of cloth or paper on wire stems. The air was warm and moist. Sunbright lamps glowed from the center to the periphery, where the flowers surrounded the walls in tiers.

Ten Wendys and two Lost Boys waited in the quarters with Rosa and Alexis. Two budgerigars played at hide and seek among the potted flowers.

Martin realized the disparity in sexes and his concern grew almost to befuddlement. "Alexis, what did you see?"

Alexis Baikal, swarthy and sandy haired, of middle height, with powerful legs and large hands, hung cross-legged from a net near the floor, despondent. "A big dark shape in the main corridor, heading toward the stores."

"What did it look like?"

Rosa advanced on him threateningly, for no apparent reason, and Martin lifted his arm. Her smile spread immediate and triumphant. "He doesn't believe any of us!" she called out, voice like a horn.

"Stop it, Rosa," Ariel said quietly. "He's trying to listen."

"It was bigger than four or five people," Alexis said, "but it didn't have any real shape."

"Did you ask the moms?" Hans asked. Rosa glared but did not move; Ariel's hand rested on her elbow. Martin wondered about this; Ariel should have relished a chance to discomfit him, to discredit the moms, but instead, she was acting on the side of reason—at least as he perceived it. More befuddlement, shifting of mental gears.

"No," Alexis said. " We saw something. We didn't make it up!"

Alexis had been talking with Rosa for some time, Martin surmised; had come to Rosa first with her report, before going to any of the other children. No wonder Rosa was defensive; Alexis' sighting was confirmation, vindication.

"Was it something alive?" Hans asked, stooping to be more on a level with Alexis.

"It was alive. It flowed like a liquid."

"Did it have any features—face, arms, legs, whatever?" Stephanie asked. They were trying to distance Martin from the confrontation that had broken out, and Martin approved—for the time being. Best to listen impartially until the few available facts were sorted out.

Rosa looked at them, worried, but kept quiet.

"It was black," Alexis said with an effort. "Big. Alive. It didn't make any sound." She knows it isn't credible, what she saw.

"That's all you saw?"

Alexis Baikal fixed on Stephanie's eyes and nodded. "That's all I saw."

Hans stood and stretched his arms, flexing his shoulders as if they had cramped. "Where did it go?"

"I don't know," Alexis said. "I turned to run, and it was gone."

The door opened and three Wendys came in, Nancy Flying Crow, Jeanette Snap Dragon, and leading them, Kirsten Two Bites. Kirsten said, "These two have something to report."

"We are notcowards," Nancy Flying Crow said.

"You should have told us," Kirsten Two Bites chided. "Martin, they've seen things, too."

"We didn't see anything we could identify," Nancy said.

"Did you see anything while you were together?" Stephanie asked.

"No," Jeanette said.

"Ask them what they saw," Rosa interjected.

Martin pointed to Nancy. "You first."

"It was a man," Nancy said. "Not one of us. Not one of the children, I mean. He was dark, wearing dark clothes."

"Where did you see him?" Martin asked.

"In the second homeball. In the hall outside my quarters."

"And you?" Martin asked Jeanette.

Jeanette Snap Dragon shook her head. "I'd rather not say, Martin."

"It's pretty important," Martin said gently.

"It doesn't make any sense. I can't fit it into anything," Jeanette said, face wrinkling in anguish. "Please. Rosa started this… I didn't see what Rosa saw."

"What do you mean, Rosa started this?" Hans asked.

"Don't gang up on me!" Jeanette wailed. "I didn't want to see it, and I don't even know if I didsee it."

"I didn't start anything, sister," Rosa said in a hissing whisper, shaking her head. "Don't blame me."

"I saw my mother," Jeanette said, looking down. "She's dead, Martin. She died when I was five. I saw her dressed in black, carrying a suitcase or something like a suitcase."

"That's bolsh," Rosa said.

"Be quiet," Stephanie said.

"Rosa, please," Ariel pleaded.

"This is all crap! She couldn't have seen that," Rosa said.

"Why the hell not?" Ariel said, face red. "Does everybody have to see what you saw?"

"They just want to be in on it. They're making it up. What Alexis and I saw—"

"That's enough," Martin said, raising his hand.

"We saw something!" Alexis cried out. "This is all crazy!"

Hans muttered, "Righto."

Martin raised his hand higher, nodding his head forward, lips tight. "Quiet, everybody," he said. "Rosa, nobody's accusing anybody of anything, and this is not a competition for weirdness. Understand?"

"You don't control me," Rosa said. "You—"

"Smother it, Rosa," Ariel said. She looked sharply at Martin– Don't take this cooperation for granted.

"Why is everybody down on me?" Rosa screamed, tears flying. "Everybody get out of here and leave us… leave Alexis and me alone."

"No thanks," Alexis said. "I don't know what I saw, or what it means. I just reported it."

Martin smelled the sweetness of flowers from Rosa's garden, tried to think of some way to conclude this meeting without damaging delicate egos.

"Nobody knows what anybody saw," he said. "Nobody blames anybody for seeing anything. Rosa, you reported what you saw, and that's according to the rules. Whatever anybody sees, they come to me and tell me right away, understand? No embarrassment, no hiding, no shame. I want to know."

Stephanie nodded approval. Hans seemed less than convinced.

"Have there been other sightings?" Martin asked. "This is not snitching. Have there?"

Nobody answered.

"I'm going to talk to each of you individually for the next hour, in my quarters," Martin said. "There's no time to waste now. We have to be disciplined, and we have to think of the Job. Got that?"

Heads nodding around the room, all but Ariel's and Rosa's.

"We have to make a judgment—if we're going to make one before partition—by tomorrow morning. This is a very serious time, this is why we came here. Not to worry about our sanity and our egos. Think of Earth."

One by one they came to his quarters. Martin recorded their words in his wand. Alexis Baikal came first, full of doubts, tearful in her apologies for having seen anything. Martin tried again to convince her there had been no crime, but his efforts seemed less than successful.

Ariel was cool, as if regretting her tacit support of Martin in Rosa's quarters. "I think the moms are doing something," she said, folding and unfolding her hands. "I think they're experimenting with us, like when they made us screw up the first external drill."

"You'll never trust them, will you?" Martin asked.

Ariel shook her head. "We're trapped. That's what Rosa thinks, too, but she hasn't said it directly. She's desperate."

"You think she's seeing things, making them up?"

Reluctantly, Ariel nodded.

"That doesn't make sense. You think the moms are fooling with us, but you think Rosa'smaking up things, too?"

"I think they're weeding out the weak ones," Ariel said. "They might jeopardize our doing the Job. I don't say I know what's happening. You just wanted our ideas."

"Rosa's weak?"

"I don't want to get her into trouble."

"Ariel, she's having real problems."

"I know that."

"Can she do her work?"

"She's been doing pretty well, hasn't she?"

"Will she keep it up?" Martin asked.

"I think she will. But the children need to accept her."

"I get the impression she isn't accepting the children."

"Whatever," Ariel said.

"You're her friend. Can you bring her in?"

"We talk. She doesn't tell me everything. I don't think she's anybody's friend. I just make it a point to talk to her. You don't. Nobody else does."

Martin could not deny that. "I'm talking to her next."

Ariel lifted her chin back. "Are you going to be her friend?"

You are a bloody-minded bitch. "I'll try," he said.

Ariel left. Rosa Sequoia came into his quarters a few minutes later, face set like stone, eyes wide with fear and that ever-present defiance, an expression that made Martin want to kick her.

"Tell me what you think you saw. Just me," Martin said.

She shook her head. "You don't believe any of us."

"I'm listening."

"The others… they saw something different. Why should you believe any of us?"

Martin lifted his hand and crooked his finger encouragingly: Come on.

"You think I started it," Rosa said.

"I don't think that. Do you think you started it?"

"I saw it first." Under her breath. "It's mine."

"If it belongs to you, can you control it?" The conversation was getting looser and loonier. How far would he go to bring her in? Rosa was too sharp to be deceived. "Do you claim it?"

"I don't have it. I don't have anything." She hung her head. "I don't know what I've been doing."

This reversal caught him by surprise. He opened and closed his mouth, then folded his legs beneath him. "Jesus, Rosa."

"I'm not saying I… I'm not saying that we haven't seen anything."

"No… Sit. Please. Just talk."

Rosa looked to one side and shook her head. "I don't want to go against the Job. I'm afraid this might hurt us. Hurt the Job."

"What is it? Do you know?"

She sobbed and held her head back to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling. "I didn't make it up. I swear to Earth, Martin. I wouldn't do that. I don't know about the others."

"Is it real?"

"It is, to me. I've only seen it once, though. It was more real than I am. It was more real than the Job. It scared me, but it was beautiful. Should I be ashamed of that?"

"I don't know. Talk."

"I do my work," Rosa said, "I try to be competent, but I don't belong here any more than I belonged on the Ark. Or on the Earth. You don't think much of me because I'm causing trouble… But nobody thought anythingof me when I was nothing at all."

"You can't own a… Whatever it is. It can't be yours alone."

"If it was important, it would make me useful. People wouldn't look through me."

Martin asked her to relax and again she refused. "I want to go back. I want this forgotten."

"What about Alexis? What she saw?"

"I don't know what she saw. It sounds like what I saw, but it may not be."

"You didn't make this up, I know that. But is it real?"

Rosa shook her head. "Alexis thinks it is."

"Then maybe it is," Martin said. "I'm not going to doubt what my fellows see. You and Alexis. You'll continue to do your duties and attend all the drills. When you're off-duty, you can keep a look out. Look through the ship. Until partition. If it doesn't show up any more after that, we forget it. All right?"

"Jeanette and Nancy?"

"Jeanette saw her mother," Martin said. "Nancy saw… a man. They didn't see what you saw."

"Maybe it can take different shapes… read our minds."

Martin controlled his shudder. This was a real risk. Lancing the boil—acknowledging its existence—might do more than just drain the infection; it might spread it.

"You're a part of us, and whatever happens to you is important."

"I'm a large… thing," Rosa said, holding out her arms, fingers clutched into fists. "I was large when I was a child. Everybody stared at me and avoided me. I thought by coming here, doing the Job, I could be important to the girls and boys who ignored me and who died on Earth."

Martin took one of her fists and tried to massage it into openness. She stared at his hands, her fist, as if they were-disembodied. Her voice rose.

"I wanted to be important to them. When I got on the Dawn Treader, nothing much changed. I knew there wasn't anything I could do to make anybody think I was important. "

"You're part of us," Martin said. He reached out and brought her to him, wrapped his arms around her, felt her hard, thick—fleshed shoulders, broad ribcage, small breasts against his chest, the strength and tension and the damp warm skin of her neck. He hugged her, chin on her shoulder, smelling her, sharp like a large, frightened animal. "We don't want to lose you, or anybody. Do what I ask, and we'll see if it comes to anything."

She pushed him back with strong, large hands and blinked at him. "I will," she said. She smiled like a little girl. Possibly no one had hugged her in years. How could all the children have so ignored one of their own? Seeing the pain and hope in her eyes—a forlorn, lost hope—Martin wondered if he had done the right thing, used the right kind of influence.

So little time.

Rosa left, subdued to her old quietness, and Alexis Baikal came in, and then Jeanette and Nancy. They did not say much, and he did not push the issue. Somehow he felt he had broken the chain of events, that everything would go more smoothly now; but had he sacrificed the last of Rosa?

Only hours. Time flying by more swiftly, more in tune with the outside universe. Another partition drill; equally successful. One last brief external drill, also successful. The children seemed as prepared as they would ever be.

Hour by hour, Hakim's search team produced more and more information.

The time of judgment had arrived.

In the schoolroom, in the presence of the War Mother, Martin set up the rules for the judgment. In the first year, Stephanie Wing Feather and Harpal Timechaser had prepared the rules, trying to catch the resonances of the justice systems established on the Ark, based on human laws back to the tablets of Hammurabi…

A jury of twelve children was chosen by lots. Each child could refuse the assignment; none did. With more qualms than satisfaction, Martin saw Rosa inducted as a juror, taking the oath Stephanie herself had written:

I will truly judge based on the evidence, and what I will judge is whether the evidence is sufficient, and whether it proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I will not allow prejudice or hate or fear to cloud my judgment, nor will I be swayed by any emotion or rhetoric from my fellows, so help me, in the name of truth, God, the memory of Earth, my family, and whatever I hold most dear, against the eternal guilt of my soul should I err…

The choosing and swearing-in lasted a precious hour. A defense advocate was appointed by Martin; to Hakim's dismay, Martin chose him. "No one knows the weakness of your evidence more than you do," Martin said. He was acutely aware of the roughness and arbitrariness of this system they had chosen; they could do no better.

As prosecutor he appointed Luis Estevez Saguaro, Hakim's second on the search team. Martin himself presided as judge.

The War Mother listened to the trial silently, its painted black and white designs prominent in the brightly illuminated schoolroom. All eighty-two children sat in quiet attendance as Martin went over the rules.

Luis presented the older evidence, and then outlined the new. Their data on the debris fields had increased enormously. The assay matches seemed indisputable.

Hakim questioned the conclusiveness of the data at this distance. Luis Estevez called on Li Mountain to explain again the functioning of the Dawn Treader'sremotes and sensors, the accuracy of observations, the science behind the different methods. The children had heard much of it before. They were reminded nevertheless.

Luis Estevez withheld his trump card until the final phase of the six-hour trial. Hakim fought vigorously to discredit this last bit of evidence, explaining the statistics of error on such observations at this distance, but the news made the children gasp nonetheless, more in horror than surprise.

Less than two hours away, at their present speed of three quarters c, the cloud of pre-birth material surrounding Wormwood offered one more startling confirmation.

The residue of Wormwood's birth, a roughly shaped ring around the system, with patches and extrusions streaming billions of kilometers above the ecliptic, had been extensively mined, as suspected, and few volatiles remained. No cometary chunks were left to fall slowly around Wormwood; the civilization had many thousands of years before depleted these resources as part of a program of interstellar exploration.

Some leftovers from that program still floated amid the scoured dust of the irregular ring, spread here and there across the billions of kilometers like sand in an ocean tide.

The search team, probing the nearest extent of the ring, had found artificial needle-shaped bodies, the largest no more than a hundred meters long; inert now, perhaps experimental models, perhaps ships that had malfunctioned and been abandoned after being stripped of fuel and internal workings.

Luis projected for the jury, and all the children, graphics of what these needle ships looked like in their cold dusty junkyards. He then produced pictures they were all familiar with: the shapes of the killer machines when they entered Earth's solar system, when they burrowed into the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and into the Earth itself:

Long needles. Identical in shape and size.

Hakim valiantly argued that these shapes were purely utilitarian, that any number of civilizations might produce vessels such as these, designed to fly between the stars. But the shapes of Ships of the Law, including Dawn Treader, countered that argument. Space allowed many designs for interstellar craft.

The conclusion seemed inevitable: dead killer machines orbited the extreme perimeter of the Wormwood system.

Hakim's next suggestion was that this system had itself been entered by Killers, that the inhabitants had been wiped from their worlds, and that the worlds were not perpetrators, but victims. Luis countered that in such a case, it was their duty to expunge the final traces of the Killers from the victim's corpse.

And if there were survivors?

That did not seem likely, judging from Earth's experience.

But the Earth, Hakim argued, had been an extreme case; the Killers had been faced with strong, eventually fatal opposition. Perhaps they would behave differently with more time to perform their tasks. Perhaps there were survivors.

Luis pointed to the natural composition of Wormwood and its planets, the apparent origin of the machines themselves.

And if the machines had merely been manufactured here?

The debate went around and around, but these arguments were not convincing, however Hakim worked to make them so.

"If Wormwood is indeed the origin of the killer machines, why leave these wrecks out here for evidence?" Hakim asked, making his final attempt at a sound defense. "Why not sweep the cloud clean, and prepare for the vengeance of those you have failed to murder? Could there not be some other explanation for this evidence, allowing a reasonable doubt?"

No one could answer. No one doubted the evidence, however.

The jury was sequestered in unused quarters near the schoolroom.

The verdict was two hours in coming.

It was unanimous.

Wormwood must be cleared of all traces of Killers and their makers. Even if they had become ghosts, lost in their machines…

Hakim seemed perversely despondent that he had not presented his case more strongly. He moved to the rear of the room and curled behind the children, eyes wide and solemn.

Martin stood before the children, the weight of the judgment on his shoulders now. The hush in the schoolroom was almost deathly: no coughing, hardly a sound of breathing. The children did not move, waiting for him to issue the orders.

"We start dispersal as soon as we split," he said. "Shipboard weapons team will launch makers into the Wormwood system. There are no visible defenses, but we'll be cautious anyway. Instead of trying for three or four large-mass gravity-fuse bombs, we'll let the makers create a few thousand smaller ones out of the rocks and debris. If we fail, makers in the outer cloud will assemble their weapons and send them in later."

"That'll cost much more fuel," Hans said.

Stephanie and Harpal nodded.

"There aren't enough volatiles to make enough bombs and escape quickly. We should act as soon as possible. We'll destroy the rocky worlds first, then concentrate on the bald gas giants…"

"Destroy them, too?" Ariel asked from the rear.

"If we have enough weapons," Martin said. "We can gather the remaining volatiles for fuel from the debris clouds afterward."

"All of them?" William asked.

"Every world," Martin said.

The children thought this over somberly. They would reenact the battle fought around the Sun, centuries past. This time, they would be the murderers.

"It's not murder," Martin said, anticipating their thoughts. "It's execution. It's the Law."

That didn't make the reality any less disturbing.

"You didn't need to put me in your crew," Theresa said as they ate together in her quarters. This was the last time they would have together, alone, until the Job had been completed. These were the last four hours of the Dawn Treaderas a single ship, as they had always known her. If they survived, they might reconstruct the ship again, but chances were, they would have to make her much smaller, perhaps a tenth of her present size, and live in comparatively crowded conditions…

"I had no reason notto have you with me," Martin said.

Theresa watched him, eyes bright.

"The Pan needs to think of himself now and then," Martin said softly. "I'll work better, knowing you're with me."

"When we finish the Job, where will we go?" she asked, finishing her pie. The ship was an excellent provider; this meal, however, tasted particularly fine. There would be little time to eat after partition, and the meals would be fast and small.

"I don't know," Martin said. "They've never told us where they'll send us."

"Where would you liketo go?"

Martin chewed his last bite thoughtfully, swallowed, looked down at the empty plate. He smiled, thumped his knuckles on the small table, said, "I'd like to travel very far away. Just be free and see what there is out here. We could travel for thousands, millions of years… Away from everything."

"That would be lovely," she said, but she didn't sound convinced.

"And you?" Martin asked.

"A new Earth," she said. "I know that's foolish. All the Earth-like worlds are probably taken, but perhaps the moms could send us to a place where nobody has been, find a planet where we could be alone. Where we could make a new Earth."

"And have children," he said. "Where the moms could let us have children."

"No moms," Theresa said. "Just ourselves."

Martin considered this, saw nations arising, people disagreeing, history raising its ugly head, the inevitable round of Eden's end and reality's beginning. But he did not tell Theresa what she already knew. Fantasies were almost as important as fuel at this point.

"Do you think they'll know when they die?" Theresa asked. Martin understood whom she meant. Down at the bottom of the gravity well, on the planets. The Killers.

"If they're still alive…" Martin said, raising his eyebrows. "If there's anybody still there, still conscious… not a machine."

"Do you think they can be conscious if they've become machines?"

"The moms don't tell us about such things," Martin said.

"Can they be guilty if they're just machines now?"

"I don't know," Martin said. "They can be dangerous."

"If there are a few still in bodies, still livingas we do, do you think they are… leaders, prophets… or just slaves?"

"Machines don't need slaves," Martin said, grinning.

Theresa shook her head. "That's not what I mean. I mean slaves to their own bodies. The others might be so much more free, immortal, able to think and do whatever they please. Haven't you ever felt as if you were a slave to your body?"

Martin shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Having to urinate every few hours, shit every day or two or three… Eat."

"Make love," Martin said.

"Have periods," Theresa said.

Martin touched her arm.

"I've never had a period," she said. "I've grown up, but they've taken that away from me."

"The Wendys don't seem to miss them," Martin said.

"How would we know?"

"My mother didn't miss them on the Ark," he said. "She told me she was glad." Has she had any children since we left… on Mars? He had never thought of having brothers or sisters he would never know.

"What if they were thinking very deeply, solving very large problems, just working all the time, without worrying about bodies?"

"No passions, no sorrows," Martin said, trying to stay in tune with her musing.

"Maybe they feel very large passions, larger than we can know. Passions without physical boundaries. Curiosity. Maybe they've come to actually lovethe universe, Martin. "

"We don't know anything about them, except that they're quiet," Martin said.

"Are they frightened?" she asked. "Hoping not to be noticed?"

Martin shrugged. "It's not worth thinking about," he said.

"But all the strategists say we should know our enemies, be prepared for anything they might do by knowing what they must do, what they needto do."

"I hope they die before they even know we're here," Martin said.

"Do you think that's possible?"

He paused, shook his head, no.

"Do you think they already know?"

Shook his head again, acutely uncomfortable.

"We have an hour before you go back," Theresa said. "Pan must take his scheduled free time, too. To be healthy."

"I wouldn't deny myself that. Or you," Martin said.

"Let's love," Theresa said. "As if we were free, and our own people."

And they tried. It worked, partly. At the very least it was intense, even more intense than in their first few days together.

"When I'm free," Martin said, as they floated beside each other in the darkness, "I will choose you."

"I amfree," Theresa said. "For this minute, I'm free as I'll ever be. And I choose you."

One hour before partition, Rosa stood in the schoolroom, next to the star sphere, less than twelve meters from the silent War Mother. Her eyes were heavy lidded, head bowed. Her hands shook slowly like leaves in a small breeze. She was naked but for a scarf tied around her neck. Dull light from the star sphere limned her pale skin.

Liam Oryx came into the schoolroom looking for Hakim, saw her, and immediately called Martin on his wand. He also called Ariel.

Martin arrived with Theresa, but William had gotten there first. William approached Rosa slowly, saying nothing.

"I don't need you," Rosa told him.

"Something wrong?" Ariel called from behind William. "Rosa?"

"I've seen it again," Rosa said. "There's something in the ship with us. It spoke to me. I can't stop seeing things that are real."

William stopped three meters from where she stood, beside the War Mother, which did not speak or move. "What did it say?" he asked.