Anvil of Stars

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 Treader as 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 not to 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 like to 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 living as 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 love the 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 need to 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.