Anvil of Stars

Martin sat above a low couch in the center of the room. All around him, the children floated, squatted, stretched out, looking at each other or at nothing, trying to sleep, playing games with their wand projections, waiting, waiting.

The sigh turned into a strong wind moaning through the halls outside their chamber. Air pressure was being distributed before the walls closed.

Theresa came close to Martin. He held her in front of all, acknowledging this bond. No one seemed to mind; few seemed to notice, not even William, who played a game of matching colors with Andrew Jaguar.

“How are you doing?” he asked Theresa. She shook her head briskly as if shivering away the question.

“Waiting,” she said. “You?”

The floor beneath them vibrated. Their cabin rotated as the orientation of this part of the dividing Dawn Treader changed. Again the wind outside the walls, roaring like a storm; this was their only safe place, their calm cell within the turbulent body.

“What will it feel like, the super deceleration?” Patrick Angelfish asked, standing beside Martin.

“Like what we feel in the craft, I suppose,” Martin said. “Only more. Longer.”

“I don’t like the way that feels,” Patrick said.

Martin looked at him with mock-sternness. Patrick smiled back.

“I know,” he said. “I’m a wimp.”

“Let’s hope you’re a strong-stomached wimp,” Martin said, examining and reexamining his tone to see if it was right, if it was not too sarcastic where he did not mean it to be, if he was hiding from his words the complex of worries and fears he himself felt; if he was adopting the proper tone of command mixed with reassurance and comradely banter. I am not a natural leader. A natural leader would not even worry about such things …

The children drew closer as the vibrations continued, the sounds of the new ships being made: belling and scraping, humming and faint rasping, heat in the cabin increasing for a few minutes, then cool returning. The air smelled different. Martin sniffed but did not mention it; Ariel came forward, frowning, and said, “Smells funny.”

Paola Birdsong and Stephanie Wing Feather agreed.

“Smells like rain,” Theresa said.

“ ‘Tut tut, it looks like rain,’ ” Theresa quoted.

“We need a Pooh,” Andrew Jaguar said. “Who should be the ship’s Pooh?”

“Who’s most popular?” Martin asked, glancing around. “Not me,” he said.

Mei-Li groaned. “Pans are never Poohs,” she said.

“How about Ariel?” William suggested.

“Bolsh,” Ariel said quickly.

“She’s very cuddly,” Mei-Li agreed.

Ariel looked around the circle, unsure whether to be angry or to shrug this off.

“We think it’s a fine idea. You have to be Pooh,” Hakim said, smiling serenely.

Ariel made a sound of disgust. “Cut the crap.”

“We mean it,” Mei-Li said with uncharacteristic force, and Andrew Jaguar added with a tone of implied threat, “You’re chosen.”

Martin did not know whether to interfere or let the game continue. He did not know if Ariel understood that the teasing was a display of affection. Leveling the road; no bumps.

“All right.” Ariel swept her arms out, stalking the children in the circle, starting with Mei-Li, who giggled and backed away. “Come to momma. Come hug the Pooh.” She mugged, menaced and threatened with a grim smile. No one offered themselves to her arms until she came to William, who sighed, cast his eyes to the ceiling, and said, “Take me, I’m yours.”

“Oh, oh, Christopher Robin” the children cried out.

Ariel embraced William, and expertly, they waltzed and flew around the cabin, swinging through the children as if they had rehearsed for months. A marvel; Martin had not known William could dance, much less Ariel. In truth, he saw they surprised themselves.

“May I butt in?” Mei-Li asked, tapping Ariel on the shoulder.

“Buzz off,” she said with a haughty shudder. “I’m Pooh.”

“Buzz off! You can fly,” Andrew Jaguar sang. “You can fly, you can fly, you can fly!”

William took Ariel around the waist and swung her legs up over the heads of several squatting children, who ducked and laughed.

“Bravo!” Theresa cried.

Martin clapped his hands in time to the loops of the dance, and the children joined in, making music, humming a waltz. Ariel assumed a pose of dignified involvement in her art, chin lifted, nose out-thrust, eyes half- closed, fingers tipping along William’s fingers, swirling, swirling.

Martin noticed the War Mother had entered the room. The dance continued until William said, “Oh Lord, enough, I’m worn out.” Ariel let him go and he echoed off the wall, grabbing a ladder field, laughing and waving one hand in time with the hummed waltz.

“Who’s next?” she called, swinging closer to the center. Her face glowed with exertion, eyes on fire, and she focused suddenly, unexpectedly, on Martin, hooded her eyes seductively, leaned back in an abbreviated S with fingers extended. “You, Pan? Dance with Pooh?”

Martin blushed, laughed, and extended his hand. Ariel touched it with an expression of anything but addle- headed Pooh-bear affection, and was about to swing him off when the cabin lurched violently. The children instinctively dropped to the floor, fingers clutching uselessly. Martin felt their weight increase: a tenth of a g, half, three quarters… He glanced at Ariel, sprawled across from him, eyes wide, scared, then rolled over to find Theresa on his other side; the couches had collapsed into the floor, leaving an unobstructed, cushioned environment.

The War Mother grounded against the floor, fastening itself. Ladder fields sprang up and the air vibrated with milky rainbow colors.

Martin tuned his wand to show Tortoise’s exterior. Like a wooden stake shivered by the tap of an axe, the Dawn Treader had split from the third homeball forward. The last tissue of connection—Martin noticed the flexibility of that connection, so unlike metal—parted, and Hare leaped with new freedom.

“Separation?” Theresa asked, though the answer was obvious. Belief did not necessarily follow seeing.

“The Ship of the Law is now two ships,” the War Mother said. They had already moved a dozen kilometers from Hare, and the distance quickly increased.

“We made it,” Martin said.

“Shit,” said Ariel, crossing her legs on the soft floor.

The children squatted and clasped their hands in front of them like so many Buddhas. Martin reached for Theresa’s hand, gripped it tightly. She smiled at him.

All so very brave. No choice.

“Let’s do it,” Martin said.

“Super deceleration will begin in one minute,” the War Mother said.

“Count!” Andrew Jaguar shouted, and they counted as the numbers from Martin’s wand gleamed in the air above them.

Five, four, three, two…

Martin took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Like a soft electric hand probing his body, the volumetric fields diffused through him. He heard a tiny distant whining noise in his ears, felt the blood stop in his veins, all the protoplasm in his cells pause, then the blood start again, pause, start: the vibrating jerkiness of fields controlling the path of each molecule, adjusting to allow normal vectors, to cancel the effects of the deceleration, temporarily paused thought, jammed his mind with half-aware impulses, threw him into blankness.

He could not see. His eyes hurt but he could not be fully aware of the pain. They would be in this state for days, but fortunately, the fields would soon give them a semblance of normality. They could see, move, talk, eat, however slowly and carefully.

If all goes well. No machine works perfectly. Every machine can fail.

The wands would not work under super deceleration. The War Mother would be inactive. They would have