Anvil of Stars

“Still no signs of defense, no awareness of our presence—no preparation to fight,” Hakim said.

“Nothing we can detect,” Martin added.

“I would appreciate more time with the remotes—more time to find something…”

Martin thought that over for a few seconds, then nodded. “Another twelve hours. But let somebody else keep watch. You sleep.”

“No,” Hakim said. “This is my only duty. I watch, I calculate, I keep you informed… For now, I do not need to sleep.” His eyes stared up at Martin out of sunken orbits. His hair tufted on his scalp, his face gleamed with oil, he smelled faintly sour.

“Sleep for five hours, and get cleaned up,” Martin said, touching his cheek with one hand. “You’ll make mistakes if you push yourself too much. We don’t need mistakes.”

“I will get along with two hours of sleep,” Hakim said. Then, smiling his angelic smile, “And I will take a shower, not to offend.”

“All right. Put Jennifer in charge. She’ll keep an eye out.”

“It is because I am so worried,” Hakim said. “What we do not know…”

When the remotes had been withdrawn, Martin conferred with Stephanie Wing Feather and Harpal Timechaser. Theresa and Jorge Rabbit hovered on the periphery in the otherwise empty quarters, representing the children aboard Tortoise in this final meeting of Pan and Tortoise’s share of ex-Pans.

“Stephanie…” Martin said. “Your thoughts. Twelve hours and we release the bombships. What have I neglected to do?”

“Nothing,” Stephanie said.

“Harpal?”

“Nothing. We’ve done everything we’ve been taught to do, everything we know how to do… But…”

“It’s too good,” Stephanie said. “No defenses, no reaction, quiet and almost dead. Nothing like what we’ve been led to expect, what we’ve trained to fight. And…”

“No volatiles,” Harpal said. “It’s going to be damned difficult to refuel.”

“Right. If there’s anything here at all, it’s a tired old civilization dreaming in its own high-tech grave,” Stephanie said. “Not much satisfaction killing an old codger who doesn’t care.”

“Wormwood doesn’t fit any profiles, does it?”

“It doesn’t,” Martin said. “The War Mother has nothing to suggest, except that this could be—”

“A sham,” Stephanie said. “Something to draw us into a dead system we can’t pull out of, something to waste our energy and time. Flypaper, baited with nasty evidence of past sins.”

Martin touched finger to nose, shrugged. “The War Mother thinks the evidence is pretty conclusive.” He glanced toward Theresa. She seemed to be daydreaming, staring at the wall beyond him.

“What if it is a trap, and we are wasted completely for nothing?” Jorge Rabbit said. Martin didn’t answer.

“We’ve made our decision,” Stephanie said quietly. “We have no proof it’s a trap. We just don’t know everything for sure.”

“The five masses,” Jorge said.

“Nothing’s ever for sure,” Harpal said.

Martin covered the unmagnified image of Nebuchadnezzar with his hand, edge of palm to edge of palm sufficing; or fist. Soft brown world like a dirty rubber ball. The search team conferred among themselves in the cafeteria, leaving the nose temporarily empty, and Martin had chosen this opportunity to see their target alone, photons reflected directly to his eyes.

We can kill you, whatever you are or were. Why don’t you react? Why so silent?

“I don’t think it’s a sham,” William said. “I think they’ve left Wormwood as a kind of sacrifice.” He had entered the nose behind Martin without his noticing. “I think this was their home world, but it’s old now, and they’re old. Maybe they’ve left behind the responsible types, the builders and planners, to wait for execution.”

Martin frowned over his shoulder at William.

William smiled a fey smile in reply to the frown, lifted a hand as they floated beside each other, looking through the transparent nose. “If we were to land and explore their… caverns, tunnels, whatever they have, we’d find the guilty ones waiting for us, ready for justice.”

“Jesus, William,” Martin said, turning away.

“It’s a freaky thought, isn’t it?”

“You said it.”

“The planners would give themselves to us, and the entire world… And it wouldn’t be enough. We want all of them to die, don’t we? Just getting the planners, the leaders, wouldn’t be enough.”

Martin said nothing, growing angry. This kind of fantasizing was more than useless; it was counter- productive, perhaps even bad for their morale.

“I hope you haven’t told anybody about this.”

“I keep my stupid ideas to myself… except for you.”

“Good,” Martin said, perhaps more firmly than necessary.

“Don’t be too hard,” William said. “Can you imagine the kind of guilt the Killers feel, if they feel guilt at all? Maybe they grew up after launching their machines, when it was too late. Or perhaps one tyrannical, fanatic government built and launched the machines, and then fell out of power, and others came in, and they decided the best thing would be to leave all this here for us, to let us destroy their home world, maybe the leaders… That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Nice isn’t the word,” Martin said, his anger subsiding. William was always willing to play this peculiar game, somewhere between Devil’s advocate and unbridled imp.

“I’m not really kidding, Martin,” William said. “I think that’s what it must be. If this is a trap, we’re in too close already… What sort of trap works only once, when there might be dozens, even hundreds of Ships of the Law closing in? We’ve come too far for this to be a trap. We’ve got them.”

Martin gave the merest nod.

“You must be feeling very strange now,” William said softly, cocking his head to one side, “It’s so close.”

“We’re here. It’s what we’ve waited and trained for.”

“We never trained for something this easy,” William said. “If they’re sitting ducks, if they just bare their breasts or whatever and shout mea culpa… What will that do to us? Like getting ready to jump over a high wall and finding it’s just a curb. Then waiting years in space, thinking about it. We might go mad. I might go mad.”

“We’ll make it,” Martin said. “How do you feel?”

“Numb,” William said. “I’ll be on a bombship with Fred Falcon. We’ll actually drop the makers and doers. We’ll be out there.”

“I wish I could be with you,” Martin said.

William nodded. “I suppose we’re privileged. Pulling the triggers to avenge the Earth.”

They said nothing for a time, the conversation having swung through so many curves, and no central issue apparent.

“I’m doing fine, William,” Martin said to an unspoken question. “It’s not much fun, but life isn’t supposed to be fun now. Is that what you’re getting at?”

William caressed the back of Martin’s neck. “It shouldn’t be like this. There should be noise, action, danger, excitement.”

“You’re lonely, aren’t you?”

William closed his eyes. “I feel like Rosa Sequoia,” he said. “I wonder how they’re getting along on Hare. They have even less to do than we. Second-line troops.”

“Are you lonely?”

“No, Martin, actually, I’m not very lonely. I’ve kind of given up on the old slicking. It seems so trivial. I think I’ll just shut down the libido and absorb these ambiguities. Not that there aren’t possibilities for exercising the old