Anvil of Stars

“You didn’t know?” she asked, astonished. “He coached her, Martin. He’s been whispering in her ear for days.”

His eyes filled and he wiped them. He turned to stamp into another corridor, away from the cafeteria.

Ariel followed. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I assumed you knew! It was so obvious…”

“What was obvious?” Martin asked, still fleeing.

“He was turning Rosa, directing her to shore up the Job. Otherwise she could tear us apart. He thinks —”

“Thinks what?” Martin asked, stopping at the join to the neck. A ladder field appeared and he gripped it with his hand, preparing to descend.

Ariel caught up with him, still astonished by his naivete. She dropped her voice, murmuring as if embarrassed. “Hans is very smart. He sees that this vision can help him control the crew. He told us so. Remember?”

“Yeah?” The word came out loud and harsh.

“She’s warm and cozy in his arms. He says something, you know, about the Job, and our relation to God, something like that. She’s happy, she’s flattered. She’s never been an ascetic by choice. She listens. She goes his way.” Ariel spread her arms, eyes narrow, puzzled. “So for him, everything’s great.”

Martin felt like hitting out, and he went so far as to clench his fist. “Why are you following me?” he shouted. “Why don’t you just stay the hell away from me?”

“Hans is dangerous,” Ariel said in a conspiratorial, husky voice. “He’s hollow inside, and the more he settles in, the hollower he gets. He thinks the Wendys are cattle. He thinks we’re all cattle.”

“Crap,” Martin said.

Ariel’s face reddened and her eyes narrowed even more, to angry slits. She spat out, “What are you, celibate! Do you plan on being solitary for the rest of the journey? Is that why you hate me?”

Martin grimaced and laddered into the neck, leaving Ariel behind.

“God damn you!” she cried out after him.

Giacomo and Jennifer hung beside the star sphere in the schoolroom. The ship had stopped accelerating twelve hours before, and all drifted free now. Ladder fields crossed the periphery of the schoolroom and shimmered along what had once been floor and ceiling.

Hakim, Li Mountain and Luis Estevez Saguaro quietly arranged for echoes of the sphere to appear around the schoolroom.

Martin entered alone, stared at the central sphere, and took a deep breath.

They were nine billion kilometers from their future companions, about two days from a merger. The two ships had matched courses and now edged slowly closer.

Harpal came in behind Martin. “Why so many?” he asked, sweeping his arm at the five spheres.

“Hans aims for effect,” Martin said.

Hakim climbed along a ladder field, hooked his foot, and hung beside them. He did not smile. “Races over?” he asked.

Hans was making sure the crew was exhausted before bringing them into the schoolroom.

“Almost,” Martin said. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“It seems silly to me, all this exercise,” Hakim said. “We could be doing science, anything but rolling like squirrels in a cage.”

“Hans has his plans,” Harpal said.

“Who’s winning?” Jennifer called from across the schoolroom.

“Rex,” Martin said carelessly. He climbed in closer to the main sphere. The image of the other Ship of the Law appeared distinct, about two hand-breadths wide, three eggs swallowed by a snake. “They don’t look damaged,” he said.

“The ship is smaller than Dawn Treader used to be,” Giacomo said. “About half the size. It must have taken some pretty substantial hits. I wonder where they fought? What they did?”

“I don’t see any fuel cells,” Harpal said.

A mom entered the schoolroom. They had seen so little of the moms in recent tendays that Martin was startled by it. “Hans has not made a tenday report,” it said to Martin and Harpal, matter-of-factly, no judgment implied. “Is there something wrong?”

Martin swallowed; for Hans to ignore the tenday was… What? What did they expect? Hans had restructured the society of the Dawn Treader, just as the ship itself had been rebuilt. Why should anything surprise Martin?

Hakim looked to Martin, no sign of natural cheer or even excitement; eyes wary. Betray nothing.

“I don’t think so,” Martin said. He no longer wanted to play the advocate for the office of Pan, to defend Hans, to judge the situation in the best light. He could not ignore the knot in his stomach whenever he saw Hans’ confident, strong features, or Rosa’s intoxicated beatitude.

“There is information to be presented to the crew,” the mom said. “I am here to report. Is a meeting scheduled?”

“Yes,” Martin said.

“Hans shouldn’t shirk the reports,” Harpal muttered.

“There are problems?” the mom asked. Martin’s embarrassment turned to anger in a flash and he crossed his arms, shook his head.

“No problems,” he said. Nothing I can pin down in words. Hans does nothing overt; the worst he does is change things without consulting us… and why should he? The crew follows him almost without question. He doesn’t act like a tyrant; he just glowers, and that’s enough.

We’re back to being children again. Hans is Daddy; Rosa is Mommy. So what will we call the moms now? Auntie?

We’re one big happy family.

“When will the crew convene?” the mom asked.

“In a few minutes,” Hakim said.

“I will wait.”

The Wendys and Lost Boys started filing in a half hour later, sweating and flushed. Hans had insisted on trying new sports in the weightless conditions. Three or four had arms in makeshift slings. They gathered in loose groups, no longer according to family or namesake; Hans had dissolved those connections.

Hans and Rex came in last.

All eyes turned to the spheres, weary, interested but shielding responses.

Hakim began his description: the second ship’s length, mass, the approximate amount of fuel it carried. He glanced nervously at the mom, wondering if it would merely repeat what he was saying. He seemed to fear becoming redundant; Hans seldom conferred with the search team.

“I think the mom has something to tell us,” Hans said when Hakim stammered into silence. Hakim nodded and backed away.

“We will now prepare you for the meeting with your new partners,” the mom said. “Noach communications have been established with this Ship of the Law, which is called Journey House by its crew. We have many more details. May I take control” of the displays?”

“Of course,” Hans said.

The first image in the spheres puzzled the crew: a long black cable. Martin had to concentrate to understand what he was seeing. The first guess would have been a tentacle, or perhaps a snake, but close inspection showed that this was more than an individual being. The image moved, and the crew reacted with shock.

The cable disassembled into a squirming pile of serpents, and then quickly reassembled. Martin wondered whether this was a simulation or the image of a real creature.

“These are colonial intelligences,” the mom said. “Such a configuration is not unusual. Many worlds support bionts that combine to form larger bionts, even in more advanced evolutionary phases. Your new partners are of this type. Between ten and twenty components come together to form an intelligent individual. The components”—A single blunt-ended tube with grasping hooks at one end and millipede-like feet at the other—“are seventy to eighty centimeters long, and are not in themselves intelligent, though they perform many social and