Anvil of Stars

practical roles. The components are responsible for gathering food, though not for agriculture or preparing food. They are responsible for reproduction and nurture, their offspring. When the offspring are mature, they are instructed in the basics of forming combinations, and these combinations are then raised and educated by fully mature aggregates.”

More images: aggregates ranging in size (a human silhouette for comparison) from two meters long, comprising ten intertwined components, to five meters, and fifty centimeters to a meter thick.

“They are oxygen breathers. An atmosphere conducive to both species, human and aggregates, will be maintained in all common areas of the ship, though separate quarters will also be available.”

Martin glanced at Hans. Not a hint of shrewd speculation, not a trace of anything but shock. Here was strangeness that exceeded Hans’ expectations.

“Their foodstuffs are not edible for humans, nor is your food sufficient for their needs. Contact is not dangerous, provided certain rules are followed. Components must not be molested or impeded in their duties; they can’t respond socially beyond a limited-—”

“Like my wanger,” Rex Live Oak cracked. Some of the crew laughed nervously.

“A limited range of interactions with their kind, guided largely by instinct. Components can be dangerous if they are molested. They can inflict a painful bite. We do not yet know how toxins for this species might affect humans—”

“Christ, they’re poisonous?” Rex asked, astonished.

“That is a possibility. But they will not attack unless severely molested. Aggregates are highly intelligent, capable of complex social interactions. We are confident they can mimic human speech better than humans can learn their methods of communication, which are chemical and auditory. To your senses, their variety of smells should be pleasant.”

The promise of pleasant smell wasn’t cutting much ice. The crew looked on the images with open mouthed amazement and half-controlled revulsion.

“What do we call them?” Ariel asked.

“Good question,” Erin Eire commented. “I don’t think calling them snakes is a good idea.”

“Or worms,” Jeanette Snap Dragon added.

“What in hell are they?” someone else asked.

“They are aggregate intelligences,” the mom said, not making the mystery any shallower.

“But what the hell is that?” Rex asked. “How do they think? How do they fight?”

“The proper question,” Hans said, “is how—and if—we’re going to cooperate with them.”

Martin stepped forward. “Of course we’re going to cooperate,” he said, as if challenging Hans directly. Hans took the challenge without hesitation.

“Martin’s right. We’re going to get along, whatever they’re called. Which takes us back to an earlier question. What do we call them?”

”What will they call us?” Erin Eire interrupted.

Hans ignored her. “Suggestions? The moms seem to be leaving this up to us. I assume they don’t use any name we could smell, much less pronounce…”

“Do they have sexes?” Rosa asked, voice sweet and clear over the murmuring.

“The components can be male or female or both, depending on environmental conditions. They give live birth to between one and four young every two years. Aggregates do not engage in any sexual activity; sex occurs only among separated components.”

The crew mulled this over in silence; stranger and stranger, perhaps more and more alarming.

“We could call the components cords,” Paola suggested. “The aggregates could be braids.”

“Good,” Hans said. “Anything better?”

“We’ll call them Brothers,” Rosa said, as if it were final. “A new part of our family.”

Hans raised one eyebrow and said, “Sounds fine to me.”

The names stuck. Cords, braids: Brothers. A new addition to the family of Wendys, Lost Boys, and moms.

Dawn Treader and Journey House would merge to make a single vessel nearly as large as Dawn Treader had originally been.

Communication between Dawn Treader and Journey House passed along the noach at a furious rate; hour by hour, the libraries expanded.

Martin, just before sleep, toured the libraries’ new extensions and found himself in territories that had not existed before, filled with streaming bands of projected colors, tending to the reds and greens; sounds like aspirated music—haunting, sweet, and disturbing at once; and images of enormous complexity, swimming and flowing as if projected on dense fog. Some images were expressed in rotated and skewed multiples, as if they might be viewed by many eyes, each having a slightly different function.

He checked to see how many of the crew were exploring these fresh territories. The wand reported fifteen so engaged, including himself; the rest, it seemed, were waiting to be pushed.

The size of the libraries had trebled in just a day. If the libraries had been reduced by a tenth during the neutrino storm, then the Brothers’ libraries had held just over twice as much information as theirs. Martin was eager to have that translated, if translation was possible; perhaps they would have to learn how to see and understand differently.

Before shutting off the wand, he requested a kind of judgment from the libraries: how the Brothers compared to other beings of whom the Benefactors were aware.

“In a range of deviance from your norm, the Brothers are perhaps halfway along an arbitrary scale of biological differences,” the library voice responded.

Martin sensed something new in this answer; something fresh and perhaps useful. They might be dealing with the merged intelligences of both ships’ minds; and he thought it more than a little possible that, for whatever reason, the new combination would be more informed, and more willing to inform the crews.

Before falling off into muddled dreams, Martin realized what this could mean, if true.

They’re more confident. We’re closing in; there aren’t many surprises left.

Another voice—it might have been Theodore’s—seemed to laugh ironically. How wrong do you want to be? Keep working at it… You might break a record…

Hans gathered the remaining ex-Pans—and Rex Live Oak. They met in the nose, with the search team absent, and looked across a few infinitesimal kilometers to Journey House.

“The ships join tomorrow at fifteen hundred. We’ll all wait in the cafeteria,” Hans said. His face looked drawn, older. Circles shadowed his eyes. “But we’re going to meet a few of the Brothers first. They’re coming over in one of their craft in two hours. Three of them, three of us. The moms say they can’t predict how we’ll interact. For once, I think they’re being absolutely square with us. I’d like Martin and Cham to join me. We’ll meet them together. Before then, the moms are going to give us background on the individuals.” He looked around the group with one eyebrow raised, as if expecting a challenge. Quietly, he asked, “Any suggestions?”

Harpal said, “As Pan’s second, I’d like to go.”

“Cham is better suited to meeting live ropes,” Hans said. It wasn’t clear to the others whether that was a joke or not.

“Then I’d like to resign as Christopher Robin,” Harpal said.

“Fine.”

Harpal waited for someone to object, to rise to his defense. No one did. He nodded, jaw clenched, and backed away.

“Not that you haven’t done a good job;” Hans said. “I’m not appointing anyone in your place. Anything you’d like me to ask our new friends?” He made the inquiry with unctuous solicitation, rubbing the moment in.

“Ask them what they regard as a mortal insult,” Harpal said. “I don’t want to get on their bad side if they’re poisonous.”

“We’ll get all this culture stuff straightened out. Right now—and I think that’s a good question, Harpal, but it can wait—right now, I’d like to see just how much personality the braids actually have. How we connect, what sort of fellows they are.”

“I think a woman should go with us,” Martin said. “A different point of view.”

Hans cocked his head to one side, considered for a moment, and replied, “Bad idea. I’ve watched the Wendys