Anvil of Stars

“Attitudes and designs change,” the snake mother added.

“We have discussed this before,” the mom said.

Martin nodded. “I’d like to have it made more clear. Do you trust humans as much as you trust the Brothers?”

“We are not designed to trust or distrust, or to make any such decisions regarding character,” the mom replied.

“Please,” Martin said through clenched teeth. Ariel reached out and touched his hand, and he gripped hers tightly, feeling her support, her strength. “We do not need evasive answers. The Benefactors could not have known our character before you sent your ships into the Earth’s system… You must have made some judgment, reached some decision about our capacities.”

The ship’s voice spoke. Martin was startled. “The ships’ minds can’t make such decisions. If such a decision was made, we didn’t make it.”

He felt tears on his cheeks and gritted his teeth, ashamed at showing such emotion. “Are we inferior to the Brothers?”

Stonemaker became agitated. His rustling increased until his entire length vibrated. Eye on Sky coiled and uncoiled twice, weaving his head. “Offense is given here,” Stonemaker said. “We we do not wish we our partners to feel offensed.”

“Offended,” Paola corrected automatically.

“We need to know whether we are trusted,” Martin repeated, it seemed to him, for the hundredth time.

“Both libraries will be open to those who wish to conduct research,” the ship’s voice said. “What is shared and is not shared is up to humans and Brothers, not to the ships’ minds.”

“We came close to the edge,” Paola said sadly as they walked toward Hans’ quarters. “Maybe we don’t want to know the whole truth.”

“Maybe the Brothers are afraid of us,” Ariel said. “Of what we might become.”

“What do they think we’ll do?” Paola asked.

Martin’s voice shook with anger—and with more than a little guilt. “They might think we’ll become planet killers,” he said.

Ariel shivered to untense her muscles. “Rex certainly didn’t convince them otherwise,” she said. “What about the moms?”

“Maybe they think so, too,” Martin said.

“Wouldn’t they have dumped us or killed us or something?” Paola objected.

“Not if they’re forced to enact the bloody Law,” Ariel said. “We were victims. They rescued us. They need us to finish the Job.”

“Why not push us aside, and let the Brothers do the Job?” Paola asked. “They only need one set of victims.”

“So maybe we’ve scared the Brothers. What have we shown them to the contrary?” Martin asked.

Paola stared back at him, jaw quivering. “Me,” she said, pointing to herself. “You. We’re not all like Rex.”

“How could they know?” Ariel asked. “Let’s just ask ourselves that.”

“By looking at me!” Paola said, crying openly now. “I’m not like that!”

“Do they expect to send pacifists out to kill worlds?” Martin asked, feeling his anger build, then deflate. He let his shoulders slump. “What are we? Allies, or just bad cargo?”

Hans examined the designs for the Trojan Horse, nodding and humming faintly. Martin, Hakim, Cham, Donna Emerald Sea, and Giacomo had spent the better part of two days working out the design and details with Dry Skin, Silken Parts, and Eye on Sky; even now, in the Brothers’ quarters, Eye on Sky presented the design to Stonemaker for his approval.

“It certainly doesn’t look like a Ship of the Law,” Hans concluded. “It looks like a pleasure barge.”

Eighty meters long, with a brilliant red surface, laser/solar sails folded and rolled along its length, two curving arms reaching from a spindle-shaped body, small, heavily shielded matter-anti-matter drives mounted fore and aft, the Trojan Horse would appear to be the product of a relatively youthful technology, star travel on the cheap.

Humans and Brothers had come up with something unarmed, innocuous—in so far as any starship could be innocuous, heralding the arrival of potential rivals or partners—and even jaunty.

“The moms say it can be built,” Martin said. “They say it will fly, and it will be convincing.”

“Do they say anything about our fitness to be allies?” Hans asked. The circles under his eyes had darkened. He spent much of his time alone in his quarters, as he sat now, in the center of the room, legs crossed.

A second cushion waited empty nearby; Rosa might still share his quarters occasionally. Yet the condition of a few vases of sickly flowers showed that she had probably not been here for several days.

“Are we fit for the Job?” Hans asked.

“I don’t know what they think,” Martin said. “Rex caused a lot of bad feeling. If the Brothers can experience something like bad feeling…”

“What would they have thought if I’d executed Rex right there, on the spot?” Hans said. “Would that have made them happy?”

“Would have made things much worse,” Martin said.

“Well, if they don’t like us now, they’re going to really have it in for us in a couple of days,” Hans said.

“Why?”

“Rosa’s on her own,” Hans said. “You should have been here, Martin. She refuses to slick, she looks me right in the eye, and she says,” he began to do a fair imitation of Rosa’s strong, musical voice, “ ‘I have been shown what you are. I have been shown that you are mocking me, and holding me back from my duty.’ ” Hans grinned. “At least it took her this long to catch on. Not bad for delaying action, right?”

Martin looked away.

Hans’ grin vanished. “She’s going to start up again, Martin, and this time she really has something good for us. She’s damned near psychic, and she’s tuning in to our inadequacy. ‘We have sinned. We are not worthy of the Job.’ Good stuff to toss out now, right?”

“Where is she?” Martin asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll ask Ariel to look out for her.”

“Yes, but who will keep her under control? She should be the one banished and locked away. Before she’s done, she’ll have us all at each other’s throats.” Hans picked up the wand and projected the ship’s design again. “Who’s going to be on board?”

“The moms and snake mothers think there’s a small chance the Killers might have information about the Brothers. The Brothers are willing to let the crew be human—”

Hans laughed with a bitter edge that set Martin’s neck hair on end. “It’s probably a suicide mission. How kind of them.”

Martin’s jaw worked. “Don’t underestimate them, Hans. They want to go. They want to do the Job as much as we do.”

“I’d rather survive to see it done.”

“At any rate,” Martin said, “I thought, subject to your approval, that it would be better psychologically and politically if we took the chance, and had Brothers on the crew.”

Hans rotated the ship’s image, poked his tongue into his cheek, rolled it over his teeth beneath closed lips. “How do we explain two species aboard, if we party with Leviathan’s citizens?”

“Hakim and Giacomo are working up a whole fake history. Two intelligent species from one star system, cooperating after centuries of war. The alliance is still fragile, but the crew is disciplined—”

“We’re better at making up stories than the Brothers, I hear,” Hans said.

“After a fashion.”

“Where’s the origin?”

“Hakim has found a buttercup star about forty light years from Leviathan. For the Trojan Horse, that would mean a journey of about four hundred years. The crew will have just come out of deep freeze.”