Anvil of Stars

“I’ve been told,” Rosa said. Erin lifted her eyes and tilted her head to one side.

“Let’s talk with Hans about it,” Martin suggested.

“Hans is our enemy,” Jeanette said. “He’s—”

“Please,” Rosa said, touching her arm. “Nobody’s our enemy.”

“How many agree with you?” Martin asked.

“Enough to make a difference,” Rosa said.

“I’ll meet with your people, then,” Martin said.

“Without telling Hans?” Jeanette asked.

Rosa watched him closely, expression taut but not agitated.

“Without telling Hans. Erin, I’ll see the costumes a little later.”

Erin nodded and marched off.

“This is strictly between you and me,” Martin called to her.

“Of course,” Erin said. “Your secret.”

“I’ll call the people,” Jeanette said.

“Do that,” Rosa said. Jeanette ran down the corridor, vanished around a corner. “Hans taught me that extremes accomplish nothing. If I receive privileged information, I’m not about to give it to just anybody.”

“Good,” Martin said.

“You needed my words once, didn’t you?” Rosa asked.

Martin saw no reason to lie. “They were attractive.”

“But Hans’ influence soured you. You thought I supported him and his plans, that he had co-opted me.”

“It seemed that way.”

“It wasn’t that way. Hans took what he wanted from me, and I learned what I needed to learn. I must say, I miss the innocence of those first few weeks, when I could behave as the word took me.”

“The word of God,” Martin said.

Rosa shrugged. “Something speaks to me. Call it God if you need a name. For me, it’s just a very powerful friend to all of us. We live in confusion… It clears away the confusion.”

Jeanette returned. “We’re meeting now,” she said.

Rosa had made new quarters for herself on the perimeter of the ship’s second homeball.

Fifteen Wendys and five Lost Boys had gathered among the flowers. Rex Live Oak squatted on the floor next to a potted rosebush, glancing at Martin, turning away after a brief staring contest. The air thickened with an unpleasant mix of flower scent and stress.

Rosa took the center of the room.

“I’ve brought Martin here to explain our position,” she said. “We are not planning a mutiny. We are simply asking to be allowed to go our own way. We opt out of the Law.”

How can they? Don’t they feel it, the dying Earth, hear it in their blood and flesh?

“We’d hate to lose so many of you,” Martin said. “I’m willing to listen, though.”

“The aliens who have joined us are not acceptable,” Rosa said. “They don’t like us, and frankly, most of us don’t feel comfortable with them.”

“We’re working with them,” Martin said. “We’re getting along pretty well, I think. Most of us.” He looked at Rex, but Rex did not meet the challenge.

“I have been told their work does not fit with our own,” Rosa said. “They have a different moral standard.”

“If anything, their moral standard seems a little higher than our own, from what I’ve seen,” Martin said.

“It is different, and that’s sufficient. I have been told that it is not right to mix our destiny with the destinies of those not human.”

So what is it, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord? That was Theodore Dawn talking in his head, tone bitter, voice nasal, a caricature of all that Theodore had hated.

“I don’t see that at all,” Martin said.

“I have been told, and for us, that’s enough,” Rosa said.

He conceded that for the moment. “We can’t spare you. If you leave, we might not get the Job done.”

“The Job is merely vengeance, and I have been told the races of Leviathan are innocent.”

“I wish I had your sources,” Martin said, trying to smile without showing his exasperation.

“You do,” Rosa said, nodding. “I tell you.”

“Does anybody else hear what Rosa hears?” Martin asked.

Five Wendys and two Lost Boys, Rex included, raised their hands. Jeanette said, “I don’t hear the words myself, but I see the truth.”

Others agreed with Jeanette.

“We won’t punish the innocent,” Rosa said. “Revenge is the straight road to spirit death. We cannot carry out the Law if the Law is cruel and wrong.”

Martin could not think of a wise and circumspect method of dealing with Rosa now. “You’ve done this before,” he began, conflicting impulses making the words thick in his mouth. He swallowed and held out his hands as if he might grab someone’s neck. “Rosa, there’s real danger here. You could tear this crew apart. You say you’re talking to God—”

“I never said that,” Rosa interrupted.

“You say you have direct access to the truth. That makes you… what, the fount of all knowledge, we have to come to you to be told what to do?”

“Better me than Hans,” Rosa said.

“You want to take away everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve devoted our lives to—”

“If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.”

“But where’s your evidence, Rosa? Divine authority?”

“That’s enough for us,” Jeanette said. “It makes more sense than you do.”

“Are you all willing to throw in with… divine authority? Hand everything, your grief and your… will power, your self-respect, everything, to Rosa!”

Kai Khosrau said, “We’re tired, Martin. Revenge is useless.”

“Revenge against the innocent is evil,” Jacob Dead Sea said. Attila Carpathia, Terry Loblolly, Alexis Baikal, and Drusilla Norway all nodded, looked to each other for support and confirmation, some with expressions of beatific obedience, human sheep having given up their higher selves.

Rosa had eaten them.

She had once come close to eating Martin. He shivered and wondered what would have happened had he tipped, had he undergone a conversion to Rosa’s faith; would he be with them now, working to undermine the Job, to protest the enactment of the Law?

“It is not up to you alone to judge innocence or guilt,” Martin said. “The crews make that judgment.”

“We’ve judged already,” Rosa said. “We will not abide by what others say.”

“We can’t afford to lose you,” Martin said, realizing that he would lose this confrontation; that Rosa for the time being was stronger.

“You’ve lost us already,” Kai Khosrau said. “What can you do about it—lock us up?”

“Lock us all up,” Rex said. “At least you’ll keep us away from the Brothers.”

“None of us will have contact with the Brothers,” Rosa said. “There will be—”

“What is this, a list of demands?” Martin asked.

“You listen to her,” Rex said in his most threatening tone. Rosa lifted her hand.

“A list of facts,” she said quietly, firmly. “We are autonomous now. We make our own rules. We will live apart, and have no contact with the Brothers. There are places in this ship where we can live apart, without hindering anybody.”

“You won’t prevent others from coming to us,” Jeanette said.

“Anyone who needs to join us must be free to do so,” Rosa said.

“No Brothers,” Rex said. “We stick with each other.” Kai Khosrau nodded.

“The family is dissolved,” Rosa said. “Our new family is born.”