Anvil of Stars

individuals.”

“How many people were in her room before she died, before she was found?”

“One person was in her room with her,” the mom said.

“Male or female?”

“Male.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“There had been sexual activity,” the mom said.

Martin had noticed dried fluid around Rosa’s vulva and spots still damp on her pad. “Was she raped?”

“No.”

He took a shuddering breath, stomach twisting and his neck hard as rock, head aching intensely. “But you don’t know who was with her.”

“We are aware of sixty people who were not with her,” the mom said. “Four others were in private quarters, not their own, including the one with Rosa, and were not tracked.”

“Can you list their names?”

“Their names are in your wand now.”

“Thank you,” Martin said.

The mom departed and Martin examined the list. One or more of the four could have killed her, and Martin noted that Rex was among them. Giacomo, Rex, Ariel, Carl Phoenix; he could not help returning to Rex Live Oak’s glowing name.

Hans insisted Martin attend the service. Jeanette Snap Dragon delivered a brief and surprisingly cool talk, and there was no mention of Rosa’s supernatural interactions, no mention as well of Rosa’s disciples.

Jeanette spoke instead of Rosa the storyteller, of the early awkward Rosa who had blossomed into her own kind of maturity late in the voyage.

Before Jeanette was finished, Martin’s eyes filled with tears. We’ve lost our final illusions.

After the service, Jeanette and Rex Live Oak were the last to leave. Rex glanced at Martin in the corridor outside Rosa’s quarters, his eyes red and swollen, his mouth a broken curve.

Rex had never been a very good actor. He was not acting now. “Too much,” he said, edging past Martin in the corridor. “Too slicking much.”

Rosa’s room was sealed, her body still inside. Out of sight, the ship did its work silently and quickly, and the last of Rosa vanished.

Jeanette approached Hans and Martin when the others had dispersed. “We’re still agreed,” she told him. “None of Rosa’s people will fight. We’re standing down.”

“I understand,” Hans said.

“We won’t vote on judgment, we won’t go on the Trojan Horse, we won’t engage in support services.”

“That’s all been planned for,” Hans said. Jeanette looked between them, her unlined features appearing much older than before. She turned slowly, eyes lingering on Hans, and walked inboard.

Hans’s hair stood up in spikes from constant pushes of his hand and his eyes were dark and puffy. “It’s over,” he murmured to Martin. “Let it go.”

There wasn’t much else Martin could do.

Separation was less than six hours away.

Martin walked beside Hans into the schoolroom. Hans carried the list of the names of the ten humans who would accompany ten Brothers aboard the Trojan Horse as it dipped into Leviathan’s system. The crew assembled in the center before the star sphere, all but Rosa’s party, who stood to one side in ranks of five.

Hakim and Giacomo had arranged for the most recent results of the search team to be projected within the sphere: the best images of the worlds, like God’s marbles dropped carelessly on velvet, beautiful and alive.

Hans called out the names without referring to the list.

Those chosen smiled and shook fists high in the air. Others looked disappointed until Jimmy Satsuma said, “Into the valley of death rode the ten… The rest of us will just have to wait outside to kick ass.”

The crew cheered. Martin thought, Remarkable how little the rhetoric of war changes, as if it’s built into our genes.

“Twenty,” Hans said. “Don’t forget the Brothers.” But word of possible doubts among the Brothers had circulated with unfortunate speed, and Hans had done nothing to cool their anger.

“Yeah,” Satsuma said, without enthusiasm.

“The ship will split in one hour,” Hans said. “I will ride Greyhound. Martin will ride the Trojan Horse. For the time being, all is in the hands of the moms. But we’ll get our chance soon enough.”

He paused, looking at the floor. “I have an intuition.” The crew kept a tense silence. “I think we’ll find what we came for. We’ll find it here. We share this with the Brothers, whatever our physical differences: we share the need to see justice done.

“I am not as good with words as other Pans have been. I don’t know if a pep talk from me will do you any good. We have our own tragedies to face, our own… evil to deal with. But all that has to be put aside for now. It can’t knock us off the road.

“This is the anniversary of the day we left the solar system. The road takes us to meet Earth’s Killers. I know what I have to do. You all know what you have to do.”

Enough was enough. “Let’s go,” he said.

Humans and Brothers, the crew of the Trojan Horse entered the cafeteria. Martin sat against the wall. Hakim sat beside him. “I am not frightened,” Hakim said, eyes glittering, face flushed as if with fever.

“I am,” Martin said.

“It would be more polite for me to be frightened with you,” Hakim said, shaking his head. “But I am not. I feel as if I have lived a very long time. If I must face Shaitan, now is the time to do it. Allah will have pity on us all, and we will…” He swallowed. “This talk of God does not disturb you?”

“No,” Martin said, gripping Hakim’s shoulder.

“Rosa did not take Allah away from us.”

“Of course not.”

“We will grow in Allah’s sight, after this,” Hakim said. “Allah loved Earth, and loves his frail children.”

Martin nodded. He watched Ariel sitting at a table, getting up as table and benches sank into the floors. He smiled at her. She looked around, held up her arms, Where am I going to sit ?

Martin patted the floor beside him.

She sat. “I think we should take another vote… on who should be Pan. After the Job.”

Martin nodded absently.

“Poor Rosa,” she said, drawing up her knees.

Martin closed his eyes. Hakim murmured a sura from the Koran. The ten Brothers coiled near the middle. Eye on Sky approached Martin.

“We we are sorry for the tragedy of the death,” he said. “We we are hoping this does not make you less efficient.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Martin said.

Paola put an arm around Eye on Sky. “We’ll do our work well.”

Martin looked up into its “face,” like the frayed end of a rope with eyes and a bouquet of claws. “Times past, an observation was made by one of yours,” Eye on Sky said. “In we our hearing. That humans might know more about death and killing than Brothers. This is not so. Brothers have fought with each other, though not for many thousands of years.”

Paola hovered nervously, looking between them.

“We we and you will share the guilt for this vengeance,” Eye on Sky said. “It is agreed, as the Brothers agreed when we ourselves set this mission along, this Job.”

He smelled of tea and woodsmoke, a combination Martin had not experienced before.