Anvil of Stars

backbones, they would allow braids to move much as they did naturally, in normal gravitation, with a sinuous caterpillar motion.

“We hope these are suitable,” Salamander said. “They are made to go unnoticed while worn.”

“We we are assured,” Eye on Sky said.

“There will be one for each member of your party.”

“As expected,” Eye on Sky said.

“And they will be fitted to each individual’s shape and size,” Salamander said.

“As expected.”

“Your schedule for surface excursion…” Sharp hissing intake of breath, raising of the miter’s nose, “winking” of the three amber eyes into the pale green flesh. “Upon landing and suiting up, there is orientation to teach you with more basics of how we behave and work. Then a meeting under shelter with representatives of the five primary races. Followed by proper induction ceremony for entry into the Cooperative of Fifteen Worlds. Exchange of information in a formal meeting with secretaries of the Living Council. I will accompany you and explain what is necessary, what you have questions for.”

Ariel looked at Martin with a brief expression of boredom. Martin lifted his eyebrows in concurrence. Whatever excitement this meeting might have had—under any other circumstances, should have had—was lost in the tincture of overwhelming ceremony, not to mention awareness of its almost certain insincerity.

Camouflage upon masquerade upon deception.

Do these beings believe they are real, and free? Martin wondered. Are they? Have the Killers faded into their decoys?

Salamander lowered its head and gripped the metal bar before it, freezing suddenly like a museum display. After a moment, as the skeletal white suits disappeared behind opacity, it lifted its head again. “We have refreshments, liquids and foods, which we hope are palatable. Landing will be in fifteen minutes. You will not need to inconvenience yourselves, and you will not experience any discomfort beyond mild sensations of motion. We have provided food. You may dine after landing.”

“Thank you,” Eye on Sky said. “Reasons of religious nature, we all we must eat our own food.”

They had taken enough risks already. There was no sense inviting microscopic spies into their bodies, or anything else they could avoid.

“Religious nature,” Salamander repeated with some savor. “Rules dictated by perceived higher beings?”

“Food for humans and Brothers must be specially prepared. We all we will send food from our ship when needed, with we our food handler.”

“That will be done,” Salamander said. “Is this religious requirement very strong?”

Eye on Sky glanced at Martin and wove a small figure eight with splayed head cords. It seemed to want his help.

“Very,” Martin said. Then, innocently, “Don’t you have religious food laws? We assumed all civilizations would… obey higher authority.”

Salamander did not answer for a time. It—or something listening through it—was obviously thinking over this question thoroughly. “We do not observe specific religious rules,” it answered. “Nor do most of us absorb nutrition by eating. There is one exception, a type living on the fourth planet.”

Martin’s expedient, and little test, had been neatly sidestepped. Martin said, “Are… most of you mechanical?”

“No,” Salamander said. “We are organic.”

“We we foresee such things as artificial bodies,” Eye on Sky said, back on track. “Are you naturally born, or artificial?”

“These questions can be answered later,” Salamander said. “They are not as simple as they might seem.”

Martin curled his legs and folded his arms, floating within his protective field. He could feel little of the ship’s motion; no obvious acceleration. But the always-sinking sensation of weightlessness changed in a way he couldn’t quite describe; as if his arms and legs might be getting heavier, yet not his torso.

The odd sensation faded, replaced by something they hadn’t experienced in years—the heaviness of being in a planet’s gravitation. Theory told them there was no difference between weight caused by acceleration and the heaviness brought on by gravity, but Martin had the eerie sensation of knowing the difference.

The protective fields did not diffuse through their bodies; they provided support for externals, but not for internal muscles and organs, and the heaviness immediately became oppressive, almost nauseating.

“Are you comfortable?” Salamander asked.

Eye on Sky made a squeaking sound. Martin looked to the Brother’s hind section and saw cords letting go. The Brother smelled like a pine forest—euphoria and fear, he guessed.

“I feel a little sick,” Martin said. Ariel said she was not comfortable.

The fields glowed and sparkled briefly, and the disparity faded. The Brothers did not completely disassemble; the cords grabbed hold again. Paola’s face took on color and Ariel let her fists relax.

“Better,” Martin said.

Where the skeletal support suits had been displayed, an equally convincing view of the planet’s surface appeared. They seemed to descend from an altitude of nine or ten kilometers. The horizon showed no curvature; the atmosphere, only a few kilometers thick, glimmered in a thin bright line between the dull red, black, and dark blue expanse of Sleep, and the starry blackness of space.

Martin saw orderly features below, triangles, circles, lines of gray against the dull red and black, circles of white lying on the blue expanse of sea. Mountains appeared against the horizon, white rock capped with orange and pink, deep in shadow now.

Dawn was breaking, and from three hundred million kilometers, Leviathan’s light poured over Sleep’s sea and land, setting ablaze streamers of cloud and smoke from crustal vents.

Martin heard a faint whining noise-—perhaps their craft singing through Sleep’s atmosphere. Puffs of cloud shot past. He felt the planetary pull more intensely, but without much more discomfort.

He avoided thinking about how they were being manipulated. There was no practical way they could protect themselves against tampering. The Killers can change matter from a great distance. They could change parts of our own bodies to suit their purposes… kill us immediately, fill us with tiny spies, even control the way we think.

He looked at Ariel, trying not to let his misery and fear show. She held out her hand, and he took it without hesitation. Paola held out her hand, too, and then Silken Parts extended a cord, and Paola took hold of that, and Ariel grasped a cord offered by Eye on Sky. Strong Cord connected with Martin and the circle was complete.

He didn’t feel any less afraid, but he certainly felt less alone.

“Are you disturbed? Not comfortable?” Salamander asked.

Eye on Sky, who should have answered for the group, said nothing.

“We’re comfortable,” Martin said hoarsely, and cleared his throat.

“We are not familiar with that communication,” Salamander said, and repeated the sound of his throat clearing. “What does it mean?”

“An… organic sound,” Martin said. “No meaning.”

“Like my hissing and breathing,” Salamander offered.

“Right,” Martin said.

“Do my extraneous sounds bother you?”

“No,” Martin said. Under other circumstances—if this masquerade were real—he thought he could feel affection for Salamander, so solicitous was the bishop vulture, trying to make their journey easier.

The wonderful, withdrawing blink of the beautiful amber eyes, the flushing pink of patches of the pastel green skin; the creature was actually quite beautiful. I’m flipping back and forth. Emotional strain. Keep it even.

The exposed crust of Sleep was incredibly rugged, a chaos of broken black rock, some blocks hundreds of meters wide, lying over and across each other with glassy extrusions sharp as knives. Between the blocks lay drifts of orange and pink powder, from which winds blew streaming hazes that glittered in the sunlight.