'I know,' said Perceval. 'It's painted on the side.'
Samael laughed, but it was the flicker of Tristen's smile that Perceval had been after. He put his elbows on the table and his chin on the backs of his fingers. Again, the deceptive air of repose.
She drank more coffee and watched the poison angel.
Samael said, 'Do you know the purpose of a generation ship?'
'Colonization,' Benedick said, while Perceval was still mulling her answer. He warmed his coffee cup, refilled Tristen's, and poured the last of the carafe for Perceval. 'To carry men among the stars in search of new worlds. It's slow.'
'Generations,' Samael said dryly. And then, when Benedick nodded touche, continued, 'Does that time in flight need to be wasted time?'
Perceval thought about what he had said, about ants twisting off their wings. 'You could use it for breeding programs, couldn't you?'
'You could design whatever you wanted,' he said. His sooty wings had vanished; she had not noticed exactly when. He shifted in his chair, adjusting the drape of the greatcoat skirts around his legs. 'Forced evolution. Mankind by design. Do you know what a Jacob's ladder is?'
'A toy,' she said, and he frowned at her.
'It is the ladder that angels climb to reach Heaven,' he said. 'It is the hard path to exaltation.'
'Exalt,' she said, tasting the word as if for the first time. 'Mean. Forced evolution. The world is a—'
'Hothouse. Laboratory. With experiments and controls.'
She realized her tongue tip protruded from her mouth in concentration, like a child's. She sucked it back into her mouth and gnawed her upper lip.
'And then something goes wrong,' Perceval said. 'Catastrophically wrong.'
'You limp to the nearest star.' Samael's bottled-up grin revealed delight in her detective work, even if she was only chasing the trail of crumbs he laid her.
Despite herself, she liked that smile. 'Even if it's not a very good star.'
'Beggars can't be choosers,' he said. He sat back and folded his arms with a satisfied air. 'If they wish to live. And once one thing has gone wrong, failures cascade. Command and Engineering have differing ideas of how to proceed. The passengers have their own plans. The tame God of the world, the guiding intelligence, cannot maintain itself as a gestalt, and splinters into demiurges, each with a field of interest and a span of control.'
'They don't talk much,' Perceval said, hoping to make him laugh again. 'If you're the demiurge of evolution, Samael, then what is Dust?'
'The demiurge of memory. The angel of the data bank, the holographic memory crystal, and the standing wave. The angel of knowing where you have been.'
'But you obviously remember some things.'
'From after the fragmentation.' He patted her hand; she tried not to feel patronized. 'Or relearned since.'
'And you and Dust don't agree.'
'We agree on what is to be done,' Samael said. 'We've all been working for centuries to repair, reinforce, and protect the world as much as possible. As have the Engineers.'
It was flattery, but it was also accurate. Perceval nodded.
Samael continued, 'We differ on how to do it.'
Tristen put his hand over the one of Perceval's that Samael had patted. Benedick sat back in his chair, arms folded, listening. Tristen said, 'And over who should be in charge?'
'If you are going to reconstruct the ship's gestalt mind,' Samael said apologetically, 'somebody is going to have to get eaten. I'm sure you can understand my position.'
'And so there was discord in Heaven,' Benedick said. 'You wish to thwart Dust.'
'I do.'
Pinion stirred against Perceval's shoulders. Fiercely, silently, she shushed it, and through some miracle it subsided. 'And how could I help you, Samael?'
'That's easy,' Samael said. 'Don't marry him. Choose me.'
19 the monster who rules
Rien woke to Tristen shaking her. She blinked muzzily, protesting, but as soon as she caught his wrist he relented. In a melodrama, he would have had one hand over her mouth to silence her, but apparently he didn't care if she shouted. And so she didn't, and didn't panic either. 'Come to the dining room,' he said, and stepped into the hall so she could dress in privacy.
She was grateful that he waited. She had no idea of the way, and wherever Gavin had gone off to, he had not yet returned. He might be on his way back to Mallory, but she didn't think he would leave her without a farewell.
She hoped, anyway.
'What happened?' she asked when she caught up with Tristen in the hall. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing the fine blue-tinted points of his ears, but he'd missed a few wisps that curled this way and that.
As they walked, he told her—efficiently, a soldier's report—about Samael and his brief history of the world.
'He's trying to force Perceval to marry him? Did he say why? He's not even a real person. Can a machine intelligence marry?'
'Well,' Tristen said, 'she is a Conn. And has a better claim on the chair than even I have, by primogeniture. If she were Commodore, or stood close to the Captain's chair, then he would have a legal link to it.'
'Space,' Rien said. 'Is that why they're squabbling over her? They're trying to marry an heir to the throne? I'm sorry, Tristen, but that's like some medieval play.'
'I suspect there's more to it.' He sounded both amused and angry; a glance at his expression confirmed her opinion. 'But Samael isn't telling.'
She blew through her teeth. 'And I thought the Exalts were horrible.'
She was happy, she thought, to have Tristen in her family. He was more like Oliver Conn than like Ariane. Instead of reminding her that he was Exalt, and so was she, thank you kindly, he chuckled mournfully and sucked his lip.
'And do we believe him?' she asked, when they had paused in the hall so Tristen could straighten her collar.
He shrugged. 'An excellent question.'
They came up on the dining room doorway. He rested his hand on her shoulder in reassurance or to keep her from bolting.
She stepped into the room.
Benedick and Perceval were seated side by side at a round, heavy-looking table. Across from them was a slight man, not too tall, who hunkered forward like a vulture on a branch. All three glanced up as Tristen and Rien entered. The resurrectee servant who was laying another place at the table did not.
