Dust

There was a good deal of the world, in his estimation, that was dead or damaged beyond repair. There was a good deal of raw material in the holdes. The world now had stored energy it had not contained when it limped into orbit around the waystars.

And there were the library trees, and the resurrectees.

If he could take hold in Rien, he reasoned, then his fellow crew members, preserved in the library, could inhabit the resurrected. 'Ethically, we might quail at this necessity, but we have come down to a matter of life or death. There is a vast body of knowledge preserved there, and it is useless to the ship while maintained in stasis, unaccessed.'

Rien stole a glance at Benedick. He did not appear to be quailing, and neither did her mother. Instead, Arianrhod had come around the hologram tank and now leaned against its corner, ankles crossed and arms folded, listening.

'We have a pair of immediate problems,' Hero Ng said. 'One is surviving an impending stellar death. The other is getting the Jacob's Ladder under way again, sustainably. It seems to me that the solutions to these problems must be linked. It will require a good deal of nerve, however, and will not be without risk. And we must begin at once, for we have no idea how long we have for preparations.'

And while they waited, he explained.

Simply put, Chief Engineer Ng proposed that the Jacob's Ladder wait until the waystar went supernova, then catch a ride on the magnetized wave front of the exploding debris.

Theoretically (Ng said), embedded among the debris would be bubbles of magnetic field, created in the death throes of the star during the process of reconnection, the melding of opposing magnetic fields into a single line. It was possible—if the unused stores and the damaged ship itself could be spun into carbon monofilament tubes and computronium and symbiote colonies, if the repurposing of the ship's artificial gravity worked—that the world could net one of those bubbles and surf the cresting wave.

And maybe not be crushed. As long as they caught the leading edge. As long as they accelerated fast enough to stay with it. As long as they could reinforce the world, and locate enough acceleration tanks that the augmented crew stood a chance of survival. 'There's no hope for the Mean,' Ng said. 'They will have to be Exalted immediately; there's no point in maintaining controls only to see them perish.'

It was possible, as long as the world did not tear itself apart at the seams from the strain. The whole ship would have to accelerate evenly. The whole ship would have to stay ahead of the line of debris. Or they would be reduced to a smudge along the edge of the newly forming planetary nebula.

'And then what?' Arianrhod said, the first words Rien had heard her speak since fainting on the stretcher. 'We fly blindly into darkness until we freeze? That seems to be a jump from the fire into the icebox, if I may stretch a metaphor.'

Rien felt her lips stretch around Ng's smile. It was a nice smile, she judged, if a little smug. 'If we live that long? When we're up to speed, we deploy a ramscoop. We find a better star, one that looks to have habitable worlds. And we steer for it.'

'Simple,' Arianrhod said, unfolding her arms. She glanced over her shoulder at the auburn-haired, snub' nosed woman who had been at her side now both times Rien had seen her. 'Chief Engineer?'

She didn't mean Ng.

Which meant that was Caitlin Conn. Perceval's mother. Who was looking at Rien with far more concentration than was Arianrhod, though perhaps that was self-protection or embarrassment on Arianrhod's part.

'I think it could work,' Caitlin said, without shifting her gaze. Maybe she was looking at—assessing—Hero Ng. He was the one wearing Rien's face, just now. 'If it doesn't kill us. Of course, sitting here waiting for the boom will kill us, too. There's just one problem ...'

Rien found control of her own voice, or Ng relinquished it to her. She stepped away from Samael and, incidentally, Benedick. Gavin fanned his wings on her shoulder, for balance, and she remembered that he was Samael's creature.

And so was Mallory.

Which meant, so was Ng.

There was no one to trust. Except Perceval. Because if she didn't trust Perceval, there was nothing worth fighting for.

'What's the problem?' Benedick asked.

Rien knew the answer. 'We'd have to unify the world's A.I. to do it. The angels don't work together without a guiding intelligence.'

She would not look at Samael.

She couldn't bear to watch him preening.

At least, she thought, he wouldn't consume Hero Ng, and all his fellows from the moving times. No: they could be rehomed in the resurrected. Whose persons had been devoured by other Exalt, in the present day.

It all comes around again, Hero Ng whispered. Be of good heart and good patience, brave Rien.

25 Vault

Yes, I have a thousand tongues,

And nine and ninety-nine lie.

— STEPHEN CRANE, The Black Riders and Other Lines

A little later, Rien sat alone except for Gavin, feeling small and lost behind a table in the corner. She watched the adults, whom she was still tempted to call the Exalt, performing their mysterious dances of conversation, moving from place to place around the big room like ants touching antennae and sharing pheromones, passing news of the death of an old queen or the ascension of the new. She had slipped away from Samael—or at least, from Samael's avatar—and Benedick was talking to someone she didn't know while ignoring Caitlin and being ignored right back.

Like two cats on a bed, she thought. She fiddled with her fingers and thought about what she knew through Hero Ng.

His plan might even work.

Samael, Mallory, and Gavin. She told herself she'd only been using Mallory, that she had never trusted or liked Gavin. The basilisk still roosted on her shoulder, baleful eyes tight shut. She poked him with a finger. 'Wake up.'

'Do I look plugged in to you? I'm not sleeping.'

'Good,' she said. 'Because I'm sending you home.'

'Rien—'

But she stopped him with a raised hand. A funny awkward gesture when one made it to someone whose head bobbed beside one's own. 'Someone needs to fetch Mallory and the fruits of the library tree. And you are the obvious choice. Can you find your way EVA?'

'I can.' He billed her cheek. She ordered herself not to be charmed and turned her face away. 'You think I serve Samael,' he said.

'Don't you?'

He shrugged, both wings. 'Do you?'

'No.' As flatly as she could say it. 'I don't see the point in angels. Or in reuniting angels. Or in choosing one angel over another; it's like asking if you would rather be scourged or boiled in oil. They're all full of shit and self- importance.'

She must have spoken louder than she intended, because her words made someone—other than Gavin—