Anvil of Stars

“They could have killed me,” Martin said, wonder in his voice. “You didn’t see what Patrick…”

“I’m tired, hey.” Hans shook his head. “I still don’t see why so many joined him. Maybe I was doing better than I thought. But… It isn’t worth it now. You’ve won. I’ll resign.”

“Nobody’s asked you to.”

“Did you see their expressions?” Hans asked. “The Wendys in particular. Even Harpal.” He shook his head. “Poor Harpal. No. I’ll resign.”

“You did it yourself,” Martin said.

“I did it all by myself,” Hans said, head lolling. “I didn’t want you dead.”

“How could you have miscalculated?”

“ ‘Miscalculated.’ ” Hans laughed softly. “That’s your problem, Martin. Good soul, but still too intellectual. You think first and see second. I see first and think about what I see. I didn’t ‘miscalculate.’ I slicked up.”

“Did you ask Rex to kill Rosa?”

Hans jerked his head forward. “I did not. I swear I did not. But I might have.”

Martin shook his head, not comprehending.

Hans rubbed the palms of his hands together, tapped one palm with an index finger. “Could we have done the Job with Rosa breaking the crew into little bitty pieces?”

“She could have been dealt with.”

“You’re wrong. Rex broke from me because I slammed him. He didn’t know who he was, and he thought we all hated him. Rosa preached love. He came to her. She used him. I didn’t ask him to kill her. She wasn’t what her people think she was. She was a lot like me.”

“Rosa didn’t deserve to die.”

“We wouldn’t be here if she had lived.”

Martin did not want to argue the point more. “When will you resign?”

“Right now. You take me someplace public, drag me on a chain if you like. I’ll give a sad speech. Old Pans never die.”

“I don’t understand you,” Martin said.

“I understand you,” Hans said. “I only ask for one thing. I want to still be Pan when the report is made.”

The surviving crew of the Dawn Treader came to the schoolroom in two groups. Martin entered with the larger group, behind Hans, which drew looks of surprise. Ariel seemed to have gathered her own small cluster of people. Martin saw a power center forming; none of them knew of his talk with Hans.

Watching the way the people associated, Martin saw a swirl of sentient particles working according to certain principles far from fixed, far from immutable; but still, he saw the interactions, and could understand some of their import. He had thought long hours about the conversation with Hans. When he looked now, he saw first, thought about what he saw; he did not impose wishes and patterns and ideals.

The new ability saddened him a little. Of all the illusions of childhood, the one he hated to lose most was this: that humans worked according to unspoken but noble goals, that they followed an intrinsic path to justice, that they would resist error and move toward self-understanding.

Two moms hung on each side of the star sphere, four in all. The ruins of Leviathan’s worlds filled the sphere, passing in slow, sad scale, majestic rubble, caverns of nebulosity shot through with the glows of cooling chunks of worlds, sparks of fake matter disintegration not yet complete.

“The analysis is not finished,” the ship’s voice said, neutral and close in each of their ears. “There is no precedent in memory for the use of weapons of this power and type. Nor is there precedent for a civilization of precisely this character. The after-effects are difficult to judge. Destruction appears to be complete, but a definitive assessment cannot be reached, perhaps for centuries to come.”

Martin had suspected this. He had dreamed of unexpected survivals; of civilizations encoded in tumbling boulders, hidden in the rubble, waiting for a chance to rebuild; of staircase gods buried deep in Leviathan itself.

“The Law requires certainty. It does not require that you devote more of your time, however. You have made your judgment and enacted the Law.”

“We want to know,” Hans said.

“That is understandable,” the ship’s voice said.

“We need to know.” Hans’ face was even more drawn; he had expected something final. In this, at least, Martin had been more realistic than he.

“Then you should decide to stay and devote more time.”

“What are the choices?” Martin asked.

“Your alternative is to continue with your lives. As promised, we will either return you to your solar system, or you may seek another system, find another world not yet inhabited that is suited to your needs.”

“That’s another phase, another part of the journey,” Martin said. He looked at Hans.

Hans pulled himself closer to the sphere. “I’ve decided my time as Pan is finished. I had hoped to know for sure whether we’ve finished the Job, but… I don’t think I should be Pan any longer. I resign.” His tone was calm, but his face seemed even more drawn, almost wizened.

“Time to nominate,” Anna Gray Wolf said. Martin saw the vortex more clearly.

The Wendys and Lost Boys of the larger group immediately conferred. Jeanette’s group seemed at a loss, left out. Martin moved toward Jeanette. She held her ground, lips set tight.

“You’re still with us, if you want to be,” Martin said in an undertone. “We can’t divide now.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t enough for Hans to step down.”

“You can nominate from your own group,” Martin said. “Come back in. I want you to.”

“You were part of the atrocity,” Jeanette said, brows knit, mouth drawn up in anger. “Coming back is like condoning what happened. We’d rather go with the Brothers.”

“Ask them,” Martin said, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the dissidents. “You can’t make that decision by yourself.”

Knots of activity formed, low voices rose in debate, sank again into conspiratorial discussion.

“You want to be Pan again,” Jeanette accused, uncertain.

“Not in a joke,” Martin said.

She turned away, and the defectors formed their own knot, which then broke into smaller knots.

Hans stayed away from the activity. He looked longingly at the star sphere, as if trying to find his own answer. Martin decided it would be best for now to leave him by himself, not to associate with Hans at this time; Hans was a sink of influence, an outcast. But that went against Martin’s instincts.

He ignored his instincts.

“We nominate Patrick Angelfish!” said David Aurora. Six of the crew stood around Patrick, who looked frightened. Harpal was not one of the six; he stayed close to Anna Gray Wolf.

“We nominate Leo Parsifal,” said Umberto Umbra.

Good. Totally off the beaten path, Martin thought.

Jeanette came forward, even less certain now, looking scared. “We nominate Mei-li Wu-Hsiang Gemini.”

“I nominate Ariel,” Martin said. She looked at him with a frown so intense he interpreted it at first as anger.

“Good,” Harpal said softly.

Hans did not look away from the star sphere.

“Vote for new Pan,” Kirsten Two Bites called out.

Martin watched the vortices break apart, reform, watched power and decision move from one group to another, discussion, debate, watched Ariel surrounded by her group, yet still looking very alone. She was not angry. She was terrified. She could not bring herself to refuse.

She felt the power, as well.

The vote was about to be taken when Eye on Sky entered the schoolroom with a snake mother. Paola went to the Brother and spoke with him. Then she pulled herself to Martin.

“Eye on Sky says the Shrike has found something important. Should he tell us now? He seems to think it’s an emergency.”

“Then let’s hear it,” Martin said. He called for their attention.