Anvil Of Stars Part 25

"He's still acting like a jerk," Erin said.

"Maybe he's waiting for the right girl to come along," Martin said, aware how silly that sounded.

Erin hooted. "Oh, sure. Somebody he's never met before."

"We'll have visitors soon," Martin said, face straight.

"Spare me," Erin said, grimacing over her shoulder as she departed.

Ariel laid her meal tray on the table across from Martin in the cafeteria. New watch schedules posted by Hans had placed her in an opposite sleep cycle; he was having dinner, she breakfast, but the food appeared much the same.

The s.h.i.+p was not yet up to the broad variety of meals it had once offered; what they were served now was bland but filling, a brownish bread-like pudding varied occasionally by soups.

They exchanged minimal greetings. Ariel made him uncomfortable by focusing on him when he wasn't looking.

"What do you think of Hans now?" she asked when their eyes met.

"He's doing fine," Martin said.

"Better than you?" she asked.

"In some ways," Martin said.

"How? I'm curious. I don't mean to embarra.s.s you."

"I'm not embarra.s.sed. He's probably more canny than I am, more sensitive to the crew's swings of mood."

She tipped her head in a way that implied neither agreement nor disagreement.

"And you?" he asked.

"Reserving judgment. He is is more canny than some Pans we've had. Rosa approves of him. She talks about the duty to our leader in her sermons." more canny than some Pans we've had. Rosa approves of him. She talks about the duty to our leader in her sermons."

"Sermons?"

"I haven't been to one, but I hear about them."

"She's preaching?"

"Not yet," Ariel said, "but close. She's counseling. Helping some of the crew face up to the Skirmish and what it means."

"Blaming the moms?"

"Not implicitly."

"Blaming them at all?"

"She doesn't even mention them, from what I've been told. She talks about responsibility and free will and our place in the broad scheme. Maybe we should go and listen."

"Maybe I will," Martin said.

"Maybe Hans should go, too."

"Do you want me to spy on her for Hans?"

Ariel shook her head. "I just think it's significant, what's happening."

"It's inevitable, maybe," Martin said under his breath, and got up to go to his quarters.

Theodore Dawn visited his dreams, and was full of talk, some of which Martin remembered on waking.

They sat in a garden, under an arbor in full flower, Theodore in a short white tunic, his legs tanned from long exposure to the summer sun now at zenith over their heads. They were eating grapes; they might have been Romans. Theodore had been fond of reading about Romans.

"Something terrible is about to happen to Rosa," Theodore said. "You know what it is?"

"I think so," Martin answered, letting a grape leaf fall to the pebble gravel at their feet.

"The worst thing that can happen to a prophet is not to be ignored and forgotten; it's to have her cause taken up and chewed by the ma.s.ses. Whatever she says, if it doesn't fit, will be chewed some more; some opportunist will come along and forge a contradiction, polish a rough edge of meaning, and then it will fit. People believe in everything but the original words."

"Rosa isn't a prophet."

"You said you knew what's happening."

"She isn't a prophet. Just look at her."

"She's had the vision. This is a special time for you."

"Nonsense!" Martin said, angry now. He got up from the marble bench and adjusted his robe clumsily, not used to its folds. "By the way, is Theresa here with you?"

Theodore shook his head sadly. "She's dead. You have to be alive to die."

Paola Birdsong and Martin found themselves alone in the tail of the s.h.i.+p, having completed a wand transmission test for the mom, and with no further instructions, they sat and talked, glad to be away from the glum business of the crew.

Their talk trailed off. She looked away, olive skin darkening, lips pressed together. Martin reached out to stroke her cheek, make her relax, and she leaned into the stroke, and then tears came to her face. "I don't know what to do or how to feel," she said.

She had been loosely bonded with Sig b.u.t.terfly. Martin did not want to inquire for fear of opening wounds, so he kept silent and let her talk.

"We weren't deep with each other," she said. "I've never really been deep with any lover. But he was a friend and he listened to me."

Martin nodded.

"Would he want me to feel badly for him?" she asked.

Martin was about to shake his head, but then smiled and said, "A little, maybe."

"I'll remember him." She shuddered at the word "remember," as if it were a realization or betrayal or both, remembrance being so different from seeing directly, remembrance being an acknowledgment of death.

It was natural for him to fold her in his arms. He had never been strongly attracted to Paola Birdsong, and perhaps that was why holding her seemed less a violation to his memory of Theresa. Paola must have felt the same about Martin. The embrace became more awkwardly direct, and they lay side by side in the curls of pipes, the burned smell almost too faint to notice now.

Where they lay was dry and quiet and isolated. Martin felt a little like a mouse in a giant house, having found a place away from so many cats; and Paola was herself small, mouselike, undemanding, touching him in a way that did not discourage, did not invite. The momentum of the situation was carried by instinct. He did not undress her completely, nor himself, but rolled over on top of her, and with a direct motion they joined, and she closed her eyes.

Neither of them cried.

Martin made love to her slowly, without urgency. She had no o.r.g.a.s.m to match his, which was surprisingly powerful, and he did not press her for one; it seemed this was what she wished, only a little betrayal of memory at a time, a little return to whole life. After, with no word of what they had just done, they rearranged their overalls.

"What have your dreams been like lately?" he asked.

"Nothing unusual," she said, drawing her knees up in her arms and resting her chin on them.

"I've been having pretty vivid dreams. For a long time now. Pretty specific dreams, almost instructive."

"Like what?"

Martin found himself much more reluctant to describe the dreams than to characterize them. "Memories with real people in them. People from the s.h.i.+p, I mean, saying things to me. Giving advice as if they were alive."

Paola b.u.mped her chin on her knees as she nodded. "I've had dreams like that," she said. "I think it means we're in a special time."

Martin jerked at that phrase.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"It just seems right. We're so far away from our people. We're losing more and more connections. Something's bound to change."

"What will change?" Martin asked.

She uncurled, pulled up a bare foot to inspect a toenail. "Our psychologies," she said. "I don't know. I'm just talking. A special time is when we learn who we are all over again."

"Shrugging off the past," Martin suggested.

"Maybe. Or seeing it differently."

"Does Sig come to you in your dreams?" he asked.

"No," she said, dark eyes watching him.

He thought it unlikely they would make love again.

After, in his quarters to prepare for a watch in the nose, he felt melancholy, but that was an improvement. It had been only weeks in his personal, conscious time, but the clouds thinned, and he could think clearly for moments at a stretch without the shadow of Theresa or William.

In the nose, Hakim slept while Li Mountain and Giacomo Sicilia tracked the corpse of Wormwood. In a few months, they would see the shroud of gas as no more than a blotch in the receding blackness.

"Any sign of a neutron star?" Martin asked Li Mountain.

"None," she said. "Jennifer doesn't think one will form. She thinks the star's interior was deeply disturbed, that everything was flung out."

"It must have been quite a blast," Giacomo Sicilia said. Almost as adept as Jennifer at momerath, he had replaced Thomas Orchard on the search team.

There was little else for them to do but science, which Hakim enjoyed, but Martin found vaguely dissatisfying. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge was not their Job. But Hakim insisted that studying the corpse of Wormwood could teach them about Killer technology.

They would be many months traveling to meet with the second s.h.i.+p; training was not an option in their present situation. Healing and reknitting the crew would be their major occupations.

Martin recorded the figures with Giacomo, and stared back into the past, at the beautiful tendrils and sh.e.l.ls of gas and dust.

No sign of Killer activity around Wormwood.

The tar baby was truly dead.

The following months pa.s.sed slow and hard in their dullness. The state of comparative luxury they had known before the Skirmish and the neutrino storm did not return; the solitary mom merely told them that the s.h.i.+p was damaged in ways not quickly mended. Food was nouris.h.i.+ng but bland; access to the libraries was limited to text materials, and wand graphics were severely curtailed.

Martin suspected the s.h.i.+p of the Law had lost portions of its crucial memory, and was merely a shadow of its former self. The mom would not elaborate; it, too, seemed lost in a kind of dullness, and dullness was the order of things. In a way, Martin did not mind this difficulty; it gave them all plenty of time for thought, and he used that time.

Hans was clearly made uneasy by it.

The ex-Pans held colloquium every five days in his quarters.

"I'd hate to be known as the exercise Pan," Hans said. "We have three more months until we rendezvous with our new partners. We've done about all the science there is to do with Wormwood-at least, everybody has but Jennifer and Giacomo...We're bored, there's still only one mom, and that worries me. Am I right?"

Hans had been asking that more and more lately: a slightly nasal Am I right? Am I right? with one eyebrow lifted and a perfectly receptive expression. "We need some mental action, too. The s.h.i.+p isn't going to be much help." He looked to Cham, but Cham shrugged. with one eyebrow lifted and a perfectly receptive expression. "We need some mental action, too. The s.h.i.+p isn't going to be much help." He looked to Cham, but Cham shrugged.

"Martin?" Harpal asked.

Martin made a wry face. "Without the remotes, we can't learn much more about Leviathan."

"The food is dull," Harpal offered. "Maybe we can cook it ourselves."

Joe Flatworm snorted. "The mom won't let us near raw materials."

"Any suggestions, Joe?" Hans asked.

"We're stuck in a long dull rut," Joe said softly. "We should be asleep."

"I'm sure if that were an option-"Martin began.

"Yeah. The mom is concerned." That was another phrase Hans used often now, and others in the crew had picked it up. The proper form was: stated problem or dissatisfaction; stated problem or dissatisfaction; reply, reply, Yeah, the mom is concerned. Yeah, the mom is concerned.

"I think we should-"Martin began again.

"Slick worrying about the s.h.i.+p," Hans said.

"That wasn't what I was-"

"Fine," Hans interrupted.

"G.o.ddammit, let me finis.h.!.+" Martin shouted. Joe and Cham flinched, but Hans grinned, held up his hands, and shook his head.

"You have the floor," he said.

"We can't blame the s.h.i.+p for saving our lives," Martin said, expressing not a shred of what he had meant to say, and now realized was useless to say under the present circ.u.mstances.