Anvil of Stars

by Greg Bear

  “She won’t be listening,” Ariel said. “They’re very frightened.”

  “They can’t cut themselves off.” Martin and Hans banged on the door, creating a dull, hollow boom. He did not know whether those inside would hear.

  The door opened silently and Rosa stood before them, her face radiant with some newfound assurance, tall and stately, red hair tied back, dressed in an opaque gray gown that made her appear massive, formidable.

  “What in the hell—“Martin began, his anger getting the best of him.

  “You shut up,” Rosa said, her deep voice cracking with emotion like a boy’s. “You made me feel like a fool, and now somebody else has seen it. What can you say to that? It’s real.”

  Martin tried to push past her, but she blocked his entrance with an arm. “Who told you to come in?” she said. “Who do you think you are?”

  He suddenly realized the extent of the problem and backed away, throttling his anger. “If you saw something, I need to know what it is.”

  “Martin is Pan, Rosa, and he hasn’t done anything to you at all,” Stephanie said. “Don’t be an ass. Let us in.”

  “Let them in,” Alexis called behind Rosa. Rosa reluctantly moved aside, glaring at them as they entered her quarters. Martin had never seen the inside of Rosa’s quarters before; few had. What he saw now startled him.

  The cabin was filled with flowers, profusions of pots and bouquets, real flowers and synthetic, made of cloth or paper on wire stems. The air was warm and moist. Sunbright lamps glowed from the center to the periphery, where the flowers surrounded the walls in tiers.

  Ten Wendys and two Lost Boys waited in the quarters with Rosa and Alexis. Two budgerigars played at hide and seek among the potted flowers.

  Martin realized the disparity in sexes and his concern grew almost to befuddlement. “Alexis, what did you see?”

  Alexis Baikal, swarthy and sandy-haired, of middle height, with powerful legs and large hands, hung cross-legged from a net near the floor, despondent. “A big dark shape in the main corridor, heading toward the stores.”

  “What did it look like?”

  Rosa advanced on him threateningly, for no apparent reason, and Martin lifted his arm. Her smile spread immediate and triumphant. “He doesn’t believe any of us!” she called out, voice like a horn.

  “Stop it, Rosa,” Ariel said quietly. “He’s trying to listen.”

  “It was bigger than four or five people,” Alexis said, “but it didn’t have any real shape.”

  “Did you ask the moms?” Hans asked. Rosa glared but did not move; Ariel’s hand rested on her elbow. Martin wondered about this; Ariel should have relished a chance to discomfit him, to discredit the moms, but instead, she was acting on the side of reason—at least as he perceived it. More befuddlement, shifting of mental gears.

  “No,” Alexis said. “We saw something. We didn’t just make it up!”

  Alexis had been talking with Rosa for some time, Martin surmised; had come to Rosa first with her report, before going to any of the other children. No wonder Rosa was defensive; Alexis’ sighting was confirmation, vindication.

  “Was it something alive?” Hans asked, stooping to be more on a level with Alexis.

  “It was alive. It flowed like a liquid.”

  “Did it have any features—face, arms, legs, whatever?” Stephanie asked. They were trying to distance Martin from the confrontation that had broken out, and Martin approved—for the time being. Best to listen impartially until the few available facts were sorted out.

  Rosa looked at them, worried, but kept quiet.

  “It was black,” Alexis said with an effort. “Big. Alive. It didn’t make any sound.” She knows it isn’t credible, what she saw.

  “That’s all you saw?”

  Alexis Baikal fixed on Stephanie’s eyes and nodded. “That’s all I saw.”

  Hans stood and stretched his arms, flexing his shoulders as if they had cramped. “Where did it go?”

  “I don’t know,” Alexis said. “I turned to run, and it was gone.”

  The door opened and three Wendys came in, Nancy Flying Crow, Jeanette Snap Dragon, and leading them, Kirsten Two Bites. Kirsten said, “These two have something to report.”

  “We are not cowards,” Nancy Flying Crow said.

  “You should have told us,” Kirsten Two Bites chided. “Martin, they’ve seen things, too.”

  “We didn’t see anything we could identify,” Nancy said.

  “Did you see anything while you were together?” Stephanie asked.

  “No,” Jeanette said.

  “Ask them what they saw,” Rosa interjected.

  Martin pointed to Nancy. “You first.”

  “It was a man,” Nancy said. “Not one of us. Not one of the children, I mean. He was dark, wearing dark clothes.”

  “Where did you see him?” Martin asked.

  “In the second homeball. In the hall outside my quarters.”

  “And you?” Martin asked Jeanette.

  Jeanette Snap Dragon shook her head. “I’d rather not say, Martin.”

  “It’s pretty important,” Martin said gently.

  “It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t fit it into anything,” Jeanette said, face wrinkling in anguish. “Please. Rosa started this…I didn’t see what Rosa saw.”

  “What do you mean, Rosa started this?” Hans asked.

  “Don’t gang up on me!” Jeanette wailed. “I didn’t want to see it, and I don’t even know if I did see it.”

  “I didn’t start anything, sister,” Rosa said in a hissing whisper, shaking her head. “Don’t blame me.”

  “I saw my mother,” Jeanette said, looking down. “She’s dead, Martin. She died when I was five. I saw her dressed in black, carrying a suitcase or something like a suitcase.”

  “That’s bolsh,” Rosa said.

  “Be quiet,” Stephanie said.

  “Rosa, please,” Ariel pleaded.

  “This is all crap! She couldn’t have seen that,” Rosa said.

  “Why the hell not?” Ariel said, face red. “Does everybody have to see what you saw?”

  “They just want to be in on it. They’re making it up. What Alexis and I saw—“

  “That’s enough,” Martin said, raising his hand.

  “We saw something!” Alexis cried out. “This is all crazy!”

  Hans muttered, “Righto.”

  Martin raised his hand higher, nodding his head forward, lips tight. “Quiet, everybody,” he said. “Rosa, nobody’s accusing anybody of anything, and this is not a competition for weirdness. Understand?”

  “You don’t control me,” Rosa said. “You—“

  “Smother it, Rosa,” Ariel said. She looked sharply at Martin—Don’t take this cooperation for granted.

  “Why is everybody down on me?” Rosa screamed, tears flying. “Everybody get out of here and leave us…leave Alexis and me alone.”

  “No thanks,” Alexis said. “I don’t know what I saw, or what it means. I just reported it.”

  Martin smelled the sweetness of flowers from Rosa’s garden, tried to think of some way to conclude this meeting without damaging delicate egos.

  “Nobody knows what anybody saw,” he said. “Nobody blames anybody for seeing anything. Rosa, you reported what you saw, and that’s according to the rules. Whatever anybody sees, they come to me and tell me right away, understand? No embarrassment, no hiding, no shame. I want to know.”

  Stephanie nodded approval. Hans seemed less than convinced.

  “Have there been other sightings?” Martin asked. “This is not snitching. Have there?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I’m going to talk to each of you individually for the next hour, in my quarters,” Martin said. “There’s no time to waste now. We have to be disciplined, and we have to think of the Job. Got that?”

  Heads nodding around the room, all but Ariel’s and Rosa’s.

  “We have to make a judgment—if we’re going to
make one before partition—by tomorrow morning. This is a very serious time, this is why we came here. Not to worry about our sanity and our egos. Think of Earth.”

  One by one they came to his quarters. Martin recorded their words in his wand. Alexis Baikal came first, full of doubts, tearful in her apologies for having seen anything. Martin tried again to convince her there had been no crime, but his efforts seemed less than successful.

  Ariel was cool, as if regretting her tacit support of Martin in Rosa’s quarters. “I think the moms are doing something,” she said, folding and unfolding her hands. “I think they’re experimenting with us, like when they made us screw up the first external drill.”

  “You’ll never trust them, will you?” Martin asked.

  Ariel shook her head. “We’re trapped. That’s what Rosa thinks, too, but she hasn’t said it directly. She’s desperate.”

  “You think she’s seeing things, making them up?”

  Reluctantly, Ariel nodded.

  “That doesn’t make sense. You think the moms are fooling with us, but you think Rosa’s making up things, too?”

  “I think they’re weeding out the weak ones,” Ariel said. “They might jeopardize our doing the Job. I don’t say I know what’s happening. You just wanted our ideas.”

  “Rosa’s weak?”

  “I don’t want to get her into trouble.”

  “Ariel, she’s having real problems.”

  “I know that.”

  “Can she do her work?”

  “She’s been doing pretty well, hasn’t she?”

  “Will she keep it up?” Martin asked.

  “I think she will. But the children need to accept her.”

  “I get the impression she isn’t accepting the children.”

  “Whatever,” Ariel said.

  “You’re her friend. Can you bring her in?”

  “We talk. She doesn’t tell me everything. I don’t think she’s anybody’s friend. I just make it a point to talk to her. You don’t. Nobody else does.”

  Martin could not deny that. “I’m talking to her next.”

  Ariel lifted her chin back. “Are you going to be her friend?”

  You are a bloody-minded bitch. “I’ll try,” he said.

  Ariel left. Rosa Sequoia came into his quarters a few minutes later, face set like stone, eyes wide with fear and that ever-present defiance, an expression that made Martin want to kick her.

  “Tell me what you think you saw. Just me,” Martin said.

  She shook her head. “You don’t believe any of us.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The others…they saw something different. Why should you believe any of us?”

  Martin lifted his hand, crooked his finger encouragingly: Come on.

  “You think I started it,” Rosa said.

  “I don’t think that. Do you think you started it?”

  “I saw it first.” Under her breath. “It’s mine.”

  “If it belongs to you, can you control it?” The conversation was getting looser and loonier. How far would he go to bring her in? Rosa was too sharp to be deceived. “Do you claim it?”

  “I don’t have it. I don’t have anything.” She hung her head. “I don’t know what I’ve been doing.”

  This reversal caught him by surprise. He opened and closed his mouth, then folded his legs beneath him. “Jesus, Rosa.”

  “I’m not saying I…I’m not saying that we haven’t seen anything.”

  “No…Sit. Please. Just talk.”

  Rosa looked to one side and shook her head. “I don’t want to go against the Job. I’m afraid this might hurt us. Hurt the Job.”

  “What is it? Do you know?”

  She sobbed and held her head back to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling. “I didn’t make it up. I swear to Earth, Martin. I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know about the others.”

  “Is it real?”

  “It is, to me. I’ve only seen it once, though. It was more real than I am. It was more real than the Job. It scared me, but it was beautiful. Should I be ashamed of that?”

  “I don’t know. Talk.”

  “I do my work,” Rosa said, “I try to be competent, but I don’t belong here any more than I belonged on the Ark. Or on the Earth. You don’t think much of me because I’m causing trouble…But nobody thought anything of me when I was nothing at all.”

  “You can’t own a…Whatever it is. It can’t be yours alone.”

  “If it was important, it would make me useful. People wouldn’t look through me.”

  Martin asked her to relax and again she refused. “I want to go back. I want this forgotten.”

  “What about Alexis? What she saw?”

  “I don’t know what she saw. It sounds like what I saw, but it may not be.”

  “You didn’t make this up, I know that. But is it real?”

  Rosa shook her head. “Alexis thinks it is.”

  “Then maybe it is,” Martin said. “I’m not going to doubt what my fellows see. You and Alexis. You’ll continue to do your duties and attend all the drills. When you’re off-duty, you can keep a look out. Look through the ship. Until partition. If it doesn’t show up any more after that, we forget it. All right?”

  “Jeanette and Nancy?”

  “Jeanette saw her mother,” Martin said. “Nancy saw…a man. They didn’t see what you saw.”

  “Maybe it can take different shapes…read our minds.”

  Martin controlled his shudder. This was a real risk. Lancing the boil—acknowledging its existence—might do more than just drain the infection; it might spread it.

  “You’re a part of us, and whatever happens to you is important.”

  “I’m a large…thing,” Rosa said, holding out her arms, fingers clutched into fists. “I was large when I was a child. Everybody stared at me and avoided me. I thought by coming here, doing the Job, I could be important to the girls and boys who ignored me and who died on Earth.”

  Martin took one of her fists and tried to massage it into openness. She stared at his hands, her fist, as if they were disembodied. Her voice rose.

  “I wanted to be important to them. When I got on the Dawn Treader, nothing much changed. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to make anybody think I was important.”

  “You’re part of us,” Martin said. He reached out and brought her to him, wrapped his arms around her, felt her hard, thick-fleshed shoulders, broad ribcage, small breasts against his chest, the strength and tension and the damp warm skin of her neck. He hugged her, chin on her shoulder, smelling her, sharp like a large, frightened animal. “We don’t want to lose you, or anybody. Do what I ask, and we’ll see if it comes to anything.”

  She pushed him back with strong, large hands and blinked at him. “I will,” she said. She smiled like a little girl. Possibly no one had hugged her in years. How could all the children have so ignored one of their own? Seeing the pain and hope in her eyes—a forlorn, lost hope—Martin wondered if he had done the right thing, used the right kind of influence.

  So little time.

  Rosa left, subdued to her old quietness, and Alexis Baikal came in, and then Jeanette and Nancy. They did not say much, and he did not push the issue. Somehow he felt he had broken the chain of events, that everything would go more smoothly now; but had he sacrificed the last of Rosa?

  Only hours. Time flying by more swiftly, more in tune with the outside universe. Another partition drill; equally successful. One last brief external drill, also successful. The children seemed as prepared as they would ever be.

  Hour by hour, Hakim’s search team produced more and more information.

  The time of judgment had arrived.

  In the schoolroom, in the presence of the War Mother, Martin set up the rules for the judgment. In the first year, Stephanie Wing Feather and Harpal Timechaser had prepared the rules, trying to catch the resonances of the justice systems established on the Ark, based on human laws back to the tablets o
f Hammurabi…

  A jury of twelve children was chosen by lots. Each child could refuse the assignment; none did. With more qualms than satisfaction, Martin saw Rosa inducted as a juror, taking the oath Stephanie herself had written:

  I will truly judge based on the evidence, and what I will judge is whether the evidence is sufficient, and whether it proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I will not allow prejudice or hate or fear to cloud my judgment, nor will I be swayed by any emotion or rhetoric from my fellows, so help me, in the name of truth, God, the memory of Earth, my family, and whatever I hold most dear, against the eternal guilt of my soul should I err…

  The choosing and swearing-in lasted a precious hour. A defense advocate was appointed by Martin; to Hakim’s dismay, Martin chose him. “No one knows the weakness of your evidence more than you do,” Martin said. He was acutely aware of the roughness and arbitrariness of this system they had chosen; they could do no better.

  As prosecutor he appointed Luis Estevez Saguaro, Hakim’s second on the search team. Martin himself presided as judge.

  The War Mother listened to the trial silently, its painted black and white designs prominent in the brightly illuminated schoolroom. All eighty-two children sat in quiet attendance as Martin went over the rules.

  Luis presented the older evidence, and then outlined the new. Their data on the debris fields had increased enormously. The assay matches seemed indisputable.

  Hakim questioned the conclusiveness of the data at this distance. Luis Estevez called on Li Mountain to explain again the functioning of the Dawn Treader’s remotes and sensors, the accuracy of observations, the science behind the different methods. The children had heard much of it before. They were reminded nevertheless.

  Luis Estevez withheld his trump card until the final phase of the six-hour trial. Hakim fought vigorously to discredit this last bit of evidence, explaining the statistics of error on such observations at this distance, but the news made the children gasp nonetheless, more in horror than surprise.

  Less than two hours away, at their present speed of three quarters c, the cloud of pre-birth material surrounding Wormwood offered one more startling confirmation.

  The residue of Wormwood’s birth, a roughly shaped ring around the system, with patches and extrusions streaming billions of kilometers above the ecliptic, had been extensively mined, as suspected, and few volatiles remained. No cometary chunks were left to fall slowly around Wormwood; the civilization had many thousands of years ago depleted these resources as part of a program of interstellar exploration.