Anvil of Stars

by Greg Bear

  Martin shivered. He hoped it wasn’t so.

  The single mom—all the ship could produce now—told the crew what had happened to them and to the ship. They had survived the explosion of Wormwood with major damage—up to half the ship’s capabilities reduced by failure of confinement fields under extreme neutrino bombardment; ten of the crew had died, and only now were their bodies being recycled. They had sufficient fuel to move on to Leviathan—if they voted to do so. The journey would take a minimum of one year, ship’s time.

  “Because of damage, you will not be able to face the anticipated defenses alone,” the mom explained. “For that reason, we suggest a combining of resources.”

  Martin raised his eyes. This was the first he had heard of such a thing.

  “There is another Ship of the Law about two light years distant. We can match course with this vessel and join forces. This ship has suffered damage as well, and will benefit from joining forces.”

  “How do you know all this?” Hans asked. “You couldn’t have heard about it on the noach.”

  “We detected the results of their skirmish, and correlated their probable path of escape. When remotes extended this ship’s sensing abilities, we used them to confirm the ship’s path.”

  “Without telling us,” Hans said.

  “It was not important at the time.”

  Hans shrugged, looked down at the deck. “If we know, then the Killers know as well,” he said.

  “The Killers do not know that we have escaped, though they may know of the survival of this second vessel. They do not know its present position, however. With both ships combined, we will have the capabilities of a fully equipped Ship of the Law.”

  “On the other ship…are they human?” Erin Eire asked.

  “They are not human,” the mom said.

  “Do they need the same things we need?” Paola Birdsong asked. “I mean, do they breathe oxygen, and so on?”

  “With slight adjustments, environments can be joined,” the mom replied.

  “What do they look like?” David Aurora asked.

  “More information about this ship and its inhabitants will be available before we join forces.”

  “Do we take a vote?” Ariel asked.

  “A vote is not forbidden. But you must understand that we cannot fulfill our mission in our present condition.”

  “No shit,” someone said in the back, out of Martin’s sight; it sounded like Rex Live Oak.

  “Do we really need to vote?” Hans said. “I’m still ready to fight. If this is our only chance, we should take it.”

  “Vote,” Ariel insisted, and Rosa Sequoia, in a calm, deep voice, as if speaking from a cave, agreed.

  “All right,” Hans said. “Martin, Harpal, take the count.”

  The crew voted quickly, without energy. Of the sixty-five remaining, thirty voted no; thirty-five voted yes. Ariel voted to go; Rosa Sequoia voted against further action.

  “That’s close,” Hans said, standing before them. “Now I’m here to take my licks. I screwed up today. I really fouled the nest. I apologize. I’ll go into solitary for a week. I appoint Harpal as Pan in the interim. He’ll work with Martin. I suggest we all take a rest. Let the mom finish its work. We say our farewells to everybody we lost around Wormwood, and we think things through.”

  He nodded to the closest members of the crew as he passed them, heading toward the door. Harpal looked at Martin; this was hardly what they had hoped for. Martin felt sick inside; sick with his unresolved pain, and sick at the dissolution that seemed to be upon them.

  “We need to talk this out,” Harpal told Martin.

  Martin declined. “Rest,” he said. “We’ve been through too much, and I can’t talk sensibly now. Aliens!” He trembled suddenly, whether with excitement or exhaustion, he could not say. Harpal’s shoulders slumped and his chin dropped.

  “We’ll all rest,” Martin said, touching his arm delicately. “And mourn.”

  Martin’s quarters were bare and cold. Still the smell of burning lingered; the odor of neutrino-singed matter. He entered and the door slid shut behind him and for this moment at least, ignoring the smell, he might have been at the beginning of his journey, when first the Dawn Treader had been presented to the children, and they had made their new homes here.

  With some relief and some sorrow, he knew that these were not the same quarters in which he and Theresa had made love. The ship had rearranged and repaired itself too extensively; the deck on which their bed had rested might now be shifted meters away, or recycled completely. What connection did he have to the past?

  None.

  Martin closed his eyes and curled up on the floor, laid his cheek against the smooth cool surface, flexed his fingertips against it, and waited for sleep.

  He thought on the edge of that desired sleep of Jorge Rabbit’s bruised body, and what it had once held: language and laughter and sharp reliability, a favorite of the children. The crew.

  Jorge Rabbit and the others might soon be in the air they breathed, the food and water they took in. But not William or Theresa.

  Martin reached out for Theresa’s hand. He could almost feel it, his fingers brushing the air where it would be, faintest rasp of sensation. Then, deliberately, he withdrew his hand and folded it under his chest. “Goodbye,” he whispered, and slept.

  Behind the Dawn Treader, the corpse of Wormwood expanded as a many-colored vapor, like milk swirling in water and illuminated by many lights.

  Hakim watched the stellar corpse with cold curiosity, arms folded. Beside the image in the star sphere scrolled and flashed figures, charts, condensed images, conveying the qualities of the corpse in an interstellar autopsy of incredible depth and complexity.

  “If I were back on Earth now,” he told Martin, “I would be an astronomer, but never in my life would I see something like this. Where would I rather be, do you think? Here, now, seeing this, or…?”

  “You’d rather be on Earth,” Martin said. They were alone in the nose; the rest of the crew awaited the end of Hans’ self-imposed week of isolation, going through their own isolations, their own regroupings, reassessments.

  Hakim agreed. His face had changed since the Skirmish, as Erin Eire called their costly victory. His expression had hardened, eyes shining brighter, perpetual smile tighter, lines more deeply grooved around his lips and eyes.

  “It was a fair exchange, perhaps,” Hakim said. “How many Ships of the Law were trapped by Wormwood and destroyed?”

  “We were lucky,” Martin said. “The trap was getting rusty.”

  “You know as well as I, war is a matter of luck as much as strategy. We should not deny ourselves satisfaction because we came upon a weakened enemy.”

  “We don’t know the enemy is weak,” Martin said. “They might still be strong.”

  “Then why do they hide behind traps?”

  “To avoid trouble. Maybe this was no more significant to them than the loss of a bug zapper in a front yard.”

  Hakim’s smile curled wickedly. “I like this metaphor,” he said. “We are mosquitoes, but we bring yellow fever…And now the bug zapper is down, we fly freely toward the house…”

  “About to join with a group of moths,” Martin suggested.

  “I would prefer wasps.” Hakim chuckled, and then suddenly his voice caught and he turned away. “Excuse me,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Someone you loved,” Martin said after a moment. He had never followed Hakim’s romantic affairs, partly out of respect, partly because Hakim and his partners had always been extremely circumspect.

  “It was hard for me to call it love,” Hakim said. “Min Giao Monsoon. She was my equal, and I couldn’t…I didn’t know how to digest that. But she was very important to me. We were not very open.” For an instant, Hakim showed simple and enormous pain.

  Martin watched the beautiful display, greens and reds dominating, cinders of planets visible only in the graphs and enhancements at this distance. Spirals of
plasma from the poles had quickly spread and whipped in arcs to encompass a vast sphere; the artificial fields that controlled Wormwood giving way and rearranging in the violence. Wormwood’s corpse had finally assumed an aspect of natural star death. Perhaps that had been planned by the Killers, as well…

  No need to light any brighter a beacon in the forest than absolutely necessary.

  “However you loved, you loved,” Martin said.

  Hakim agreed to that with a measured nod. “I have high hopes that our new Pan will grow into his position.” He spoke quietly, as if Hans might be listening.

  “It’s not easy.”

  “There are many challenges even before we get to our destination. I wonder how I will react to new and inhuman colleagues…perhaps better to say nonhuman.”

  “The ship and the mom don’t know an awful lot about them,” Martin said. “Otherwise they’d tell us more.”

  “I agree,” Hakim said. “I have never believed the moms hold things back from us.”

  “Oh…” Martin said, “I wouldn’t go that far. They always tell us what we need to know, but…”

  “Pardon for my saying so, but you sound like Ariel.”

  Martin scowled. “Please,” he said.

  “Not to offend,” Hakim added with a touch of his old impishness.

  Rosa Sequoia sat in the cafeteria among a group of twenty-two of the crew, conducting a ceremony for the dead, following—as far as Martin could tell—her own rules and her own rituals. He could not object; ritual was healthy at this point.

  She had made up hymns or borrowed from old songs and projected lyrics for the crew to sing. Martin watched from the outside, near the door, and did not sing, but felt his heart tug at the swell of voices.

  Rosa looked up, and her eyes met his, and she smiled—broadly, without resentment; beautifully.

  In our grief and pain, she finds herself, he thought. But perhaps that was too unkind.

  Hans came out of his isolation after six days, somber and unshaven, blond beard bristling and face wreathed in a dreary scowl that gave nobody confidence, least of all Martin. He asked for a private session with Hakim and the remains of the search team. After, he emerged from the nose to brush past Martin and Erin Eire in the corridor, saying nothing.

  “He hasn’t taken a lover since he became Pan,” Erin said.

  Martin looked at her. “So?”

  Erin blinked. “So it’s unusual. He’s not exactly been chaste, Martin. A lot of Wendys go for bulk over brains.”

  “He’s not stupid,” Martin said.

  “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 ship 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 embarrass you.”

  “I’m not embarrassed. 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 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 masses. 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 ship, 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 Butterfly. 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 orgasm 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 ship, I mean, saying things to me. Giving advice as if they were alive.”

  Paola bumped 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.