Anvil of Stars

by Greg Bear

  Cham touched the rightmost braid, stroked it with his palm. “It’s warm,” he said. “Almost hot.”

  Martin could feel the heat even before contact was made, like a dampered stove.

  The braid shifted beneath his touch, and a cord slowly uncurled four legs, touching, scraping Martin’s hand. Now he shivered; the touch was like pointed fingernails.

  The smell became tangy and sweet, like wine.

  “You are not touching,” the central Brother said to Hans. “Touch.”

  Hans closed his eyes and gathered his courage. He reached out, and in a move that surprised Martin completely, wrapped his arms around the Brother and squeezed gently. The Brother wriggled beneath the pressure.

  The air smelled like fresh soil.

  “How do we look to you?” Hans asked, glancing up at the front end. Cords made a kind of knot there, small black eyes—four per cord—rising as the knot undid itself and the cords splayed to inspect Hans’ face.

  “In your visible light, you are quite interesting,” the Brother said. “Like nothing familiar to we us.”

  “We have creatures called snakes or worms,” Hans said huskily. Sweat beaded his cheeks and forehead. “You remind us of them…”

  “You do not like snakes or worms? They mean harm or negatives to you?”

  “I’ll get over it,” Hans said, looking down at Martin. “Not too bad, huh?”

  “You’re doing fine,” Martin said.

  “Thanks,” Hans said, stepping back. “You fellows would be great on a cold night.”

  “He means,” Cham said, “that to us you feel quite warm, pleasant.”

  “You are pleasing cool,” the Brother said. “Now companions will speak. Pardon language. Lacking tongues, we we make sounds with air expelled between parts of components, and with friction on legs interior we our fore part.”

  “Like horns and violins,” Martin said.

  “I’ll be damned,” Hans said.

  “It is true that you always are,” the rightmost braid said, the tone sharp and scraping, vowels mere lapses between tones.

  Martin, Cham, and Hans looked at each other, puzzled. Martin pondered if the aggregate was echoing Hans’ proclamation of damnation; Cham figured out that the statement was actually a question. “I think he’s asking, are we always the same person. Do our arms and legs run away when we aren’t looking.”

  Hans grimaced. “We’re always the same,” he said. The central braid issued a series of cricket chirps and the air smelled of something rich and perhaps not entirely fresh. “Our bodies stay together.”

  “We our guide tells us so,” the middle aggregate said. “It is difficult for we us to think about.”

  “I understand,” Hans said. “Your lifestyle…your life is difficult for us to imagine, too.”

  “But we we can friendly,” the rightmost aggregate chirped and sang.

  “Friendly we are,” Hans said, smiling giddily at Martin and Cham.

  “You do have no like we us?” the rightmost asked.

  “Nothing like we us,” the middle clarified.

  “Where we…come, came from,” Martin began, “colonial, aggregate creatures—beings…” He paused and took a deep breath. The three aggregates made a breathy noise as well. “Creatures made of parts existed only in simple animals and plants.”

  “Insects,” Cham said.

  “What?” Martin asked.

  “Insects came together to make flowers,” Cham said.

  “Different,” Martin said.

  “Stuff it,” Hans said under his breath.

  “May we we see records of these colonials?” the middle asked.

  “Certainly,” Hans said.

  “Do you regard them with disliking?” the middle asked.

  “I’ve never met any of them, actually,” Hans said. Martin admired the insouciance of the answer and hoped it wasn’t lost on or misinterpreted by their new partners.

  “Think in reality you are colonials, only individual is big social, society,” the rightmost said.

  “I think he means we’re part of a social group, and that’s the real individual,” Cham said. “Interesting idea. Maybe we can discuss it when we know each other better.”

  “Do you fight each other?” the middle asked.

  None of the humans answered for long seconds. Then Martin said, “Not usually, no. Do you?”

  “Constituent parts may fight outside we our control,” the middle aggregate said. “Do not interfere. It is normal.”

  Hans controlled a shiver. Martin said, “We play games, competition, to keep ourselves fit. They are a kind of fighting, but generally, nobody gets hurt.”

  “Components may be violent,” the middle said. “No interference. It is normal. They have no minds alone.”

  “Make a note,” Hans said to Martin facetiously. “Don’t step on them.”

  “We are interested how our components react to you,” the middle said.

  “So are we,” Hans said.

  The rightmost braid touched “heads” with the middle braid and smoothly disassembled. The air smelled of vinegar and fruit. The components, fourteen of them, lay in an interwoven pile, like centipedes or snakes taught macramé. Slowly, the cords crawled apart, spreading out on the floor until they encountered the humans.

  Hans’ face dripped and he smelled rank. Martin felt no better.

  “Shit shit shit,” Cham said, but kept his place.

  The cords gently nudged their feet and calves. Several cords used this opportunity to lock lengthwise and roll back and forth.

  “Mating?” Hans asked.

  “Dominance on their level,” the middle braid responded. “It is not fighting to kill. You might call it rough play.”

  “Your English is wonderful,” Martin said, trying to hide his fear.

  “I have fine components, and am blessed with interior harmony,” the middle replied.

  “Congratulations,” Hans said.

  The two aggregates chirped and whistled to each other. The air smelled of baking bread and sulfur.

  One component advanced up Cham’s pantsleg, front feelers spread wide. Martin had noticed that the feelers fit into rear invaginations when the cords locked together.

  Cham could barely control his trembling.

  “Our companion is not comfortable,” Martin said.

  “I’m fine,” Cham said.

  “We we anticipate distress,” the middle braid said. “Must you get accustomed.”

  “We must,” Hans said, more to Cham than in answer.

  “Right,” Cham said. The cord crawled up his leg to his side.

  “It is not behaving violently,” the middle braid reassured.

  “By the way,” Cham said, his voice high-pitched and shaky. “We use names to address each other.” The cord advanced around his chest, slipped, grabbed hold of the overalls material.

  “You may touch it,” the middle braid said.

  “How do we…what names can we use for you?”

  “We we have discussed,” the middle said. “As each of we our aggregates learn language, they will pick names. You may call I me mine Stonemaker. Disassembled braid, when together again may be Shipmaker. Other may be Eye on Sky.”

  “Enjoy stars,” the leftmost braid said.

  “Like Hakim,” Martin said.

  “Your names,” the middle braid requested.

  “Our names are sounds, sometimes without meaning,” Martin said. “I am Martin. This is Hans. And this is Cham.”

  “Bread and jam food,” the leftmost said.

  “Cham, not jam,” Cham corrected.

  “Martin animal,” Stonemaker observed. “From word lists.”

  “Hands for picking up with,” said Eye on Sky.

  Hans smiled stiffly.

  “Do you like component, Jam?” the middle braid asked Cham.

  “It hurts when it grabs,” Cham said. “Can you speak to them?” The cord’s feelers explored his face. Cham bent his neck back as far
as he could.

  “No,” Stonemaker said. “But we we make them assemble. Looks it enjoys humans.”

  “Wonderful,” Cham said.

  “No biting,” Stonemaker observed.

  “Yes, we’ve had some concerns…about that,” Hans said. “Can they hurt us?”

  “That would be distressing,” Stonemaker said.

  “End of aggregate whose part did wrong,” Eye on Sky added.

  “Wouldn’t want that, would we?” Cham said. He put his hands up to stroke the cord, which had crawled lower. It had wrapped around his chest, tail under right arm, head and feelers under left, and stopped moving.

  “It likes the way you smell,” Martin said to reassure his crewmate.

  “Very true,” Stonemaker said. “To me self my you smell friendly.”

  They don’t know us very well. We stink of fear, Martin thought.

  “Good,” Hans said. “If Stonemaker agrees, we’ll try a larger group next. Twenty of our crew, twenty of his individuals. Then we’ll combine Dawn Treader and Journey House and carry on with the Job.”

  Stonemaker chirped and the room smelled of tea and lilac. The cord dropped abruptly from Cham’s chest and landed on the floor with a hollow smack, then aligned with the other cords beside Stonemaker and reassembled. The braid reared and stretched until it touched the base of the pylon, twelve feet over their heads.

  “We my components reproduced and made Shipmaker,” Stonemaker said. “He is either brother or son, perhaps we we talk which sometime.”

  Twenty of the human crew and twenty Brothers gathered in the schoolroom. Martin could not tell the Brothers apart yet. Clicks and chirps and bowed, violin speech; Rosa Sequoia, approaching and embracing a Brother; Paola Birdsong singing to another; there was a carnival atmosphere to the meeting that set Martin at ease. However strange the Brothers might seem, there was enough common ground and likable traits for both sides to demonstrate quick, almost easy friendship.

  Ariel stayed close to Martin after the first ten minutes. “It’s going well,” she said.

  “Seems to be.”

  “I thought it would take a while,” she said.

  “So did I. They haven’t broken down into cords yet. Cords aren’t quite as personable.”

  “So Cham told me. The difference between animals and people. Will that cause problems?”

  Martin pushed his lips out, frowned. “Probably,” he said. “I think we can adjust.”

  “We’ve been stuck with each other for so long,” said Jennifer. “It’s nice to have somebody new to talk to.” She walked past Martin and Ariel, a Brother following closely, chattering in broken English about numbers. Martin smelled cabbage cooking and wrinkled his nose.

  Giacomo played a finger-matching game with another braid. He lifted his closed hand, shook it twice, opened two fingers. The aggregate reared back, shivered with a sound like corn husks, weaved its head through a figure eight, said, “I we am wrong, wrong.”

  Rex Live Oak approached Martin. “Hans wants the past Pans to convene in a few minutes in his quarters.”

  Cham and Joe Flatworm accompanied Martin along the connecting hallways. Joe was ebullient. “Christ, they’re snakes, but they’re real charmers.”

  “Snakes charming us, is that it?” Cham asked.

  “Ha ha. Much easier than I thought,” Joe said. “We can work with them.”

  Hans seemed gloomy as they entered his quarters. They sat in a broken circle and Hans squatted to finish the loop. Rex Live Oak stood outside the circle, arms folded.

  “Stonemaker and I talked a little,” Hans said. “He still has the best English. I asked questions about their command structure. Here’s what I’ve learned so far. Every few days—our days, not theirs—they create a command counsel by pooling cords, each braid donating two. The pooled cords make a big slicking braid called Maker of Agreement or something like that. This braid uses memories from all the cords and makes decisions. The cords take these decisions back to their braids. There’s nothing like giving orders. That worries me.”

  “Why?” Joe asked.

  “Because it implies no flexibility. What if we’re in the middle of a crisis and we have to communicate with them? I think they’ll stick with what Maker of Agreement told them, no matter how things have changed…Unless they can go through the whole process again, and we can talk to Maker of Agreement directly. I couldn’t get a clear answer on that.”

  “You think they’d do that in battle?”

  Hans shrugged. “It’s too early to tell, but it’s never too early to worry. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “We should find out what their disaster was like,” Cham said, looking down at his crossed knees. “Where they failed.”

  “I’m working on it,” Hans said. “Martin, you don’t seem to have hit it off with any of them…Paola and a few others have made fast friends.”

  “I haven’t made friends, either,” Joe said.

  “The more we bond, the faster we can learn. Like marriage,” Hans said.

  “And we should help them improve their English,” Joe said.

  “They’re quick, no doubt about it,” Hans said. “They may be a lot quicker than we are. But there’s still a hell of a lot to learn before we can mesh with them in battle. Am I right?”

  “Absolutely,” Rex said from the sidelines.

  “I want to find out how our ship’s mind and the moms are going to integrate with Journey House’s mind, whether there will still be moms, or some form acceptable to both groups…”

  “The libraries have become huge,” Martin said.

  “Anything we can use?” Hans asked.

  “Right now, it’s just a big light show,” Martin said. “I hope it can be translated.”

  Hans nodded. “I’m satisfied with our progress, for the time being. But I don’t want the crew to be so ecstatic about our new friends that we lose sight of the problems.”

  Cham and Joe nodded. Martin fingered the cuff of his overalls leg.

  “Something to add?” Hans asked, observing this fiddling.

  “You’re managing Rosa now,” Martin said.

  Hans hesitated, then nodded with a bitter expression. “I’m managing,” he said. “It isn’t easy, believe me.”

  Rex snorted. Hans looked at him with sharp disapproval, and Rex colored and backed away.

  “How’s Rosa going to integrate the Brothers into her world view, her…religion?” Martin asked.

  “She’ll find a way. She’s good at that sort of thing.”

  “I know,” Martin said. “But what you’re doing is dangerous. It’s a game that could backfire any day.”

  “Better than letting her run loose, am I right?” Hans asked.

  None of the ex-Pans answered.

  “Or getting rid of her,” Hans said. “Of course, I’d hate to have to do that. But if worse comes to worse, there’s always that possibility.”

  Martin’s face paled. Nobody said anything for a long time, ten seconds—an impressive lull for such a conversation.

  “Not very smart,” Joe said finally. “Making a martyr.”

  “Well, shit, something will happen,” Hans said. “We’re facing a lot of problems more frightening than Rosa.”

  Hans invited Stonemaker to meet the full complement of Dawn Treader’s crew, to familiarize them with a Brother, and to explain, in person, the Brothers’ history, in particular their experiences with the Killers.

  Hans led Stonemaker into the schoolroom, laddering toward the central star sphere. The crew watched in polite, stiff silence as the Brother undulated through his own ladder field—a cylinder—into their midst.

  Martin had learned to identify Stonemaker by the color patterns of two components in his “head”—bright yellow and black stripes on the anterior portion.

  “Stonemaker is a friend,” Hans said, arm around the braid’s neck. Smell of burnt cabbage—a sign of affection, Martin had learned, and one he hoped he would find more pleasant as time pas
sed.

  Those of the human crew who had not yet met a Brother wrinkled their noses apprehensively. To hear tales was very different from direct experience.

  “We we have similar lives, memories,” Stonemaker said.

  The repetition of pronouns was going to be unavoidable. By linguistic and cultural convention even deeper than religion, Brother language used two personal pronouns, the first referring to an individual braid or a group of braids, the second to the braid’s or the group’s component cords. I we, we we. Possessives became more confused: we mine, with cords first, individual’s possessive second; we our or we ours for group possessives. Other complications—this we, I we myself, we our ourselves—crept in on an unpredictable basis.

  Interestingly, references to humans always relied on single pronouns. Martin hoped this did not reveal prejudice on the part of the Brothers.

  “I we myself will pass on to you some of we our lives,” Stonemaker said. “When we we work together, to kill those who killed we our past—“smell of something like turpentine “—we will find common thought, strength.

  “We we believe we our worlds were much like your Earth and Mars.”

  Inside the star sphere, images of two planets, the first a rich and almost uniform green, the second half as large and yellow ochre and brown in color. “We our kind grew young first on the world you can call Leafmaker. We our time past was long, hundreds of thousands of times year.” Smell of dust and warm sunlight on soil. “Your time past shorter than we ours. But we we able to travel between worlds often, as you did not. We we made young on second other planet, Drysand I we will name it. Ten thousand times years we we lived there, not making weapons, having no enemies.

  “Killers come to we us as friends, smelling we our innocent radiation. Killers come as long friends made of jointed parts.”

  Stonemaker projected an image of a collection of shining spheres beaded together, a giant chromium caterpillar. Martin was instantly reminded of the Australian robots, shmoos they had been named; these might have been variations on the same form. “Long friends like machines for you, but living, alive within. They tell of wide places beyond, full of interest, that we we are invited to join, to learn, and then we we smell we our world is sick with weapons, it is dying. We we make power filled ships, leave our kind to die. We we can’t travel between suns, but leave anyway, and watch we our worlds be eaten, made into millions of killer machines. Then come the ones you name Benefactors, and there is a war. We our worlds are gone, only a few alive, but we we are taken in by Benefactors, and removed from the war, to seek Killers. This is short version; long when library smells good to you.