Anvil of Stars (15 page)

"Bosons travel at the speed of light. They carry information about changes in position, mass, and so on, like I said. If you can change their states and information content, you can make them lie. If you control all the information carried by bosons and along the privileged bands, you can lie to other particles. If you tinker with a particle's internal information, you can change that particle. I think that's what they do to make anti em."

"They just tell an atom it's anti em?"

Jennifer smiled brightly. "Nothing so simple, but that's the gist, I think. They mess with privileged bands, they tinker with the memory stores of huge numbers of particles within atoms, all at once, and they create anti em. I've got the momerath…"

"How long would it take me to absorb it?"

She pursed her lips. "You, maybe three tendays."

"I don't have time, Jennifer. But I'd like to have the record anyway…" Her theory seemed less than important to him now. "Sounds impossible, though."

Jennifer grinned. "It does, doesn't it? That's what's so neat. Given certain assumptions, and running them through the momerath, the impossibilities go away. It becomes a coherent system, and it has huge implications, most of which I haven't worked out. Like, what sort of coordinate system would a particle use? Relative, absolute? Cartesian? How many axes? I'm not really serious about it being Cartesian—it couldn't be—and remember, the coordinates or whatever you want to call them have to be self-sensing. The particle has to be what it knows it is, and to be where it knows it is. Unless we start calling in observer-induced phenomena, which I do in my momerath… though that isn't finished, yet."

"How much information does a particle have to carry?" Martin asked.

"To differentiate itself from every other particle—a unique particle signature—and to know its state, its position, its motion, and so on… about two hundred bits."

Martin looked to one side for a moment, frowning, getting interested despite his weariness. "If the universe is a computer, what's the hardware like?"

"The momerath explicitly forbids positing a matrix for this system. None can be described. Only the rules exist, and the interactions."

"There's no programmer?"

"The momerath says nothing about that. Just, no hardware, no explicitly real matrix. The matrix is, but is not separate from what takes place. You are interested, aren't you? "

He was, but there seemed so little time to think even the thoughts he needed to think, and make the necessary plans. "I'll look the work over when I can. You know I'm bogged."

"Yes, but this could be important. If we see something that fits, something around Wormwood maybe, something high tech that doesn't make sense unless I'm right, then we can apply whole new ideas."

"Obviously," Martin said. "Thanks."

Jennifer smiled brightly, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "You're sweet, but I thought you'd ask about something…"

"What?"

"About the noach—how we communicate with nearby craft and the remotes."

"Along the privileged bands?"

She shook her head. "Not exactly. There wouldn't be any distance limitations if the moms used the privileged bands to chat. Remember, we can't chat beyond ten billion kilometers. "

"All right, how, then?"

"By setting up a resonance. You could change the bit or bits that distinguish one particle from another. The particles seem to resonate, to be somewhere else for a very short time. Signals could be sent that way. But there's a limit how far. I don't know why, yet, but I'm working on it."

"Let me know what you come up with," Martin said.

"Can I talk about it with the others? Get others to work on it?"

"If they have time," Martin said.

She smiled again, bowed ceremonially in mid-air like a diver, and laddered through the door.

* * *

There was little time for anything but work, drill, sleep. Theresa slept with him, but they were too tired to make love more than once before sleep, down from their coasting average of two or three times per day.

Martin curled up against her in the warm darkness of his quarters, in the net. His limp penis nested between her thighs, just below her buttocks, slight stickiness adhering his prepuce to her skin. His hand on her hip, finger caressing lightly; she was already asleep, breathing shallow and even. Her hair in disarray tickled his nose. He moved his head back a few centimeters, opened his eyes, saw a dim memory of the momerath that had absorbed him in most of his time outside drilling and attending to the active teams. The personal momerath; what all the children were doing now, trying to think their way through to an individual judgment, to the most important decision of their lives.

There was much more than just analyzing the data Hakim provided. There was the intuition beyond rational thought; the unknown process of personal conviction, of human faculties at work, that made their judgments different from what the moms might have decided by themselves.

They probably had the power to destroy whatever life existed around Wormwood. The system did not look strongly defended; and in strategy, appearances could count for everything. An appearance of strength could be important… To appear weaker than one actually was could invite assault, never useful.

Going over it again and again. Gradually sleep came.

The universe is made of plateaus and valleys, stars nestled in valleys, the long spaces between the stars creating broad, almost flat plateaus along which orbital courses approach but never reach straightness. Martin floated in the nose of the Dawn Treader, the sleeping search team scattered in nets and in bags behind him. Through the transparent nose, peering into the valley around Wormwood, Martin contemplated their target, now the brightest star in their field of view.

Within twenty hours, they would begin separation into Tortoise and Hare. Martin would be in charge of Tortoise, Hans in command of Hare. Thirty-five children would accompany Martin, including Theresa and William and Ariel; Hakim and the search team would go with Hans. Hare would plunge through Wormwood's system ahead of them, collecting information to be relayed back to Tortoise.

Martin felt someone behind him and turned to see Ariel. She looked angry or frightened, he could not tell which, and she was out of breath.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Rosa's seen the dark shape again. In the second homeball. Alexis Baikal saw it before she did, in the third homeball, close to the neck and the stores."

"Shit," Martin said.

"Both think it's real. They're talking to others… I was the first to get here."

"Why in Christ's name now?"

"Maybe it is real," Ariel said. "Maybe it knows when to disrupt us."

"Where are they? Did they see it do anything or go anywhere?"

"I don't know. I came up here as fast as I could."

"Why not use the wand?"

"The moms…" She seemed slightly abashed, but still defiant. "Nobody wants them to know."

"Why in hell not?" Martin said.

She shook her head briskly. "I'll take you to where they are. They think maybe the moms have been… taken over. That we're being forced to suicide."

Martin took his wand and called for Hans and the five ex-Pans. "That's so slicking stupid," he said under his breath, following Ariel down the long nose to the central corridor passing through the first homeball. He noted the fissures already formed, stretching in thin grooves along the walls of the necks and around key pipes and protrusions, as the ship carved itself ahead of time for the likely partition. "If people are going to be this paranoid, they should at least use their heads…"

"I know," Ariel said, echoing ahead, then using ladder fields to propel herself quickly up the long corridor. "Most of what they're saying doesn't make sense. Martin, I don't agree with much of it. But some… it's frightening. They saw something."

Martin laddered grimly behind her.

She preceded him to the corridor leading to Rosa's quarters on the outer perimeter of the second homeball. Hans joined them, glancing at Martin inquisitively. Martin shrugged and said, "Shadows again." Hans pulled a disgusted face.

Stephanie Wing Feather and Harpal Timechaser waited outside the closed door to Rosa's quarters. Martin took up his wand and tried to communicate with Rosa.

"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 new-found 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 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—"