Anvil of Stars (21 page)

"Like jerking off by remote," William suggested. Martin knew that tone; sharp but not mean.

"Not at all."

"Men know men. Women know women. The great justification of homosexual slicking."

"William, stop it."

"All right," William said, subdued again.

"When I think about things, you're in my head, and I try to think about what you'd say or do in a given situation. I talk to you in my head, and I talk to Theresa. Brother and sister, and more than that." He was not actually lying, but this was not strictly true; he had given little thought to William, but did not want William to know that, or to acknowledge it to himself; that he could have passed over William with so little trauma, and yet still regard him with immense affection. What sort of love was that?

"You say you think about me, but you live with Theresa."

Both stared at Nebuchadnezzar, the planet whose real name they did not know, if it had a name at all.

"Did they ever love?" William asked.

"I don't give a damn," Martin said. My friends and my home. They killed the fish in the seas and the birds in the air. They took away our childhood. They killed my dog. "It's time to get this behind us and start living our own lives. We'll become shadows if we do this forever."

"Amen," William said. "You want Theresa to wear that gown, on another world, our world?"

"I do," Martin said.

"I'd like to see that. I want to wear something special, too."

"We all will, I think," Martin said.

"But first…"

Martin noticed William's lips working, as if in silent prayer. For safe passage, or forgiveness?

Will safe passage be a sign of forgiveness?

No signs, no consolation, no forgiveness; no blame. The forest was full of wolves.

No God of kindness and justice could allow such a thing. Nature could, but nature kept a balance.

The forest was also full of hunters.

The bombship pilots gathered in the weapons stores, Martin and the War Mother presiding. Between them hung a projected image of Nebuchadnezzar, its aspect changing as it slowly rotated night ·into day, the crescent orb visibly growing: two hours until release.

Theresa and William floated beside their craft, faces blank. Fred Falcon joined William. Stephanie, alone beside her ship, and Yueh Yellow River beside his. Theresa would fly a bombship alone. Nguyen Mountain Lily and Ginny Chocolate together; Michael Vineyard and Hu East Wind; Leo Parsifal and Nancy Flying Crow. Seven ships for this sortie.

Martin kept his face blank, hiding the gut-knot within, that nausea of excitement and naked fear, that urge to tremble and run and beg forgiveness of whatever nasty supernatural being controlled things. In his sporadic journal, Martin had written:

We have hugged and made love this morning, eaten breakfast together. I have seen her wrapped in the final gown, and we have sworn that we are married, that we are bound. "We will make children," she said, and I agreed; when we are out from under the moms, there will be fertility and we will make children, and we will love and live and argue and feel despair and feel brightness, but nothing like this will come to us again; we will have done our Job, and nothing more like this will be asked of us again, please God, we do not understand the Why…

The children gathered in the reduced space of the weapons store, fields dimmed almost to invisibility so as not to obscure the ranked Wendys and Lost Boys. It came time for Martin to speak; awkward, expected pep talk before the cosmically deadly game.

His throat seized and for a moment he could say nothing, just stare at his people with throat and jaw working. Do it. He cleared his throat painfully, swallowed, and said, voice cracking, "You are the finest people I've ever known. You are all volunteers, and my friends. We've been friends and lovers for over five years now, and we've always known that what we are about to do—that's the reason why… we're here. We are the best there is, and the moms know that."

He turned to the War Mother. There had been no rehearsal, no previous discussion between them of what this ceremony should be like, and Martin thought, Damn you to hell if you don't commit yourself now and say something.

The War Mother did not fail him. "You are indeed the best," it said. "You have been trained and given tremendous responsibilities, and you have done exceptionally well. There is not a race of beings among all those who made and enact the Law who would not have their sympathies with you now."

They have sympathies? They feel as we do?

"The Ship of the Law is pleased to be associated with you, to work with you," the War Mother said. "You are no longer children. Today you are partners in the Law."

"Good," Ariel said.

"We've voted and judged and now we must act," Martin said. He raised his fist, acutely conscious of the symbolic nature of this act, and its disturbing connotations, and most of him filled with passion and energy as the fist rose higher, until his arm pointed straight above his head. "For Earth," he said. "And for us, and all our memories, and our future lives. "

His eyes were moist, warm. Theresa did not weep; William did, and through the crowd of children, others as well, including Ariel, whose eyes met Martin's briefly. She wiped her tears with her sleeve, stiff gesture and anguished face seeming to say: God damn it, I'm human, too, you bastard.

The children not assigned to weapons backed out of the chamber. Martin was the last to go, after the War Mother, and his eyes lingered on Theresa's for three long seconds, as if they could live their lives in that moment. They looked away from each other simultaneously. The hatch closed. In the projections of their wands, they saw the pilots enter the bombships.

They saw the ship's outer hatches open. Glowing fields pushed the bombships outside Tortoise.

The children quickly climbed to the first hemisphere and the cafeteria. Martin, for once unable emotionally to fulfill his duty, left them in the cafeteria and went to the nose. Hakim was there, and Jennifer, but none of the rest of the search team; they were all congregated in the cafeteria, watching the craft outside Tortoise.

Hakim smiled weakly at Martin. Jennifer floated curled behind the star sphere, now showing the bombships trailing Tortoise by a few hundred meters.

"They are all gathered in the cafeteria?" Hakim asked, perhaps more pointedly than he had intended.

Martin nodded. "I can't be there," he said softly. "I feel like shit right now. I can't be in a crowd."

Hakim put his hand on Martin's shoulder. Jennifer uncurled and recurled near the transparent nose. The nose was turned away from Nebuchadnezzar.

"Are they going to make it?" Martin asked.

Jennifer shrugged. "I'm not psychic."

"They will make it," Hakim said with calm confidence.

"Are you psychic?" Jennifer asked with a kind of innocence, as if he very well might be.

"No," Hakim said.

Jennifer frowned and concentrated on the star sphere. "Maybe Rosa would know," she said.

Martin made himself as comfortable as possible in the nose, unfolding a net and hooking it to the wall, then wrapping himself in the net. Andrew Jaguar poked his head through the hatchway, saw Martin, and said, "We're waiting."

"I'll stay here," Martin said.

"I mean, we're waiting for orders."

"There aren't any for the next hour,'" Martin said. "We drift in close, the Tortoise is on automatic. The bombships do their job and we gather them and we retreat and watch. You know that."

"We know that," Andrew said, "but we're still waiting. We need everybody together, Martin. Everybody."

Jennifer sniffed. Martin closed his eyes and with a tremendous effort, wanting nothing more than solitude or at most the company of a select few, released himself from the net.

Nothing was appropriate or inappropriate; nothing was condemned. In the cafeteria, four couples made love with theatrical noisiness. Martin skirted them and drifted toward the place the crew of Tortoise had made for him near the cafeteria star sphere. Most eyes were on him, and his weariness and frustration gave way to the numbness of a lamb under the knife. Sacrificing the needs of the self to the needs of the group down to even the smallest impulse to privacy.

The Why. This is the Why.

Hakim and Jennifer followed. Harpal Timechaser sat next to him by the sphere, the only other ex-Pan aboard Tortoise now that Stephanie led the bombships.

Tortoise sharpened all its passive sensors. The star sphere divided to show the bombships, the planetary surface, the heavens beyond, then concentrated on the bombships.

"Still no defenses," Hakim marveled, head shaking.

"Maybe they're cowards," Jennifer said.

Martin looked around the room, suddenly disliking his companions intensely. He shuddered the feeling away and settled into a restless neutrality of emotions, waiting.

The War Mother floated near a wall, still as a monument. After all this is over, can we take a mom with us and set it up in the middle of our town, on the new world, on a pedestal?

The view changed. They saw the bombships up close, all six of them, one by one. Martin recognized Theresa's ship. He fought to keep the neutrality, but his chest seemed stuffed with straw and his palms were damp. No defenses.

"This is cruel," said Andrew Jaguar. "We have to do something!"

Martin said nothing. There was nothing for them to do; best to keep them all in one place, all vigilant, all aware of what was happening.

The bombships had descended to within four thousand kilometers of Nebuchadnezzar's surface. Still, the planet had not changed its aspect; dusty brown with gray patches and green mineral stripes and black spots of reservoirs. Atmosphere clear and calm.

"Hakim," Martin said softly, "report on seismic disturbances."

"Nothing new. Same low-level rhythms," Hakim said.

"Project it for us."

The traces of crustal and mantle activity moved in graphic display beside the star sphere.

"Can you turn it into sound for us?" Martin asked.

"I will have to increase its frequency, repeat it like an echo."

"Fine," Martin said.

So treated, the deep susurration of Nebuchadnezzar became very like a heartbeat, booming and ticking, the repetition false but still informative, ears providing a more natural interpretation of this information than eyes. Martin quickly picked up the actual rhythms of sound as the series of beats rose at once to a higher frequency, dropped back, rose, dropped.

"Small ship between Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses is firing thrusters," Jennifer reported. With a scowl of concern, Hakim projected the picture, checked the images and interpretation, nodded, glanced at Martin, eyebrow raised.

A very small reaction.

"Pod release in ten minutes," Harpal said, stating what they all knew, tracking the numbers on their wands.

The room fell quiet. Three of the four couples stopped making love. The fourth became subdued, though still active.

Martin felt sick.

Nebuchadnezzar's heartbeat changed. Hakim cycled the signal through several enhancements and interpretations, meaning little to most of the crew, and said, "Subsurface activity seems to have decreased."

"Decreased?" Martin asked.

Seen in the star sphere, Nebuchadnezzar's atmosphere shimmered. Something sang through the Tortoise's hull, between a bell tone and the screech of a fingernail on slate.

Martin's entire body tensed and he rubbed his eyes with one hand. Nobody moved. The War Mother did not move. Seconds passed.

"Jesus Christ," Harpal Timechaser murmured.

"Quiet," Martin said.

The fourth couple had separated and put on overalls. It would not be decorous to die naked and in the clinch.

Long minutes passed. Two minutes to releasing the pods and scattering the mines.

The atmosphere rippled again. The simulated beat changed abruptly to a chirp-thud and another bell-screech hurt their ears.

"The planet's crust has risen and fallen a few centimeters," Hakim reported.

"The entire crust?" Andrew Jaguar asked, incredulous.

"All that we can see," Hakim said. "I presume the entire—"

The surface of the planet seemed to shatter, hot white lines racing from the poles to meet at the equator, marking off jagged polygons, then dying into racing small reddish lines, fading again to normal brown.

Hakim's face blanched. "I don't know what that was… The mines are released."

"All eleven of the ships in the outer solar system have turned on thrusters," Jennifer said.

Martin surveyed the room, working to steady his breathing. "Something's up," he said.

The star sphere followed the progress of a pod of mines from a bombship. The pod dropped, exploded in a puff, and thousands of mines spread out in a shimmer, disappearing rapidly. Thirty seconds later, massive blossoms of light spread across the atmosphere. Spinning fireballs cascaded like fireworks, dazzling the eye, too many to count.

That was not supposed to happen.

Some of the bombships seemed to ignite with burning halos.

"Strong traces of anti em reactions," Hakim said. "Extreme gamma ray production, split nuclei forming alpha particles and larger ions. Cherenkov in the atmosphere… I think perhaps the entire planet is made of anti em…"

"No," said the War Mother. All faces turned to the painted robot. "The sensors do not support this interpretation."

"Still, there are anti em reactions," Hakim said, voice trembling. "The mines have detonated prematurely…"

"Have any mines reached the surface?"

"None," Hakim said.

"Are the bombships pulling away?"

The star sphere showed that the ships were indeed pulling away, four of them surrounded by glowing halos. The halos faded as they gained altitude.

"Four of our craft show strong anti em traces," Hakim said.

"That doesn't make sense," Martin said. "Is there a layer of anti em in the atmosphere…?"

"Not possible," Hakim said, looking to the War Mother for support. The War Mother agreed.

Tortoise had passed beyond Nebuchadnezzar and was now dipping below the ecliptic. The bombships, one by one, had dropped their loads. Three of the ships, upon spreading their mines filled with makers and doers, had produced merely the flowering of immense atmospheric explosions across thousands of kilometers, leaving turbulent scars on the planet's surface.