Anvil of Stars (22 page)

The fresh scars made very little difference.

The planet looks like one huge scar, smoothed over by time.

"It's been attacked before, hasn't it?" Harpal Timechaser asked.

Martin shook his head. "I don't know."

"That's it. We drilled on that. Nebuchadnezzar has been attacked before. It's always survived."

But three of the ships' weapons had found their marks and dropped to the surface, leaving no flowers of radiation behind; falling and entering, unseen from this distance but tracked by the bombships responsible. These ships rose from their close approach, clearly visible to anyone watching on the planet, to Tortoise, but minus halos of light.

The bombships began their acceleration to be picked up by Tortoise. Nothing followed them; nothing attacked. The defense craft around Tortoise stayed in formation, unchallenged.

"How long until we pick up the bombships?" Martin asked.

"Twenty minutes," Hakim said. "They have to accelerate and decelerate on combat schedule—they will be almost out of fuel. We could be more leisurely about it, perhaps." But he didn't sound convinced. Unexplained things had happened; not all the mines had made it to Nebuchadnezzar's surface.

Martin bit his fingernail.

"We've gotten ourselves into something," he said softly.

"What?" Hakim asked.

They waited, the crew in the cafeteria silent, or whispering softly. Harpal approached the star sphere, examining the planet closely. "We've failed, haven't we? The seeds from the outer cloud will have to do the Job now."

"That will take years," Martin said. He turned to the War Mother. "We can't get volatiles from Nebuchadnezzar. We'll have to move on to Ramses and try again. Do you know what happened?"

"There is deception here," the War Mother said.

"No shit," Harpal said.

"Bombships are returning. Something's wrong," Hakim said.

In the sphere, Martin could see them outlined by tiny sparkles of white light.

"What's the discharge?" Martin asked the War Mother.

"Not known," the War Mother said. "The effect produces intense gamma rays, much like anti-matter reactions."

"Do we keep the bombships out?" Hakim asked.

Martin masked his face with intense concentration, eyebrows knit, lips tightened and pushed out, breath harsh in his nostrils. "That doesn't make sense," he said.

The six bombships drew closer to Tortoise, came into position for pickup, signaling their status on noach. All were intact, all weapons dispersed. The first ship in line-up for retrieval was William and Fred Falcon's.

William's voice came over the noach. "Mines discharged. I've got sparkles all around me. I think I picked something up in the upper atmosphere. Why would my mines discharge? Tortoise!"

Martin asked, "Is it possible the mines were defective?"

Hakim shook his head. "I think not."

"We've never been in combat. Could something on the planet deactivate the mines?" He turned to the War Mother.

"No conclusions are possible. Deactivation of the mines is not inconceivable, but simple deactivation would not cause an explosion. The atmosphere may contain seeker and doer systems designed to attack incoming weapons, but we have detected nothing of that nature. Shielded anti-matter dust does not seem a likely possibility."

"The weapons could be disguised, or hidden, like our own ships," Hakim suggested.

"That is possible," the War Mother said.

"Then they do have defenses," Harpal said. "Maybe the defenses are trying to break through to the bombships—maybe they're carrying some back with them."

"Are they carrying anything?" Martin asked.

Hakim examined the bombships again. "There is no atmospheric residue around them. We are trailing a residue ourselves—a very faint cloud of discharged ions and molecules… That is all I detect. I do not know what the sparkles are. The craft look clean otherwise."

Martin gritted his teeth, relaxed his face, opened and closed his eyes slowly, found his chest bound with tense muscle, relaxed the muscle and exhaled.

"Bring them in, one at a time," he said. "Fred and William first. Keep them isolated in a one way field—nothing gets out."

"Martin, I don't feel very good," Fred said over the noach. "My skin's changing color, or my vision is going bad. William's sick, too."

Something was very wrong. Don't let them in.

Hakim and Jennifer floated nearby. "Bring Fred and William in," he instructed the War Mother. "Isolated, like I said."

The bombships took formation behind the Tortoise's aft home-ball, awaiting instructions. Fred and William's craft was first in line.

Hakim inquired on the other bombships: "Theresa, Stephanie, any reactions? Problems?"

Their ships also sparkled as if surrounded by fireworks. The other four did not sparkle. Martin thought: The mines from these ships did not explode in the atmosphere.

Stephanie Wing Feather responded: "I feel a little ill. We might have been swept by radiation. The fields should have kept it out, but there was such a burst from our mines…"

"Theresa?"

"I'm okay. I'm a little dizzy but I'm not sick."

The first bombship entered the hatch. The arresting boom, glowing with a bubble isolation field, reached out to attach to the craft.

Hakim switched the star sphere to a view of the weapons store. Martin's eyes narrowed.

The War Mother said: "There is danger of—"

Time ran out.

The arresting boom touched William's bombship. The star sphere filled with light and winked out, leaving dark dazzles swimming in their eyes. Hakim cursed loudly in Arabic.

A violent shudder slammed the crew against the walls. Fields rose instantly between them, suspending them from further harm, but already there were screams of pain and smears of blood.

Anti em, Martin's inner voice said, too late. The bombships and mines were changed into anti-matter.

The star sphere flickered back for a fraction of a second, showing a lump of twisted, torch-bright wreckage careening through the weapons store, setting off violent blasts and shrapnel wherever it touched. The bombship disintegrated into hissing, sizzling shards; ambiplasma filled the weapons store, and again the sphere disappeared.

Martin's wand sang with warnings and messages, too many to be projected at once. The ship will do something without consulting us.

"Weapons store and the whole hemisphere is going," Theresa said from outside. "What happened?"

The other bombships contributed to the chatter.

Stephanie Wing Feather was the last to be heard: "Tortoise, the aft hemisphere is cracking—"

Tortoise spun violently like a whirled dumb-bell, accelerating out of control. Messages from the bombships ceased.

The noise that sang through Tortoise now was more than he could bear. Screaming, Martin shut his eyes and waited for death.

The protective fields around them abruptly vanished and they were shoved into an agonized mass in one corner of the cafeteria, arms and knees and heads and torsos interlocking with the force as if manipulated by a giant puzzlemaker. Bones cracked and blood misted.

The fields came on again, but jammed the crew against one another, unable to pick them apart and suspend them separately. All was failing; control was gone, they could see nothing and feel nothing but their crush and pain.

The ship twisted like a snake. Martin opened his eyes and tried to move but could not. He lay meshed with Andrew Jaguar, Hakim pressed behind him. Martin's face threw globules of blood against a bulkhead in the flashing twilight. Barely three or four seconds had passed; he still clutched his wand, and Hakim's fist and wand ground into his calf. He could not move or think.

All had returned to the animal, to protoplasm.

Fear and the smell of blood and pressure like an enormous hand grinding them into the cafeteria wall

I'm sorry

Theresa

William

Relief. Blessed nothing.

I suppose it picked us apart and put us here, was his first thought on awakening and finding himself surrounded by a green net and a gently throbbing field. Suspended in the field, all his body a huge bruise, medical doers like tiny golden worms criss-crossing, touching his bruised flesh, nothing touching him but the golden worms, mouth dry but not parched, top of head burning.

They all hung in darkness. A cool breeze pricked the hairs on his head and chest. For a moment Martin thought of being dead, corpses laid out for ejection into space. But all the green fields pulsed gently and doers wove around them all. He could not see to identify the faces and he could not count all the bodies so suspended.

William is dead. And Fred Falcon.

There were others awake now, making sounds not like moans, more like sighs and whimpers. All too weak to talk.

A mom floated beside Martin. He did not know whether it actually appeared out of nothing, or whether his attention had flagged; consciousness was a sometime thing under the ministration of the golden worms.

"How long since we were hurt?" he asked.

"Two tendays," the mom said. He noticed a remnant of black and white paint on the front; this was still the War Mother.

"Where are we?"

"We have moved to a wide orbit around Nebuchadnezzar. There has been no further attempt to damage the ship."

"Why not? They could kill us."

"I do not know," the War Mother answered.

"How many of us died?"

"No one who remained aboard Tortoise has died, but all are injured. Half of Tortoise was destroyed. William Arrow Feather and Fred Falcon died first. Yueh Yellow River's craft disintegrated."

"They were turned into anti em, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"Anti-matter doesn't behave exactly like matter… Their chemistry was going wrong, wasn't it? I should have known that. I should have seen the clues, the sparkles… Our outgassing and fuel remnants reacting with the bombship. I should have seen it."

"I also did not draw the right conclusions until it was too late. You are not to blame," the War Mother said.

"There were four. The other two… What happened to Stephanie and Theresa? Can you convert them back to matter?"

"We cannot," the War Mother said. "Tortoise collided with one of the unconverted craft during the explosion. Nguyen Mountain Lily and Ginny Chocolate died. Stephanie and Theresa survived. Hu East Wind, Michael Vineyard, Leo Parsifal, and Nancy Flying Crow are back aboard and safe.

"Stephanie was killed later by my unsuccessful attempt to convert her craft back to matter. We do not have the technique or the understanding of how the conversion was accomplished—"

Martin turned his head away from the War Mother, knowing now that Theresa was dead, too.

"Stephanie Wing Feather's craft was only partially converted, or converted unevenly. It exploded, causing yet more damage to Tortoise.'"

"Then you tried again with Theresa."

"No. Theresa is still in her craft."

Martin jerked his head around. "She's alive?"

"She is still alive."

Martin's weak grip on consciousness wavered and the War Mother seemed to shimmer before him. He pushed the dark pressures away and said, "Let me speak to her."

The War Mother raised his wand to his hand with a slender green ladder field. The wand projected an image of Theresa's bombship into his eyes. The skin of her bombship still sparkled, but sharp pulses of light occurred much less often. The craft drifted a hundred kilometers from Tortoise.

Martin saw Theresa's face, wrapped in the folds of her couch, ladder fields glowing fitfully around her.

Martin spoke her name. She fumbled to complete the noach connection.

"You're awake," she said listlessly. Her face had yellowed, her hands ulcerated; her anti-matter chemistry, tuned to a slightly different physics, did not match her biological makeup. She was very ill. "I can't see you too well," Theresa said. "Were you badly hurt?"

"I think I'm healing. So are the others." His voice wobbled with emotion and he swallowed to control it. "I screwed up, Theresa."

"You couldn't have known."

"The ship's badly hurt, I think."

"The War Mother tells me about half of it is left," Theresa said. A picture of Tortoise from her perspective grew above Theresa's image; one hemisphere, a blunt-ended, debris-scarred pylon, drives gone. "Some amazing things," Theresa said. "The moms actually used the explosion—William and Fred—to propel the ship away from Nebuchadnezzar. The ship turned into it, used it. I followed… we all followed."

"How… How are you feeling?" Martin asked.

"I've been in this can for two tendays. It wouldn't be so bad, but I can't eat. I'm pretty weak. I've been waiting—"

"I'll ask the War Mother. We'll try everything."

Theresa shook her head. "They got us good. They know things the Benefactors don't."

Or aren't willing to teach us, Martin thought, but that didn't make sense; the War Mother could have converted the craft while the injured crew slept and nobody would have been much the wiser. Theresa was right. We've been aced.

Martin looked at the War Mother. "You tried, and it didn't work?"

"Stephanie Wing Feather agreed to an experiment. She is dead. We cannot turn anti-matter into matter."

"You're supposed to understand," Martin said. "How can you be ignorant about this?"

"The techniques are unknown to us."

"Jesus, I'm not asking for so much, just learn how to do it! She's dying!"

The War Mother said nothing. Martin wrapped his face in his hands.

"I've been waiting for you to wake up," Theresa said. "I'm glad you did before… I have a plan, and it's not much, but it's something. I've asked the War Mother to make a strong field and put pellets of matter into it, with me. I'm behind the field. You're protected. The explosion could be even more powerful than Stephanie's. That's what Stephanie asked for. If the experiment didn't work. It didn't. She helped push you—"

"No!" Martin shouted.

Theresa closed her eyes as if to sleep. "I've stayed this long to talk to you. Maybe it would have been easier to just do it while you were asleep. The War Mother says it would be useful. "