Anvil of Stars (60 page)

Giacomo took a deep breath and shivered some of his energy away, chuckled at his state. "Sorry. It's not that I don't care. But sometimes I felt as if we were forcing God to make mistakes, and there was this… this indignant power making things right again, at any cost. The Killers got in the way."

"Of God," Martin said.

Giacomo's cheek twitched, then he grimaced. "Whatever. All this deluding and persuading. Like seduction, playing a game. We played the game better than the Killers did."

"Maybe they were tired," Martin said.

"As good an explanation as any," Giacomo said. He shook his arms put, toes poked into the field. Jittered, hunched his shoulders, eyes dancing with energy beyond exhaustion.

He's had his religious experience.

"I keep seeing something in the playbacks," Martin said. "It can't be real—it looks like a big finger."

Giacomo grinned, nodded. "The finger. That's scary, isn't it? Reaching out." He curled his finger and poked the air. "It shows up wherever there are large masses of separated quark components. That's what made me think maybe God was getting really angry and putting things right."

Martin looked unconvinced. "God again."

"It looks like it's moving really fast, but that's an illusion. It's a chain of spatial contortions upsetting ionized hydrogen, a real barometer of quark separation. That's one theory… or it's a string of some sort pulled out of the universe's sub-basement. You know, the glue that keeps us on the canvas? I haven't even begun to think about what that implies. Maybe I don't want to."

"Do you think the Killers were still at home?" Martin asked softly.

Giacomo narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. "Not my call, Martin. Back to work. Hans wants this day after tomorrow. We'll go after anything that looks like survivors."

"It isn't over," Martin said.

"Justice must be complete," Giacomo said. Swinging away, he paused, glanced over his shoulder, said, "You think the moms will let us keep what we know?"

Martin lightly tapped his temple.

"Right," Giacomo said. "They've never asked us to forget. "

Ariel sat in the cafeteria with Donna and Anna Gray Wolf. Twenty others off Hans' strict watch schedule ate in clusters. Ariel looked up as Martin entered, nodded to him almost curtly and looked away. She had cut her hair very short and wore colorless overalls. Self-consciously, Martin pushed himself in their direction.

"I'm off to help Giacomo in a few minutes," Anna said pointedly. "You two should be alone, compare notes."

Ariel's color was good, and she did not appear much thinner than he. "No hurry," she said.

"We're having a wake at day's end," Donna said. She swallowed a last bite of something green from the air and gathered her crumbs with a small field.

None of this seemed apropos of anything to Martin. "Do I make you uncomfortable?" he asked Ariel. This was the first time he had seen her since they had been removed from their escape craft. The awkwardness disturbed him.

"Park here," Ariel said. Donna moved over, and Martin drifted between them. "I'm glad you were with me," Ariel said. "You helped me stay sane."

Martin nodded, the tension not yet diminished.

"But we need to know where you stand. You know that Hans has put together a political squad."

"I've heard about it," he said.

"Nobody's enthusiastic, but they're still keeping track of us."

"Right."

"So we're talking right here in the open," Donna said. "We'll call his bluff."

"We need to know which side you're on," Ariel said.

"No sides," Martin said.

"You can't be neutral," Anna said, righteous anger in her voice. "Hans has gone way beyond his charter."

"He'll call it martial law," Donna said. "The crew went along with him during the war. But we want him to resign as Pan."

"Why?" Martin asked. "He got the Job done."

Ariel searched his face for a sign of what he actually meant, but he was stubbornly blank. "Maybe," she said. "I doubt we'll ever really know."

"I've told him there should be an investigation of Rosa's death and Rex's suicide."

Ariel shook her head. "I sympathize, but that's kind of trivial now, Martin."

"It should be done," Anna said.

"Compared to what happened here, it's damned near meaningless, a gnat in a hurricane."

"She was crew," Martin said.

"Come on," Anna said. "It's still necessary. Martin's right."

"What will it accomplish?" Ariel said. "It's just part of a larger crime. First, he doesn't let us vote on this particular case. Twenty of us go down to Sleep to play ambassadors, and he knocks us out of the circuit, doesn't even bother to keep us informed—"

"He says that was because we could have been spied upon," Martin said. "Or even controlled."

Ariel brushed that aside. "And he executes without having a proven case. Have you seen the destruction, Martin? Can you even begin to absorb it?"

"I've seen it," Martin said, "and no, I can't."

David Aurora approached their group on a ladder field. "I'd keep it down, folks," he said in a low voice. "Patrick keeps his ears open."

"Patrick's replaced Rex," Anna said. "There are others."

"What we want to do," Ariel said, "is get Hans out one way or another, elect a new Pan, and try to convince the Brothers to stay with us, to combine ships. We think we'd have a better chance to find a home that way."

David, having issued his warning, shook his head and pulled himself to another group on the far side of the cafeteria.

"You think Hans has really gone off the deep?" Martin asked. "You think he's going to squash dissent?"

"You want to investigate Rosa's death, but you ask a question like that?" Anna asked.

"Pardon me, but I'm very confused," Martin said.

"It's pretty clear," Ariel said. Her coldness toward him was like a slap. She's reversed course again. Who can ever know her?

"It's the new order," Donna said, thin hands rubbing her thin forearms. "He cut us loose on the Trojan Horse. He used us. I don't care, I don't trust him, and we need a Pan we can trust, and we need the rest of our crew. We can't just split and go in two directions. It isn't right. We need the Brothers, too."

"You mean, we need their resources," Martin said.

"Actually, that's not strictly true," Anna said. "We'll be able to mine enough stuff around Leviathan to take us anywhere we want to go. Even add to the ship if we want."

"Psychologically, we need the Brothers," Ariel agreed. Martin was about to ask her to explain that when Patrick Angelfish came into the cafeteria, doing a bad job of looking as if he had some purpose there. Martin waved his hand to catch Patrick's eye; Patrick looked away with too much effort. Martin spread his arms and waved them in semaphore for him to join them. Ariel's face went pale and even colder.

Patrick approached cautiously, not expecting the open invitation.

"Are you spying for Hans?" Martin asked him.

"I wouldn't call it spying," Patrick said. "A Pan needs to know what's going on."

"Tell Hans I'm putting together a committee to investigate Rosa's death," Martin said. "I'm asking for volunteers now. He gave permission, and I'm acting on that permission. "

"He hasn't told me he gave permission," Patrick said, clearly out of his depth.

Martin's sudden deep anger took him by surprise. "That's because you're a lackey," he said with a grim smile. "Like Rex. Tell him if he wants to challenge me, do it in the open, himself, and not just send you to keep an eye on me."

Patrick left with a shake of his head and a grim, sidelong smile.

Donna and Anna's faces had gone pale and stiff. "You don't understand what he's capable of," Anna said.

"Maybe not," Martin said.

"Don't be a martyr," Ariel said.

"Why not?" Martin asked.

"Then don't be a fool," she added, but her chilly tone had passed.

"I'm flying on instinct," Martin said. "So is Hans. The question is, who has the better instincts?"

The roll call of the new dead. The human crew in the small schoolroom. Brothers elsewhere, preparing to transfer to Shrike. The defectors attended, breaking their isolation in the Brothers' section to honor those who had not survived.

Perhaps it was the last time they would be together.

Hans came into the schoolroom with face ashen, hair unkempt, eyes large and hungry. He seemed to look in every face, ask everyone a question: Are you happy now? Is this enough, or do you want more?

Without using his wand, Hans recited the names of the dead. Some of the crew wept. Martin closed his eyes and tried to remember Hakim's face, the calmness and deliberation, his precise way with words. Erin Eire… intense green eyes and noble balance of defiance and sense. He wished they were here now to help him.

Jeanette Snap Dragon lifted her arm in a clenched fist, and the defectors followed her example.

Hans did not look at Martin after, though he passed close on his way out. Patrick glanced in his direction, face troubled.

The delegation came to Martin's quarters in the middle of his sleep. His wand woke him, chiming insistently. He opened the door and Patrick stepped in, Thorkild Lax behind him, then David Aurora, Carl Phoenix, and last—making Martin's heart ache, for he knew what was happening—Harpal Timechaser. None of them met his eyes but Patrick, who said, "It's time to put everything behind us."

Patrick in front, Carl on one side, David on another, Harpal slightly above him, Thorkild below; a cage of men. Martin smelled their tension.

"Everything?" he said.

"It's history," Patrick said. "Besides, you'll get no support. Nobody wants to dig any more. We need to forget and get on with our lives."

"Forget what?" Martin asked mildly, but his heart pumped strong and fast. His body was very frightened, but the fear hadn't yet reached his head.

"Your investigation."

"We know who killed Rosa, and he's dead, and Hans had nothing to do with it, at least no more than the rest of us," Carl said.

"She would have stopped us," Thorkild said.

"We did the slicking Job," Patrick hissed, and Martin knew the quincunx of his danger. Patrick was the center who would radiate to the other four. "We did what we came here to do."

"Let's just give it up, huh?" Harpal asked. "We're tired."

Martin rotated in mid-air to face Harpal. Nobody would look straight into his eyes. Harpal managed to focus on Martin's cheek. "Why are you here? Power?" he asked.

"Beg pardon?" Harpal seemed to sleepwalk, only half-listening.

"I'm asking you why you're here."

"I thought we could talk some sense into you. You know as well as I what Hans did. He drew us together."

"That doesn't absolve him…"

"After what we've just done," Harpal said, pain and dismay passing over his face but not disturbing the simple, stolid exhaustion behind any expression, "you want to investigate a… what? A murder, you think? It's insane, Martin. Let it lie."

"You've got the finger of God working for you," Martin said, not too rationally. "That's all you need?"

"We couldn't have done it without Hans," Patrick said, "and now you want him punished for something he didn't do."

"I just want to know," Martin said.

"We know already," Patrick said.

"It takes five of you to tell me this?"

"We're your friends," Harpal said. "We don't want anything bad for you."

"Hans asked you to watch out for me?"

"You be careful," Carl said, but Patrick reined him in with a sharp look. Who is more stupid, Carl, Patrick—or David? I know Harpal and Thorkild… I don't know the others nearly as well. Odd some of us are still strangers. Then maybe I don't know any of them. Why are they here? They were my friends. We worked together.

"We worked together," Harpal said. "We don't want you to be the center of trouble."

"You were a Pan," Martin said.

Harpal tightened his lips, jaw working, relaxing. "I know the responsibilities, the decisions. So do you. I know what Hans is capable of. So do you. Rex was the one who went rogue, not Hans."

"Besides," Patrick said, "Rex is dead, everybody who could know is dead."

"Rex said Hans put him up to it," Martin reminded them.

"He was crazy. He fell in with Rosa's group, they twisted him…"

"All the defectors are crazy, too?"

"They're ineffective," Harpal said.

"They don't understand. They're weak links," David said.

Martin still could not tell how far they would go. Surely not all five would attack him. One or two, the others standing back, ashamed, but caught.

"We're ready to go on," Thorkild said, glancing at the others. "Get out of here and marry a planet."

Patrick's eyes were dead. He seemed half asleep.

"We don't want to dig it all up. It's the past. It's dead."

"It smells," Martin said. "It will not stop smelling. We can't cut clean from the past."

"We still have mopping up to do," Harpal said, trying to sound persuasive, reasonable. "The defectors aren't helping, and the Brothers turned out to be real liabilities."

"The Brothers helped us."

"Forget that," Patrick said. "Let's just keep it simple."

Rage colored fear, and the mix made his whole body burn. He wanted them all gone, if not gone then dead, and he could smell the same wish in their breath, their sweat.

David's eyes had become still, lifeless.

Thorkild and Harpal looked like the ones most likely to back off. He moved closer to Harpal. "I'm not out to cause trouble," Martin said. "That's Hans' doing. Some of us want him to stand down. That's all. That's our privilege as crew."

My, you sound rational, clever. That will increase their dead-ness, their anger. It decreases your anger, to talk so, to try to reason with friends so. You don't really hate or fear them. That makes you weaker. They'll kill you for that, for acting like a victim.

"Not if it puts all of us in danger," Harpal said, reacting to the reasonable tone with his own reason. Harpal will not act with them. "What if the Killers have a surprise waiting for us? If we drop our discipline, lose our edge, they'll have us. We're not ready to check out now."