Anvil of Stars (36 page)

"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 passed.

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.

"We our weakness comes when we find suns and worlds infested by Killers, too late to save, hundreds of times year past. We we are caught in this tide, Journey House, and many die, Journey House is damaged. Hundreds of times year past. We we flee." Smell of turpentine.

Martin saw tears on the cheeks of both Wendys and Lost Boys.

"We we hear there is another Lawship." Smell of lilac and baking bread. "Hear we we will join and work with others not smelling of our own, singles not manyness. We we are fearful, for singleness is strange, manyness is accepted. I we am proud both can grow together, fight together. We we are all manyness, all aggregate, group brave, group strong."

Stonemaker, Martin thought, had the makings of a good politician.

"We our Lawship is watched over by machines. They are long and flexible like ourselves, but I we mink they are the same as your machines. Ships' libraries will join and we will teach each other to smell, to read, to see.

"Our ships will be one ship, manyness made one, group strong, group brave." Smell of cooked cabbage, not burnt. "We all selves will wait in one space while ships aggregate, " Stone-maker concluded.

The human crew rustled uneasily. Martin heard whispers of assurance from the familiarized, and saw nudges of encouragement. Not so bad. Wait and see.

Rosa stepped forward and raised her arms. Martin wanted to turn away, embarrassed for her, for all of them.

"They are truly our brothers," Rosa said. "Together, we'll be doubly strong."

Hans put his arm around Rosa, smiled, and said, "We're grouping here in the schoolroom. It's big enough to hold us all. The Dawn Treader can make food for the Brothers. We'll stay here, all of us, and all of the Brothers, until the ships have joined."

No grumbling from the crew. Martin sensed an electric anticipation that had only the slightest tinge of fear.

Joe stood by Martin as they awaited the arrival of the full complement of Brothers. "We keep using the masculine pronoun for them," he observed. "Is that justified?"

"No," Martin said. "But they are Brothers, aren't they?"

Joe gave him a quizzical look, one eye squeezed shut. "Martin, you're getting a bit…" He waggled his hand. "Cynical. Am I wrong?"

Martin zipped his lips with a finger.

"The comment Hans made about Rosa…"

Martin looked meaningfully at the crew a few paces away.

Though he had spoken in an undertone, Joe sighed and said no more.

Fifty Brothers, seventy-five Lost Boys and Wendys, for the time being separated, with a star sphere in the middle of the schoolroom, showing the ships already joined bow to stern, like mating insects:

The air smelling of cabbage and lilacs and all manner of unidentifiables:

The moms and the Brothers' robots, quickly called snake mothers, two of each in the schoolroom, the moms bulbous like copper kachina dolls, the others resembling flexible bronze serpents two meters long and half a meter thick in the middle, biding their time:

The schoolroom sealed off with an exterior sigh of equalizing pressure:

Martin: We've been through this before. This is not new.

Hakim saying to him: "I am learning to interpret their astronomy. Jennifer says they have marvelous mathematics. What a wealth, Martin!" Hakim is overjoyed:

Ariel not coming very close to him, keeping a fixed distance, watching him when he is not looking at her:

Have I truly gotten cynical, or am I just terrified? We are such a dry forest, any spark, any change—

Sounds throughout the ships, silence among the humans, and no smells now, the air swept clean of communications, the equivalent of Brotherly silence, and vibrations under their feet.

Rosa stood strong and quiet near the star sphere in a theatrical attitude of prayer.

One of the Brothers quietly broke down into cords. The cords seemed stunned and simply twitched, feelers extended, searching, claw-legs scratching the floor. Other braids quickly moved to gather the cords into small sacks carried in packs strapped around their upper halves.

Chirps and strings of comment; smells of turpentine and bananas. The cords struggled and clicked in the sacks.

"Fear?" Ariel asked Martin, moving closer.

"I've never seen the cliche brought to life before," Martin murmured.

She raised an eyebrow.

" 'Falling apart,' " he said.

She raised the other eyebrow, shook her head. Then she chuckled. Martin could not remember having heard her chuckle before; laughing, smiling, never anything between.

"Not a very good joke," he said.

"I didn't say it was," Ariel replied, still smiling. The smile flicked off when he didn't return it; she looked away, smoothing her overalls. "I'm not asking for anything, Martin," she said softly.

"Sorry," he said, suddenly guilty.

"I haven't changed," she continued, face red. "When you were Pan, I said what I thought you needed to hear."

"I understand," he said.

"The hell you do," Ariel concluded, pushing her way to the opposite side of the group of humans.

Another braid disintegrated. Hakim bent over a straying cord. A Brother clicked and swooped down to grab the cord, head splaying, extended clawed tail sections from two of its own cords closing on the stray. He paused with the limp cord hanging just under his head, then said, "Private."

"Don't mess with them," Hans warned Hakim. "We've got a lot more to learn about each other."

"Merging begins," a mom said, moving to the center, near the star sphere. Martin looked at the sphere intently, watching the two ships melt into each other, impressed despite himself by the Benefactors' capabilities.

The snake mothers chirped, sang, and released odors. Martin's head swam with the tension and the welter of scents; more bananas, resinous sweetness, faint odor of decay, cabbage again. Snake mother voices like a high-pitched miniature string orchestra, braids responding; stray cords mostly grabbed and bagged, the last few pulled from the air by Brothers coiling like millipedes in water.

So damned strange, Martin thought, feeling the hysteria of creeping exhaustion. It's too much. I want it to be over.

But he floated in place, one hand clinging to a personal ladder field, eyes blinking, head throbbing, saying nothing. Hakim also clung to a ladder, eyes closed, as if trying to sleep. Actually, that was sensible. Martin closed his eyes.

Giacomo patted his shoulder. Eyes flicking open, disoriented by actually having slept—for how long? seconds? minutes?—Martin turned to Giacomo and saw Jennifer behind him.

"Completion of merger in five minutes," the mom announced, its voice sounding far away.

"We can't wait to get into their math and physics," Giacomo said, round face moist with tired excitement. Humans were adding their own smells to the schoolroom, now seeming much too small with two populations. "Jennifer's spoken to their leader—if Stonemaker is their leader."

"Spokesnake," Jennifer said, giggling, punchy.

"Some fantastic things. Their math lacks integers!"

"As far as we can tell," Jennifer added.

"They don't use whole numbers at all. Only smears, they call them."

Martin's interest could hardly have been less now, but he listened, too tired to evade them.

"I think they regard integers, even rational fractions, as aberrations. They love irrationals, the perfect smears. I can't wait to see what that means for their math." Giacomo saw Martin's look of patent disinterest, and sobered. "Sorry," he said.

"I'm very tired," Martin said. "That's all. Aren't you tired?"

"Dead tired," Jennifer said, giggling again. "Smears! Jesus, that's incredible. I may never make sense out of it."

Martin smelled lilacs; dreamed of his grandmother's face powder, drifting through the air in her small bathroom like snow, spotting her throw rug beneath the sink. In the dream, he lay down on the rug, curled up, and closed his eyes.