Anvil Of Stars Part 40

"Was there any reason he would want to attack you?"

"How should I know?" Rex said.

Here it is, Martin thought. Martin thought. Plain as can be. Plain as can be.

"You mean, the Brothers are unpredictable," Hans said, face clouding.

"I don't know them," Rex said, smiling as if on firmer ground.

Hans turned to Stonemaker. "Rex Live Oak has been to Brother orientations. He partic.i.p.ated in the grab races. He's carried Brothers, and been carried by them."

"It wasn't like that," Rex said. "It-he tried to crush me."

"You have bruises?"

Rex dropped his shoulder straps and showed livid bruises around his ribs and abdomen.

Stonemaker rustled, rearranged his coils. Hans put his chin in one hand and bent to examine the bruises. "Did you do anything to frighten him?"

"Nothing. I swear."

"No reason for him to attack you."

"Hey," Rex said, his smile broad now, shoulders lifted.

"Stop smiling, you a.s.shole," Hans said. "Stonemaker, can you tell me how Rex might have frightened Sand Piler?"

"We we have not experienced aggression from our partners before," Stonemaker said. "We we do not understand capacity for being frightened, for giving fright."

"I don't think that's clear," Hans said.

"We we do not expect aggression from you," Eye on Sky said. "There is no reason for we us to be afraid, whatever you do, unless we we are injured. Then we we lose trust and may be afraid."

"Makes sense," Hans said. "It's a pity Sand Piler doesn't remember. I'm open to suggestions from our partners."

The Brothers said nothing, weaving and scenting the air with baking bread, new-mown gra.s.s.

"I don't have any guidelines myself," Hans said. "I'm very angry at Rex. Personally, I'd throw his a.s.s outside, if the moms would let us. Would they, Martin?"

Martin shook his head.

"You don't know?" Hans pursued, as if shifting his anger to Martin now, Rex being such a pitiful target.

"I don't think they would let us," Martin clarified.

"d.a.m.ned lucky for Rex. Stonemaker, I don't know how to make up for this breach, however it happened. I think we should be blunt and say that some of our people are still frightened by your people. Rex seems a simple-minded sort, and anything can happen with idiots idiots." He fairly jammed the name down Rex's throat, standing with face pressed a few centimeters from Rex's nose. Surprise or emotion made Rex's eyes water and he stumbled back a step.

"It wasn't anything I planned," he said. "It just happened."

"Will Sand Piler recover?" Hans asked Stonemaker.

"Damage to Sand Piler will not mean breakdown and adoption by others. He will be an individual, and useful to his friends."

"That's...very good," Hans said, taking two sharp and broken breaths, as if he were about to hiccough. He seemed infinitely weary as he returned his attention to Rex. "We take care of our own. Brothers judge Brothers, and humans judge humans. You're banned from the Job. I suppose later you might try something really impressive and heroic, and get back your duty. But I wouldn't waste my time thinking about it."

Rex closed his eyes. "Hans-"he said.

"Please go," Hans said.

"I was defending myself, for Christ's sake!"

"You're a liar," Hans said. "I can't prove it, but you've lost my confidence, and while I'm Pan, you have no work to do. You're a free man, Rex. Leave before I decide to beat the s.h.i.t out of you."

Rex left the room, shaking his head, fists clenched. He slammed a wall just before stepping through the hatch.

Hans bowed very low to Stonemaker and Eye on Sky. "I beg forgiveness for my people," he said. "We must work together. We have no choice."

"We we shall work together, and this shall be lost in we our minds," Stonemaker said.

"If we judge again, take a vote to enact the Law," Hans said, standing in the middle of a wealth of planetary images, "the Brothers will probably vote to investigate. Am I right?"

Martin, Hakim, Joe, and Cham sat circled before Hans in the nose of the ship. Joe and Cham nodded. Hakim kept still and quiet.

"Martin? Will they vote to go in and learn more?"

Martin said he thought they would.

"Because the more we learn, the more ambiguous this all is," Hans said softly. "I don't think it's going to get any better."

"Terribly ambiguous," Cham said. He pulled down a more detailed image of Leviathan's third planet. Smooth, lovely green continents and blue oceans, no visible cloud cover, surface temperature about twenty Celsius, land ma.s.ses checked with immense tan squares. Surrounding it like a fringe: huge puff-ball seeds, perhaps a thousand kilometers long, touching ocean and continent. The seeds did not limit themselves to the equator; a few even rose from the poles.

Fourth planet, huge and dark, surrounded by seas b.u.t.ting against dark continents spotted with glowing lava-filled rifts. The fifth planet: volatile-rich gas giant, surface temperature of eighty-five kelvins, two point two g's, hints of wide green patches and black ribbons, rotating storms. Again enormous structures studded the upper atmosphere, these shaped like giant nested funnels. The sixth: a smaller gas giant, about the size of Neptune, artificial constructs floating in orbit like braided hair, brilliantly reflective. Thick streamers of gas rose from the giant's surface along the equator, drawn up by the constructs.

"Looks like paradise for the fuel-hungry," Cham said.

"A very masterpiece of bulls.h.i.t," Hans said. "Designed to do just what it's doing to us."

"Or-"Joe said.

Hans raised an eyebrow.

"I can think of two or three ways what we're seeing could actually be what's there."

"Camouflaged with real races and cultures," Hakim said, taking Joe's hint.

"Explain, please."

"Well, Hakim seems on my wavelength," Joe said.

"I think I see it, too," Cham said.

"Somebody should explain it to the poor old boss-man," Hans said.

"The Killers have given up sending out probes," Hakim said. "They have aligned with other cultures, made alliances, and now hide among them."

Hans c.o.c.ked his head to one side, squinting one eye dubiously.

"Or they've died out," Joe said, "and other s.p.a.cefaring races have taken over the system."

"If we don't accept that these planets are all projections or something as crazy as that," Hans said. He slumped his shoulders and closed his eyes. "Has anybody asked the moms what they think?"

"I've asked for a formal meeting with a mom and a snake mother," Martin said. "I've asked that Stonemaker and whomever he wants to bring should be there, too."

"Shouldn't I be there?" Hans asked, opening one eye.

"Of course," Martin said.

Hans pinned Martin with a fishy gaze, then smiled. "Good. We've been exercising for a tenday now. Everything's smooth."

"There are still problems with some of our crew," Martin said.

"But they're doing the work," Hans said.

Martin hesitated, then agreed.

"Let me deal with just a few hundred things at a time." Hans stood and stretched. He had put on weight around the stomach and his face seemed puffy. "Rex is staying out of sight. I hope his example keeps the others in check. I need a plan. What are we going to do if the decision is to investigate, get right in close before we drop weapons?"

"Split the ship," Joe said.

Cham agreed. "Maybe into two or three ships, dispersed to swing back at different times, from different angles. All black, all silent."

"My thoughts exactly," Hans said. "Martin?"

"The ship that goes in first...it's a fantasy to think it will stay hidden for long, if at all."

"So?"

"Maybe it should go in openly. Maybe it should be disguised. A Trojan horse."

Hans leaned his head back, looking at Martin over his short nose and open mouth. "Uh, Jesus is simple, Satan is complex. We come in openly, we're traveling merchants, we're not hunting killer probes. We've just come to show our wares-"

Cham cackled and slapped his legs. Hakim looked around, still bewildered. "Don't you see?" Cham asked him.

"I am not-"

"Slick them at their own game," Joe said. Hakim caught on but suddenly frowned.

"They know we were at Wormwood," he said. "They know-"

"They may not know anything," Martin said, energized by his own idea, and Hans' elaboration. "They could easily a.s.sume Wormwood killed us in the trap. They're more vulnerable, but for that reason, they can't afford to throw off their disguise-if it is is a disguise-" a disguise-"

"Because traveling merchants might tattle on them, or be expected somewhere else, and missed if they don't show," Hans said.

"And they have a reputation in the neighborhood to maintain. They let the Red Tree Runners go...Martin, my faith in you has paid off. Anything after this is bonus."

"It is not a bad idea," Hakim agreed, smiling at Martin.

"But it needs development," Hans said. "I want a full proposal, with details, before we talk with the Brothers."

Giacomo and Jennifer picked up quickly around their compartment, embarra.s.sed that Martin had come to visit unexpectedly. Clothing, sc.r.a.p paper waiting to be run through the ship's recycling, sporting equipment for joint human-Brother games, were quickly stacked into piles and shoved aside. "This would be a real mess if we were coasting," Jennifer said.

"Don't worry about it," Martin said, waving his hand. "I'm just dropping by on my own initiative. Hans hasn't asked for a report on the translations, but I thought I'd inquire..."

"We're working with two of the Brothers now, Many Smells and Dry Skin," Jennifer said.

"Those are complimentary names," Giacomo said, smiling.

"Dry Skin has even chosen a human name. He wants to be called Norman. Sometimes Eye on Sky helps."

"So what do we have?" Martin asked. "Are their libraries better than ours?"

"It's certainly different," Giacomo said. "We've barely begun to translate the really technical stuff, but the snake mothers seem more open with their facts, more trusting. There's less fear of influencing the Brothers, I think-that is, taking away their freedom to choose by overawing them. The Brothers are pretty solid, psychologically."

"Can we learn anything more from their libraries?"

Jennifer looked at Giacomo. "Possibly, if they help us translate."

"Shouldn't you know one way or the other by now?"

"If their libraries stored key concepts in words, yes," Jennifer said. "I'm sure we'd know. But the reason we had to call on Many Smells and Dry Skin/Norman, is because we were having such a tough time dealing with the synesthesia-with translating smells and music into human language. Their math is disintegrated, literally-no integers. They deal with everything in probabilistic terms. Numbers are smears of probability. They don't see things separated from each other, only in relations. No arithmetic, only algebras. How many planets around Leviathan? It's expressed in terms of Leviathan's history, the shape of its planet-forming cloud ages past...Only after you, that is, a Brother, understands everything there is to know, will he have an idea how many planets there are. Even their most simple calculations are mind-wrecking, to us-parallel processing of cords in each braid. It's math for much more powerful minds than ours."

"We talked about that already," Giacomo said. "But the definite article is also missing from their languages. They have three languages, auditory, olfactory, and written-but writing is supplementary to the rest. All we've gotten access to is the written, so far. Norman is trying to convert olfactory into written, but he says it's the most difficult thing he's ever done."

"What do the annotations tell us?" Martin asked.

"They're intriguing," Jennifer said, leaning forward in her seat, eyes narrowing with enthusiasm. "The snake mothers trust the Brothers-"

"Like we said," Giacomo interrupted.

"The snake mothers seem to think there's no chance the Brothers could ever turn into planet killers."

"But they're not so certain about us," Giacomo said.

"The Brothers were littoral, beach grazers-at least, in their earliest forms," Jennifer said. "Almost all their cities were located along coastlines. They made artificial beaches inland to feed the growing populations-that was the beginning of civilization for them. They seem embarra.s.sed by their past, as if hunters and gatherers-us-might think beachcombers are inferior."

"I think their world had little or no axial tilt," Giacomo said. "No seasons, but with two moons-"

"We haven't heard any of this!" Martin said, astonished. "Why didn't you tell us about this sooner?"