Hans squatted in a lotus before the star sphere, ragged, thin, pale, fingers tapping the floor lightly. His face seemed religious with concentration and something like fear: fear that what the Brothers had found might prove they had acted incorrectly. Fear of responsibility for the deaths of trillions…
Trillions of what? Martin asked himself. Ghosts? Shells? Robots? Deceptions? Real, intelligent beings? Innocents?
The last possibility was more than he could bring himself to contemplate.
Scouts continued to work through the detritus like little fish swimming through a swirl of sand and mud, sending information by noach to Greyhound. Shrikeno doubt had its own scouts, but the arc was huge, three million kilometers from end to end and several hundred thousand kilometers broad, and the area studied by Shrikewas still relatively unknown to them.
Giacomo approached Martin and kneeled beside him. Martin looked up; surprised himself by having napped. He glimpsed the star sphere; Greyhoundwas very near Shrike. "What is it?" Martin asked.
"We're here. Stonemaker won't talk to any human but you. He's on the noach, and he wants it private."
"Did you tell Ariel?" She was not in the schoolroom.
Giacomo nodded, biting his lower lip. "She told me to get you. Search team doesn't see anything. We don't know what they've got or what they're up to."
A field had wrapped around him automatically while he slept, to restrain him as the acceleration ended. He converted it to a ladder and followed Giacomo to the nose.
Ariel met him outside the nose. She smiled quickly. "The Brothers like you, Martin."
He made a wry face and pushed into the nose.
Even to the naked eye, the destruction of Sleep was impressive. Greyhoundseemed to hang motionless beside Shrikeabout ten thousand kilometers above the arc of Sleep's corpse, a glittering, mottled span of dust and rubble like a layer of oil and dirt on a pond. Glowing commas of molten stuff haunted the arc. One comma disintegrated before his eyes, a silent leap of puckering orange. Beyond the arc, closer in to Leviathan, two diffuse blotches marked other ruins, like swift strokes of watercolor on wet black paper.
"I'll project the noach here," Thorkild said, refusing to meet his eyes. "You know how to use it. Of course you do." He looked as if he was about to cry. "Martin…"
Martin held his finger to his lips, shook his head reassuringly, falsely. He didn't know how long it would take the wounds to heal, but he did not want to deal with Thorkild now.
Eye on Sky slid into the nose as Thorkild departed. "I we told Stonemaker you have stayed sensible," Eye on Sky said. "Do not know others as well."
"Thanks," Martin said. "What's happened?"
Eye on Sky splayed his head cords, very attentive. A noached image of Stonemaker shimmered into solidity before them.
"I we am thankful you survived," Stonemaker said. "You should see what we we have found. Judge with and mark we our opinions." Stonemaker faded and was replaced by a roller-coaster ride through glowing rubble, wisps of hot gas, into a dark void.
"Record of scout sending," Eye on Sky explained, making a scent of sharp cinnamon and warm animal. The smell aroused homesickness, deeper loneliness. Gauge. He smells a bit like Gauge.
The void was a great hollow, perhaps ten thousand kilometers wide, cleared somehow in the middle of the arc like a bubble. He was about to ask if it was natural when he spotted a speck at its center, little more than a dust mote in the tarry darkness. The mote glowed green.
Human measurements appeared to the left of the image. The mote, now fist sized and growing rapidly, was about a hundred kilometers in diameter. He could not discern clearly what it was; the ghoulish green spot seemed made of many smaller versions of itself. Enlarged, the mass revealed cluster upon cluster of much smaller needle-like objects, in all manner of arrangements; rolled, bundled, pointing outward in pincushion radiants.
Martin's throat shrank around his voice and breath. He coughed, covered his mouth with a fist, tried to control his horror, the excruciating churn of emotions within.
Millions upon millions of needles, each fifty to a hundred meters long. He had grown up with their design, their measure; the moms had displayed them again and again to the children in training.
"We our scouts have found forty-one of these collections," Stonemaker said. "They waited within Sleep. All we we have examined appear to be recent manufacture, not old artifacts."
Wrapped in protective fields like frog eggs in gelatin cases, survivors of Sleep's destruction, the needles were not thousands of years old, not artifacts of a bygone and indiscreet age.
They were new. Waiting.
"Do you agree with we our suspecting?"
"Yes," Martin croaked, and coughed again. "Oh, God, yes."
"We we are hoping these are the last, that no more have escaped to find and destroy other worlds."
Martin nodded, speechless with fury and a high, horrid sadness.
"Should we we finish the Job?" Stonemaker asked.
Perspectives
One / Hans
Today we finished the Job. The Brothers asked for the honor of destroying the needles, and Ariel granted their request. The moms and snake mothers think the Job is done, but they will station watchers here, just to be sure.
I have kept this face for so long it has become natural, but when I learned that I was not wrong, I cried in front of them, and no one came to me, no one put their arms around me. So be it.
I held them together. The Killers were still here. Still shitting us all; I saw it.
I think they'll take me in again, but I don't know how long it will be. They'll need me.
I don't think anybody really cares about others only about themselves. That's true of me too I suppose. But I'm glad to see us finally getting our reward, all of us. I can put up with being alone for a while.
I will build a shrine to those who died. When we get there. I'll do it with my bare hands.
Two / Ariel
Donna Emerald Sea brought out the gowns today. They are very pretty but I don't think I can wear one; I don't like dresses and they don't like me.
I decided against investigating Hans. Made up my mind this morning after talking with Martin. Martin feels real sympathy for Hans. I don't know why. Hans is perhaps the only real shithead on this boat.
I am sorry the Brothers will not be going with us, but at least all the Lost Boys and Wendys are sticking together. We saw it through, and that's something to be proud of. We didn't end up like the death ship, but almost. Boy it was close.
Today we left Leviathan. The ship is big again and well stocked with fuel. All the crew gathered in the schoolroom and we had a naming ceremony. It was special. We christened the shipDawn Treader II. Someone suggestedMayflower but that caused a lot of argument about colonialism and other sensitive stuff, religion and such, so I stepped in and suggested we stick with what we had. Really asserted myself. I'm not sure I like doing that sort of thing but I can do it at least.