"If what?" Joe shot back.
"I want the mourners to spend time in solitude, as well. A day. The ones who set me off."
"That's crap," Joe said.
"That's how they coped," Harpal said.
"I have a different way of coping…" Hans began, but let it go with a shrug. "All right. Just myself. In solitude for a week. I'm still Pan, I still give the orders. I agree to that, too. Harpal, can I lean on you for help—lean hard?"
"I'll do whatever I can," Harpal said.
"That's all I ask," Hans said.
We start fresh now, Martin thought, and with that thought came a kind of relief. They had cut cleanly from the disastrous past. In a way, Hans had taken the perfect course, allowing a clean break, expiation by the leader, a new game starting from this point.
If Hans had known this from the beginning, from the time he had come out of confinement—if Hans had planned this—then he was far more canny than anybody had given him credit for.
Martin shivered. He hoped it wasn't so.
The single mom—all the ship could produce now—told the crew what had happened to them and to the ship. They had survived the explosion of Wormwood with major damage—up to half the ship's capabilities reduced by failure of confinement fields under extreme neutrino bombardment; ten of the crew had died, and only now were their bodies being recycled. They had sufficient fuel to move on to Leviathan—if they voted to do so. The journey would take a minimum of one year, ship's time.
"Because of damage, you will not be able to face the anticipated defenses alone," the mom explained. "For that reason, we suggest a combining of resources."
Martin raised his eyes. This was the first he had heard of such a thing.
"There is another Ship of the Law about two light years distant. We can match course with this vessel and join forces. This ship has suffered damage as well, and will benefit from joining forces."
"How do you know all this?" Hans asked. "You couldn't have heard about it on the noach."
"We detected the results of their skirmish, and correlated their probable path of escape. When remotes extended this ship's sensing abilities, we used them to confirm the ship's path. "
"Without telling us," Hans said.
"It was not important at the time."
Hans shrugged, looked down at the deck. "If we know, then the Killers know as well," he said.
"The Killers do not know that we have escaped, though they may know of the survival of this second vessel. They do not know its present position, however. With both ships combined, we will have the capabilities of a fully equipped Ship of the Law."
"On the other ship… are they human?" Erin Eire asked.
"They are not human," the mom said. ·
"Do they need the same things we need?" Paola Birdsong asked. "I mean, do they breathe oxygen, and so on?"
"With slight adjustments, environments can be joined," the mom replied.
"What do they look like?" David Aurora asked.
"More information about this ship and its inhabitants will be available before we join forces."
"Do we take a vote?" Ariel asked.
"A vote is not forbidden. But you must understand that we cannot fulfill our mission in our present condition."
"No shit," someone said in the back, out of Martin's sight; it sounded like Rex Live Oak.
"Do we really need to vote?" Hans said. "I'm still ready to fight. If this is our only chance, we should take it."
"Vote," Ariel insisted, and Rosa Sequoia, in a calm, deep voice, as if speaking from a cave, agreed.
"All right," Hans said. "Martin, Harpal, take the count."
The crew voted quickly, without energy. Of the sixty-five remaining, thirty voted no; thirty-five voted yes. Ariel voted to go; Rosa Sequoia voted against further action.
"That's close," Hans said, standing before them. "Now I'm here to take my licks. I screwed up today. I really fouled the nest. I apologize. I'll go into solitary for a week. I appoint Harpal as Pan in the interim. He'll work with Martin. I suggest we all take a rest. Let the mom finish its work. We say our farewells to everybody we lost around Wormwood, and we think things through."
He nodded to the closest members of the crew as he passed them, heading toward the door. Harpal looked at Martin; this was hardly what they had hoped for. Martin felt sick inside; sick with his unresolved pain, and sick at the dissolution that seemed to be upon them.
"We need to talk this out," Harpal told Martin.
Martin declined. "Rest," he said. "We've been through too much, and I can't talk sensibly now. Aliens!" He trembled suddenly, whether with excitement or exhaustion, he could not say. Harpal's shoulders slumped and his chin dropped.
"We'll all rest," Martin said, touching his arm delicately. "And mourn."
Martin's quarters were bare and cold. Still the smell of burning lingered; the odor of neutrino-singed matter. He entered and the door slid shut behind him and for this moment at least, ignoring the smell, he might have been at the beginning of his journey, when first the Dawn Treaderhad been presented to the children, and they had made their new homes here.
With some relief and some sorrow, he knew that these were not the same quarters in which he and Theresa had made love. The ship had rearranged and repaired itself too extensively; the deck on which their bed had rested might now be shifted meters away, or recycled completely. What connection did he have to the past?
None.
Martin closed his eyes and curled up on the floor, laid his cheek against the smooth cool surface, flexed his fingertips against it, and waited for sleep.
He thought on the edge of that desired sleep of Jorge Rabbit's bruised body, and what it had once held: language and laughter and sharp reliability, a favorite of the children. The crew.
Jorge Rabbit and the others might soon be in the air they breathed, the food and water they took in. But not William or Theresa.
Martin reached out for Theresa's hand. He could almost feel it, his fingers brushing the air where it would be, faintest rasp of sensation. Then, deliberately, he withdrew his hand and folded it under his chest. "Goodbye," he whispered, and slept.
Behind the Dawn Treader, the corpse of Wormwood expanded as a many-colored vapor, like milk swirling in water and illuminated by many lights.
"'Hakim watched the stellar corpse with cold curiosity, arms folded. Beside the image in the star sphere scrolled and flashed figures, charts, condensed images, conveying the qualities of the corpse in an interstellar autopsy of incredible depth and complexity.
"If I were back on Earth now," he told Martin, "I would be an astronomer, but never in my life would I see something like this. Where would I rather be, do you think? Here, now, seeing this, or…?"
"You'd rather be on Earth," Martin said. They were alone in the nose; the rest of the crew awaited the end of Hans' self-imposed week of isolation, going through their own isolations, their own regroupings, reassessments.
Hakim agreed. His face had changed since the Skirmish, as Erin Eire called their costly victory. His expression had hardened, eyes shining brighter, perpetual smile tighter, lines more deeply grooved around his lips and eyes.
"It was a fair exchange, perhaps," Hakim said. "How many Ships of the Law were trapped by Wormwood and destroyed?"
"We were lucky," Martin said. "The trap was getting rusty."
"You know as well as I, war is a matter of luck as much as strategy. We should not deny ourselves satisfaction because we came upon a weakened enemy."