They were exchanging ovoids. One sauropod appeared to be kneeling before the larger being; offering up an ovoid.
"What in the hell happened?" Hans asked, frowning, fixed on the final image. "They've picked a mighty poor choice of pictures to tell a story."
"Perhaps the sequence is incomplete," Hakim said. "What could be left after such a time?"
"Are we going to change course and find out?" Giacomo asked.
"Hell, no," Hans said immediately. "They're dead. This isn't a distress call, that's clear; they must have known they were dying."
Silence settled. Then, very distinctly, the ship's voice spoke—the first time they had heard it since a year before the Skirmish, before Martin served as Pan.
"There will be an expedition to examine this ship," it said in a rich contralto. "It would be best if members of the crew accompany the expedition."
Hans' face reddened as much with surprise as anger. "We don't have the fuel to waste!"
"There is sufficient fuel," the ship's voice said. "A vessel will be manufactured. It can carry three people, or none, depending on your decision."
"You can make another ship now?" Hakim asked in a small voice.
"Why do it at all?" Hans said. "The ship is dead—it must be! Two thousand years!"
"It is a Ship of the Law," the ship's voice answered. "The transmitted information is likely to be much less than what is stored aboard the ship itself. It is required for all Ships of the Law to rendezvous and exchange information, if such a rendezvous is possible."
Hans lifted his eyes, then his hands, giving up. "Who wants to go?" he asked.
"We can draw lots," Hakim said.
"No—we won't draw lots," Hans said. "Martin, I assume you'd like to go?"
"I don't know," Martin said.
"I'd like you to go. Take Hakim and Giacomo with you."
Jennifer's breath hitched.
"How long a voyage?" Giacomo asked.
"Your time, one month," the ship's voice said. "Time for this ship, four months. There will be super acceleration and deceleration."
"A lot of fuel," Hans said under his breath.
Giacomo touched Jennifer's hand. "Nothing like a side trip," she said. "Makes the heart grow fonder."
Giacomo did not look at all convinced.
"If people go, it will use more fuel," Martin said. He wondered if Hans wanted him out of the way.
"That is correct," the ship's voice said. "But it is not a major consideration. You will learn much that cannot be learned by sending an uncrewed vessel. Your observations will be valuable."
"There it is," Hans said. He wrapped his arm around Martin. "It'll cheer you up," he said.
"How?" Martin asked. "Visiting a derelict…"
"Get your goddamned glum face off this barge," Hans said.
"Doesn't sound like I'm being given a choice."
"I could send Rosa," Hans said.
Martin stared him down. "All right," Martin said. Hakim tried to break the tension.
"It will be a very unusual journey. While we are gone, the crew will have something to do. They'll study these pictures and—"
"Bolsh," Hans said. "We don't show them to anybody now. We can't avoid letting them know there's a ship, but everything else… zipped lips."
"Why?" Jennifer asked, astonished.
"Our morale is so low the pictures might kill us," Hans said. "Martin, Giacomo, you study them with Hakim and Jennifer. Nobody else sees them for now. I don't even want to look at them. Report only to me."
"Hans, that's deception," Jennifer said, still astonished.
"It's an order, if that means anything now. Are we agreed?"
Jennifer started to talk again, but Hans interrupted.
"Slick it. If everybody wants to choose another Pan now, let's go to it. I'll be glad to go back to a relatively normal life, taking orders instead of giving them," he said evenly. "Am I right?"
Nobody was willing to push the issue. They agreed reluctantly. Jennifer transferred the images to their private wands.
For the first time in their journey, one group would withhold information from another.
Numb, his gloom deeper and more perversely comforting than ever, Martin returned to his quarters and looked through the images again, trying to fathom the seriousness of what had just happened, and whether he had gone along with Hans too quickly.
He did not look forward to the journey. The pictures were devastating. The Benefactors apparently could not save this Ship of the Law; the sauropod beings were almost certainly thousands of years dead.
The Benefactors could have known about Wormwood and Leviathan for millennia.
They had sent others here before. They had surmised that much around Wormwood; now it was confirmed.
The Dawn Treaderwas just another in a series.
No ship had succeeded; none had even gone so far as to burn the tar baby, until now.
But what awaited them around Leviathan might be even more deceptive, even more complex, playing for much higher stakes…
The craft created within the second homeball was slightly bigger than a bombship—ten meters long, with a bulbous compartment four meters in diameter, within which Martin, Giacomo, and Hakim would spend one month—much of that time asleep or wrapped in volumetric fields.
They said their farewells. The crew still knew next to nothing—only that there was another Ship of the Law, probably a death ship, and that the three of them would investigate.
Hans withdrew from the interior of the new craft, looked at Martin with narrow eyes, and said, "You can back out if you want. This is no picnic."
Martin shook his head. He felt foolish, being manipulated so blatantly—challenged to back away, refusing to be so weak in front of Hans. Hans cocked his head to one side. "Giacomo, keep your brain running. Maybe we can learn something they don't want us to know."
"Why would they have invited us to come if they wanted to keep secrets?" Hakim asked.
"I don't know," Hans said. "Maybe we're being paranoid."
"Maybe," Martin said.
"But I doubt it."
He shook hands with each of them. Giacomo and Jennifer had said their farewells privately.
"We're ready," Martin said. A journey of a trillion kilometers begins with a single step. He pulled himself into the craft, kicking free of the ladder field, into the spherical interior. Giacomo followed, then Hakim.
As they settled, Hakim said, "The Dawn Treaderis giving us one quarter of its fuel."
Martin nodded. Such profligacy seemed beside the point now.
"We will be like a fish carrying a yolk sac," Hakim continued. "Very ungainly. And this craft is sixty percent fake matter…"
"Please," Giacomo said. "I'm queasy enough."
"Big adventure," Hakim concluded with a sigh. His skin was pale and he shivered a little.
The hatch smoothed shut.
They eased out of the weapons store. Dawn Treaderreceded to no more than a pinpoint against the stars.
A mom's voice spoke. "We begin super acceleration in three minutes."
The ship was little more than an enlarged mom, Martin thought, given seven-league boots.
"You might want to see this," Hans' voice came over the noach.
They witnessed their departure from Dawn Treader'spoint of view, a tiny dart with bulbous middle surrounded by pale green fuel tanks.