"They are aggregate intelligences," the mom said, not making the mystery any shallower.
"But what the hell is that?" Rex asked. "How do they think? How do they fight?"
"The proper question," Hans said, "is how—and if—we're going to cooperate with them."
Martin stepped forward. "Of course we're going to cooperate," he said, as if challenging Hans directly. Hans took the challenge without hesitation.
"Martin's right. We're going to get along, whatever they're called. Which takes us back to an earlier question. What do we call them?" ."What will they call us?" Erin Eire interrupted.
Hans ignored her. "Suggestions? The moms seem to be leaving this up to us. I assume they don't use any name we could smell, much less pronounce…"
"Do they have sexes?" Rosa asked, voice sweet and clear over the murmuring.
"The components can be male or female or both, depending on environmental conditions. They give live birth to between one and four young every two years. Aggregates do not engage in any sexual activity; sex occurs only among separated components."
The crew mulled this over in silence; stranger and stranger, perhaps more and more alarming.
"We could call the components cords," Paola suggested. "The aggregates could be braids."
"Good," Hans said. "Anything better?"
"We'll call them Brothers," Rosa said, as if it were final. "A new part of our family."
Hans raised one eyebrow and said, "Sounds fine to me."
The names stuck. Cords, braids: Brothers. A new addition to the family of Wendys, Lost Boys, and moms.
Dawn Treaderand Journey Housewould merge to make a single vessel nearly as large as Dawn Treaderhad originally been.
Communication between Dawn Treaderand Journey Housepassed along the noach at a furious rate; hour by hour, the libraries expanded.
Martin, just before sleep, toured the libraries' new extensions and found himself in territories that had not existed before, filled with streaming bands of projected colors, tending to the reds and greens; sounds like aspirated music—haunting, sweet, and disturbing at once; and images of enormous complexity, swimming and flowing as if projected on dense fog. Some images were expressed in rotated and skewed multiples, as if they might be viewed by many eyes, each having a slightly different function.
He checked to see how many of the crew were exploring these fresh territories. The wand reported fifteen so engaged, including himself; the rest, it seemed, were waiting to be pushed.
The size of the libraries had trebled in just a day. If the libraries had been reduced by a tenth during the neutrino storm, then the Brothers' libraries had held just over twice as much information as theirs. Martin was eager to have that translated, if translation was possible; perhaps they would have to learn how to see and understand differently.
Before shutting off the wand, he requested a kind of judgment from the libraries: how the Brothers compared to other beings of whom the Benefactors were aware.
"In a range of deviance from your norm, the Brothers are perhaps halfway along an arbitrary scale of biological differences," the library voice responded.
Martin sensed something new in this answer; something fresh and perhaps useful. They might be dealing with the merged intelligences of both ships' minds; and he thought it more than a little possible that, for whatever reason, the new combination would be more informed, and more willing to inform the crews.
Before falling off into muddled dreams, Martin realized what this could mean, if true.
They're more confident. We're closing in; there aren't many surprises left.
Another voice—it might have been Theodore's—seemed to laugh ironically. How wrong do you want to be? Keep working at it… You might break a record…
Hans gathered the remaining ex-Pans—and Rex Live Oak. They met in the nose, with the search team absent, and looked across a few infinitesimal kilometers to Journey House.
"The ships join tomorrow at fifteen hundred. We'll all wait in the cafeteria," Hans said. His face looked drawn, older. Circles shadowed his eyes. "But we're going to meet a few of the Brothers first. They're coming over in one of their craft in two hours. Three of them, three of us. The moms say they can't predict how we'll interact. For once, I think they're being absolutely square with us. I'd like Martin and Cham to join me. We'll meet them together. Before then, the moms are going to give us background on the individuals." He looked around the group with one eyebrow raised, as if expecting a challenge. Quietly, he asked, "Any suggestions?"
Harpal said, "As Pan's second, I'd like to go."
"Cham is better suited to meeting live ropes," Hans said. It wasn't clear to the others whether that was a joke or not.
"Then I'd like to resign as Christopher Robin," Harpal said.
"Fine."
Harpal waited for someone to object, to rise to his defense. No one did. He nodded, jaw clenched, and backed away.
"Not that you haven't done a good job;" Hans said. "I'm not appointing anyone in your place. Anything you'd like me to ask our new friends?" He made the inquiry with unctuous solicitation, rubbing the moment in.
"Ask them what they regard as a mortal insult," Harpal said. "I don't want to get on their bad side if they're poisonous."
"We'll get all this culture stuff straightened out. Right now—and I think that's a good question, Harpal, but it can wait—right now, I'd like to see just how much personality the braids actually have. How we connect, what sort of fellows they are."
"I think a woman should go with us," Martin said. "A different point of view."
Hans cocked his head to one side, considered for a moment, and replied, "Bad idea. I've watched the Wendys closely, and I think they're going to take longer to adjust than the Lost Boys. Maybe it's a snake or phallic thing. Just look at their faces when the Brothers move. Stephanie maybe, but she's not with us any more."
"They scare me, too," Rex said.
"Here's what I think we should do," Hans said, and he told them.
Martin, Hans, and Cham waited in the weapons store. The air in the hemisphere had cooled to just above freezing and smelled faintly of metals and salt. Hans straightened his overalls and cleared his throat. "We'll meet them casual," he said. "No hands out, nothing. Let them make the first gesture."
"What if we all just stand here?" Cham said.
"I'm patient," Hans said.
A mom entered the store and floated next to Hans. "The craft approaches now," it said.
"Christ, I'm nervous," Hans said.
A field glowed around the pylon, which pushed through a darkness in the bulkhead. Faint clunks and hums resonated throughout the chamber. The pylon returned, bringing at its tip like a fly on a frog's tongue a round craft about three meters wide with a conical protrusion, much like a squat pear. The pylon set the craft gently in a field, and the field wrapped it in purple, lowering it to the floor of the chamber.
"Our gravity will be slightly heavy for them," the mom said. "But they are very adaptable."
"Good," Hans said. His throat bobbed.
Maybe he's got a snake thing, too, Martin thought.
The pear-shaped craft opened a hatch. Within, like rope in a ship's locker, coiled three of the Brothers: red and black, cords gleaming like rich leather. They did not move at first. Then, with uncanny grace, a braid uncoiled from the mass and slid to the floor, the forward end rising and making a faint chirping noise, like summer crickets.