"Samael—" Tristen said.
Samael forestalled him with an upraised hand. "I am here for the princess. Sir Perceval, you must know that everything I say to you, Dust hears. Your neck is bent to his yoke for all to see."
Pinion flapped once, so Perceval felt the air move between the feathers and feared a paroxysm of bating. Nevertheless, she said, "Can you get it off of me? I care not for his harness, or his promises."
"I cannot, princess," he said. "Not without consuming it, and I think by now it is too firmly integrated with your symbiont to do so without consuming you, as well."
"It told me Dust loved me," she said. "It told me he meant to marry me."
"I am sure he means to," Samael said. "We will see that he doesn't, won't we, gentlemen?"
It was gratifying, Perceval thought, that Benedict fell back and Tristen glided around the edge of the room to stand at her side. She felt warded, and it made her strong. It would have made her stronger to think that they would honor the authority the angel gave her, and place her in the lead. But when Benedick cleared his throat, the look Samael gave him was conspiratorial, the gesture placating.
It made Perceval want to bite them both.
She cast about for something to say, an attempt to reassert control, and came up with a question. "Why would anybody name the Angel of Life Support for poison?"
Samael drained the last of his coffee and crunched an idle bite from the cup. Whatever, it seemed all the same to him, except the noise of the chewing. He tilted his head as if listening, which made Perceval hope she had asked well. "Because there is no old Hebrew word for mutagen."
"So you're not just charged with maintaining the world in a habitable state, are you? You're the Angel of Evolution, too. Or something like it." Benedick shifted behind her, but he did not interrupt. And there was Tristen, crooked in the corner, were he could have the wall at his back and watch her and Samael and Pinion all at once.
"Something," Samael said. However ugly his avatar might be, the smile it wore was absolutely dazzling. While she was considering her next question, he finished the last two bites of his coffee cup.
Somehow she managed not to look to her father for reassurance. "Can an angel be imperfectly honest?"
"An angel can be whatever it is created to be," Samael said, with perfect frankness. "Humans are the only animals that intentionally, methodically change themselves. Well, unless you count a queen ant twisting off her wings, but I think you'll agree it's hardly the same thing." He dusted his hands together. "I am going to have to tell you a story."
Perceval broke. She looked at Benedick; Benedick nodded and pointed to the table and the chairs. In another flicker of light, Samael was seated; the other three joined him a little less tidily, Benedick seating Perceval and Perceval choosing not to make a fuss about it. She sipped cold coffee while he reclaimed his chair, and waited for Samael to speak.
"The world has a name," he said. "Its name is Jacob's Ladder."
"I know," said Perceval. "It's painted on the side."
Samael laughed, but it was the flicker of Tristen's smile that Perceval had been after. He put his elbows on the table and his chin on the backs of his fingers. Again, the deceptive air of repose.
She drank more coffee and watched the poison angel.
Samael said, "Do you know the purpose of a generation ship?"
"Colonization," Benedick said, while Perceval was still mulling her answer. He warmed his coffee cup, refilled Tristen's, and poured the last of the carafe for Perceval. "To carry men among the stars in search of new worlds. It's slow."
"Generations," Samael said dryly. And then, when Benedick nodded touché, continued, "Does that time in flight need to be wasted time?"
Perceval thought about what he had said, about ants twisting off their wings. "You could use it for breeding programs, couldn't you?"
"You could design whatever you wanted," he said. His sooty wings had vanished; she had not noticed exactly when. He shifted in his chair, adjusting the drape of the greatcoat skirts around his legs. "Forced evolution. Mankind by design. Do you know what a Jacob's ladder is?"
"A toy," she said, and he frowned at her.
"It is the ladder that angels climb to reach Heaven," he said. "It is the hard path to exaltation."
"Exalt," she said, tasting the word as if for the first time. "Mean. Forced evolution. The world is a—"
"Hothouse. Laboratory. With experiments and controls."
She realized her tongue tip protruded from her mouth in concentration, like a child's. She sucked it back into her mouth and gnawed her upper lip.
"And then something goes wrong," Perceval said. "Catastrophically wrong."
"You limp to the nearest star." Samael's bottled-up grin revealed delight in her detective work, even if she was only chasing the trail of crumbs he laid her.
Despite herself, she liked that smile. "Even if it's not a very good star."
"Beggars can't be choosers," he said. He sat back and folded his arms with a satisfied air. "If they wish to live. And once one thing has gone wrong, failures cascade. Command and Engineering have differing ideas of how to proceed. The passengers have their own plans. The tame God of the world, the guiding intelligence, cannot maintain itself as a gestalt, and splinters into demiurges, each with a field of interest and a span of control."
"They don't talk much," Perceval said, hoping to make him laugh again. "If you're the demiurge of evolution, Samael, then what is Dust?"
"The demiurge of memory. The angel of the data bank, the holographic memory crystal, and the standing wave. The angel of knowing where you have been."
"But you obviously remember some things."
"From after the fragmentation." He patted her hand; she tried not to feel patronized. "Or relearned since."
"And you and Dust don't agree."
"We agree on what is to be done," Samael said. "We've all been working for centuries to repair, reinforce, and protect the world as much as possible. As have the Engineers."
It was flattery, but it was also accurate. Perceval nodded.
Samael continued, "We differ on how to do it."
Tristen put his hand over the one of Perceval's that Samael had patted. Benedick sat back in his chair, arms folded, listening. Tristen said, "And over who should be in charge?"
"If you are going to reconstruct the ship's gestalt mind," Samael said apologetically, "somebody is going to have to get eaten. I'm sure you can understand my position."
"And so there was discord in Heaven," Benedick said. "You wish to thwart Dust."
"I do."
Pinion stirred against Perceval's shoulders. Fiercely, silently, she shushed it, and through some miracle it subsided. "And how could I help you, Samael?"
"That's easy," Samael said. "Don't marry him. Choose me."
19 the monster who rules
He said the one he murdered once
still loves him;
He said the wheels in wheels of time
are broken;
And dust and storm forgotten;
and all forgiven . . .
Rien woke to Tristen shaking her. She blinked muzzily, protesting, but as soon as she caught his wrist he relented. In a melodrama, he would have had one hand over her mouth to silence her, but apparently he didn't care if she shouted. And so she didn't, and didn't panic either. "Come to the dining room," he said, and stepped into the hall so she could dress in privacy.
She was grateful that he waited. She had no idea of the way, and wherever Gavin had gone off to, he had not yet returned. He might be on his way back to Mallory, but she didn't think he would leave her without a farewell.