Washen resisted the urge to ask, “When wasn’t it strange before?”
But Locke guessed her thoughts. He tilted his head as if to reprimand, then with a despairing gasp, he announced, “Time’s very short now.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Locke confessed.
With a quiet, sharp voice, Washen asked, “Exactly what do you know?”
“There were timetables. Till wanted us to regain the ship before it changed course. Before today’s burn, if possible.” He shook his head, eyes lowering. “Since you left, our population’s grown tenfold. Factories as large as cities. We’ve been building weapons and training soldiers, and we manufactured enormous boring machines designed to dig upward. And downward, too.”
Washen said, “Downward,” and leaned closer.
Then with a breathless excitement, she asked, “Where do you find the power to fuel all of this?”
Locke examined his toes.
She prompted him, saying, “Till knew. About Diu, he knew. And probably from the earliest times. ‘Then because she might be completely mistaken, Washen added, “That’s the only way it makes sense to me.”
Her son gave the tiniest nod.
Washen didn’t have the luxury of feeling clever. Instead, she dropped to her knees in front of Locke, forcing him to look at her eyes. “Till knew about Diu’s secret caches. Didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How? Did he see your father using them?”
Locke hesitated, considering. “When Till was young, just after his first visions, he found a cache. Found it and watched it, and eventually, Diu climbed out of it.”
“What else did he know?”
“That Diu was feeding him the visions. Diu was telling the stories about the Builders and the Bleak.”
She had to ask, “But why did Till believe any of it?”
A chiding look was followed by a sharp warning. “Father was an agent, he realized. A vessel.” Locke shook his head, adding, “The steel bowl doesn’t have to believe in the water that slakes a man’s thirst.”
“Granted,” said Washen.
“The day the Waywards were born…?”
“What about it?”
“That valley, that place I took you to… the hyperfiber cache was tucked inside one of those crevices… and we walked right past…”
Washen said nothing.
“I didn’t know. Not then.” A bitter little laugh leaked out of him. “Years before, Till asked his mother about security systems. How they worked; how they were fooled. Miocene thought it was good captainly knowledge, so she taught him. Then Till climbed inside the cache and convinced its AI that he was Diu, and he rode it into Marrow. Down beneath all that wet iron, and the heat, he found the machinery that powers the buttresses.”
Quiedy, Washen said, “All right.”
“That’s where almost all our power comes from,” said her son. “The core is a matter-antimatter reactor.”
“Have you seen it?” she asked.
“Just once,” he replied. Then he reminded Washen, or maybe himself, “Till trusts me. After we returned to Marrow, and after Miocene was reborn, he took us down there. To show us the place. To explain what he knew, and how. All of it.” Another pause. “Miocene was thrilled. She had a conduit built that taps the energies. She claims that the reactor, once its fully understood, will transform the Milky Way, and humanity, and each of us.”
“Does that place offer answers?” Washen asked. “Does it tell us anything new about the Great Ship?”
Locke shook his head, disappointment rimmed with anger.
With a pitying voice, he said, “Mother,” and stared at her eyes. He stared and sighed, and as if addressing a small child, he asked her, “If Marrow hides inside the ship, and if this machinery hides inside Marrow… then what makes you think these mysteries ever come to an end…?”
“There’s something even deeper?” she sputtered.
A quick, tight nod.
“Have you seen that?
Again, he looked at his toes. “No,” he admitted. Then after a few deep breaths, he said, “Only Till has been that deep. And maybe, I suppose, Diu.”
“Your father-?”
“He was also Till’s father,” Locke blurted. “Till always suspected it. In secret. And in secret, he had our best gene-delvers decipher the genetics. Just to be sure.”
Washen silently absorbed the newest revelation.
Then she asked, “Is that everything you want to tell me? Till’s your half brother, and the ship’s full of mysteries?”
“No,” Locke replied.
He looked up at the towering mushrooms and gray hints of the hyperfiber roof, and with a weary anguish, he admitted, “I have certain thoughts. Doubts. For the last century, since I killed Diu… I’ve listened to Till’s plans, and Miocene’s, and I’ve helped meet all the deadlines, and I’ve watched what they’ve done to Marrow, and its people… a place I don’t even recognize anymore…’ Locke took a deep full breath, then said it. “When I look inside myself, I wonder.”
Down came his eyes, desperate for their mother.
But Washen refused to embrace him again. She stood and stepped back, and finally, with a slow and hard and pitiless voice, she asked, “Are you one of the Builders?”
The gray eyes pulled shut.
“That’s what you’re asking yourself. Isn’t it?” Then she gazed up at the sky, saying, “Because if you’re not the good souls of Builders reborn, by accident or by design… maybe you and Till and the rest of the Waywards… “Maybe you’re the Bleak reborn…!”
Forty-four
Every face was elaborate and utterly unique, and each had a sturdy, unexpected beauty that always became obvious with time.
Pamir watched the faces and listened to the watery voices.
“It was my decision. My plan. My responsibility.” Orleans’s mouth smiled, and his amber eyes changed shape, creating mouth-shaped patterns that mimicked his smile. “I accept the blame, and your punishment. Or your praise and blessings. Whichever verdict you, in your wisdom, wish to deliver.”
Most of the Remoran judges appeared uncomfortable, and it wasn’t because Pamir might be misreading their expressions. One old woman—a direct descendant of Wune, their founder—quoted the Remoran codes. “The ship is the greatest life. Injure its vitals, and you surrender your own life.” Her single eye, like a ruby floating on yellow milk, expanded until it half filled her faceplate. Then the compressed mouth added, “You know our codes, Orleans. And I remember two occasions when you carved the life-suit off another offender… for crimes less serious than disabling one of the main engines…!”
Perhaps a hundred judges and elders shared the diamond building. There were no airlocks, and not so much as a breath of atmosphere. Two doorways opened onto public avenues where hundreds of citizens fought for the chance to see this semi-secret trial. Every officious sound was a scrambled broadcast. Unlike Pamir, the audience could only measure the proceedings by watching faces.
Another elder rose to her feet, and into the angry buzz, she said, “Another code applies. Wune’s first and most essential code, as it happens.”
Together, in a shared voice, Remoras chanted, “Our first duty is to protect the ship from harm.”
The speaker’s blue face seemed to nod, and her musical voice offered, “This could be Orleans’s defense, if he chooses. Harm is harm, whether it comes from an impacting comet or a dangerous leadership.” Her helmet pivoted, and she asked the defendant, “Is this your argument, Orleans?”