The mouth pulled shut.
“Is there a free chamber?” Locke asked.
“Alpha,” the administrator allowed.
“Then that’s where we’ll be,” he replied. And with a captain’s decorum, he waited for the underling to turn and slink away.
It was a short, illuminating walk to the chamber.
Washen was prepared for changes, but the overcrowded and desiccated world outside remained outside. The hallways were nearly empty and exactly as she remembered them, complete to the potted flycatchers. And while the air was drier than before, and probably purified, it still managed to stink of Marrow: rusts and bug dusts and heavy metals, not to mention a subtle odor that could only be described as strangeness.
A pleasant stink, she found herself thinking.
The occasional parishioner bowed to Locke, then gawked at his mother.
She noticed how everyone seemed equally thin, as if an orchestrated famine were in effect. But at least everyone was dressed in simple clean clothes that they hadn’t made from their own flesh. A leftover Loyalist tradition? Or maybe hungry people couldn’t heal quickly enough to make skinning themselves worthwhile.
She didn’t let herself ask.
Suddenly impatient, Washen stepped into the chamber, her simple presence causing lights to awaken. The domed ceiling was exactly as she remembered it, pretending to be the sky, and behind the polished steel railing, the diamond likeness of the bridge was much the same. But the bridge was thicker and and stronger and better shielded than Aasleen’s original plans, conduits filling two shafts, then merging at the old base camp: an armored thread just visible, clinging to the curved sky for perhaps ten kilometers, then vanishing again. The Spine.
“Is this a model?” she asked.
Locke had to look up, taking a moment to decipher the question. “No,” he allowed. “It’s a holoprojection. Real time, and accurate.”
Good.
Then she looked at Locke, ready to thank him again. And to compliment him on everything that he had already done.
A new voice interrupted them.
“It is,” someone cried out. “Washen!”
Manka’s voice, followed by Manka. And Saluki. Zale. Kyzkee. Westfall. Aasleen. Then she stared at the siblings. Promise with Dream beside her, as always. Both were shuffling forward, feet never quite leaving the floor. The legs and faces were the same, only thinner. There was a chill to their touch, and behind the chill, a desperate warmth, and a genuine happiness, and then a reflexive concern that Washen wasn’t real or might vanish any moment.
“I’m real, and I might get taken away,” she allowed.
More than a hundred old captains hugged her or each other. Close whispering voices asked, “How’s the mutiny today?”
“Which mutiny?’Washen asked.
Aasleen understood. She laughed and straightened her back, then the folds in her badly worn uniform. “We’ve heard rumors. Grumbles. Warnings.”
“New, half-trained guards have replaced our old keepers,” Manka offered. “And the old ones didn’t look very happy about their prospects, either.”
Faces turned to the diamond bridge and the distant images, and for a long while, nobody seemed able to speak.
Then Saluki asked, “What about Miocene? Is the new Master healthy, or are we going to be happy?”
Washen almost answered.
But as her mouth drew its breath, a new voice called to them from the entranceway, telling them, “Miocene is very healthy, darling. Very healthy. And thank you so much for your sweet, heartfelt concerns.”
The new Master strode among the captains.
She seemed unconcerned by any threat, and to the distant eye, she would have appeared to be in total control. But Washen knew this woman. The swollen face and body hid clues, and the bright uniform gave her an instant, effortless authority. But the eyes were open and obvious. They danced and settl ed on Washen, then danced again. Surrounded by once loyal captain, she seemed to be deciding which one might strike her first. Then she looked past them, those cold dark eyes contemplating enemies that couldn’t be seen from here.
In a voice that sounded in perfect control, she told Washen, “I came. Alone, as you asked. But I assumed that it would be just the two of us, darling.”
For a careful moment, Washen said nothing.
Silence irritated Miocene and dragging her eyes back to Washen, with a grumbling tone, she said, “You wanted to tell me something. You promised to ‘explain the ship,’ if I remember your words.”
“ ‘Explain,’ ” Washen responded, “is perhaps too strong. But at least I can offer a new hypothesis about the ship’s origins.” Gesturing at the long virtuewood seats, she told her fellow captains, “Sit. Everyone, please. This explanation won’t take long, I hope. I hope. But considering what I want to tell you, you might appreciate being off your feet…”
With one hand, Washen pulled the clock from her pocket, the lid popping open with the touch of her finger. Then without looking at its face, she closed it again, and holding it high, she said, “The ship.” She said, “How old?”
Before anyone tried to answer, she said, “We found it empty. We found it streaking toward us from what’s perhaps the emptiest part of the visible universe. Of course, we uncovered clues to its age, but they’re conflicting, imprecise clues. What’s easiest to believe is that four or five or six billion years ago, in some precocious young galaxy, intelligent organic life arose, and it lived just long enough to build this marvel. To fashion the Great Ship. Then some horrific but imaginable tragedy destroyed its builders. Before they could claim their creation, they were dead. And we’re just the lucky ones to find this ancient machine…”
Washen paused for a moment. Then quietly and quickly, she said, “No. No, I think the ship is much older than six billion years.”
Miocene rose for the bait.
“Impossible,” she declared.’How can you explain anything if you let yourself entertain that idiocy?”
“Trace its course backward through space and time,” Washen interrupted, “and you see galaxies. Eventually. Empty space allows us a long view, and these are some of the oldest infrared specks of light that we can see. The universe wasn’t a billion years old, and the first suns were forming and detonating, spewing out the first metals into the tiny hot and exceptionally young cosmos—”
“Too soon,” was Miocene’s response. Unlike most of the audience, she was standing, and carried by a mixture of nervous energy and simple visceral anger, she approached Washen, her fists lifting, taking hard little jabs at the air. “That’s far too soon. How can you imagine that sentient life could have evolved then? In a universe with nothing to offer but hydrogen and helium and only thin traces of metals?”
“Except that’s not what I’m proposing,” Washen replied.
The puffy face absorbed the words, and the mouth opened again. But Miocene didn’t make any sound.
“Think even older,” Washen advised. Then she glanced at Aasleen, at Promise and Dream, telling them, “Locke explained this to me. At the center of Marrow, hydrogen and antihydrogen are created. Each fuses with its own kind. And the two kinds of helium ash are fused into carbon atoms. And the process leads to both flavors of iron, which the reactor throws together, annihilating both. And the energies from this bit of wizardry power the buttresses, and the Wayward industries, and cause Marrow to expand and contract like a great heart.”
“We’ve heard about the buttress engine,” Aasleen offered.
Washen nodded, then said, “Under our feet, it’s like the Creation.”