Anvil of Stars (5 page)

"You know that they won't," Martin said.

"I don't know that, and why shouldn't they?" She turned around and echoed back, coming on like a slow tiger, extending her ladder field and hooking to a stop just seconds before they collided.

Martin did not flinch. "The Benefactors have a home, too. They come from somewhere."

"No shit," Ariel said.

"Hear me out, please. You asked."

She nodded. "All right."

"If the whole galaxy is full of wolves, no bird peeps, not even eagles. The moms need to protect their makers. If we knew all about the Benefactors, in a few hundred years, a few thousand years, we might become wolves, too. Then we'd know where they were, and we'd come and get them."

"That is so… cynical," Ariel said. "If they are so worried about us, why did they save us at all?"

This was a question with many answers, none of them completely convincing. They had all debated the point, and Martin had never been satisfied with any of the answers, but he tried to put his best theories into words.

"They believe in a balance," he said. "Whoever they are, they made the Ships of the Law to keep single civilizations from scouring the galaxy and having it all to themselves. Maybe it started out as self-defense—"

"Maybe that's all it is now," Ariel said.

"But they must believe that we'll contribute something eventually, when we're grown up."

Ariel blew out her breath.

"The moms tell us all that they can. They tell us what we need to know. We could never avenge the Earth without them. You know that. There's no reason to hate the moms."

"I don't hate them," Ariel said.

"We have work to do, a lot of decisions and thinking. I'd like us all to be together."

"I won't disappoint anybody," Ariel said.

"Please don't talk about killing yourself. It's stupid."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "It's the only thing that's really mine, out here. Leave me that much."

"I'm not taking anything from you," Martin said softly. His anger had flown, replaced by a cavernous awareness of what they were heading toward, what they were planning to do. "I ask nothing of you that you didn't volunteer to do."

"How could we know what we'd lose?"

Martin shook his head. "We've never had a chance to be people, much less to be children. We're a long way from a home that doesn't exist any more. We won't grow much older until after we do the Job. If we go back to the solar system, thousands of years will have passed for them. We'll be strangers. That's not just true of you, it's true of all of us. We need to stick together."

She seemed startled.

What kind of blind, unfeeling monster does she think I am? "We never will be children," he concluded. "Come on, Ariel. We don't need to lose any more, and I don't need threats."

"Why didn't the moms stop them?" she asked plaintively.

Martin shook his head. "They don't want us to be cattle, or zoo animals. Maybe that's it. I don't know. We have as much freedom as they can give us, even the freedom to die."

"We're getting so sad," Ariel said, looking away from him. "It's been so long."

Martin swallowed hard. "I…"

"Go, please," she said.

He pushed away abruptly and bounced from wall to conduit to wall, then summoned a field and climbed up the length of the neck toward the second homeball, where William kept his quarters.

"Why weren't you in the meeting?" Martin worked to keep his voice level. William Arrow Feather twisted within his corner net, pulled himself out, and nudged his head against a climbing field summoned with a mudra-like hand signal. "I didn't want to make things tougher for you."

"You're supposed to be present for Job discussions," Martin said. "And you didn't vote."

William smiled and shrugged. "No harm. I got the info. I can make my decision for the big one." His expression shifted slightly. "Have you made yours?"

"We're going to investigate—"

"Not that," William said. "That was a foregone conclusion. I mean, have you decided who you are, what you are?"

"I don't understand," Martin said.

"It's important for you." William looked away. "And for Theresa."

"I thought you approved."

"I said I approved, but then we made love again, for the first time since you started this thing with Theresa—and I saw things a little differently."

Martin settled grimly in an opposite corner, as if he were about to be forced to take medicine. "Explain."

"Your heart wasn't in it."

"I've always enjoyed you."

"Martin, how many lovers have you had?"

Martin looked away. "I'm not a fruitpicker," he said.

"Right. You're not shy, you're just a little afraid… of hurting somebody, of being hurt."

"Wise William," Martin said.

"Slick that," William said, not unkindly. "You picture me as some sort of brotherly saint, Saint Francis maybe. I'm not. I'm a fruitpicker. Most of us are. You… and Theresa… are not."

"She's had and been had," Martin said, eyes rolling.

"Right. But nowhere near the average."

"More than I," Martin said. Weak defense.

"So how many have you had?"

William had never asked before; such things were seldom mentioned, being almost common knowledge in a group so small and tightly knit. "It's not important."

"Some say you're a bad choice for Pan because you lack connections. That you have to slick with somebody to understand them, and you haven't made love to enough of us to know who we are."

Martin frowned. "Nobody's said it to my face."

"They wouldn't, because they're gossips and cowards, like all the humans on this ship."

"I'm not human?"

"You try not to make mistakes."

"Oh, Christ, William. What are you talking about?"

William spread out his muscular brown arms and legs. Martin noted the play of muscles, the ripple of skin on strong arms, the beautiful sheen of upper thigh—and felt nothing physical—a mental admiration, a brotherly recognition and approval of William's health and supple vigor. "I'm homosexual, most of the time," William said, "one of eight males and seven females among the children. You're a crosser. You can slick or fall in love or whatever you want with so many more people… But I know something about you, Martin—you're probably more passionate than I am. I've crossed, and found the experience enjoyable but not fulfilling—so I've slicked with maybe twelve of the children. You've had five or six, I'd guess. What are you afraid of?"

Martin pushed from the corner, angry again.

"You hate the idea of rejection. You really don't like understanding people, accepting them for what they are. Why?"

Martin's face muscles worked. "You're not in a good mood," he said, kicking off the opposite wall, rolling past William.

William laughed. "I'm not?"

"You've never been cruel before." He put out a hand and stopped himself on the edge of William's door.

William's face contorted. "I'm not being cruel," he said sadly. "I just know what's going to happen, and I hate for you not to know, when it affects you so much… and Theresa. You're one of our best." William's expression warmed, as it always did when he praised Martin. "At least I think so, and the children voted you Pan."

"You'll be next," Martin said, avoiding his eyes.

"No, I won't," William said, very subdued. "Hans maybe. He wants it. I fantasize about it, that maybe it'll make more Lost Boys willing to cross… But it won't be me. I'm a soldier, not a general. You're a general. You don't believe it, though, do you?"

Martin shook his head. "I never wanted to be Pan."

"You didn't turn it down. You know what a general does? Contrary to the gossips' wisdom on this ship, he doesn't slick with all the troops. He watches them from outside, and he learns how to use them. How to keep them safe. And how to sacrifice some of them to save the rest, or sacrifice all to get the Job done. Any child who reads history knows that. You read history, Martin. Do you agree?"

Instinctively, Martin did not agree, but he had never voiced his instinct.

"Do you agree?" William asked again.

"One for all, and all for one," Martin said, knowing that was not quite the same thing. William seemed to think it was.

"Good. You need someone to stand beside you."

"William, this is so much drift, I can't be isolated and be any good…"

"Not isolated. Just outside a little bit. With a partner who can trim your sails now and then. I approve of Theresa, but you can't—I suppose I'm getting around to what I really want to say, finally—you can't be what you were with me, and have something even stronger with Theresa."

"I don't want to lose you, or hurt you."

"You don't want to lose anything or hurt anybody," William said. He floated forward with an ankle kick against corner pads and took Martin's shoulders. "But you're still a general, and you've got to do both.

"Listen to wise old William. Here's your fault, Martin. You think that if you slick with someone, you must fall in love with them, and they must fall in love with you. You think that if you lead someone, you must be gentle, and never hurt them, or make them angry."

"Bolsh," Martin said sharply, jerking his head back.

"And if they don't love you, you feel rejected and hurt. You want to love everybody, but you don't, and that's hypocrisy. You want too much, I think. You want your lovers' souls."

"Not so wise, William," Martin said. He pushed him back with an ungentle hand. "You've completely misunderstood me."

"Theresa's perfect for you," William said. "She's a little smarter than you and a little looser, and she sees something in you that I see as well. But I'll stand aside. I don't want to be second with you; it's a losing game."

Martin saw the tears in William's eyes and reacted with his own. "I'm sorry," he said, floating closer. He stroked William's cheek. "You're a brother to me."

"Brothers we'll be, but don't give me charity slicks, "William said. "Respect me enough to believe I can get along without you."

"You still don't make sense, but if that's what you want…"

"That's the way it already is," William said. "We're going to be soldiers and generals, and we have a Job to do, and I think it's going to be tougher on all of us than we imagine or fear. So no nonsense, no drift. We're not really our own masters, Martin, whatever we like to believe, whatever the moms do or don't do, except in whom we love and whom we call brother and sister."

Martin opened the door, rotated in the frame, and said, "Please don't avoid any more meetings."

"I won't."

Erin Eire was a puzzle to Martin; intelligent, reasonable in conversation, clear-eyed, agreeable for the most part, but with a strong and sometimes arrogant streak of independence. Martin found her in the swimming hall, filter mask strapped over her mouth against the spray. He had to call her twice to get her attention.

"Sorry," she said. She paddled out of an oblong of water and across the green ladder field that kept water and spray from the anteroom. The water rebounded through the spherical space; one swam in air sometimes, in water most of the time, the rest of the time in spray and fine mist like clouds.

Martin didn't particularly enjoy swimming. He had almost drowned in the river beside his family home in Oregon when he was four; that memory tainted any enjoyment of the swimming hall.

"I should have been at the meeting, right?" Her smell was brisk, clean and tangy. Though she was naked, her manner removed any ambiguity about sexual arousal. She was straight-forward, natural, not in the least coy with him. The thought simply did not cross her mind. Martin compared her quickly to Theresa; with Theresa his instincts were clear. Though Erin was well-formed, he simply did not feel much sexual attraction to her.

"Right," Martin said. He hated being stern. "Why weren't you?"

"I trust your judgment, Martin."

"That's no excuse, Erin."

She shrugged that off, smiled again. "Theresa's very nice. I hope she takes the sting out of working with people like me."

Martin was exhausted from the strain of the day. His face reddened. "Erin, why are you so bloody obtuse?"

Eyes level, she said, "Maybe because I'm afraid." She wrapped herself in a towel, took an end of the towel and dried her short hair. Most of the Wendys kept their hair short but Erin's was little more than bushy fuzz. Her startling green eyes emerged from behind the folds of towel, anything but nervous or afraid. Whatever she felt, her appearance betrayed nothing. "I'm not questioning your authority. I don't side with Ariel. Not many of us do."

"I count my small blessings," Martin said.

"Did she agree with the others? About the decision? I'm curious."

"She's withholding judgment. Did you listen to the meeting on your wand?"

"Of course. I'm not a shirker. I just didn't feel like being there. I hate formalities."

"It's important all the same," Martin said. "We do the Job together. I need your input like I need everybody else's."

"I appreciate that, even if I don't believe it." She folded the towel and let it float while she put on her shorts and shirt and tied the tails below her sternum. Over these she slipped the obligatory overalls. Then she looked away. "I won't make things any tougher on you."

Martin started to add something but decided enough was enough. With a nod, he left the anteroom, glad to get away.

The Wendys' party had gone on longer than expected, and Martin, fresh love exaggerated to a peak during the past few hours, worked alone in his quarters, digging through the training and resource materials available in the ship's libraries.

Unable to wait any longer, he went in search of Theresa, and found her where she had said she would be. His relief was balanced by his chagrin at being so driven, by impatience and longing and an unspecified worry that something, anything, could go wrong.

The Wendys were making garments from materials supplied by the moms. Thirty had gathered in Paola Birdsong's quarters; the door was open, and he entered. Theresa kneeled at the periphery of four women. Kimberly Quartz projected patterns from a wand onto a wide, bunched sheet of cloth on the floor. Theresa held one corner of the cloth, smoothing it as Paola drew on it with a blue marker. A few of the women noticed him, smiled politely. Paola glanced up, and then Theresa saw him. For a moment, he was afraid she would be angry, but she gave her corner of the billowing fabric to Kimberly Quartz and came to hug him.