“They’ll make us much more unhappy before they’re done with us.”
Hakim repeated the message several times without reply from Sleep. Martin stood behind him as he went through the procedure again, panel projected before him, fingers touching controls glowing in the air.
“Nothing still,” Hakim said. “They were prompt before.”
Martin nodded.
Beyond the projected control panel, small images of Leviathan’s planets hung against the dark aft wall of the bridge. Blinker caught Martin’s eye.
It no longer blinked. It maintained a steady sandy brown color.
“Something’s changed,” Martin said. He pointed to Blinker. Hakim’s face darkened with excitement.
“How long does it take a light signal to reach us from Blinker?” Martin asked.
“Three hours twelve minutes,” Hakim said.
“Can you play back the records?”
Hakim quickly replayed ship’s memory of the planetary images until they found the precise moment when the planet had stopped its fluctuation. “Three hours ago,” Hakim said.
“What else has changed?” Martin asked.
Hakim expanded the planetary images one by one: Mirror turning milky, its perfect reflectivity catching a hot moist breath; Frisbee, its edges browning like burned bread dough, the unknown “hair” shedding into space; Cueball unchanged; Gopher’s gleaming lights within impossibly deep caverns burning brighter, bluer, like torches.
They came to Puffball, with its immense bristling seed-like constructions. Some seeds had lifted away from the planet’s surface, one, three, six of them, and more on their way. Spikes at the top of the seeds also broke free, flying outward at high speed.
“Are they attacking?” Hakim asked.
“I don’t know. Pass this on the noach to Greyhound and Shrike.”
“Done,” Hakim said. A moment later, his mouth went slack. “There is no noach connection,” he said. “They are not receiving. I do not know where they are.”
Paola and Erin entered the bridge.
“We’re in trouble,” Martin said. “Hakim, pull out of orbit…”
Silken Parts pushed through the door as Hakim ordered the ship away from Sleep.
“What’s happening?” Erin asked.
“We don’t know, but I’m taking us out of here.”
“We have a reply now,” Hakim said. “From Sleep…”
Salamander’s voice filled the bridge. “There have been disruptions on four of our worlds.” Salamander’s image appeared in flat projection. Crest pointed straight out, three eyes open, hissing loudly behind its words, the bishop vulture managed to convey its disturbance.
“We don’t know what’s happening,” Martin said.
“There is tampering with balances. These worlds are delicate and many lives are in danger.”
“We haven’t communicated with our…” He couldn’t finish the deceptive wording, his tongue caught in too many prevarications. He simply stared at Salamander’s image. The bishop vulture lifted its crest, hissed softly.
“You are a lie and a deception,” Salamander said. “We have no further need of you.”
The image and voice faded. “End of transmission,” Hakim said. “Still no success with noach to Greyhound.”
The rest of the crew crowded the bridge, watching the long drama play itself out over the next half hour.
The three identical planets—Pebbles One, Two, and Three—abruptly glowed dull orange, then red, then white, in sequence according to their distances from the ship. Their surfaces diffused like paint in water, glowing specks rising and falling.
“Who’s doing that?” George Dempsey asked. “Them, or us?”
The seeds of Puffball twisted about as if blown in a gentle breeze. On such a scale, that simple motion spoke of immense energies.
Martin could hardly think in the ensuing babble noise. The cabin filled with Brother smells, stinging his eyes. He saw a cord scramble past him, then watched as a Brother—he could not identify which—disassembled. Silken Parts immediately began gathering up the cords, which clung to fields waving their feelers helplessly.
They didn’t even know what weapons Greyhound now possessed, or what their effects would be. One effect was obvious—the attack had been launched on many targets almost simultaneously, judging by the arrival of light-borne information at intervals determined solely by distance. That spoke to Martin of noach; and the first object to change its character had been the massive noach station, Blinker.
What are they up to?
“I know what’s happened,” Ariel said just loudly enough for Martin to hear, bracing herself on a field behind him.
“What?”
“Hans has started the war without telling us.”
With a momentary sense of dizziness, as if he had been through all this before, he realized she was probably right.
Hans had used them to give Greyhound an edge.
“Then why aren’t we dead?” Martin asked. His entire back prickled, waiting for imminent death.
Ariel shrugged. “Give them time.”
The mom and snake mother came onto the bridge. “This ship has been under steady attack for an hour, and our ability to armor against their weapons is diminishing. We assume control now. Super acceleration is called for,” the mom said.
“We don’t have the fuel,” Martin said.
“We will convert as much as we can,” the mom said.
“Can you communicate with the other ships?”
“Yes,” the mom said.
“Greyhound and Shrike?” Martin asked.
“Yes.”
“Are they attacking?”
“Yes.”
“You knew they would attack?”
“No.”
“But you must have known… You must have known when they began?”
The mom did not reply. The volumetric fields expanded. Martin felt their molasses grip, the jerky impediment to all bodily motion.
All slowed in the mire. Martin tried to keep the threads of his attention together. He examined the bridge carefully, separating effect from true perception.
The bridge changed. Walls grew and separated them into pairs. Martin saw that Ariel would be enclosed with him. She stared at him and he turned his head away, the volumetric fields giving permission for every particle to move, move slowly.
“Can you hear me?” Ariel asked.
“Just barely.”
“I think we’ve split up. Trojan Horse.’”
“You’ve been right so far,” Martin said.
“Don’t hold it against me,” Ariel said.
He shook his head. “Never.”
“He’s taken our rights away,” she said, rather irrelevantly, Martin thought.
Super acceleration ceased two hours later. Martin had barely regained his wits when the ship’s voice said, “First attack repelled. We are being followed.”
“What in hell has happened?” Martin asked, trying to kick-start his brain by shaking his head, stretching his body in the directionless weightless meaningless walled-in cubicle.
Another voice, Hans caught in the middle of a triumphant yell. Ariel gave a small shriek like a doomed rabbit.
“We’re doing it, Martin! Trojan Horse has gotten the hell away and split up. We haven’t forgotten you. We’re keeping track of you. But you’re being followed.”
The cubicle lacked screen or star sphere. “Show us something, tell us what’s going on!” Martin cried.
The ship tried to speak, but Hans interrupted. “We’ve gone black, made our moves. Sorry about not telling you.” As casual as that. Sorry about not telling you.
“What the hell is happening, Hans?”
Ariel pushed herself into a corner as if to stay out of his way.