“Ask them,” Martin said, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the dissidents. “You can’t make that decision by yourself.”
Knots of activity formed, low voices rose in debate, sank again into conspiratorial discussion.
“You want to be Pan again,” Jeanette accused, uncertain.
“Not in a joke,” Martin said.
She turned away, and the defectors formed their own knot, which then broke into smaller knots.
Hans stayed away from the activity. He looked longingly at the star sphere, as if trying to find his own answer. Martin decided it would be best for now to leave him by himself, not to associate with Hans at this time; Hans was a sink of influence, an outcast. But that went against Martin’s instincts.
He ignored his instincts.
“We nominate Patrick Angelfish!” said David Aurora. Six of the crew stood around Patrick, who looked frightened. Harpal was not one of the six; he stayed close to Anna Gray Wolf.
“We nominate Leo Parsifal,” said Umberto Umbra.
Good. Totally off the beaten path, Martin thought.
Jeanette came forward, even less certain now, looking scared. “We nominate Mei-li Wu-Hsiang Gemini.”
“I nominate Ariel,” Martin said. She looked at him with a frown so intense he interpreted it at first as anger.
“Good,” Harpal said softly.
Hans did not look away from the star sphere.
“Vote for new Pan,” Kirsten Two Bites called out.
Martin watched the vortices break apart, reform, watched power and decision move from one group to another, discussion, debate, watched Ariel surrounded by her group, yet still looking very alone. She was not angry. She was terrified. She could not bring herself to refuse.
She felt the power, as well.
The vote was about to be taken when Eye on Sky entered the schoolroom with a snake mother. Paola went to the Brother and spoke with him. Then she pulled herself to Martin.
“Eye on Sky says the Shrike has found something important. Should he tell us now? He seems to think it’s an emergency.”
“Then let’s hear it,” Martin said. He called for their attention.
Eye on Sky uncoiled, smelling faintly of turpentine and dry grass. “We we have spoken with Shrike. Something important found hidden. Greyhound’s help is requested.”
Ariel appeared greatly relieved.
The remains of Sleep smeared out in an arc that in a few million years would form a ring of asteroids around Leviathan. Already, Leviathan’s radiation and particle winds pushed the lighter elements in the arc outward.
Greyhound accelerated to join with Shrike at the nearest terminus of this arc, a journey of sixty-two million kilometers.
At ten g’s, Greyhound would reach Shrike in less than three hours. The crews endured the field restraints; the acceleration was not so extreme as to completely inhibit activity.
They had enough time to vote. The nominees spoke briefly; Mei-li withdrew, saying she was much too confused and uncertain to exercise leadership. Martin noted with some satisfaction that Ariel did not withdraw.
Hans watched silently, standing by himself to one side.
The vote was conducted secretly by wand. Martin tallied the results.
“Ariel is Pan,” he announced.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Starting now?” she asked.
“Starting now,” Martin affirmed.
“I choose Jeanette Snap Dragon to be my second,” she said.
The defectors were not prepared for this, and left the schoolroom to talk.
Ariel stood beside Martin, distinctly nervous as the crew congratulated her singly and in groups. “I shouldn’t have accepted the nomination,” she said to him in a brief free moment. “This is awful. You really have it in for me, don’t you?”
“You’ll do fine,” Martin said.
“Oh, God, I chose Jeanette. Why did I do that?”
“Brings unity,” Martin assured her, though he had his doubts.
“Are you going to help me, or just gloat?”
“Both,” Martin said.
She squinted one eye and curled her lip. “I deserve it,” she said. “Oh, God, I’m an idiot.”
Shrike sent no more transmissions. Martin thought this might be a small game on the part of the Brothers, and his interest was piqued. Eye on Sky refused to say any more, even with Paola’s urging; the Brother smelled strongly of turpentine.
What could possibly compel them to ask for human help? The Brothers were convinced destruction of the Leviathan system had been wrong, or at the very least premature…
Martin studied the crew in the schoolroom. He could see no more vortices of power, and wondered if he had hallucinated them. What he saw now was quiescence, waiting. Even Ariel drew no more attention than she might have before she was Pan. She sat talking quietly with Anna Gray Wolf and Martin felt a stab of loneliness; she had needed him, the need had passed. He had not nurtured it very well.
Hans squatted in a lotus before the star sphere, ragged, thin, pale, fingers tapping the floor lightly. His face seemed religious with concentration and something like fear: fear that what the Brothers had found might prove they had acted incorrectly. Fear of responsibility for the deaths of trillions…
Trillions of what? Martin asked himself. Ghosts? Shells? Robots? Deceptions? Real, intelligent beings? Innocents?
The last possibility was more than he could bring himself to contemplate.
Scouts continued to work through the detritus like little fish swimming through a swirl of sand and mud, sending information by noach to Greyhound. Shrike no doubt had its own scouts, but the arc was huge, three million kilometers from end to end and several hundred thousand kilometers broad, and the area studied by Shrike was still relatively unknown to them.
Giacomo approached Martin and kneeled beside him. Martin looked up; surprised himself by having napped. He glimpsed the star sphere; Greyhound was very near Shrike. “What is it?” Martin asked.
“We’re here. Stonemaker won’t talk to any human but you. He’s on the noach, and he wants it private.”
“Did you tell Ariel?” She was not in the schoolroom.
Giacomo nodded, biting his lower lip. “She told me to get you. Search team doesn’t see anything. We don’t know what they’ve got or what they’re up to.”
A field had wrapped around him automatically while he slept, to restrain him as the acceleration ended. He converted it to a ladder and followed Giacomo to the nose.
Ariel met him outside the nose. She smiled quickly. “The Brothers like you, Martin.”
He made a wry face and pushed into the nose.
Even to the naked eye, the destruction of Sleep was impressive. Greyhound seemed to hang motionless beside Shrike about ten thousand kilometers above the arc of Sleep’s corpse, a glittering, mottled span of dust and rubble like a layer of oil and dirt on a pond. Glowing commas of molten stuff haunted the arc. One comma disintegrated before his eyes, a silent leap of puckering orange. Beyond the arc, closer in to Leviathan, two diffuse blotches marked other ruins, like swift strokes of watercolor on wet black paper.
“I’ll project the noach here,” Thorkild said, refusing to meet his eyes. “You know how to use it. Of course you do.” He looked as if he was about to cry. “Martin…”
Martin held his finger to his lips, shook his head reassuringly, falsely. He didn’t know how long it would take the wounds to heal, but he did not want to deal with Thorkild now.