Hakim had been through this material already, and with growing excitement, embellished details he thought might not be obvious.
“All right,” Martin said. His hand shook. He controlled it. “It seems… interesting.”
Hakim smiled and nodded once, then watched intently while Martin perused the data again.
On Earth, Martin’s father had compared the attempt to destroy killer probes to the murder of Captain Cook by distrustful Hawaiians. To the islanders, Cook had been the powerful representative of a more technologically advanced civilization.
If Earth’s Killers lived around one or more of these stars, the Ship of the Law would be up against a civilization so advanced that it controlled two or perhaps even three star systems, commanding the flux of an entire star, perhaps even capable of armoring that star against the expansion of a red giant.
If this was the home of Earth’s Killers, the children’s task would be much more difficult than just killing Captain Cook.
Such adversaries could be as far beyond human intellect as Martin had been beyond his dog Gauge, long dead, powder and ashes around distant Sol.
“The assay match is… I won’t say unique,” Hakim said softly as Martin’s thoughtful silence lengthened. “Other stars in this portion of the spiral arm might share it, having come from the same segment of old supernova cloud. But it’s very close. Did you see the potassium-argon ratios? The indium concentrations?”
Martin nodded, then lifted his head and said, “It does look good, Hakim. Fine work.”
“Tough decision, first time,” Hakim said, awaiting his reaction.
“I know,” Martin said. “We’ll take it to the children first, then to the moms.”
Hakim sighed and smiled. “So it is.”
The call went out to all the wands, and the children gathered in clusters, a full meeting, the first in Martin’s six months as Pan.
A few glued on to Martin’s trail as he laddered forward to the first homeball. Three cats and four parrots joined as well, using the children’s ladders to scramble after them into the schoolroom.
George Dempsey, a plump boy of nineteen from the Athletes family, came close to Martin and beamed a smile. Dempsey read muscles and expressions better than most of his fellows. “Good news?”
“We may have a candidate,” Martin said.
“Something new and startling, not a drill?” asked small, mouse-like Ginny Chocolate, of the Food family. She spoke twenty Earth languages and claimed she understood the moms better than any of them. Ginny cradled a tabby in her arms. It watched Martin with beautiful jade eyes and meowed silently.
“A high-tech civ,” Martin said. “Search team has a presentation.” Ginny spun on her tummy axis and kicked from a conduit, flying ahead of him, towing the relaxed cat by its tail. She did not make much speed, deliberately choosing a low-traction ladder field, and the rest quickly caught up, dancing, bouncing, climbing, putting on overalls and stuffing other clothes into knapsacks.
“We’re the lucky ones, hm?” Hans Eagle asked him as they matched course in the first neck. Hans served as Christopher Robin, second in command. Martin had chosen Hans because the children responded well to his instructions. Hans was strong, well liked, and kept a reserve Martin found intriguing.
“We’ll see,” Martin said.
By the specified time, there were eighty in the schoolroom, two missing. Martin summoned faces quickly and sorted through names, then spoke into his wand, to connect with their wands and remind them of the summons: “William Arrow Feather, Erin Eire.” He had seen neither of them in the wormspaces. He felt a pang of guilt and wondered what William was doing, ignoring his wand summons; that was uncharacteristic. Because of me?
Rosa was present, bulky, red hair in tangles, large arms and fists. She was almost as tall as Hans.
Theresa was there, as well, hiding in the middle ranks, short black hair and small, strong frame immediately drawing Martin’s eye. The sight of her made him feel hollow in his chest.
How long had it been since he last saw her? Barely seven hours… Yet she was discreet, expressionless but for a slight widening of the eyes when he looked directly at her. She did not show any sign of the passion they had shared.
Others in the crowd Martin hadn’t seen in weeks.
Each carried the brand of dead Earth in memory; all had seen Earth die, that hours-long agony of incandescence and orbiting debris. Some had been only four or five years old; their memories were expressed more often in nightmares than in conscious remembrance. Marty had been nine.
This was the Job and they all took it seriously.
Martin called Hakim forward. Hakim used his wand to display the group of three close stars and what information they had. He concluded with the analysis of planet deaths near the group.
“We have to make a decision to launch remotes,” Martin said. “We can gather a lot more information with a wide baseline. We also become a little more conspicuous. Our first decision is whether to take the risk now…”
“The moms should let us know what they think,” Ariel Hawthorn said from across the schoolroom. “We’re still not being told everything. We can’t make final decisions before we know…” Ariel Hawthorn did not appear to like Martin; Martin assumed she did not like any of the Lost Boys, but he knew very little about her sexual tastes. She was irritable and opinionated; she was also smart.
“We shouldn’t waste time on that now,” Martin said.
“If we’re going to make a decision that involves risk, we can’t afford to be wrong,” Ariel pursued.
Martin hid his exasperation. “Let’s not—”
“You’re only going to be Pan this watch,” Ariel said sharply. “The next Pan should have a say, as well.”
“If we make the judging on this watch, Martin will be Pan until we finish the Job,” Hans reminded her.
Ariel shot a withering look at Hans. “We should select a new Pan to lead us into the Job,” she said. “That should be our right.”
“That’s not procedure. We’re wasting time,” Hans said softly.
“Fuck you, Farley!” Ariel exploded.
“Out,” Martin said. “Need a Wendy to second the motion.”
“Second,” said Paola Birdsong, lifting large calm eyes.
“One hour in the wormspaces,” Martin said.
Ariel shrugged, stretched with a staccato popping of joints, and climbed out of the schoolroom.
“You’ll talk with her after, won’t you?” Paola asked softly, not pushing.
Martin did not answer for a moment, ashamed. Pans should be calm, should never discipline out of anger. “I’ll tell her what we decide,” he said.
“She has to decide, too. If it’s a close vote, you’ll ask her for her opinion, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Martin said. He did not think it was going to be a close vote. They were all impatient; this was a strong suspect.
“You’ll work out your differences, won’t you?” Paola pursued. “Because you’re Pan now. You can’t be out with her. That cuts.”
“I’ll talk,” Martin said. He lifted the wand again. “We know enough to decide whether to release remotes. We can do the figuring ourselves. And I think we should all do it now.”
The math was complex and did not guarantee an absolute answer. The possibility of detection when they issued the remotes—very slight at this distance—had to be weighed against the probability that this group contained the star or stars they were looking for.
Martin closed his eyes and ran through the figures yet again, using the techniques the moms had taught him, harnessing their inborn ability to judge distances and speeds, algorithms normally not accessible to the intellect, but far more powerful than higher, conscious calculation. The children had decided to call the new techniques momerath, suggested by Lewis Carroll and, some claimed, short for Mom’s Arithmetic Math.