Martin blanked all thoughts and fell into contemplation of a convergence of spaces and planes, saddles and hills, balls rolling across territories and joining in colored pools.
What Martin visualized when he had finished his momerath, almost as clearly as if his wand projected it, was the group of three stars and a synoptic of the most important local stars. Systems that had been exploited by outside visitors flashed bright red; systems that had probably been explored, but not altered, flashed hot pink; systems showing no signs of external interference flashed green. Ships of the Law did not show up in the mental picture. They never did; the moms could not know where they were.
The children finished their momerath within minutes of each other. Jennifer Hyacinth and Giacomo Sicilia opened their eyes and glanced at Martin first. They were the sharpest at momerath, or any kinds of math and physics theory. They were followed by Stephanie Wing Feather, Harpal Timechaser, Cham Shark, Hans Eagle, and then the others. The last was Rosa Sequoia, but she did complete the work.
Five had difficulty and said, “Not clear.” That was normal; they would not participate in the voting.
Hans as Christopher Robin did the counting as each raised two hands or none. He made a quick recount, and everyone lowered their hands.
“Fifty-two aye, twenty-two nay, five outs, three not present,” Hans reported. “Pan calls it now.”
“This is our first decision,” Martin said. “I’ll ask the moms to release the remotes. If the stars still look suspect, our next decision will be whether to go in closer, whether to enter the systems…” Some children stretched and groaned. They saw a long, boring process, rather than quick action. “We have to be sure. If we go into a—”
“We know,” Paola Birdsong said. They knew it all by heart. If we go into a civilized stellar system, we are in danger. All sufficiently advanced civilizations arm themselves. Not all systems subscribe to the Law. Not all know about the Law.
The occupants of this group of stars did not know about or subscribe to the Law.
“But for now, the decision is to release the remotes. That’s a start.”
Martin looked around the assembled faces in the schoolroom. All solemn; the impatience and irritation had been replaced by anticipation and barely hidden anxiety. They had been traveling for five and a half years. This was the first time they had actually made a decision, the first time the search team had come up with a likely prospect.
“This is no drill, Martin? You’re sure?” Ginny Chocolate asked with a quaver.
“No drill,” Martin confirmed.
“What do we do now?”
“We wait and we practice,” Hans said.
Most of the group raised both arms. Others sat in stunned silence.
“Time to grow up,” Paola said, patting Martin’s arm. Martin wrapped one arm around her and squeezed her. Theresa shot him a glance. No jealousy—he was being Pan, reassuring them all.
Martin released Paola, touched Theresa gently in passing—she smiled, caressed his shoulder—and they parted to go aft. He wanted more than anything to be with her, to get away from this responsibility, but they wouldn’t get together for hours yet.
About ten went with Hans to exercise in the wormspaces. The rest vanished into their private places in the expansive maze of halls, spaces and chambers. Two birds stayed behind, preening themselves, floating with claws curled on nothing.
Martin had three errands now: speaking to Ariel to bring her back into the group as best he could, and then finding and speaking with William and Erin Eire.
By the time he had finished with them, Theresa would be attending a Wendys party in the first homeball, and that would keep them apart for additional hours.
In the farthest depths of the ship, where the Dawn Treader’s tail tapered to a point, among the great dark smooth shapes that had never been explained, Martin found Ariel floating in a loosely curled ball, seemingly asleep.
“You and I aren’t getting along too well,” he said. She opened her eyes and blinked coldly.
“You’re a moms freak,” she said. “You swim in it, don’t you?”
Martin tried not to react to her anger. Still, he wondered why she had ever been chosen from the Central Ark volunteers, years past; she was the least cooperative, the most stubborn, and often the most assertive.
“I’m sorry. You know our group rules. I’ll be just as glad as you when I’m not Pan. Maybe you should try—”
“I’m sick of it,” she interrupted, curling her legs into a lotus. “We’re nothing but puppets. Why did they bring us out here in the first place? They could do everything by themselves. How can we help them? Don’t you see that it sucks?”
Martin felt her words like a slap. Still, he was Pan; he had to keep his calm or at least not let her see how angry he was. “It’s not easy. We all volunteered.”
“I volunteered without being told what I was in for,” Ariel said.
“You were told,” Martin said dubiously.
“We were children. We were playing glory games. Out for quick revenge. They’re asking us to get serious now, and we don’t even know why… Because they won’t tell us everything.”
“They haven’t asked us to do anything yet. Hakim’s team found the group—”
“The moms have been watching those stars for thousands of years. Don’t you know that?”
Martin swallowed and looked away. “They’re telling us all we need to know.”
Ariel smiled bitterly and shook her head. “They sent us out this way deliberately, to track these stars. Now they’re going to use us to kill somebody, or get ourselves killed,” she said. “I’m not alone. Others think this is shit, too.”
“But you’re the only one with the guts to come forward,” he said. He felt he had to leave soon or lose his temper completely.
She regarded him with nothing quite so strong as hate; more like pity, as if he were a mindless demagogue not responsible for his actions.
“I’m not alone,” she said. “You remember that. We have our… doubts about all this. The moms had damn well better do something about it.”
“Or what, Ariel? You’ll leave?”
“No,” she said. “Don’t be an ass, Martin. I’ll opt out for good. I’ll kill myself.”
His eyes widened. She turned away from his shock and pushed out from a curved cylinder mounted to an interior conduit. “Don’t worry about blood on your watch. I’m giving them time. I still hope we can do what we came out here to do. But my hope is fading fast. They have to tell us all, Martin.”
“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.