He avoided thinking about how they were being manipulated. There was no practical way they could protect themselves against tampering. The Killers can change matter from a great distance. They could change parts of our own bodies to suit their purposes… kill us immediately, fill us with tiny spies, even control the way we think.
He looked at Ariel, trying not to let his misery and fear show. She held out her hand, and he took it without hesitation. Paola held out her hand, too, and then Silken Parts extended a cord, and Paola took hold of that, and Ariel grasped a cord offered by Eye on Sky. Strong Cord connected with Martin and the circle was complete.
He didn't feel any less afraid, but he certainly felt less alone.
"Are you disturbed? Not comfortable?" Salamander asked.
Eye on Sky, who should have answered for the group, said nothing.
"We're comfortable," Martin said hoarsely, and cleared his throat.
"We are not familiar with that communication," Salamander said, and repeated the sound of his throat clearing. "What does it mean?"
"An… organic sound," Martin said. "No meaning."
"Like my hissing and breathing," Salamander offered.
"Right," Martin said.
"Do my extraneous sounds bother you?"
"No," Martin said. Under other circumstances— if this masquerade were real—he thought he could feel affection for Salamander, so solicitous was the bishop vulture, trying to make their journey easier.
The wonderful, withdrawing blink of the beautiful amber eyes, the flushing pink of patches of the pastel green skin; the creature was actually quite beautiful. I'm flipping back and forth. Emotional strain. Keep it even.
The exposed crust of Sleep was incredibly rugged, a chaos of broken black rock, some blocks hundreds of meters wide, lying over and across each other with glassy extrusions sharp as knives. Between the blocks lay drifts of orange and pink powder, from which winds blew streaming hazes that glittered in the sunlight.
The ship still flew a few kilometers from the surface. Into their view came a stretch of sea, mottled blue-green, kilometer wide white poker-chips floating motionless amid low, oily waves.
As they watched, a distant section of crust collapsed like an edge of glacier calving on Earth. A thick plume of black smoke arose, splaying out into a low anvil in seconds. Red highlights glowed through the murk.
"We will land on a platform in the ocean in three minutes," Salamander announced. "This must be very unfamiliar to you. Do you have any questions?"
"Thousands of questions," Martin said. "There just isn't time to ask them all."
"I we have one question," Eye on Sky said. "Is this planet natural, or artificial?"
"Both," Salamander said. "Once it was a small star. We have been changing it for thousands of years. First it was used as an energy and fuel source. Now, the easiest answer would be to say that it is artificial. It supplies commodities to the rest of our system."
The ocean filled more and more of their view, until only a line of black cliffs separated ocean from lurid, cloud-stripped sky.
"We are now on the platform. Your suits are in another room. We will leave the craft when you are prepared. At no time will you be exposed to the actual atmosphere, which is not suitable for your biology, and rich with small organisms that might be dangerous to you, besides."
Part of the wall moved aside and they stepped carefully, aided by the fields, into another room, this one equipped with a low stage. The skeletal suits hung from the ceiling above the stage.
"Do you think we're alone?" Paola asked. "Everything projected, remote-controlled?"
"Could be," Martin said.
Eye on Sky produced a smell of tea and soil. "Useless to make guesses," he said.
Salamander's voice instructed them to stand on the stage. Wrapped by their fields, they moved, with some difficulty, to spots marked by faint glows of light. A small, perfect image of each of them appeared next to the appropriate suit, like a nametag. Martin stood before his suit, facing it. "Turn around, please, with your backs to the suits."
He turned. The suit whispered behind him and his neck hair bristled. Its fluid "bones" wrapped around him, gripping him comfortably.
He moved experimentally. The suit moved effortlessly with him.
Useless to make guesses. Everything a mystery. Ants in a kitchen.
"You will be surrounded by invisible barriers when outside. Your breathing should be natural, and you should not worry. We caution against these things only: do not move rapidly, and do not move away from the path or away from your group."
"Right," Martin said. He watched the Brothers getting used to their suits, flexing them, raising three fourths of their lengths from the stage. Ariel lifted her arms experimentally, cocked her head, looked at Martin sidewise.
"Comfortable?" he asked. Ariel and Paola nodded; Strong Cord and Eye on Sky put their suits through more tests before concurring. "We're ready," Martin told the unseen Salamander.
"The ship will debark you in an open area. You should enjoy experiencing the surface as directly as possible. It is quite beautiful. There is no danger, but if you would like to avoid this, we can remove this part of your journey."
Eye on Sky answered, "We we would like to see the surface."
Martin didn't disagree, but he was not enthusiastic. He had seen enough marvels and spectacle already to be spiritually exhausted.
The spacecraft opened around them and stowed itself like a folding screen, leaving them on the white stage, surrounded by an immensity of gray and black sky, midnight blue ocean, dark cliffs rising thousands of meters above the sea. He could feel the flesh-thumping sound of distant explosions, grindings of crust; hear noise like giants groaning and whistling. The sudden openness was unnerving. His hands trembled within the pliant grip of the skeletal suit.
"Wow," Ariel said, her face pale. The air within Martin's field was self-contained, and he could not smell the Brothers. But he could smell his own reaction—rank fear.
The weight on his stomach and lungs gave him sharp twinges
of pain, as if strings tied to pins in his organs were being tugged. Martin doubted he would want to spend more than a few hours on the surface of Sleep.
A causeway reached across the sea to a broad white disk. Salamander's voice spoke in his right ear: "Your suits will walk you over this distance. The disk is a kind of ferry. You will be taken to a shore station, and there will meet with more of our representatives. Are you experiencing discomfort?"
"I'm fine," Martin said.
The suit nudged him and he tried to walk but it resisted. Finally he relaxed and the suit did all his work for him, moving him like a puppet, a sensation he did not enjoy. They were all guided over the causeway to the disk, which promptly disengaged and moved smoothly through the thick, rapid waves.
Martin's vision coarsened and the landscape became more vivid. This might have been an effect of gravity; it also might have been an effect of the field containing his atmosphere.
Useless to make guesses,
The ferry skirted a thick mass of green covering a few hundred square meters, undulating on the seas, large bubbles rising and breaking through like explosions in fibrous mud.