"So tell me about it while we wait for Hans," Martin said.
"Bring Jennifer in. We'll all talk."
Martin did not relish being bogged down in technical details, but he relented and asked Jennifer to enter the noach chamber. Her expression softened when she saw Giacomo, then became worried as she saw the strain he was under.
"Jenny, we think this system is armed to the teeth. Blinker is probably a giant noach generator, but it isn't used for communication. The entire planet changes every few minutes… The moms have studied it, I've been working through the momerath…"
"Give us the important stuff," Jennifer said, glancing at Martin. "We'll talk momerath later."
"Blinker is their Achilles' heel," Giacomo said. "It controls a lot of things around Leviathan. We think we can use noach as a weapon against Blinker. If we can persuade Blinker, it'll be like their turning our ships into anti em, only much more powerful. Wormwood was deliberately primitive, compared to Leviathan. That's what I've told Hans, and the moms seem to agree. They're making noach weapons right now. I don't think we'll have time to test—"
"What can they do?" Martin asked.
"We might survive Blinker if it tries to attack us. Our neutronium weapons are probably useless. They can nullify them, even… I'm not positive about this, Jenny, but the momerath says they can convert our bombs to the limits of the system, or even after they enter a planet.
"That's the glory of Leviathan. Just lookingat these planets long enough, we can think of a thousand new things, a thousand possibilities. The ships' minds are working all the time. All our weapons and delivery systems are being redesigned."
Hans entered and sat next to Giacomo, facing Martin across over nine billion kilometers. Martin was shocked by how thin and wiry Hans appeared, as if he had lost all unnecessary flesh to prepare for some intense conflict. His eyes focused on Martin's chin, then drifted down to his neck.
"Martin and I need to be alone. Jennifer, whoever else is there but Martin, and the Brothers… leave now," he said. "They can talk science in a few minutes."
Giacomo withdrew. Jennifer swore under her breath and left Double Seed'snoach chamber. Hakim followed after he was sure the transmission was stable. Martin nodded to him apologetically. Eye on Sky continued to confer with Stonemaker in two-part Brother language, clicks and violin sighs.
"You actually went down there, had a one to one?" Hans asked, unable to project more than a hint of feeling.
"We did. Twice," Martin said.
"Face to face with the enemy." Hans shook his head in dull-eyed wonder. "That's something, Marty."
Martin's eyes grew moist but he did not reach up to wipe them. Even now, when his instincts told him something horrible had happened, even Hans' flat and listless approval meant something.
"We've had shit up to our necks here," Hans said. "Giacomo's probably told you some of it already."
"No details."
"Twenty-one of our crew mutinied. They tried to elect their own Pan. I told them there couldn't be any proceedings until the Job was over and the crews were reunited, but Jeanette Snap Dragon and a few others kept at it until they broke the others down."
Martin doubted that was the entire story. "What about the Brothers?"
"They're going to take Shrike, leave us with Greyhound. I've agreed to that."
"They're not doing the Job with us?"
"We'll coordinate, but they've decided not to be on the same ship."
Martin shook his head in disbelief. "What in hell happened, Hans?"
"Rex is dead," Hans said. "He killed himself a tenday ago. He confessed to killing Rosa and said he couldn't live with it."
"Why did he kill her?"
Hans leveled his gaze on Martin. "Necessities. She took him in as her lover. Something happened. Has Giacomo explained what the moms are doing?"
"What about the rest of the crew?"
"They're with me. They want to do the Job. I make the decisions. What have you got for me?"
Martin stared at the floor for a moment, trying to see beyond what he was being told. "I'm noaching a big batch of information given to us by the representatives from Sleep. All of you should look it over very carefully, as much as you can absorb." He quickly explained the circumstances: the hundreds of races, trillions of individuals, the representatives, the staircase god, and what they had told him…
Hans listened intently, eyes growing more focused, more alive.
"Is it real?" Hans asked when Martin was done.
"I don't think it's illusion. They're real. The information is more than I can assimilate. Salamander—"
"That's the other vulture, isn't it?" Hans asked.
"Yes. Salamander seemed distressed. We couldn't know each other's expressions, understand emotions… but it clearly thinks I'm the bringer of something terrible."
Hans folded his arms, straightened his back as if in satisfaction. "Good. But they don't know where I am."
"I don't think so."
"You didn't tell them."
"No, but I was dealing with minds way beyond me. I felt like an ant. What they can deduce or learn, how fast they can draw their conclusions or put evidence together, I don't know. We have to vote and make a decision fast. If we stay here much longer, they'll get tired of our uselessness and find some way to kill us."
"Peaceful types, am I right?"
"Even if we believe all they say, they have every reason to destroy us. We're a massive threat."
"Yeah," Hans said. "I'd like your opinion, Martin, but the group is past voting now. I make the decision. We do the Job, we get the hell out. We go live the rest of our lives. "
Martin didn't know what to say.
"We can still do it," Hans said softly. "Are you with me?"
"You have to look at the information."
"It's all shit," Hans said briskly.
"You have to look at it," Martin repeated firmly.
"I will," Hans said. "Dot the i's and cross the t's, am I right?"
Martin had come to hate that sequence of three words; had come to hate Hans at the same time Hans could bring tears to his eyes.
Put a stop to it now. Refuse to let it go any further. But then they'll have you; the ruse will have worked. The ultimate defense fogs the mind.
"Giacomo's itching to talk with Jennifer. My say is over for the time being," Hans said. "I'll look at the info. Get back to you in a couple of hours. Watch your tail, Martin. Move out soon. They can get you."
"I don't think they will until they're sure we're not going to bargain," Martin said.
"Maybe not. Maybe they're just too damned smart for their own good. Like you, Martin."
Martin lowered his eyes, then raised them again, met Hans' gaze, his face reddening with constrained fury. He would gladly have killed Hans then.
Hans looked away, as if Martin did not matter, nothing mattered, his expression casual and deadly. "Well, if Giacomo and the moms have it worked out, we can do some impressive damage." Hans stepped out of the image. Giacomo replaced him.
"Where's Jennifer?" Giacomo said.
Martin called her in, staying in the noach chamber to listen.
Through the technical detail and exchanges of momerath, he saw the broad outlines of what had been learned, and the theories woven from the scant clues.
Blinker was a massive noach station, capable of altering the physical character of unprotected mass to a distance of at least fifty billion kilometers in all directions—five times what noach theory had allowed until now. Its own changing character was likely a continuing pattern of tests.