Martin contributed weapons emplacements, dotting the mottled planet floating before him with finger-painted notations of defense and danger. Paola created a geology to match the airless ruined surface, and in quick noach updates, her sketches appeared on the sphere, cold ancient continents, internal heat fled, cracks in crust diving deep to solid cool core.
They played their game for several hours, caught in the raw high-speed spaces between the stars, between engagements.
They were growing weary when the Dawn Treaderfinally returned to retrieve them. Martin felt at first a neck prickle, before the ship alerted them to its presence; their sensors could not otherwise detect the great dark larval form hiding; then he felt a flood of giddy relief, apprehension, and finally a resurgence of shame.
They joined all their deactivated comrades and returned to the third homeball, flew to the outer hatch, connected to the pylons, pulled into the weapons store.
Their water drained, fields switched off, and membranes withdrew. Martin left his craft with an erection from the membrane's intimacy. They laddered to the hatch and walked out bleary-eyed. Silent, they parted to get cleaned up, to rest for a few minutes before meeting in the schoolroom to receive Martin's evaluation, to meet with Hans, who had been in charge of the Dawn Treader, and then to receive the War Mother's critique.
Hans met with Martin alone in the second neck.
"That was a royal slickup," Hans commented dryly. "Your outside teams were obliterated. We barely had time to get the ship to safety… We weren't prepared at all."
"First time out," Martin said. "Not that it's any excuse. We'll have to do better."
"Obviously," Hans said.
The children gathered in the schoolroom, subdued, to receive the critique. The War Mother waited while Hans and Martin went first, taking questions from the children, actually more confessions than questions. Some were close to tears. Those who had been deactivated in the early stages of the drill were particularly somber. They had been shut out, and Martin could feel their resentment and brooding anger.
Ariel, who had stayed aboard the Dawn Treaderin charge of the team responsible for tracking radiation, was sharply critical. "You were doing nothing but slicking it out, " she said, looking at Martin sidewise, lips downturned. "You could have been detected! Your acceleration flares were too damned bright—what are we doing, letting an exercisegive us away?"
"The acceleration flares were too small to be detected by any known or postulated methods from the distance of Wormwood," the War Mother said. Hakim agreed. Ariel fell silent.
Martin swallowed but said nothing. All voices must be heard. The string of confessions continued. William took his turn after the last craft pilot had spoken, and said, "It was our first time out. We shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. The moms gave us a blank deck and we played it." He glanced at Martin in the center of the formation, winked one eye as if with a slight tic, folded his arms and legs and stepped to one side.
"These evaluations are useful," the War Mother said when the silence had stretched for fifteen seconds. "There was no detailed structure to this exercise. The external team showed initiative in providing a structure, but they were ineffective in the opening moments of the engagement. What is the Pan's evaluation?"
Martin's anger leaped to several sharp answers but he held them back. "The exercise shows us what we need to learn. We did badly. The simulation was confusing, but reality will be even more confusing."
"And if we learn how to die before we accomplish anything, what good is that?" Ariel asked. She leaned her head to one side, eyes distant.
"We learn all we can on our own," Martin said, voice betraying his exhaustion. "The moms have told us that repeatedly. That way, when we pull the trigger, it's our act as much as possible, not theirs."
"When do we go out again?" Erin Eire asked, wrinkling her face as if puzzled.
"As soon as possible," Martin said, suddenly aware he had not conferred with the War Mother. He glanced at the robot.
"In nine hours," the mom said. "Time for sleep and food and independent study."
Martin nodded. "Everybody out," he said. "Private time with the War Mother. Ex-Pans, I'll need to confer with you after I'm done here. Please wait for me outside."
"It was our first exercise," Martin said to the War Mother when all the children had left. "We thought there would be some structure to it… We didn't expect to be stranded and have something completely random thrown at us. That's why we did so badly."
"We are no longer your teachers."
Martin stared at the divided circle where the War Mother's face might have been. "Beg pardon?"
"We are no longer your teachers. You are in charge of carrying out the Law. You tell us what to do. Now you train yourselves, and we help, but we do not lead."
Martin's astonishment was a painful black pit, and it took him a while to cross over it. "Who decided we're ready?"
"There have been five years of training. You are ready."
"I know you want us to carry out the Law of our own free will, but you can't abandon us now, leave us all on our own…".
"You are not abandoned. We provide the necessary information. We provide the tools. You use them. That is the Law."
"Slick the Law!" Martin shouted. "You can't just jerk everything out from under us!"
"You have been informed from the beginning what would be required of you. We have now entered a situation where you must be in control, not us."
"You warn us by letting us slick up on our first drill?"
"We do not make these choices. They are dictated by circumstance."
"So we take over from here… all the way?"
"It is the end of our role as teachers."
"There should have been warning," Martin said.
The War Mother said nothing.
"This will be a shock… it's a shock to me."
Still silence.
Martin fumbled for a means of explaining to the children what he had just heard, a rationale. "You're trying to knock us into action, break us out of our lethargy? You think that's psychologically appropriate?"
"It is necessary. We can lead you no further."
For the first time in his life, Martin became so furious with a mom that he felt he might lose control. He turned and ran from the schoolroom.
* * *
There had been five previous Pans, one for each year of their voyage. They had finished their year-long terms and returned to their groups and families, equal with all the children, but Martin always felt their eyes upon him: Stephanie Wing Feather, the first Pan, and her successors, Harpal Timechaser, Joe Flatworm, Sig Butterfly, Cham Shark.
All five followed Martin from the schoolroom to his quarters in the second homeball, saying little as they laddered and walked. This gave him time to calm down and frantically think. Everything's skewed now, all our frames bent. How do we lead in this mess? How doI lead?
In Martin's quarters, the ex-Pans took up positions in the center, in a cubicle of flexible tubes that Martin had made several years before. In zero g, the cage was for floating in while awake or exercising, or for guests to be close without being jammed together. Now that up and down had settled, the cage was just large enough to seat six.
"I'm going to need more help," Martin said.