Part 29 (1/2)

”I hear the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer,” Hakim said. ”It's very beautiful. I wish you could hear it.”

”Are you still a Muslim, Hakim?” Martin asked.

”We are all of us Muslims,” Hakim said. ”It is our natural state. We must give ourselves to Allah at some point, become obedient. Allah is looking out for us, that I feel...And Muhammad is his prophet. But what shape Allah is, who can say? And it is no use bowing to Mecca.”

”I think that means you're a Muslim,” Martin said.

”The Pope died with Earth,” Giacomo said. ”Isn't that something? The moms didn't save the Pope. I wonder why.”

Martin saw gra.s.s growing on the rim of a tunnel, the greenness bright and welcoming, blending toward the center.

”Remember volunteering?” Giacomo said.

”A difficult time for me,” Hakim said. ”My mother did not want me to go. My father spoke to her sternly and she cried. I decided I had to go, and my mother...she ignored me from that day. Very sad.”

”The tests?”

”I didn't take a lot of tests,” Martin said.

”I remember a lot of tests,” Giacomo said. ”Physical-”

”Oh, those,” Martin said. He remembered being wrapped in fields that tingled while the moms floated in attendance, never telling whether the results were good or poor.

Martin remembered his father's face, proud and sad, on the last day. The families in the Ark gathering at the berthing bay for the new s.h.i.+p of the Law, stars visible beyond the curve of the third homeball. Some of the children barely into their teens getting caught up in the excitement. Martin remembered Rex Live Oak throwing up and a hastily spread field grabbing the expelled contents of his stomach and whisking them away. He smiled. The moms did not disqualify the children for nerves or fright.

Sleepless nights as the Dawn Treader Dawn Treader rose into darkness, climbing for almost a year on a torch dipped into a sump. The cla.s.ses, momerath refreshers, Martin's first tryst with Felicity Tigertail, awkward and delicious, a little scary to him, how much he fixed on her. With a little more innate physical wisdom, she did not fix on him, gently repulsed his further advances, introduced him without embarra.s.sment to her other boyfriends... rose into darkness, climbing for almost a year on a torch dipped into a sump. The cla.s.ses, momerath refreshers, Martin's first tryst with Felicity Tigertail, awkward and delicious, a little scary to him, how much he fixed on her. With a little more innate physical wisdom, she did not fix on him, gently repulsed his further advances, introduced him without embarra.s.sment to her other boyfriends...

Strange that he did not feel attracted to Theresa much sooner. Eighty-seven young crew, given subtle guidance or no guidance by moms intent on letting their charges come to wisdom the human way, not the Benefactors' way, whatever that might be...

”Martin,” Giacomo said. ”Do you remember first meeting Jennifer?”

”Yes,” Martin said.

”Was it on the Ark?”

”No,” Martin said. ”On the s.h.i.+p.”

”What was she like then? I just don't remember much about her...”

They talked into the weirdness for hours, and gradually their talk fell silent, and they simply stared, or slept fitfully. The universe seemed to quiver with Martin's heart, flinching, star necklace alive, a thinly spread tissue of life. His own scale increased to match; Martin became galactic and with his new size came a nervous euphoria.

How long they sat, Martin couldn't tell at first. But Giacomo broke the vigil and said, ”That's enough for me.”

Hakim made a little grunt. ”Why?” he said.

”Because I just had a wet dream, d.a.m.n it,” Giacomo said.

They agreed to stop, and the projection folded into a small star sphere, returning them to the narrow and much more comfortable confines of the craft.

Their deceleration was brief, merely two hours, to match course and speed with the derelict. As volumetric fields faded, they waited eagerly for a first glimpse of the s.h.i.+p from a few kilometers.

What first appeared was almost impossible to comprehend. The s.h.i.+p resembled a twisted, crisped piece of paper in a fire, covered with holes, the edges of the holes burning orange and red; homeb.a.l.l.s skeletal, debris drifting in a cloud.

”Dear G.o.d,” Giacomo said.

”What happened?” Hakim asked.

The mom took them around the derelict in a slow loop. ”This s.h.i.+p is very old,” it said. ”Central control of its shape has failed. Fake matter is decaying. Within a few hundred years, there will be only the sh.e.l.ls of real matter.”

”There are no survivors?” Hakim asked.

”We guessed that much already,” Martin said.

”Not with certainty,” Hakim persisted.

”There are no survivors,” the mom said. ”The s.h.i.+p's mind is inoperative. We will search for deep time memory stores.”

A hole opened in the side of their craft. Martin pushed himself through first, wrapped in a spherical field with a green balloon of life support.

”It's like being in a soap bubble,” he said. They had not practised with these fields before. Martin pulled down an ephemeral control panel and touched arrows to indicate the direction he wanted to move. The bubble thrust away from the craft with a barely audible tink tink and a tiny flash of light-individually matched atoms of anti em and matter, their explosions cupped against a mirror-reflective field the size of his hand. and a tiny flash of light-individually matched atoms of anti em and matter, their explosions cupped against a mirror-reflective field the size of his hand.

Giacomo emerged next, then Hakim. Except for their few words and the sounds of breathing, again they were enveloped by the universe, although in the form of an undistorted field of stars. Martin saw the constellation of the Orchid. In that direction, visually aligned within a degree of the star known to humans as Betelgeuse, lay the Dawn Treader, Dawn Treader, two hundred billion kilometers away. two hundred billion kilometers away.

He rotated his bubble toward the constellation Hakim had named Philosopher. The derelict crossed the sweep of the Philosopher's hand.

”What was its name?” Giacomo asked.

The craft mom's voice answered, ”I do not know.”

They pushed slowly across the two kilometers. Martin trailed Giacomo's balloon, watching the staccato, firecracker punctuations of dying atoms.

”I feel like an angel. This is incredible,” Hakim said, following Martin.

Martin's attention focused on the disintegrating hulk looming before them. He could make out the three homeb.a.l.l.s, reduced to psychedelic leaf-skeletons, all edges glowing red and orange and white.

”I knew it took energy to maintain fake matter...I didn't know it would just fizzle out,” Giacomo said. Martin spun around and urged his bubble toward the third homeball, leaving Giacomo and Hakim near the middle. He had spotted a hole big enough to squeeze his bubble through, and with the craft mom's approval, he was going to attempt entry.

Beside him followed a half-sized copper-bronze mom; he had not seen the craft produce the little robot, but no explanations were necessary. The diminutive mom advanced on its own firecracker bursts.

”What do I look for?” he asked the little mom.

”s.h.i.+p's mind will have left a marker that will interact with close fields. The deep time memory store will probably reside within the third homeball, in the densest concentrations of real matter.”

His bubble pa.s.sed through what must have once been the hatch to the weapons store. ”This s.h.i.+p wasn't attacked, was it?”

”No,” the little mom said. ”It ceased performing its mission.”

”Why?”

”We have insufficient information to answer,” the little mom said. Martin watched an extrusion of glowing sc.r.a.p push against his bubble. He slowed and moved deeper, through layer after glimmering layer; walls, distorted cubicles, warped structural members. Sheets of disengaged matter-real matter, not subject to deterioration-hung undisturbed, brushed against his bubble, bounced aside silently, rippling like cloth. He could see now how little real matter actually coated the fake matter within a s.h.i.+p of the Law; no thicker than paint.