Part 36 (1/2)

”I didn't say it was,” Ariel replied, still smiling. The smile flicked off when he didn't return it; she looked away, smoothing her overalls. ”I'm not asking for anything, Martin,” she said softly.

”Sorry,” he said, suddenly guilty.

”I haven't changed,” she continued, face red. ”When you were Pan, I said what I thought you needed to hear.”

”I understand,” he said.

”The h.e.l.l you do,” Ariel concluded, pus.h.i.+ng her way to the opposite side of the group of humans.

Another braid disintegrated. Hakim bent over a straying cord. A Brother clicked and swooped down to grab the cord, head splaying, extended clawed tail sections from two of its own cords closing on the stray. He paused with the limp cord hanging just under his head, then said, ”Private.”

”Don't mess with them,” Hans warned Hakim. ”We've got a lot more to learn about each other.”

”Merging begins,” a mom said, moving to the center, near the star sphere. Martin looked at the sphere intently, watching the two s.h.i.+ps melt into each other, impressed despite himself by the Benefactors' capabilities.

The snake mothers chirped, sang, and released odors. Martin's head swam with the tension and the welter of scents; more bananas, resinous sweetness, faint odor of decay, cabbage again. Snake mother voices like a high-pitched miniature string orchestra, braids responding; stray cords mostly grabbed and bagged, the last few pulled from the air by Brothers coiling like millipedes in water.

So d.a.m.ned strange, Martin thought, feeling the hysteria of creeping exhaustion. Martin thought, feeling the hysteria of creeping exhaustion. It's too much. I want it to be over. It's too much. I want it to be over.

But he floated in place, one hand clinging to a personal ladder field, eyes blinking, head throbbing, saying nothing. Hakim also clung to a ladder, eyes closed, as if trying to sleep. Actually, that was sensible. Martin closed his eyes.

Giacomo patted his shoulder. Eyes flicking open, disoriented by actually having slept-for how long? Seconds? Minutes?-Martin turned to Giacomo and saw Jennifer behind him.

”Completion of merger in five minutes,” the mom announced, its voice sounding far away.

”We can't wait to get into their math and physics,” Giacomo said, round face moist with tired excitement. Humans were adding their own smells to the schoolroom, now seeming much too small with two populations. ”Jennifer's spoken to their leader-if Stonemaker is their leader.”

”Spokesnake,” Jennifer said, giggling, punchy.

”Some fantastic things. Their math lacks integers!”

”As far as we can tell,” Jennifer added.

”They don't use whole numbers at all. Only 'smears,' they call them.”

Martin's interest could hardly have been less now, but he listened, too tired to evade them.

”I think they regard integers, even rational fractions, as aberrations. They love irrationals, the perfect smears. I can't wait to see what that means for their math.” Giacomo saw Martin's look of patent disinterest, and sobered. ”Sorry,” he said.

”I'm very tired,” Martin said. ”That's all. Aren't you tired?”

”Dead tired,” Jennifer said, giggling again. ”Smears! Jesus, that's incredible. I may never make sense out of it.”

Martin closed his eyes again.

Smelled lilacs; dreamed of his grandmother's face powder, drifting through the air in her small bathroom like snow, spotting her throw rug beneath the sink.

In the dream, he lay down on the rug, curled up, and closed his eyes.

When he awoke, the schoolroom was quiet but for a few whispered conversations. Hakim slept nearby; Giacomo and Jennifer lay curled together an arm's reach in front of Martin. Joe Flatworm slept in a lotus, anch.o.r.ed to a ladder field. The moms and snake mothers floated inactive.

The Brothers had all disintegrated. Cords hung from ladder fields like socks on a neon clothes net.

Cham was awake. Martin asked him, ”Is that how they sleep?”

”Beats me,” Cham said.

”Where's Hans?”

”Other side of the schoolroom,” Cham said. ”Asleep with Rosa holding his head.”

Martin turned to the star sphere and saw for the first time their new s.h.i.+p, the merger largely completed. He judged it to be perhaps as big as the original Dawn Treader, Dawn Treader, with three homeb.a.l.l.s again; but this time the aft homeball was larger than the others. There were no obvious tanks of reserve fuel; Martin a.s.sumed the fuel must now be stored in the aft homeball. That might reflect a design improvement; the more he saw, the more he was convinced that the Brothers' s.h.i.+p of the Law was a later model, with major differences in equipment, tactics, perhaps even general strategy. with three homeb.a.l.l.s again; but this time the aft homeball was larger than the others. There were no obvious tanks of reserve fuel; Martin a.s.sumed the fuel must now be stored in the aft homeball. That might reflect a design improvement; the more he saw, the more he was convinced that the Brothers' s.h.i.+p of the Law was a later model, with major differences in equipment, tactics, perhaps even general strategy.

”I wonder if they dream?” Cham asked.

”They're all all asleep?” Martin stretched out, peering between the fields and sleeping bodies. He could see no intact braids, only cords. asleep?” Martin stretched out, peering between the fields and sleeping bodies. He could see no intact braids, only cords.

”Wonder if they ever get confused and end up with parts of each other? It's scary, how much we're going to have to learn.”

Deceleration began. Up and down returned to the s.h.i.+p of the Law; humans and Brothers explored the new order of things. The quarters were divided into human and Brother sectors in the first two homeb.a.l.l.s. A buffer of empty quarters and shared hallways gave cords s.p.a.ces in which to hide and conduct their private, instinctive affairs. Provisions were made for human capture of straying cords; boxes mounted in well-traveled halls were filled with specially scented bags (tea and cabbage odors) with which to sedate and carry any cords they might find in human quarters.

Some practise sessions were arranged; Martin learned where to pick up a cord, before and after it had been covered with a scented bag. The best place to hold a cord was along the smooth, leathery body forward of the claw legs and behind the feelers. The cord mouth parts opened ventrally just to the rear of the feelers. The only danger-as yet untested-was that a cord, away from its fellows, might defend itself if the pick-up and bagging ritual was not properly observed. It might then nip or chew on a human, and certain alkaloids in its saliva might cause a toxic reaction, perhaps no more severe than a rash, perhaps worse, so why take chances?

What the humans learned soon enough was that the Brothers' diet was simple. They ate a cultivated broth of small green and purple organisms, resembling aquatic worms, neither plants nor animals. These organisms-Stonemaker suggested they might be called ”noodles”-grew under bright lights; they could move freely within their liquid-filled containers, but derived most of their nutrients from simple chemicals. At one stage in their growth, they ate each other, and the remains of their feasts contributed substantially to the broth.

Brothers always ate disa.s.sembled, the cords gathering around the vats like snakes around bowls of milk. While the cords dined, two or more braids watched over the diners.

The snake mothers had nothing to do with preparing the broth. Growing food was a particularly important ritual for the Brothers, and it was apparently an honor to be placed in charge of the broth vats.

This much the human crew was allowed to observe. Other aspects of Brotherly life were more circ.u.mspect. Because cords could die as individuals-it was normal, like shedding skin-reproduction continued after a fas.h.i.+on. Breeding cords were sequestered and their activities were hidden from the humans.

Three braids seemed to act as intellectual reserves for the entire group. These braids appeared slow, not particularly personable; they spoke no English, communicated not at all with humans, but occasionally disa.s.sembled, and some of their parts would be used for a time by other braids. Erin Eire called them Wisdom, Honor, and Charity; the names stuck, at least among the humans.

Stonemaker became familiar to all the humans; s.h.i.+pmaker and Eye on Sky also mixed freely. Others came forward more gradually to interact with the humans. Within two days, twenty-three Brothers mingled regularly. Their English improved rapidly.

Within a tenday of the merger, rudimentary jokes could be exchanged. Brother humor was simple enough: sickly-sweet flower-smells marked a kind of laughter, brought on by simple stories whose punchline always involved involuntary disa.s.sembly. The Brothers particularly enjoyed stories or mimicry of humans pa.s.sing gas or fainting.

With Hans' approval, Paola Birdsong appointed herself a special student of Brotherly language and behavior.

Giacomo and Jennifer volunteered to help coordinate human and Brother libraries, working with Eye on Sky and s.h.i.+pmaker. Hans suggested they first translate and integrate what the libraries had to say about galactic history and battle strategy and tactics. Jennifer was disappointed by these practical priorities; she desperately wanted to explore Brother mathematics.

Martin observed, in his library visits, that the s.h.i.+p's mind was itself translating and correlating information.

Rosa Sequoia stayed in the background, watching everything intently, weighing and measuring the new situation.

The remnants of Martin's funk had pa.s.sed like fog. For hours at a time he did not think of Theresa or William.

Hakim, Harpal, and Luis Estevez Saguaro joined forces with a Brother named Silken Parts, a large (five meters long) and dapper-looking braid whose cords were, indeed, somewhat silkier in texture than those of other Brothers. Together, they organized a combined search team in the nose.

Giacomo and Jennifer acted as search team advisors, but were now absorbed in their library work and theoretical activities.