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back to Wormwood to gather up the robots and their gleanings."
The children groaned. They had done much of the momerath themselves, but
hearing it from
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Martin losing all hope of fast action and sacrifice of fuel to boost up and
out, knowing what they had already suspected, that he would choose the most
conservative and practical course, however time-consuming brought the truth
home hard.
Over three years
. Awake and vigilant. And then, unlikely to have enough fuel to accelerate to
near-c, perhaps centuries to move on to Leviathan&
At the very least, under those circumstances, they would have to sleep. There
were dangers in such a long sleep; even a Ship of the Law could grow old.
Saying the plan aloud, when he had hardly thought it through clearly himself,
made it seem both more real and strangely beyond real. Young human beings
saying such words, planning such things.
As if to highlight the absurdity, Mei-li giggled. Her giggle died quickly and
was not picked up around the room.
"We will be in position to release the bombships in six days," Hakim said.
Nebuchadnezzar was easily visible to the naked eye, a bright diamond among the
lesser points of stars. Day by day, it became even brighter, and Martin
ordered a star sphere expanded in the cafeteria. As they ate their meals, or
gathered in quiet social groupings, they watched their target grow.
The remotes spread their photon-intercepting fields like webs and gathered in
clear images of the brown world, as if opening an eye ten kilometers wide.
There were no bugs in the atmosphere no life crawling on the surface, no
organic chemical activity within the upper layers of soil.
Nebuchadnezzar's subtle motions resembled a feeble, irregular heartbeat, but
the profiles of the internal vibrations did not match tectonics. Unlike
Ramses', Nebuchadnezzar's heart was cool;
any internal heat had fled long before.
Martin finished examining Hakim's figures while the other children slept, two
days from H-
hour.
The five inner masses remained enigmatic. From this angle to the ecliptic,
they could not measure the objects in transit across Wormwood, but a chance
star occultation allowed Hakim to confirm that one of the dark objects was
three thousand kilometers in diameter, with a mass of approximately fourteen
billion trillion kilograms, and only as dense as water. The dark objects might
be clusters of neutronium with large spaces between, surrounded by a shell& or
they might be balloons filled with water, a tantalizing idea, but unlikely.
"I have no idea what they are," Hakim said, shaking his head, expression grim
and exhausted.
"They worry me greatly, Martin."
Martin replayed the inner mass star occultation and associated graphics and
measurement reports, trying to glean with supernatural intuition what could
not be seen. "The War Mother has no suggestions?"
"The objects are outside the moms' experience, I think," Hakim said. He looked
as if he were thinking, but would not say, Or they will not tell us
.
But that would be absurd.
"We should pull in the remotes now," Martin said, shivering slightly.
"Still no signs of defense, no awareness of our presence no preparation to
fight," Hakim said.
"Nothing we can detect," Martin added.
"I would appreciate more time with the remotes more time to find something& "
Martin thought that over for a few seconds, then nodded. "Another twelve
hours. But let somebody else keep watch. You sleep."
"No," Hakim said. "This is my only duty. I watch, I calculate, I keep you
informed& For now, I do not need to sleep." His eyes stared up at Martin out
of sunken orbits. His hair tufted on his scalp, his face gleamed with oil, he
smelled faintly sour.
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"Sleep for five hours, and get cleaned up," Martin said, touching his cheek
with one hand.
"You'll make mistakes if you push yourself too much. We don't need mistakes. "
"I will get along with two hours of sleep," Hakim said. Then, smiling his
angelic smile, "And I
will take a shower, not to offend."
"All right. Put Jennifer in charge. She'll keep an eye out."
"It is because I am so worried," Hakim said. "What we do not know& "
When the remotes had been withdrawn, Martin conferred with Stephanie Wing
Feather and
Harpal Timechaser. Theresa and Jorge Rabbit hovered on the periphery in the
otherwise empty quarters, representing the children aboard
Tortoise in this final meeting of Pan and
Tortoise's share of ex-Pans.
"Stephanie& " Martin said. "Your thoughts. Twelve hours and we release the
bombships.
What have I neglected to do?"
"Nothing," Stephanie said.
"Harpal?"
"Nothing. We've done everything we've been taught to do, everything we know
how to do&
But& "
"It's too good," Stephanie said. "No defenses, no reaction, quiet and almost
dead. Nothing like what we've been led to expect, what we've trained to fight.
And& "
"No volatiles," Harpal said. "It's going to be damned difficult to refuel."
"Right. If there's anything here at all, it's a tired old civilization
dreaming in its own high-tech grave," Stephanie said. "Not much satisfaction [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]