"All right, Uncle," she said, and her voice was very nearly merry. "I'll just make those file transfers then, shall I?"

  With that she was gone and the Gardener and Anjemalti bent together over the Arachnid, exploring of this and the other.

  Witness leaned back in his corner and considered the Speaking he had not allowed across his tongue and wondered in his secret heart what it was Shlorba's Smiter planned to bring against event.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  "Leave the Ship?" Mael Faztherot stared at him, eyes wider even than Crew eyes usually are.

  Gem regarded her with amusement. "It can be done."

  "Of course it can," she said sternly. "The question is: Why should we leave? We are the Crew."

  He bit back a sharp retort, mindful of the Witness, sitting quiet in his corner.

  "Indeed you are the Crew. And unless you relish being Crew of a Ship largely derelict, it may be time for you to become something else."

  "We were commanded never to abandon the Ship," she stated flatly and folded her arms across her chest.

  Gem considered her. "Now that," he said, matching her tone, "is a falsehood, as I am persuaded you know. The primary directives governing this ship at its launching included a very specific list of planetary conditions to be met before the Ship released passengers and Crew. The name of this Ship, so I learn from the First Log, is: GenerationShip Five, Class One, Gardenspot. Built by Dr. Albee K. Messenger and commissioned by the LawCouncil of GriffithPod. Built as a colony ship, to bear the L5's surplus citizens to a likely planet and set them down, to live—"

  "To live as ground-grubbers?" Mael Faztherot burst out. "To live as animals? That I do not—will not!—believe! We are the Crew! The stars belong to us. We are free, why should we be tied to a sphere of dirt, subject to weather, disease, catastrophe and worse! Have you read the Logs? Have you seen the endless lists of planets desolated by war, by sunflare, by plague, pestilence, weather gone awry? Here we are safe from those things. Here we go on as we always have, secure, unfettered—"

  "Why are the babies dying?" Gem snapped.

  She stared at him, mouth half-open.

  "Why?" he cried, unexpectedly savage. "Corbinye's baby was born 'twisted,' dying as it took its first breath. Siprian's daughter died of the same cause. The Log is an unending litany of infants born dead or dying, spontaneous abortions of children too deformed to be brought to term, name after name of those who are no longer fertile." He glared at her, where she stood frozen before him.

  "Ten years," he said, every word distinct—a piece of the whole truth that she would grasp the instant she had heard all. "Ten years and how many children? Veln, Jelbi—and Timin, who is lame, and not much use in the ducts." He stared at her and came slowly to his feet, using the Trident as a lever.

  "Where is your safety, Mael Faztherot?"

  She swallowed hard; and it was to her credit that she did not give deck, but stayed where she was, well within a Trident-thrust.

  "There are fewer children than before," she said, voice barely shaking. "There are misformed births. Infertility. A groundfall, denial of our heritage, will not mend these things. The Ship is old. If we must die, then let us die Crew."

  He shook his head. "The Ship is killing you. The shields are rotten. Infrastructure precarious, at best. Entire primary systems are missing. Backups for the systems that remain might as well not exist. The Ship you cling to shreds even as you grasp it. Release your hold and reach for something else." He closed his eyes, opened them with a wrenching effort.

  "Veln, Jelbi and Timin will be the last. Unless massive repairs are undertaken, the Ship may hold together another twenty years. May. Can you choose suicide for them, as well as for yourself?"

  She licked her lips, but her eyes were steady on his. "We are the Crew," she said, with no hint of hysteria. "Bred for the stars, from stock which had been Grounder, five generations in their past. After these hundreds of years, how can we be Grounder?" She sat, looking as weary as he felt, and stared up at him.

  "You ask if I can condemn them to die with a dying Ship. I ask if you can condemn them to die in an alien place, with dirt in their mouths and the laughter of enemies in their ears."

  Too true, thought Gem suddenly, and the weariness seemed like to overwhelm him and leave him in a swoon at her feet. Too true, indeed. I would certainly have died, if not for Edreth, who was so desperate for an heir he took a mad barbarian to himself and tried with superhuman patience to make the barbarian sane.

  He looked at Mael Faztherot, sitting slumped under the weight of her knowledge, leaned his cheek against the Trident's tine, felt the metal score his cheek and said, "Where are the others?"

  She frowned. "Others?"

  "The other GenerationShips out of GriffithPod. Gardenspot was fifth in a class of thirty-six. Where are the other Ships?"

  "Surely it's in there?" She waved a hand at the computer bank, meaning the Logs encrypted and carried within. Then she slumped further in her chair and ran shaking fingers through her short hair. "No," she corrected herself. "All the Logs say is that we had lost contact with this one, with that. But we only knew eight others. How to be certain thirty-six were even built? Shall we return to GriffithPod to ask?"

  But Gem had read of the fruitless search for GriffithPod a double century ago. He grinned at her, acknowledging the joke. "No need to bother them."

  She gave a bark of laughter. "Not at this remove," she agreed, then sobered and shook her head. "Though it would be pleasant, if they could but build us another ship."

  The words were like an electric jolt, coursing through his veins, igniting his mind. His fingers tightened until they were white-knuckled, gripping the Trident as if it alone could hold him against the force of the plan, the beautiful plan, unfolding with preternatural precision before his mind's eye.

  "Captain?" Mael Faztherot was on her feet, hand outstretched, a certain wariness on her face—he was aware of her, but the plan required all his attention, whispered as it seemed to be directly into his ear, whole, perfect, intensely beautiful. He listened and watched and a far part of him wondered, unheeded, just where the lines ran, between deception and salvation.

  "Captain!" She came a step forward, purposefully—

  "Touch him not!" commanded Witness from his corner. "Anjemalti the Seeker communes with the Smiter."

  "Communes—?" asked Mael Faztherot, as well she might, and turned toward the Witness; Gem saw the hot words forming on her tongue. "Communes with—that? How—"

  "A ship," Gem said and both Witness and First Mate turned to stare at him. "Another ship." He looked deep in the woman's eyes, his own hypnotic and blue. "Another ship can be had, Mael Faztherot. Is this the Crew to take it?"

  "Take?" She fairly goggled. "We are not pirates."

  "But The Combine is," he said, leaning toward her against the anchoring Trident. "I know where there is a ship—several ships! It needs only valor to win them. Keep the stars! Become a fleet! The Crew need not die. Fate can reverse itself. Expand the gene-pool, become fruitful . . ." He straightened.

  "The Combine?" she said doubtfully.

  "Why not?" He returned. "What right has The Combine to restrict the Ship's trade, ban it from certain systems—which it has done! The Combine owns good ships, fast ships. None so large as this, perhaps—but ships."

  He had her. Her eyes gleamed and the corners of her mouth turned up in a rapacious smile. "Indeed they do. Indeed. Let me put it to the Crew. But I think they will be—interested."

  "Good," said Gem and nodded her dismissal, which is how it happened that he failed to see the Witness smile.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  It was damp under the trees; dimly green, smelling of humus, live leaf and mint. Gem paused on the stone-lined pathway, closed his eyes and tipped his face up, as if there were sun above him, instead of tree-tips and, beyond, the pearlescent shine of the dome.

  "That's right," Finchet said comfortably. "Forest is the best spot in all the Garden, ask me. Hundred Acre Wood, the Book names it. Taken from another, older book."

  "Ah," Gem smiled; looked at the old gardener. "And is it a hundred acres?"

  "Maybe half that in wood," Finchet answered. "There's the farm and the bogland and the paddy-field to make the rest up—hundred-twenty acres, so the Book says." He cocked an eyebrow. "Acre's a unit of measure—forty-three thousand, five hundred sixty square feet. Got a unit stick up the house, if you care to spec it."

  Gem grinned. "I believe I'll reserve crawling over a hundred and twenty acres with a ruler for an afternoon when I'm a bit less pressed for time."

  "Well enough," returned the Gardener and moved back onto the pathway, keeping his eye carefully away from the third member of their party, moving almost silent on its hideous long legs.

  The path curved, rose slightly to go over a stream, ran along a field of fern, through an avenue of wide-girthed, ancient trees and finally into a clearing.

  The clearing rose in a smooth sweep of silky grass, up to a cottage built of stone, its overhanging roof of green-painted wood, pierced at one end by a stone chimney. The door set into the stone front wall was arched and painted red, except for the pane of yellow glass set high inside it.

  Gem stopped. Finchet stopped. The Arachnid stopped. After a moment, Gem sighed.

  "Charmingly done, Gardener."

  "Cozy, I admit it, and just what I'm used to, having lived here all my life. But don't be thinking it's my plan now, Captain. Gardener's cottage was set at GriffithPod, same as with the sheds 'round back and the utility buildings at the farm."

  "I see," said Gem, and then said no more, merely looking at the cottage and the little glade and the tall trees all around, protective and comforting.

  Finchet shifted a little, he who had the habit of stillness, and put out a hand to touch the Captain's sleeve. "Happen you'll wish to see the bank," he said diffidently.

  Gem sighed, recalled to a sense of his duties and the critical shortness of time. "Doubtless you're right," he said, and set his feet on the cobbled path to the door.

  He stepped aside and let Finchet open the door and lead the way within.

  The cottage was one spacious room, furnished with handmade wooden furniture, the few chairs made more inviting with pillows and roughly sewn cushions. Strings of wild garlic, onions, rosemary and parsley hung from the rafters; wood was neatly stacked by the hearth and a bright woven rug covered the worn stones there.

  Under a large window was a table bearing a small comp and keyboard, several lamps, and a large, leather-bound volume.

  Finchet walked over and laid his hand on this. "The Book," he said reverently, then moved on, waving Gem past the tidy bedstead to the far back of the room.

  Set in the backmost wall was a control board and piloting screens, various telltales glowing amber among the mica-washed stones.

  Gem sat carefully in one of the two standard-issue pilot's chairs, staring, great-eyed, at the board.

  Finchet sat in the other chair and folded his hands on his lap.

  Eventually, Gem bestirred himself and put aside the wonder of it, pushed the sleeve back and tapped certain commands into his wristcomp.

  A spider, pretty and dainty as any found in the wood, minced down his arm and across his bridging hand, vanishing into the control board.

  Finchet sighed. "Now, those," he said. "They're right handsome."

  Gem sent him an amused glance. "But you don't find the others so pretty?"

  "Not by half," Finchet said stoutly, though he couldn't help but look over his shoulder, to where the Arachnid loomed just behind the chairs, eyes like lanterns, claws like hedge-shears.

  "They have their uses," Gem said. "And soon to have more, which is why we're building so many." He shook his head. "The mercy is that they're so very easy to build, compared to the smaller ones."

  "Aye? But you'll be needing more of the little tykes, as well, to set this plan of yours moving."

  Gem nodded. "A problem, given the scarcity of resources the Ship possesses. The only hope was to upgrade the junior-most—install enhanced chips, upload more complex programs." He touched several studs on his bracelet; looked up.

  "The weak point in the plan is the small number of spiders we are able to field. I don't like to attach more than two Arachnids to an upgraded spider and even Number Fifteen can hardly be asked to control more than three, and fulfill his own tasks as well. . .."

  He fiddled again with the studs at his wrist. "The control unit I'm building for Mael Faztherot will necessarily take up some of the details the spiders cannot attend to." He shook his head once more and looked up, sadness etching his face. "They were never meant for war, poor things."

  Finchet was saved the necessity of responding to this by a muted chime. Gem bent to his wristcomp; nodded.

  "As I thought, Gardener—entirely usable. If you will help me with the access panel, we will let the Arachnid within to do such cleaning and preventive work as may be necessary and I'll be on my way." He sent a bright glance at Finchet's face. "Unless you would prefer not to be left alone with the Arachnid?"

  Finchet laughed. "Gods love you—I'd only rather not see it—I've no fear of it!" He sobered. "Beside that, the little tyke will be here, won't he, to supervise?"

  Gem smiled and stood, heading for the access hatch set low in the corner of the wall. "Indeed he will, Gardener. No fear for that." He turned suddenly.

  "You have the training, do you, Finchet? Who is your second?"

  The old man bent to the hatch, twisting the holding nuts with strong fingers. "I've had the drills," he said calmly. "Practice them once a seven-shift since the day I came nine. As for co-pilot—I'll have young Veln, if you're willing. He's as close as I have to a 'prentice in these days when we're thin of children."

  Together, they lifted the hatch aside and stood back to let the Arachnid enter the service tunnel. Gem nodded and turned to go.

  "Veln it is," he said. "I'll send him to you now and have you keep him here, if there's room. Drill him—and start him on learning the Book."

  "He's had some of that," said Finchet, walking with him to the door. "I'll move him more serious, if that's your wish. And there's plenty of room. Blanket roll in the closet there—Veln thinks it an adventure to sleep out on the grass."

  Gem stepped into the glade and glanced around him, drawing in a deep breath of wood-tanged air. "Lucky Veln," he said softly and nodded to the old man. "Take good care."

  "Yourself as well, lad," Finchet said, and stood at the door, watching, until the path turned and his Captain was lost from view.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  It was a slow shift on the InRing.

  Milt Jinkins sighed and stretched, leaning far back in the contoured chair. Before him the scan ran, tirelessly, endlessly, filling dials and screens with infinite bits of information, building a second-by-second picture of Spangiln System that invariably showed empty, empty, empty.

  Not strictly true, Milt told himself, settling more comfortably in his chair. There were five more Combine blockade ships within sublight scan; a dozen more inside bounce-scan range; twice that within so-called "shouting distance." Though it did, Milt thought, get a tad tedious talking to the Outriders. Lagtime tended to make a hash out of any extended conversation, unless you were an old-timer and fluent in doubletalk.

  Milt had only been riding blockade for a Standard Year. His partner, Ria, had been an Outrider for six times that long and before that, when she was Milt's age—but faster, so she said—a hyperspace pilot for The Combine. Ria spouted doubletalk effortlessly and had the trick of keeping two independent conversations going at the same time so ingrained that she spoke that way realtime, to Milt's initial confusion and frustration.

  It was growing on him, though. Milt thought that in another six months he'd be good enough at doubletalk to try it out on the Outrider circuit. Maybe even—

  "What the shit is that?" He demanded, eyes bugging at the forward screen in the instant before he slapped the warning toggle, opened up the spill-line and sent the image and the zany readings to the next ship in line. He had just zipped and fired the same information to the Big Ship, far beyond the Outriders' ring, when Ria hit the assistant's chair, fingers dancing over the comm keys, twitching, tuning—searching. And all the while, her eyes were on the image in the forward screen.

  "GenShip," she said, not looking at Milt. "Comm lines'll be old system. Saw another once. Radio, maybe. It was dead. This one, too—no."

  No, Milt echoed silently. Static sputtered over their line, blaring as Ria missed the match, then astonishingly clear as she found it and locked.

  "Attention, all hands," the woman's voice was cold, efficient. "This is not a drill. All Crew will prepare to abandon ship. Technical staff, initiate system shutdown. Pilots, engage lifeships. This is not a drill. Crew assigned to Level Seven will report to Bays One, Three, Five. This is not a drill. Level Six evacuation commences in fifteen minutes. Level Seven pilots signal readiness. All Crew, all Crew. This is not a—"