"What about the rest of the crew?"

"They're with me. They want to do the Job. I make the decisions. What have you got for me?"

Martin stared at the floor for a moment, trying to see beyond what he was being told. "I'm noaching a big batch of information given to us by the representatives from Sleep. All of you should look it over very carefully, as much as you can absorb." He quickly explained the circumstances: the hundreds of races, trillions of individuals, the representatives, the staircase god, and what they had told him…

Hans listened intently, eyes growing more focused, more alive.

"Is it real?" Hans asked when Martin was done.

"I don't think it's illusion. They're real. The information is more than I can assimilate. Salamander—"

"That's the other vulture, isn't it?" Hans asked.

"Yes. Salamander seemed distressed. We couldn't know each other's expressions, understand emotions… but it clearly thinks I'm the bringer of something terrible."

Hans folded his arms, straightened his back as if in satisfaction. "Good. But they don't know where I am."

"I don't think so."

"You didn't tell them."

"No, but I was dealing with minds way beyond me. I felt like an ant. What they can deduce or learn, how fast they can draw their conclusions or put evidence together, I don't know. We have to vote and make a decision fast. If we stay here much longer, they'll get tired of our uselessness and find some way to kill us."

"Peaceful types, am I right?"

"Even if we believe all they say, they have every reason to destroy us. We're a massive threat."

"Yeah," Hans said. "I'd like your opinion, Martin, but the group is past voting now. I make the decision. We do the Job, we get the hell out. We go live the rest of our lives. "

Martin didn't know what to say.

"We can still do it," Hans said softly. "Are you with me?"

"You have to look at the information."

"It's all shit," Hans said briskly.

"You have to look at it," Martin repeated firmly.

"I will," Hans said. "Dot the i's and cross the t's, am I right?"

Martin had come to hate that sequence of three words; had come to hate Hans at the same time Hans could bring tears to his eyes.

Put a stop to it now. Refuse to let it go any further. But then they'll have you; the ruse will have worked. The ultimate defense fogs the mind.

"Giacomo's itching to talk with Jennifer. My say is over for the time being," Hans said. "I'll look at the info. Get back to you in a couple of hours. Watch your tail, Martin. Move out soon. They can get you."

"I don't think they will until they're sure we're not going to bargain," Martin said.

"Maybe not. Maybe they're just too damned smart for their own good. Like you, Martin."

Martin lowered his eyes, then raised them again, met Hans' gaze, his face reddening with constrained fury. He would gladly have killed Hans then.

Hans looked away, as if Martin did not matter, nothing mattered, his expression casual and deadly. "Well, if Giacomo and the moms have it worked out, we can do some impressive damage." Hans stepped out of the image. Giacomo replaced him.

"Where's Jennifer?" Giacomo said.

Martin called her in, staying in the noach chamber to listen.

Through the technical detail and exchanges of momerath, he saw the broad outlines of what had been learned, and the theories woven from the scant clues.

Blinker was a massive noach station, capable of altering the physical character of unprotected mass to a distance of at least fifty billion kilometers in all directions—five times what noach theory had allowed until now. Its own changing character was likely a continuing pattern of tests.

The inhabitants of Leviathan's worlds, and the regions between those worlds, almost completely controlled the hidden or "privileged" channels between particles. They could alter three fourths of the character bits in any particle within fifty billion kilometers, quickly and efficiently, using Blinker or other noach stations, some perhaps hidden inside Sleep. Alterations could be as minor as the spin of a single particle; as major as converting to anti-matter all the mass within the volume of a large moon.

The ships' minds were working now to ensure that noach interference with ship character could be shielded against. Shields were being constructed for both Shrikeand Greyhound.

Giacomo said to Martin, "The ships' minds are on a continuous link with Trojan Horsenow. They're telling Trojan Horsehow to shield. It won't take more than a few hours."

"We we agree this must be done," Eye on Sky said.

"We're going to have a whole new arsenal to work with in just a day or so," Giacomo said. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay on the sidelines. Trojan Horseis too small to support weapons of the kind being made on Greyhound."

"Is Shrikemaking weapons?"

"Yes," Giacomo said. "Jennifer, I've missed you. We could have done this a lot faster with you and Silken Parts here."

"I doubt it, if the ships' minds are working on it," Jennifer said.

"I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn," Giacomo said. "We're really in it now, Martin. We're pariahs. The Brothers won't have anything to do with us. They're outfitting Shrikeas their own ship."

"Hans told me," Martin said.

"What else did he tell you?"

"That you're supporting him, and he makes all decisions. No voting."

Giacomo looked acutely unhappy. "We came out here to do the Job. Hans holds us together—the ones who are left with any convictions at all."

"Did Rex kill Rosa?"

"He left a message on his wand saying he did."

"Did Hans put him up to it?" Martin asked.

"Rex didn't say. The Brothers think—Stonemaker thinks he did, and it's really… it's pushed them away from us, Martin. The Brothers here won't speak to humans now unless they have to."

Martin looked at Eye on Sky and Silken Parts. The Brothers seemed oblivious, locked in a luxury of three-part exchange, but Martin knew they were listening. Doubtless Stonemaker was listening as well.

There was no reason to hide anything.

"What about the dissidents?"

"They have their own part of Greyhound. They refuse to follow Hans, and they refuse to fight. They tried to persuade the rest of us. It was real close, but… Martin, we came here to do this Job. We're here. The evidence is strong. Now's the time."

"So it seems," Martin said.

"I don't know what kind of person Hans is."

I do, Martin thought.

"But without him we'd be in even worse shape. You want to know what I think?"

Martin smiled at Giacomo's fecklessness. "You've told me everything so far."

"I think Hans made Rex…" Giacomo shook his head. "Talk to Hans about it. It really isn't my place. I need to talk with Jennifer again."

"All the time you need. But when you start getting sentimental, it's time to open the noach to others."

"Got you," Giacomo said. "Martin, don't get me wrong. What we've learned in the past few tendays, and what the moms have done to upgrade our weapons—it's absolutely fantastic. Just the right combination—Jennifer's theories about noach, learning how radically Leviathan has changed… Putting the Brothers' non-integer math to work… And then, seeing Leviathan's planets… It's a revolution."