"The strain is intense. We're drilling day in, day out. The drills are going well, and everybody's doing their job—no more absentees, not even Rosa. But I don't like the way the children reacted to Rosa's… sighting. Vision. They were fascinated by it."

The War Mother said nothing.

"There hasn't been much talk since, but it worries me."

The War Mother said nothing more. He looked at the black and white paint on its facelessness. He wanted to reach out, just once, and strike it, but he did not.

The tenth drill on ship division went as smoothly as the first. In the nose, Martin projected the schematic of the Dawn Treader'spractice preparations. Paola and Hans and Joe crowded closer to see from his wand, somehow more special than viewing the same through their own.

The picture of the changing Dawn Treaderloomed large in the corridor, a vivid ghost in three dimensions. The ship had contracted, necks reduced in length, tail and nose become blunt nubbins, grooves indenting the circumference of the second homeball like the cell divisions of a blastula. The third homeball also revealed grooves, an inscribed portion of the second neck connected to an orange-slice of the second homeball.

The drives would break down into two units, of sizes proportional to Tortoiseand Hare, Harebeing approximately twice the size of Tortoise. Tortoiseclaimed most of the second homeball and the shortened neck between.

Within the image, new bulkheads glowed red against the general green, spreading like wax in hot water over designated spaces, until the units were completely marked out, ready for separation.

"Show me status," Martin said. Partitions melted away, necks lengthened, homeballs became ungrooved and round. Whiskers of magnetic field vanes streamed out from the third homeball; inner traces of the scoop field glowed red around the nose.

"Looks good," Hans said. "When do you want to do final strategy?"

"The search team has more to show us. We'll listen to them, then you and I and the ex-Pans will pow-wow."

"Palaver," Paola said, smiling.

"Jaw. Chew the fat," Hans added, also smiling.

Martin was pleased that some excitement had returned.

Rosa Sequoia had performed her latest duties flawlessly, and there was little more talk about what she had seen. The incident seemed to have become an embarrassment to her, and she did not respond to inquiries from the children.

Hakim Hadj's face was less beatifically calm, his manner less polite, though hardly abrupt. He looked tired. He seemed at most mildly irritated, perhaps by a tiny itch he could not get at. The transparent nose of the Dawn Treadershowed stars now instead of abyssal darkness; the chamber was crowded with projection piled upon simulation upon chart and those piled upon neon finger-scribbles hanging wherever space allowed. Hakim and two assistants, Min Giao and Thorkild Lax, seemed to know their way through the confusion. Martin stood back and let Hakim approach him.

"We are close to knowing enough for a judgment," Hakim said, black eyes rolling. "We shall have to withdraw our remotes soon, before we enter the cloud, but I think we will have enough evidence by then. Our information about the system is immense, Martin. I have abstracted important details for you. You can look at the orbital structures between planets two and three. They are very interesting, but do not seem active—not inhabited, perhaps. We still have no clue what the five inner masses are."

"Close-in power stations?" Martin suggested.

Hakim smiled politely. "They may be reserves of converted anti em, but if so, they are very heavily shielded. They are practically invisible, much less reflective than fine carbon dust and non-radiating, and that makes little sense if they are stores of anything."

"What's your best theory?" Martin asked.

"I posit nothing," Hakim said quietly. "The unknown troubles me, especially something so prominent."

"Agreed."

Hakim continued, moving simulations of the inner planetary surfaces closer to Martin, out of the stacks of projections. He mildly chided Thorkild and Min Giao for their contributions to the clutter. They seemed to ignore him and went about their work, adding even more projections, lists, charts, simulations; blinking, flashing, moving, blessedly silent displays.

"These worlds are not very active, even for a quiet and advanced civilization. Seismic or other noise through the crust is minimal. The planet seems old. No large-scale activities below ground, natural or unnatural. Such movement would produce vibrations from crustal settling. There is no planet-altering work being done, Martin; perhaps they finished all that thousands of years ago."

"Go on," Martin said.

"Radiation flux from the planets does not exceed expected natural levels. Both rocky inner worlds are either dead, or quiescent, pointing perhaps to a solid-state civilization, that is, all activity confined to information transfer through quiet links, or using noach, as we do."

"No physical bodies? Nothing organic?" Martin asked.

"None visible. If there are organics below the surface, they produce no traces on the surface itself, and that is odd. At this distance we might miss extremely light organic activity, but judging from the telescope images… Here." He pulled up a projection. Smiled at Martin as the image wavered. "My wand works overtime. Thorkild, clear some capacity, please, or shunt it to the moms' systems!"

Thorkild looked up, lost in momerath and graphics. A few of the stacks dimmed or winked out.

The second planet rotated once every three hundred and two hours, surface temperature of one hundred and seventy degrees Celsius, albedo of point seven, light gray and tan, no oceans of course, thin atmosphere mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen, no oxygen, no geological activity, mountain chains old and worn with no young replacements, no visible structures over a hundred meters in size. Or no structures with a height of more than ten meters…

"All right," Martin said, deliberately quelling his enthusiasm. "Both inner planets are quiet."

"In keeping with the biblical turn of phrase," Hakim said, "I suggest we call the inner planet Nebuchadnezzar, the second Ramses, and the third, Herod."

Martin made a face. "Might be a bit prejudicial, don't you think?"

"Mere suggestion," Hakim said. His face brightened. "Ah, yes, I see what you are getting at. Herod destroying the first born… Ramses overseeing the captivity of the Jews. Nebuchadnezzar having destroyed the first temple in Jerusalem… I see."

"The names are fine," Martin said.

"Good." Hakim seemed pleased. "Ramses… the next rocky planet, second planet out, is like this…" He drew forth another chart, put it through its paces. "Similar to the first, but cooler—minus four degrees Celsius average temperature, albedo of point seven, atmosphere again contains no oxygen or water vapor. No seismic activity, old mountains—old worlds."

"They might be deserted."

"We do not think so. The strongest evidence of continuing artifice lies in their temperatures versus their distances from Wormwood, and their atmospheric compositions. They are actively controlled environments, but for what sort of organisms or mechanisms—if any—I cannot say."

"Very small machines," Martin mused.

Hakim nodded. "That is difficult to confirm, of course. If they exist, their work is isolated from the surface."