Hakim came to Martin in the weapons stores as he finished his inspection, waited patiently, approached the Pan with face alight with enthusiasm. "There's news," he said. "More information, and very interesting, too."

Martin looked at the arrays of craft in the stores, at the bombships on their pylons and the pods of doers attached to toruses. Stephanie Wing Feather and Paola Birdsong floated between the ships like birds between two gray footballs, listening. All the children in the stores listened.

"We should all hear the news together," Martin decided. "We'll Update at mess."

Hakim projected his information after their hasty meal. He showed them Nebuchadnezzar first, as seen from Hareas it streaked through the system: a tan world with spots of reddish-brown and thin ribbons of green.

"As we observed from farther out, this is the more active of the two planets, judging from its crustal vibrations," Hakim said. "Nebuchadnezzar is very quiet, but it is definitely inhabited—if only by machines. Hare'ssensors tell us, on its pass through, that there are very likely some sorts of machines within the planet. We think the machines occupy the upper crust, nothing below, and they are very efficient. They use fields to transfer substances—possibly gases, water and other cool liquids, molten rock, molten metals, solids, slurries. We cannot judge how many individual biological creatures might be served by these machines, but there are none apparent oh the surface. The surface is deceptively calm. Too quiet, as a soldier or cowboy hero might have observed. Perhaps they feel a need to hide…"

Martin shook his head. "They're not very good at hiding. If we can detect something, others can, as well."

Hakim acknowledged that, and continued. "The planet, as we noticed earlier, lacks obvious weather patterns. Its air currents are fixed and stable, a highly unnatural situation. What were once ocean basins have been empty for thousands of years, and there are no reservoirs. For the most part, except for some ancient construction activity, the entire surface seems to be abandoned desert. We conclude that the water in the old oceans was either lost through abrupt weather changes—unlikely—or sacrificed to provide volatiles across thousands of years."

"For conversion to anti em?" Martin asked.

"Perhaps," Hakim conceded. "Here is our surprise for the day. Ships much too small to have been noticed before, much too few to really be called commerce—perhaps ten ships traveling in low-energy orbits between Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses, and only one traveling outward to Herod. They all appear to be trailing radioactive particles, indicating primitive anti em drives or perhaps fusion. The ships may be trivial, toys, like…"

"Yachts in a bathtub," Stephanie Wing Feather suggested.

"Yes. If they are mere toys, then there is no longer spacefaring commerce in the Wormwood system… none that we can detect."

"If there are any inhabitants, are they physical?" Martin asked.

"My guess is they are not. Not in discrete biological bodies, at any rate. All the moms' profiles of other worlds and their development characteristics tell us that Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses are old, perhaps a billion years older than Earth, and that their civilizations, if any remain—if there are any intelligences in control of the planetary activity—have transferred to a non-biological matrix."

"Perhaps they've fled Wormwood entirely," Paola Birdsong suggested.

"Something's going on down there," Hakim said, the merest frown crossing his brow. "If the primary civilization has abandoned Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses, they've left machines to perform some task or other."

"It doesn't make sense. If nobody's here, and if we destroy these worlds, what do we accomplish?" Ariel asked.

"I believe there are intelligences here," Hakim said. "There is activity—it is just very low-key. Perhaps they have been hiding for a long time, and they are simply growing lax…"

Martin pondered this for a few seconds. "We go ahead," he said. "We drop the planetary makers and doers, and if possible, we reconnoiter. Still no evidence of defenses? "

"None," Hakim said.

"And the five masses inward from Nebuchadnezzar?"

"Still unknown," Hakim said. "I'm giving them full priority now."

The system of planets around Wormwood spanned fifteen billion kilometers, the major axis of the outermost planet's orbit. The Tortoisewould not resort to extreme acceleration except in an emergency, and that made the system as vast, with regard to their present flow of time, as the spaces between the stars. It could take them years to explore, reconnoiter… Or they could do their Job and get out as best they could, to rendezvous with Hare, and perhaps begin the new life.

Martin made his quarters small and spare, just large enough to suit two comfortably. He did not request many goods, hoping to set an example for the others.

There were still tough choices to be made, but they would not be made by vote of the children. The decisions were his alone now. The judgment had been passed; the system was condemned. But how much could they contribute to the total effort against the planet killers? How much could they learn here about the development and growth of such civilizations, about intelligences so inclined to destroy and murder?

If Wormwood contained clues to the morphology of such civilizations, Martin argued with himself that they had a duty to learn as much as they could, to help the Benefactors. That meant time, and study—and greatly increased danger.

"I'd like to speak with the War Mother," he said to his wand. A few minutes later, the War Mother appeared at the hatch to his quarters, and he asked it to enter. The black and white paint on its surface had started to flake. They might have to renew it soon.

He expressed his thoughts about exploring in a few brief sentences, and asked for advice.

"Any knowledge gathered could be most useful," the War Mother said. "Should we ever be in a situation to pass on what we learn to another Ship of the Law."

"Would it be crucial!" Martin asked.

"That is impossible to judge until the knowledge is gathered."

Martin smiled wryly, wondering why he engaged in such conversations at all. As Pan, it was all up to him—to his instincts, which Martin did not trust.

He bit his lip reflectively, sucking in a lungful of cool air. If things went bad on Mars and Venus, if the solar system was (or had been) attacked again and the Benefactors had lost, then the children and records of Earth contained within the Ships of the Law would be all that remained…

Far more than just their individual selves could be at stake. He wondered if, at some crucial moment, all Earth might scream through him, the world in his genes reaching up to his mind, the spirit of terrestrial creation demanding survival at any cost.

Martin sleeved sweat from his forehead. I fear the ghost of Earth.

"Then we concentrate on doing the Job," he said, "and we learn what we can."

For once, he was grateful for the War Mother's silence.

The Tortoisecoasted more quietly than any stone. Within, the children prepared, watched, listened to the natural whickerings of Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses and Herod and the high buzz and squeal of Wormwood, tracked the slow courses of the tiny points of light that were ships.

Drifting, drifting, around the shallow well of Wormwood, across its vast gently curved prairie of gravitation.