"No shit," Ariel said.

"Hear me out, please. You asked."

She nodded. "All right."

"If the whole galaxy is full of wolves, no bird peeps, not even eagles. The moms need to protect their makers. If we knew all about the Benefactors, in a few hundred years, a few thousand years, we might become wolves, too. Then we'd know where they were, and we'd come and get them."

"That is so… cynical," Ariel said. "If they are so worried about us, why did they save us at all?"

This was a question with many answers, none of them completely convincing. They had all debated the point, and Martin had never been satisfied with any of the answers, but he tried to put his best theories into words.

"They believe in a balance," he said. "Whoever they are, they made the Ships of the Law to keep single civilizations from scouring the galaxy and having it all to themselves. Maybe it started out as self-defense—"

"Maybe that's all it is now," Ariel said.

"But they must believe that we'll contribute something eventually, when we're grown up."

Ariel blew out her breath.

"The moms tell us all that they can. They tell us what we need to know. We could never avenge the Earth without them. You know that. There's no reason to hate the moms."

"I don't hate them," Ariel said.

"We have work to do, a lot of decisions and thinking. I'd like us all to be together."

"I won't disappoint anybody," Ariel said.

"Please don't talk about killing yourself. It's stupid."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "It's the only thing that's really mine, out here. Leave me that much."

"I'm not taking anything from you," Martin said softly. His anger had flown, replaced by a cavernous awareness of what they were heading toward, what they were planning to do. "I ask nothing of you that you didn't volunteer to do."

"How could we know what we'd lose?"

Martin shook his head. "We've never had a chance to be people, much less to be children. We're a long way from a home that doesn't exist any more. We won't grow much older until after we do the Job. If we go back to the solar system, thousands of years will have passed for them. We'll be strangers. That's not just true of you, it's true of all of us. We need to stick together."

She seemed startled.

What kind of blind, unfeeling monster does she think I am? "We never will be children," he concluded. "Come on, Ariel. We don't need to lose any more, and I don't need threats."

"Why didn't the moms stop them?" she asked plaintively.

Martin shook his head. "They don't want us to be cattle, or zoo animals. Maybe that's it. I don't know. We have as much freedom as they can give us, even the freedom to die."

"We're getting so sad," Ariel said, looking away from him. "It's been so long."

Martin swallowed hard. "I…"

"Go, please," she said.

He pushed away abruptly and bounced from wall to conduit to wall, then summoned a field and climbed up the length of the neck toward the second homeball, where William kept his quarters.

"Why weren't you in the meeting?" Martin worked to keep his voice level. William Arrow Feather twisted within his corner net, pulled himself out, and nudged his head against a climbing field summoned with a mudra-like hand signal. "I didn't want to make things tougher for you."

"You're supposed to be present for Job discussions," Martin said. "And you didn't vote."

William smiled and shrugged. "No harm. I got the info. I can make my decision for the big one." His expression shifted slightly. "Have you made yours?"

"We're going to investigate—"

"Not that," William said. " Thatwas a foregone conclusion. I mean, have you decided who you are, what you are?"

"I don't understand," Martin said.

"It's important for you." William looked away. "And for Theresa."

"I thought you approved."

"I said I approved, but then we made love again, for the first time since you started this thing with Theresa—and I saw things a little differently."

Martin settled grimly in an opposite corner, as if he were about to be forced to take medicine. "Explain."

"Your heart wasn't in it."

"I've always enjoyed you."

"Martin, how many lovers have you had?"

Martin looked away. "I'm not a fruitpicker," he said.

"Right. You're not shy, you're just a little afraid… of hurting somebody, of being hurt."

"Wise William," Martin said.

"Slick that," William said, not unkindly. "You picture me as some sort of brotherly saint, Saint Francis maybe. I'm not. I'm a fruitpicker. Most of us are. You… and Theresa… are not."

"She's had and been had," Martin said, eyes rolling.

"Right. But nowhere near the average."

"More than I," Martin said. Weak defense.

"So how many have you had?"

William had never asked before; such things were seldom mentioned, being almost common knowledge in a group so small and tightly knit. "It's not important."

"Some say you're a bad choice for Pan because you lack connections. That you have to slick with somebody to understand them, and you haven't made love to enough of us to know who we are."

Martin frowned. "Nobody's said it to my face."

"They wouldn't, because they're gossips and cowards, like all the humanson this ship."

"I'm not human?"

"You try not to make mistakes."

"Oh, Christ, William. What are you talking about?"

William spread out his muscular brown arms and legs. Martin noted the play of muscles, the ripple of skin on strong arms, the beautiful sheen of upper thigh—and felt nothing physical—a mental admiration, a brotherly recognition and approval of William's health and supple vigor. "I'm homosexual, most of the time," William said, "one of eight males and seven females among the children. You're a crosser. You can slick or fall in love or whatever you want with so many more people… But I know something about you, Martin—you're probably more passionate than I am. I've crossed, and found the experience enjoyable but not fulfilling—so I've slicked with maybe twelve of the children. You've had five or six, I'd guess. What are you afraid of?"

Martin pushed from the corner, angry again.

"You hate the idea of rejection. You really don't like understanding people, accepting them for what they are. Why?"

Martin's face muscles worked. "You're not in a good mood," he said, kicking off the opposite wall, rolling past William.

William laughed. " I'mnot?"

"You've never been cruel before." He put out a hand and stopped himself on the edge of William's door.

William's face contorted. "I'm not being cruel," he said sadly. "I just know what's going to happen, and I hate for you not to know, when it affects you so much… and Theresa. You're one of our best." William's expression warmed, as it always did when he praised Martin. "At least Ithink so, and the children voted you Pan."

"You'll be next," Martin said, avoiding his eyes.

"No, I won't," William said, very subdued. "Hans maybe. He wants it. I fantasize about it, that maybe it'll make more Lost Boys willing to cross… But it won't be me. I'm a soldier, not a general. You're a general. You don't believe it, though, do you?"