No one spoke.

“Can you, then?” he asked.

“We’re high order,” Gawain said, “and we don’t tend to panic, sir. We haven’t yet.”

“You haven’t had to kill anything. You haven’t come under attack.”

That posed things to think about.

“We can,” Lynette said.

Griffin nodded. “You find weapons,” he said. “Cutting torches and anything that could do damage. Knives. If any of those decorations in the dining hall have sound metal in them—those. Whatever we’ve got that can keep something a little farther away from us.”

So we went, scouring the ship.

X

... but in all the listening eyes

Of these tall knights, that ranged about the throne,

Clear honor shining like the dewy star

Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure

Affection, and the light of victory,

And glory gain’d, and evermore to gain.

It was one of those longdays. We scoured about the ship in paranoid fancy, cataloguing this and that item that might be sufficiently deadly.

Of course, the galley. That place proved full of horrors.

And the machine shop, I reckoned: the crew spent a long time down there making lists.

And of course the weapons in the dining hall and Dela’s rooms. They were real. And it was time to take them down.

That was Viv and I. I stood on the chairs and unscrewed brackets and braces while Viv criticized the operation and received the spears and the swords below. And my lady sat abed, so that I earnestly tried to muffle any rattle of metal against the woodwork, moving very slowly when I would turn and hand a piece to Viv, who was likewise quiet setting it down.

I thought about the banners, whether we should have them; the great red and blue and gold lion; the bright yellow one with green moons; the blue one with the white tree; and all the others. And I thought of the stories, and it seemed important, if we had the one we should have the other—at least the lion, that was so gaudy brave.

“That’s not part of it,” Vivien said when I attacked the braces.

“Oh, but it is,” I said. I knew. And Viv stood there scowling. I handed it toward her.

“It’s stupid. It doesn’t do anything.”

“Just take it.”

“I’m not under your orders.”

“Quiet.”

“ Who’squiet? Put that back and get down off the chair.”

“I’m not going to put it back. At least get out of my way so I can get down.”

“Elaine?”

Dela’s voice. “See?” I said. It was stupid, the whole business. I turned the cumbersome standard with its pole so that I could gather the banner to me, and stepped down from the chair, having almost to step on Viv. We can be petty. That too. And Viv was. Too good for menial work. It was me my lady called and we don’t call out loud like born-men, shouting from place to place. I hurried across to the bedroom door and through, with my silly banner still clutched to me and all the while I expected Viv was right.

“Elaine, what’s that you’ve got?” My lady sat abed among her lace pillows, all cream lace herself, and blue ribbons.

“The lion, lady.”

“For what?” my lady asked.

“I thought it should make us braver.”

A moment Dela looked at all of me, my silly notions, my other self, thatElaine. Her eyes went strange and gentle all at once. “Oh my Elaine,” she said. “Oh child—”

No one had ever called me that. It was only in the tapes. “Lady,” I said very small. “Shall I put it back?”

“No. No.” Dela flung off the covers, a flurry of lace and ribbons, and crossed the floor; I stepped aside, and she went through into the sitting room, where we had made a heap of the weapons, where Viv stood. And she bent down all in her nightthings and gathered up the prettiest of the swords. “Where are these to go?” She was crying, our lady, just a discreet tremor of the lips. I just stood there a heartbeat, still holding the lion in my arms.

“Out to the dining hall,” I said. “Master Griffin said we should bring all the things there because it was a big place and central so—”

—so it wouldn’t get to our weapons store when it got in; that was the way Griffin put it. But I bit that back.

“Let’s go, then,” said Dela.

“Lady,” Vivien said, shocked. But Dela nodded toward the door.

“Now,” Dela said, taking up another of the swords and another, and leaving Vivien to gather up the heavy things. Me, I had the lion banner, and that was an armful. Dela headed out the door and I followed my lace-and-ribboned lady—not without a look back at Vivien, who was sulking and loading her arms with spears and swords.

So we came into the dining hall turned armory, and I unfurled the lion and set him conspicuously in the center of the wall, to preside over all our preparations. There was kitchen cutlery and there were pipes and hammers and cutters, and the makings of more terrible things, in separate containers—

“What are those?” Dela asked.

I had no wish to answer, but I was asked. “Chemicals. Gawain says we can put them in pipes and they’ll blow up.”

Dela’s face went strange. “With us in here?”

“I think they mean to carry them down to the bow and not make them up till then. They’re working down there—Master Griffin and the others. They don’t mean they should get through at all.”

“What else is there to do?”

I thought then that she wantedsomething. I understood that. I wanted to work myself, to work until there was no time to think about what was going on outside. From time to time the hammering stopped out there and then started again. And I dreaded the time that it would stop for good, announcing that they/it/our Beast might be ready for us. “There’s all of that to carry and more lists to make; we’re supposed to know where all the weapons are; and food to make and to store in here and the refrigeration to set up—in the case,” I finished lamely, “we should lose the lower deck.”

Viv had arrived, struggling with her load, and dumped it all. “Careful,” my lady said sharply, and Viv’s head came up—all bland, our Viv, but that was the face she gave my lady.

“And they’re welding down below,” I finished. “They’re cutting panels and welding them in, so if they think they’ve gotten through the hull, they’ve only got as much to go again.

“We should all help,” my lady concluded. “All.”

“I have my work upstairs,” Viv said; she could get away with that often enough, could Viv. I have my books; I have accounts to do; and Go do that, my lady would say.

Not now. “You can help at this,” my lady said, very sharp and frowning. “Make yourself useful. You’re not indispensable up there.”

Oh, that stung. “Yes, lady,” Vivien said, and lowered her head.

“I’ll get the rest of the weapons,” I offered.

“No,” my lady said, “Vivien can start with that. Get the galley things in order.”

“Yes,” I said. It was no prize, that duty, but it was the one I well understood.

“I’ll be down to help,” my lady said.

“Yes, lady,” I murmured, astonished at the thought, and thinking that I would have one more duty to care for, which was Dela herself, who really wanted to be comforted. I left, passed Vivien on my way out the door and hurried on to the lift, wiping my hands on my coveralls.

I took the lift down. The ship resounded down there not alone with the crashes and thumps of the thing outside, but with the sounds of Griffin and the others working, trying to put a brace between ourselves and the outside.

The galley was close enough to hear that, constantly, and it reminded me like a pulsebeat how the time was slipping away, and how we had so little time and they had all the time that ever might be in this dreadful place.