AFTERBIRTH

Days, maybe a week. Who can keep track?

For the time being, we’re still parked tens of thousands of klicks beyond Pluto, in sight of that ancient mystery. Looking doesn’t give me any more information, though that moon-shifter out there does look remarkably like a Christmas ornament assembled from model railroad parts.

No motion, no alarms.

Bird Girl has been gone for some time and no other Antags have come forward to visit. Maybe Budgie is keeping them busy.

The squad has been rearranging quarters, as I thought we would, as if that might help pass the time and make a difference. DJ and I share one sphere, where he appears to be fast asleep, curled up in a ball. But his eyes are flicking. Neither of us is sleeping if we can avoid it. We’re waiting for that forced sleep that hasn’t arrived. We all want to be awake when it comes.

Every few hours, I emerge from our cubby to study the views available through the ribbons, which keep us from being completely blind, like cave fish, up in this needle snout. The clock faces, even when not occupied by a searcher or two, are too cluttered, too abstract—not for the likes of us.

DJ joins me, rubbing his eyes.

“Shit, I fell asleep,” he says. “Anything different?”

“Not a thing.”

More of the squad emerges, or returns from excursions aft. Going aft makes all of us nervous. Jacobi returns first and looks around with her sharp-eyed squint. She shakes her head. Nothing new there, either. No threats.

“No sign of fighters,” she says.

“Tracking Antags?”

“They’re busy down south somewhere, close to the clover lake. Still not interacting.”

Negatives are mostly good, I think.

Now Kumar, Tak, Joe, and Litvinov join us. Kumar’s quiet, as usual. Litvinov just seems depressed.

“Do starshina and efreitor still control?” he asks for the third or fourth time. “Behind smoke?”

I say, also for the third or fourth time, “Probably.”

“Great and powerful wizard,” DJ says.

A searcher waits nearby, in case we need help. We don’t.

Borden joins us next. “Doesn’t seem solid,” she says, looking at the curtain. “Probably not hard to penetrate. Anybody been behind?”

Ninth or tenth time for that question. As if we won’t announce it loud and clear, when—if—it happens.

“Not yet,” I say.

“And you don’t want to force the issue?” the commander asks.

“She allows us to see a little of what they’re doing, not much,” I say.

“They’re redecorating,” DJ says, and makes room between the ribbons for Ishida and Ishikawa. We’re a knot of people holding hands and footing off against the ribbons.

“Steam heat and hot soup,” I say. “I think we’ll be invited in when Ulyanova is happy with the results.”

“Do you guys understand how irritating this is?” Borden asks. “Having to get everything through you!”

“I’ve never believed it would work,” Jacobi says.

Kumar says, “Using the Ice Moon Tea and crystals, taking a chance that one of us could channel a Guru, was the best hope we had.”

“Did that work?” Jacobi asks, facetious.

“Maybe,” I say after a long silence. “We have to trust that the bugs knew more about Gurus than we do.”

“A hundred billion years ago!” Ishida says.

“Not that long,” DJ murmurs.

“Well, then, you tell me!”

He shrugs. “A long time, not that much.”

“This ship has been cruising around the solar system, and outside, for ages,” I say. “The most important question is whether the bugs rid themselves of the Gurus way back when … and if they did, whether their tactics can work again.”

“Any sign we’re being watched by cage dudes?” Joe asks.

“Nothing yet,” Borden says.

Litvinov says, “I am curious about screw gardens. Whole ship is filled with them. Maybe we become fertilizer for all the green.”

That’s a new idea, to me at least. I don’t like it, but it touches key biological points well enough.

“Any idea what they are?” Borden asks us.

I shake my head, to her disgust.

Joe says, “If the bugs got rid of the Gurus, how did they come back? Where are they from originally? What can Ulyanova tell us about that?”

“She’s communicated bits and pieces about the ship,” I say. “But there’s lots of stuff that either the Gurus don’t know or the ship doesn’t know.”

“I find that truly dismaying,” Kumar says.

“Huh!” Jacobi says.

“How closely connected are the Gurus and this ship?” Borden asks. “How much do they need it to get around and survive?” That may be the smartest question yet.

A long pause. Nobody can answer—but I tuck the question away.

“Heads up,” Tak says, looking to the curtain.

Without warning, Vera has passed through. She moves in the spooky fashion she and Ulyanova have mastered, then clambers down the canes to the ribbons, very like a spider, to where we are.

“From now, take searcher if you go aft,” she cautions. “They know how to return. Never try to go near or pass through puzzle gate. During next leap, it will be very bad back there. We leave Pluto soon. Next stop, transmitter.”

She turns to Litvinov. “Polkovnik, gardens on screws are how we move so quick through space. Some plants on Earth plot ahead, all together, to maximize quantum chemistry and bind sunlight. But now they plot, think ahead, to change how slippery space is.” She slices her hand out. “Whoosh! Why we sleep. You and me, at least. Where plants go, is difficult for us, since we cannot follow.”

“What about the starshina?” Litvinov asks.

“Brain needs Queen awake.” Vera makes a face and kicks away before we can ask follow-up. A searcher slings itself out from between the clock faces and firmly but politely blocks us from any attempt to go after her.

We haven’t been invited. Not yet.

“Servant to ‘Queen,’” Litvinov says, shaking his head. “Crazy scheme. And plants! Crazy idea.”

“Every ship we’ve traveled on is different,” Jacobi says. “Maybe they’re just fucking with us to keep us confused.”

“You don’t use a bicycle to cross the ocean,” Joe says. That’s either profound, or profoundly stupid. “Every ship works on a different scale.”

“What’s that even mean?” Jacobi asks.

Ishikawa and Ishida listen to this back-and-forth with unhappy glances. Bilyk seems fascinated. With nobody to converse with in Russian but Litvinov—who doesn’t seem interested—the efreitor has tried to join our Skyrines, but he’s being frozen out by the sisters, possible payback for his comment about blow jobs.

Or maybe they think he’s ugly.

JACOBI, JOE, MYSELF, and a searcher have ventured aft to see the situation that prevails. Following the cane bridges and with an occasional assist from a helpful searcher, we discover that the Antags have now moved into quarters about a klick behind us, aft and inboard of the nearest screw gardens. We aren’t invited to inspect, and make contact with only one or two of them, both armored, both not particularly forthcoming—and after these sentinels send us back, with obvious irritation, our report to the rest of the squad brings up crude speculation, or extended wish fulfillment, that the birds are all engaged in a prolonged, wild orgy.

“Yeah, feathers everywhere,” DJ says.

Bilyk laughs too loudly, which brings scorn from Ishikawa and Jacobi. I’m starting to like Bilyk.

Joe and I, with Kumar’s tacit approval, say we think it’s more likely the Antags are reassembling the social structure they once enjoyed on Mars and Titan, and maybe back home as well. How many males there once were, I don’t know. How important the males are to military planning and discipline, I also don’t know. Maybe the male is reasserting an aggressive posture and they’re planning to come forward and take control of Ulyanova. Her crucial importance is no doubt a sore point with Budgie.

Of course, they could be preparing defenses against the remaining fighters—but we haven’t seen any signs of them, either. Bird Girl is being remarkably thorough at staying offline. Maybe they want to keep our channels clear so we can listen for Ulyanova.

Would that mean we’re still essential, even to Budgie?