died, they all needed a break.
They went out onto the Mars deck. Myra sipped a cola. While Yuri swung improvised pendulums to study the varying artificial gravity, Alexei and Lyla explored it. If you sat down, you were heavier than when you stood up. If you threw a ball any distance, it would be deflected sideways by the spin. And if you ran against the spin, you grew lighter. Laughing, they raced each other along the corridor in big Moonwalk bounds.
Watching them play, Myra was reminded just how young these Spacers all really were.
All of them were reluctant to go back and face Athena again, and talk about what she had discovered on a planet eleven light-years away.
So those swimmers bred themselves to extinction, Alexei said. Sol, what a thing to do.
Yuri said, Better that than let the Firstborn win.
It took us two years to find a way to beam me back home, Athena said softly. We didnt want to broadcast our existence to a dangerous universe. So we put together an optical laserquite powerful, but a tight beam. And when the time came, with my data stream encoded into it, we fired it off at Earth. We anticipated that it would be picked up by Cyclops, which was at the planning stage before the sunstorm.
It was risky, Myra said. If Cyclops hadnt been built after all We had no choice but to make the gamble. Yuri asked, Why you, of the three? Athena paused. We drew lots, after a fashion.
And the others
The signal took everything we had, everything Witness could give us. Though Witness lived, there was nothing left to sustain the others. They gave themselves for me.
Myra wondered how Athena, an AI with such a complicated biography, felt about this. As the youngest of the three, it must have felt as if her parents had sacrificed themselves to save her. It wasnt just for you, she said gently. It was for all of us.
Yes, Athena said. And you see why I had to be sent home. Myra looked at Alexei. And this is what youve kept from me for so many weeks.
Alexei looked uncomfortable.
It was my request, Myra, Athena said smoothly.
Yuri was staring at his hands, which were splayed out on the table before him. He looked as stunned as Myra felt. She asked, What are you thinking, Yuri?
I'm thinking that we have crashed through a conceptual barrier today. Since the sunstorm there has always been something of a human-centered bias to our thinking about the Firstborn, I believe. As if we implicitly assumed they were a threat aimed at us aloneour personal nemesis. Now we learn that they have acted against others, just as brutally. He lifted his hands and spread them wide in the air. Suddenly we must think of the Firstborn as extensive in space and time. Shit, I need another coffee. Yuri got up and shambled over to the percolators.
Alexei blew out his cheeks. So now you know it all, Myra. What next?
Myra said, This material should be shared with the Earth authorities. The Space Council
Alexei pulled a face. Why? So they can throw more atomic bombs, and arrest us all? Myra, they think too narrowly.
Myra stared at him. Didnt we all work together during the sunstorm? But now here we are back in the old routinethey lie to you, you lie to them. Is that the way were all going into the dark?
Be fair, Myra, Yuri murmured. The Spacers are doing their best. And theyre probably right about how Earth would react.
So what do you think we should we do?
Yuri said, Follow the Martians example. They trapped an Eyethey struck back. He laughed bitterly. And as a result of that, right now the only bit of Firstborn technology we have is there on Mars, sitting under my ice cap.
Yes, Athena said. It seems that the focus of this crisis is the pole of Mars. I want you to return there, Myra.
Myra considered. And when we get there?
Then we must wait, as before, Athena said. The next steps are largely out of our hands.
Then whose?
Bisesa Dutts, murmured Athena.
An alarm sounded, and the walls flashed red.
Lyla tapped her ident patch and listened to the air. Its the Astropol cops down on Earth deck, she said. We must have a leak. They are coming for you, Myra. She stood.
Myra followed her lead. She felt dazed. They want me? Why?
Because they think you will lead them to your mother. Lets get out of here. We dont have