and had sent the Dawn Treader in a direction likely to encounter stars matching the suspected origins of the killer probes. Perhaps the moms know even more…
Martin suddenly didn’t like being alone with Hakim in the schoolroom, talking about such things. He wanted the others to share his responsibility and back his conclusions. He wanted a mom present.
“How about the assay?” he asked, swallowing too noisily.
“You can refer to it.”
He flushed, touched another shape marked with a spinning atom symbol, and it blossomed. The comparison between the probe’s composition and the Buttercup’s stellar spectra and estimated planetary makeup was close. The killer machines could have been manufactured in this system.
Additional information came up beneath his questing fingers. Four other inhabited worlds within two hundred and ninety light years of the group had been attacked and transformed by killer probes, all within the past thousand years. There were one million three hundred thousand stars within this radius, or roughly one star for every seventy-eight and a half cubic light years. Four civilizations had been murdered, five including the Earth; only two besides the Earth had left any survivors.
And where are those survivors? On other Ships of the Law?
The four victim stars lay within a hypothetical sphere determined by the density of stars within the possible paths of killer probes, and complex analyses of how often those probes would reproduce, and how quickly they would saturate such a sphere.
The center of the sphere was within two light years of this group of three, Buttercup, Cornflower, Firestorm.
Hakim had been through this material already, and with growing excitement, embellished details he thought might not be obvious.
“All right,” Martin said. His hand shook. He controlled it. “It seems…interesting.”
Hakim smiled and nodded once, then watched intently while Martin perused the data again.
On Earth, Martin’s father had compared the attempt to destroy killer probes to the murder of Captain Cook by distrustful Hawaiians. To the islanders, Cook had been the powerful representative of a more technologically advanced civilization.
If Earth’s Killers lived around one or more of these stars, the Ship of the Law would be up against a civilization so advanced that it controlled two or perhaps even three star systems, commanding the flux of an entire star, perhaps even capable of armoring that star against the expansion of a red giant.
If this was the home of Earth’s Killers, the children’s task would be much more difficult than just killing Captain Cook.
Such adversaries could be as far beyond human intellect as Martin had been beyond his dog Gauge, long dead, powder and ashes around distant Sol.
“The assay match is…I won’t say unique,” Hakim said softly as Martin’s thoughtful silence lengthened. “Other stars in this portion of the spiral arm might share it, having come from the same segment of old supernova cloud. But it’s very close. Did you see the potassium-argon ratios? The iridium concentrations?”
Martin nodded, then lifted his head and said, “It does look good, Hakim. Fine work.”
“Tough decision, first time,” Hakim said, awaiting his reaction.
“I know,” Martin said. “We’ll take it to the children first, then to the moms.”
Hakim sighed and smiled. “So it is.”
The call went out to all the wands, and the children gathered in clusters, a full meeting, the first in Martin’s six months as Pan. A few glued on to Martin’s trail as he laddered forward to the first homeball. Three cats and four parrots joined as well, using the children’s ladders to scramble after them into the schoolroom.
George Dempsey, a plump boy of nineteen from the Athletes family, came close to Martin and beamed a smile. Dempsey read muscles and expressions better than most of his fellows. “Good news?”
“We may have a candidate,” Martin said.
“Something new and startling, not a drill?” asked small, mouse-like Ginny Chocolate, of the Food family. She spoke twenty Earth languages and claimed she understood the moms better than any of them. Ginny cradled a tabby in her arms. It watched Martin with beautiful jade eyes and meowed silently.
“A high-tech civ,” Martin said. “Search team has a presentation.” Ginny spun on her tummy axis and kicked from a conduit, flying ahead of him, towing the relaxed cat by its tail. She did not make much speed, deliberately choosing a low-traction ladder field, and the rest quickly caught up, dancing, bouncing, climbing, putting on overalls and stuffing other clothes into knapsacks.
“We’re the lucky ones, hm?” Hans Eagle asked him as they matched course in the first neck. Hans served as Christopher Robin, second in command. Martin had