and the supernova remnants seeded heavy elements along these gradients… " Hakim's finger traced a projected purple line through numbers describing metals densities, "metals" meaning elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. He jabbed at a clustering of numbers. "The Buttercup is right in this gradient, right in this magnetic pool, to receive the only dose of exactly these proportions." Red numbers bunched within a dip in the galaxy's magnetic field, where gases might collect, waiting to be condensed into stars. "No other star system within a hundred light years matches the Buttercup's assay."
Martin felt numb, not yet realizing with all of his faculties how significant this was.
"Time for another gathering," he said thoughtfully.
"I'll report to the moms," Hakim said.
* * *
They had never before seen more than three moms together, although they had suspected there could be many more. Several times the children had kept track of their whereabouts in the Dawn Treader and tried to count them, as a kind of game, but they could never be sure how many there were. Now, all eighty-two children—Lost Boys and Wendys-—gathered in the schoolroom to make the final decision, and there were six identical moms, all with the same patient, neutral voices.
More than anything that had happened before, this gave Martin chills. He had personally estimated there were no more than four moms in the entire ship. It seemed likely to him now that the Dawn Treader could manufacture the robots at will; but that meant the ship itself was a kind of giant mom.
Putting six into the schoolroom was a symbolic action, surely… And it communicated to Martin, at least, with full force.
Four moms hovered at the periphery of the schoolroom, silent and unmoving, like sentinels. Two moms floated in the center of the schoolroom, beside the star sphere. They waited patiently until the children were quiet, which took less than a minute. Martin saw Ariel enter with William and Erin just as the first mom began to speak.
The mom at stage left advanced and said, "The information on the candidate stellar group has increased. If the ship alters its course now, and begins deceleration, you are less than three months from this system, ship's time. Deceleration will use most of our reserves, and we will need to refuel within one of the stellar systems, the Buttercup or the Cornflower. There are unlikely to be sufficient volatiles available in the Firestorm system."
A diagram of their orbital path and velocities spread before the children. Deceleration for three tendays at one g, ship's reference, which would drop their speed to about ninety percent c and increase their tau considerably, bringing them into a position to enter the Buttercup system. Then deceleration of two g's for twenty-three days. They would enter the system at just over three fourths the speed of light, crossing the system's diameter of eleven point two billion kilometers in just under fourteen hours.
Martin noted that their trajectory would take them through the dark haloes of pre-birth material, through the plane of the ecliptic, and then under the Buttercup's south pole, considerably below the plane of the ecliptic. They would pass within two hundred million kilometers of one rocky world, and a hundred million kilometers of the second, directly between them, when both were nearly aligned on one side of the system.
"The remotes have given your search team more information. You will now be provided with the expanded figures to make your next decision."
Ariel watched Martin from across the room. Her expression said nothing, but he could feel her disapproval.
Hakim Hadj pushed forward from the search team. "The information is wonderful… Very provocative." He raised his wand, and the wand of each sang in tune, and projected images into their eyes.
They saw:
That the two yellow stars had altered stellar envelopes—that the streams of particles flowing outward from the stars' surfaces were
Martin felt numb, not yet realizing with all of his faculties how significant this was.
"Time for another gathering," he said thoughtfully.
"I'll report to the moms," Hakim said.
* * *
They had never before seen more than three moms together, although they had suspected there could be many more. Several times the children had kept track of their whereabouts in the Dawn Treader and tried to count them, as a kind of game, but they could never be sure how many there were. Now, all eighty-two children—Lost Boys and Wendys-—gathered in the schoolroom to make the final decision, and there were six identical moms, all with the same patient, neutral voices.
More than anything that had happened before, this gave Martin chills. He had personally estimated there were no more than four moms in the entire ship. It seemed likely to him now that the Dawn Treader could manufacture the robots at will; but that meant the ship itself was a kind of giant mom.
Putting six into the schoolroom was a symbolic action, surely… And it communicated to Martin, at least, with full force.
Four moms hovered at the periphery of the schoolroom, silent and unmoving, like sentinels. Two moms floated in the center of the schoolroom, beside the star sphere. They waited patiently until the children were quiet, which took less than a minute. Martin saw Ariel enter with William and Erin just as the first mom began to speak.
The mom at stage left advanced and said, "The information on the candidate stellar group has increased. If the ship alters its course now, and begins deceleration, you are less than three months from this system, ship's time. Deceleration will use most of our reserves, and we will need to refuel within one of the stellar systems, the Buttercup or the Cornflower. There are unlikely to be sufficient volatiles available in the Firestorm system."
A diagram of their orbital path and velocities spread before the children. Deceleration for three tendays at one g, ship's reference, which would drop their speed to about ninety percent c and increase their tau considerably, bringing them into a position to enter the Buttercup system. Then deceleration of two g's for twenty-three days. They would enter the system at just over three fourths the speed of light, crossing the system's diameter of eleven point two billion kilometers in just under fourteen hours.
Martin noted that their trajectory would take them through the dark haloes of pre-birth material, through the plane of the ecliptic, and then under the Buttercup's south pole, considerably below the plane of the ecliptic. They would pass within two hundred million kilometers of one rocky world, and a hundred million kilometers of the second, directly between them, when both were nearly aligned on one side of the system.
"The remotes have given your search team more information. You will now be provided with the expanded figures to make your next decision."
Ariel watched Martin from across the room. Her expression said nothing, but he could feel her disapproval.
Hakim Hadj pushed forward from the search team. "The information is wonderful… Very provocative." He raised his wand, and the wand of each sang in tune, and projected images into their eyes.
They saw:
That the two yellow stars had altered stellar envelopes—that the streams of particles flowing outward from the stars' surfaces were
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