Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear Page B

being gathered and twisted like hair in braids, forming streamers above and below the poles. The magnetic fields of the stars were being altered to control their surface activity, and to allow fine tuning of their radiation output. None of the planets were swept by particle storms any more, nor were they subjected to the vagaries of stellar interiors. This helped explain the altered stellar signature—spectrum versus size and brightness—that had first pointed to the presence of an advanced civilization.
    Other details could be discerned around the nearest yellow star, the Buttercup: altered planetary orbits, with a single gas giant world pushed in closer to the Buttercup, perhaps to allow easier mining of volatiles. The gas giants were even more depleted of volatiles than they had first estimated; refueling would be difficult around this star.
    Between the Buttercup's outermost rocky world and the nearest depleted gas giant orbited a million-kilometer-thick halo of flimsy structures largely made of silicates. One or more rocky worlds, or perhaps an entire asteroid belt, might have been sacrificed to make the halo; what purpose it served could not be known yet. Hakim speculated they might have been enormous mirrors to refocus energy on the inner planets, or perhaps to deflect radiation from the red giant in its more violent phase.
    The farther yellow star showed no high-tech activity. "Someone might be hiding," Hakim said, "but we have no way of knowing that."
    He saved the most impressive displays for last.
    "Some of the information we're about to show you was gathered by the Benefactors long before Earth was destroyed," Hakim said. "Several thousand years ago… The moms have given this to us."
    In simulation, they saw dim flares around the two yellow stars, as viewed from hundreds or even thousands of light years away: the expenditure of vast energies necessary to move the planets and alter the stars. The flares had lasted only for a matter of decades—a mere instant on the time-scale of the galaxy, but obviously, eager eyes and ears had caught the flicker.
    The transformation of the two solar systems had taken place simultaneously, about a hundred years before the Firestorm—twice the mass of Sol—went through helium flash to become a red giant, a hideous lively bloating that swallowed five planets. They watched in silence as the red giant cast away immense cloaks of gas, its face becoming pocked and ragged like a burning, decaying skull.
    Hans Eagle spoke out. "If the Killers live here, did they send out machines before or after they made these changes?"
    "Probably before," the first mom said. "In our experience—"
    "Nobody knows how much experience you've had, or how long," Ariel said, voice chilly.
    "Please, Ariel," Hakim said, infinitely patient.
    "In our experience," the mom continued, "beings who build killer probes usually do so before they have mastered the techniques necessary to perform large-scale stellar reconstruction."
    "Then it's been thousands of years since the probes were launched," Hans continued.
    "Very likely."
    Hans nodded, satisfied.
    The last display traced the paths of intercepted killer machines, but covered a thousand light years rather than a dozen; their known and postulated victims were marked by red dots, and the systems they had merely passed through glowed green. Approximate dates relative to Earth's death and distances of these events from the three-star group were given in flashing white.
    Martin was astonished by the wealth of data; a partial answer to Ariel's doubts. His mind raced to gather the implications: sometimes the Ships of the Law did break silence, to transmit the locations of killer machines, to broadcast their captures and triumphs. The transmissions would not have been hidden; the distances are too vast for the noach… They would have risked revealing themselves…
    Hakim concluded by placing all the displays around the star sphere for their contemplation. "That is