For him, though, they couldn't get there fast enough.

It did not bother either of the military people aboard that the three girls wore just about nothing on the trip, but it made Murphy uncomfortable and he couldn't even say why. Certainly he wasn't sexually attracted to them; even if they weren't so hugely pregnant, he found himself more frightened of them than anything else, something he hadn't even thought about before being intercepted by the navy. Possibly it was that demonstration of power they'd done; but, he reflected, it was more like being uncomfortable because he felt helpless and surrounded by three idiots with loaded weapons.

Interestingly, though, they barely remembered the experience, and could not explain how they'd done what they'd done. It did not, however, bother them much. Ignorance was true bliss sometimes, even when you didn't know that what you did was so remarkable.

At least with all that time to Barnum's World they didn't have much to do but eat, sleep, and talk. It was tough to get them to stay on that or any subject for long, but slowly Maslovic began getting some information from them that seemed useful, and Murphy got more than he thought was healthy for him. There was, for example, the eerie feeling in his gut that, even in this small shuttle, what everyone was saying and doing was somehow being monitored and recorded and analyzed. Not by the navy-he expected that, and did not fear it one bit. No, by someone or something else, the ones behind this strangeness.

It's them damned medals, he decided. I don't care if they're worth a fortune or what, there's something unnatural about 'em.

They had allowed the trio to eat, and they'd had really massive appetites, although for some combinations that not even Murphy could tolerate thinking hard about, and then they'd slept for ten solid hours each. They seemed to sleep a lot, which Murphy put down to their condition. He was most frightened that one or more of the young women would decide to have her kid then and there. He knew the two military people weren't prepared for such a thing, and he was damned sure he wasn't.

It was easiest when one or another of them would come to the lounge leaving the other two still asleep. This happened quite a lot after that initial sleep-off, although if it was the blonde-haired Moran, you couldn't get a full sentence out of her if you tried. O'Brian never stopped talking, which was quite typical of people who had little to say, and McBride seemed the most normal of the bunch although no brighter, willing to engage in small talk or not as needed. She also seemed the most curious about the navy pair, which allowed for a give-and-take exchange of information. Over a few sessions, Maslovic in particular was able to get pretty direct with the brown-haired self-described witch.

"Where'd you learn to do that magic spell that caused the vanishing trick?" he asked her casually as she ate. Murphy sat away from them, curious but not exactly motivated to join in.

"Tip told us how," McBride responded with that slightly off-kilter view of conversation they all shared and which had nearly driven the senior officers of the Thermopylae nuts.

"Tip? Who's Tip? A kind of spirit?"

She nodded, munching on a potato pancake and sipping very dark tea mixed half and half with cream and sugar. "Tip can't do things in our plane without us, we can't do nothin' neat here without him and his friends givin' us the power and all."

"Tip talks only to you, then? Not to Moran or O'Brian?"

"See? There y'go again! Why do you and the driver up there always use only the family names? Don't you have another name?"

"What? You mean like you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I mean, I got three names, and only one isn't just me. And there's Brigit Maureen and then there's Colleen Megan, and she even has a name all her own that everybody uses instead of them."

"Irish, you mean? Why do you need all those names?"

She shrugged. " 'Cause I guess there's only so many names and we don't want to have nobody else's, that's why. Don't always work even then. I mean, I can't count the number of Mary Margarets back home. I always thought I wanted me own name, like Irish done, only I never come up with none I really liked."

"We have ranks and we have numbers," the sergeant explained. "The numbers are never the same so we can always be ourselves. The rank changes if we do a good job, but the number is unique. The number's all we really need, but it's just too much of a mouthful to say, particularly when you're in a hurry. Easier to say 'Sarge,' or, if there's more than one of my rank, 'Maslovic,' instead of, oh, 'Hurry up, M2174-34K77-41CK!' See what I mean?"

She laughed. "That's funny. But we gets our family names from our das. When we was goin' 'round your big ship, we saw lots of you folks with none of them fancy if borin' clothes on, and you don't have no das or mums. How could you?" She sighed. "I'll be glad when the wee one comes out and I can wear pretty clothes again."

She was starting to drift away from the thread, so he brought it back.

"Oh, we have parents, if that's what you mean. We just don't know who they are. But the family name of my parents is Maslovic, which is why the name's there. Some of my looks, and I guess more, come from them. I've met other Maslovics aboard and we kind of look similar."

"But how can you have close family when you ain't got no dicks or wombs? Don't make no sense."

"It's done by doctors and machines," he told her. "It's less dangerous and completely controlled, so there's little chance of us not coming out right."

"And a damn sight less fun, seems t'me," she muttered, finishing her food.

Murphy had always thought that as well, like the military types were more machines than humans, unable to feel the same emotions as "normal" people. Now he still wasn't sure what their lives were like internally, but he was beginning to wonder if others like the girls weren't just as much manufactured to somebody's order and requirements.

Hell, it almost made you paranoid thinking that maybe somebody actually made you, too, and he wasn't thinking about God when that awful idea crept into his mind.

Maslovic had no such worries. He and Chung not only knew that they were designed, they felt great comfort in that. It was who or what was perverting the same technology that had them worried here.

"You were telling us about Tip," the sergeant said, as breezy and conversational as if he were just killing time.

"Yeah, well, what's to tell?" she responded. "I mean, like, Tip is just Tip, that's all."

The security officer looked around. "Well, now, let's see. Is he some sort of invisible entity? Some kind of creature who speaks only to you?"

She giggled. "Of course not, silly! Little kids got make-believe little friends. Tip's different. We're kinda like, married, in a way. Y'know, like Irish's got Tad and Brigit's got Tod."

"So there are three of them? And where are they if not in the air like spirits of old? Inside your body?"

"This is gettin' borin', it is. I don't wanta talk about this no more right now. I'm just so tired. I think maybe I should sleep some more. How much longer to this world you're takin' us to?"

"We're better than halfway there," Maslovic assured her. "Not much longer now."

But by this time Mary Margaret McBride had forgotten even the question, and she was on her feet and making her way back aft to the bunks.

When she'd gone, Maslovic looked over at Murphy. "You're the expert on these people," he said. "Is she crazy?"

"Most probably, although who's to say if it's them or us?" the old captain retorted. "Still and all, I think there's somethin' to it. I been goin' nuts starin' at them jewels the girls got round their necks. They're not just good-lookin' gems cut right, they're more than that. I seen their like before. Not for real, I don't think, but in pictures and such. Some museums and real rich folk got 'em. Them's Magi stones. The livin' gems said to come from the legendary Three Kings."