Gramm said nothing, his round face crimson.

Luru said, “Well, I’m useful, you see. And I know too much to be dispensed with. Don’t I, Gramm?”

“You old witch,” Gramm said tightly.

“Witch? If so, I brought you here to remind you of my spell,” she said, her tone dark.

Gramm glared. But it was clear he had no choice but to give her what she wanted.

When the meeting broke up, Torec approached Luru. She was clearly fascinated.

“But how do you live?”

Luru winked at her. “Most days I sleep a lot.” She put her hands on the ensigns’ shoulders; her skin felt warm, soft to Pirius: human, not at all strange. She said, “You children must be as hungry as I am. We have a lot of work to do. A great mission — a Galaxy to conquer. But first we eat. Come!” And she led them away.

Chapter 18

Out on the surface of the Rock, the cadets were learning to advance behind an artillery barrage.

It was another brutally simple, unbelievably ancient tactic. Behind the advancing troops was a bank of monopole cannon, mankind’s most effective weapon against Xeelee technology. The guns opened up before the advance began, firing live shells over the heads of the troops. The idea was that the hail of shells would flatten enemy emplacements, and the troops would rush forward and take the positions without a fight. Then the barrage would work its way forward, a curtain of fire always just ahead of the advancing troops, steadily raking out the opposition before the troops even got there. So the theory had always had it.

But in practice, Pirius Blue found himself lying in clinging asteroid dust as the barrage flew, so thick it was a curtain of light over his head, and shells of twisted spacetime fell not half a kilometer from him. The shells’ pounding seemed to shake the whole asteroid. The sense of physical energy erupting around him was overwhelming, as if all the violence of the Galaxy center were focused on this one battered old Rock.

The order to advance, actually to run into the fire, all but defeated his courage.

The success of this tactic depended on precise timing, coordination between artillery and infantry, and extremely accurate firing by the gunners. But the cannon were only machines, the gunners only human, the infantry were rattled and confused, and in an imperfect universe all were liable to error. The strategy depended a good deal on simple luck. And, today, his platoon’s luck ran out.

Pirius actually saw the fatal shell incoming. It was like a meteor, streaking down from the barrage that flew over his head. On the comm loops he heard officers yelling warnings. But for those directly under the path of the shell, no warning could help.

It was the triplets, Pirius saw, recognizing their customized uniforms. For a last instant, they clung to each other. The shell landed directly over them. There was a soundless flash of light, another giant’s footstep, a fountain of dirt.

Pirius ran to the site of the impact. A perfectly pristine crater had been dug into the asteroid.

Tili One had somehow escaped unharmed. Three had lost a hand, but was conscious, though distressed. Of Two there was no sign. Her very substance had been torn apart, Pirius thought, her very atoms dissociated.

Over the heads of the little group, the monopole barrage was dying, as if apologetically.

Marta, Cohl, Burden were all here, standing gravely as the surviving sisters wailed and clung to each other. “At least it was quick.” Captain Marta said gruffly. “There can have been no pain.”

One of the Tilis turned on the officer. “What comfort is that? It was a stupid accident.”

Burden stepped forward. He placed a big hand on each of the Tilis’ skinsuit helmets. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “None of this matters. There will be a better time, a better place, where you will be reunited with your sister, when all of this is wiped clean…” And so on. Gradually his words were comforting the girls. They bent their heads to his chest, and he held them as they wept wretchedly.

This was too much for Cohl. She turned on Captain Marta. “What happened to the Doctrines? If you let him spout words like these, what did she die for?”

Marta eyed her coldly, the human half of her reconstructed face as still and expressionless as the metallized side. “His words are useful,” she said simply.

And so they were, Pirius saw now, just as Burden himself had said, and that was why they were tolerated. It didn’t matter whether anybody believed in Michael Poole and the rest or not. Everything here was dedicated to the purposes of the war: even the tolerance of a faith which undermined the war’s very justification. Just as long as its adherents were prepared to march off to die.

The Captain snapped, “Clean up here.” She turned and walked away.

Pirius and the triplets’ other friends helped the surviving sisters get back to the barracks. Pirius had never seen anything like their grief.

But there was no time for consolation. The very next day new orders came: Pirius’s company was to be thrown into the Front.

For their final preparation Pirius and Cohl were taken to a sick bay.

Here nanomachinery was injected into their eyes. Their retinas were rebuilt, overlaid with a layer of technology whose purpose was to help their eyes cope with the blinding light of the Galaxy’s heart — and perhaps enable them to survive another few seconds. They had both taken many implants before, of course, even deep inside their skulls. But none of them had felt so directly violating.

They endured a night of agonizing pain. Pirius and Cohl had never been lovers, but that night they shared a bunk, weeping in each other’s arms.

The next morning, when Pirius looked in a mirror, he saw the silver in his eyes, and his own face reflected back from his pupils. It was as if his very soul had been coated in metal.

PART TWO

Chapter 19

Pirius Red wasn’t impressed by Mars.

From low orbit it struck him as a dull, closed-in little world. Aside from the scrapings of ice at the polar caps, its color was a uniform, burned-out red. Mars was dead, or all but; you could tell that even from space, just by looking at its worn craters and soft-edged mountains.

Given this world had been the most earthlike world in Sol system after the home planet itself, it was surprising how little mark humans had made on its surface. There were plenty of ruins, though. Once, extensive arcologies had splashed the ancient face of this world with Earth green-blue. But those bubble-colonies had been smashed during the Qax Occupation. The largest of them had been in a region called Cydonia, and from space you could still make out where it had been: the neat circle of the dome’s perimeter, the blocky shapes of a few remaining buildings, a tracery of foundations. But the ubiquitous dust had covered it over, washing away lines and colors.

A more striking ruin, in fact, was a massive building put up by the Qax themselves: an exotic-matter factory. Its walls were massive and robust, enduring even after twenty thousand years. In the wars that had followed the expulsion of the Qax, the factory ruins had been used as a fortress, as human fought human. Pirius sent Virtual images back to Torec to remind her of the similar factory she had explored on the Moon. But Torec was at Saturn, still working on the CTC processor project, out of touch.