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sufficient water and air and the rest to support the number of people it carried. It is sufficient that the master computer contain the plans and schematics for everything required, from computer consoles and circuitry to basic water, and be able to make them. For this it uses a device called a transmuter. All of the food that we consumed on the old ship was made that way. It takes something solid or some energy and it converts it to whatever is needed. The salad you ate a day ago might well have been worn-out parts from the ship once, or spare exhaust gases from the propulsion system. Nothing is wasted, you see. Very small transmuters were even used on me back on Melchior, to speed what they wished to make .of me. Shortcuts to surgery, to create—or to destroy. We have all had it, to a degree. The tattoos on our faces—this is why they seem so much a part of us and do not wear out.”
    All of them who had been prisoners on Melchior had the tattoos on their faces. Those of Hawks, Silent Woman, Cloud Dancer, the Chows, and Reba Koll were silver; China’s was a metallic crimson. Each was an abstract design, ranging from a solid ball near the corners of the mouth and spreading up, tendrillike, to the side of the eyes and ears. The markings were slightly indented and quite smooth, but they had sensation like that of the surrounding skin—the tattoos were, indeed, the prisoners’ own skin. No prisoner could ever fake not being a prisoner, and the color of the tattoo indicated the levels to which one had access, so one could not even sneak away. It was the indelible mark of Melchior. Only Raven, Warlock, and Sabatini lacked tattoos; they had not been prisoners.
    “Someday these designs will be marks of honor,” Hawks said, more to himself than the others.
    “This transmuter, then—it can make food? And water? And air?” Chow Mai asked. “It is the magic of the gods.”
    “It is only technology, nothing more,” China responded. “A machine, like the others, but an essential one—for us. This ship was never designed to carry humans such as we.”
    Cloud Dancer looked around at the chairs on the bridge. “Then how do you explain this?” she asked.
    “If we could explain this, then perhaps we could explain Master System,” Hawks noted dryly.
    “Pressurization complete,” Star Eagle reported. “It is safe to take off your suits. The air temperature at introduction is well within the comfort zone. Avoid all flames and sparks, since it is mostly oxygen. You might feel some slight dizziness or intoxication, and slight changes in voice, as well, so be prepared.”
    They had been in the suits for many hours, and in close quarters for far longer than that, so they were happy to remove their suits and stretch out on the floor. They were tired, sweaty, and now mostly helpless, dependent on a computer that was trying to learn how to run the ship. Even Sabatini seemed to have had all the fight taken out of him. None of the others trusted him, but under the circumstances there was little he could do to harm the party as a whole, and if he tried to hurt an individual member, the others were more than willing to take care of him, a fact he understood well.
    The metal walls and decking were still cold, but Hawks didn’t care. His wives, Cloud Dancer and Silent Woman, came over to sit beside him, and he put one arm around each of them. What a strange, motley crew of revolutionaries, he thought. Silent Woman, with her garish multicolored tattoos from the shoulders down; the Chows, with skin grafts to heal their once badly mutilated bodies in place but discolored, giving them a camouflagelike complexion; Reba Koll, a little old lady with a thin tail; and China, her exquisite body very visibly pregnant. He could only wonder if the child would survive all this, and, if so, what they would do with it.
    How the hell were they going to do anything? Damn it, out here even such as he and Raven were as primitive and ignorant as Silent