Silence enclosed the house; dawn silvered the world.
Sitting in the window seat, J.D. relaxed. She was grateful for the solitude, for the quiet, and weary from her center to her skin.
Zev was still asleep, but J.D. had not slept well. She was too keyed up over the meeting later on this morning.
We have to accept the invitation, she thought. We have to. What else could we do?
But she feared that on the brink of triumph, something would obstruct the path the Four Worlds had opened.
J.D. fidgeted, tired of waiting, anxious to act, to improve Alien Contact’s chances of going to the Farther worlds.
The baby squidmoth, J.D. thought.
If it damages the wild cylinder, we might not have any choice but to go home.
I’ve got to keep that from happening, she thought. It’s three hours till the meeting. If I get up right now, and hurry, I can visit the squidmoth baby before the meeting.
Another squidmoth tantrum was the last thing she wanted to experience. But it was worth the risk, if she could persuade the being to leave Starfarer willingly. If it would not, she feared the consequences. For Starfarer and for the larval squidmoth. During the meeting, someone was bound to bring up the problem of Nemo’s offspring. J.D. wanted to present a solution.
In early morning’s rising light, her front yard glowed yellow with daffodils. The spring flowers erupted through mud washed in by the snowmelt. After everything that had happened, J.D. could hardly believe time had not passed to summer, to winter, to another year.
The flowers and leaves brushed against each other, swaying. The warm breeze carried with it the moist, green scent of spring.
The breeze ruffled the daffodils like a silk scarf. Here and there a cluster of stiffer tulips formed eddies in the motion of the daffodils.
J.D. wondered if she would be here when the hard green eggs of the tulip flowers burst into bloom.
She had to get back to Nautilus. She had to dive into the knowledge surface as if it were the ocean, and stay there until it permeated her like the salt of the primordial sea.
If she could navigate it, descend into it, she would possess all the knowledge of Nemo and Nemo’s ancestors.
Right after the meeting, I can go, she thought. Right after.
She jumped up, left the house, and hurried across her yard, heading for the end of Starfarer’s cylinder and the wild side ferry.
Over by the river, where the light cast dappled shadows through a grove of young trees, the path moved.
J.D. stopped short. The path moved?
The rippling continued.
At the grove of trees, the Representative’s representative inch-wormed from dappled shade to sunlight.
“Late!” J.D. exclaimed. “What are you doing? Are you all right?”
“I am... for now,” he said.
“You’re unusually active today. Won’t you hurt yourself?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said lugubriously.
“What’s wrong? Why are you so unhappy?”
“I’ve heard nothing from the Representative.”
All sorts of possibilities occurred to J.D., about what might be happening to the Representative, cooped up with the Smallerfarthing eldest in the strange little space-boat. Half the possibilities were bawdy and the other half sinister. She kept her speculations to herself.
“What does that mean?”
“I... I had hoped... that he gained a reward for his line. But I fear...”
He fell silent and stretched himself flat against the path.
“Please forgive my ignorance,” J.D. said, “but why would he expect a reward? If he was trying to possess Nautilus —”
“He risked himself, J.D.! His risk was brilliant, audacious.”
Late raised his forward third from the path, revealing shiny suckers, agitated radula. The radula combs appeared, swiped themselves across the sharp teeth, and disappeared again.
“He deserved...” Late’s fur bristled, and his spines rose from the dapples. “But it has been so long. I fear for us.”
“What might happen?”
“If the eldest did not countenance his risk, his line will end.”
“His line. You’re part of his line. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And — ?”
“I will have no place. I’ll be cut off from my society...”
“Banished?”
“I served well, I acted in the Representative’s place so he did not have to spend himself,” Late said. “I don’t want to die.”
“Is there something I can do to help?” J.D. said with sympathy. “Were you looking for me?”
The Representative’s representative shrugged his whole body, bristling out his fur and extending his spines. He fluttered forward. He could move with surprising rapidity, when he chose.
“I am looking for an adventure,” Late said. “I have never had an adventure, and I might not have much time left. You have adventures, so I came to you.”
“An adventure? I don’t — I guess I do have adventures. But — I’m awfully sorry, I have to go over to the wild side. Maybe we could think of an adventure after I get back? After the meeting?”
“The wild side,” Late said. “The wild side, yes, that would be an adventure. I will come with you. To the wild side.”
o0o
J.D. moved gingerly across the inspection web toward the squidmoth baby. Her safety line would catch her if she fell again, but the fall a couple of days ago had scared her.
“Be careful,” the Representative’s Representative said to her.
“I’m trying,” she said.
Late rode her shoulders, overbalancing her and making her feel even less secure on the open web. She regretted bringing him. Here on the outside of Starfarer, he was a heavy burden, and a reluctant adventurer. He had taken an interminable time to enter the Chi, find his spacesuit — J.D. had pulled it from the bundle of spacesuits the Farthings brought with them — and ripple into it. The suit looked like a high-tech plastic shopping bag, translucent and covered with sensors and grippers. He put it on by edging himself inside, one ripple at a time.
After that, he followed her so slowly that J.D. finally got the hint and offered to carry him, as Sharphearer so often did. He accepted instantly, gratefully eager, and climbed up her back to fasten his forward pincers to the shoulders of J.D.’s pressure suit.
She had not taken into account that Sharphearer had four legs to her two, or that Sharphearer usually carried Late through zero gravity. The inspection web had the highest gravity on campus.
Lugging a medium-sized Chinese carpet, plus carpet pad, J.D. walked a tightrope.
Where are all the silver slugs? she wondered. Maybe I could get one of them to help.
She put out a query. Arachne asked if her request was essential.
J.D.’s back hurt and her shoulders ached. She was only halfway to Nemo’s offspring, and she felt as if she had been on a strenuous hike. Replying to Arachne in the affirmative, J.D. stopped to rest.
“Are we there?” Late asked.
“No. I can show you an image if you like.”
“I will... savor the anticipation of viewing squidmoth spawn,” Late said.
The silver slug humped around the curve of Starfarer’s cylinder. It clutched the ship’s skin, upside-down.
“Here’s your new ride,” J.D. said.
“My... ride?”
“The artificial. The silver slug. Over there.”
Late clamped against her back, all the pincers scrabbling for a hold on the irregularities of her pressure suit and its support pack.
“Hey, be careful — you’ll tear something!”
“My suit is quite sturdy. I am all right where I am, truly.”
“You’ll be better on the slug,” J.D. said, thinking, I didn’t mean you’d tear your suit. “Come on, I’m in a hurry.”
Late’s body rippled against J.D.’s back, pressing the support pack uncomfortably between her shoulders.
“You want me to ride... on a synthetic creature?”
“Sure.”
“How do human people think of such things?” Late asked, marveling. “Such bizarre things.”
“We do it all the time. You ride in spaceships, what’s the difference?” It occurred to her that she had never seen anyone ride a silver slug; maybe they disliked being ridden as much as orcas did. But the orcas had strong tastes and a quick and alien intelligence; it had never occurred to J.D. to wonder if silver slugs could be said to like or dislike anything.
“I cannot, I’ll be upside down!” Late protested.
“You’re often upside down. You were eating, upside down on the lichen shelf.”
“I wasn’t upside down, you were upside down. There was no gravity there! I’ll fall off. There’s nothing to hold to!”
“Okay, the slug can crawl down on the web and turn over and you can flatten on its back. You’ve got a line, you’ll be perfectly safe.” She hoped the slug could crawl on the web. She assumed it could; the slugs had been designed with versatility in mind.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea I was being such a trouble, you go ahead, I’ll catch up to you.” Very, very slowly, he loosened one edge from its death grip on her suit.
J.D. knew when she was licked. Late would take half an hour to disengage himself, and heaven only knew how long to reach the squidmoth nest.
And here I was going to challenge him to walk it, she thought.
“All right, never mind. Stay where you are, it’s only a little farther.” J.D. sighed, then thought hopefully, Maybe he’s being careful because he isn’t getting ready to die after all.
She trudged on, grabbing the edge of the silver slug and letting it move above and ahead of her to pull her along. She was anxious to try to speak to Nemo’s offspring again. She had some ideas about communicating with it without frightening or upsetting it.
You were expecting it to be like Nemo, she told herself, but that’s a silly expectation. It hasn’t even metamorphosed into its juvenile form yet.
Nemo had lived, as a juvenile, for a million years.
She missed the calm intelligence of the old, wise juvenile squidmoth, who gained information effectively by making statements, testing hypotheses, changing each hypothesis in response to results.
The iridescent sheen of the egg nest appeared over Starfarer’s horizon. J.D. hurried toward it.
The squidmoth nest was larger than when she visited it before, its edges reaching wider, the central bulge larger.
Approaching the squidmoth, she fell silent. The translucent, iridescent nest was so delicate that for a handsbreadth its border lay transparent and nearly invisible against the stone.
The egg nest grew past and around the inspection web supports. It loomed and bulged, threatening to lose its hold on the cylinder and fall, to slide down the supports and engulf J.D. like a sticky, slimy blanket. Its edge crept around the curve of the cylinder.
J.D. moved cautiously onward, till she stood beneath the nest’s central mass.
“Why didn’t you bring your little machines?” Late asked. “You aren’t transmitting, I thought human people transmitted everything.”
J.D. gestured upward, where an LTM clung like a mechanical lizard to one of the inspection web supports.
“That LTM’s making a record. I’m about the only person who’s interested in Nemo’s offspring. Everyone is very busy.”
J.D. gazed up at the squidmoth egg. Egg? Larva? She needed a whole new set of terms, or a conversation about taxonomy with Arachne, or with the squidmoth.
She had to find out the relationships between the baby squidmoth’s life stages. It could tell her; it had all Nemo’s memories and the memories of its juvenile parent as well. But J.D. would not get specific, alien terminology from it. The squidmoth language had no words.
“What a strange thing,” Late said. “Every bit as ugly as everyone —”
“Hush!” J.D. said, annoyed. “It can hear you and it can understand you.”
“I beg your pardon,” Late said, both chastened and offended.
“And it isn’t ugly, either!” J.D. said. “It has the beautiful shimmer of its adult parent, who was my friend.”
The baby squidmoth made no response.
She wished again that 61 Cygni’s resident squidmoth had remained in the system. Why had it left, after being here so long, at the same time Starfarer arrived? She worried; she wondered if the two events were connected in a causal way, rather than coincidentally.
Right now it just matters that it’s gone, she thought. I would have liked to ask it about young squidmoths.
She sat on the inspection web. Late clambered down from her back and secured himself grimly around several web strands. J.D. leaned back against one of the supports, gazing upward at the shimmering, slowly pulsing mass.
Arachne replied to her request, sending a message to Infinity Mendez, returning with a reply.
J.D. accepted. Infinity appeared. His image floated between the inspection web and the surface of Starfarer.
“I’m in the tunnels,” he said. He widened the view so she could see. Silver slugs congregated behind him, spewing rock foam into the rough stone corridor.
Arachne showed a small schematic of the wild side cylinder, pinpointing Infinity’s position. He was above her, above the egg nest, several levels higher in Starfarer’s skin. Thin tendrils extended from the egg nest up almost to the tunnel. Silver slugs sparkled here and there, bunched above the squidmoth. Another cluster of slugs congregated on the far side of the cylinder, directly opposite the squidmoth’s nest. Balancing out the mass change, J.D. thought.
“It’s a lot farther inside than I expected.” J.D. cleared her throat before she spoke again, hoping to smooth the consternation from her voice. “Are you repairing damage?”
“It hasn’t done much damage,” Infinity said. “But just in case, I’m giving it more stuff to dig through. I figured if it does dig in, if it has to go through rock instead of corridors, it might stop before it got to the inner surface.”
“Thank you, Infinity,” J.D. said. “I never would have thought of that. What about the water?”
“It’s using some. Not enough to worry about.” He shrugged. “All things considered, it’s pretty benign. If it keeps on behaving like this, it can stay right there as long as it wants.”
J.D. blew out her breath with relief.
“Can you find out,” Infinity added, “if it’s going to grow much more?”
“I’ll try,” J.D. said.
“No doubt it is excreting into your water supply,” Late said. “Typical squidmoth behavior.”
“You don’t know anything about typical squidmoth behavior!” J.D. said, furious. “I know more about squidmoths than everybody in Civilization combined!”
“I know it,” Late said mildly. “But I think you should turn your intellect to matters of importance.”
J.D. muttered something.
“What?”
“I thought you wanted an adventure.” J.D. did not repeat what she had muttered. She thought, I’ve been hanging around Stephen Thomas too much.
“Adventures are hard work,” Late said.
“I can’t see any contamination,” Infinity said. “Arachne’s keeping up an analysis. If there’s a change, we’ll know it.”
“Thanks,” J.D. said, relieved. “Again.”
Infinity gestured an acknowledgement; his image vanished.
J.D. opened her link, offering communication to the young squidmoth, but protecting the knowledge surface.
The wild cylinder spun, propelling J.D. and Late and the young squidmoth through several cycles of starlight and shadow.
J.D. thought she saw a pattern in the nest’s growth, a slow progression. Arachne gave her a speeded-up image, superimposing the LTM’s record over the real egg nest.
The image crept outward while the light of 61 Cygni fell upon it; in the darkness, it slowed and stopped. When the image reached the edge of the real nest, the recording ended.
It’s photosynthesizing, J.D. thought, like Nemo did. Powering its growth with starlight. No wonder Nemo chose Sirius as the place to reproduce, within the blue-white light, where the energy flux is high.
If I hadn’t taken Nautilus out of the system, if I hadn’t pulled this young one along with me, it would be back with its siblings. Growing faster, and probably healthier.
She wondered, again, about the egg case that had escaped, the egg case she had lost while Nautilus passed through transition.
J.D. widened her link.
“I’d like to speak with you,” she said. “I promise not to touch you again. I’ve been worried about you.”
She expected tentative curiosity.
“I don’t care if you touch me,” the young squidmoth said abruptly, arrogantly.
“Hello,” J.D. said, surprised. “I’m glad you’re speaking to me. Are you all right?”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“You couldn’t hurt me!” The voice swaggered like a buccaneer’s, articulate and self-possessed.
“You sound a lot different than the last time we talked.”
“I was an embryo!”
“What are you now?”
“Second instar — you would say.”
“A juvenile?”
“Soon!”
The squidmoth was only a few days old, and about to become a juvenile. Nemo and J.D. had met when Nemo was a still a juvenile, toward the end of Nemo’s million-year lifespan. After metamorphosing, after adult reproduction, the squidmoth died. So members of the species must live virtually all their long lives as juveniles.
“Will you grow deeper into the rock?” she asked.
“My life is growth!”
Infinity Mendez’ reassurance began to erode.
“When you become a juvenile, won’t you need your own starship?”
“I am on a starship.”
J.D.’s heart followed the pull of centrifugal force and ended up below the inspection net, reeling as the wild cylinder spun past the stars.
I’m going to have to persuade it to leave, she thought.
“But this starship is smaller than your parent’s.”
“I am adaptable.”
“This starship belongs to human people,” J.D. said.
“Human people are mobile.”
“We have no place to be mobile to.”
“I don’t care.”
“Even if we left, you can’t control Starfarer, you wouldn’t be able to go where you wanted.”
“I don’t care.”
I think I’ve made a terrible mistake, J.D. thought. I should have taken Andro’s advice to try to move it when it was smaller, when we might have moved it without hurting it. Without any damage to the wild cylinder.
“Won’t you let us help you?” J.D. asked. “If you tell us where to take you, to get the kind of starship your people usually —”
“It isn’t me you want to help.”
“I want to help human people, it’s true,” J.D. said. “If our starship is destroyed, we’ll be stranded here. Some of us might die. But I want to help you, too.”
“That’s what all the Civilized people said while they were chasing my juvenile parent.”
J.D. sighed with frustration. She could not blame the being for its suspicions. Nemo, the baby squidmoth’s adult parent, had never mentioned being pursued. But Europa had referred to piratical predators, members of Civilization trying to steal the ships of squidmoths.
Nemo and other juvenile squidmoths had exchanged unfertilized eggs, becoming juvenile parents to each other’s offspring. The juvenile parents had bequeathed memories to their offspring, just as the adult parents did.
Apparently the baby squidmoth remembered its juvenile parent’s experience as an intended victim of the predators. J.D. wondered if the memories of the chase would be terror, of the hunt and the escape? Or memories of amusement, excitement, and triumph?
In Europa’s story, the pirates had followed a squidmoth into transition, intent on stealing a single ship or finding the graveyard of the other ones’ starships.
The pirates had not been seen thereafter.
The reclusive squidmoths, the oldest existing species, had scavenged the small massive starships of the vanished and mysterious other ones. The starships gave them tremendous power, which as far as J.D. knew they never employed except in self-defense. Androgeos complained that they never put the ships to good use, using them only as orbiting homes.
But how would Andro know? J.D. wondered. Nemo was a million years old. Civilization is — how old? A few tens of millennia? To a member of Civilization, a squidmoth might be immobile. To the squidmoth, a rest of only ten thousand years might be hyperactivity.
J.D. decided to give the immature squidmoth some straight talk.
“We have to come to an accommodation,” she said. “I’ve persuaded my colleagues to let you stay, but you must be careful not to damage the cylinder — not to go deeper into the rock.”
“I crush your threats with my tentacles!”
The fulmination startled her. Nemo had been mild and friendly. Except for one moment of fright, J.D. had always felt comfortable and respected in the squidmoth’s presence, despite her own relative youth and inexperience.
“You don’t have tentacles,” J.D. said. The LTM transmissions revealed a pool of cells metamorphosing around a central neural mass.
“You’ll be sorry when I do!”
This isn’t Nemo, J.D. reminded herself. No matter how much you miss your friend, Nemo’s gone. The young one is different. Different age, different personality —
“What are you going to do?” Late asked.
“I don’t know,” J.D. said. “Nothing, yet.”
The inspection web vibrated violently beneath her. Late’s pincers clamped tighter on the cables; the metal transmitted the shriek straight through J.D.’s suit. The sound made her flinch.
“Be careful!” Late cried to the squidmoth. “Intelligent beings are beneath you!”
J.D. laid one hand gently on the dorsal surface of Late’s spacesuit. The Representative’s Representative fell silent, still agitated, quivering.
Above her, the squidmoth quaked. Its surface rippled and plunged. The web supports, projecting down through the substance of the squidmoth, tore holes in the protoplasm. J.D. grabbed at the cables, convinced all over again that the creature was going to fall out of its crater and crush her.
“Scared you!” the squidmoth said.
Its presence crowded her link, pushing and taunting her.
J.D. heard a note of panic in the bravado of the voice.
“That must have hurt,” she said.
I may be asking it for something it can’t do, she thought. It can’t help growing, maybe it can’t help digging. I might as well tell a child to decide not to go through puberty.
Above her, the rips closed slowly, healing around the web supports. Livid scars marred the smooth surface.
“Nothing hurts me.”
J.D. opened her link wide. Her senses blanked out, erasing perception of her body, of the weight on her shoulders, of the stars spinning beneath her. She searched, thoughtfully, for another way to reach the youngster. She slid toward Nautilus and onto the knowledge surface, seeking information about the development of squidmoth. But the species did not raise its children after the adult parent freed the egg cases.
Nemo’s memories of youth were a million years old. J.D. could not gain access to them, though she was able to penetrate the surface a little deeper than last time. Tantalizing images of distant stars and of transition tempted her.
During J.D.’s distraction, the immature squidmoth poured its presence through her link and scrambled toward Victoria’s algorithm.
“Dammit!” J.D. cut her connection to Nautilus, evicting the squidmoth at the same time. The world flashed into reality; she regained her perception of her body. Only the smallest thread of communication remained between her and the invader.
“I told you before,” she said sternly, “you may not have that.”
“Fuck you!” the squidmoth cried. “Bitch! Shit! Damn! Poop! Fooey!” Through the attenuated link, its voice was the faint echo of an infuriated scream.
Prepared for the anger, J.D. maintained her balance on the inspection web. Late hunkered down on his cables, all four edges curled around strands, the pincers clamped.
Maybe the squidmoth has been hanging around Stephen Thomas too long, too, J.D. thought. Though for all the offhand profanity Stephen Thomas uses, he hardly ever directs it at anybody in particular.
JD projected her image through Arachne to speak to Infinity Mendez. His image appeared before her in return.
“Have you been listening?”
“Yeah, unfortunately.”
“What age am I dealing with?”
“Sounds like an adolescent to me... Relative to a human kid? About thirteen. The profanity stage.” He chuckled. “‘Poop.’”
“Don’t laugh at me!” the squidmoth screamed. “I’ll squash you!”
J.D. damped down the squidmoth’s transmission frequency.
“What do I do?” she asked Infinity. “How do I get through to it?”
“You wait for it to outgrow the phase,” Infinity said.
JD hesitated, wanting a better answer.
“Look at it this way,” Infinity said. He was standing on an extra layer of dense rock foam, while behind him the silver slugs continued to laminate the space with a deeper and deeper barrier. “You won’t have to wait till it’s eighteen. At the rate it’s changing, you’ll probably only have to wait a couple of days.”
o0o
Ruth Orazio sat in the warm sand of the beach, folded her arms on her knees, and gazed across the sea.
“Hi.”
Ruth turned. Standing on the dune behind her, Zev looked fondly down at her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m just fine,” she said. “And how are you?
She wondered if Zev had kept his promise to her. He was open, guileless; keeping a secret would not be easy for him. He was the only person besides Europa who knew she was pregnant.
If he talked to her in public in this solicitous tone, no one would be fooled for long. Besides, being spoken to like that nauseated her worse than morning sickness.
“I’m glad you —”
“Zev,” she said sternly, “I’d rather not discuss —”
“We have to. You have to release me from my promise.”
“No.”
She was glad she was sitting down; her knees felt shaky. He slid down the dune and sat anxiously beside her.
“I didn’t think it would matter if I didn’t tell J.D.,” he said in a rush. “I thought I could pretend I didn’t know, I thought it was just a little thing — I thought — I don’t know what I thought. I’m happy for you —”
“And I’m grateful to you. Don’t spoil it now.”
“But I can’t keep secrets from J.D. I thought she had kept one from me — she didn’t, but I thought she did, and I felt awful — and if she finds out —” He spread his webbed hands.
“Zev,” Ruth said gently.
“— she’ll feel the same way!”
“Do you tell J.D. everything? Every conversation you have, everything you do?”
“I would if we were back home,” he said. “But here there isn’t time. Everybody’s so busy...”
“Then —”
“But I tell her everything important.”
“Then consider our conversation unimportant.”
He looked at the ground, digging his claws into the sand.
“But it was important. It is important.”
“Telling her will just make things harder for her. Don’t you think she has enough on her mind?”
“The more good things you have on your mind, the easier it is.”
“Everyone on the deep space expedition agreed not to have children during the trip,” she said. “Why get them upset about me?” She was afraid to reveal Civilization’s rules; bad enough that she was breaking Starfarer’s.
“But you aren’t a member of the expedition,” Zev explained sincerely. “Not officially. It isn’t your fault you’re here.”
Ruth flopped back in the sand, aggravated, and gazed obliquely past the sun tube, at the far-overhead ocean. Light glittered from the waves.
“Ruth — ?” Zev said, worried, but relentless. “I have to tell J.D. Please don’t make me break my word to you.”
She sighed, sat up, and rose. The dry soft sand squeaked beneath her feet.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll talk to J.D. together.”
o0o
J.D. reached the amphitheater while it was still deserted.
The terraced bowl opened out before her. Still shaken by the adolescent squidmoth’s tantrum, she was grateful for the silence and the open space. She had spent too much time beneath the looming presence of the egg nest. Needing light and air, she had thrown off her space suit and fled the airlock, leaving the Representative’s Representative still releasing his seals.
How strange, she thought, to feel claustrophobic when all of space lay beneath my feet.
She walked down the path; she liked to sit midway down the hillside. The grass of the terraced seats was bright green and slightly damp, new blades thickly covering desiccated brown wisps. The grass had recovered from the heat wave and from the snowstorm.
So far we’ve muddled through, J.D. thought. We reached consensus to leave the solar system. We defied it, when Gerald blocked, to leave Tau Ceti and go to Sirius.
So far, almost all of us have agreed. Maybe we will again.
Gold and mahogany in the sun, Zev strode through the entryway. Senator Orazio accompanied him.
Zev hugged J.D. and sat down beside her, uncharacteristically solemn. Ruth Orazio sat next to him.
“I have something to tell you,” Zev said.
When he, and the senator, had finished, J.D. bent forward and hid her face in her hands.
“J.D. —” Ruth said.
“I’m happy for you,” J.D. said, her voice muffled. “I am. Honestly.”
“What will you do?”
J.D. took her hands from her face. “Why did you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to keep secrets from you,” Zev said.
“Oh, Zev — !” she said, appreciating his motives but, for once, wishing his candor were not so complete. “I won’t do anything,” she said to Ruth. “I hope you’ll do the same.”
“Within reason,” Ruth said.
They smiled at each other, sealing a fragile agreement.
The rest of Starfarer’s people began to gather around them. Ruth patted J.D.’s hand in reassurance and went to sit a few terraces away.
J.D. sighed.
“I knew what was right back home,” Zev said. “I wasn’t so sure about here.”
“You did right,” J.D. said. Now she understood better why he had been so upset. She squeezed his hand.
Victoria and Stephen Thomas and Satoshi arrived together. Whatever Stephen Thomas had said to them when he got home, it had worked. J.D. smiled to see them. They looked happier than they had since Stephen Thomas started to change. Victoria glowed with transcendent joy. Satoshi, content and bemused, touched Stephen Thomas’s back, letting his hand linger on the blue silk of his loose shirt. Stephen Thomas’s exuberant arrogance amused and delighted J.D. Even the pang she felt at having let him go when she could have had him stood apart from her pleasure in the reconciliation of her friends.
“They’re going to be okay now, aren’t they?” Zev said softly.
“Yes,” J.D. said. “I think they are. Maybe it won’t be easy. But I think they are.”
She grinned at Zev. He leaned forward and gave her a quick, hot-tongued kiss. J.D. wondered, with a flash of anticipatory pleasure radiating from her center, if Stephen Thomas was anywhere near as good a lover as Zev. Being a male diver conferred benefits that had nothing to do with being concealed from sharks.
Midway up the opposite slope of the amphitheater, next to Fox, Gerald Hemminge stood up to speak.
His colleagues settled into silence.
Damn! J.D. thought. I let myself get distracted, now Gerald will get in the first word...
“Gerald Hemminge.” Following tradition, Gerald spoke his name and paused. No one challenged his right to speak.
“Our guests,” he said, “our sponsors from the Four Worlds, have honored us. Before we accept their invitation, we should ask them to make it clear how joining Civilization will benefit us. So far, they’ve given us little and asked for a great deal: Victoria’s algorithm and Crimson’s fossils.”
“But I want them to have the fossils,” Crimson said, breaking the rules of the meeting with cross-talk. “The whole point of excavating them is to study them.”
“They want our coffee and our chocolate, too.” Florrie Brown sat with Infinity and Esther, who looked rested and energetic.
Though it was rude to interrupt whoever was standing to speak, a ripple of laughter passed across the amphitheater. J.D. wondered if Florrie had made a deliberate joke, or if she was thinking, as J.D. was, of the times on earth when delicacies or drugs created flash-points for war.
“Indeed they do,” Gerald said, his words polite, his tone sharp. “And they claim rights in the alien starship.”
J.D. noticed, as she was sure she was meant to, that Gerald did not refer to Nautilus as belonging to her.
“I believe,” Gerald said, “that we should return to Earth.”
J.D. held back her protest, but she perched on the edge of the grassy terrace, ready to leap to her feet the instant Gerald gave her an opening.
He noticed her agitation and smiled at her with a hint of condescension. He spread his hands, taking in the amphitheater. “It’s because of J.D. that we can go home now. We have the alien spaceship. We have an alien! It may not grow into sentience during our lifetimes. It may not hatch during our lifetimes! But it is alien life. By definition, the deep space expedition has succeeded.”
He paused, glanced around the amphitheater, turned to include the people behind him.
“Back on Earth, they think of us as fools and fantasists. Or families fear we’re dead! Don’t you think we should go home and validate ourselves?”
J.D. leaped to her feet before Gerald could take another breath to continue.
“J.D. Sauvage,” she said, and barely paused. “If we go home now we’ll be stranded!”
“I was not quite finished, J.D.,” Gerald said mildly.
“I’m —” J.D. collected herself, took a lesson from Stephen Thomas, and did not apologize. “I thought you were, Gerald. Please, tell us your solutions.”
“The cosmic string isn’t predictable any more. It left our system, yes — and it could come back as abruptly.”
Victoria made a skeptical sound. She glanced over at Avvaiyar Prakesh, the astronomer, who grimaced with equal doubt.
“On the other hand, we could wait out here for several lifetimes — for five hundred years of banishment — and the string still might not return!” Gerald said. “Is anyone here prepared to risk that?”
“Sure,” Stephen Thomas said.
“Yes,” J.D. said.
Gerald replied to Stephen Thomas. “I’m not at all surprised. You’ll no doubt be arrested the moment you land.”
In the United States, changing into a diver was illegal.
J.D. protested. “No court —”
“I did not say he would be convicted, I said he would be arrested.”
“Along with everybody else on campus,” Stephen Thomas said.
That earned him a rueful laugh. They were all likely to be prosecuted for stealing the starship.
Senator Derjaguin rose out of turn, but Gerald ceded time to him with a welcoming gesture.
“I have influence back on Earth,” he said. “If you return, I’ll use it as best I can to support you.”
“Like the United States,” Stephen Thomas said sarcastically, “supported the deep space expedition?”
“The longer you delay,” the senator said, “the harder it will be.”
“I’d rather take my chances out here,” J.D. said. “I think we should —”
“Why do you people adopt meeting rules you’re not willing to follow?” Gerald said indignantly. “I still have not finished.”
“Why not?” Stephen Thomas asked, ignoring Gerald’s complaint. “Give J.D. a turn.”
“In a minute,” J.D. said. “Gerald, what do you plan to do about the supercharged bacteria?”
“Pretend our young genius never discovered them.”
“Fuck, no!” Stephen Thomas said.
“I absolutely reject that suggestion!” Professor Thanthavong said. “I’ll have no part in transmitting these bacteria in secret. However beneficial — however essential! — they might be.”
“Professor Thanthavong,” Gerald said with careful courtesy, “can you cure our entire ecosystem?”
“No,” she admitted. “Not without destroying it.”
“Then we have no choice,” Gerald said. “If Stephen Thomas weren’t so accomplished, we wouldn’t know about it.”
“But we do know about it,” Thanthavong said.
“Earth can’t join Civilization without the protection of the bacteria. We might as well —”
“Take them to Earth? In secret?”
“Yes.”
“What you’re suggesting is profoundly immoral.”
“And it’s the way Civilization has always proceeded! What’s the alternative?”
“Tell. Tell everything.”
“Professor, forgive me, we’d be shot out of the sky.”
“I disagree.”
“At the very least, we’d never be allowed home.”
“No one will be trapped on Starfarer. We can cure individuals. The cure isn’t enjoyable, but it isn’t difficult, either.”
“The public outcry against letting us back home — even cured — will be worse.”
“You may do as you like,” Thanthavong said coldly. “Lie about the bacteria, as you’ve chosen to lie about Crimson’s performance. Whoever you persuade — I won’t participate.”
Shock, embarrassment, and fascination combined into a heavy silence.
J.D. rose. Her motion broke the tension between Gerald and Professor Thanthavong. Gerald reluctantly sat down.
“Gerald has proved my point,” J.D. said. “The Four Worlds are taking a tremendous risk by welcoming us.”
She looked around the amphitheater, trying to gauge the response. Victoria gave her a small smile of confidence, a supportive nod; Satoshi gave her a thumbs-up. But Gerald looked bored. Senator Derjaguin shifted irritably. Senator Orazio frowned and stared at her feet. Will she keep our bargain? J.D. wondered. J.D. disliked secrets, but she feared what might happen if Ruth’s became common knowledge.
“The Four Worlds are offering us confidence that we haven’t necessarily earned,” J.D. said. “They’re giving us another chance. How can’t we take it?”
“Why?” Ruth Orazio asked.
J.D. looked at her sharply. Ruth gazed back calmly, as if they shared no secrets.
“As a guest, I may be speaking out of turn,” Ruth said, “but you did ask a question. Why are they offering their confidence to a bunch of violent barbarians? Are they taking a risk for risk’s sake?”
She is trusting me, J.D. thought. It’s a good question, one I wish I could answer. Ruth would have said the same thing even if we hadn’t talked, even if she weren’t pregnant. Maybe even if she was a member of the expedition.
“They’re taking a risk because J.D. proved to them that we aren’t violent barbarians,” Stephen Thomas said.
A deep blush, as much of pleasure as of embarrassment, heated J.D.’s face.
“The senator’s correct to ask the question!” Gerald said. “I believe they’d do anything to keep us here. They want the algorithm. They want the source of the fossils.”
“The sculptures,” J.D. said automatically. She brushed her short hair back from her forehead, a nervous gesture. “But you’re right,” she said. “I agree with you.”
“Remarkable,” Gerald said cheerfully. “Then you agree that we should protect the algorithm — use it solely for Earth’s benefit. It will give us quite an advantage.”
“No,” J.D. said, troubled by the comment, but unwilling to be distracted from her point again. “And it isn’t me you should be asking about the algorithm, it’s Victoria. I do agree with Ruth that the Four Worlds have their own reasons. Which probably have nothing to do with me, flattered as I am by what Stephen Thomas said.”
Victoria had reacted to Gerald’s remark, too. Distracted, she stared at nothing. A representation of her algorithm, swirls and wisps of color, drifted into half-intensity before her. She started, pulling her attention back to the meeting. The holographic image faded.
“It doesn’t matter what the Four Worlds’ reasons are!” J.D. said. “Look at what happens if we go home now. Starfarer pops into existence in the solar system. Everybody says, Hey, where have you guys been? And what do we say?”
She glanced around the amphitheater again, letting her colleagues imagine answers.
Professor Thanthavong chuckled ruefully.
J.D. grinned at her. “Right. We say, We met five different kinds of alien people! Six if you count the Minoans. But none of them could come back with us. Except, of course, this infant alien that we abducted.”
“And,” Victoria said, “we saved Victoria’s algorithm for Earth’s use... except, of course, we can’t use it because the cosmic string has withdrawn from the solar system.”
“And Earth got an invitation to join Civilization.” Satoshi extended the imaginary dialog. “But we turned it down and came home instead, but, of course, maybe they’ll invite us again in five hundred years.”
“Oh, and by the way,” Stephen Thomas said, “the aliens infected us with a new bacterium, and it’s fucking tough to eradicate — but of course you won’t mind if we bring it back to Earth, will you?”
“You sound like the Largerfarthings,” Gerald said caustically. “Next you’ll all be braiding feathers in your hair.”
“It’s a perfectly good fashion!” Florrie Brown said. She flicked her braids forward over her shoulders; some of Sharphearer’s polished beads decorated them.
“I agree,” Ruth Orazio said, brushing her fingertips against the bit of scarlet fluff tied into her hair.
Gerald ignored the rustle of laughter. “And we never abducted the squidmoth. Rather it was left in our nest like a cuckoo’s egg!”
“We’ve come this far,” J.D. said. “If we go home now, we’ve got nothing. If we go home as members of Civilization, we have a chance. I urge us to accept the invitation and visit the Farther worlds.”
She sat down. Her armpits were clammily wet; a drop of nervous sweat rolled down her spine. She leaned back against the riser of the next terrace, feigning calm.
The whisper and buzz of earnest conversation crept through the quiet. For a long time no one rose to speak.
Professor Thanthavong stood up.
“I think J.D. is right,” she said. “I urge all my colleagues to stand with her.”
J.D. sprang up, Zev beside her. The partnership rose as one.
Griffith, projecting his presence from Nautilus to his usual spot alone on the top terrace, stood up almost as quickly. He had to be physically present to join consensus, that was one of Starfarer’s rules. But J.D. appreciated his virtual support nevertheless.
Soon the members of the physics department and the genetics department, astronomy and biochem, the staff, the art department, Starfarer’s only resident member of Grandparents in Space, and the people who had no official place, like Zev, like Esther, and Kolya in projected image, all joined the decision.
Sitting beside Gerald, Fox hesitated, fidgeted, and finally jumped to her feet.
To J.D.’s surprise, to her gratitude, even Ruth Orazio rose to back her up.
Soon only a few people remained sitting.
“You must return to Earth,” Senator Derjaguin said sadly, knowing they would not.
“I’m sorry, Senator,” J.D. said. “Gerald, please, don’t break consensus. Won’t you join us?”
“Come on, Gerald,” Fox said.
“I cannot,” the acting chancellor replied. He did not look at Fox.
“Are you blocking?”
“I have no wish,” he said, “to repeat the humiliation of being ignored. I abstain.”
All she could think of to say was, “Thank you.”
“Shall we sail to the Farther worlds?” sailmaster Jenny Dupre asked. “Or is Nautilus going too, with us in orbit?”
“Wait — !”
J.D. turned toward Infinity Mendez, startled by his outburst.
“I keep telling you,” he said. He paused for a moment, uncomfortable as always when he was the center of attention. When he spoke again he had forced his voice to a tense calm. “We can’t move Starfarer anymore. Not this soon. The ecosystem’s got to have some stability.”
“The sun mirrors —” Avvaiyar said.
She let her eyelids flicker, touching Arachne for a moment. J.D. did the same, and saw the same pattern.
Distressed, J.D. sank to the terrace.
“I see,” Avvaiyar said. “You’re right.”
“Yes,” J.D. said. “I’m sorry, Infinity, you did tell us, and we didn’t pay you enough attention.”
“It isn’t something I’m happy to point out,” he said.
At the Farther worlds’ distance from 61 Cygni, the mirrors should have been sufficient to maintain the stability of the weather. First, though, the weather had to recover its equilibrium. Arachne could not predict exactly what would happen if Starfarer moved farther from 61 Cygni. A dangerous number of possibilities involved the same destructive extremes that the starship had barely survived.
Esther Klein made an exasperated noise.
“We don’t have to take Starfarer,” she said. “Did the invitation say we had to take Starfarer? Leave it in orbit around Largernearer!”
“Can you fly us to Largerfarther in the transport?” J.D. asked “Are you up to it?”
“I am,” Esther said. “The transport’s not — not enough range. But you have Nautilus. There’s Europa’s starship. We could even send a delegation on the Four Worlds ship if they’d take us, or put our stuff in the transport and dock it with the Four Worlds ship and camp out in it.”
“Any of that would work,” J.D. said. “Sure it would!” A tendril of worry twisted around the idea of splitting up the expedition. She pushed it away.
Esther faced J.D. squarely. “If we go on Nautilus — I could be your relief pilot.”
J.D. had not gotten as far as considering a backup pilot for Nautilus, but Esther’s idea was sound. J.D.’s control through the knowledge surface was nothing preternatural.
But it could be risky, too, J.D. thought. If Esther knows how to fly it, would she take it? Could they force her to take Nautilus from me?
Esther gazed at her, all blunt courage and hope.
“It isn’t straightforward,” J.D. said. “There are changes... But, if you want, we’ll talk about it.”
“That’s all I ask.” Esther’s voice was a little uneven. “Thanks.”
“J.D.,” Professor Thanthavong said, “would you invite our Four Worlds guests to join the meeting?
J.D. closed her eyes and flowed through her link to Quickercatcher, to Late, to Orchestra’s AI, to the Minoans. She reached beyond them to Orchestra herself, to the Smallernearer.
Quickercatcher’s presence mirrored his physical being, allure surrounding a straightforward, sturdy core. Late had shrugged off his usual lethargic attitude; he bubbled with excitement.
“I have news, J.D.!” he said. “Good news!”
Quite a change, J.D. thought, after just one adventure.
“I do, too,” she said. “Will you and the quartet please join the meeting, so we can accept your invitation?”
A second later, Orchestra’s response returned from the surface of Largernearer. She gave J.D. the gift of a slow, powerful tide of approval.
The Smallernearer said nothing, but only watched and waited, time-lagged by the distance.
“This is wonderful.” Quickercatcher’s pleasure glowed around J.D.
“Please come into the amphitheater,” she said. “We’ll share our good news.”
Sharphearer’s fluorescent fur glowed at the mouth of the tunnel. J.D. could make out the pure white of Andro’s kilt. An incongruous thought floated through J.D.’s mind: I wonder how he keeps the pleats so sharp.
Quickercatcher led the group from the entry tunnel, his fur changing from grayed purple in the darkness to soft mauve in the light. Fasterdigger was harder to see, his brown and orange spots camouflaging him in the dark; Europa’s homespun skirt and vest had the same effect. Longestlooker’s black-on-black pelt kept her invisible until she strode fully into the light. Orchestra’s AI accompanied them, appearing, disappearing, expanding, then contracting to miniature size.
The representatives of Civilization walked down the ramp into the amphitheater. Late rode Sharphearer, holding on with his back half, waving his forward edge, ratcheting his teeth; two of Europa’s meerkats clutched the fur of Fasterdigger’s forward shoulders.
J.D. rose to greet them.
“We accept your kind invitation,” J.D. said. “We’ll visit the Farther worlds. We accept the responsibility of being members of the interstellar civilization.”
Europa came to her and embraced her, and Quickercatcher nudged her arm with his nose. A trill of happiness began. The sound expanded; it became music. The Largerfarthings trilled their pleasure, each a different note. The harmonics beat and blended. Short of breath from joy, J.D. laughed.
“We all have news,” Longestlooker said. “You next, Late,” Sharphearer said, “yours is next most important.”
Late twisted his wide, flat body, orienting himself toward J.D.
“I have been promoted,” he said.
“Congratulations,” J.D. said. “What happened?”
“The Representative has proven himself!” Late exclaimed. “Did I tell you that he would? I did! The Eldest has given him leave to start his own line.”
J.D. glanced at Europa, uncertain how to react. What Late had told her was that the Representative had failed.
The Minoan smiled quizzically.
“Think of it as bestowing a title of nobility,” Europa said. “The Eldest gave the Representative’s line more territory, resources... and breeding rights. Late will metamorphose.”
“I’ll succeed the Representative,” Late said. He arched his back, exposing his spines.
“So the Representative’s risk paid off,” J.D. said. “Even though he failed.”
“Risk has many results,” Late said. “The result you didn’t foresee might be the most valuable. There is no failure, just different outcomes.”
It was a viewpoint J.D. had not considered before. She would have to think about it later, when she had time and quiet. When she was on board Nautilus.
“I’m glad for you,” J.D. said. “Though it’s a pity this couldn’t have happened before the Representative injured Esther.”
The pilot sat with Infinity and Florrie, watching the encounter in silence. Though she acted neither frightened nor angry, Esther kept her distance.
“It wouldn’t have happened otherwise!” Late said. “Not hurting her, I don’t mean hurting her.” He twisted the other way, opening his edges toward Esther. “We regret your damage, and we’ll compensate you.” He turned back to J.D. “But of course, J.D.,” he said earnestly, “human beings heal, so it isn’t as if the damage had happened to a Smallerfarthing.”
J.D. made a sound of disbelief, a sound that even she could not distinguish between a laugh and a sob.
“I don’t understand you at all,” she said. “And I know this means a lot to you, but to me it would mean being trapped in a tiny room for the rest of my life.”
“Yes. Yes! Bliss.” He added quickly, “Though I did enjoy my adventure.”
J.D. expected more explanation, but Late hunkered down on Sharphearer’s back, rippling contentedly. Sharphearer patted Late’s dappled fur, smoothing it around the spines.
“We have news as well,” Longestlooker said. “News for Crimson.”
The Largerfarthing moved sinuously to look across the terraces at the sculptor. Near the bottom of the amphitheater’s bowl, Crimson sat crosslegged next to Avvaiyar.
“What is it?” Crimson asked.
“The Farther worlds want to help you. We have experience, exploring alien sites. We’ve equipped an expedition with modern excavation equipment. It’s coming to join the dig.”
As Gerald opened his mouth to speak, Crimson jumped up and spread her arms in exultation.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. “An official joint interstellar excavation!”
“Longestlooker,” Gerald said, “this is very generous of the Farthings, but it’s hardly fair to take over Crimson’s project —”
“But, Chancellor,” Quickercatcher said politely, “she’s already welcomed us.”
Fasterdigger said, “We can learn from each other.”
Sharphearer added, “She will want to come on one of our excavations, I know.”
J.D. felt sorry for Gerald, caught in Crimson’s performance. She admired Crimson for throwing herself into it so fully, for having the self-confidence to expose her sculptures to the floodlight of the Four Worlds’ technology and experience.
She wondered what it would be like to go on an archaeological excavation to a true alien site.
“Longestlooker,” J.D. said, “who’s coming to visit us from the Farther worlds? Are they paleontologists? Or artists?”
Longestlooker bared her teeth at J.D., as if trying to smile like a human being.
“Why, J.D., they are paleontologists, to Crimson, but if you like, to you, they will be artists.” She lightened the effect of her bared teeth by closing her eyes, outer corners to inner.
“It’s a good idea, Chancellor Hemminge,” Europa said. “We mustn’t take the risk of missing anything — no offense to Crimson, but she’s never excavated an alien site before.”
“I’m not taking offense,” Crimson said. “But I will if you don’t accept what I’ve been saying: I welcome the Farther worlds’ archaeologists.”
“Is everything settled?” Androgeos asked. “Starfarer will proceed — ?”
Someone started to explain to him why Starfarer had to stay behind. J.D. retired from the discussion; she and Zev joined Victoria, Satoshi, and Stephen Thomas. Victoria gave J.D. a quick, warm hug, and Stephen Thomas patted her fondly on the shoulder.
“We did it,” J.D. said. “Somehow, we did it.”
“We sure did,” Satoshi said. “You did.”
“I’m going over to Nautilus,” J.D. said. She touched Arachne and sent a message through space to Kolya. A moment later his image appeared. Griffith hovered, ghostly, behind him.
“Are you ready to escape from my rock?” J.D. said to Kolya, with an apologetic smile. “I’m truly sorry to have left you there so long.”
“I don’t mind,” Kolya said. “But if you begin classes in Nautilus-flying, I’d like to attend.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Kolya, thank you.”
His gaze shifted: Esther climbed the terraces toward them.
“Hi, Kolya,” Esther said.
J.D. heard a note in Esther’s voice that she had never perceived before, even when the pilot was talking to Infinity Mendez. Her voice carried tension, anticipation, potential.
Kolya replied with a fond smile. His stripy eyebrows arched, and the smile-lines crinkled around his eyes.
Esther grinned. “Look, I have another diamond.”
The emerging diamond shard caught the light and refracted it across her opalescent palm. Esther plucked it out of the bandage compound, showed it around, and put the diamond in her pocket.
“I’d be glad to run you over to Nautilus, any time,” she said.
“I’d like to go now,” J.D. said.
“Okay,” Esther said without hesitation. “I’ll check out the Chi. Are you guys ready to come home?” She spoke to Kolya, but included Griffith in her glance.
The Chi could fly itself to Nautilus and back, but if Esther wanted to return to Nautilus, that was fine with J.D. Traveling alone on the Chi made her uncomfortable.
Satoshi was gazing at the appealing group of Largerfarthings. Longestlooker reared, rising above all the humans. With serpentine grace, she dropped to all fours again.
“I wonder if she knows,” Satoshi said.
“Knows what?” Stephen Thomas said.
“That Crimson’s an artist. That the fossils are a performance.”
“If she knows,” J.D. said, “she’s an awfully good actor.”
“The Farther worlds wouldn’t send a ship all the way across the system,” Victoria said, “for an art performance.” She hesitated. “Would they?”
“I don’t know,” J.D. said. “But... that would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?”
“J.D., J.D.!” The voice came through J.D.’s link, and at the same time something twitched the cuff of her pants.
Late reared up beside her, a third of his body rising from the ground.
J.D. started, then collected herself.
“I must pick up the Representative’s boat,” Late said. “My boat. It will be my home. Will you take me?”
“Yes, I suppose,” she said. “But I’m leaving now. Sharphearer will have to take you to the dock. I won’t wait!”
“J.D., this is most unlike you,” Late said, taken aback. “But I will do my best.”
Late ruffled away, making a path for himself through the crowd of people with discreet pressure from his spines.
“How long are you going to stay?” Victoria asked. “I want you along on the trip to the Farther worlds.”
“I’ll be with you,” J.D. said. “But I’ll be on Nautilus.” The final decision had not yet been made about how the delegation from Starfarer would get to the Farther twin worlds. Whatever they decided, J.D. would follow. However fond she was of the Largerfarthings, however much she had come to respect Europa, she would neither let her friends split off from Starfarer alone, nor leave Nautilus behind.
“All right,” Victoria said.
J.D. hugged Victoria, and when they parted both Satoshi and Stephen Thomas embraced J.D. Satoshi kissed her cheek, then held her shoulders wordlessly. J.D. smiled. Stephen Thomas enfolded her and rested his forehead against her shoulder, as he had on the beach the day before.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She drew back from him, as shy about him as ever. “I’m not going away forever,” she said.
Her vision sparkling with happiness and sadness and anticipation, J.D. hurried out of the amphitheater.