The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “What’s the matter, Stephen Thomas? Perhaps you should go back to bed.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. But listen, Griffith-”

  “Do you have any evidence?”

  “How about Florrie’s reaction to him? How about mine?”

  “What reactions, exactly, are you talking about?”

  “Florrie took one look at him and said he was a narc.”

  Thanthavong laughed. Unlike Stephen Thomas and Victoria and Satoshi, she did not have to be told what a narc was.

  “My dear,” she said, “a certain segment of my generation will regard any member of the government as a narc. I believe Floris belongs to that segment. What reaction did you have?”

  He hesitated. He had never tried to persuade Thanthavong of his ability to see auras. Indifferent to the opinions of most people, he cared deeply what she thought of him.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “I... looked for his aura, and I couldn’t find it.”

  “His aura.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice neutral.

  “You aren’t laughing,” he said.

  “Why should I?”

  “Practically everybody else does.”

  “It’s true that I don’t believe in auras. But you are very perceptive, when you care to be. Your instincts about people can generally be relied on. An ‘aura’ may be your way of perceiving character.”

  “People keep saying that to me,” Stephen Thomas said. He sounded grumpy even to himself. “I don’t see what the hell’s so weird about seeing auras, if you don’t think it’s weird for somebody to take one look at another person and be able to make accurate statements about their personality.”

  Thanthavong chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right. What makes you think Griffith may be our culprit, just because he has no aura?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen Thomas said. “I never had that reaction to anybody before. It... shook me.”

  Thanthavong’s mouth quirked in half a smile. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that your evidence would be of little use in a court of law. Or in a meeting.”

  “Everything was going fine until Griffith turned up,” Stephen Thomas said. “Who else could it be?”

  “That’s what you said about Gerald! If you accuse Griffith because of when he arrived, you must also accuse Floris Brown-”

  “Florrie Brown!” Stephen Thomas started to laugh, until he realized how serious Thanthavong was.

  “-or J.D.-”

  “But that’s ridiculous.”

  “-or Feral.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Stephen Thomas said. “Feral-”

  “I didn’t say I suspected him. I said you could apply the same evidence to him as to Griffith.”

  “He’s on our side,” Stephen Thomas said. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  “My friend, the most likely person to be a spy is the most unlikely person to be a spy. It could be anyone on board the starship. It could be any of the transport passengers. They would have been most likely to survive, if the missile had breached Starfarer’s hull. One assumes the government would not throw away a capable agent unnecessarily.”

  “If the warhead had gone off when it hit, nobody would have survived.”

  “But it didn’t go off when it hit. We’ll never know what was intended — a scare shot, or a crippling strike, or a killing shot with a defective trigger. The missile didn’t leave us any clues to who crashed the web.”

  “Christ on a carousel,” Stephen Thomas said. “If whoever it was is still on board, they could do it again. Shit.”

  “You do have a way with words,” Thanthavong replied.

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “I still think it’s Griffith. Maybe I could make him tell us what’s going on.”

  “Assuming you’re right about him, just how would you propose to do that?”

  Stephen Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know. But he doesn’t have the whole government behind him anymore, and I’m bigger than he is.”

  As soon as he said it, he wished he had kept his mouth shut.

  “You’re talking about physical force? When is the last time you were in a fight?”

  “I never get in fights — I mean...” He glanced away sheepishly.

  “When?”

  “Gerald and I kind of went at each other.”

  “Your black eyes-”

  “He never hit me!” Stephen Thomas brushed his fingers across the bandaged cut on his forehead. “This is all from the accident.”

  “That is what I believed, but when you said you had fought...”

  “It was more like, we sort of whacked at each other for a while and bounced into the wall. It was in zero g.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Nobody won.”

  “Threatening violence is a dreadful precedent. Besides — let us be pragmatic — If Griffith is a government agent, an undercover agent, and you fought him, someone would win. Probably not you.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “‘Maybe’?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Lots of them. I intend to ask him. Maybe I’ll ask Gerald, too. And Feral, just to be impartial.”

  “Wait-!”

  “For what?”

  “For me to come back, so I can come with you. At least don’t talk to Griffith alone. Please.”

  “That’s a sensible precaution,” Thanthavong said. “Very well. What about Florrie? Do you think I can hold my own against her?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen Thomas said, deadpan. “If she’s a government agent, she might be pretty dangerous. Maybe you’d better take Feral along with you as a bodyguard.”

  Thanthavong chuckled.

  Stephen Thomas let himself relax in the loose straps of his couch. He had forgotten, during the whole time of his conversation with Thanthavong, that he was in zero g.

  Maybe Satoshi was right, he thought. I just needed some extended experience.

  “Would you do me a favour?” he said.

  “If I can.”

  “I don’t want to wake the kids up in the middle of the night. They’re probably exhausted. In the morning, we’ll be landing. I won’t be able to leave the circle to make private calls. Would you tell my students... that I’ll bring back some new work?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “But you could tell them that yourself. It wouldn’t destroy your reputation entirely to appear sentimental on the public link. Good night, Stephen Thomas. Get some sleep.”

  Her image faded from the centre of the circle.

  Stephen Thomas spent another quarter of an hour looking through the transparent wall at the approaching planet. Its beauty and promise soothed him and allowed the tension and apprehension to flow from him, as if they were diffusing into space. Finally, yawning, he unfastened the safety straps and let himself free. He swam easily to his room.

  He got into bed, deciding against joining Victoria and Satoshi. They had enough to worry about without getting sick, too.

  He fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

  o0o

  Early in the morning, Victoria laid her hand on Stephen Thomas’s forehead. The fever still burned.

  He woke up. In the dim light, his beautiful sapphire eyes looked grey.

  “You sleep so pretty,” she said.

  He snorted. “I don’t feel pretty this morning.”

  “You are, though.” She kissed him; he turned his head so her lips brushed his cheek.

  “You don’t want to pick up this bug,” he said. “It’s a real pain. Literally.”

  She gave him more flu-away, and the package of fruit juice she had brought him.

  “That’ll help the ache.”

  “I hope. It didn’t last night.”

  “Do you feel well enough to join the circle?”

  “No, but I’m going to anyway.” He opened the sleeping net. “Are we in o
rbit? Damn, I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “Not yet. But look.” She gestured with her chin toward the port.

  He looked out the window.

  “Holy shit.”

  Sea filled the circle, the shapes of its continents perceptible beneath white clouds. Zev had suggested naming the continents after the islands of his home, in the Puget Sound wilderness. Stephen Thomas liked the idea, but Victoria resisted any more gratuitous naming.

  Stephen Thomas pushed himself out of bed and dove toward the window. Victoria grabbed for him, afraid he would crash head-first into the glass. To her surprise, he stopped gracefully and easily in just the right place.

  “You’re getting better,” she said.

  “I still don’t feel too great,” Stephen Thomas said offhand, mistaking her comment. “Will you look at that.”

  Victoria joined him by the port.

  She wondered if she perceived Tau Ceti II as so beautiful because it looked so much like Earth, green and blue, streaked and swirled with white clouds, three-quarters in sunlight and a quarter in shadow.

  “Can you see the lightning?”

  “No, where?” Victoria said.

  “Northern hemisphere, middle latitudes-”

  Victoria looked for lightning in the night crescent, but saw only darkness.

  Her message signal formed. Victoria ignored it for the moment, wanting to get Stephen Thomas back to bed.

  “Why don’t you try to get a little more sleep?” she said. “You might feel okay by the time we land.”

  Stephen Thomas’s message signal formed beside Victoria’s.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Would you do me a favour?” He gestured toward the message signal. “Would you check my messages? My brain feels like it’s full of fur. God only knows what I’d answer anybody.”

  “You’d probably answer with your usual restraint,” Victoria said, her tone dry. “Sure, I’ll check yours when I answer mine. Traffic’s busy for so early in the morning. Do you need help getting back to bed?”

  “I can make it.” He moved away from the window, turned with grace, and pushed off to cross the short distance to his sleeping surface. “I’m getting better- Oh, is that what you meant?”

  Satoshi’s voice reached them through the intercom.

  “Victoria, where are you? Avvaiyar’s trying to reach you. Sounds serious. It’s something about the strings.”

  Victoria touched Stephen Thomas on the arm. “Will you be okay?”

  “You can keep an eye on me,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  He followed her to the observer’s circle. Victoria was amazed and amused at how well he was navigating in zero g. He had avoided it for so long, complained about it for so long, that he had convinced himself he could not cope with it. Now he could be the first one chosen for the team in zero-g sports, as well as in the traditional variety.

  J.D. and Zev and Satoshi had already reached the circle, where Avvaiyar’s image occupied the centre.

  Victoria’s couch enfolded her. Stephen Thomas took his place.

  “I thought this could wait,” Avvaiyar said, skipping all the preliminaries. “But it can’t. Victoria, the strings are moving.”

  Strings always moved; it was their nature. The string by which Starfarer had entered transition had vibrated into the vicinity of the solar system. Someday it would vibrate out of range. That “someday” was several thousand years in the future, however, so it was not an imminent threat.

  Victoria brought up the system map beside Avvaiyar’s image.

  “Moving how?”

  “Moving away. All at once. Accelerating. Untangling. It’s like they’re opening up...” She put her hands together, palm to palm, laced her fingers, then drew her hands apart again.

  “All of them?” Victoria said, stunned.

  “All.”

  Nothing in cosmic string theory accounted for this behaviour.

  “What are we going to do?” Avvaiyar said.

  She sounded even more shocked than Victoria felt. Her voice held a note of hopelessness, of despondency, as if the heart had gone out of her.

  “Avvaiyar, I don’t understand what you’re telling me. If they move, they move. There’s nothing we can do to stop them. We’ll have to add the motion to the algorithms; they’ll take more time to solve. Other than that...”

  “Victoria, you don’t understand! They’re moving fast. Unless they stop and start moving back the other way, they’re going to be moving faster than Starfarer can accelerate within a very few weeks. And I don’t believe they’re going to be moving back the other way!”

  “Christ on a broomstick,” Stephen Thomas said. “Is this stuff going to strand us here?”

  “It could.”

  “Oh, damn,” J.D. whispered. “Damn...” She was looking not at Avvaiyar’s image, but through the clear wall of the observer, toward Tau Ceti II. “We’re not going to get to land after all, are we?”

  “I don’t see how,” Avvaiyar said. “If Iphigenie doesn’t realign the sail soon — very soon — Starfarer will never catch up to the transition point for Earth. You’re going to have to sling yourselves around the planet and come back. A.S.A.P.”

  “But-” Stephen Thomas exclaimed.

  “But what, Stephen Thomas? I don’t-”

  “Never mind,” he said.

  “-see that there’s any choice!”

  “Never mind! I understand! My whole career just got snatched out from under me! Let me have a little disappointment!”

  “I’m sorry,” Avvaiyar said. “But... I’m frightened. I don’t understand why or how this could happen, and I’m afraid that if it could happen this way, it could start happening even faster.” She tried to smile; she failed. “I didn’t sign onto this expedition for my life’s work, you know?”

  “None of us did,” Victoria said.

  J.D. made a quick, suppressed motion of objection. She stopped almost before she started, but not before Victoria noticed.

  J.D. did sign on for life, Victoria thought. Or she’d be willing to.

  “All right,” Victoria said. “We’re coming back. We won’t land. Is Iphigenie prepared to change course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead. We’ll catch up.”

  Avvaiyar nodded once, sharply. Her image vanished.

  The members of the alien contact team stared at each other for a long slow painful minute.

  “Excuse me,” Stephen Thomas said. “I’m going to go find a quiet, private place for a little while. Don’t pay any attention to the noise. It’s just the neighbourhood geneticist beating his head against the wall.”

  He left the observers’ circle and vanished into the main ship.

  “I can’t bear this,” J.D. said softly.

  Zev reached out and took her hand.

  “Don’t give up hope yet.” Victoria tried to keep up her own spirits, but the encouragement sounded hollow even to her. “We don’t know that much about cosmic string. It might be indulging in a momentary local variation. A hiccup. There’s so much of it in this system, I can’t imagine how it could all vibrate out of range at once.”

  “But you’ve changed the course of the Chi already. Haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Victoria admitted. “It’s a safety precaution. I think it would be better to delay our landing on Tau Ceti II, rather than risk being stranded in this system forever. Don’t you?”

  J.D. did not answer.

  “I would not like it, never to go home again,” Zev said.

  “We’ll go home, don’t worry.” Victoria glared through the Chi’s transparent wall, out into the system, as if she could see the cosmic string, as if her anger alone could force it to retrace its path. “Maybe a lot sooner than we thought.”

  Satoshi flung off the safety straps and shoved himself out of his couch.

  “You know what I’d like to know? I’d like to know what general is pushing the buttons this time.”

  He propelled himself thr
ough the entryway, out of the observers’ circle.

  Victoria and J.D. and Zev remained. J.D. looked enervated. If she had been in a gravity field, she would have been slumping with dejection.

  “I’m so sorry, J.D....” Victoria stopped. Anything she said would be inadequate.

  “Yeah. So am I.”

  “You weren’t serious...”

  “About what?”

  “About staying here. Forever.”

  J.D. did not even bother to point out that she had not actually said she wanted to stay here forever.

  “There’s a lifetime’s work here. Work I spent my life preparing for.”

  “You’re an alien contact specialist. There aren’t any aliens to contact.”

  “Victoria, there’s a lifetime’s work back in the dome, even crushed as it is. How can we leave it behind, unexcavated?” She thrust out one hand to stave off Victoria’s objection. “No, I’m not suggesting that everyone on board Starfarer should stay here while our route home disappears. But I am admitting that if it were only up to me, if I were the only person involved, I’d stay.”

  Victoria hesitated, wanting to say something but afraid of offending her team-mate.

  “There’s nothing...” she said carefully. “There’s no way to leave behind an artificial environment that would sustain a person for more than a couple of years.”

  “I know it.” J.D. smiled sadly. “I’m angry, I’m disappointed, I’m frustrated, and I’m going to be very depressed for quite a while. But I’m not suicidal.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Victoria said.

  J.D. glanced through the wall of the observer’s chamber, not, this time, at Tau Ceti II, but at its satellite. The orientation of the Chi, the arc of its path, put the satellite to one side of the spacecraft, rather than behind it.

  “I wish, now, that we’d stayed. I wish we’d tried to excavate. Salvage archaeology.” She sighed. “Too late now, I suppose.”

  The Chi’s computer took only a couple of seconds to answer J.D.’s question: They could not land again, much less spend any time excavating, and still catch up to Starfarer.

  “I’m sorry, J.D.,” Victoria said. “We have to go straight back to the starship. We have to go home.”

  Chapter 6

  All its recording instruments set on high detail, all its cameras focused, the Chi sped around Tau Ceti II, from light to shadow to light again, and headed back toward the starship.