The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “All right. All right! I won’t tell her.”

  He left his younger partner alone.

  He returned to Victoria. She lay on the sleeping surface of her cabin, one knee drawn up, the other leg extended, her fingers laced behind her head, her eyes half closed.

  “He wants to sleep by himself tonight.”

  Her expression was her only question.

  “He said he was achy, he said he’d thrash around...” Satoshi was not lying. Not technically. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “One of his moody spells,” Victoria said. She had learned to overlook them, as Stephen Thomas preferred. “He’ll be okay in the morning.”

  “Victoria,” Satoshi said, “he’s growing fur.”

  “I know. I saw.” She grinned. “I think it’s kind of sexy, don’t you?”

  She reached out to him. He grasped her long, slender fingers, lay beside her, and pulled the blanket over them both. Victoria hooked her foot over his leg, sliding her instep up his calf. She pulled him closer and kissed him, hard and hungrily. He opened his mouth for her tongue, and rolled over on his back, drawing her on top of him, abandoning himself to her, abandoning his worries and his fears.

  And yet, making love with Victoria in the starlight, in the harsh reflected shine of Sirius, Satoshi missed the touch of Stephen Thomas’s body, the strength of his hands, his voice.

  o0o

  After Satoshi left, Stephen Thomas stared at the cell cultures for a few more minutes. He did not want to move. His whole body hurt.

  Just ignore it, he said to himself. You’d feel worse after a rough soccer game.

  He was used to recovering quickly. He still did recover quickly: a few days ago he had had two black eyes and a livid cut across his forehead. Those bruises had vanished and the scar was fading.

  The ache of the changing virus remained. And once in a while, completely unexpectedly, real pain ambushed him. Before he realized how badly the slugs had bruised him, he had feared something was going wrong with the changes.

  He wished he could just take to his bed and get his partners to bring him chicken soup. They would do it, too... except that then he would end up having to tell Victoria what had really happened. Admitting to Satoshi what a fool he had been was bad enough. He did not think he could stand to admit it to Victoria.

  He swore out loud, shut down the lab, and went across the Chi to his cubicle. In the far cabin, Victoria and Satoshi murmured to each other. An ache radiated from the center of his pelvis. It spread in a wave. He quietly closed the door that joined his partners’ cabins to his own.

  He stripped off his clothes, untangled his quilt, and lay down on the sleeping surface. He pulled the quilt around his shoulders. It used to smell like Merry, but it did not anymore, even in his imagination.

  He was wide awake. He flung off the quilt, turned over, stretched, and looked at himself.

  His body proportions were similar to Zev’s: he was slender, narrow-hipped; he had good shoulders. But Zev, like most divers, was rather short. Stephen Thomas liked being tall. He hoped that would not change.

  So far, his toenails had not begun to change to semi-retractile claws. He curled his toes. His feet were about the only part of him that did not hurt.

  His skin changed from day to day. Not only its color. He had traded the maddening itch between his fingers, while the webbing formed, for a milder itch all over his body as the fine, nearly invisible hair grew in.

  He liked the delicate pelt. He thought he would find it sexy on another person. He rubbed his hand down his forearm, down his side. He hoped Victoria and Satoshi would get to like it, too.

  I wonder whether Merry would have liked it? Stephen Thomas thought. Probably. Merry was always the one who wanted to experiment.

  The partnership had never quite perfected the complex, erotic chaos of four people making love to each other in the same bed. They had needed more time. They had all been looking forward to trying sex in free-fall. But they never got to try it as a foursome; Merry died before their first trip into space.

  With a sharp pang of loneliness, Stephen Thomas wished he were sleeping with his partners. But all his reasons for sleeping alone remained. He hurt, he was restless, he would keep them awake. Besides, he liked to please them, and for the past couple of days his interest in sex had been very low.

  That worried him. He explained his lack of interest to himself with the bruises, the persistent ache, the occasional intense pain.

  He told the lights to turn off, curled up in his quilt, and hugged his knees to his chest. That eased him a little.

  His mind spun around the strange behavior of his cell cultures, the disturbing encounter with Nemo’s pond creatures.

  Trying to take his mind off his work, Stephen Thomas thought about Feral.

  Feral liked change, just like Merry did. That was one of the reasons Stephen Thomas had been attracted to him. Feral had joined the expedition’s revolt without hesitation. He had been excited when Stephen Thomas decided to finish turning into a diver. He had even been envious.

  Stephen Thomas smiled wryly to himself.

  Some of these changes you wouldn’t be envious of, my friend, he thought. But I bet you would’ve liked my new fur.

  On impulse, he opened a private channel back to Starfarer. In response to his call, Gerald Hemminge appeared, his dark hair mussed. A wrinkle, the image of a crease in his pillow, was imprinted across his cheek.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  Gerald glanced sideways, realized he was transmitting his image, and snapped a command to Arachne. He faded out.

  “What is it? Has there been a new development?”

  “No,” Stephen Thomas said. “Nemo’s still quiet.”

  “Then why did you call me? Don’t you ever sleep?”

  No, Stephen Thomas thought, I don’t, these days.

  “I called you because I want to talk to you for a minute. Why’d you answer, if you were asleep?”

  “Because I’m your bloody liaison!”

  “But I marked the message private —”

  Stephen Thomas stopped. No point in deliberately getting into an argument with Gerald. They argued enough anyway.

  “It’s about Feral.”

  “What about him?”

  Gerald’s image reappeared. He had combed his hair and put on a shirt. Except for the crease across his cheek, he looked wide awake and professional.

  “His funeral. We should do something —”

  Gerald stared at him. “You never cease to amaze me. You’re in the midst of humanity’s first alien contact —”

  “It’s only the first if you don’t count Europa,” Stephen Thomas said.

  “Europa isn’t an alien.”

  “Europa’s the first human to meet aliens — Look, Gerald, forget Europa, I want to talk about Feral.”

  “There’s nothing we can do here and now.”

  “I know, but when I come back —”

  “When we return to Earth, we’ll turn his body over to his family.”

  “What? That might be years!”

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  “Besides, he hasn’t got any family.”

  “The proper authorities, in that case.”

  “But —”

  “I’m sorry. There’s nothing to be done. I haven’t any authority to make any arrangements. It will have to wait till we go home.”

  Stephen Thomas started to object again, but Gerald interrupted.

  “And now, if you don’t mind, some of us would like to be fresh for the next conversation with Nemo.”

  He broke the connection.

  “Shit,” Stephen Thomas muttered to the air where Gerald’s image had faded.

  o0o

  J.D. woke, disoriented. Stars and darkness surrounded her.

  It was nearly morning. She was still in her couch in the observers’ circle, but the couch had been extended flat. A blanket covered her.

  Oh, no, she thought. I fell asle
ep during the conference. I was just going to close my eyes...

  Zev curled nearby, on his own couch. He woke and drew in a deep gasp of air. Divers slept like orcas, napping till they needed another breath, waking, breathing, drifting back to sleep. Zev turned toward her, his dark eyes reflecting light like a cat’s, his fine fur catching the starlight. He looked like a gilded statue, with eerie emerald eyes.

  “Hi, Zev.”

  In silence, he left his couch and joined her in hers, snuggling close. His webbed hand slid beneath her shirt and over her full breast. In a moment of embarrassment she started to draw away. But the sensors and the cameras and the microphones were all turned off. No one could watch them through the transparent walls of the circle. The Chi was quiet, Victoria and Satoshi and Stephen Thomas asleep together in their cabin.

  J.D. hugged Zev closer, and kissed him. Her tongue touched his sharp, dangerous canine teeth. He nibbled at her lips, at her throat, at her collarbone, unbuttoning her shirt with his free hand. She pressed her hands down his muscular back, beneath his loose silk shorts. His body was hot against her, urgent with his insistent, ingenuous sexuality.

  He wriggled out of his shorts. He straddled J.D.’s thighs while he unfastened her pants and pushed them down over her hips, then when she had kicked them to the floor he moved between her legs. Among divers, men as well as women produced a sexual lubricant. As J.D. and Zev played and caressed and teased each other, Zev grew slick just like J.D.

  J.D. kissed Zev’s shoulder. His fur felt soft and bright against her lips. She gasped as he stroked her inner thigh with his warm webbed fingers.

  They moved with each other in the slow, luxurious rhythms of the sea, leading each other on. The rhythm quickened, grew desperate and joyful, and they loved each other beneath the alien stars.

  Chapter 5

  J.D. felt physically refreshed, if still intellectually and emotionally overwhelmed by her time with Nemo. She and Zev had slept for several hours, first in the observers’ chamber and then in J.D.’s cabin, holding each other. Zev nuzzled her throat, or kissed the cleft between her breasts, whenever he woke to breathe.

  She left him napping in her bed. While she bathed and dressed, she reviewed the proceedings of last night’s conference, including the few minutes after she had fallen asleep.

  I don’t believe I did that, she thought.

  She told the onboard computer to take away that display and show her the recordings of her colleagues’ experiences with Nemo.

  Nemo had tempted Victoria with the inner workings of a starship, and tantalized Satoshi with more hints of the complexity of the web community.

  What Nemo had offered Stephen Thomas, J.D. did not understand any better than Stephen Thomas did. The violence of the inner pool shocked her.

  We were visiting an alien, she thought. We have to expect encounters that are... alien.

  And... if I were inside my own body, watching blood cells attack pathogens, watching osteoclasts break down bone, I’d be just as surprised, and repelled.

  She kept waiting for a message from Nemo. It worried her to have heard nothing.

  You’re thinking hard and long, Nemo my friend, she said to herself. I wonder what that means for us?

  The computer put away the displays. J.D. went to the galley to find some breakfast.

  Satoshi hunched over a cup of coffee, staring into the steam.

  “Good morning,” J.D. said, surprised to see him. Satoshi was not known as an early riser.

  “Hi,” he said shortly.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said.

  He raised his head; his expression remained blank, distracted.

  “Huh?”

  “For falling asleep.”

  “Oh. God, don’t apologize. You’ve been going flat out for days.”

  J.D. reconstituted some milk — Starfarer did not have any cows, and she had not worked herself up to making hot chocolate with goat’s milk — and heated it.

  “Satoshi... do you think we ought to let Nemo into Arachne?”

  He sipped coffee, his strong square hands wrapped around the mug, lifting it slowly, putting it down deliberately.

  “Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “You do!”

  “I think the potential’s worth the risk.”

  “That’s my reaction, emotionally,” J.D. said. “But intellectually I keep telling myself it’s a terrible idea.”

  “I understand Victoria’s point of view,” Satoshi said. “But the trade... a million years of observation, even if it’s limited observation —”

  “Who knows about that,” J.D. said.

  “Right.”

  “What does Stephen Thomas think?”

  “I don’t know what Stephen Thomas thinks or feels or wants!”

  Satoshi’s outburst startled J.D.

  Satoshi lifted his mug, but set it down hard instead of drinking.

  “He spends all his time alone, in his lab, or —” His hands clenched around it. “He’s changed so much.”

  J.D. sat down across the table.

  “Because of Feral? Because of turning into a diver?”

  “I don’t know,” Satoshi said sadly, more calmly. “Feral, being a Changeling, misjudging Blades... That’s all part of it. But not all.” He stopped and sat back, embarrassed. “You don’t need to hear this.”

  “It’s all right,” J.D. said.

  Victoria’s voice flowed through the intercom.

  “Hey, you guys, anybody up? Come look at this!”

  J.D. and Satoshi hurried to the observer’s chamber, where Victoria sat with her couch turned to face the curved glass wall.

  J.D. saw what Victoria was watching. She whistled softly through her teeth as she slid into the auxiliary couch next to Victoria’s and turned it toward the outside,

  A protrusion of silk led from the crater, across the rocky surface of the planetoid, nearly to the Chi. It looked like a thick, rumpled carpet. As J.D. watched, it extended itself another handsbreadth. The leading edge roiled and quivered as silk spinners created it from the inside out.

  “It worried me at first,” Victoria said, “but Nemo’s making no attempt to camouflage it. I tested the silk — it’s strong, but it wouldn’t withstand the Chi’s engines if we lifted off. I don’t think it’s any danger.”

  “I wish Nemo would answer my transmissions,” J.D. said. “I could ask about it. And about what Stephen Thomas saw. I’m worried... I don’t know what to think about the silence. Or the way Nemo dismissed us yesterday.”

  “Nemo hasn’t given up on us entirely,” Victoria said. “The planetoid is following Starfarer toward Europa’s transition point.”

  “Nemo’s coming after us?” J.D. exclaimed, surprised and delighted.

  “Mm-hmm. Following, but not closing any distance. That’s probably a good thing. Starfarer doesn’t need any more gravitation perturbations.”

  “I’d love another expedition into the web,” Satoshi said. “I have a good start on an analysis. But only a start.”

  “We might have more time, if Nemo follows us all the way through transition —”

  “Nemo can leave from the same point and come out at the same place on the other side,” Victoria said. “But without my algorithm, the route will be different.”

  “Tracking Europa?”

  “Probably. I suppose it’s possible Nemo has another algorithm.”

  “Europa gave me the impression everybody in Civilization uses the same one. The best one they’ve found yet.”

  “Yes. Me, too. If that’s true, however long it takes her to get wherever we’re going, that’s how long it’ll take Nemo. It will take us less time. But I don’t know how much less time. Whether we’ll catch up to the alien humans or not...”

  “Wait, back up a minute,” J.D. said. “You don’t know where we’re going?”

  “Not yet, eh? It’s complicated. Arachne hasn’t solved it yet.”

  J.D. looked at her, a
stonished.

  Victoria smiled, contentedly.

  “It’s okay, eh? The algorithm shows that wherever we’re heading, it’s full of cosmic string. So even if we lose Europa, we can keep going.”

  J.D. stared through the transparent wall. The tube of silk reached the foot of the Chi. There, it paused.

  “What will we do, if we lose Europa’s trail?”

  “I don’t know,” Victoria said. “I just don’t know.”

  They sat side by side and stared at the projection from Nemo’s crater.

  The projection began to inflate, like a balloon blowing up.

  What is that thing? J.D. thought.

  “Do you want me to open Arachne for Nemo?” Victoria asked abruptly.

  “Yes,” Satoshi said.

  Victoria gave him a surprised look.

  “Could you take your algorithm out first?” J.D. asked.

  “No. Not anymore. Arachne’s still finding the solutions we’ll need. And by now the algorithm’s hard-wired in. It’s part of the computer’s thought patterns.”

  “Then... I guess you’d better keep Nemo out for the time being.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I think, too.”

  Suddenly Nemo’s tube reared up like a snake. Satoshi leaned closer, fascinated.

  Victoria jumped to her feet. Her eyelids fluttered as she touched the Chi’s onboard computer, preparing for emergency liftoff.

  “Wait, Victoria!”

  Victoria opened her eyes, frowning.

  “It’s an airlock,” J.D. said.

  As they watched, the swaying tube draped itself against the Chi’s outer hatch. Its puckered end opened, crept outward, and its edge fastened itself around the seal of the hatch, trembling with the workings of small creatures within its walls.

  A spot of heat appeared in the back of J.D.’s mind. She opened herself to the transmission.

  “Nemo? Is it you?”

  “J.D., please come to me.”

  o0o

  Alone, J.D. hurried through the airlock and into the new tunnel. She did not even stop to put on her spacesuit; she simply grabbed a pocketful of LTMs and headed for Nemo’s crater.

  At the edge, she paused. A frayed bit of silk led downward. It was the same lifeline that she had followed yesterday. No lifeliner waited to spin her a new thread.