The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  She descended, expecting the thread to vanish into a reshaped curtain. Each time she rounded a curve, she expected to see a lifeliner hunkered down waiting for her. But the configuration of the nest had not changed. The corridors were very quiet. J.D. saw none of the spinners and weavers and scavengers that had been so common yesterday. The curtains looked drab and dusty. She tapped into an LTM perception of the ultra-violet. Instead of bursting around her in patterns and colors, it faded into a gray moiré. The shimmering blossoms had faded to blurs.

  The larger attendants no longer haunted the spaces between the corridors, throwing their shadows against the tunnel walls. The nest felt deserted. Even the light-lines had faded, as if their optical properties had deteriorated.

  J.D. climbed and slid down a long slope. At the bottom, an attendant with several broken spines tried valiantly to drag away a fallen curtain. The curtain’s edges shredded as it moved.

  The attendant gave up trying to move the disintegrating fabric. Scrambling over wrinkles and folds, it crawled to the center, and picked and chewed at the material.

  J.D. sat on her heels and watched it; in a moment it had eaten a fist-sized hole. She rose quickly and continued deeper into the web.

  She reached Nemo’s chamber. The squidmoth lay motionless, eyelid closed, beside the line of silken pouches. Still another pouch lay nearly completed beneath Nemo’s limp tentacles. The spinners wandered around the top, stumbling into each other, creating the lacy edge.

  “Nemo?”

  The squidmoth’s eyelid opened slowly. The long tentacles moved lethargically in a tangle; the short tentacles hung limp. A fine mist of silken strands covered Nemo’s lower body, restraining the last couple of pairs of vibration-sending legs.

  “Are you all right? Were you asleep? — But you don’t sleep.”

  “In this form, I don’t sleep.” Nemo extended the long tentacles toward her. She grasped one; the others curved around her body. Their warmth soaked into her.

  “I’m glad you’re still talking to me,” J.D. said. “I was afraid you weren’t.”

  “You’ve decided not to trade information with me.”

  Here in Nemo’s crater, J.D.’s impulse to give Nemo access to Arachne felt much stronger than her thoughtful decision to protect Starfarer’s computer web.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Europa and Androgeos — Androgeos mostly — scared us. Give us all a little more time with you.”

  “You’re different,” Nemo said.

  “In what way?” J.D. was afraid Nemo would say, I misjudged you, I don’t want to talk to you anymore, go away.

  Nemo’s proboscises regained their normal activity; the mustache began to ripple.

  “It’s your scent that’s different.”

  J.D. was not wearing perfume — she seldom did — and she had used the same soap as always.

  She supposed she smelled strange to Nemo, as Nemo smelled strange to her. But... Nemo had not said strange, or unpleasant. Nemo had said “different.”

  She started to blush. She did smell different today, even to herself, with a trace of the deep sexy musk that remained after she and Zev made love.

  “I suppose I do,” she said. “Human beings smell different depending on what they’re doing, or what they’ve eaten, or the state of their health.” She hoped that would do for now. She supposed she should tell Nemo in detail why and how she smelled different from yesterday. She might have been able to do so if they had been alone. But they were not alone. They were under the eyes of the LTMs and everyone on Starfarer.

  Why, she thought, is it harder to tell other human beings about intimate actions — actions we share, after all — than it would be to tell someone completely alien? Because an alien would be objective about it? Because if an alien said, “How extremely strange,” it would hurt less than if a human said the same thing?

  “Does it bother you that I smell different today?” J.D. asked.

  “Your new scent makes you a different shape in my mind.”

  J.D. smiled. She hoped her new shape in Nemo’s mind was not quite as undignified as it had been when she was with Zev. At least they had been making love within a gravity field. In zero gravity, sex could be hilarious.

  “Today you’re different, too, “ J.D. said. “Are you... wearing clothes?”

  “No,” Nemo said.

  Nemo reached up to the bank of honey ants and plucked one. Only a few remained. A burst of saliva flooded J.D.’s mouth. She could taste the sweetness and feel the rush. But instead of offering the honey ant to J.D., Nemo stroked the creature till it folded its legs. Nemo slid it into the silken pouch. Disappointed, J.D. watched it vanish.

  A spinner emerged from beneath Nemo’s vibration-sending legs. It crawled up the side-fin and over Nemo’s back, trailing a strand of silk. J.D. tapped into an LTM perception in the ultraviolet. The blanket of silk around Nemo’s tail section rippled like water, like sunlight pouring through leafy trees and dappling the ground.

  Several more spinners climbed up Nemo’s side, helping create the layered fabric.

  “You are so beautiful,” J.D. said.

  “I’m changing,” Nemo said.

  “But how? Why?”

  “I’m changing myself into an adult, because I’m very old.”

  “But you said you’re just a child.”

  “No, I told you I’m a juvenile.”

  “But when you said you’d lived for a million years — I thought you were just at the beginning of your life!”

  “You asked my life span.”

  J.D. grasped Nemo’s tentacle suddenly. She sank down beside the squidmoth and stroked the soft, brilliant skin. She had asked Nemo’s life span. Nemo had lived a million years.

  “How long do you live, after you become an adult?”

  “Until I reproduce.”

  “In a hundred years?” She was afraid to hear the answer. She made up one she hoped to hear. “Five hundred?”

  “In a few hours.”

  “Oh, no — !”

  I keep making assumptions! she shouted, angrily, to herself. Assumptions!

  “You’re protesting my decision,” Nemo said.

  “Not your decision, just the timing. I just met you! I like you, I don’t want to lose you!”

  “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have waited to change.”

  “Can’t you wait now?”

  “No, I’ve been preparing for too long.”

  “You can’t go back?”

  One of the attendants that cleaned Nemo’s skin scuttled across the floor.

  Nemo’s tentacle snapped out of J.D.’s hand and caught the creature. It struggled as Nemo placed it in the gray silk pouch. Holding the pouch with all three tentacles, trembling, Nemo sealed its edge to the curtain.

  “All my attendants are parceled out.” Nemo touched the bulging pouches.

  “Parceled out? Why? What are those things?”

  “They are the egg sacs for my children.”

  “Can’t you change your mind?”

  “Do you wish me to change my mind?”

  J.D. wanted to say, Yes! Don’t change, don’t die.

  “What would happen if you stayed a juvenile?” she asked.

  “My attendants would die.”

  “And your children?”

  “They’d never be born.”

  “What about you?”

  “I would leave nothing behind me.”

  “Tell me your life cycle,” J.D. said.

  “I awoke, I remembered my parents, to thank them, and I listened and I learned and I grew into my body.”

  J.D. clutched at a hope. “You listened to your parents? You learned from them? They were there to teach you?”

  “They weren’t there, but I remembered what they left for me, and I added to what they had learned.”

  “Were they dead?”

  “My juvenile parent might still be alive, but my adult parent died, of course.”

  “When you excha
nge genetic material with others of your people — that’s being a juvenile parent?”

  “Yes, we’re the juvenile parents of each other’s children.”

  “But you don’t bear the children until after you metamorphose into an adult,” J.D. said, beginning to understand.

  “That’s right.”

  “And then you’ll die.”

  “I’ll die.”

  “And you can’t delay the change.”

  Nemo touched the sacs again, handling them delicately so as not to damage the hibernating attendants and groomers, spinners and honey ants and silk-eaters. Nemo’s legacy, parceled out into each offspring’s cradle.

  “I could stop the change.”

  “Then what would happen?”

  “I’d never change at all.”

  “Never? You’d be immortal?”

  “Until I got bored.”

  “That could be a long time, Nemo.”

  “But I’d have no offspring, and then no one would remember me.”

  Nemo’s tentacles withdrew from the silken sacs. The long tentacles twined together, apart, and circled J.D.’s body, quivering, brushing her body with quick, delicate touches.

  “I’d remember you,” J.D. said sadly.

  “You aren’t immortal.”

  “No,” J.D. said.

  “It’s important for my children to remember me.”

  “Will your children be identical to you, with identical memories —” She stopped. “No, of course not, they have another parent. A juvenile parent.”

  “They’ll know all I know, but they won’t be identical to me.”

  “I understand.” She let Nemo’s tentacle curl and cuddle in her hands, like a warm, furry snake. “I wish we’d met sooner. I would have liked more time to know you.” She tried to smile. “About a hundred years.”

  “Maybe you’ll know my children.”

  “I hope so.”

  The silk spinners continued to crawl around and over Nemo, guided and encouraged, now and again, by one of the long tentacles.

  “What will happen now?” J.D. asked.

  “Soon I’ll sleep, and you’ll return home, and when I awaken I’ll be changed.”

  “What will you change to?”

  “You can see, if you want.”

  “I’d like that. Thank you. How will I know? When will it be?”

  “It’s different for everyone.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “No, go home, I’ll call you to return.”

  “All right,” J.D. said reluctantly.

  J.D. watched the silk weavers flow back and forth and around Nemo’s body.

  We could have kept Feral’s body alive, she thought. We could have regenerated his burst arteries and damaged brain, but he wouldn’t’ve been Feral anymore. He would’ve been a child in an adult’s body, with part of his life already spent.

  Trying to persuade Nemo to stop changing would have been the same as reviving Feral’s body after Feral himself was gone. J.D. thought about the rhythms of life. Nemo’s rhythms differed from the rhythms of a human lifespan, but they were no less demanding. For all her disappointment, J.D. respected the decision Nemo had made.

  Nemo’s eyelid closed completely, nearly vanishing against the shimmering peacock pattern.

  “Nemo!” J.D. said, startled, afraid the squidmoth had gone to sleep without saying goodbye. “Nemo?” She sent the message softly through her link, an electronic whisper.

  The eyelid quirked open.

  “I’m sorry — I was afraid you’d gone already.”

  “I’m curious about sleep.” After that, Nemo said no more.

  J.D. sat beside Nemo for a long time, until the spinners finished the dappled chrysalis. The LTMs watched the scene. They would record everything, even changes that happened too quickly, too slowly, too subtly for a person to notice. J.D. put them on the floor and turned them all away from herself so she had a semblance of privacy.

  The silk covered Nemo, except for the bright furred tip of one tentacle.

  “J.D.?”

  “I’m here, Victoria.”

  “Shall we go home?”

  J.D. shivered. The web cooled as the light dimmed, as if the fibers of Nemo’s construction were metamorphosing along with their creator.

  J.D. replied reluctantly. “Sure. I’m coming.”

  o0o

  The Chi’s outer hatch closed. Nemo’s tunnel loosened its seal, dropped away, and withdrew. J.D. watched it, wondering if it meant Nemo was still aware of events and surroundings.

  She tried to send Nemo one last message. She received no reply.

  o0o

  The Chi returned to Starfarer. At first the starship was a tiny dark blot against the huge silver expanse of its distant stellar sail. It resolved, gradually, into the two enormous rotating cylinders that formed the starship’s body. The Chi oriented itself to the hub of the campus cylinder, then approached the dock.

  Slowly, perfectly, it connected.

  o0o

  J.D. took a deep breath and let it out, returned the reassuring pressure when Zev squeezed her hand, and kicked off gently from the Chi’s access hatch into Starfarer’s waiting room. Her overnight bag bumped against her leg; she wished she had a backpack like Satoshi’s. They had called for an artificial to take their gear back into Starfarer, but none answered. Victoria had a small neat shoulder bag. Stephen Thomas carried a sample case on a strap, and his quilt, folded up and tucked under his arm. He no longer looked at all awkward in zero gee, as he had when she first met him.

  J.D. floated in amidst a crowd of people: Starfarer’s faculty and staff. Professor Thanthavong. Senator Orazio, whom J.D. had expected to see, and Senator Derjaguin, whom she had not. Gerald Hemminge, trying to shush the racket so he could moderate the discussion. The sailmaster, Iphigenie Dupre, who had for once come down out of the sailhouse. Avvaiyar Prakesh, whose work dovetailed with Victoria’s at the point where astronomy and physics intersected. Crimson Ng, the sculptor, and Chandra, the sensory recorder, both from the art department. Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov, the cosmonaut, hero of his homeland, refugee from his homeland. Griffith, who claimed to be an accountant from the Government Accountability Office, even though no one believed him, as usual tagging along after Kolya. Infinity Mendez, whose actions after Feral’s death had probably kept more people from dying. Esther Klein, the transport pilot. Floris Brown, the first member of Grandparents in Space. A gaggle of graduate students: J.D. recognized Lehua and Mitch and Fox. J.D. had no grad students of her own. Job prospects for alien contact specialists were rather low.

  They all floated in the barely perceptible microgravity of the waiting room at the hub of the cylinder, surrounding the members of the alien contact department. The noise rose to a painful level as everyone burst out talking at once, asking more questions, making more comments.

  “I’m sorry,” J.D. said. “I can’t hear you all.”

  Chandra, the sensory artist, pushed herself in front of everyone else and ignored Gerald’s efforts to organize. She turned her strange opaque gray eyes on J.D. She looked blind, but her vision was more acute than any ordinary person’s, and she could store and recall any image she perceived.

  “Weren’t you scared?” Chandra asked,

  “Now and then,” J.D. said. “But Nemo seems very gentle to me.”

  “Gentle! Did you see what happened to Stephen Thomas?”

  “Nothing happened to Stephen Thomas,” Stephen Thomas said, drifting between Florrie Brown and Fox. “I don’t know what was happening to those critters, but nothing happened to me.”

  “It could have. We don’t know what Nemo wants. Maybe when it reproduces it needs a nice warm body to lay its eggs in.”

  “I don’t think so,” J.D. said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Nemo’s a civilized being.”

  Chandra shrugged. “And we’re half-evolved exiles. Why should Nemo care what happens to us? Europa didn’t care if she stranded u
s in orbit around Sirius and we never got home.”

  “Nemo only eats insubstantial food,” J.D. said.

  “Who said anything about eating? Besides, Nemo’s metamorphosing. Lots of critters eat one thing during one stage of their lives — I don’t know, leaves or grass or flower nectar — that eat other stuff, other times.”

  “This is a subject worth discussing,” Victoria said, “but let’s not be morbid about it.”

  “I’m not morbid.”

  Stephen Thomas looked at her askance. “Have you taken a look at your own work lately?”

  “Screw you, Stephen Thomas Gregory. And how are you going to feel if J.D. comes back full of maggots?”

  “That’s her job,” Stephen Thomas said easily.

  “Stephen Thomas!” Professor Thanthavong exclaimed.

  J.D. laughed. “I asked for that one, Professor — Stephen Thomas is quoting me. But, Chandra... there’s a principle of astronomy that says you aren’t likely to be in the right place at the right time to observe an event of cosmological significance. Considering Nemo’s age, the principle applies. It’d be a tremendous coincidence if I arrived just in time to feed Nemo’s offspring.”

  “Unless it isn’t a coincidence at all.”

  “What — ? Oh. I see what you mean.”

  “Nemo chooses when to become an adult. So maybe squidmoths hang around waiting till there’s somebody just right, and then...”

  “I think,” J.D. said, “that you’ve been watching too many old monster movies.”

  “Maybe you’ve written too many sentimental sci-fi novels!”

  “Sentimental!” J.D. exclaimed, affronted.

  “Yeah, in the end everything comes out right for everybody.” Chandra made a noise of disgust.

  J.D. almost laughed and almost cried.

  I think I’m too tired to be having this conversation, she said to herself.

  “Er,” Gerald said, at a loss and trying to make the best of it, “perhaps it would be better to postpone literary discussion until a later time? Now, we shall break into smaller groups and meet separately. That way our colleagues won’t be quite so overwhelmed.”

  Hearing the murmurs of agreement, J.D. gave Gerald a grateful glance.