The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Stephen Thomas started to rise, painfully. Cold beer dripped down his front and plastered his silk t-shirt and his running shorts to his body.

  “I guess —”

  “Don’t, you’re barefoot!” Satoshi said. “There’s glass all over.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go,” Victoria said.

  “So you’ll just let the child run all alone into the dark —”

  “Ms. Brown,” Victoria said patiently, “there aren’t any wolves out there.”

  “This is no time for humor. You’re a very cruel young woman.”

  Victoria turned her back on Florrie Brown. “Satoshi?”

  Satoshi had already started for the door. “I’ll try to find her. I wish I knew if she’s even speaking to me...”

  “I’ll go with you,” J.D. said.

  “Thanks.”

  Stephen Thomas sagged gratefully back into the squeaky bamboo chair, surrounded by shards of broken glass. What he would have said to Fox, if he found her, he had no idea. He was damned if he would apologize for doing what he thought was right.

  o0o

  J.D. and Satoshi and Zev crossed the yard. Starfarer’s bright night turned the blossoms in the grass and on the banks to pale shadows on dark shadows.

  J.D. hesitated at the break in the garden wall. Satoshi stopped beside her.

  “Any idea where she might’ve gone?”

  “Home, I guess,” Satoshi said. “I don’t know.” He sounded resigned. “She didn’t exactly tell me her secrets. She kind of gave up on me when I couldn’t get her a waiver to come on the expedition.”

  “I didn’t think anybody underage got one.”

  “Nobody did.”

  “I did,” Zev said.

  “Chandra invented you a new name and a new occupation and a new family, and changed your subspecies!” Satoshi said. “If she didn’t add five years to your age, too, she’s not as smart as I thought she was.”

  “Oh,” Zev said. “Yes. She probably did that too.”

  “Fox’s family’s so wealthy,” J.D. said. “And so powerful... She’s probably used to getting her own way. Except about the expedition.”

  “And Stephen Thomas.”

  “And Stephen Thomas.” J.D. knew more or less how Fox felt, though she had not compounded her problem by telling Stephen Thomas. Or Florrie Brown.

  “We’d better try her house —”

  “She’s over there,” Zev said. He pointed.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can hear her.”

  They went with him down the path.

  “She’s crying,” Zev said.

  “Fox?” J.D. called softly.

  She heard no answer, but a moment later someone came toward them through the darkness.

  One of Stephen Thomas’s grad students — J.D. tried in vain to remember his name — appeared from between the small young trees. J.D. had met him at the party, but she had not seen him follow Fox.

  “She doesn’t much want to see anybody,” he said apologetically.

  “I’m worried about her, Mitch,” Satoshi said.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty upset. Embarrassed, mostly.”

  Satoshi hesitated. “I’d better talk to her.”

  “I’ll stay with her. She’ll be okay, honest. I promise.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Satoshi said, “but I still have to talk to her.”

  Satoshi stepped around Mitch and entered the deep shadow of the tree. Fox sat against its spindly roots, her head buried against her folded arms.

  “Fox.” Satoshi knelt beside her.

  She raised her head. Her face was blotched and tear-streaked.

  “You’re not speaking to me,” she said.

  “Of course I am. You haven’t made it easy, though, the last few days.”

  “I didn’t want her to tell!” Fox exclaimed. “I just wanted to... to tell somebody how I felt.”

  “I know.”

  “I really do love him.” She stopped, as if she had just realized who she had said that to. “I’m sorry, but I do.”

  “I know you do,” he said. “It’s... hard not to.”

  She smiled, shakily. “You’re so lucky. You and Victoria.”

  Satoshi turned the conversation away from the partnership, back to Fox.

  “Please try to understand how he feels about what you offered him. He won’t — he can’t — accept.”

  “He told me why, but it doesn’t make sense. He didn’t ask me — and there weren’t any conditions!”

  “No. But... things can change.”

  Satoshi started to tell her that Stephen Thomas’s decision was for Fox’s own protection; but that would insult her, to have the decision so one-sided, so out of her hands. He almost told her the situation had nothing to do with her directly, and decided she would be even more insulted.

  She hid her face against her arms again; her voice was muffled. “It hurts so bad,” she said. Her shoulders shook.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  He waited till she had stopped crying.

  “I think you should go home,” he said, when her breathing eased.

  “No! I don’t want to talk to my housemates tonight. I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

  “And I don’t want to leave you out here all by yourself.”

  She pushed herself back against the tree, glaring at him.

  “What could happen?” she shouted. “I want to be outside, okay?”

  The tall shadow that was Mitch moved from the reflected starlight into the darkness nearby.

  “I couldn’t help hearing what you just said.” Mitch hesitated. “Nothing before, but, when you yelled...” His voice trailed off. “What if I hung around? For company, I mean.”

  Fox took a deep breath and let it out slowly, steadying her voice.

  “That’d be okay,” she said. “I’d... I’d like that. I’ll be all right, Satoshi. Hey. It isn’t like Stephen Thomas is the first person to ever turn me down. And... I’m glad you’re still talking to me, anyway.”

  He suspected that Stephen Thomas was, in fact, the first person to ever turn her down, but he appreciated what she was saying to him.

  “Everybody’s talking to you,” he said. “It’s just — Everything will be all right.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Okay. Sure. I don’t want to talk anymore.” She turned away, huddling against the tree. It should have been a thousand-year-old oak, with great gnarly roots reaching out around her.

  “Okay,” Satoshi said. He rose. Mitch passed him and hunkered down near Fox.

  Stephen Thomas has a high opinion of Mitch, Satoshi thought. He’s a good kid, and he’ll keep Fox company as well as anybody can. Lord knows, better than I can, all things considered.

  Mitch glanced up at him and raised one hand in a gesture of acknowledgment and farewell.

  Satoshi returned the gesture, and joined J.D. and Zev.

  “Is she all right?” J.D. asked.

  “I think so,” Satoshi said. “I hope so.”

  They returned, in silence, to the partnership’s house.

  o0o

  Coldly courteous, Victoria mopped the worst of the beer off Florrie’s dress. The antipathy between them had reached a new peak.

  Victoria delegated Lehua and Bay to see Florrie home. Finally the main room of the partnership’s house was empty except for Stephen Thomas and Victoria; the garden was deserted.

  “That horrible woman,” Victoria said.

  Stephen Thomas covered his face with his hands, then pushed his fingers up through his hair.

  Victoria tried to grin. “What did her aura look like tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen Thomas said. “There’s no such thing. You were right all along. Auras are bullshit.”

  Victoria looked at him curiously, but let the comment pass.

  She cleared up the glass; it made a wet, scraping noise when she scooped it into an empty bento box. The house did no
t even have a broom and dustpan; cleaning the floor was the housekeeper’s job.

  When she was done, she sat on her heels beside Stephen Thomas and stroked his arm, moving her fingers along the growth pattern of the fine gold hair. He tensed, at the trickle of pain that crept along his bones. Victoria took her hand away.

  “What a fucking nightmare,” Stephen Thomas said.

  “I don’t suppose,” Victoria said hesitantly, “that you could have let her down a little easier?”

  “Oh, shit, Victoria!” Stephen Thomas exclaimed. “How could I let her down, when I never picked her up? One minute I was telling her that no, Satoshi wasn’t mad at her because the genetics building fell on top of us while we were trying to talk some sense into her —”

  “Very convincing,” Victoria said dryly.

  “ — and the next she was telling me she was in love with me. And I told her what I always tell grad students —”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, never mind,” Victoria said. “Into the shower with you,”

  Stephen Thomas levered himself up. The towel slid off his toes. He yelped in pain. His right big toenail had gotten caught in the terrycloth loops. Only the nail of the left big toe remained. He could barely put his feet on the floor.

  “I feel like my toe bones are coming out the ends of my feet.”

  Victoria grimaced in sympathy tinged with disgust. She slid her arm over her shoulder. His cold wet shirt warmed, where her body pressed against his.

  Stephen Thomas laughed suddenly.

  “What?” Victoria said.

  “My bones sort of are coming out the ends of my toes.”

  “Stop,” Victoria said, her tone unsure. “Please stop.”

  “All right.” They reached the bathroom. “I’ll be okay now. I just want to slop off the worst of the beer.”

  “Will you come to bed?”

  “I don’t...”

  “I only want to know you’re there!” Victoria took his hand and held it between her own. “It feels like forever since I’ve touched you!”

  Stephen Thomas drew his hand away. “This’ll all be over soon,” he said. “Soon. Then everything will be back to normal.”

  Victoria let her hands fall to her sides.

  Chapter 10

  The light tubes had just begun to change from night to day, from sheer black touched with brilliant, multicolored stars to an antique-gray luminescence.

  Victoria, Satoshi, and Stephen Thomas crossed the dunes. A silver crescent of beach curved around Starfarer’s warmest lagoon. Cool night air, flowing over the surface of the water, turned to gilded fog. Phosphorescent waves crept like living tendrils over the sand.

  Stephen Thomas had his doubts about this excursion. But he did not have the heart to turn Victoria down. Not again. She deserved some fun, some play. She had even persuaded Satoshi to get up early and come along.

  Maybe it would work out all right. Stephen Thomas felt pretty good, especially compared to the way he had felt yesterday. His last toenail had fallen off, and his feet did not hurt quite so badly. He suspected they would hurt worse later; he could already feel the small sharp lumps of claws developing where his nails had been.

  Last night’s stabbing pain, from his penis to his spine, had not reoccurred. The pain had scared him. His bruises should be healed by now. Maybe the slugs had hurt him worse than he thought. A hairline fracture, something the health center could miss?

  Victoria stood on the beach, up to her knees in dense fog, kicking off her jeans and stripping her shirt off over her head. Satoshi undressed beside her, slowly and deliberately.

  “Come on,” Victoria called, her voice low and eager. Water condensed in her hair and caught the light, shining soft as transparent pearls. She splashed into the sea. The fog closed over her, muting sounds.

  Naked, Satoshi folded his pants and laid them on a twist of driftwood.

  “Reminds me of the genetics department...” he said. “During the attack. The fog...”

  “I don’t —” But Stephen Thomas did remember —

  The missile struck. The building quivered and fell around Stephen Thomas and Satoshi and Fox. It crushed the freezer. Liquid nitrogen flowed out in a thick, unbreathable fog. A shard of rock foam struck Stephen Thomas across the forehead, and blood flowed into his eyes. Everything he saw after that, he saw through a red haze. When he saw his own blood, he fainted.

  — The flash of memory disappeared. Stephen Thomas shivered.

  Satoshi drew a deep breath. “Oh, hell!” He sprinted across the wet sand. With a yelp, he launched himself and belly-flopped into the waves.

  Stephen Thomas took off his shorts and shirt and kicked away his sandals.

  The new diver walked into the sea for the first time.

  The warm water slid up his body, raising the fine new hair away from his skin. Air bubbles caught and sparkled beneath his pelt. Stephen Thomas stroked forward into the sea. The bubbles escaped, swirled away, spiraled to the surface, and burst with a velvety pop. The warm water soothed and relaxed his body. He wished the water were cold and exhilarating.

  He opened his eyes.

  He could see perfectly. The water was very clear, the bare white sand arrayed in ripples. His hair tendrilled in front of his face. He pulled forward with a long breast-stroke, and the motion pushed his hair out of his eyes.

  Victoria swam toward him, her stroke smooth and strong. Satoshi slid beneath him, nearly silent. Satoshi was close enough to touch Stephen Thomas, but he kept his arms close to his sides, streamlining his body.

  Victoria did touch Stephen Thomas, swimming past on the surface, stretching out her arm, stroking him against the direction of his fur from the back of his knee, up his thigh, across his buttocks, along his spine. He tensed, shuddered, relaxed. He kicked forward, rising beneath Victoria’s hand, letting her fingers and the pressure of the water smooth his delicate pelt back into place.

  When she swam beside him, he turned to face her. They side-stroked, slowed, and he caressed her. He wondered where Satoshi was. With the thought, Stephen Thomas found his partner treading water behind him in the faint, fuzzy sound picture of his surroundings.

  Exhaling explosively as he surfaced, Stephen Thomas gasped in a deep breath and dove beneath Victoria. He touched and teased her, all over, with his fingers and his tongue. He slid his hands, his swimming webs, over her breasts. Her nipples hardened, their heat glowing. He could smell and taste her excitement, familiar, comforting, arousing, intensified by his changing senses. He listened for Satoshi; he opened his mouth and let the sea water flow over his tongue. Satoshi hovered, near, yet out of reach, and the taste of his body in the water was cool, uninterested.

  Stephen Thomas blew his breath out in a stream of bubbles. Victoria touched his hand, then swam toward Satoshi. Stephen Thomas followed, kicking along easily beside her. He touched her breasts again, stroked his fingertips down her body, and slid his hand between her legs. He let the rhythm of her kicking rub the swimming web against her clitoris. She gasped and pressed her legs together and lost her momentum. Stephen Thomas jerked his hand away, afraid he had hurt her with the strong, resilient edge of the web. But Victoria grabbed his wrist.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s just right — it’s like... like being made love to by a silk scarf.”

  They trod water together, face to face in the warm sea. Victoria embraced both men, drawing them to her and against each other, clasping Stephen Thomas’s hand between her thighs. She kissed Satoshi, then Stephen Thomas, her tongue quick against his lips, sliding between his teeth, hesitating as if she had never kissed him before. Stephen Thomas tasted her, with new intensity.

  The triad sank. Breath bubbled from Victoria’s mouth, from her nose, tickling Stephen Thomas’s lips and face. She pulled back and kicked to the surface.

  “Let’s go where it’s shallower,” she said. “I can’t breathe underwater!” She grinned and plunged toward shore, diving between Stephen Thomas and Satoshi.

  Stephe
n Thomas followed her, pressing himself past Satoshi, letting the whole length of his body stroke his partner’s belly. Stephen Thomas felt no arousal in him, no excitement.

  Victoria stood chest-deep in the water. The fog was dissipating; it swirled around her like a wraith. Gentle waves covered her breasts, then exposed her again. She hugged Stephen Thomas and wrapped one leg around his hips. Satoshi swam up behind him and touched him, tentatively, sliding his fingertips over his shoulders.

  Stephen Thomas gave himself to the seduction of the water and his lovers’ desires and his own.

  Suddenly Victoria cried out. She pulled away. Off-balance, Stephen Thomas and Satoshi both splashed forward, submerged, and tumbled apart. Stephen Thomas gulped a mouthful of salt water and struggled to his feet, gasping and coughing.

  “Stephen Thomas, oh, I’m sorry, I thought —”

  She stopped and patted his back gently till he got his breath again.

  “I can’t breathe underwater, either,” Stephen Thomas said. “Yet. What... are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  “Oh — not really. Not exactly. When we started, it was wonderful, but then —” She glanced ruefully at Satoshi. “I guess you were right.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so. Sorry.”

  They stood together, closer to shore, waist-deep in the water and nearly in full daylight. The fog had vanished with the breeze that chilled the air. Chagrined, Stephen Thomas shivered.

  “Yeah,” Victoria said. “It is cold.” She sounded disappointed, but also amused. “Maybe we should go back home... back to bed.”

  “I just can’t,” Stephen Thomas said. “I’ve got to get to the lab.” The last thing he felt like, right now, was sex. His penis hurt, and it had begun to itch and sting.

  Great, he thought. Just fucking great. I can’t do anything for the people I love, and now I’ve got a case of jock itch, too.

  “Yesterday, with Zev and J.D.,” Victoria said. “It was awfully nice.”

  “Maybe divers have secret sex techniques,” Stephen Thomas said, trying to joke. “Maybe I don’t get to find them out till I’m completely changed. Maybe they’re hard-wired.”

  “Maybe,” Satoshi said dryly to Stephen Thomas, “Zev is smaller than you.” He glanced at Victoria. “Is he?”