The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

“It wasn’t there before,” Infinity said.

  “Are you sure?” Victoria asked.

  “You can look at the scans if you don’t believe me!” he snapped.

  Esther glanced at him, startled. Infinity looked away, embarrassed by his own outburst.

  “I didn’t mean...” Victoria said. “I’m just surprised.”

  “Yeah. Join the club.”

  “Maybe it’s interstellar trash,” Esther said. “You know... Civilization’s landfill?”

  It was Infinity’s turn to give Esther a skeptical glance. She shrugged and grinned.

  “Just a suggestion,” she said.

  She stretched up and laid her gloved hand on the bulging surface.

  “Be careful!” Infinity said.

  “It’s kind of hot,” Esther said. “And it’s moving.”

  “It’s one of Nemo’s egg cases!” Zev’s voice appeared out of nowhere, followed by his image.

  “Oh, nonsense,” Victoria said.

  “It is.”

  “How could it be, Zev? It resembles one, but Nemo’s egg cases are back in the Sirius system.”

  Griffith’s image appeared. He and Kolya perched precariously on the inspection web of Starfarer’s campus cylinder.

  “I think we should get rid of it,” Griffith said. “I’ll go over and pry it loose —”

  “No!” Victoria said. “Don’t do anything. Do you hear me? Kolya, tell him — !”

  “It might destroy the ship!” Griffith exclaimed. “It’s a risk I —”

  “Petrovich, Victoria’s right.”

  “If it’s one of the egg cases,” Zev said, “J.D. will hate us if we kill it.”

  “We aren’t killing anything,” Victoria said. “Whatever it is, I think we should watch it for a while before we decide what to do. I wish J.D....” She stopped speaking for a moment. “Infinity, would you set Arachne to watch it? To keep an eye on it? Please don’t you and Esther put yourselves in danger!”

  “We’ll be careful,” Infinity said.

  o0o

  Starfarer disappeared from J.D.’s perception.

  She gasped, first frightened, then hopeful. Starfarer must already have reached normal space on the other side of its flight path.

  She waited impatiently to follow it across the border of at the edge of transition.

  o0o

  Instead of fleeing, the alien starship decelerated. Soon Starfarer was gaining on it. The details of its surface grew clearer. Arachne displayed the pattern of its islands and lakes, confirming Victoria’s judgment of its identity.

  Unless, Victoria thought dryly, the interstellar community only makes its starships in a few models...

  Arachne’s warm touch notified her of an emergency message. She accepted it.

  The maze of the alien humans formed itself, twisting and complex, as fascinating and beautiful as ever. And as uncommunicative.

  I hate that maze, Victoria thought, startling herself with her vehemence.

  The maze faded; Europa’s image appeared in its place. The Minoan was exquisitely beautiful, her cinnamon-colored skin clear and perfect despite her age, the brightness and blackness of her eyes enhanced by narrow lines stroked onto her eyelids, her graying hair in perfect ringlets, dressed with strands of silver so artfully crafted that they moved like living things.

  “It’s beginning to look a little crowded in here,” Jenny said.

  The alien human, survivor of the Minoan civilization, smoothed her homespun skirt and smiled at Victoria as if she were a beloved, errant child.

  “Hello, Victoria,” Europa said. “I’m very glad to see you.”

  “Hello, Europa,” Victoria said, astonished. “I didn’t expect such a warm welcome.”

  “We have things to talk about.”

  Androgeos appeared beside her. He was as beautiful as Europa, though he maintained himself at a much younger apparent age. They were both small, about Victoria’s height, narrow-waisted, and muscular, especially in the thighs. Victoria always wondered if they practiced bull-leaping.

  “Is Alzena all right?” Victoria asked.

  “Alzena is no concern of yours anymore,” Androgeos said. His tone was nowhere near as friendly as Europa’s. “Alzena is gone to you.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She wants her privacy,” Androgeos said. “Can’t you understand that?”

  “Certainly I can. Thank you for answering my question.”

  “Now answer mine,” Androgeos said. “Do you intend to turn the Four Worlds into an empty system, the same as you’ve done to Sirius? There are people here, not just squidmoths.”

  Zev arrowed into the sailhouse, missed Jenny by a handsbreadth, passed rudely through the holographic images of the alien humans, touched off from the transparent wall, and came to a graceful, perfect stop beside Victoria.

  “What about —” Zev exclaimed

  “Shh!” Victoria said.

  Zev grabbed her hand, panicked. Maintaining a calm expression took all Victoria’s strength. She squeezed his fingers, trying to comfort him, but she was worried about J.D., too. If what Androgeos said was true, if J.D. had not entered transition before the final withdrawal of the cosmic string, then she was stranded. Without the support of a living ecosystem, without supplies... she would die.

  “If you’re so worried about the Four Worlds,” Satoshi asked, “why’d you lead us to them?”

  “I’ll explain that when I see you,” Europa said. “May I visit? I’d like to talk to you face to face.”

  The terraformed, anomalously massive asteroid approached, changing its course without apparent effort, moving to draw Starfarer into orbit around it. Jenny turned the sail edge-on to the star, so the light pressure would not interfere with the gravitational attraction.

  “A few days ago you couldn’t wait to see the last of us. Why do you want to visit us now?”

  “If you plan to chase Andro and me to the end of the universe, we have to come to some arrangement.”

  “Does anyone have any objections?” Victoria asked. Almost everyone on board would be listening to and watching the conversation.

  The silence stretched out.

  “I believe,” Gerald Hemminge said, “that another conversation would be... an excellent idea.”

  “All right, then.” Victoria did not, however, intend to let Gerald take over this encounter the way he had the last one. “Europa, you may bring your boat to Starfarer.”

  o0o

  Stephen Thomas struggled from his communications fugue. His brain felt bruised. He withdrew from Feral’s temporary guest account, into the safety of his own permanent neural node.

  Now he knew for certain that Feral’s murder had been deliberate.

  He was not certain he could prove it, not without subjecting someone else to the experience he had just been through. But he was certain it had happened.

  Stephen Thomas was lucky. If he had matched Feral’s profile better, if Arachne’s unconscious memory of the search and destroy routine had echoed stronger, he would be dead.

  Expecting pain, constriction, nausea, Stephen Thomas took a deep breath, hesitated, and pushed himself to his feet.

  His body responded. The aches had faded. His new claws itched with potential. The sharp stab to his pelvis had subsided and the awkward, embarrassing constrictions eased. He felt reborn: comfortable, powerful, exuberant.

  Gingerly, apprehensively, he unfastened his pants and let them slide down his hips.

  He no longer looked like an ordinary man. Nor did he look like a woman. His body had formed a neat pouch enclosing his genitals. He looked as if he were wearing string bathing trunks, without the string. The line of dark gold hair below his navel widened into a sleek patch of thicker fur that tapered between his legs.

  The new muscles responded to his thought. His penis, pink-gold and sensitive, probed beyond the opening and slipped through the soft fur.

  The pain, even the threat of pain, evaporated.

  H
e was tempted — but he let the extending muscles relax. When he tightened the retracting muscles, his penis slid back inside the pouch through the tantalizing texture of his fur.

  Stephen Thomas fastened his pants and glanced at Arachne’s display, hovering in the corner.

  Astonished by too much information to take in all at once, he forgot his own changes. A new star system. Four inhabited planets. Technological civilizations. And... Europa’s boat approaching Starfarer, about to dock. The alien humans had returned, and half the alien contact department was not even there to meet them. J.D. had an excuse — he checked quickly; she had not caught up to Starfarer. Nemo’s ship was nowhere to be seen.

  Stephen Thomas hurried from his office.

  Victoria’s going to kill me for being late, he thought. And if I tell her I was late because I was in the web pretending to be Feral... she’ll kill me twice.

  Out of habit, he glanced at the DNA sequencer as he headed out of the lab. It had finished working. He expected these results to be as confusing as all the others.

  He stopped short.

  All the conflicting results between the bacteria from alien, human, and alien human environments suddenly came clear to him.

  The test samples were normal.

  But the recent samples from Starfarer, the bacteria Stephen Thomas had used as a control, had changed. They had been contaminated.

  Stephen Thomas flung his presence through Arachne and into the waiting room of the boat dock. Arachne created an image of the waiting room around him. He was standing, but everyone else was floating in zero g. Vertigo spun the image before him for a moment: it spun, but it did not move. He felt drunk.

  The pressure equalized between Starfarer and Europa’s boat; the hatch opened.

  “Don’t let them in!” Stephen Thomas exclaimed.

  Europa floated into Starfarer. Androgeos followed, his pleated red kilt flowing around his legs. Gerald Hemminge shook their hands in greeting. Europa’s meerkats bounced in after her.

  “Oh, shit!” Stephen Thomas said.

  “What a charming welcome, Stephen Thomas,” Europa said. “How nice to see you again, too, and when did you get so tan?”

  “You contaminated us!” Stephen Thomas said.

  Everyone stared at him.

  “Contaminated — ?” Victoria said. “But we tested —”

  Stephen Thomas ran his hands through his hair, pushing it out of his face; it had come loose again. The swimming webs smoothed the strands behind his ears.

  “Are you an ichthyocentaur, too?” Europa asked, surprised. “Why didn’t I notice before?”

  “The Chi came back clean,” Stephen Thomas said. “But... I’m coming up there.” Stephen Thomas withdrew his image from the waiting room.

  Splashing through the muddy spots, wading across a bridge inundated by an overflowing creek, he started to run, letting his anger at Europa — and his pleasure in his body — fuel his speed.

  o0o

  By the time Stephen Thomas reached the waiting room, floating in to join the visual cacophony of people, real and virtual, the atmosphere quivered with tension. The meerkats hovered together, each in sentry position.

  “Explain yourself, Stephen Thomas,” Professor Thanthavong said. He had never seen her so distraught.

  “The bacteria have changed,” Stephen Thomas said. “The free-living, garden variety soil bacteria. Sometime between now and the last time we took samples —”

  “After the missile attack,” Professor Thanthavong said. “As a precaution. What do you mean, ‘changed’?”

  “Their DNA fingerprints are the same. That’s what confused me for so long.”

  Everyone except Professor Thanthavong and Europa looked confused.

  “When DNA mutates, the print changes. It’s almost impossible to put in an alteration that doesn’t change the print.” He glanced at Europa with grudging admiration. “Quite an accomplishment — to make so many changes without changing the print. Clever. Subtle. Deliberate. Nothing showed up till I did a complete sequence.”

  “You shouldn’t be angry,” Europa said mildly. “I gave you the traditional gift for new members of the community.”

  “Some gift!” Stephen Thomas said.

  “It protects your ecosystem!”

  “It is unforgivable,” Miensaem Thanthavong said.

  “I would appreciate it,” Victoria said, her voice soft and tight, “if one of you would explain what you’re talking about.”

  “They supercharged our bacteria,” Stephen Thomas said.

  Everybody looked at him like they thought he was crazy. We have too damn many specialists, he thought. I’ll bet J.D. would know what I was talking about.

  “So alien bacteria won’t survive,” he said.

  “You should be grateful,” Europa said. “You should pour wine to the gods for such a gift. We’ve solved a serious problem for you.”

  “You should have told us!” Professor Thanthavong said. “Asked us! How dare you introduce biological contaminants — !”

  “The changed bacteria won’t hurt you! They aren’t any different from what you’re used to, except that they’re stronger. As long as they’re in their own environment, alien autotrophs won’t grow in their presence.”

  “Can we stop them?” Thanthavong asked.

  “Of course not. That’s the point.”

  “Your anger’s normal,” Androgeos said. He sounded disappointed in them all. “So ordinary. Can’t you appreciate what we’ve done for you?”

  “You’ve fixed it so we can’t join the community —”

  “You did that yourselves!”

  “ — and maybe we can’t go home, either.”

  “Wait a minute.” Infinity’s image appeared, its background stars and the inspection web. “Andro’s right. I wish Europeans had thought about the problem! Their diseases killed ninety percent of the people in the new world... Europa and Androgeos didn’t bring diseases. They brought prevention. Protection.”

  “I’m glad someone is sensible here,” Androgeos said.

  “We aren’t monsters,” Europa said. “We exist to help you join the community. Can’t you give us a little help?”

  “You should have told us,” Thanthavong said stiffly. “Infinity may be right. You may be right. But you should have let us make the choice.”

  “I’m sorry.” Europa sounded sincere.

  “J.D.’s going to be really pissed off at you,” Stephen Thomas said.

  “I think you’re all crazy!” Androgeos could restrain himself no longer. “You’re objecting to bacteria, when your ship is infested with parasites! I told you to avoid the squidmoths.”

  “Parasites?” Stephen Thomas said. “What parasites?”

  “The squidmoth egg,” Androgeos said.

  Victoria nudged Stephen Thomas and gestured toward the small exterior display.

  “Christ in a clutch,” Stephen Thomas muttered. The thing bulged, moved, nestled deeper into its rocky cradle.

  “The squidmoths don’t even bother to raise their children,” Europa said. “You’ll have a job prying it loose.”

  “Maybe you’ll be lucky,” Androgeos said, “and it’ll die.”

  “I don’t think so,” Infinity said. “It’s already changing. It’s growing, and it’s, I don’t know, putting feelers down into the rock.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “We aren’t in any danger yet,” Infinity said quickly. “It’s only half a meter down, and there’s nothing vital anywhere near.”

  “You should destroy it,” Androgeos said confidently.

  “No,” Victoria said. “Zev was right. J.D. will never forgive us if we destroy it.” At least part of her urge to protect it was because Androgeos wanted to be rid of it. “What will happen if we leave it?”

  “As you see...” Andro gestured toward the image.

  In the cross-section, mycelia from the egg case extended another handsbreadth into the substance of the wild side’s shell.
/>   “Ultimately, I mean. How big will it get?”

  Andro shrugged. “Who knows? We have other things to do than follow the life cycle of a squidmoth.”

  “I want to talk about this,” Europa said.

  She reached into a deep pocket in her skirt, and drew out an age-mottled jawbone with unsettling proportions. It had lost all its teeth, except a single sharp fang.

  “The art project,” Gerald Hemminge said.

  Europa gazed at Gerald fondly. “Your intelligence gives me hope for our species. Until I inspected the fossil myself, I was inclined to believe in the art project. Clever of you to disguise it so openly.” She smiled at Stephen Thomas. “Rather like the bacteria. But this bone is real, it’s very old, and it’s of critical importance to Civilization. I must see where it came from.”

  Gerald started to say something. Stephen Thomas interrupted him.

  “Why?”

  “I believe you’ve found a clue to the other ones,” Europa said. “The ones who came before us, and disappeared, except for their starships... and their control of the cosmic string.”

  “Good god,” Stephen Thomas said, and thought: Now what?

  “If you’ll follow me,” Gerald Hemminge said, “I’ll take you to the... the fossil bed.”

  o0o

  On the path to the riverbank, Europa quickened her step. She allowed herself to look like a person well advanced in years, but she had the energy of a teenager. Her meerkats followed her, pacing at her heels or scampering to the top of a hummock to make a quick scan for predators.

  Victoria had to lengthen her stride to keep up.

  “What do you expect to learn from the fossil bed?” Victoria asked Europa. She chose her words with care.

  “I expect nothing,” Europa said. “I hope... for some clue to their origin.”

  “If we found where they came from,” Androgeos said, “we might discover how they control the cosmic string.”

  Victoria glanced at Stephen Thomas. He rolled his eyes. Victoria was glad the fossil bed was a fake; no matter what else happened, it would never lead Andro to a source of great power.

  “And we might overcome the effects of the squidmoths’ greed,” Andro said.

  “The squidmoths!” Victoria said. “Why do you hate them so much? They didn’t seem greedy to me — quite the opposite.”