The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  He wanted Civilization to believe in the fossils. J.D. did not see any way of persuading Crimson to admit the fossils were fakes. Not since the sculptures had fooled Androgeos and Europa. J.D. sighed.

  Late clamped himself against Sharphearer’s back, quivery with disappointment, but Longestlooker reacted with patient amusement.

  “Come with me,” Gerald said, “and I’ll show you where you’ll be saying. The artificials will bring your baggage along later.”

  The Four Worlds representatives followed Gerald from the waiting room and into Starfarer proper.

  Soon J.D. and her colleagues in alien contact were the only expedition members left behind.

  “I don’t believe —” Victoria said. She stopped, and blew out her breath, and smiled sadly at the others. “I suppose I should get used to the way Gerald gravitates toward power, eh?”

  Before anyone could reply, Europa left the Chi’s hatchway and joined them.

  “It went rather well,” Europa said. “Despite the extra gift. You should be proud of your colleagues. Proud of yourselves.”

  “Proud, and superfluous,” J.D. said.

  “I’m not ready to step out of this picture,” Satoshi said.

  “I have to,” J.D. said. “You have other work to do. My job is to open the door, then stand out of the way.”

  She tried to keep her voice cheerful, matter of fact, job-well-done. But she felt sad.

  She left the waiting room last, following her colleagues and the alien humans and Starfarer’s faculty and staff and the ambassadors from the 61 Cygni system. The Farthings had left without giving her a backward glance. Not even Quickercatcher had looked to see if she was coming.

  The members of the alien contact team straggled apart. Victoria moved through zero g, floating easily along the corridor. Zev and Satoshi had gone on ahead; J.D. and Victoria were alone.

  J.D. caught up to Victoria.

  “Victoria,” she said hesitantly, “if I was presumptuous — when I hugged you — I’m sorry. I won’t —”

  Victoria touched J.D.’s wrist, her fingers strong and gentle and cool.

  “Don’t apologize. Please. I... I was afraid to hug you back.”

  “Why? I don’t...”

  “I enjoyed our time together so much. I think about it, I find myself planning when we’d have a chance to be together again. But...”

  Her partners don’t want her to, J.D. thought, her spirits sinking. Did I misjudge their relationship that badly? She felt herself blushing.

  “Is it Satoshi and Stephen Thomas?” she asked.

  “It is, in a way.” Victoria sighed. “But not in a way that has anything to do with you! Not directly.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve probably noticed... some strain.”

  “Some,” J.D. said, thinking, that’s putting it mildly.

  “Everything is so complicated. Satoshi and Stephen Thomas and I, we have things to work out together.” She hesitated, then said sadly, “If we can.”

  “Do you think...”

  “It isn’t that I don’t want to be with you — it’s that I feel fragmented... I feel like Satoshi and Stephen Thomas and I are desperately hanging on to each other by our fingernails.” She hesitated. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I love you, I don’t want to hurt you — I wish I’d never led you on!”

  J.D. managed a smile. “The leading on was mutual.”

  They reached the border between the stationary axis of Starfarer and the rotating campus cylinder. They crossed the boundary; microgravity gave a faint perception of “up” and “down.” The radial acceleration here, several levels down from the axis, was strong enough to create a perceptible sensation of gravity. The perception of gravity increased as they continued downward.

  “After you and your partners work things out,” J.D. said, and let the unfinished sentence hang in the air.

  “Would you let me start over? Could you?”

  J.D. brushed her fingertips gently against Victoria’s cheek.

  The corridor opened out onto the hillside sloping from Starfarer’s axis to its living surface, the hill that formed the end cap of the starship’s cylinder. Here they could walk, instead of bouncing and gliding. J.D. paused to regain her equilibrium on solid ground, after so many hours in weightlessness.

  All around the conical hillside, switchback trails led downward to the floor of Starfarer. The cylinder stretched away into the distance. Hills and streams and rivers, groves of young trees and fields, paths and gardens covered the starship’s inner surface. At the campus’ far side, fog obscured the ring-shaped sea.

  A little way down the hill, at the first switchback turn, Satoshi and Zev waited with Europa and Androgeos. Stephen Thomas was nowhere in sight.

  At the bottom of the trail leading down from J.D.’s position, Sharphearer’s bright fur stood out in the group of Largerfarthings. A number of Starfarer’s faculty were still following the Four Worlds people, but Gerald and the senators were monopolizing the visitors’ attention. Gerald join the faculty members, spoke seriously for a few moments, then left the group behind, and hurried after the representatives.

  The faculty members began to disperse.

  Victoria whistled softly in surprise. “Gerald’s got more nerve than brains,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to shoo that group away. He shooed Professor Thanthavong!”

  J.D. knew how they all felt, as the group broke up and straggled toward home or work, most accompanied by Arachne’s holographic projection of the Farthings.

  J.D. reminded herself that her part of this meeting was over. She and Victoria joined the others at the switchback turn. Zev slid his warm webbed hand around J.D.’s fingers.

  “I think I’ll go back to Nautilus,” J.D. said to Victoria. “Kolya and Esther must be getting bored out there all alone.”

  “You’ll be all alone,” Victoria said, protesting.

  “I’ll be okay,” J.D. said.

  “You won’t be all alone,” Zev said. “I’ll go with you.”

  J.D. squeezed Zev’s hand gratefully.

  “I wish I could talk to Alzena,” J.D. said. The head of the ecology department had fled from Starfarer, seeking sanctuary from Earth and from her family. Europa had taken her in.

  J.D. glanced at Europa, beseeching. “Won’t you ask Alzena if she’ll help terraform Nautilus?”

  “Don’t you care how fragile she is?” Androgeos said angrily. “She’s beginning to regain her equanimity. To find some happiness. She doesn’t wrap herself up in a shroud anymore —”

  Europa put one hand gently on his wrist. He fell silent, but glowered at J.D., at Victoria.

  He’s trying to protect Alzena, J.D. thought with surprise. His reaction eased her perception of the arrogant younger Minoan into a new, more sympathetic, shape.

  “Give her more time,” Europa said. “She thought of herself as dead, you must let her think of herself as alive again. Reborn.” She smiled. “Haven’t you thought to ask me for help?”

  “Yes,” J.D. said. “But... I’m afraid to owe you a debt.”

  Europa’s voice held sadness. “I can’t blame you for making that decision. I can only blame myself.”

  “You don’t have time to go back to your squidmoth ship,” Androgeos said.

  “All I have is time!” J.D. exclaimed. “Why are you trying to keep me away from Nautilus?”

  Suspicion crept into J.D.’s reaction. Europa and Androgeos knew how to exploit the great value of Nautilus. But J.D. was not prepared to give it up. Not to EarthSpace, not to Europa, not to Civilization. Especially knowing that Civilization’s method of controlling the massive little starships required destroying the knowledge surface. Even if J.D. never found out how to use the knowledge surface to its whole potential, it was all she had left of Nemo.

  “We won’t prevent you from returning to your ship,” Europa said. “But first you have another task.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Th
e Nearer Worlds, of course,” Europa said. “A visit to the Nearer Worlds.”

  Chapter 4

  J.D. closed her eyes and opened herself into her expanded link. The rest of the world disappeared. Within Arachne’s web, Esther acknowledged that she and Kolya were safe within the expedition tent, prepared for Nautilus to move.

  J.D. passed beyond Arachne; she touched the knowledge surface of Nautilus.

  In response to J.D.’s thought, her starship pressed itself into a new course. Moving it was as easy as walking. Nautilus curved toward Largernearer, gently, gently, so its gravity drew Starfarer with it.

  J.D. opened her eyes to blank darkness. Startled, she squeezed her eyes shut, withdrew herself from her link, and looked around again. The world and her body returned.

  She stood up, shaky, taking herself back from the dissociation of the link. The knowledge surface exhilarated her, yet saddened her because of Nemo’s absence.

  Nemo was gone, but one of Nemo’s offspring remained, clinging to the side of Starfarer’s wild cylinder.

  It was past time to pay the young being a visit.

  o0o

  Senator Ruth Orazio walked beside Sharphearer, who paced easily along despite carrying Representative’s Representative. Senator William Derjaguin, known to his colleagues as Jag, walked uneasily beside Quickercatcher, while Gerald Hemminge shepherded Longestlooker and Fasterdigger.

  Sharphearer squinted in the bright light of Starfarer’s sun tube. She opened a tiny pouch tied into her fur and drew out a gauzy, bright yellow scarf that contrasted violently with her multicolored fur. She placed it on top of her head so its edge shielded her eyes. Several of her mutualists twined around the corners of the scarf to hold it in place. Fasterdigger, too, shielded his eyes with a sheer scarf, while Quickercatcher combed his thick fur forward to shade his eyes and Longestlooker laced her fingers together against her forehead.

  Europa and Androgeos rejoined them, and the group set off across the meadow at the bottom of the hill. The beads and knick-knacks braided into Sharphearer’s fluorescent fur clicked in rhythm to the Largerfarthing’s steps. Several of Europa’s meerkats scampered out of the bushes to accompany them.

  Sharphearer and her siblings were as tall as Ruth, who was of medium height. When they stretched their long necks upward they reached two meters high. When they rose on their hind legs, as they sometimes did, they were much taller than a human being, and quite imposing.

  Ruth glanced sideways. She met Sharphearer’s equally sidelong gaze. Behind the flutter of yellow gauze that shading her large, shining eyes, Sharphearer blinked, slowly, in friendly amusement.

  Like spray from a cold shower, a shock rushed through the senator.

  I’m walking with an alien, she thought. Two aliens. The alien contact department did their job; now it’s my responsibility to forge a relationship between our governments. All the governments.

  It was easy to overlook Late, but he was an equal member of the delegation. Ruth had too much experience to offend any participant. She had seen delicate negotiations fail because an arrogant envoy offended an assistant or a secretary, somehow never having noticed that assistants and secretaries ran the world.

  Late lay draped over Sharphearer’s back like a horse blanket, his front edge resting just behind Sharphearer’s arms. One of Europa’s meerkats rode with them, perching on Sharphearer’s front shoulders. It balanced itself by clutching at Sharphearer’s neck with its front paws.

  Ruth and Sharphearer led the way into Starfarer’s only real forest. The pleasant approach to the American Embassy in Denny Hill wound along cool shade-dappled paths. On the rest of campus, two-meter saplings or tall fast-growing bamboo covered the hillsides. The embassy architect had insisted on landscaping with well-grown trees, imported at some expense from one of the older O’Neill colonies.

  The forest ended. The diplomatic group paused at the edge of the glade.

  The imposing facade of the embassy, a cliff of natural-looking stone, loomed above them. Above the treetops, the stone gave way to irregular streaks of glass, the outside window walls of the embassy proper. Rimrock capped the embassy design.

  Twisted sideways by Starfarer’s spin, a waterfall coursed down the cliff. As the water fell, it picked up speed and weight. At the top, it billowed down in slow rainbow spray and settled like a cloud. It flowed like a silk curtain from the first pool to the second. It spilled out of the second pool and crashed down the cliff. With a sound like kettledrums, water cascaded and splashed into a final deep basin.

  Longestlooker arched her neck and flared her nostrils. From beneath the shade of her long hands, she gazed at the waterfall.

  “The effect satisfies me,” she said quietly.

  “Thank you.” Ruth wondered where on the scale of compliment the comment fell, and wished Gerald had not been so eager to cut the representatives of Civilization loose from the alien contact specialist.

  The lowest pool flowed into a stream that passed beneath a rustic bridge of heavy logs. The recent floods had left the logs sodden, but the massive bridge remained steady beneath the footsteps of three pairs of shoes, a pair of sandals, one set of bare human feet, and the catlike pads of the four Largerfarthings. On the other side, the path led to the embassy’s front door.

  The group entered the cool foyer. Sharphearer petted and poked her mutualists until they released her sun-shade. The Largerfarthing delicately pushed the gauze back into its tiny pouch. The material folded into almost nothing.

  Ruth felt elated and exhausted and vaguely ill. excitement had kept her awake since J.D. met the quartet. Even Jag Derjaguin reacted to meeting the interstellar civilization — worlds with government, culture, trade, not passive observers like the squidmoth Nemo. Jag looked amazed and bemused. Once in a while, an expression of pure disbelief passed over his face. Ruth kept expecting him to pinch himself.

  “Here’s the elevator.” Everyone piled inside. Ruth did not feel up to climbing stairs today.

  She glanced at her Senate colleague, with whom she had had so many vehement arguments about the space program. Jag grimaced and raised his eyebrows in a self-deprecating, you-were-right expression. Ruth smiled at him, in sympathy rather than triumph. She appreciated his grace. His opposition to the deep space expedition had been proven wrong: completely, intensely wrong.

  Ruth found herself pressed against the polished wooden wall by Fasterdigger, the most massive of the Largerfarthings. He gazed at her, direct and friendly and intense, arms stretched forward, elbows resting on front shoulders, hands pillowing chin. Both his thumbs curved beneath his chin, while his three central fingers lay against his cheeks. His nails were orange, the same color as the spots of his fur. Ruth wondered if he painted them, or if they grew that color naturally. The silver mutualists glittered against his brown background fur.

  The elevator powered upward. Ruth closed her eyes and clenched her teeth against the strange feeling of a moving elevator inside a spinning cylinder: the perception of gravity slid from beneath her feet to behind her.

  The Largerfarthings trilled with delight at the sensation.

  “Is this an entertainment?” Sharphearer asked.

  “Only a function of vector interaction,” Gerald Hemminge said. “It will stop in a moment.”

  Ruth slitted her eyes open. Fasterdigger was still watching her. Mutualists decorated his forearms and his jowl hair. One thread twined through a delicately carved jade bead. Locks of his hair braided and knotted around mysterious pouches and vials.

  The sweet spiciness of his scent made Ruth dizzy.

  The elevator stopped. Gravity returned to its proper place. Ruth plunged into the wide hallway.

  “We’ll put you here in the VIP suite.” She hurried toward the doors and flung them open. She felt better with more space around her. Breathing deeply, she entered the suite and crossed the flagstone floor.

  The suite was spacious and bright. Comfortable couches and chairs clustered on thick silk rugs. The centra
l room flowed across several levels. An irregular streak of window glass followed the stepwise pattern. The glass formed the suite’s outside wall and stretched across seaward Denny Hill, facing the length of Starfarer.

  The forest undulated over foothills, then gave way to meadows. Overhead, at the axis of the cylinder, the sun tube streaked away in a bright line of light. Streams and lakes decorated a landscape green with spring grass, marked here and there with the muddy wash of the snow-melt flood. To either side the land curved upward, as if Denny Hill lay at the head of a huge, deep valley, a valley whose sides closed together far-overhead. The cylinder stretched to the blue and gray and purple distance of the sea, a ring of water pierced by the sun tube.

  The aliens, the alien humans, and Gerald and Jag paused in the wide double doorway of the suite. The meerkats scampered in and rushed around, exploring.

  “I’ve not visited your Embassy since it’s been finished,” Gerald said. “It’s very impressive.”

  “Please make yourselves at home.” Ruth gestured to mirror-image spiral staircases, one at each end of the wide room. “The suite has four bedrooms upstairs and four on this level. This is the sitting room. We have plenty of office space, if you need it.”

  She did not mention that the office space was empty because the United States had recalled its diplomatic staff before Starfarer left the solar system.

  “And let us know what we can do to make you comfortable.”

  Ruth hesitated, waiting for some sign from the representatives of Civilization that the accommodations were acceptable or out of the question. She had decided to offer each individual from the Four Worlds a separate room. She had no idea how to ask about their sleeping arrangements.

  Gerald strode to the window. “A magnificent view — you Yanks always do things on the grand scale.”

  “Thank you,” Ruth said, and thought, I’m repeating myself.

  The administration building, where Gerald normally spent most of his time, had a similar view. Ruth smiled to herself. She was as uncertain of where Gerald’s comment fell on the compliment scale as she had been of Longestlooker’s.