The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “About the fossils?”

  “About community and ethical authority,” Satoshi said. “After he jumped down Infinity’s throat. He thought I was talking about power. Maybe I should have tried Stephen Thomas’s method.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Punching him out.”

  “Tempting thought.”

  “Except it didn’t work. Stephen Thomas didn’t get what he wanted, and neither one of them got in a solid hit.”

  “It makes me furious! I won’t base my decision on what Gerald wants. Or what he doesn’t want.”

  “What happens when Civilization finds out the whole story?”

  “They applaud,” she said easily.

  “Or throw tomatoes.”

  Crimson laughed. “That’s the risk, when you perform.”

  “This is serious to them,” Satoshi said. “They think the deposit might lead them to the other ones’ home world —”

  “Not this one!” Crimson said. “This one is from the Fighters.”

  “Europa’s of a mind to prove it’s the other ones.”

  “Uh-uh. The other ones are in a different deposit. I mean, they were. Most of them got washed out in the flood.”

  “Really? You made another fossil bed?”

  “Sure. Didn’t Stephen Thomas mention it? He saw it when I was working on it.”

  “He’s had... a lot of other things on his mind lately.”

  “Yeah, I bet, he sure looks different.”

  Satoshi did not tell her how different. He did not tell her Stephen Thomas had a pelt of fine gold hair, though she might have noticed that herself. He did not tell her that male divers, unlike ordinary human men, had internal genitals.

  He did not tell her how much the changes bothered him.

  Satoshi pulled his thoughts away from Stephen Thomas.

  “One set of alien fossils is an interesting anomaly. Two — that makes the moon an interstellar crossroad. Hard to explain.”

  “It’s a graveyard,” she said.

  “A graveyard!”

  “There’s evidence.” She shrugged. “Any good paleontologist could come up with a theory. And... I was a very good paleontologist.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought I was so disgusted... so disgusted with having to quit my research, so disgusted with the way the world is. I thought I wouldn’t mind playing with my subject. But it makes me uneasy.”

  “Yes,” Satoshi said. Like any scientist, he felt profound discomfort at the idea of fabricating evidence.

  “But everybody told Europa the fossils were fake —”

  “Everybody but you.”

  “— and she didn’t believe you. She thinks we’re keeping secrets. She thinks we’re hiding the home world.”

  “What about the other side of the question?” Satoshi said. “Europa’s looking for the other ones. When she finds out your fossils won’t lead her to them — no, when she finds out they can’t —”

  “That won’t happen,” Crimson said. “She’ll hit a dead end, but not a hoax. The fossils look authentic. No matter how you test them.”

  “Except that they’re not authentic. If Civilization has tests we don’t know about —” Satoshi stopped, aware of the contradiction as soon as he spoke.

  “But the fossils already fooled them,” Crimson said. “Look, it’s ordinary physics, ordinary chemistry. Isotope ratios, fission-track dating. So what if Europa belongs to an interstellar Civilization? Our hosts aren’t any cleverer than we are. They don’t have different physical laws.”

  Her independent analysis of what Satoshi had been thinking made him feel better, even though he did not yet have enough evidence to be certain it was true.

  “After all,” Crimson said, “that’s why Civilization left us alone till we came looking for them. So we could think of new things. Make discoveries they haven’t made. For them to take, if they can get them.”

  “None of this answers your question. What to do. What to tell them.”

  “What do you think? What about J.D. and the others?”

  “J.D.’s job depends on honesty. She respects your work and she admires it. We all do. But... it isn’t science.”

  “It isn’t supposed to be!”

  Her impatience with him prodded him into an entirely different viewpoint.

  “I don’t think you should tell Europa the fossils are art,” he said. “I think you should keep performing. But all the rest of us should keep telling the truth: You’re a respected performance artist. Even Gerald should tell the truth, if we can persuade him.”

  Crimson considered.

  “That might work,” she said slowly. “That just might work.”

  “Are you interested in some help with your excavation?”

  “Are you volunteering?”

  “Not me... I’m volunteering our sponsors. Our guests.”

  Crimson laughed. The laugh transformed her sulky, intense face to luminous beauty.

  Satoshi thought, I fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you laugh. But he did not say it aloud.

  o0o

  Kolya bounded across the surface of Nautilus. It felt good to be out of the tent. He had not spent so much time in the company of a single person since before he fled into space. Esther was easy to get along with, a pleasant colleague. He liked her. He liked her very much, but he also liked his privacy.

  He found himself thinking about her to a surprising extent. He had begun thinking about her before they came out here together, so his fancies were not just the result of proximity and isolation.

  She did not resemble any woman he had ever been with. His tastes ran to tall women, slender women, women of intense, old-fashioned femininity, women who doted on him and flattered him. As a youth — as an astronaut with access to material goods beyond the reach of most Soviet citizens — he had been spoiled. He had taken advantage of the benefits without thinking about them. One of the benefits was the attention of beautiful women.

  Esther respected and admired him. He knew that; he was used to the same reaction from other pilots, male and female. There was a big difference, for Kolya, between the respect of a pilot and the admiration of an attractive woman. He could not help feeling confused. Esther did not react to him the way his experience made him expect an attractive woman to react. She did not look the way he expected a sexually attractive woman to look. He could not imagine her wearing makeup; he could not imagine her concealing her matter-of-fact humor beneath blushes and giggles; he could not imagine her in an evening gown.

  And yet he was attracted to her.

  I have not spent enough time with women since I escaped from Earth, Kolya thought. I have not spent enough time with anyone at all. The world has changed, and I am hopelessly old-fashioned.

  I wonder, he said to himself, if an old man can change...

  Kolya chuckled ruefully. He was still using the habits of a young man, assuming he could have anything, or anyone, he wanted. Assuming that if he chose to approach Esther, she would have him.

  The assumption had been true from the time he was a youth and during the war that destroyed his homeland. During the war, a man engaged in a romantic and doomed quest could expect certain favors. Especially when he was outside his country, raising support for the quest among people who did not know how romantic — he always used that word with bitter irony — and just how doomed it was.

  Whether Kolya could change or not, the times had changed.

  If I can change, he wondered, will it do me any good? Besides, what about Infinity?

  Kolya had never loved a woman who openly shared herself with more than one man. Openly was better, he had to admit it, but he did not know how he would react to such an arrangement.

  Hopelessly old-fashioned, he said to himself again.

  Pilots were notoriously promiscuous. When he was a youth he and his compatriots had had all manner of jocular excuses for their behavior. All their excuses came down to one thing. Even in the dangerous
days before Miensaem Thanthavong’s research, he and his colleagues behaved as they preferred to behave.

  He reminded himself that Esther was an equally experienced pilot. He could hardly object if his professional descendants followed his lead.

  And he did not necessarily want to object, even if he had any right. Esther — everything about her — aroused him, excited him.

  He slowed his long bounding steps, stopped, and looked up into infinite depths, infinite colors. He sat against a chunk of rock as soft as a feather pillow in the low gravity. Alone, he gazed over the sharp curve of the horizon, and out into space.

  o0o

  In the lab, Stephen Thomas stood up and stretched out the kinks. His body shrugged them off easily. Despite everything, physically he felt wonderful. New energy accompanied the changes. He was alert and his perceptions sparkled; he could run around campus plus-spin without getting winded. He was right on the edge of a pleasurable sexual excitement. And he was hungry.

  He had shooed the students out of the lab an hour or so ago, sending them to the welcome party for the Four Worlds representatives. He had intended to follow soon, but an idea about squidmoth genetics pulled him back to his work. Just for another few minutes. Now he had begun a new experiment, but he had lost track of the passage of time.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He would be late; Victoria would be hurt. He was probably at risk of offending the Four Worlds people.

  Fuck ’em, he thought. They went off with Gerald without a backward glance.

  But he could not bring himself to be angry with them.

  He hurried from the lab and loped home. Campus was deserted. The spicy scent of carnations filled the horseshoe-shaped yard of his home. The green drops of new cherries splayed from the branches of the dwarf trees.

  The house was dark. Stephen Thomas entered through the front door, brushing his fingers against the arched lintel. The hobbit-door, Victoria called it, and teased him about being elven, too tall for hobbit doors.

  The lights brightened, following him down the back hall. He hesitated at the door of Satoshi’s room, smiling fondly at the familiar sight of Satoshi’s work in progress arranged neatly around his desk, some in projected form, some hard copy. He passed his own room and continued down the hall. He glanced into Victoria’s room: neat, Spartan, but with a bed big enough for four people.

  The door of the last room along the corridor was open a handsbreadth. The room Merry had never had a chance to see. The room where Feral had stayed. The room where Stephen Thomas had slept, the last time he slept in the partnership’s house.

  He stood in the doorway for a moment, then retreated to his own room.

  The scent of incense had nearly dissipated. He lit a fresh stick, thinking, You don’t have time for this, then reminding himself that he was already an hour late. Five more seconds would not make much difference.

  He stripped off his shorts and his t-shirt and teased the mutualist out of his hair. It coiled snugly around his wrist. It had adapted to him quickly, and he to it; he used it without thinking about it.

  If somebody had told me, he thought, that I’d be wearing a worm in my hair...

  He dug his tux out of the back of the closet. He liked it but seldom had an excuse to wear it. He had almost left it back on Earth. As he slipped the studs into the shirt to fasten the front, he shrugged his shoulders to smooth his pelt beneath the heavy white silk. The pants were not too uncomfortable. With the changes to his genitals they did not fit quite right. The cummerbund was tight enough to chafe the fine gold hair, but he wore it anyway.

  His dress shoes were impossible. His feet had changed too much. He put on the tux jacket, slipped his feet into his everyday sandals, and looked at himself critically in the mirror.

  “Maybe I’ll start a new fad,” he said.

  He put on a sapphire earring. On impulse, he uncoiled the mutualist from his wrist and stroked it till it relaxed completely. He held it at his temple till he felt the quick tug of its jaws clamping onto a strand of hair. He smoothed it into the texture of his hair, matching the curve, metallic silver against blond.

  No more delay, he thought, and left his room through the French windows that opened into the garden.

  Chapter 6

  The welcoming party for the Four Worlds representatives had begun.

  Dance music trembled through the air like the warm breeze. Decorative lights sparkled in pastel strings in the soft evening. A glass flower covered each small bulb, garlanding the cafeteria courtyard. At the edge of the illumination, J.D. hesitated. Zev stopped beside her and squeezed her hand.

  “I like the lights,” he said.

  “Yes.” J.D. wondered if someone on board had made them, heated the glass and given it pure glowing colors and spun it into petals, or if someone had whimsically used their allowance to carry decorations from Earth into orbit. Why not? Victoria had brought clothes, and presents for her partners. Stephen Thomas brought French champagne. J.D. had brought coffee beans and chocolate.

  Most of which I gave to Europa, J.D. thought, who hasn’t even mentioned it since. If she doesn’t like it, I wish she’d give it back.

  Gerald Hemminge crossed the center of the courtyard to greet them. He was, as usual, beautifully dressed in a well-tailored suit.

  “Why, J.D., I hardly recognized you.”

  J.D. repressed an urge to smooth her short brown hair, or straighten the long skirt of her blue dress, or tug at the low-cut bodice. For years, she had not had a job that required a dress. She felt rather uncomfortable in this one. It was the only dress she owned.

  “Thank you, Gerald,” she said drily.

  “And here I was convinced that members of Alien Contact made it a policy to dress down — under all circumstances.”

  “We’ve never discussed it,” J.D. said.

  If she got into a competition of cutting remarks with Gerald, she would lose. She acted, instead, as if the conversation were completely civil.

  “You look elegant,” she said sincerely. “As always.”

  Gerald was carrying a ball of white fluff wrapped around a paper cone. He bit into the fluff; a skein of it pulled away and he licked it into his mouth. Half the people at the party were eating the fluff.

  “What is that?” J.D. asked. “Is it cotton candy?” She could not recall seeing cotton candy since she was a child. “Where did Starfarer get cotton candy?”

  “We had to provide something the Farthings could tolerate,” Gerald said. “Senator Orazio discovered they have a taste for sucrose.”

  “But who thought of cotton candy? And how did you make it?”

  “I have no idea. The food is Ms. Brown’s department.”

  “Florrie?” J.D. said, startled. Florrie Brown surprised her at every turn. The only trouble was, J.D. never knew if the surprise would be a good one or a bad one.

  “Where are the Largerfarthings?” Zev asked. “I promised to teach Sharphearer how to play chess.”

  “They’re in the main cafeteria, eating cotton candy,” Gerald said. “Please don’t monopolize our guests with games. Everyone will want to talk to them.”

  “It’s up to Sharphearer,” Zev said reasonably.

  J.D. changed the subject. “Did you get them settled in at the embassy?”

  “In a manner of speaking. They, er, redecorated the American VIP suite in a disorderly manner. I believe the senators were rather put out. I can only imagine what the Ambassador would have said.”

  J.D.’s house was too small to house all of Starfarer’s visitors. The VIP suite in the American Embassy was one of the few places on campus where they could all stay together. Nevertheless, J.D. envied the senators for hosting the Four Worlds representatives.

  You’ll get over it, she told herself. Your role in this part of the story is finished.

  She was already looking forward to the next first contact, on Largernearer.

  “It’s a shame the administration building was so badly damaged,” Gerald said. “Its gues
t quarters were much more adaptable. We could change the walls and the floor and the temperature and pressure...” He shot a glance across the courtyard. “Ah. There is Europa.”

  Beneath the flower lights, Europa and Senator Orazio spoke quietly together.

  “Ruth doesn’t look put out,” J.D. said.

  “Politicians know how to keep their opinions to themselves. How the Farthings felt about having to make the changes is another matter.”

  “Did Longestlooker say she was satisfied?” J.D. asked.

  “Yes,” Gerald said grudgingly.

  “Then I expect everything’s all right. They did adapt themselves to our environment, after all.”

  “They like it here,” Zev said. “I’m going to take them camping.”

  “Do tell,” Gerald said. “Perhaps you’d better plan to put that off, as well as the games —”

  “Zev, that sounds like great fun.” Delighted that Zev had made such a friendly and strong connection with the quartet, J.D. interrupted Gerald. “A good break, after everything that’s happened. When are you going? Can I come with you?”

  “As soon as we get back from Largernearer,” he said. “I hoped you’d want to come. We’re going to the wild side.”

  He slid his hand around J.D.’s waist and hugged her. She slipped her arm around him and tickled the short fair hair at the back of his neck. He grinned. If they had been alone, he would have kissed the cleft between her breasts. If they had been in the sea, he would have not have stopped with her breasts. She wished they were in the sea, naked.

  “No doubt they want to snoop in the wild side for more fossils,” Gerald said. “Which, I might remind you, will not exist.”

  J.D. smiled at him. “Gerald — how do you know?”

  Gerald drew himself up, vexed, and walked away.

  J.D. chuckled. She and Zev strolled across the courtyard.

  “He didn’t even notice I wore my suit,” Zev said. He was wearing the pants and vest of his suit, and a red silk shirt that Stephen Thomas had given him. The silk kept the heavy wool from chafing his pelt so badly. The vivid red set off his mahogany skin and pale hair, and gave his coppery eyes a wild flare.

  “No,” J.D. said. “But I did.”