Starfarers
Page 25
"Say, Victoria . . ." J.D. said.
"Victoria, you did it!" Stephen Thomas said at the same time.
"No thanks to you," Victoria said.
"Now you're mad at me. Shit, I couldn't resist the line.
And after all, it's true."
"It is not, and even if you had to say it, you should have realized what lousy timing it was."
"Come on, now," Satoshi said mildly. "It turned out all right."
"Maybe. We still have a long way to go."
Victoria fell silent, knowing that the argument embarrassed Satoshi, especially since J.D. was with them. She wished she could get into a straight-ahead fight with Stephen Thomas. It seemed as if ever since she got home. every other conversation she had with him deteriorated into bickering. She could not understand why. Maybe they just needed to clear the air.
"J.D., what were you going to say a minute ago?"
"I ... this is hard—"
They heard footsteps approaching at a run.
"Hey, wait for me!"
Feral rushed up, panting.
"Somebody said you had the meeting! Why didn't you tell me? What happened? Damn!"
"You should have been there," Stephen Thomas said. "You missed the creation of—"
"Stephen Thomas!" Victoria said sharply.
"What?"
"1 think we have to start being careful what we discuss in front of Feral."
"He was in my office while we were 'conspiring,' for god's sake," Stephen Thomas said. "You didn't object then."
"I didn't think of it then. So shoot me."
"Don't you trust me to tell your story straight?" Feral exclaimed.
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"Your interests can't always coincide with ours."
"Maybe we could tell him what happened, off the record,"
J.D. said hesitantly.
"This is bullshit," Stephen Thomas said. "We made the decision in a goddamned public meeting. It's to our advantage if Feral tells our side. Otherwise it'll all come from the chan-cellor—or the GAO. Feral, Victoria's research produced a second transition solution. Faster, shorter, better. And sooner. At the meeting we agreed to move the schedule up."
"And I missed it—? Damn! I obviously haven't cultivated my sources properly."
"It's been a tough day," Satoshi said. "We didn't exclude you on purpose—"
"Never mind the apologies. Tell me everything that happened. How soon—?"
Victoria walked ahead, angry at Stephen Thomas more because he was right then because he was telling Feral everything. J.D. hurried to keep up with her.
"Victoria, I have to go back to earth."
Completely-shocked, Victoria stopped short and faced J.D.
"What?"
"It's Zev. The diver. He's disappeared. This is hard to explain, but I have to help him—"
"Help him! What about us? My god, J.D., this expedition exists to support you! You can't leave it now."
"I have to. I have responsibilities—"
"What about your responsibility to us? You let us put ourselves on the line without telling us what you'd decided, you stood with us for the change—how could you do this?"
"I'm sorry," she said, unable to meet Victoria's gaze, staring at her feet like an embarrassed child. "I tried, but . . . The expedition isn't only for me, that's silly—"
"If you think it's silly, then maybe you'd better leave."
"But—"
They reached the tumoff to J.D.'s house. J.D. stopped;
Victoria continued, into the darkness.
"Um, maybe I'll see you tomorrow?" J.D. said.
Victoria could not trust herself to speak. Satoshi, Stephen Thomas, and Feral, unaware of what J.D. had decided, paused long enough to say good night to her; their voices, the words indistinct, faded behind Victoria.
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"Victoria, wait!"
She broke into a run.
The courtyard surrounded her with a soft carnation scent.
The lights glowed on in the main room of the house, responding to her approach. At the open French windows. Victoria kicked off her shoes and stepped inside, onto the cool, rustling reed mats. Their texture usually pleased her. Her vision blurred. Stephen Thomas's complicated distillation equipment hunkered on the floor like some misbegotten creature in a cheap special-effects movie.
Opening the door, Stephen Thomas came in and stood beside her, just gazing at her.
Victoria walked across the reed mats, passing the still.
"I wish you'd move that thing," she said. "Good night."
Stephen Thomas watched as she vanished into the back corridor. Satoshi and Feral came in behind him.
"Is she all right?"
Stephen Thomas shrugged, mystified and upset.
"Maybe I'd belter go stay at the visitor's house," Feral said. "I've really thrown a monkey wrench into this . . ."
"No," Satoshi said. "You're our guest. Victoria and Stephen Thomas and I obviously have some misunderstandings to clear up between us, but we shouldn't inflict them on you."
"Come sit down," Stephen Thomas said. "I want to tell you about the meeting."
Feral hesitated, tempted.
"Go ahead," Satoshi said. "I'll talk to Victoria."
In her bed, Victoria curled around her pillow and thought about going back into the main room, behaving the way Stephen Thomas always did, acting as though she had said nothing for which she needed to apologize. But she did need to apologize. And she could not quite face it tonight.
"Victoria?"
Satoshi tapped lightly on her door. Victoria remained silent. He slid the door a handsbreadth open. He knew she was awake; she never went to sleep this fast, even when she was exhausted. Especially when she was exhausted.
"Can I come in?"
"Yes."
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He slid into bed beside her, kissed her on the forehead, and held her till she fell asleep.
J.D. lay in bed in the darkness, unable to relax.
I might as well have stayed with the divers and never even
come to Starfarer, she thought. Damn! Why is this happening?
Staying with the expedition tempted her with such force that she had to stop thinking about the possibility, the good reasons, the rationalizations. She would return to earth with the reputation of being a troublemaker. She might be barred from her adopted profession. She might fail to find Zev; she might be arrested and put in jail as soon as she touched down.
If she stayed here, she would be an alien contact specialist.
And Victoria would not be angry with her . . .
She put aside the tempting thoughts and tried to sleep.
When she left, everyone would think she was running away, afraid to continue on the expedition. But for once in her life she was not running away.
Trying to sleep was hopeless. She took her notebook and pen into bed with her, and tried and failed to work on her novel.
At least I won't have to get used to writing electronically, she thought. Now I will be able to just go out and buy another notebook.
The thought gave her no comfort.
As he often did, Infinity went into the garden to sleep.
Carrying his blanket past the rosebush, he smelled the smoke of a cigarette near the battered lunar rock where Kolya liked to sit. The cosmonaut was nowhere to be seen; his footprints led away across dewy grass.
Infinity went farther around the edge of the garden, beyond the lingering cigarette smoke. He spread his blanket between some juniper bushes, where the smell was clean and pungent.
He wrapped himself up in the peace of the garden.
He did not mind the chill. Dewdrops formed on his blanket, glowing silver on the black leaves of the rosebush, which had hardly wilted despite being transplanted when it was wide awake. Though it would have been better to wait till Starfarer's mild winter, during the bush's dormant season. Infinity
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&
nbsp; had decided to risk the rose rather than risking Florrie's age. He had wanted her to have her roses.
But of course she would leave the expedition now—she would have to. She had nothing to do with Infinity and the other renegades, and she would not want to remain on board Starfarer now that everything had changed.
Though the meeting had chosen the path he desired, he still felt uncomfortable with his part in it. He was not used to speaking up, using the force of his past to influence events. The expedition had to make the change. Without it, they were lost.
But if they failed in their attempt . . .
Hearing footsteps, he rolled onto his chest. The silence of the garden amplified the stealthy sound.
Griffith walked into the garden and stood in the starlight, looking up at the hill. Looking for Kolya. But the cosmonaut had walked away in the other direction.
You don't need to worry about Kolya, Infinity thought. Even if Griffith stops us, he can't have Kolya Cherenkov taken off Starfarer.
Or can he?
For anyone else up here, the plan's failure would mean the loss of job and ambitions and hope. It might even mean prison. But if Kolya went back to earth, it would mean his life.
Infinity lay without moving for an hour, watching Griffith watch and wait, wondering what he could do, how he could guard against the danger his outburst had caused.
After Griffith cursed softly to the night and walked away, Infinity lay thinking and worrying for a long time.
Victoria woke alone. She lay in bed, trying to enjoy the sunlight streaming through her open, uncurtained window.
For someone who achieved the impossible last night, she said to herself, you are surely in a terrible mood.
She had to apologize to Stephen Thomas for snapping at him. Maybe she should also apologize to J.D., but that was harder. She understood prior commitments and responsibilities ... it would be difficult to tell Grangrana that she might have to leave the house, and Greg was sure to grind Stephen Thomas through another emotional wringer. But the expedi-
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tion members were putting their commitment to Starfarer first.
A
Victoria did not feel up to talking to J.D. Sauvagejust now. Every way she imagined the conversation, she ended up angrier than before, and J.D. ended up hurt and confused.
She burrowed deep under the covers and tried to go back to sleep.
Arachne's signal chilled her fully awake. She sat up and let the web display Starfarer's new orders.
When she finished reading the display, she gasped. She had been holding her breath with disbelief. She threw off her blankets and ran into the main room.
A
A
Stephen Thomas lounged in the sunlight like a cat. He rose abruptly when Victoria stormed in.
"Victoria, good lord, if you're still mad—'" ;
"Look at this." She formed a display so they could look at it together.
Stephen Thomas read the message, frowning. "Jesus H. i
Christ." -f-
A
Satoshi wandered in, blinking, blank with sleep. "If you've got to fight, why don't you fight quietly?"
"We aren't fighting. Look at this."
He, too, read the message.
It woke him up even better than coffee.
Griffith sat on the balcony of his room in the empty guesthouse. Small puffy clouds drifted between him and the sun tubes. He was as oblivious to the shadows they cast over him as he had been to the bright sunlight shining on him a few minutes before. He had not slept, he had not eaten. All he had done, all he could do, was think about Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov, and the Mideast Sweep, and the plans he himself had so carefully brought into being.
"Marion."
Griffith froze. He would not have believed anyone could come up behind him without his knowledge. He was fast and he was well trained, but he knew Cherenkov would be more than ready for anything he tried.
Maybe he deserved whatever Cherenkov chose for him.
"Are you responsible for the new order?"
"It was perfect," Griffith said. "It would alienate the STARFARERS 22 7
EarthSpace associates and convert the ship to military purposes, all at the same time."
"You are such a fool."
Griffith turned, carefully, slowly. Cherenkov faced him, empty-handed.
"All I ever wanted was to be like you," Griffith said. "As good as you—"
"You prove me right," Cherenkov said. "As good as me?
My country was destroyed! I had no little part in its enslavement. Is that what you want for yourself?"
"That isn't what I meant. I didn't know ... I didn't think . . ."
"No. Of course not. We old men send you young men out to do our dirty work, and we teach you not to think. Start thinking now! Is there any way to turn the weapons carrier back? Any way to stop this abomination?"
Griffith shook his head. The interaction dizzied him. He flinched down, cursing, and closed his eyes till his balance steadied.
"No," he said. "It's out of my control. If I were back on earth they might listen to me. Probably not, though. This is what they want to do. I just helped find a way to do it. If I changed my mind, they'd think you'd found a way to force me."
"And here I believed," Cherenkov said wryly, "that you were not permitted any weaknesses we might make use of."
"I'm not a robot!" Griffith glared at him. "I'm getting married next month! But when I'm . . . working ... I don't let myself think ... "
"Yes. That is the problem, isn't it?"
"That isn't what I meant, either, and you know it! What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? I am, for all the good it will do!"
Cherenkov's expression was mild. "I didn't think you could surprise me, Marion, but you have." He sat on the wall of the balcony and let himself lean back over the ten-meter drop. "Several times over."
"Don't do that," Griffith said.
After a few moments, Cherenkov pushed himself forward again. He sat slumped, his hands hanging limp. His heavy, streaky hair shadowed his face.
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"Have you any idea," he said, "how the leaders of the Sweep will react to Starfarer looming over them, after you have supplied it with nuclear missiles?"
Infinity entered his dim front room and brushed his fingertips through the commeal in the small pot by the door. He tossed his blanket toward a chair.
"Oh!"
"Florrie!** Infinity hurried forward lo take the blanket from her tap where it had fallen. "I didn't see you, I'm sorry. What are you doing here? What's the matter?"
She wore her multilayered black clothes and the shells and beads in the long patches of her hair. Her gray eyes looked very pale within their circles of dark kohl. Infinity wondered if the administrators had really thought they could bully her into wearing regulation clothing.
"I've been trying and trying to get you," she said.
"Why didn't you call me on the direct web? You could have said it was urgent."
"I don't know, I didn't want to, 1 thought you might be asleep.''
He guessed that all her contradictions meant that she, like a lot of others, felt uncomfortable using the direct link.
"Okay, I'm here now. What's wrong?" He had seen her a
couple of times since the party; she always had people with her, come to talk with her or help her, eat with her or cook for her. Her presence was a tremendous success. At least one thing had been going right, among so much else going wrong.
It was too bad she would be leaving. She ought to be home packing. The EarthSpace transport a few hours ahead of the armed military carrier would be the last civilian vessel to approach until Starfarer^ situation was resolved one way or another. EarthSpace had already sent out orders for no one to disembark, but it had no way of enforcing the demand or calling the transport back. The transport had to pick up more reaction mass from Starfarer. Otherwise it would have to power itself home with o
nly emergency reserves: a tricky. risky maneuver.
"He was there again last night. He's always there. Can't I make him stop?"
"You mean Griffith?"
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She nodded.
"I don't know. You could report him to the chancellor for harassing you."
"I'm sure he's figured out something to report me to the chancellor for, and you know who'd be believed."
"I know he scares you. But, Florrie, you know, he isn't really interested in you or me or anybody except Kolya. That's why he's always in your garden at night."
"He hasn't actually done anything . . ."
"Isn't it kind of pointless to worry? You'll be going back to earth on the transport. I guess he will be, too, but once you're home you'll probably never see him again. Are you packed? There isn't that much time. You do understand that it's the last chance to leave?"
She sagged in his chair as if she had suddenly reached the limit of her energy.
"Are they sending me away?" she said, so faint he could hardly hear her.
"No, not sending you, exactly . . ."
"Why should I have to go, when 1 didn't even have anything to do with the meeting? Nobody even told me it was happening!"
"Don't you want to go home?"
"This is my home now! I came all the way out here—why do you think I'd want to leave again?"
"Because everything's changed," Infinity said.
"Not for me," Florrie said.
One of Slarfarer's telescopes trained itself on the military carrier as it accelerated toward the starship. It hung in the center of the screen, apparently unmoving, but pushing forward at twice the delta-vee of a regular transport.
Victoria found her gaze and her attention drawn to the image no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on all the other things she had to think about.
The prospect of nuclear weapons on board Starfarer angered and distressed and saddened her more than any other element of the attempted takeover, even, strangely enough, the possibility that the starship would be turned into a low-orbit watchpost. The battle against arming the starship was
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the hardest fight the alien contact team had taken on. Victoria stilt sometimes felt astonished that they had won it.
The one good thing the approaching military carrier had done was unify the faculty and staff- There were plenty of members who believed the expedition could present itself as peaceful while carrying defensive weapons, but even they were angered by the means being taken to arm the ship.