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out."
Victoria, too, glanced toward Stephen Thomas's invisible presence.
"It isn't something we're going to test," she said. "It would be . . . bad
manners."
"What the hell difference does it make?" Stephen Thomas said. "No matter
what we do, we don't measure up to what Civilization expects of us. We
might as well behave badly and get some benefit out of their shitty
opinion."
"No." Victoria turned away from him. "And if you insist on being invisible,
you can be invisible." She spoke to J.D. "Get ready. We'll be over to see
you off. To help if we can."
"Oh, Victoria," J.D. said. "Why come all that way in this weather?"
"Nonsense. We'll see you in a few minutes."
"All right." J.D. smiled, gratefully. "Thanks."
Her image faded out, and so did Victoria's.
What weather? Stephen Thomas wondered. A storm, like wild side's, on
campus? Was I sleeping so hard I didn't even hear it? What the hell is
going on?
Stephen Thomas went to the balcony door and
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276 VONDA N. McINTYRE
cupped his hands around his face to look outside. The night was bright with
a layer of shining snow, and flakes drifted from the sky. He cracked the
door open. Cold air washed over him. It felt alive, it felt like the bubbles
in champagne. The snowflakes landed with a faint, musical, crinkling sound.
"Stephen Thomas?"
Stephen Thomas turned quickly. Satoshi's image remained in the middle of
the room. Satoshi gazed into thin air like a blind man.
"Are you still there? Are you all right? Where are you?"
"I'm all right."
"Will you project, dammit?"
"I don't have any clothes on."
Satoshi hesitated. "I don't care. I want to see you."
"What are you so mad about?" Stephen Thomas asked.
"Mad? Why should I be mad? You withdraw, you disappear-"
"You can find me if you want me!"
"I started to. But you acted like you wanted time alone. I can't read your
mind, I-"
He stopped, upset and confused.
"I can't read yours, either, Satoshi," Stephen Thomas said quietly.
"No," Satoshi said. "I know you can't. Look, I'm sorry about- We have to
talk. I'm afraid you-" He glanced away, to reply to Victoria, outside the
area of his image. "Be right there," he said over his shoulder. "Will you
meet us at the dock?" he asked Stephen Thomas.
Stephen Thomas had no idea how he would react when he saw J.D. again. One
temper tantrum was plenty for any twenty-four hour stretch.
It's not her fault, he told himself. None of this is her fault. Or
Victoria's,~ or Satoshi's.
"Come on," Satoshi said, his tone uncharacteristically edgy. "The weather's
not that bad."
METAPHASE 277
"Okay," Stephen Thomas said quickly. "I'm on my way."
J.D. asked Arachne to notify the rest of the faculty and staff of Nemo's
message, but she put no emergency flag on her communication. There was no
point to rousing people out of their warm beds, just to sit around waiting
till she reached the planetoid. In an hour or two they would wake up,
admire the snow, drink their morning coffee, and watch whatever she was
able to send back.
J.D. waded through the drifts. Zev leaped along beside her. She smiled.
She loved to watch him. He scooped up a loose handful of snow and threw
it, the way he had flung the oranges. It scattered into J.D.'s hair. She
decided not to show him how to make a snowball. She was sure he would
figure it out for himself soon enough.
"It snowed once when I was a kid," he said. "But not very much."
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He was wearing his suit and his shoes. Divers enjoyed cold water, but Zev
was neither acclimated nor adapted to arctic conditions. The snow caught
in the cuffs of his pants, forming icy pellets.
J.D. looked up, hoping for a break in the clouds, a glimpse of the other
side of Starfarer. All she could see was snow falling from the luminous
grayness of the night sky.
Arachne guided J.D. to an access hatch. Knee-deep snow covered it,
pressing it down so it could not open automatically. J.D. kicked the snow
away. The hatch buzzed and groaned, trying to rise.
"Help me, Zev." She groped for the emergency handle, grasped it, and
pulled. Zev hunkered down, grabbed the edge, and pushed.
The hatch popped open. Wet clumps of snow avalanched into the entrance.
J.D. and Zev climbed into the warm service tunnels of the starship, the
veins in its skin that led to its underground organs, and all the way to
the outside. More snow fell in with them and around
278 VONDA N. McINTYRE
them and on top of them. J.D. brushed it from her shoulders and hair, and
did the same for Zev. She stamped her feet, leaving a patch of slush on
the rockfoam floor.
J.D. continued toward the docking end of campus. She squelched along in
snow-soaked shoes that grew wetter, but no less cold, as the snow melted.
She hurried, anxious to reach Nemo before the squidmoth emerged from the
chrysalis.
We should have stayed, she thought. If we'd stayed, the whole alien
contact department would be there. Not just me.
She and Zcv met no one. Hardly anyone ever had the need to come down
here. Infinity did, J.D. knew, and Kolya, when they went out on the skin.
Even if people did often use the access tunnels, anyone with any sense
would be asleep. She hoped everyone would wake up in time to see the
snow, because it was beautiful. She also hoped it would be melted by the
time she returned.
"You can tell me what Starfarer looks like," she said to Zev, "when the
clouds have snowed themselves out, but before the snow melts. It will be
pretty, with everything covered in white."
"I'd rather come with you."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Squids never do what you tell them," Zev said.
"They don't?"
"No. They make terrible pets." He considered for a moment. "I guess it's
because they're always afraid you'll eat them."
When J.D. and Zev floated into the waiting room at the Chi's dock,
Victoria and Satoshi had already arrived. There was no sign of Stephen
Thomas. J.D. wondered if he was still trying to avoid her.
Victoria kicked off from the handhold, brushed against J.D., and hugged
her. As they spun slowly across the waiting room, J.D. held Victoria,
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bending to rest her head on her shoulder. When she finally drew back from
METAPHASE 279
their embrace, she kissed Victoria's cheek, her lips. Victoria laid her hand
along the side of JDA face and looked into her eyes.
"Good luck," she said. "I hope . . . I don't know. Just good luck."
"I want you all with me," J.D. said. "I don't understand . . ."
"I wouldn't want a lot of people hanging around staring at me if I were
changing my shape," Satoshi said, just as Stephen Thomas arrowed in through
the doorway.
"I don't know," Stephen Thomas said, his tone careful, brittle, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]