The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  The planet passed, beyond J.D.’s reach. She yearned to stop and explore it, at least visit it. The telemetry would tell them a great deal about the world, but it was not the same. She had spent her life learning things about other places by means of telemetry, speculation, words and equations and pictures. She wanted something real.

  J.D. felt the whisper of the steering rockets, not slowing the Chi but speeding it up. It would never be captured by the gravity of Tau Ceti II. It would arc around the planet and sling itself back toward Starfarer.

  No one on the alien contact team spoke during the passage.

  Tau Ceti II lay behind them.

  In despair, J.D. let herself out of her couch and drifted to the transparent wall of the observers’ circle, as if she could look back and reach through it and touch the surface of the planet.

  Zev joined her. She was afraid if he touched her, if she had to speak, she would break down and cry.

  “I would have liked to swim in an alien sea,” he said.

  J.D. grabbed at hope, clutching it blindly.

  “Maybe you can.”

  “J.D. —” Victoria said.

  “Hear me out,” J.D. said. “We can’t stay here, because the string is receding. But we still have access to transition points that will take us other places.”

  She paused, waiting for reactions from her teammates.

  “It could work,” Stephen Thomas said.

  “Your algorithm tells you whether the destination is empty or full, as far as string goes, right?” J.D. asked Victoria.

  “It wouldn’t be much use if it didn’t,” Victoria said dryly. “It tells me if the stuff exists there, so we could go someplace else, or if it’s absent, so we’d be stuck. It doesn’t say how much —”

  “But how much doesn’t matter!” J.D. said. “As long as you pick a ‘full’ destination, as long as we keep going to a place where there’s more string, we can go wherever we like. True?”

  “Within limits.” Victoria sounded intrigued. “Instead of one stop, we could make a grand tour.”

  “Just like a bunch of debutantes,” J.D. said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” J.D. said. “Dumb joke. Before your time, and out of my class.”

  “Nothing’s out of your class, J.D.,” Victoria said. “God, what a great idea. Why didn’t I think of it? Too preoccupied with the string. It’s not supposed to behave this way.”

  J.D.’s despair had turned to excitement; from the verge of tears she had traveled to the verge of giggles.

  “We could try Epsilon Indi or 40 Eridani — or maybe it would be better to try a star that isn’t very much like our own. Sirius? Maybe we should look for the alien people in a much different environment —” J.D. stopped, for her voice was rising with excitement. “I’ll have to think about this for a while.”

  “It’s got my recommendation,” Satoshi said.

  Within a few minutes, they had put together a meeting proposal and posted it, with all their recommendations.

  “We could do it,” Victoria said. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t do it!”

  o0o

  In the sailhouse, Avvaiyar said, again, “I’m sorry. The expedition is a failure. We have no choice. We must turn back.” Her image faded.

  Iphigenie stared at the place her friend had occupied, then shook herself and turned, without a word, to the hard link.

  “Iphigenie —” Feral stopped. Shocked and angry and distressed and confused, he was for once at a loss for a question or an observation.

  “Be quiet,” she said, without glancing at him. “This is a dangerous maneuver. Too much stress. I have to think about it.”

  Feral remembered his first sight of her, at the first deployment of Starfarer’s solar sail. Iphigenie’s sail was as magnificent, beautiful, elegant, as Iphigenie. She controlled it, she controlled the starship, with the touch of her intellect and her will. The harmonies of the sensors, reporting in musical tones, sounded like a new symphony. Iphigenie’s presence had filled the sailhouse; she had, by right, been the center of her colleagues’ celebration. She quieted the group with a single word, and released them with a single gesture. Feral remembered her floating in the middle of the cylinder, drinking a shimmering, fizzing globule of champagne with a kiss.

  She had belonged here, within walls so perfectly transparent that they gave the impression of allowing her unprotected access to the stars.

  Now, though, she huddled — as much as one could huddle in zero gravity — over the hard-link. The pale glow of the screen lit her dark, drawn face. She was still beautiful, and elegant, but anguish replaced the magnificent, fierce joy.

  He knew how she felt. He had always expected to have to face the consequences of his actions eventually. But not quite so soon. Not with quite so little to show for the rebellion.

  Feral tried to call Stephen Thomas, but received no reply.

  The harmonious melody of the sensors broke up into discord. Feral felt useless. He wanted to help. He wanted to be a part of the expedition, not just an observer, and now he would never get a chance. The expedition was at an end.

  He drifted in the center of the sailhouse, where Iphigenie by rights should be, directing the spacecraft with her mind, her body moving in small, involuntary ways in response to her commands. Body English, Feral thought, or maybe, for Iphigenie, body French. She spoke English with a barely perceptible accent. Feral wondered what language she thought in, dreamed in. Sometimes he himself dreamed in fluent French, much better French than he spoke when he was awake. It was only after he woke up that he realized he was making most of it up in his sleep.

  The sail harmonies followed a long slow slide into key. The melody changed. Feral glanced out toward the sail.

  The sail moved, altering its angle to Tau Ceti’s light. Feral’s first reaction was to look around for one of the transparent glass handholds in the sailhouse wall. But he felt nothing. The ship was so large, the acceleration of the sail so delicate and gradual, that the change was imperceptible. It was the cumulative effect that redirected the starship. One could not go hotrodding around in a ship the size of Starfarer. The physical stresses would rip it apart.

  And when Starfarer returned to Earth, the political stresses would rip it apart no less surely. This time the expedition would not escape. Feral had no official place here, but he was ethically allied with it. He would not pretend he had been dragged along unwillingly.

  Home. The word carried few resonances for him. He had rented the same room for the past two years, and it still held boxes he had never unpacked. Starfarer was the first place he had ever been where he thought he might feel at home.

  Iphigenie straightened up, leaning back from the hardlink. But she left her feet secured in the toe-straps. The iridescent beads on the ends of her thin, smooth braids drifted till the motion of her head pulled them together in a staccato of faint clicks. Feral stroked over and joined her.

  “You’ll get your wish soon,” Iphigenie said.

  “My wish?”

  “To pass through transition again.”

  The memory of transition was one of the most vivid of Feral’s life. Yet, so far, he had been unable to describe the experience in words that conveyed its impact on him. He felt changed, but he could not describe exactly what about him had changed, either.

  “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” he said. “Isn’t there some other possibility? Don’t you cheerful anarchists have to have a meeting before you can make a change like this?”

  “We seldom make drastic changes without several meetings,” Iphigenie said. “We hold meetings so everyone can contribute. We thrash out differences when we aren’t under great stress. This time, when there’s only one possibility, it’s my job to keep it within our reach.”

  Feral’s message symbol faded in nearby. He accepted the communication. An image of Stephen Thomas appeared before him. Seeing him gave Feral a quick sharp thrill of pleasure, of desire, of loneliness.
/>
  “Hi,” Feral said. “Stephen Thomas, I’m so sorry —”

  “J.D. has a suggestion.” He must have started speaking as soon as Arachne made contact. The rush of explanation cut off Feral’s attempt at sympathy, comfort, commiseration.

  “What a great idea!” Feral said. “Can we do it?”

  “It’s possible,” Iphigenie said, listening in. “It would be possible.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “We could decide to do it,” Stephen Thomas said in reply to Feral’s first question, but it reminded him of the answer to his second as well. “I called to ask, will you help? Will you talk to people, help us pass the idea around, get them to support the meeting?”

  “Sure! I —”

  “Great. I have to make some other calls. I’ll talk to you soon.” He vanished, leaving Feral’s enthusiasm hanging.

  The air currents took the tendrils of Iphigenie’s narrow braids and pushed them together, apart, together. The beads on their ends clinked, like tiny castanets seeking the measure of the whispered harmonies.

  “I’d better get started,” he said. “Will you be all right?”

  “You are very committed for a journalist, Feral,” she said, not answering his question. “Aren’t you supposed to be objective?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m a participatory journalist. Involvement is my intention. Objectivity is the furthest thing from my mind.”

  o0o

  The Chi sped toward Starfarer.

  Stephen Thomas lounged within his couch, alone in the observer’s circle. He had turned the couch so it faced the Chi’s direction of motion, resolutely leaving Tau Ceti II behind. He looked out with nothing between him and space except the invisible glass wall. The onboard computer flew the Chi; no one on the alien contact team had to be concerned with its course.

  Starfarer grew. It was a distant dot, silhouetted against the expanse of its sail. It was a moving clockwork toy. It was an enormous, complex, spinning world.

  Stephen Thomas had nothing to do but watch the docking, regret the lost opportunities of Tau Ceti II, and worry and wonder about the reaction the team would get when they disembarked. J.D.’s suggestion was intriguing, tempting, but would their colleagues have the resilience to attempt another change in plans? If they did continue, could they hope for another star system as perfect as this one?

  He drifted easily between the couch and the loose safety straps. Starfarer came closer, its paired cylinders spinning silently against the silver backdrop of its sail.

  The Chi moved so smoothly that from Stephen Thomas’s perspective the starship approached him, rather than the opposite. The crater moved past, concentric circles of jumbled rock around a bulls-eye of silver. Stephen Thomas was surprised that the slugs had not yet completed the repairs.

  I wonder if we’ll always carry the scar of the attack? he wondered.

  He stretched, arching his back, curling his toes. Starfarer drifted closer, appearing to turn as the Chi approached the dock on the stationary end of the cylinder.

  Stephen Thomas felt remarkably well, considering how terrible he had felt a few hours ago. The fever had not yet died away, but the muscle aches had faded. He rubbed his palms together and pinched the skin between his fingers. His hands itched.

  He had no samples to pack, no experiments to transfer. What little useful information he had about Tau Ceti II resided in the memory of the onboard computer. He could transfer it to Arachne any time, anywhere, as soon as he was certain the web had finished its reconstruction.

  Not that I can do much with spectroscopic data and photographs, he thought. Dammit! I wanted to look at living organisms from another world. I’d’ve settled for exotic algae. To have to leave the whole evolved ecosphere behind...

  He tried to relax, tried to resign himself to whatever happened, tried to interest himself in the docking. He had never watched it close-up before.

  A shadow passed across him. He glanced toward it. Zev gazed at him, silently.

  “Hello, Zev,” Stephen Thomas said.

  Zev hesitated. “Hello.” He sounded uncertain, shy. “What are you doing?”

  “Just watching. I never did before. I usually hide in the bathroom and puke when we do these maneuvers.”

  “Do you get seasick?”

  “Space sick. I must have adapted. Finally. I haven’t lost my lunch once this trip.”

  Without replying, Zev continued to hover nearby. Stephen Thomas went back to watching the approach. After a few minutes, Zev’s unwavering observation began to make him nervous.

  “Zev, what’s going on?”

  “J.D. said you were ill. I wondered how you were feeling. But you say you’re well.”

  “I didn’t get space sick. I got the flu instead.” He grinned. “The trade-off’s worth it, I think. Besides, I’m almost over it.”

  The walls of the starship enclosed the Chi, nesting and securing it. A faint vibration rose to perceptibility, then vanished.

  They were home.

  o0o

  J.D. joined Victoria and Satoshi at the access hatch. J.D. carried the alien sculpture, the meerkat, in a transparent sample box.

  J.D. almost went to her teammates and hugged them. She felt the need of some comfort and encouragement. But she did not know how Victoria would feel about being hugged, after last night’s conversation. Now, with Zev, J.D.’s feelings were even more complicated. The possibilities surrounded her, more synergistic than exclusive.

  “Ready?” Satoshi said.

  “I wish I were.”

  Zev floated in. “I’m here,” he said. “I didn’t forget.”

  He stopped next to J.D., his shoulder rubbing hers.

  “I knew you wouldn’t forget,” J.D. said, “but I didn’t know if you’d keep track of the time.”

  “I wish Stephen Thomas would keep track of time,” Victoria said.

  Satoshi glanced back into the Chi, puzzled. “He’s usually the first person through the hatch and into gravity.”

  “Zev, have you seen him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Floating.”

  “We’re all floating, Zev,” Victoria said. “Oh, hell, I’ll get him in a minute. He probably doesn’t feel up to facing a crowd.”

  Responding to her command, the sealed hatch unlocked.

  Stephen Thomas arrowed into the vestibule, turned and touched the wall with one foot, and came to a halt among his teammates. He was carrying his patchwork quilt.

  “Feeling better, eh?” Victoria said.

  “Quite a lot.”

  “Glad you could join us.”

  “Hey, I almost forgot my blanket.”

  The hatch opened.

  The waiting room was full of people. Professor Thanthavong hovered near the front, accompanied by Fox and a dozen other graduate students from the astronomy and physics and genetics and geography departments.

  Feral greeted the team with a grin; he was intense and involved, in the midst of everything, surrounded by Crimson Ng and Florrie Brown and Infinity Mendez and Esther Klein. Even Kolya Cherenkov had joined the crowd. J.D. looked, uneasily, for Griffith, who could usually be found tagging around after Kolya. For a change, he was nowhere in sight.

  Chandra, the sensory artist, drifted outside the group, taking everything in with her strange body and her weird, all-seeing, opaque eyes, recording all that surrounded her, collecting raw material to sculpt into virtual reality.

  Stephen Thomas crossed to Feral and kissed him.

  Gerald Hemminge eeled between his colleagues, heading for J.D.

  “I’ve heard of foolish suggestions,” he said to her, “but haring off into nowhere is —”

  Professor Thanthavong interrupted. “What Gerald is trying to say is that we have more than a quorum for a meeting, if you’re up to it.”

  “I am,” J.D. said.

  “We all are,” Victoria said. “Eager for it.”

  “You don’t under
stand the problems,” Gerald said. “You don’t even begin to understand —”

  “You can have your say with everyone else,” Thanthavong told him. “Things have happened to disappoint all of us. Nevertheless, our friends have visited a world outside our solar system, for the first time in human history, and I believe we should congratulate them.”

  The Nobel laureate hugged J.D., who returned the embrace gratefully.

  “Thank you,” J.D. whispered.

  Thanthavong patted her shoulder and hugged Stephen Thomas, Satoshi, and Victoria.

  “And here’s our young stowaway.” She hugged Zev, too.

  Crimson Ng moved closer. “Can I look at the sculpture, J.D.?”

  J.D. let the sample box free. It floated, turning slowly, before Crimson. It became the center of a sphere of people.

  “It isn’t very alien,” Chandra said with disdain.

  “May I touch it?” Crimson was a sculptor, most recently of fossil alien bones. She buried them in artificial strata, leaving only tantalizing bits exposed. She touched the plastic shielding, moving her fingers along the lines of the stone creature.

  J.D. longed to take the meerkat out of the sample case. She still had never touched its graceful curves with her bare hands, only through gloves. But it would be a mistake to open the box, a mistake to indulge herself and pass the sculpture around. It was too precious.

  “The protocol calls for quarantine and testing,” she said, yearning to stroke its stone surface.

  “I know,” Crimson said. “But it’s been out in hard vacuum, and heat sterilized, for god’s sake, it’s not going to emit some alien germ to eat my face —”

  Interested, Chandra moved closer. “I wonder what an alien illness would feel like?” she said, out loud, but to herself.

  “We’ll observe the quarantine,” Professor Thanthavong said. “But we are likely to be as unpalatable to alien germs as alien people would be to our diseases.”

  “Then why can’t I touch it?” Crimson asked.

  “Because of precautions,” J.D. said.

  “It looks like something from back on Earth,” Chandra said scornfully. “A weasel or something.”