The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “A meerkat. That’s what Stephen Thomas thought it resembled. I looked it up, and he’s right.”

  “Parallel evolution,” Thanthavong said. “Quite common back on Earth, for unrelated species to evolve to a similar pattern, in similar environments.”

  “Or it could mean the people who made it have visited Earth,” Kolya Cherenkov said. “In secret.”

  “It could,” Thanthavong said, unwillingly.

  J.D., too, resisted the idea that alien beings had visited Earth without making their presence known to humans, or at any rate to humans in public. She had been teased about little green men and UFO landings and the unconvincing reports of abductions by flying saucer beings. She had been teased by people who knew she wrote science fiction novels, and she had been teased by people who knew she wanted to join the alien contact team. She supposed every member of the expedition had faced the same derision.

  “Where will it go?” Crimson gazed at the sculpture as if mesmerized. “You don’t have to damage it to study it, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” J.D. said. “I thought it could sit out the quarantine period in the art museum.”

  “I’d like that,” Crimson said.

  “It’s an excellent suggestion,” Thanthavong said. “But one to be carried out later. It’s nearly time to convene the meeting.”

  J.D. found herself between Victoria and Professor Thanthavong as they left the dock. They passed the waiting room for the transport ship. Apprehensive, J.D. glanced inside. The waiting room was empty.

  “What a relief,” she said.

  “Hmm?” Victoria asked.

  “I kind of expected the other transport passengers to be blockaded in there. On a hunger strike or something. Gerald made it sound like they were carrying out mass protests... Where are they?”

  “Almost everyone returned to their homes and their jobs,” Thanthavong said. “They didn’t want to leave us, you know. They were recalled. When the transport remained with Starfarer, they had the opportunity to stay with the expedition without disobeying their orders.”

  “That’s an anticlimax,” Victoria said. “I was a bit worried about them, too. It beats a civil war.”

  “Except,” J.D. said to Thanthavong, “you said, ‘almost everybody.’”

  “Everyone except the observers, and —”

  “EarthSpace observers?”

  “United States Congress observers. Senators. Two of them.”

  What J.D. felt, she would not have dared use as description in one of her novels. She hated cliché, and “shock of recognition” was practically prehistoric. Nevertheless, she did feel as if she were in shock. The blood drained from her face; her stomach clenched.

  “Oh, god,” J.D. said. That tears it, she thought. How could I forget? Because I wanted to forget. We’ll have to go home, now. “I saw them on the transport. Orazio and Derjaguin.”

  “Yes. One for us, one against.”

  “Maybe two against, after what’s happened,” J.D. said sadly. “I guess they’re pretty upset.”

  “Gerald did mention something of the sort... He said, I quote, more or less, ‘I cannot imagine anything worse than shepherding two American senators. Except, perhaps, shepherding one British M.P.’” Thanthavong sighed. “The U.S. government frowns upon people who kidnap members of its government.”

  “It wasn’t our fault, dammit!” Victoria said. “Their carrier ordered the transport pilot to stay docked.”

  “Orazio and Derjaguin are politicians,” Thanthavong said. “They’re pragmatic. They dislike their situation, but they’re in no danger — no more than any of the rest of us. They won’t behave foolishly. But... I am worried about Alzena.”

  “Alzena!” Victoria exclaimed. “Was she hurt? Was she in the web?”

  “She has... withdrawn.”

  “Why?”

  “Her family will be angry with her.”

  “Seems to me her family is always angry with her,” Victoria said, sounding angry herself. “Seems to me her family would be angry with her no matter what she did, unless she hid away in a closed room.”

  “Perhaps,” Thanthavong said.

  They made their way through the transition zone between the stationary axis of Starfarer, and the main cylinder. Zero g gave way to microgravity, and they moved onto the slope that formed the end of Starfarer’s cylindrical body. Switchback trails led from the axis and down the end slope to the floor of the cylinder, the living area.

  As J.D. descended, the microgravity increased. It became a definite force, seven-tenths of Earth’s gravity, imparted by Starfarer’s spin.

  Below her, Stephen Thomas and Feral and Zev bounded down the hillside, sure-footed as a pair of mountain goats.

  “Alzena ought to dump her whole crew of relatives!” Victoria exclaimed.

  “Could you abandon your family because they had opinions other people don’t agree with?” Thanthavong asked.

  “My family does have opinions other people don’t agree with,” Victoria said. “Lots. But their opinions don’t require me to give up my autonomy. It’s hardly the same.”

  “Not to you. Not to me. But it is the same to Alzena. Try to understand.”

  “I have tried. Believe me. I’ve done my best. And she’s done her best to explain. It doesn’t work. It’s as if I’d gone back a couple hundred years, and my ancestors were trying to tell me that they’d changed their minds about risking the underground railway. That they’d decided to stay slaves.”

  “Alzena does not think of herself as a slave. And through no fault of her own, she’s disobeyed a command she believed she must follow. I’m concerned about her, Victoria.”

  Victoria shrugged uncomfortably. “She’s depressed. She’ll get over it.”

  “I hope so,” Thanthavong said. “Starfarer will be in difficult straits without our chief ecologist.”

  “She can speak at the meeting,” Victoria said. Bitterness tinged her voice. “Maybe she doesn’t care about Starfarer ecosystem anymore. Maybe she’ll convince everyone we should go home. Maybe her family will win after all.”

  Victoria and Professor Thanthavong continued on ahead. J.D. paused on the slope leading into the starship, struck by the beauty of her new home. At the bottom of the hill, the cylinder curved up to either side, circling the sun tube that carried light to the interior. Overhead, the opposite floor of the cylinder formed a green, growing sky, its contours traced by footpaths, all overlaid by a delicate pattern of puffy white clouds. Small streams led in erratic spirals from their sources at this end, occasionally pausing at a lake, spreading through the mud flats and wetlands at the far end, spilling finally into the sea. Bushes and grass covered the gentle hills, and young evergreens with spring-pale needles sprouted in the meadows. J.D. found the hill that covered her own underground house, and then, inevitably, her gaze traveled to the circle of jumbled ground where the genetics building had collapsed. Genetics Hill looked as if an inexorable force of erosion had begun to dissolve it back to earth and basic elements.

  The ASes had cleared away some rubble, but J.D. could see no signs that they had begun to rebuild. The site lay silent and deserted.

  J.D. looked away from the destruction.

  It was evening. The light from the sun tubes began to dim. J.D. set off down the hill again, lengthening her strides to catch up with Victoria and Thanthavong. They chose the path that would lead most quickly to Starfarer’s amphitheater.

  On all the paths below, other people, the rest of Starfarer’s faculty and staff, headed for that same central meeting point.

  Chapter 7

  As the faculty and staff of Starfarer gathered in the amphitheater, the sun tubes lowered the daytime illumination. The starship’s luminous evening began.

  J.D. took a seat halfway down the hillside. Zev hopped onto the terrace beside her and sat with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them, his bare toes curled over the corner of the seat. His claws extended, scraping the riser.


  The amphitheater was nearly half full. People congregated in the seats near the center as if they were in a funnel; a few scattered in the higher terraces. J.D. recognized quite a number of her colleagues, considering how short a time she had been on board, and how immersed she had been in work and plans — or conspiracy.

  Her teammates entered the amphitheater with her, but split up to sit apart as was their custom: Victoria toward the center, Satoshi in the middle of the slope, Stephen Thomas on the other side and near the top, with Feral and the genetics graduate students. J.D. also found Kolya Petrovich and Iphigenie DuPre and Dr. Thanthavong. Griffith stood at the very top of the amphitheater, on the ramp surrounding the top row of seats. J.D. wished he would either join the meeting or leave; his lurking made her nervous.

  Avvaiyar entered, looked around, and moved easily down the ramp. She was striking, a human version of one of those omnipotent goddesses from ancient India. J.D. could easily imagine Avvaiyar dancing and exchanging flirtatious glances with a demigod of life or death, four-armed, eight-armed, naked except for gold bangles on her ankles and a silken scarf around her narrow waist.

  She sat beside Victoria; the two spoke quietly together, bent over a tiny display that glowed in Avvaiyar’s hands.

  Crimson Ng and Chandra sat just below J.D., where Crimson could see the meerkat that J.D. still carried. Florrie Brown sat across the way, resolute, gripping the top of a short walking stick, pressing its end into the ground between her feet.

  A flash of chartreuse caught the corner of J.D.’s vision: Esther Klein, wearing in her ugly lurid pilot’s jacket. Infinity Mendez accompanied her.

  Passing Griffith, Infinity paused. To J.D.’s surprise, Infinity grinned at the man who probably was not an accountant from the Government Accountability Office. At any rate Infinity did not believe he was, and neither did Florrie Brown. J.D. was inclined to agree with them.

  “Hiya, Griffith,” Infinity said cheerfully.

  Griffith glared at him, as if the greeting were somehow insolent. Infinity continued on; he and the transport pilot greeted Florrie and sat on either side of her.

  One person conspicuously absent was Gerald Hemminge. J.D. had begun to think of him as the loyal opposition, for he was the loudest voice among those who thought the expedition should have returned, at least temporarily, to low Earth orbit. He was also the mouthpiece for Starfarer’s chancellor. Chancellor Blades was also absent, but that did not surprise J.D. He was always absent. She had never met him. She had thought perhaps he might come to this meeting, but apparently he had decided to maintain his reserve.

  The light from the sun tubes faded completely, sinking the amphitheater into intense darkness. The only spot of illumination was the display in Victoria’s hands, shining like foxfire.

  The last time the personnel of Starfarer had met to discuss the starship’s fate, someone had flooded the theater with brilliant light, as if to frighten them from their rebellion. The tactic had not worked.

  “Hey!” someone called out in protest. At the same time, half the people in the theater ordered Arachne to turn up the lights. Reflexively, hardly thinking about it, J.D. did the same. At the same time, she glanced up.

  The light brightened to glaring intensity, brighter and hotter than any midday. Startled, J.D. flung up her hands and turned her head away, but too late. The brilliance of the sun-tubes dazzled her.

  “Damn!” Temporarily blinded, she blinked, squeezed her eyes shut, put her hands to her eyes, and pressed her palms against her eyelids. Afterimages flashed from black to bright to black again. She opened her eyes. The afterimages flashed more vividly, tangling with her view of the theater. Zev grabbed her arm and steadied her.

  She gripped his hand. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled down her cheeks.

  “Oh, what a dumb thing to do. Zev, did you look? Can you see?”

  “I didn’t look,” he said. “I’m not going to.”

  “Good.” J.D. could not see far, but she could tell, from the sounds of cursing and questions, that she was not the only person to make the mistake. Along with everyone else, she wondered whether Arachne’s feedback mechanisms had healed incompletely.

  The alternative was that the overwhelming intensity of light was meant, again, to frighten them.

  If that were true, whoever crashed the web was still on board.

  J.D. hoped it was a malfunction. She did not remember it as being this bad before, this bright, this hot. Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled down her face, onto her eyelashes, mixing with the tears. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. A drop of perspiration ran down her spine.

  J.D. tried to reach Arachne, demanding the reason for the change, objecting to it. But the queue was jammed. Surprised, J.D. backed off. Arachne had plenty of channels to accommodate multiple demands. For the computer not to answer... J.D. reached out again, gently this time, fearing the shock of a second web crash.

  The web reached back, sturdy and undamaged, except for the blocked strands leading to information about the sun tubes.

  Maybe it is just a malfunction, J.D. thought. Maybe Arachne hasn’t healed quite enough to handle all those queries at once.

  “Or maybe it’s Gerald...” J.D. said softly.

  “What?” Zev asked.

  “At the last meeting — before you got here — we got spotlighted. It was meant to scare us, because we weren’t supposed to be having the meeting. If Arachne’s all right, Gerald’s the most likely person to want to disrupt the meeting.”

  Maybe that was why he had not come. But his absence only served to draw attention to him; and besides, though he disagreed with almost everyone left on board, though he was one of the people who had been trapped on the transport, he disagreed vocally and unequivocally. Sneakiness was not Gerald Hemminge’s style.

  Though the changes in the sun tubes could be effected from anywhere on board, surely they could not be changed by just anyone. J.D. tried one more query, for information about who was permitted to alter the lighting; again Arachne rebuffed her.

  The amphitheater fell silent.

  “They’re all looking at you, J.D.,” Zev whispered.

  J.D. took a deep breath, wiped her dazzled eyes on her sleeve, and stood up. The amphitheater remained a blur.

  “J.D. Sauvage,” she said, and paused, as was customary for someone wishing to speak. It was a tradition observed for its own sake, a ritual. Everybody knew everyone else; everyone had the right to speak without interruption, and everyone else had the right to disagree.

  “We can’t stay here,” J.D. said. “My proposal is that we keep going. Not home, but to another star system. That we continue the expedition.” She blinked again, trying to make out people’s faces, trying to see who was on her side, who disagreed. Everyone already knew her proposal for the meeting. Stating it aloud was another ritual.

  “That’s all,” she said simply, and sat down again.

  Arachne routinely broadcast meetings throughout the starship. Though one had to be present to have a say in the decisions, one could observe from a distance. J.D. was about to hook into the transmission and watch the meeting from within her mind. She was reluctant to make such a close connection with Arachne, since the possibility remained that the computer would crash again. The aberrant light was very bright, and heat pooled in the amphitheater.

  She wiped the sweat and tears out of her eyes and looked around again. To her relief, her vision cleared perceptibly.

  Victoria rose and turned once around, as if picking out each of her colleagues individually.

  “Victoria Fraser MacKenzie,” she said, and waited.

  No one spoke.

  She raised one hand; in it she held a hard-copy module from the computer. “These are the solutions to the transition approach. We can return to Earth, a failure, or we can choose J.D.’s path, and —”

  “There is no choice.” Gerald Hemminge appeared at the mouth of an entrance tunnel at the top of the terrace.

  “You’re in
terrupting,” Victoria said.

  Gerald started down the ramp. Two other people followed. Their tailored clothes marked them as visitors. Most of the starship personnel chose attire of uncompromising informality.

  Derjaguin, senior senator from New Mexico, who was unalterably opposed to the deep space expedition, and Orazio, junior senator of Washington State, who was one of the expedition’s strongest supporters, followed Gerald into the amphitheater.

  “You’ve used up the possibilities,” Gerald said. “We have to return to Earth — unless you think being stranded light-years from home is an option.”

  “Sit down and listen, Gerald,” Stephen Thomas said from his place high in the theater. “Take your turn like everybody else.”

  “You shut up, or I’ll blacken your eye again!”

  Stephen Thomas jumped to his feet.

  “What the fuck do you mean, ‘again,’ you bureaucratic brown-nose?”

  Feral grabbed his arm. Gerald threw his hands in the air, backing up a pace, though he was twenty meters away. Stephen Thomas shrugged off Feral’s restraining hold.

  J.D. was midway between the two. She prepared herself to try to keep them apart.

  “Stephen Thomas!” Victoria exclaimed. “Gerald! For heaven’s sake!”

  “I’m sorry!” Gerald said. “That was a foolish thing for me to say. I didn’t mean to imply I’d blackened your eye the first time.” He lowered his hands, slowly, gradually, as if he were holding Stephen Thomas off with an invisible force field.

  “Damn right you didn’t,” Stephen Thomas said. Scowling, he allowed Feral to pull him back to his seat.

  “We’re all under a great deal of strain,” Gerald said. He turned toward J.D. “You can’t seriously be proposing not to go home.”

  “Yes,” J.D. said. “I can. I am.”

  “If you and your guests sit down and join the meeting,” Victoria said, “there’s plenty of time for everybody to have their say.”

  “Very well,” Gerald muttered.

  “And now you’re here,” Satoshi said, “you can turn down the lights. You made your point.”