The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Victoria found herself on the side of the squidmoths. Europa and Androgeos respected Victoria because they believed she was descended from the Pharaohs, as they claimed to be. But she was descended from escaped slaves, and her family history included stories of abuse and discrimination, not worship and power.

  “We don’t hate them!” Europa said. “But... they’re an old species. Just because they’ve been around longer than the rest of us, they inherited the possessions of the other ones, the earlier star travelers.”

  Satoshi frowned. “What possessions? The squidmoths aren’t dragons, sitting on a pile of gold! We met one of the beings, we talked to it. We saw how it lived. If an earlier culture left it everything they owned... they must have been Spartans.”

  “They left their starships,” Europa said. She watched Victoria’s reaction, and Satoshi’s. “You understand. The squidmoths inhabit the other ones’ starships. Civilization is left as scavengers. We’re dependent on their castoffs.”

  “Some squidmoths never travel to another star,” Androgeos said. “They could live on any piece of rock.” He flicked his fingers toward the image of Starfarer’s wild side. “And obviously some of them aren’t particular.”

  “They never use the ships to their potential. And they won’t sell! There’s nothing they want!”

  “Then how do you get any of them?”

  “We scavenge.”

  “Salvage,” Androgeos said.

  “Sometimes you find the ships abandoned,” Europa said. “Maybe the squidmoths die. Who knows?”

  “If you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time...” The face of the beautiful youth took on a predatory look. Androgeos grinned suddenly, showing his teeth. “Every time we returned to Tau Ceti, we hoped that starship might be empty. It would have made our fortunes.”

  What will this mean for J.D.? Victoria wondered suddenly, worried all over again for her friend. What if someone else was lurking, hoping to steal Nemo’s ship... and J.D. was in the way?

  “You’ve already got one starship,” Satoshi said. “What do you need another for?”

  Androgeos glanced at him, annoyed. Satoshi always asked the alien human questions he preferred not to answer.

  “It isn’t a matter of needing it,” Europa said quickly. “As Andro said, a starship is valuable. If the opportunity comes up... Why shouldn’t we take it?”

  Europa glanced at Victoria and chuckled softly.

  “Ah, Victoria, my dear, you have such a low opinion of us. We got off to a poor start, and now you wonder if these ancient Minoans don’t wait for a ship to be empty. Perhaps we’re really pirates.”

  “The possibility... crossed my mind.”

  “Too bad we can’t be,” Androgeos said. “We’d be a lot richer.”

  “Good lord, what else do you need?” Satoshi exclaimed. “You have a starship, a whole world of your own, complete freedom — !”

  “One likes to have respect, as well,” Europa said. “So far, you haven’t helped our position in the community.” She glanced at the fossil bone in her hand; she stroked the fang with her index finger.

  “Are you pirates?” Zev asked curiously.

  Europa laughed. “No, young Zev, my ichthyocentaur. We’re civilized people, we don’t murder each other for possessions. Besides, the squidmoths are far from defenseless. They want you to think they’re harmless voyeurs. But in their own way, they’re quite powerful.”

  “And deceitful and selfish,” Androgeos said.

  “Look who’s talking,” Stephen Thomas muttered.

  Androgeos glared at Stephen Thomas, but Europa smiled at him benignly. “There are stories, old, old, stories, of people with... fewer ethics than our company here, who pursued squidmoths through transition, hunting them for their ships. The squidmoths were seen again. The hunters were not.”

  They reached the canyon, where the path plunged down to the river bank.

  Crimson Ng sat alone on the canyon edge, gazing into the current.

  The river had flooded. Dirty brown water rushed and raced past the cliff. It riffled past the rough rock, showering everyone with muddy spray.

  On the other side, a section of cliff collapsed into the water. The wild current snatched the shattered stone downstream, then dragged it beneath the surface.

  The tremendous sound of floodwater possessed a pressure all its own, a low, dangerous roar with a counterpoint of boulder percussion rising from the bottom of the river.

  The current was often strong enough to move the fist-sized rocks that formed its bed and beaches. Walking beside the river, Victoria liked to listen to the click and roll of stones in water. But now the river was changing its contours to the background of a kettledrum symphony.

  When the water finally fell, the rapids and the pools would all be changed. And so would the riverbank, where the fossils lay.

  Europa stared into the water. Stricken, she glanced at Crimson.

  “We’ve had some bad weather,” Crimson said calmly.

  “But the fossils — ! The other ones — !”

  “It all washed downstream,” Crimson said. “We’ll have to do salvage archaeology.”

  o0o

  Europa sat disconsolately on the riverbank beside Crimson. Crimson gestured down into the muddy water where the fossils had lain, describing what she had seen but not yet excavated. Androgeos kicked the rocky edge of the cliff, as if he might uncover another fossil bed. Professor Thanthavong spoke quietly and urgently with Stephen Thomas. Satoshi and Victoria stood together, with Zev nearby. Gerald hovered near Crimson and Europa, no longer trying to maintain that the fossils were an art project. The meerkats foraged on the bank, sending up sprays of wet dirt as they dug for insects. One of them climbed to the top of a bush, chittering when a branch sprayed it with collected raindrops.

  “I don’t believe this,” Satoshi said softly.

  Victoria covered her face with her hands, afraid she would start laughing.

  An image coruscated around them: the rainbow edge of a transition spectrum. When it faded, Arachne projected the sight of Nemo’s ship plunging into the star system.

  “J.D.!” Zev was the first to welcome her. He whistled softly, a descending cascade of notes. He grimaced. “It doesn’t sound right, in the air.”

  The gravity of Europa’s ship had pulled Starfarer aside; the starcraft were in no danger of colliding. Victoria felt a rush of joy, unalloyed by fear.

  “Are you okay?” Victoria asked. “That is you — ?”

  They waited impatiently through the instant’s time-lag.

  J.D.’s image appeared

  “I’m here, Zev. I understood what you said. Me, too. Hi, Victoria.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all right. What... what about Nemo?”

  “Nemo’s dead.”

  “J.D.... I’m so sorry.” Victoria wished she were near enough to hug her friend.

  “It’s strange... I’m sad, but I — is that Europa with you?”

  “Hello, J.D.,” Europa said. “You’ve lost a friend? I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” J.D. said.

  “How did you persuade the squidmoth to bring you here?” Europa asked.

  “I didn’t. The squidmoth — Nemo — died.”

  Androgeos swung around from the riverbank, his kilt swinging around his powerful legs. His feet were muddy to the ankles.

  “I claim salvage!” he shouted.

  “Salvage?” J.D. said. “What are you talking about?”

  “The ship’s abandoned. I claim salvage.”

  “My friend died and left the ship to me,” J.D. said coldly. “It is not abandoned.”

  “Don’t be selfish!” Androgeos pleaded. “It’s useless to you.”

  His usual tone of disdain vanished in his desperation; he spoke in the same tone as when he begged Victoria to give him her new algorithm.

  “I’ll come over and pith it, so we can harness it,” he said. “Otherwise the Four Worlds will send out a
salvage crew. What good can it do you? You have to go back to Earth!”

  “If I have to go back to Earth,” J.D. said, “I’ll take Nemo’s ship with me.”

  “And just how do you propose to do that? Tow it with your pathetic sail?”

  The sailhouse trembled. A touch to Arachne showed that Europa’s ship was moving again, curving its path in such a way as to fling Starfarer none too gently out of orbit.

  “Hey, be careful!” Infinity said.

  “Why should I?” Androgeos snarled. “You don’t care enough about your ship to keep it clean of squidmoth spawn!”

  J.D. looked confused. Victoria forwarded the sliver slug’s transmission to the Chi, so J.D. could see it.

  “We don’t quite know what to do about it.”

  J.D.’s smile was radiant. “Don’t do anything! Victoria, please — Nemo’s other children are stranded back at Sirius.”

  “Don’t worry. We won’t hurt it.”

  “Prepare to receive me,” Androgeos said to J.D.

  “If you try to land here,” J.D. said, deadly serious, “I’ll spin you off into space, and you can walk home!”

  Androgeos laughed. “It’s easy to make threats. Not so easy to carry them out.”

  “Andro,” Europa said slowly, “you are the one making empty threats. J.D. has learned squidmoth tactics already. Look.”

  “She can’t —” Androgeos fell silent.

  Slowly, deliberately, Nemo’s starship began to rotate.

  o0o

  J.D. gave Nemo’s shell a gentle spin. It was more than a demonstration to Androgeos; it was a first stage in terraforming. Rotation would gradually even out the temperature extremes that Nemo had preferred, frozen darkness giving way abruptly to a star’s searing radiation.

  J.D. moved the shell gently toward Starfarer. The transmission lag shortened to imperceptibility. She stayed distant, to moderate the gravitational stresses. Europa’s craft had shaken Starfarer more than enough for one day.

  Androgeos and Europa remained uncharacteristically silent. J.D. watched their images, amused by their surprise.

  So you can still be surprised, even after four thousand years, she thought. That’s some comfort.

  Androgeos composed himself. When he spoke, he replaced his querulous tone with one of friendly, helpful persuasion.

  “J.D.,” Andro said, “Europa and I know how to refit an abandoned ship so you can navigate it.”

  “Don’t beg, Andro,” Europa said.

  “But we could be partners —”

  “Listen to her! Look at it! She controls it, Andro!”

  J.D. turned toward Victoria. “Thank you,” she said, without mentioning the transition algorithm aloud. Europa and Androgeos saw Nemo’s shell as a valuable prize. No telling what they might do if they knew it possessed Victoria’s transition algorithm as well.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Zev said. “When can you come home?”

  “I don’t know,” J.D. said. “All things considered... I don’t think I’d better leave Nemo’s ship just yet.”

  “It’s your ship now,” Zev said. “Nautilus.”

  Nautilus, J.D. thought. Of course. How could it be anything but Nautilus? She grinned at Zev.

  “It’s a relief to have you back,” Victoria said. “I had second thoughts about leaving you behind as soon as it was too late...” She said less than she might have, if Europa were not listening.

  They had all become secretive around the alien humans. That troubled J.D., but she refused to let her concern overcome her excitement: Her first successful flight of Nautilus, the discovery of the last egg case, and a system of inhabited planets...

  “I’ve had a pretty amazing time over here,” J.D. said. “I’m looking forward to telling you all about it.”

  She wondered how long Starfarer could safely stay in the system, and whether the cosmic string would flee from her as well. She touched the knowledge surface —

  “Victoria... the cosmic string is staying stable!”

  Twice before, the cosmic string had begun to withdraw as soon as Starfarer entered a star system. This time, it remained steady. Excited conversation burst up around her.

  “But how do you know?” Victoria asked, amazed. “Arachne’s still surveying —”

  “From Nautilus,” J.D. said.

  Victoria’s eyelids flickered closed, then open, as she touched her link to the computer web. “I think you’re right...”

  “Are we forgiven?” J.D. asked Europa. “Is this our second chance?”

  “I... I don’t know.” Europa sounded shaken and confused. “This is... very unusual.”

  J.D. picked out the two predominant strands of discussion among her colleagues:

  We can go home now.

  Now we can stay.

  “You had better follow us,” Europa said. “To meet representatives of the Four Worlds. We have a great deal to talk about.”

  J.D. smiled, trying not to burst into tears.

  “I’m sure that’s true,” J.D. said. “But you’ll have to wait while we all discuss what to do next.”

  J.D. glanced at the members of the deep space expedition: Victoria and Satoshi and Stephen Thomas, Infinity and Esther, Crimson and Jenny, Chandra and Florrie Brown and Avvaiyar, Professor Thanthavong and Nikolai Petrovich and Griffith, Fox and Mitch and Lehua and Bay, Senator Derjaguin and Senator Orazio.

  And finally, Zev. She ached for him to be with her. Their gazes touched.

  “I’m sorry about Nemo,” Zev said. “But I want to tell you properly.”

  “I want that, too,” she said.

  She imagined an ocean, a small ocean with mysterious depths, a place where she and Zev could talk together in the language of the divers, the language of true speech.

  The End

  Dedication

  To the folks in the Wallingford-Wilmot Library and the Fremont Library who let me move in on them, laptop computer and all, fleeing the marsians who decided that right next to my office was a good place to build ufo hangars.

  For ten months.

  The Starfarers Quartet

  Starfarers

  Transition

  Metaphase

  Nautilus

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks,

  To the people who helped me get Starfarer right: Kristi N. Austin, John H. Chalmers, John Cramer, Howard Davidson, Jane E. Hawkins, Marilyn J. Holt, Nancy Horn, Ursula K. Le Guin, Debbie Notkin, Paul Preuss, Kate Schaefer, Carol Severance, and Jon Singer;

  To Gerard K. O’Neill and the Space Studies Institute for the work on which the campus is based;

  And, of course,

  To the Starfarers Fan Club.

  Particular thanks to Teresa Meikle and Charles E. Griswold, whose Natural History article on Stegodyphus spawned (as it were) the squidmoths.

  Publication Information

  Metaphase

  First published by Bantam Spectra 1992

  Bantam Books reprint 1994

  Copyright © 1992 Vonda N. McIntyre

  Book View Café eBook 2009

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  oOo

  “Lost in Space”

  Cover art by Robert Brandt

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  Nautilus

  Vonda N. McIntyre

  Chapter 1

  J.D. Sauvage, the alien contact specialist, waited all alone in the airlock of the Chi.

  Outside the airlock, the pressure crept upward from zero.

/>   J.D.’s heart pounded. Her metabolic enhancer quivered on the edge of activity. Through J.D.’s link to the Chi, the other members of the alien contact department sent their reassurance: Victoria, cool and intense; Satoshi, reserved; Stephen Thomas, excited and uneasy. Zev, the diver, J.D.’s lover, spoke a buoyant word in true speech through her link.

  Europa and Androgeos observed in silence. The composure of the alien humans was tinged with amusement.

  The air pressure outside the hatch nearly matched the pressure in the lock.

  J.D. took a deep breath, calmed the metabolic enhancer, calmed her heartbeat.

  This isn’t the time for a fight-or-flight response, she said to herself. After all, this isn’t the first time I’ve met an alien being. Nemo was the first.

  Sadness touched her. Her friend Nemo, the squidmoth, had died, leaving her the starship Nautilus.

  This encounter was completely different from her meetings with Nemo.

  It is a first time, J.D. thought. Every new encounter will always be a first time.

  She brushed her fingertips across her hair.

  You’d need a lot more than a finger-comb to be glamorous, especially in free-fall, she said to herself in a wry tone. Isn’t it strange, all the time I’ve spent thinking about how to meet an alien being, I never thought about how I should look or how I should dress.

  She was wearing regular canvas pants from Starfarer’s stores, a pair of soft-soled shoes, and a blue cotton shirt. Her fair skin was free of makeup, her blue-gray eyes their natural color. She had done nothing to her short straight brown hair but comb it — she had never found much of anything that she could do with it without going through a lot of fuss.

  The pressure equalized.

  The Chi opened its hatch.

  A cool, earthy scent wafted into the airlock from the connecting corridor of the Four Worlds’ ship. J.D. breathed deep, parting her lips, letting the damp and vital air flow over her tongue. The alien tang excited her. The back of her neck prickled.