The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “You eat this one,” Longestlooker said to Sharphearer fondly. “I’ll get another.” Longestlooker fed a birdlet to Sharphearer, who plucked it delicately and coyly from Longestlooker’s fingers and munched it, blithely heedless of the peeping cries.

  The shrill sound was beginning to get on J.D.’s nerves.

  The Largerfarthings ate with their mouths open. A birdlet’s foot, its webs clutching at the air, floated away. Sharphearer snapped it up and swallowed it.

  Sharphearer joined her siblings in the nest, curving around behind J.D., resting her head on Quickercatcher’s shoulder, curling her tail around Longestlooker’s throat.

  The quartet passed the gravel-filled sphere back and forth, one holding the grower while another reached in, sifted through the contents, and plucked out a snack, sometimes eating it, sometimes feeding it to one of the others, sometimes letting it free and biting it out of the air.

  J.D. breathed deeply and slowly until her stomach felt more settled.

  Maybe it’s those little blue eyes, she thought.

  o0o

  On board the Chi, Victoria floated against her couch, loosely secured by her safety straps. Several holographic images hovered in the center of the observers’ circle. In the most prominent, J.D. rested with the quartet in their nest. One of her LTMs had clambered onto the wall of the chamber to transmit the scene.

  Victoria sighed with relief when J.D. handed Longestlooker the birdlet. The LTM gave an all too detailed image of the little creature.

  Victoria grimaced. “It’s like biting the head off your Easter chick.”

  Her partner Satoshi chuckled. “I thought J.D. might eat one,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t be so foolish!” Europa said. The elegant, exquisite alien human frowned. “Would she?” In zero g, her hair’s silver-dressed black curls bobbed softly in random directions, like loose springs.

  “Probably not,” Victoria said. “But J.D. isn’t as predictable as you might think.”

  “If she ate it, would it hurt her?” Satoshi asked.

  “It would upset her stomach rather badly.”

  “She handled the question of the algorithm well,” Androgeos said.

  “Hmm.” Victoria was noncommittal.

  “I thought you wanted us to give you the algorithm,” Satoshi said.

  In the holographic projection, J.D. and the quartet rested together in companionable silence. J.D. dozed with her head against Quickercatcher’s shoulder.

  “I want you to give it to us,” Androgeos said. “Not to give it away freely. Europa and I know how to distribute it so it will benefit Civilization — and Earth.”

  “I’ve told you I’d consider it,” Victoria said. “But I’d rather not discuss it right now.”

  In the holographic image, Sharphearer idly untwisted several beads and bangles from her fur, tucked them into a fold of the wall, regarded them critically, and changed the position of the bangle imperceptibly. She added one of the bits of scarlet down, traced a small figure-eight of agreement with her nose, then folded her hands beneath her chin, snuggled into the nest, and closed her eyes.

  “What’s Sharphearer doing?” Satoshi asked.

  “Hm?” Europa said.

  Instead of watching the holographic projection, Europa was staring through the transparent wall of the observers’ chamber. Androgeos was watching the auxiliary projection from the LTM in the connecting corridor, where nothing at all had happened since J.D. left.

  “There, on the wall.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Europa said.

  Satoshi closed his eyes to go into a momentary communications fugue. In response, the LTM observing J.D. turned its attention more closely to Sharphearer’s creation. The image zoomed.

  “Don’t!” Androgeos said.

  The zoom stopped.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s... private,” Androgeos said. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “Is it a religious ceremony?” Victoria asked.

  “The Largerfarthings have no religion,” Europa said. “I’ve tried to explain religion to them. They don’t understand it.”

  “It is a ritual, though,” Androgeos said. “But it’s one you don’t have, so I can’t explain it.”

  “Will Sharphearer be upset if J.D. asks her about it?” Victoria said, concerned. “She might, eh? Why didn’t you warn her?”

  “I... didn’t think of it,” Europa said. “It’s very private and I’m accustomed to not noticing it.”

  “Is J.D. in any danger?” Zev asked. The diver ran his webbed hand nervously through his white-blond hair.

  “Certainly not!” Androgeos said. “The Largerfarthings wouldn’t hurt anyone — at least they wouldn’t hurt a guest.”

  “A breach of etiquette won’t be a fatal error,” Europa said. She sighed. “Ah, Victoria, I’ve waited so long, prepared so long, for these encounters, but everything that’s happened has been unpredictable. You have left me... off balance.”

  “We’d’ve liked things to go more smoothly, too,” Victoria said. She could not bring herself to apologize to Europa — the alien humans owed Victoria an apology or two themselves — but she did feel a pang of sympathy.

  Victoria stretched in her couch, arching her back, pressing her shoulders and heels against her couch and her hips against the safety strap, trying to achieve some feeling of resistance in zero g.

  She was impatient to meet the Four Worlds representatives herself. She hoped J.D. would invite them to Starfarer when their nap ended.

  A faint shadow fell across Victoria’s face. She glanced up.

  Beyond the circle of observers’ couches, Stephen Thomas floated free near the ceiling of the chamber. Notably, and uncharacteristically, quiet, Victoria’s second partner drifted against a backdrop of space and stars. His body and arms and legs were relaxed into the partly flexed position most natural to weightlessness. Starlight turned his delicate gold pelt into a translucent shining outline, and glowed amber through the new webs between his fingers. He had braided his blond hair roughly at the back of his head; escaped tendrils floated around his face. He wore running shorts and a loose silk t-shirt. Heavier clothes had become uncomfortable for him, since he started to grow fur.

  His skin’s getting so dark, Victoria thought. He’s as dark as I am, now, only redder. Mahogany, like Zev. What a pretty color... he’s more beautiful than ever. I’m glad his eyes are still blue. I think I wouldn’t mind, too much, if his hair changed, but Stephen Thomas without those sapphire eyes... that would be hard to bear.

  The changing virus had transformed him from an ordinary human being — Not so ordinary, Victoria though fondly — into a diver. All the divers she had ever seen had dark skin, fair hair, and dark eyes. That was Zev’s coloring. Zev said some divers had dark hair and a few had blue eyes. He had no idea whether Stephen Thomas’ eyes would turn brown, but he thought it would be good if they did. Divers lived in the sea — Zev’s family had allied itself with a pod of orcas in Puget Sound — and dark eyes were less sensitive to bright light reflecting from the water.

  It’s Zev’s fault Stephen Thomas is changing, Victoria thought with a tinge of bitterness. I’m angry at him for not knowing the details of how the changes happen, for putting Stephen Thomas through so much uncertainty and confusion.

  A few days ago, Victoria and Satoshi and Stephen Thomas had gone skinny-dipping. Remembering what happened still upset her. Stephen Thomas had discovered, with an unpleasant shock, that his genitals were changing, that his body was changing to enclose his penis and his scrotum. It had never occurred to Zev to tell him, to warn him, because Zev had not known that ordinary male humans were so different from male divers.

  Victoria had not seen Stephen Thomas naked since. They had not made love. They had not even slept together. For several nights, he had stayed away from the house he shared with Victoria and Satoshi. Victoria did not even know where he had gone.

  Satoshi thought Stephen Thomas planned
to leave them, but Victoria would not believe it. Their younger partner, moody under the best circumstances, wanted time to himself while he was under so much stress. Victoria wished she could help him, but all she could do was acquiesce to his desire to be left alone.

  Feral’s death hit him hard, she thought. But maybe he’s getting over it. He doesn’t look as sad as he did. He’ll come home soon.

  She gazed at Stephen Thomas as he hovered over her head, outlined by the multicolored tapestry of stars. In a moment of the strange vertigo of zero g, Victoria saw herself falling toward Stephen Thomas, saw him falling toward her —

  She blinked to make her eyes refocus.

  Across from her, Zev occupied J.D.’s couch. He gazed intently at the transmission from J.D.

  No one in the alien contact department would sit in a colleague’s regular place, Victoria thought, startled by an observation she had not made before. Maybe we’re getting too inflexible.

  But Zev was not a member of the alien contact department. He should not even be on board the Chi, but Victoria did not have the heart to tell him to him stay behind on Starfarer. He was J.D.’s friend, her lover. He had left his family for the first time in his life to be with her. He missed her desperately when they were apart, and J.D. missed him.

  Victoria understood how Zev felt. She missed J.D., too. Their dawn excursion to the beach, several days ago, was the most fun Victoria had had in too long.

  “Victoria!”

  Europa’s voice cut through Victoria’s distraction. The alien human frowned at her from her place in an auxiliary couch between J.D.’s place and Stephen Thomas’s.

  “What is it?” Victoria spoke sharply, too, her sympathy cut away by Europa’s imperious manner.

  And admit it, Victoria said to herself. You shouldn’t be daydreaming about your family, or about J.D., during humanity’s first real meeting with Civilization. J.D. might need your advice, or even your backup.

  The Minoan frowned briefly, then shrugged. “It isn’t important,” she said, her tone implying that it was important but that she did not care to repeat the question. Satoshi glanced quizzically across at Europa.

  The frown-lines between the alien human’s graceful black eyebrows smoothed from her ageless face. Victoria kept expecting to see evidence that Europa was thirty-seven hundred years old, but found neither deterioration nor infirmity. Europa presented herself as a mature woman of exceptional beauty, with flawless red-brown skin and perfectly arranged black hair dressed with metallic silver threads. Who does her hair? Victoria wondered. Have she and Androgeos spent every Saturday night for four millennia refreshing each other’s curls and ringlets?

  “How long will you live?” Victoria asked abruptly.

  Europa, bemused, started to reply.

  “That’s rather a personal question, don’t you think?” Androgeos said, always ready to be offended or irritated at the modern humans who had so badly disappointed him.

  “That’s what we’re here for, Andro,” Satoshi said, in his usual reasonable and matter-of-fact way. “Asking questions is our job.”

  “Getting Earth accepted into Civilization ought to take precedence,” Androgeos said. “If you behave with gratuitous rudeness, that will never happen.”

  “I think J.D. is doing quite well at being accepted,” Victoria said. “Half an hour with the weasel people —”

  “The Largerfarthings!” Andro said.

  “— and she’s in bed with them.”

  “They’re taking a nap,” Europa said. “They are crepuscular beings. Their rhythms are different from ours. Don’t read more into what’s happening than is warranted.”

  “You must have spent a fair amount of time with them, over the years,” Victoria said. “With the Largerfarthings.”

  “With the quartet, yes, but not on their planet. It’s difficult to live on a world where you can’t eat the natural food, you can’t comfortably breathe the air, speaking the language makes your throat sore —”

  “Wait,” Victoria said. “Back up. Can’t breathe the air? J.D. isn’t having any trouble.”

  Europa made a hissing, rasping sound that made Victoria jump.

  “The Four Worlds representatives, I meant to say,” Europa said in English instead of the Largerfarthings’ language, “have changed themselves to breathe an atmosphere that can sustain humans. Largerfarther’s atmosphere has more trace gases. J.D. would find breathing it unpleasant.”

  “And the Smallerfarthings?” Satoshi asked.

  “Their air’s quite toxic to us. I visited their world only twice. You can always smell the chemicals, even when the air in your quarters is safe. Largernearer’s air is pure and sweet... but the world has no land to speak of.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Victoria said.

  “How long will I live? I have no idea.”

  “How long can you live?”

  “I suppose I’m immortal. Effectively. I don’t age. Repair enzymes —” She implied Civilization’s knowledge of human biochemistry with a gesture.

  “Are you immune to illness?”

  “Yes. I’m susceptible to accidents... but even there I have considerable resilience.”

  “You don’t have much to worry about.”

  “I’ve been told,” Europa said, “that you die when you get bored.” She smiled at Victoria; her large, dark eyes shone with delight and amusement. “So far, I’m not the least afflicted by boredom.”

  “If everybody lives forever, where do all the people go?”

  “What people?”

  “People’s offspring. Immortality — the result would be a permanent accelerating population explosion.”

  “There’s no one answer to your question — it’s the wrong question. Everybody doesn’t live forever. The Largerfarthings seldom use immortality. They prefer a full life, a shorter life, in a family of at least three generations.”

  “A shorter life of four thousand years!”

  “Not at all — where did you get that idea?”

  “They rescued you from the eruption of Thera.”

  “Their people. Their ancestors.” She smiled. “Ah, I understand what you thought. Longestlooker and her siblings aren’t my mentors. Quite the contrary. I’m their mentor.”

  “They prepared themselves to meet us,” Satoshi said. “But they couldn’t be sure we’d arrive during their lifetimes.”

  “That is true,” Europa said. “They are young, relatively speaking. They’ll age, and die, at about the same rate as a healthy human being. There’s no one system that all worlds follow. Not for longevity, not for anything. I keep telling you that. Each species controls its own destiny.”

  “Within the rules of the cosmic string.”

  “Yes. But it’s because of the string that each species can make its own decisions.”

  “There must be some kind of consensus —”

  “Why? Even the Four Worlds, who have been in communication for millennia, all approach the question differently. You’ll find examples — successful and unsuccessful — that may help you solve your problems. But Civilization gives perfect answers to very few questions.”

  She stroked the curl of liquid silver in her hair, twining it around one finger. Victoria turned her attention to J.D.’s transmission, but Stephen Thomas, floating overhead, distracted her. He pushed a stray lock of his hair behind one ear. It slipped free and drifted in front of his eyes. He dragged his fingers through his hair to loose the untidy braid, and twisted the strands into a sloppy knot.

  Zev fidgeted in the couch; Satoshi studied the image of the Nearer worlds, transmitted from Starfarer’s observatory: Largernearer, Orchestra’s ocean-covered planet, and Smallernearer.

  Satoshi had immediately pointed Smallernearer out to his colleagues as the strangest planet in the system, the strangest planet of any system they had visited.

  Stephen Thomas kicked off from the ceiling and brushed past Victoria, returning to his place in the observer’s circle. Witho
ut thinking, she reached toward him, longing to caress his long leg with her fingertips, eager to smooth the gold pelt on his dark thigh. Before she touched him, she snatched back her hand.

  How strange, Victoria thought. Stephen Thomas never distracts me when things are going well in our family. When I know that I can touch him, and have him respond with a smile or a kiss or a caress — then I can concentrate on other things. But now, when he’s so distant, when I don’t know what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking, or whether he’s in pain, when I’m afraid that if I touch him, he’ll withdraw, it’s all I can do to keep my attention on my work. Or my hands to myself.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tensed her arms and legs and back; she clenched her fists.

  The family has to take second place, just for now, she told herself. For all of us.

  She said to herself, I can’t make my partners take third place. What am I going to do, so I don’t hurt J.D.?

  She felt pulled in all directions by the whirlpool of events.

  Damn! she thought. Stephen Thomas didn’t have to decide to go through with the changes. But even if he’d stayed the same, he’d still be mourning Feral. If I’ve let my family fall to third in my attention, Stephen Thomas has let it fall to fourth or fifth.

  A quarter of the way around the observers’ circle, Satoshi gazed through the images and watched Stephen Thomas. His strong square face was grave. He was taking the changes in their younger partner very hard. Victoria found Stephen Thomas even sexier than before, if that was possible. The differences excited her. But Satoshi...

  Satoshi dropped his gaze, then stared deliberately at his hologram of the eerie dark disk of Smallernearer.

  He’ll get used to what’s happened, Victoria told herself. Won’t he?

  o0o

  The awakening of the quartet roused J.D. from a doze.

  I meant just to rest and observe, she thought. But it’s so warm, so comfortable...

  Sharphearer nuzzled Longestlooker’s ear, making soft snuffling noises. She groomed the fur at her sister’s throat with one hand, claws extended, leaving comb-marks in Longestlooker’s pelt. Longestlooker pressed sideways, leaning into the pressure. Quickercatcher nudged J.D. Taking a chance, J.D. stroked her host’s bright fur. Quickercatcher began a low, musical hum. Fasterdigger scratched Quickercatcher along the spine, between the first and second sets of shoulder blades.