The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “That’s absurd,” Androgeos said, holding the slab of alien sculptures to his chest. The plaster that protected it made dull white smears on his silk-smooth skin.

  “I’ve thought of it,” Europa said. “It tempts me.”

  “Europa!” Andro said.

  “My dear,” she said, “you were so young when we left. You don’t remember what it’s like to be with your own kind. It’s all right, I envy you your ease with our hosts. But... I don’t entirely share it.”

  “Will they... let you keep your home now?”

  “Oh yes,” Europa said sadly. “They are very kind to their clients. But I had hoped... to become a full citizen.”

  “It almost happened,” Victoria said. “Next time, we’ll know more. We’ll be accepted.”

  “In a hundred years,” Stephen Thomas said.

  “We’d better go,” Androgeos said.

  “You won’t come with us, eh?” Victoria said to Europa.

  “No. I have my place here, my job. I’ve done well for my home world in the past, I’ll do well in the future.” She smiled slightly. “I may even modify my opinion of symphonic music.”

  “We could do even better —” Andro said.

  “— with my algorithm. I know. It’s too bad, Andro, but that’s something Civilization is going to have to come and get.”

  “You are admirably consistent,” he said. He glanced impatiently around. “Where’s Quickercatcher, where’s the quartet? We must leave soon.” His eyes went out of focus for a moment as he spoke through his link to the Largerfarthings.

  “And where are my meerkats?” Europa said.

  Infinity Mendez’s image appeared.

  “They’re forming a commune in my closet,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll let you move the new kits.”

  “You will have to take care of them for me,” Europa said.

  Infinity let his image fade out.

  “Here we come, we’re coming!” Quickercatcher’s musical voice trilled from the hall. He and his siblings burst into the waiting room, a tangle of legs, arms, tails, colorful fur. Fasterdigger floated with his arms stretched straight up, holding Ruth Orazio’s hands, drawing her through free-fall with him.

  “We must go,” Europa said.

  “We have decided,” Longestlooker said, “to stay.”

  “Stay?” Androgeos said, baffled.

  “On Starfarer,” Longestlooker said. “With the human people,” Quickercatcher said.

  “No!” Androgeos released the block of fossils. It drifted and tumbled as he kicked off from the wall and sailed toward the quartet. “No, if you go, I’ll never see you again, you’ll die in exile!”

  Stephen Thomas caught the block and wrestled with its inertia, bringing the stone and plaster block to a halt before it did any damage.

  Andro bumped into Sharphearer, grasped her around the neck, pushed her and her siblings into a spin. The quartet snuffled with amusement and fondness.

  “Hey, be careful!” Ruth Orazio released Fasterdigger’s hands and drifted toward the wall, out of Andro’s way.

  “Androgeos, sweet friend, you and Europa wish to stay in Civilization, as Earth’s representatives,” Sharphearer said.

  “And that is admirable,” Longestlooker said.

  “But someone — someone from Civilization — must represent us to Earth,” Quickercatcher said.

  Androgeos buried his face against Sharphearer’s fur. The Largerfarthing stroked his glossy hair and gently nuzzled his neck.

  “It will be all right,” Sharphearer said. “You’ll be all right.”

  “Of course I’ll be all right!” Andro said angrily. He drew back from Sharphearer, his face wet with tears, a few strands of Sharphearer’s fur stuck to his cheeks. “It’s you I’m worried about. You! It’s too dangerous! The squidmoth spawn is going to destroy the whole place!”

  “Even a squidmoth,” Longestlooker said, “wouldn’t be so foolish as to destroy its own habitat.”

  “What will you eat?” Androgeos said. “And —”

  “Cotton candy,” Fasterdigger said, and trilled.

  Androgeos glared at him, resenting the joke. “— Where will you sleep, who will you talk to?”

  “Shh, shh,” Sharphearer said.

  “May we bring our resting nest to your dock?” Longestlooker asked Victoria. “It will sustain us, until we change to accommodate your food.”

  “May we go with you?” Quickercatcher asked. “We are willing — but you must welcome us.”

  “I welcome you,” Victoria said, overwhelmed. “Of course I welcome you!”

  All around, the images of other people formed, echoing Victoria’s welcome.

  “I think I can promise,” Ruth said, “that you’ll be welcomed back on Earth, too. Welcomed with gratitude.”

  o0o

  The gravity of Nautilus held Starfarer in a stately array that approached the cosmic string. J.D. extended herself through the knowledge surface, trying to observe from such a distance that the anomalies and dangers disappeared. She failed. She was constantly aware of the frantic cries and struggles of the young squidmoth. It broke her heart. She should be able to calm it, but she knew she would only agitate it again.

  The silver slugs congregated above it, filling in the cracks of its thrashing. At Infinity Mendez’ instruction, they also cut around the squidmoth nest. They left it attached to a lozenge of stone, as if isolating a tumor. As a last resort, Infinity would break the egg nest free and let it tumble into space.

  “I don’t want to do this,” he said to J.D. “I don’t want to hurt the dumb kid. And we could end up with just as much damage. But it might turn out to be our only hope.”

  “How did this happen?” J.D. said. “Our choices were unlimited... and now we don’t have any left.”

  “I don’t know,” Infinity said sadly. “J.D.... can you accelerate faster?”

  She touched the knowledge surface. Nautilus already was accelerating toward a knot of cosmic string — toward the place in space where its motion, and Starfarer’s, intersected. Then J.D. would have to do some careful and stressful maneuvering to suit Victoria’s algorithm.

  “I can,” she said. “A little more.” It surprised her to discover that Nautilus did have limits. “But...” She showed him the schematic, the vectors, the numbers, for the maneuvers they would have to make at transition point.

  “No,” he said. “Forget it. That’s too much stress.”

  o0o

  Infinity sat in his garden, deep in a communications fugue. Esther paced on the porch, feeling useless. Whenever she went inside, Europa’s meerkats chittered at her, warning her away from the naked, squirming kits.

  She was tempted to take the ferry over to the wild side and try to talk some sense into the squidmoth, but if J.D. could not make it listen, how could she? Besides, Infinity had asked everyone to stay on campus. The wild side was too dangerous.

  She looked at her hands. The bandage compound continued to work the diamond fibers out of her palms. One bit glittered at the surface of the organic bandage. She picked the shard out, put the diamond in a little hinged box, and slipped the box back into her pocket.

  She could move her hands, even clench her fists, without feeling the fibers jab into her flesh.

  I guess I’ll be of some use, she thought, if we have to evacuate, if we all have to cram on board the transport and the Chi — and the Largerfarthings’ resting nest? — to survive. But if that happens in transition, and we separate from Starfarer... we’ll never get out.

  o0o

  Chandra made her way across the inspection web, stepping gingerly on the lines. She moved from one support strut to the next, pausing at each to recover from dizziness. She held tight to her lifeline, sliding it along its overhead track.

  Near the squidmoth, she spotted all the LTMs. They focused closely on the egg nest. She stayed out of view. No one cared if she got any good stuff out of this stupid expedition. If they thought she was in danger
— as if she had not put herself in danger a hundred times before, so they could have their cheap safe thrills — they would probably come out and get her.

  She needed the danger; she needed to wipe away the temptation to return to the Largerfarthings and fling herself into their midst.

  The web shuddered beneath her feet. All her nerves throbbing, she clenched her hands around the web supports and opened herself to the quake, to the terror.

  o0o

  Victoria wondered if she and Stephen Thomas should leave, to give the Minoans and the quartet privacy for their goodbyes. Only a few moments remained, or the alien humans would be stranded.

  Androgeos embraced each member of the quartet. They trilled and nuzzled him. As Europa hugged Longestlooker and stroked her deep black fur, Andro broke away from Sharphearer, bolted for the hatch, and disappeared.

  He did not even stop for the fossils.

  Stephen Thomas watched him go, shrugged, grinned, and took the fossil block through the hatchway and into the boat’s tunnel.

  “Can’t let Crimson lose her exhibition,” he said.

  As Stephen Thomas vanished, Gerald arrived.

  “Europa...” Gerald said.

  “I can’t stay any longer,” Europa said.

  “But you will work for our reinstatement,” Gerald said.

  “I’ve been working on Earth’s behalf for four millennia!” Europa cried. “That’s a hard habit to break, Gerald, even if I wished to. But I swear to you, there isn’t any person, any establishment, with the ability to judge Earth’s case.”

  “Tell them,” Gerald said, “tell everyone, about the algorithm. And remind them that the longer we work on it — the better it becomes — the more power we’ll have when we’re finally let out of exile.”

  Europa narrowed her eyes, startled by his vehemence.

  “Don’t use my work to threaten Civilization!” Victoria said, equally shocked.

  “There’s no threat, only observation. Your algorithm means wealth and power to Earth, as soon as we can use it freely. When we return, we’ll have considerable effect on the structure of Civilization.”

  Distressed, Europa pushed off toward her boat. Victoria touched her briefly as she floated by.

  “I wish...” she said.

  “Yes,” Europa said, as she disappeared. “I wish, too.”

  Stephen Thomas returned from stowing the fossils. The hatch closed.

  “That was inexcusable,” Victoria said to Gerald. “Now they’ll be certain we’re violent barbarians!”

  “I made no threat,” Gerald said again, as calm as a well-fed shark.

  The Largerfarthings huddled together. Longestlooker opened her mouth and closed her jaws with a sharp snap. Sharphearer ducked her chin, and raised it again thoughtfully.

  Are they having second thoughts? Victoria wondered. I’m having some second thoughts of my own.

  “Look,” Stephen Thomas said.

  Arachne created a puddle of light in the center of the room. Europa’s boat fell away from Starfarer’s axis and accelerated toward the miniature world of her starship.

  The Four Worlds ship emitted a space boat, larger, more convoluted, more mechanical, than the boat of the Representative.

  “That is ours,” Longestlooker said.

  “Our support while we visit you,” said Quickercatcher.

  They both sounded quite calm.

  Victoria gave Stephen Thomas a grateful glance. He had defused the tension, without even knowing its source.

  The Largerfarthings’ boat scudded to the axis of Starfarer, entered a dock, and fastened its umbilical tunnel to the hatch.

  “You’re welcome to stay in the embassy as long as you like,” Ruth Orazio said to the quartet. “I enjoy having you as my guests.”

  Fasterdigger clasped her hand gently. “We enjoy being your guests.”

  Starfarer plunged toward transition.

  o0o

  Are we going to make it? J.D. wondered. The cosmic string was only a few minutes away, but it was accelerating. Nautilus still closed in on it, but even Nautilus had limits, and Starfarer had limits to its strength.

  The young squidmoth cried incoherently in J.D.’s mind. She gasped, huddled deeper into the soft chair, and shivered.

  Zev projected his image into the tent.

  “I want to be with you,” he said. “This way, if not for real. Don’t sent me away, J.D., please, not again.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, love. I wish I’d let you stay.”

  He grinned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said, ‘Swim with sharks.’”

  J.D. laughed.

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  “You are. Just by being here.”

  He moved closer. J.D. imagined that the warmth of his body emanated from the cool image at her side.

  o0o

  Gerald had gone — probably to tell Chancellor Blades everything that had happened, Victoria thought angrily. Not that Blades could do anything about it. Still...

  The quartet took Ruth Orazio into their resting nest to show her around. Victoria and Stephen Thomas remained alone in quiet zero g.

  They drifted closer, touched, embraced.

  “You’ve got a right to be pissed off,” Stephen Thomas said when she told him what had happened.

  “He’s got a bloody nerve,” she said.

  “But we knew that already,” Stephen Thomas said. “Eh?”

  Victoria laughed, shakily.

  “Hey.” Stephen Thomas hugged her, opened his hand, stroked his webbed fingers across her short curly hair. “Longestlooker’s right. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She held him, comforted by the familiarity of his body. Despite her distress, his changes tantalized her.

  “I wish I could do something,” she said. “I feel so damned helpless.”

  o0o

  In the sailhouse, Satoshi felt less helpless but more frustrated. He had spent the last hours working with Jenny Dupre. They struggled futilely with some arrangement of sail and starship that would keep the young squidmoth shaded and lethargic.

  Every possibility they projected put far too much tension on the starship’s abused structure.

  “It’s useless,” Jenny said to Satoshi.

  They had no more time. Transition approached. The sail had to be furled before Starfarer reached the cosmic string.

  Deep in a communications fugue, Jenny stretched herself far out into the sail lines and contracted them, as easily as she would draw her hands to her chest.

  The sail shimmered, folded, spiraled into a slender silver rope.

  Satoshi detached himself from Arachne and followed Jenny out of the fugue.

  “We might as well have taken a sail patch to the wild side,” she said in disgust, “and covered the squidmoth over like a blanket.”

  “Hmm,” Satoshi said thoughtfully. “Not over, under.”

  “Ah. I’ve never been on the outside of the cylinder, I always forget that the stone isn’t the ground. It’s the sky.”

  “Everybody forgets, when they haven’t been out for a while.” Satoshi knit his eyebrows, imagining the mechanics of her suggestion. “Your idea could have worked, if the kid weren’t throwing rocks.”

  Each time the young squidmoth wrenched itself in its crater, more chunks of Starfarer’s skin exploded downward, ricocheting from the inspection web, flying off into space or toward the campus cylinder.

  What’s going to happen, Satoshi thought, if it starts throwing bigger pieces?

  o0o

  J.D. gazed fondly at Zev’s image as Nautilus plunged toward transition point. The gravity of Nautilus drew Starfarer along.

  She was tempted to stay behind. She faced the reasons against it: few supplies, no assurance that Europa would help her if she remained. No assurance that the Four Worlds would keep their connection to the cosmic string — and if they did not, she would feel responsible.

  If she stayed, she would be cut off from her
friends until and unless the cosmic string returned to Earth, or until the isolation defeated her and she joined Starfarer in its exile.

  And the reasons for returning: if Nautilus accompanied Starfarer, her starship would be one more thing of value sequestered in the solar system.

  If someone in Civilization does have control over the string, J.D. thought, would this be enough to make them rescind our exile? Nautilus, and Victoria’s algorithm, and the lure of the fossils they think are so old?

  If I go home, she thought, I’ll be stranded. In an empty star system, Nautilus is like a racehorse attached to a farm wagon.

  She had no illusions that EarthSpace would provision her or help her terraform Nautilus, unless she ceded them her rights.

  What difference does it make? she said to herself. I’ll probably be dead before the string returns. In a hundred years, nothing will matter to me anymore.

  It seemed to J.D. that the drawbacks and the advantages — too many of one, too few of the other — of either course balanced each other out. The only unbalanced factor in the equation was Zev.

  She could lead Starfarer to the transition point, overshoot the point with Nautilus, and leave Starfarer in position to return home.

  But she could not have the perfect freedom of Nautilus, and Zev as well.

  o0o

  Crimson poked through the gravel on the riverbank, upstream from the Fighters’ fossil site.

  She was glad the quartet had decided to stay. She thought at least one of their reasons was her fossils, her performance. She liked digging with the Largerfarthings, and she wished she had been able to go on the real alien excavation.

  “Some other century, maybe,” she said aloud.

  Arachne’s observations of the young squidmoth whispered in the back of her mind. She ignored them, refusing to spend the next few hours in fruitless worry.

  A pale, jagged, anomalous shard of rock stood out stark against the dark rounded pebbles. Crimson pounced on it, grabbed it, and shouted with pleasure.

  A strangely-articulated appendage lay perfectly preserved in the stone.

  Once she had found the first bit of sandstone, the rest visually jumped out at her. This was the ruin of her second fossil bed, the site that had been wrecked in the flood. She thought of this site as the final resting place of the other ones, the creatures she had created by de-evolving Nemo.