Metaphase

by Vonda N. Mcintyre Неизвестный Автор

  In the distance, a tree branch snapped with a violent crack. Its covering of snow cascaded down to land with a feathery thud.

  As Stephen Thomas worked in the orchard, he let his attention drift back into Feral's files. He still avoided the notes on J.D. Stephen Thomas liked J.D.; he did not want to spoil his affection for her by feeding his stupid jealousy.

  Feral would still be alive if any one of half a dozen events had occurred only a little differently. If he had been involved in the web more shallowly. If he had heard JDA warning, or Victoria's. If Stephen Thomas had not so easily restored Feral's canceled guest access to Arachne.

  Feral had logged the incident in which he had been thrown from the web.

  It was such an unusual thing to happen that Stephen Thomas set it aside for later, when he could give it his full attention.

  The slug crawled through the orchard and headed across a meadow. Stephen Thomas was tempted to call it back, to get it to break a trail through the drooping pear trees a few fields over. Surely Infinity had enough slugs to uncover the access hatches among the orange trees?

  Stephen Thomas stamped his cold feet. Infinity had recommended that no one stay out in the snow too long. Stephen Thomas decided to go inside for a while and get warm. When he came back out, maybe he could borrow another silver slug.

  The whole world was black and white, silver and gray, motionless. Stephen Thomas stretched. The clouds had snowed themselves out; the sky had cleared except for an icy cloud blanket around the sun tube.

  Obliquely overhead, on the far side of Starfarer's interior, black streams meandered through the white landscape. A pinprick of darkness appeared where someone knocked the snowy cover from a sapling.

  Zev slogged from one buried sapling to another. JDA transmission of Nerno's planetoid followed him.

  Back home, when his family returned from their migration, the sea water was cold with winter. Summer would not touch the sea for a month yet. But he had never felt so cold in the sea as he did now. He was wearing his suit, and a sweater of J.D.'s, but still he shivered.

  At the moment, Zev envied Victoria, even though he knew she was risking her life. She had gone out to the sailhouse to help Jenny Dupre align Starfarer for transition, doing the same task Feral had been doing when he died. Zev understood that Victoria was in danger. Risk was always more exciting and more fun than discomfort.

  His hands were nearly numb. He had no gloves. He had wrapped his hands in clothing, and he carried a bundle of bamboo with which to knock the dense, heavy covering of snow from the collapsing branches. But if he unwrapped his fingers, his swimming webs would be gray with cold.

  He banged the bamboo against a drooping, bending evergreen shrub. The sticks hit with a quiet crinkle of wood on ice. The wet snow beneath the new ice let loose with a soft, sliding thud. The straining evergreen shrub exploded upward. Zev did not move fast enough when the boughs sprang free. Snow and ice erupted like a geyser, showering his chest and face and hair.

  He brushed away the melting clumps and the frozen shards. His wet hair slicked down cold around his ears; ice water dribbled down the back of his neck and under his collar.

  Zev found himself staring at a hummock of snow, not only wondering if it was bending or leaning or merely, safely, crouching, but wondering if it were a plant. He was so cold, and none of this was any fun. But almost everyone was outdoors tramping through the snow, making sure the animals had shelter, trying to save young trees from breaking beneath their freezing shrouds.

  He worked his way toward Satoshi, on the other side of a line of trees. The snow collapsed and slid, avalanching as Satoshi knocked it free.

  Zev joined him and worked alongside him.

  "I'm very cold, Satoshi. You look cold too."

  "I'm all right," Satoshi said, but his teeth chattered.

  "I think we should go inside and warm up."

  "In a while," Satoshi said stubbornly. "You go ahead. I want to do a little more."

  Zev followed, unwilling to leave Satoshi out alone in the snow. He wondered if hypothermia was less serious on land than in the sea. He doubted it, and he thought Satoshi was right on the edge.

  They walked through a stand of young lilac bushes, knocking away the icy blanket to release the bright green leaves, the heavy purple and white blossoms, and the disorienting fragrance of lilacs in the snow.

  "Infinity said not to stay out too long." Zev did not like to argue with someone older than himself. Among the divers, it was very bad manners. But this was different. Hypothermia caused confusion in the wisest, most experienced person.

  "We haven't been out that long," Satoshi said.

  "You're shivering."

  "Do you want all the plants to die?" Satoshi spoke more sharply than Zev had ever heard him.

  "No, but I don't want you to die either."

  "I'm not going to die."

  "Do You hear something?" Zev stopped. Before Satoshi could answer, Zev plunged between two bushes that showered him with snow and wilted lilac flowerets.

  In a clearing in the middle of the lilac grove, Chandra stood naked, arms spread wide, gazing up into the clouded sky. The chattering of her teeth had attracted Zev's attention. Her clothes lay in a sodden pile, ice crystals forming on the folds.

  "Chandra!"

  She lowered her head and looked at him with her strange, blank-gray eyes, but she did not answer him. Her fingers were blue with cold. Swollen nerve clusters twisted and bulged all over her body and her face and her hands. "How long have you been out here?"

  Satoshi followed Zev into the clearing.

  "What's the matter with her?"

  Chandra tried to reply to Zev, but her teeth chattered so hard she could not speak.

  "I think she's collecting an experience," Zev said. "But I think we should get her inside."

  "What about the trees?" Satoshi looked around at all the lilacs bent over and crushed in the snow. "I feel sorry for the little trees."

  Stephen Thomas heard the flutter and snort of horsy breath, and the muffled beat of hooves. The herd of miniature horses broke from the edge of the forest. They plunged through the meadow, spraying snow, lithe animal shapes, brown and chestnut and gold against the stark landscape. Squealing, they galloped and plunged through snow up to their chests, toward a person standing uncertainly in the meadow.

  It was Florrie Brown. Morrie was the last person Stephen Thomas wanted to see, this side of Fox.

  Stephen Thomas wished he could vanish into the orchard, but he was taller than most of the young trees.

  The herd exploded past Morrie, wheeled around, and galloped toward her again. She never moved, but wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her fringed black poncho tight. She flinched when the horses crowded her. Stephen Thomas wondered why she was so frightened. She often sat on her front porch, feeding tidbits to the miniature horses. Sometimes they climbed up on the porch beside her.

  He crossed the field, kicking away the snow. It caked on the legs of his pants.

  "Go on, shoo!" he shouted.

  The appaloosa stud flung up his head, nostrils flaring. Stephen Thomas's scent spooked him. He squealed and kicked and plunged away, and the whole herd vanished into the evergreens.

  Florrie stood shaking among the hoofprints.

  "Did you have to scare them?" she said. "I thought they'd knock me over."

  He stopped.

  "I thought you wanted them gone," he said.

  She looked back across the field, toward her house fifty meters distant. "It's so slippery out here, I was afraid I'd fall."

  "Why'd you come out, then?"

  "I'm going to work, of course. To the cafeteria. People still have to eat." She squinted at him, peering up into his face. "Are you Stephen Thomas?"

  "Of course I am," he said, startled.

  "You look so different. I didn't recognize you."

  "I don't look that different," he said. Not where she could see him. "Do you need some help, or do you want me to disap
pear again?"

  "I'm afraid to fall," she said.

  Stephen Thomas took this as one of her roundabout ways of getting something without coming right out and asking for it. He could hardly leave her out here in the field. He offered her his arm.

  "I'll walk over with you," he said.

  She hesitated, then grasped his elbow with both hands. They walked in silence for a while.

  "You shouldn't have teased us," she said. "Me and Fox."

  "Teased you!"

  "Flirted with us. Without meaning anything."

  "I never flirt unless I mean it. I never flirted with Fox at all. Did she say I did?"

  "She said . . . she fell in love with you. But you hurt her feelings, and I thought you planned to hurt mine."

  "Thanks a lot." He glanced down at her. "So you decided I'm a malicious shithead."

  "What was I supposed to decide?"

  "I'm glad to know the depths of our friendship," Stephen Thomas said bitterly.

  "I thought you liked me!" Florrie said.

  "I thought the feeling was mutual," Stephen Thomas said. "Why did you change your mind?"

  "I told you. I thought you didn't mean any of it."

  "Why didn't you ask me, instead of lighting into me like that?"

  "Because I was angry. For Fox. But now you're mad at me. And so is she." Stephen Thomas sighed.

  They approached the cafeteria. The silver slugs had partially cleared the path, but had not got all the way down to the rock foam. The beaten snow had turned to ice, with a treacherous texture of frozen ripples. Someone should have scraped the path, but there was probably not a snow shovel to be had on board Starfarer.

  Stephen Thomas walked carefully. Florrie grabbed tight to his arm. If he slipped and went down, she would fall, too.

  "Aren't you?" she said. "Mad at me."

  "I wish you'd had enough regard for my friendship to get my side of what happened," he said.

  They reached the porch of the cafeteria. Stephen Thomas helped her up the ramp, over the threshold. Here the floor was merely wet and slick, not icy. Warmth and the aroma of herbs and hot pepper, cooking food, surrounded him. His stomach growled. He was famished. He could hardly remember when he had eaten last, and he could not think when he had been so hungry. He could even imagine diving into the lake and coming up with a fish to eat raw, as Zev had done the other day.

  Cold as he was, the idea of diving into a chilly lake gave him a thrill of pleasure.

  "So that's all it was," Florrie said, her voice cutting and sarcastic. "Just friendship. How very flattering."

  Stephen Thomas glanced at her, surprised and confused. Friendship was an important word to him, one he did not take lightly or offer easily. He had had fewer close friends than lovers in his life.

  "It could have been friendship," he said.

  Florrie drew herself up angrily. "Then you never were serious."

  When she took on that imperious tone, Stephen Thomas found it even easier than usual to see beyond the changes of age and the papery delicacy of her skin, even past the character time had given her. The stunning beauty of her youth overwhelmed all that. No wonder she expected people to throw themselves at her feet, and no wonder they did. She attracted people, and they wanted to please her.

  She glared at him.

  "I thought as much."

  She let go of his arm and left him, making her way toward her helpers, who greeted her and waved and hurried over to help her out of her layers of dramatic black wraps.

  I told her how I felt, and she didn't believe me, he thought. Damned if I'll tell her again. Give her another blade, when she's already proved she'd use it to cut out my guts? Fuck it.

  His feet were so cold he could barely feel them. It was time to take Infinity's cautions seriously and get warm. Not here, though. The smell of boiled coffee made him feel sick.

  He grabbed a couple of hot lunches from the holding table and plunged back out into the cold, heading home.

  Maybe Satoshi would be home for a little while, too, and they could eat together and talk while they got warm.

  Satoshi was right. They needed to talk.

  "Over here!" Zev shouted.

  The crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps on icy snow came closer. Infinity Mendez appeared at the edge of the clearing.

  "How are you guys-" He saw Chandra.

  "Satoshi doesn't want to go inside," Zev said. "Neither does Chandra, I think." "The trees-" Satoshi said.

  "I'm not done." Chandra's shivering made her words nearly unintelligible. "Am I saving anything? My brain is cold."

  "I told everybody-!" Infinity cut off his outburst and continued, more quietly. "Come on, Chandra, you've been outside too long. You, too, Satoshi."

  He took off his outer coat, started to put it around Chandra's shoulders, but suddenly changed his mind and gave her his heavy inner shirt instead. When he put his coat back on he felt the inside pocket as if he was afraid he had lost something.

  "Where does she live?"

  "I don't know," Zev said. "But Satoshi's house is over there, and it has a big bathtub."

  Infinity looked very worried. "Damn, if people didn't pay attention . .

  ."

  Infinity let his eyelids flicker, going into a communications fugue with Arachne. Zev felt a warm spot at the back of his mind that meant an emergency message. He grabbed at it, hoping it was from J.D. He glanced at the exterior planetoid image, which had followed him obediently into the lilacs.

  The emergency message was not from J.D.; it was the message Infinity had just sent to everyone on board, warning them again not to stay out too long.

  Chandra had apparently read the message, too.

  "You just told me that," she said querulously, as Infinity led her across the field. Zev followed, pulling Satoshi along.

  With Zev helping Satoshi and Infinity helping Chandra, the cold little group reached the partnership's house. Inside, the warmth of the air closed in around Zev but barely touched him. He wished he were bathing in the hotsprings where the divers lounged and played.

  Stephen Thomas sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a red kimono, drinking hot tea. His wet clothes lay in a pile near the door, soaking one of Satoshi's floormats.

  "I was about to come looking for you guys," Stephen Thomas said mildly to Satoshi. Then Infinity came in

  with Chandra. "Christ on a toboggan, what happened to her?"

  "Is there more tea?" Infinity said.

  Stephen Thomas had already jumped up to get more mugs.

  Satoshi stared at the water dripping from his clothes and hair onto one of the floor mats he had made. He moved off the mat, but stumbled. Stephen Thomas steadied him, wrapped Satoshi's hands around a warm mug, and held them there. With his help, Satoshi sipped the tea.

  Zev hurried down the hall to the bathroom, shedding his wet, cold clothing. By the time he reached the blue glass tub, the household controller had already responded to Stephen Thomas's orders. Hot water gushed into the tub, and the rock-foam floor heated itself. He felt much better naked, with warm air folding itself around him, warm stone beneath his feet.

  Infinity and Stephen Thomas followed him into the big bathroom, bringing Chandra and Satoshi.

  "I got some good stuff." Chandra sounded drowsy. Zev had heard her say the same thing before-when she nearly drowned in the divers' wilderness, before he got her to the artificial lung.

  "Don't go to sleep!" Infinity chafed Chandra's hands. "What you almost got is frostbite," he said. "Not quite, but close."

  Stephen Thomas helped Satoshi into the big tub. Infinity turned Chandra toward it, too, but she held back.

  "I don't like water," she said.

  Zev jumped into the tub. The hot water stung his chilled feet.

  "It's okay, Chandra," he said. "Remember? You were okay when you swam with me."

  He took her cold hand and drew her forward. She resisted, then relaxed and came to him and stepped delicately over the rim and into the water.


  The tub was more than big enough for three people. Maybe land people liked bathtubs they could nearly swim in. That seemed strange to Zev, to want to be in a

  place not quite big enough for swimming. He gave up trying to figure it out, and let himself sink into the tub beside Chandra. She had stopped shivering. She held her teacup close to her face, breathing the fragrant steam.

  Lying between Zev and Chandra, but with his feet pointed the other direction, Satoshi was coming back to himself. Stephen Thomas sat on the edge of the tub, mostly covered by the kimono. Zev wondered how his changes were progressing. Claws had begun to form in the clefts where Stephen Thomas used to have toenails.

  "I don't believe I said that stuff," Satoshi said. "Sad for the little trees? God."

  "You get confused when you get hypothermia," Infinity said. He was the only one of them still fully clothed; he was also the only one of them who had spent time outdoors without getting soaked to the skin. He shrugged inside his heavy jacket.

  "Are you okay?" Stephen Thomas asked.

  "Yes," Infinity said quickly. "Sure, why?"

  "You look uncomfortable."

  "It's too hot in here." He let his eyelids flicker. "Esther and Kolya and Griffith are checking on people," he said when he opened his eyes. "I better go help. Will you folks be all right?"

  "I think you got to us in time," Satoshi said. "We'll keep an eye on Chandra, though. Thanks."

  Infinity left. It seemed to Zev that as well as being uncomfortable he was upset, but no one said anything about that. Stephen Thomas stroked Satoshi's shoulder; Satoshi Jay up to his neck in the hot water and stared into the steam; Chandra . . . who could tell, by looking at her, what Chandra thought or felt?

  Satoshi had not even noticed when Zev tried to tell him he was getting too cold, and that made Zev feel hurt. He let himself relax, took a deep breath, and submerged completely in the comforting hot water. His breathing automatically ceased.

  He was suddenly surrounded by splashes and shouts. He sat up again, spilling water over the side of the tub.

  ")What's the matter?"

  "I was afraid you'd passed out!" Satoshi said. "I thought you were going to drown!"