Metaphase

by Vonda N. Mcintyre Неизвестный Автор

  "I won't drown," Zev said. "It's warmer, okay?"

  "Okay," Satoshi said doubtfully.

  Zev took Satoshi's hand, and submerged again, keeping hold so Satoshi would know he had not died.

  J.D. gazed through the Chi's transparent wall. Nemo's planetoid had expanded from an obscure point of light to a perceptible disk. The stars spread out beyond it, a field of colorful, dimensionless points. The starship was a shape of variegated light and darkness, approaching fast. It looked different from when she had left.

  J.D. glanced toward its image; she asked the Chi for magnification. "Omigosh!"

  The surface of each silvered crater no longer lay concave within the rock, but had swelled into a hemispherical bulge. Only the one J.D. had entered remained in its original shape.

  Messages flew back and forth and around Starfarer, within Arachne, an excited whisper in the background of J.D.'s mind, as her colleagues discussed the planetoid's changes, noticed new ones, and speculated.

  "Nemo!" She sent the communication direct, without thinking or worrying about it, without the usual hesitation of direct contact with another being.

  "I am here, J.D."

  "Your ship--your body . . . it's changing."

  "My body is changing," Nemo agreed.

  "I'll be there soon."

  "I am anxious to see you."

  The Chi closed in on the worldlet, spurred by JDA anxiety, edging close to the safety limit of its fuel supply.

  THE C111 LANDED NEAR NEMO'S CRATER. The tunnel extension remained, lying relaxed on the ground. It rose like a snake and fastened itself around the airlock. J.D. waited impatiently for the lock to cycle. As soon as it opened, she hurried into Nerno's warm, caustic air, plunged down the slope, and followed the intricate path by memory and scraps of the lifeline.

  Eagerly, she anticipated the touch of Nerno's speech through her new link. She could almost, but not quite, recreate the multidimensional spaces Nemo had shown her. She reached for them, tantalized; they remained just beyond her grasp.

  "Nemo, I'm coming."

  "I am anxious to see you," Nemo said again.

  She burst into Nerno's chamber, into warm bright light. Her throat burned. Everything was silent, motionless. The silken sacs bulged, waiting. J.D.'s LTMs perched halfway up the surrounding curtains, watching, recording, electronically probing the plump and iridescent chrysalis.

  J.D. moved cautiously toward Nerno's shell. The single free tentacle twitched, its fur standing out, ruffling, smoothing itself.

  "I'm here," J.D. said. Her comment spun off into a sleek new surface. Instead of words in Nerno's reply, she discerned a feeling of welcome and gratitude. She sank down next to the chrysalis.

  She waited.

  The chrysalis began to shift and churn. At first random, the motion evolved into a regular wave of contraction from back to front. A second wave began, opposing the first. The waves canceled each other, separated.

  The chrysalis alternated between stillness and slow rippling, like the tides, like birth contractions.

  The welcoming surface in J.D.'s mind quivered and fragmented, leaving emptiness.

  "Nemo?"

  Silence.

  One of the mother of pearl circles along Nerno's flank dissolved.

  Iridescent liquid splashed out like blood. Tiny fringed appendages probed through the new hole. A small new creature pulled itself free. One after another, the pearl disks melted and dripped away. The creatures dragged their amorphous bodies from Nerno's chrysalis, fell into the mother of pearl puddles, and writhed, splashing and squeaking.

  J.D. watched, amazed, frightened, wishing she could do something to help, wishing she knew the normal progress of the change so she could be sure that what was happening was right. Were the new creatures attendants, or were they parasites, feeding on Nemo's flesh?

  The new creatures washed themselves in the liquid pearl; their bodies condensed and hardened like organic precious stones. They pulled themselves beneath Nemo's twisting chrysalis.

  J.D. reached out spontaneously to grasp Nemo's uncovered tentacle, but stopped with her hand just short of it, taking in its warmth. She was reluctant to cross the last millimeter, afraid her touch might disrupt the change.

  The opposing waves of contraction strengthened and met, meshed and augmented. Nerno's chrysalis writhed violently.

  The shell burst with the high, tense scream of ripping silk. J.D. held herself motionless by force of will. Her heart pounded.

  The edges of the shell pulled apart, shredding and tearing, falling to the floor in ribbons of color. The opening exposed a dark, crumpled, angular mass.

  The single tentacle writhed and convulsed and lashed around J.D.'s wrist. It was as hot as an electrical wire with too much current flowing through it. J.D. gripped the tentacle and held it. She thought of comfort, reassurance. She had never borne a child herself, or attended a human childbirth, but she had witnessed an orca bearing her young one. The divers and the orcas had given her the privilege of sharing their joy.

  She hoped Ncmo was doing the same.

  The angular mass moved. A bundle of sticks rose from the destruction of the chrysalis, drawing with them a fine film like a veined soap bubble, like the swimming webs of a diver's hands. The sticks resolved into fanshaped frameworks, several pairs emerging from the length of the broken chrysalis. The veins engorged; the skin lost its transparency, but its iridescence increased. Delicate scales of color formed a pattern as complex and seductive as the alien maze. The new wings were as thin as gauze, yet J.D. could stare into their depths forever.

  She broke her gaze and squeezed her eyes shut, disoriented.

  She was scared.

  If my instincts about NemO were wrong, she thought, it's too late now.

  She shivered, and repeated to herself: It's my job.

  It was her job, and she could not change the way she approached it. Maybe eventually-maybe inevitablyshe would regret leaving herself open. But for now she would expose herself to whatever Nemo chose to offer.

  The head of the new being emerged last, rising from the tangle of shredded skin. Iridescent facets of chitin interlocked to form its surface, glistening like the carapace of a beetle.

  But the eyes were Nemo's, a ring of compound lenses protected by a mobile lid that opened, blinked, and closed halfway, languorous.

  Nemo's wings stretched high above her, ten meters, fifteen, reaching to the roof of the chamber, brushing it with their tips. Five sets of wings, and at least one more trapped closed where Nerno's body disappeared into the floor of the chamber.

  The wings fluttered. Dry now, they rustled like moths, and J.D. understood the name of Nemo's species. Europa had thought the name an insult, but she had never known its meaning. Embraced and dazzled by the fluttering wings, J.D. felt sorry for the alien humans. They had accepted the judgment of Civilization. They had never given Nerno's people a second thought.

  The knowledge both depressed and encouraged her. She had come into space hoping, perhaps, to find a utopian system that would magically rescue Earth from all its problems. At the same time, she feared perfection. She distrusted easy answers.

  There are no easy answers, J.D. said to herself. And Civilization isn't the perfect organism Europa represented it to be. They may have the right to judge us. But they don't have the right to judge us without appeal! "Nemo?"

  "I am here, J.D."

  "I'm glad to have you back," J.D. said.

  "I'm glad to be done with the change."

  J.D. did not know what to say, because the change meant Nemo soon would

  die.

  The pearl creatures crawled out from beneath Nerno's body, pulling with them shreds of Nerno's shell. One snatched up a bit of the shredded chrysalis and shoved it into its mouth. The iridescent fragment crinkled like paper and disappeared.

  Like a horde of fuzzy ants, the tiniest animals swarmed up Nerno's wings and groomed them.

  "I thought you were beautiful before your metamo
rphosis," J.D. said. "And I think you're beautiful now."

  Nerno's wings swept down, brushing JDA face, and up again. They quivered, and the quaking sound filled the chamber with the sound of leaves in the wind. The wings were much more mobile than the wings of moths or butterflies; the articulated framework moved the surfaces like bird wings.

  The tentacle around J.D.'s wrist relaxed and drew away. She had almost forgotten it; she flexed her fingers and shook her hand to get the blood flowing again. Nemo brushed her cheek, her shoulder, with the tip of the tentacle.

  Creatures crept from folds in the floor, from pores in the curtains, creatures different from the attendants of Nerno's previous form.

  A whole group of larger attendants, nearly the size of housecats, bumbled out. They looked like giant sowbugs with a mass of small, slender hind legs and a cluster of thick, pudgy-toed front legs. Each time one bumped into another they slowed, till they all coalesced into a pile.

  J.D. turned some of the LTMs toward the new attendants. She let her eyelids flutter, tapping into the transmission, hoping for more information than her own senses could supply.

  Her connection to the LTM link exploded, leaving her stunned and confused and frightened.

  The attendants scuttled around, multiple feet scrabbling and scratching on the floor in frenzied motion.

  They scrambled toward the LTMs and engulfed them, climbing over them, tumbling recklessly.

  Nerno's pleading voice penetrated her disturbed link. "J.D., stop, stop." All J.D. could think of to do was shut down the LTMs. They folded beneath the attendants, and cut off their sensors.

  The attendants fell away from the LTMs. From giant sowbugs to tentacled shrimp, they withdrew and returned to Nemo's side.

  "Nemo, what happened?" J.D. was shaking. The dissolution of the link was too much like what had happened to Feral. "That's how I watched your metamorphosis-I thought it would be safe for you!"

  "But, J.D., I am different now," Nemo said, "and my attendants are different."

  "I'm so sorry."

  She did not know what else to say. She locked all the LTMs-her attendants--on passive systems only, and set them to record.

  "What about my link to Starfarer?"

  Nemo hesitated. "It's very strong, and very near. . . ."

  J.D. got the hint. She sent a quick message back to Starfarer. I'm okay. But I'd better shut down communication for a while.

  With a word of understanding and regret from Victoria, a yelp of protest from Zev, and a curse of apprehension from Stephen Thomas, J.D.'s perception of her link to Starfarer vanished into silence.

  "Did I cause you harm?" J.D. asked Nemo. "Are you hurt?"

  "I'm unhurt. But there's not much time."

  Nerno's tentacle stretched out, wrapped itself around one of the silken sacs, and drew it in, slowly, painfully.

  "What should I do? Can I help?"

  "You may help," Nemo said.

  J.D. hoped the obvious thing to her was the obvious thing to the squidmoth. She picked up the sac in both

  hands and presented it in front of Nemo. It was astonishingly heavy.

  "What happens now?"

  "I combine my genetic material with the genetic material of the juvenile parents of my offspring."

  The single tentacle curled around the sac. Nemo's head reared up, exposing a gaping, toothless mouth. Like a frog's tongue, the tentacle drew the sac inside.

  "Nemo, what-T'

  "I cannot speak with you now, J.D."

  Nerno's adult body was slender and mobile, unlike the ponderous squidlike juvenile body. The legs and the feather-gills and the rippling horizontal fin had vanished -transformed into wings? Or was that too simple an analysis?

  Nemo's wings began to beat, in a wave from front to back. The motion of the wings eased the bulge of the sac through Nemo's new form, expanding the translucent, peacock-hued skin before the sac, contracting behind it. The colors changed over the bulge of the egg sac, flowing from iridescent red through orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

  The egg case hesitated at a second, smaller bulge in Nerno's. body, beneath the last free pair of wings. The two shapes touched, merged, engulfed each other; and then the egg case continued to move.

  Nerno's wings fluttered faster, harder, creating a low, trilling whirr that filled the air. The giant sowbugs streamed from their congregation and surrounded Nemo's body where it entered the floor. Using their front appendages, they massaged the egg sac and pushed it along. It disappeared beneath the level of the floor. The whirring wings relaxed, and drooped.

  The attendants fell away and crawled blindly around, undirected, slowing as they touched, till they lay again in a compact, pulsating mass.

  "You may help," Nemo said again.

  J.D. hurried to the pile of satchels and brought another. Again, Nemo engulfed it. The wings stretched,

  pulsed, and resumed their flowing, steady beat, pumping the sac on its long traverse.

  J.D. fetched another egg case.

  "Not yet, not yet," Nemo said.

  She stopped.

  Maybe it's a reflex, engulfing the egg sac, J.D. thought. Maybe that's why the tentacle is so slow. Maybe the timing is critical.

  Another bulge began to form beneath Nemo's posterior full wings. By the time the second sac reached it, it had stopped growing. Again the bulges merged, again the sowbugs pressed the egg bulge out of sight.

  Time passed.

  J.D. continued to bring the egg sacs to Nerno's mouth, leaving the tentacle to conserve its strength for the engulfing. Nemo remained silent, eyes closed, body and wings pulsing with exertion.

  J.D. was in awe of the effort Nemo expended. Of course the squidmoth could not talk to her now. But the silence of J.D.'s enhanced link felt huge and empty. She wondered if the change had been futile, just enough to give her a glimpse of Nerno's complete communication.

  With each egg sac, the traverse through Nerno's body occurred more slowly. The secondary bulge, the egg, took longer to form.

  J.D. helped, and waited, for several hours. Her friends back home would be worried by her silence.

  After the fifth egg sac, Nerno's wings drooped. J.D. stroked the heavy, chitinous head. Nemo's tentacle curled; the wings rose, and stretched. J.D. picked up another egg sac and brought it to the tentacle.

  I must be getting tired, too, she thought. These things are beginning to feel heavier and heavier.

  Nerno's tentacle wrapped around the egg case, dragging it weakly in. J.D. stood anxiously by while Nerno's mouth worked around it. The iridescent wings sagged nearly to the floor, and their colors had begun to dull. Right after the metamorphosis, Nerno's body had looked sleek and well-fed. Now it had begun to shrivel.

  Nemo's sunken flanks defined the egg case in more detail. The long wings labored to continue their beat. Even the attendants moved slowly, tentatively.

  The egg case merged with the egg bulge, and disappeared, and the giant sowbugs tumbled away from each other in response to the renewed throbbing of the wings.

  The tentacle sagged out of Nerno's mouth, twitching and searching. J.D. hurried to bring the seventh sac. Nemo engulfed it, and the first set of wings moved it with agonizing slowness.

  Six more egg cases remained in the pile. J.D. felt frightened, because Nemo could never ingest them all before Starfarer hit transition. She should give herself at least an hour to get back.

  Nemo quivered, exhausted. J.D. stroked Nerno's tentacle, the pulsing flanks.

  Nerno's wings swept down, trembled against the floor, and lifted themselves slowly, painfully.

  The passage is going to take at least an hour, J.D. thought. If I'm quick-

  She touched her link to Nemo. "I'll be right back." She gently squeezed the furred tip of Nerno's tentacle. Hoping the squidmoth could hear her, could still understand her, she rushed back to the Chi.

  On board Starfarer, the sun tubes brightened with morning. The temperature rose slowly. All over campus, the snow began to melt. I
cy drips collected at the ends of branches and splashed to the ground; rivulets rushed down hillsides, formed tiny new streams, flowed into the rivers.

  Infinity's boots squished in mud and crunched the ice crystals that remained beneath the surface.

  He reached the dripping orange grove, stopped, and looked around.

  The emergency measures had saved most of the trees. The fruit was another story. About half the ripe

  oranges had fallen, and the blossoms for the next crop had wilted and died. Infinity sighed.

  Guessed real wrong on this one, he thought.

  His inside coat pocket scrabbled against his chest.

  He opened the coat and slid his hand into the pocket.

  11OW!" He jerked back his hand and inspected his nipped finger.

  "Is that the thanks I get for saving you from freezing?" Infinity said aloud.

  The meerkat burrowed deeper, her claws catching on the material of his coat.

  "What is it you want?" He had tried to let the meerkat loose near her burrow, but she would not go.

  I bet this critter is Europa's house pet, Infinity thought. And I'll bet she wants to live in a nice warm house.

  Especially since she's about to have kittens.

  Someone squelched through the deep mud toward him. Infinity caught a glimpse of Gerald Hernminge on the other side of the orange grove.

  Listening to Gerald say "I told you so" was the last thing Infinity needed. The last thing, except maybe having Gerald find out about the meerkat.

  J.D. rushed back to the Chi. The Chi's transmission to Starfarer had not troubled Nemo, so J.D. could safely open her link.

  Zev's image popped into being before her.

  "J.D.! We thought-I was afraid-"

  "I'm fine, Zev. How much got through before I pulled the plug?"

  J.D. grabbed sandwich makings out of the cupboard and started some coffee. Victoria's image appeared near Zev.

  "Just enough to scare us. We've been so worried about you!" Victoria floated in the sailhouse, helping Jenny position Starfarer for transition. Jenny still did

  not, could not, trust Arachne. That left Victoria to buffer her, in the same position Feral was in when he died.

  "You're worried about me?" J.D. asked. She slapped a sandwich together and wolfed down a bite.