They all floated in the barely perceptible microgravity of the waiting room at the hub of the cylinder, surrounding the members of the alien contact department. The noise rose to a painful level as everyone burst out talking at once, asking more questions, making more comments.
"I'm sorry," J.D. said. "I can't hear you all."
Chandra, the sensory artist, pushed herself in front of everyone else and ignored Gerald's efforts to organize. She turned her strange opaque gray eyes on J.D. She looked blind, but her vision was more acute than any ordinary person's, and she could store and recall any image she perceived. "Weren't you scared?" Chandra asked,
"Now and then," J.D. said. "But Nemo seems very gentle to me."
"Gentle! Did you see what happened to Stephen Thomas?"
"Nothing happened to Stephen Thomas," Stephen Thomas said, drifting between Florrie Brown and Fox. "I don't know what was happening to those critters, but nothing happened to me."
"It could have. We don't know what Nemo wants. Maybe when it reproduces it needs a nice warm body to lay its eggs in."
"I don't think so," J.D. said.
"Why not?"
"Because Nerno's a civilized being."
Chandra shrugged. "And we're half-evolved exiles. Why should Nemo care what happens to us? Europa didn't care if she stranded us in orbit around Sirius and we never got home."
"Nemo only eats insubstantial food," J.D. said.
"Who said anything about eating? Besides, Nerno's metamorphosing. Lots of critters eat one thing during one stage of their lives-I don't know, leaves or grass or flower nectar-that eat other stuff, other times."
"This is a subject worth discussing," Victoria said, "but let's not be morbid about it."
"I'm not morbid."
Stephen Thomas looked at her askance. "Have you taken a look at your own work lately?"
"Screw you, Stephen Thomas Gregory. And how are you going to feel if J.D. comes back full of maggots?"
"That's her job," Stephen Thomas said easily.
"Stephen Thomas!" Professor Thanthavong exclaimed.
J.D. laughed. "I asked for that one, Professor-Stephen Thomas is quoting me. But, Chandra . . . there's a principle of astronomy that says you aren't likely to be in the right place at the right time to observe an event of cosmological significance. Considering Nerno's age, the principle applies. It'd be a tremendous coincidence if I arrived just in time to feed Nerno's offspring."
"Unless it isn't a coincidence at all."
"What-? Oh. I see what you mean."
"Nemo chooses when to become an adult. So maybe squidmoths hang around waiting till there's somebody just right, and then . . ."
"I think,77 J.D. said, "that you've been watching too many old monster movies."
"Maybe you've written too many sentimental sci-fi novels!"
"Sentimental!" J.D. exclaimed, affronted.
"Yeah, in the end everything comes out right for everybody. " Chandra made a noise of disgust.
J.D. almost laughed and almost cried.
I think I'm too tired to be having this conversation, she said to herself.
"Er," Gerald said, at a loss and trying to make the best of it, "perhaps it would be better to postpone literary discussion until a later time? Now, we shall break into smaller groups and meet separately. That way our colleagues won't be quite so overwhelmed."
Hearing the murmurs of agreement, J.D. gave Gerald a grateful glance.
With that, the tight sphere of people broke up into smaller clusters, sorted broadly by occupation: physical sciences around Victoria, social sciences with Satoshi, biological sciences with Stephen Thomas. The group around Stephen Thomas included Florrie Brown. When she joined him, he took her frail hand and kissed it gallantly. She smiled, and J.D. realized that beneath her remarkably quaint heavy black eye make-up, beneath the pink and green and white braids drifting around her mostly shaved head, Florrie Brown was beautiful.
Professor Thanthavong joined J.D. briefly.
"Are you certain about changing your link?" she asked.
"Yes," J.D. said. "I want to enhance it. There still may be time to use it."
"Very well," Thanthavong said. "I've made the preparation. See me when you're ready."
"Thank you," J.D. said, as Thanthavong touched the wall, pushed off, and floated toward Stephen Thomas's discussion section.
Stephen Thomas led his group out of the waiting room, heading down into Starfarer's main cylinder and out of zero g.
The group was much smaller than it should have been. Many of the scientists of the multinational faculty
had been recalled by their governments, protesting the threat of change in Starfarer's purpose. So they had all been left behind when Starfarer fled. Stephen Thomas was glad Florrie Brown had joined his group. He liked her; he only wished she and Victoria had not started out on the wrong foot. Besides Stephen Thomas, the scientists included Professor Thanthavong, a couple of biochemists and a botanist, and a dozen graduate students: Lehua, Bay, Mitch, Fox-"Fox, what are you doing here?"
Fox was one of Satoshi's graduate students.
"Satoshi isn't talking to me."
""at?" he asked, incredulous.
Both Satoshi and Stephen Thomas had good reason to be annoyed with Fox. She was only twenty, too young to apply for a place on the deep space expedition. She had refused to return to Earth. Stephen Thomas and Satoshi had been in the genetics building, trying to persuade her to get on the transport and go home, when the missile hit Starfarer and brought the hillside down around them. But the missile might have hit anywhere. Stephen Thomas found it impossible to blame Fox for staying behind, and he assumed Satoshi felt the same. So what, if they got charged with kidnapping when they got back home? Their prosecution for hijacking the starship would probably take precedence anyway.
Unless kidnapping the niece of the president of the United States took priority over everything.
"Satoshi thinks it's my fault you're turning into a diver!" Fox said.
"Oh, bullshit."
"Don't make me leave," she said.
He shrugged. "Doesn't make any difference to me."
Stephen Thomas was tired and distracted. Most of his body had stopped aching for the moment, but his toes hurt fiercely. He wanted a hot bath.
He thought it might help.
Thanthavong watched him with concern. "Come
along, Stephen Thomas. Questions can wait till we're back on solid ground,"
"It doesn't matter," he said. Everyone was used to his bitching about zero g, but he had spent so much time in weightlessness recently that he had overcome his aversion to it. Or . . . his body was preparing him for living in water.
He followed Thanthavong obediently. He was in the habit of complying with her requests. Like everyone else, he admired her to the point of awe.
When the changing virus infected him, and she prepared to treat him against it, saying no to her was one of the hardest things he had ever done.