They made their way to the long hill that formed one end of Starfarer's campus cylinder. The hill, with its winding switchback paths, led down from the axis to the cylinder floor, the living surface. The air was sharp and cool with rain. Overhead, puffy clouds softened the sharp bright line of the sun tube and, beyond the tube, the cold glitter of lakes and streams on the far side of the cylinder. Starfarer's small shallow ocean, gray and foggy, circled the opposite end of the cylinder. Stephen Thomas kept waiting to feel some primeval call to the sea, but it did not happen.
You aren't turning into a fish, he said to himself, repeating Zev's distressed protest to a joke about what was happening to Stephen Thomas. You aren't turning into a fish. You aren't going to get pulled to the sea to spawn.
At a hairpin turn of the trail, halfway to the floor of the cylinder, benches clustered in a small circle. The false gravity was about half of Starfarer's regular seventenths g. One could sit without bouncing into the air.
Thanthavong took a seat and motioned the others to join her. Stephen Thomas limped to a nearby bench, lowered himself gratefully, and stretched his long legs. He curled his toes, pressing them against the soles of his sandals, straightening them quickly when the ache turned to a raw jolt of pain.
Everybody else joined the circle and watched with anticipation as Stephen Thomas slipped his carryingcase strap off over his head and held the case in his lap. The grad students had been waiting for something new to work on. J.D. had brought Stephen Thomas a crumpled plant from Europa's ship, but the plant was, as Europa said, of Earth origin. Though the bacteria associated with it were still acting strange, they matched ordinary Earth species. He was glad he finally had something for his students.
"Stephen Thomas?"
He opened the sample case. He had not transmitted any of this information, or discussed it on the public access. Europa and Androgeos had made him more cautious-more sneaky-than he had ever been before.
"The optical fiber J.D. picked up is just a polymer. Organic. Similar to silk, a little stronger." He shrugged. "Most of its interesting qualities are optical. But it was shed into a living ecosystem. Good and nonsterile. Particles in the range from viral to amoebic. I made some slides, and . . ."
He pulled the cushioned isolation chamber out of the case and held it up, letting light flow through the windows ofthe sample vials.
Tiny cell colonies traced one inoculation stab.
He had not expected-not dared to hope for-the growth to appear so quickly. He had been afraid to hope for any growth at all.
Most of the tubes of growth medium remained clear. No surprise: he had no way-yet-of knowing what to feed an alien cell.
But something, some alien equivalent of a bacterium, was an autotroph: an organism that could grow and replicate using only simple sugars, oxygen, water. . . .
He offered the isolation chamber to Thanthavong.
"No," she said. "No. You carry it. I'm afraid my hand . . . might not be steady enough."
They had met the alien humans. They had encountered an alien species of intelligence. But this microscopic quantity of life was the first alien cell they could look at, grow, and study.
"Maybe some of the other microbes feed on the autotroph," Lehua said. "Right." With a little luck, he could end up with a self-sustaining mixed colony of alien microbes.
"Did you have enough to do any tests?" Thanthavong asked.
"Just one." He paused. "Whatever Nemo's ecosystem uses to make whatever it uses for genes . . . it isn't DNA."
J.D. and Zev found themselves among a diverse group of faculty and staff, including most of the artists, Jenny Dupre, and Senator Orazio.
J.D. wished she did not have to meet with them all so soon after getting back. She was tired, and sad. Still, she understood why her colleagues were here waiting for her. She would have been with them, if she had not been a member of the alien contact department.
"There's no question of letting the alien into Arachne," Jenny Dupre said.
"I don't think so," J.D. said sadly. "And I'm beginning to think that's a mistake."
"The web's still too fragile to risk it!"
J.D. (lid not blame Jenny for her concern. She had nearly died in Arachne's crash, the crash that killed Feral. If Feral's death was murder rather than accident, as Jenny believed, then Jenny had probably been the target.
Nevertheless, the more J.D. thought about it, the more she disagreed with keeping Nemo out.
She wanted to be back with Nemo.
She was still moving through microgravity, so she tried to keep her eyes from closing as she went into a communications fugue. She did not want to crash into a wall while she was not looking.
She touched Arachne, sending a gentle message to the squidmoth. Nemo made no reply.
J.D. forced her attention back to the group she was with, to their questions and curiosity.
All she could do now was wait.
M
CHAPTER 6
STEPHEN THOMAS LEANED HIS HEAD against the isolation box and drew his hands from the manipulators. For the moment, he had done all he could do, inoculating growth medium with Samples of alien cells and sacrificing a few of the precious organisms for microscope slides. Within a day, if the alien bacteria continued to grow at their current rate, he would have enough cultures to give samples to his colleagues.
He stretched his body against the hot stiffness of his bruises. He wished he were home in bed. He stepped back from the box, and his feet flashed quick pain up his legs.
"Christ on a crutch," he muttered, "that's enough, all right?"
He shut down the isolation box. The lab was quiet and empty. After the conference, he had sent everyone home. He wanted his students to be fresh when he had something for them to work on.
He grabbed one of the scanning microscope preparations and an inoculated isolation tube of culture medium, and carried them down the hall to Professor Thanthavong's office.
He met J.D. and Zev in the hallway. Zev led J.D., watching her worriedly.
A small holographic display, the LTM transmission from Nerno's chamber, tagged along behind them.
"Hi, Stephen Thomas." J.D.'s voice was pitched half an octave higher than normal. Her eyes were bright and very dark, the pupils dilated to the edge of the blue-gray irises.
"Hi," he said. "Are you drunk?"
"I told you, I don't drink."
"Oh, right." She had even turned down a sip of celebratory French champagne, the day Starfarer's sail first deployed. God, but that felt like a long time ago.
"It's the link preparation," Zev said, sounding worried. "She just breathed it, and it's making her weird."
"Maybe you better get her home to bed."
"I'm trying, " Zev said. "Come on, J.D., okay?"
"Okay." She followed Zev obediently down the hallway. When she passed Stephen Thomas, she said, "Your hair's down." Now her voice was lower than usual.
Frowning, Stephen Thomas watched them go. He tucked the straying strands of his hair behind his ears.
Zev drew J.D.'s arm across his shoulders and led her out of the biochem building, talking to her softly.
Stephen Thomas shrugged. They were doing fine without his help. He limped into Professor Thanthavong's office. He could use some help himself. "Professor Thanthavong?"
She opened the recycler and tossed in the prep bottle and the inhaler by which she had administered the link enhancer to J.D.
"Hello, Stephen Thomas." Nearby, a couple of holographic images hovered, frozen. When her attention returned to one, it would continue its report. Stephen Thomas put the slide and the chamber on her desk. "I should have enough samples for everybody soon. But here's one, to start."
"Thank you," she said. She gestured to a chair. "Sit down. You look footsore."