It was unusual to see her on Starfarer's inner surface. She preferred zero gravity, and stayed in the sailhouse or near the axis as much as she could. Arachne ordered her out of free-fall every so often. She complied, reluctantly.
Infinity had not been surprised to see Jenny Dupre
in the waiting room, when the Chi returned from Nerno's web. But he had been surprised when she joined the discussion group. He was more surprised to see her still here.
She leaned against the rock, her long, delicate hands lying with fingers outspread beside her. She wore her hair in narrow black braids caught up at the back of her head. They fell to her shoulders, the bright glass beads an uneven fringe. In weightlessness, the braids fanned out and the beads clicked together softly, constantly.
Infinity joined her and sat beside her, watching Blades's house. The chancellor remained out of sight. The slugs would let him come to the door, but no farther. He could not cross the threshold.
He had been nearly as reclusive before they penned him in.
"Something has to be done," Iphigenie said abruptly.
The sailmaster hated the chancellor with cold outrage. She believed, with good reason, that he had tried to kill her. His attack on Arachne had caused the first system crash, which injured Iphigenie. His second attack had killed Feral.
Infinity considered her statement, careful not to answer too fast, too certainly.
"Isn't that enough?" He gestured to the foam-covered house with his chin. "No," she said. "No. It isn't. He murdered Feral. He meant to kill me. He's dangerous."
"Not anymore."
"What if he gets back inside the web?"
"Arachne's immunized against him."
"And the web was uncrashable!" lphigenie snorted in disgust, "He's been talking to Gerald. And to the American senators. I saw them from the hill." She gestured back toward the end of Starfarer's cylinder. "But when I came down here, they went away."
The two senators had been passengers on Esther's transport, heading home after a fact-finding tour of
Starfarer. They were along for the ride, now, and none too happy about it. "What do you think we should do?" Infinity asked. Isolating Blades in his house had felt like a good compromise to him, when he had thought of it. At least it had stopped the riot lphigenie had tried to start, and no one else had been hurt.
"I think," lphigenie said, "that you don't want to know what I want to see. The best I can hope for, I suppose, is a trial."
"We aren't exactly prepared to try anybody. Is anybody even a lawyer?" lphigenie shrugged.
Starfarer had left Earth orbit precipitously, six months early, without the long burn-in period the faculty and staff had planned. Maybe during the burnin, they would have had to handle antisocial, even criminal, behavior. Maybe then they would have been better prepared for it. But the glow of optimism and cooperative spirit led them to the tacit, naive assumption that every problem could be solved by talking about it, by the meetings they held to discuss other sorts of problems.
The faculty and staff had agreed to continue the deep space expedition, in defiance of orders from EarthSpace, at a meeting. They had held a meeting to decide whether to go after Europa and Androgeos.
"I'm worried about you," Infinity said.
Jenny looked directly at him, gazing at him intently. Always before, until he broke up the mob she created, she had glanced at him briefly, dismissing him. People liked to pretend Starfarer had no hierarchy, but it did. And the hierarchy separated a millionaire solar sail designer from a gardener by quite a distance.
"You are remarkable," she said.
He looked away, embarrassed. He did not like to stand out. He was not sure he wanted to know exactly what she meant. She probably did not mean what she said as a compliment.
"Feral shouldn't have died," she said.
"Nobody should have died."
"I mean-if anyone died, it should have been me. A sacrifice to Artemis, to the wind. Maybe that's why Blades directed his sabotage toward me."
"A sacrifice?" Infinity said.
"Yes. My namesake escaped, but the gods always take their due, in the end-don't you know your mythology?"
"That isn't my mythology," Infinity said.
"Oh," Jenny said. "No, I suppose not. I'm sorry."
"If you want to know about Amaterasu, or Coyote . . ." Infinity shrugged. "But not lphigenia."
"Her father was supposed to sacrifice her to Artemis, for a favorable wind. She escaped. Artemis waited. I escaped. Artemis tired of waiting. She took my young wild friend instead."
"Everybody feels lousy about what happened to Feral," Infinity said. "But if any one of a dozen things had happened differently, he'd be okay." "Blades is responsible." Her eyelids flickered as she cut off her conversation with Infinity to communicate with Arachne.
The faint perception of a small spot of heat told Infinity he, too, had a new message. It was Jenny9s meeting proposal, broadcast through Arachne to everyone on board.
Infinity did not add his second. He thought things would be just fine the way they were. For as long as it took Starfarer to be able to return home. Then the legal system could deal with Chancellor Blades.
On the other hand, it was just as likely that the United States would give the chancellor a medal and arrest everyone else as hijackers and terrorists. Maybe Jenny wanted to be certain of some justice, or revenge. Infinity still did not want Blades prosecuted here. The memory of the mob stayed with him. His friends and acquaintances had put on unrecognizable masks of anger. He did not want to see that again.
He stood up.
"Are you okay? Do you need any help?"
"No," Jenny said.
"Then goodbye, I guess."
He left her sitting among the rocks, and continued on to the administration building.
As soon as J.D. ended the discussion group, Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov slipped away from the clump of people and fled to the nearest access hatch. He had not been able to resist listening to J.D. as long as she would talk about Nemo. But the press of people made him uncomfortable and nervous.
Kolya climbed down the ladder, past ground level, into Starfarer's skin.
He strode along the dim, coolsmelling corridor, toward the nearest elevator.
Until he reached the safety of the elevator cage, he expected at every second to see Griffith behind him, hurrying to catch up. He was sick to death of Griffith's following him around, trying to worship him.
He was rather surprised to have escaped Griffith. He would probably be pleased with himself, if he did not feel so dreadful.
He had not had a cigarette in two days, and he was at the height of nicotine withdrawal.
The elevator slowed and stopped and the floor settled beneath his feet: Kolya perceived gravity as pulling backwards against him, then sliding down to settle in the proper place.
Does anyone ever get used to the sensation of riding an elevator inside a rotating space station? Kolya wondered. I've lived in space longer than anyone, and I never have.
He put on his spacesuit, entered the airlock, and climbed down through the outer shell of Starfarer's campus cylinder. The airlock opened. He climbed down onto the inspection net.
Starfarer loomed over him; the stars spun beneath his feet. The motion of the cylinder took him through darkness, into the hot white light of Sirius, and back into shadow as he plunged into the cleft between the campus cylinder and its twin, the wild side. On the far edge of the valley, he burst into the light reflected by the solar sail. If he looked in just the right place he could see the bright crescent of Nerno's starship, tagging along with Starfarer toward transition.
Kolya eased himself down onto the cables of the inspection web, grateful to be back out in space. He had spent too much time with other people lately, too much energy trying to understand them. They admired him for reasons that had very little to do with him and much more to do with situations in which he had found himself by chance and luck.