"Jenny . . . Infinity's isolated Blades from Arachne. Isn't that enough punishment, for now? If Blades doesn't want to object to his exile, maybe we shouldn't insist on something worse. The way things are, if he's guilty we're all safe. If he's not, we haven't done anything irrevocable."
"How do you know we're safe from him?"
"He's cut off from the web-"
"How do you know we're safe from him?"
J.D. regarded Jenny with sympathy.
"I spend a lot of time in the web. I'm enhancing my link. If there's danger, I'm vulnerable. I think the risk is small enough to take."
Jenny stared at J.D. for several seconds; it felt like a very long time. She turned completely around, raking all her colleagues with her gaze.
She faced J.D. again, having seen that even the people who had joined her mob -maybe those people in particular-would not side with her now. She could produce no consensus for the chancellor's guilt, or for his punishment.
"I think you're wrong," she said. "And I think you'll find it out the next time we go into transition. I'm not touching the web. If we miss the insertion point, that's too damned bad." She straightened her shoulders and flung her head back; the iridescent beads on the ends of her braids clinked together loudly, decisively.
She strode from the amphitheater.
As people rose to leave, relieved to think the meeting was over, Infinity stood up and spoke his name. No one, except Esther and Kolya, heard him. He raised his voice. "Infinity Kenjiro Yanagihara y Mendoza."
Intense meetings drained everyone. His colleagues, realizing he wanted the gathering to continue, sank back in their seats with resignation. "There's some other things we have to talk about," he said.
"Without doubt they can wait," Gerald asked. "A few days-? The other side of transition, at least, when we might know more about our situation?"
"I don't think so," Infinity said. "We have some problems. The first is the weather."
"But the weather has been exceptionally fair," Gerald said.
"It's too fair," Infinity said. "It's too hot for the season. First everything got blasted during the last meeting-"
"But that was an anomaly," Gerald said. "A malfunction of the web while it was regrowing-"
"Or sabotage," Stephen Thomas said. "Let Infinity finish."
Gerald subsided.
"And now this heat wave. Arachne's trying to fix it. Maybe it'll even work out for the best. We don't have the supplies we expected to bring. Maybe this will give us a longer growing season. But . . . Starfarer wasn't designed to spend time around a star like Sirius. It was designed to visit sun-type stars." Infinity glanced over at Victoria. "Next time through transition . . . where will we end up?"
Uncharacteristically, Victoria hesitated.
"I'm not entirely sure yet," she said.
"Good lord!" Gerald exclaimed.
The amphitheater reverberated with tension like a bell.
Collecting herself, Victoria rose. "Calm down, eh? It's not exactly a secret." Her tone was annoyed. "The algorithm's working in plain sight. Anybody can look at the results."
Infinity waited, rather than vanishing into a communications fugue like some of the folks around him.
"We assumed Europa headed for a system that's full of cosmic string," Victoria said. "Pretty safe assumption, eh? She wouldn't want to go somewhere she couldn't leave again. The algorithm's first solution proves it. The second solution indicates there'll be a star nearby."
"And that's all you know?" Senator Derjaguin leaned toward her, angrily. "You don't know where we're going, how far, how long it will take?"
"The third solution will tell us where," Victoria said. "How long-that's always an indefinite number. A range. "
"As for getting back-" Avvaiyar rose at Victoria's side. "That's the point of being sure we come out in a full system-a place with more cosmic string."
"When will we have all the answers?" Gerald asked.
"I don't know," Victoria said. "Along about the next millennium?"
Gerald took a moment to realize he was being twitted.
,,The answers to your bloody algorithm, " he snarled.
"I have no idea," Victoria said. "Before we hit transition . . . I think."
"So we're stuck," Esther said under her breath.
She was right. Infinity saw the situation before Victoria described it. They could pull back and wait for solutions to the current algorithm, to be sure they were heading for a suitable star. They could test other transition points till they found one that would lead them to a sun-type star. But no one could say how long that would take. Arachne was solving the current problem as fast as it could. Giving the computer another could only slow everything down.
"And if we change course," Victoria said, "not only will we be here longer, inflicting Sirius on our ecosystem, but we'll lose any chance we might have of catching up to Europa." She glanced over at Infinity. "I didn't realize the environment was so delicate," she said. "I wish you'd-"
"I didn't know, either!" Infinity said. "It's Alzena who knows all this stuff."
"Why in heaven's name did you let Europa take her?" Gerald said to J.D. "I was afraid Alzena would kill herself otherwise," J.D. said.
As much as Infinity wished the starship still had an environmental designer, an ecologist, on board, he had to agree with J.D. Europa had taken Alzena with her to save her life.
"Alzena is gone," Victoria said, "and I think J.D. was right to let her go. Maybe we can persuade her to come back--"
"But we have to find Europa to find Alzena," Gerald said sarcastically. "Yes.,,
"How convenient." "It's what we agreed to do anyway!"
"Not I," Gerald said. "I blocked the decision-and you chose to break your own rules."
Victoria grabbed her hair with both hands and cried out with frustration. "Gerald-!"
Professor Thanthavong rose.
The amphitheater fell silent.
"Miensaem Thanthavong." She waited through the customary pause. "I cede my time to Infinity."
Surprised, Infinity collected himself and continued.
"The bees are dying," he said.
A few people laughed. A few understood the problem. Most looked perplexed by his comment.
"They're important, " he said. "Directly, to the plants. Indirectly, they represent the ecosystem's health. We'll probably be okay if we're headed for a star that's like the sun," Infinity said. "If we're not He shrugged unhappily.
"All we can do is wait and see," Thanthavong said, as if that ended it. "I'm sorry, that still isn't all. We've got to plan some harvests and some planting. There's a bunch of stuff ripe. We should salvage the spinach. We could pick some of the oranges."
"Volunteers?" Thanthavong said.
One of Stephen Thomas's grad students jumped to her feet and tossed her long straight red-gold hair back over her shoulder.
"I can just see Lehua picking oranges," Esther said softly. "Probably break a fingernail."
"There's never anything in the cafeteria. The ASes are supposed to cook and maintain the gardens. Not to mention do the housework. So-where are they?" Lehua turned toward Gerald, her dark eyes angry. "When are you letting them loose again?"
Esther jumped to her feet. "Esther Mein." She barely paused. "Doesn't anybody around here ever read their bulletins?"
Infinity sat down, grateful that Esther had the en-
ergy to take on the problem of the ASes. Infinity hated speaking in public. He watched his lover with absolute awe. Soon she had faculty members apologizing and embarrassed and anxious to help her fix the artificials, to harvest, even to dig in the dirt that worried Gerald so much. Gerald took on the job-the desk job-of coordination.
"And Lehua's right about the cafeteria," Esther said. "The prepared stuff is pretty much gone. Does anybody know how to cook?"