"Thank you for being so articulate," Gerald said. He turned his back on Infinity and the harvesting crew and stalked away into the trees.
"Oh, dear," J.D. said.
Satoshi sighed. "I'll talk to him."
Satoshi grabbed a branch, swung to the ground, and followed Gerald out of the grove.
J.D. glanced toward Infinity. He looked embarrassed. She had thought Satoshi meant to talk to him, not Gerald.
She climbed down the ladder.
"I'm sorry," she said awkwardly to Infinity.
"You didn't do anything," he muttered.
"I didn't listen very well, I think. I remember what you said, and it wasn't 'Let's go pick all the oranges.' "
"I put a note in his mailbox," Infinity said. "Scheduling and stuff . .
. I guess he had too much else to do, I should have talked to him."
J.D. thought it more likely that Gerald had either
ignored Infinity's message or deliberately discounted it. But she was not about to say so to Infinity.
Satoshi knew Gerald heard him, but the acting chancellor stalked through the trees, slapping every branch that got in his way.
"Gerald!"
Satoshi caught up to him.
"Come on," Satoshi said. "This isn't doing anybody any good."
Gerald plowed on, a few more strides, then stopped and glared at Satoshi. "No, apparently nothing I do does anybody any good."
"That isn't what I meant."
"It is what everybody else means."
"Gerald . . ." Satoshi tried to think of something soothing to say, but the truth was that a lot of people found Gerald abrasive. When he supported the proposal to decommission Starfarer, he won himself no friends; when Arachne crashed, he made enemies. Satoshi believed him when he said he had nothing to do with it, but other members of the expedition did not.
"What are you trying to do?" Satoshi asked. "It's too late to stop the expedition."
"I'm trying to make sure we all survive it!" Gerald exclaimed. He caught his error and looked away. "All the rest of us, I mean, of course." He met Satoshi's gaze again. "I'm certain--certain-no one was meant to be killed in the system crash."
"Is that what the chancellor said?"
"I . . . haven't put it to him directly. But I'm certain nonetheless. I very much regret the journalist's death. By all reports he was a talented young man."
"Yes. And a nice guy. He was closest to J.D. and to Stephen Thomas." Satoshi was not about to tell Gerald that Stephen Thomas had buried Feral's body on the wild side.
"You could probably make them both feel better," Satoshi said, "if you told them what you just told me."
"Oh, indeed," Gerald said, disgusted. "And have your partner attempt to knock out all my teeth again. No thank you."
"When you say stuff like that," Satoshi said mildly, "I can kind of understand his urge."
"What would you have me do?" Gerald shouted. "I'm responsible for Starfarer, for all of you-"
"Bullshit," Satoshi said.
11
-and I'm completely losing control. . . . I beg your pardon?"
"You're not Sir Francis Drake, for god's sake. You don't have life and death responsibility and you don't have life and death power. You aren't losing control."
"Perhaps I've maintained that appearance."
"You never had control of the expedition," Satoshi said gently. "How could you lose it?"
Gerald opened his mouth, then closed it again. His shoulders stiffened.
"I had to take over the chancellor's duties. I had no choice."
"That isn't the point. You can't control the expedition. There are a couple of people who could, if they wanted."
"Such as who?" Gerald asked belligerently. "Do you mean the spy? I suppose he could, with enough blackmail and extortion."
"Griffith? No."
It surprised Satoshi that Gerald confabulated power with force. Satoshi had been thinking of ethical power, a quality Griffith lacked almost entirely. Professor Thanthavong possessed it, and so did Kolya Cherenkov. Either one could take over the expedition in a second. Satoshi thought they had that power because they did not want it.
"You're trying to get people to do what you think they should be doing," Satoshi said. "Then you want us all to do it the way you think it ought to be done. Why's that important to you?"
"Someone has to be sure the work gets done."
"But the work is getting done."
"It isn't getting done right."
Satoshi did not say anything about Gerald's current score at getting work done right; he did not want to rub the assistant chancellor's nose in what Infinity had just pointed out.
To his credit, Gerald got the idea.
"I'm doing my best," he said, stiff but sincere. "If you have suggestions, I'd be most happy to hear them."
"Okay. People think you're conspiring with Blades. That isn't doing you any good."
"Conspiring!"
"You, and Derjaguin, and even Orazio."
"Just because we're the only ones who'll speak to the man? I still consider him my superior."
"That's not likely to win you any points," Satoshi said dryly.
"And I have the same sympathy I'd have for any other victim of unjust political imprisonment."
"Unjust-!"
"And don't cite your partner's spurious evidence anymore! Ile found it in Arachne, and Arachne was severely damaged. Besides, Stephen Thomas had a motive to find the chancellor guilty."
"Stephen Thomas liked Blades," Satoshi said.
"He liked Feral better."
Satoshi had to concede that point. "The chancellor's safe, thanks to Infinity."
"Safe? He's in solitary confinement! I have no intention of abandoning him to go mad in that cave."
Nerno's ship continued to pace Starfarer, but Nemo remained silent. The LTMs watched the squidmoth, and J.D. watched the LTM transmissions.
Beneath the mother of pearl chrysalis, the structure of Nerno's body dissolved. Only the single exposed tentacle remained.
Every so often, one of the attendants crawled in, staggering, burrowed into the chrysalis, and disappeared. Luminous white pearl closed the burrows, sealing the attendants inside. Once they touched Nemo's amorphous shape, their forms, too, dissolved.
In the window seat of her house, J.D. sat back from the holographic projection of Nerno's central chamber. Her back twinged and her shoulders ached fiercely. She tried to massage her trapezius muscles, but aside from the difficulty of giving oneself a massage, her bicepses and tricepses hurt as well.
Zev looked Lip from the book he was reading.
"Is it time to go to Victoria's house?"
"Just about," J.D. said. "If I can get up."
"What's wrong?" He jumped to his feet and came over to her, leaving the book open and face-down on the floor. J.D. was glad she collected books for the words and not their physical value.
"I didn't realize picking oranges was such hard work," J.D. said ruefully. She did not think she could jump to her feet if her life depended on it. She reminded herself that she was more than twice Zev's age. "I thought I was in pretty good condition, but I hurt all over."
"I thought it was fun," Zev said. "Easier than picking mussels."
He urged her forward, knelt behind her, and rubbed her shoulders. She leaned back against his hands with a groan of pleasure and relief.
"That feels so good, Zev."
He moved his hands down her spine, and massaged low in the small of her back.
"You picked more oranges than I did," he said.
She chuckled.
"I guess I did. But you moved them farther than I did."
"Faster, anyway."
The fragrance of oranges and the faint sick-sweet scent of fermented juice still embraced him. He put his arms around her. J.D. stroked his arms, the softness of his fine pelt, the hardness of his muscles.
"You like Victoria, don't you?"
"Yes," he said. "This morning was fun."
"It was."