He paused long enough to tell Arachne to sound the alarm.
"We have to go around and knock the snow off the plants. It's too heavy, it'll break the branches. The citrus trees . . . if we open the access tunnels, and force warm air out around them, maybe we can keep them from freezing."
Esther slumped against him, resting her forehead against his chest. She had spent another whole day in the basement of the administration building. "Open all the access tunnels," she said. "What about the sun tubes? Spotlight the orange grove."
"I wish," he said.
He showed her Arachne's report. Esther took in the risk at one glance and whistled softly. Warming a single spot with the sun tubes in this weather would not start a monsoon. It would start a tornado.
"Damn." She sighed. "I've been lying in bed for the last hour, I kept falling asleep and waking up and thinking how cold it was and how nice it would be when you got home and got in beside me."
His hands felt warm, now, nestled against her belly. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. His long hair, still wet, swung forward and touched her cheek. A drop of icy water flicked from the end of one lock and dripped on her face.
"When this is done, we can stay in bed all day."
Esther giggled.
"What?"
"I was griping this afternoon that I had to work inside." She quoted an aphorism favored by transport pilots: "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
A few minutes later, dressed in dry clothes-the
warmest he had; Esther wearing one of his flannel shirts under her jacket-they hurried out into the deepening snow. Arachne guided them to the access tunnel. The snow formed a curtain, as featureless and impenetrable as full darkness. The flakes turned sharp and hard and dry.
If they froze, it might be better to risk rain and floods.
Infinity just did not know,
As they passed through his garden, he wondered, briefly, if his cactus would survive.
Infinity's message spread through Starfarer's night, asking people for help and alerting them to the danger of the snow's beauty.
Stephen Thomas followed a medium-sized silver slug into a young apple orchard. The trees bent beneath the snow. Infinity had recommended knocking away the snow if the tree leaned over, if it looked like it might break.
The slug burrowed through to the ground and pushed itself forward, ploughing the heavy wet snow to either side. Stephen Thomas walked in the cleared path, grateful that he did not have to break trail. He was wearing his warmest clothes, but his warmest clothes did not amount to much.
At least the snow had stopped failing.
Following the slug at a respectful distance, Stephen Thomas used its trail to get to the saplings. If he pulled the outer branches gently, he could knock off the snow without standing beneath an avalanche. He could not tell if the apple blossom buds were damaged.
Being so near the silver slug made Stephen Thomas wary. He knew, intellectually, that this one had no reason to turn on him. The one that had pinned him down had been protecting Chancellor Blades. But if-if-the slug did attack, Professor Thanthavong might not come along this time to release him.
In the distance, a tree branch snapped with a violent crack. Its covering of snow cascaded down to land with a feathery thud.
As Stephen Thomas worked in the orchard, he let his attention drift back into Feral's files. He still avoided the notes on J.D. Stephen Thomas liked J.D.; he did not want to spoil his affection for her by feeding his stupid jealousy.
Feral would still be alive if any one of half a dozen events had occurred only a little differently. If he had been involved in the web more shallowly. If he had heard JDA warning, or Victoria's. If Stephen Thomas had not so easily restored Feral's canceled guest access to Arachne.
Feral had logged the incident in which he had been thrown from the web.
It was such an unusual thing to happen that Stephen Thomas set it aside for later, when he could give it his full attention.
The slug crawled through the orchard and headed across a meadow. Stephen Thomas was tempted to call it back, to get it to break a trail through the drooping pear trees a few fields over. Surely Infinity had enough slugs to uncover the access hatches among the orange trees?
Stephen Thomas stamped his cold feet. Infinity had recommended that no one stay out in the snow too long. Stephen Thomas decided to go inside for a while and get warm. When he came back out, maybe he could borrow another silver slug.
The whole world was black and white, silver and gray, motionless. Stephen Thomas stretched. The clouds had snowed themselves out; the sky had cleared except for an icy cloud blanket around the sun tube.
Obliquely overhead, on the far side of Starfarer's interior, black streams meandered through the white landscape. A pinprick of darkness appeared where someone knocked the snowy cover from a sapling.
Zev slogged from one buried sapling to another. JDA transmission of Nerno's planetoid followed him.
Back home, when his family returned from their migration, the sea water was cold with winter. Summer would not touch the sea for a month yet. But he had never felt so cold in the sea as he did now. He was wearing his suit, and a sweater of J.D.'s, but still he shivered.
At the moment, Zev envied Victoria, even though he knew she was risking her life. She had gone out to the sailhouse to help Jenny Dupre align Starfarer for transition, doing the same task Feral had been doing when he died. Zev understood that Victoria was in danger. Risk was always more exciting and more fun than discomfort.
His hands were nearly numb. He had no gloves. He had wrapped his hands in clothing, and he carried a bundle of bamboo with which to knock the dense, heavy covering of snow from the collapsing branches. But if he unwrapped his fingers, his swimming webs would be gray with cold.
He banged the bamboo against a drooping, bending evergreen shrub. The sticks hit with a quiet crinkle of wood on ice. The wet snow beneath the new ice let loose with a soft, sliding thud. The straining evergreen shrub exploded upward. Zev did not move fast enough when the boughs sprang free. Snow and ice erupted like a geyser, showering his chest and face and hair.
He brushed away the melting clumps and the frozen shards. His wet hair slicked down cold around his ears; ice water dribbled down the back of his neck and under his collar.
Zev found himself staring at a hummock of snow, not only wondering if it was bending or leaning or merely, safely, crouching, but wondering if it were a plant. He was so cold, and none of this was any fun. But almost everyone was outdoors tramping through the snow, making sure the animals had shelter, trying to save young trees from breaking beneath their freezing shrouds.
He worked his way toward Satoshi, on the other side of a line of trees. The snow collapsed and slid, avalanching as Satoshi knocked it free.
Zev joined him and worked alongside him.
"I'm very cold, Satoshi. You look cold too."
"I'm all right," Satoshi said, but his teeth chattered.
"I think we should go inside and warm up."
"In a while," Satoshi said stubbornly. "You go ahead. I want to do a little more."
Zev followed, unwilling to leave Satoshi out alone in the snow. He wondered if hypothermia was less serious on land than in the sea. He doubted it, and he thought Satoshi was right on the edge.
They walked through a stand of young lilac bushes, knocking away the icy blanket to release the bright green leaves, the heavy purple and white blossoms, and the disorienting fragrance of lilacs in the snow.
"Infinity said not to stay out too long." Zev did not like to argue with someone older than himself. Among the divers, it was very bad manners. But this was different. Hypothermia caused confusion in the wisest, most experienced person.