"I told everybody-!" Infinity cut off his outburst and continued, more quietly. "Come on, Chandra, you've been outside too long. You, too, Satoshi."
He took off his outer coat, started to put it around Chandra's shoulders, but suddenly changed his mind and gave her his heavy inner shirt instead. When he put his coat back on he felt the inside pocket as if he was afraid he had lost something.
"Where does she live?"
"I don't know," Zev said. "But Satoshi's house is over there, and it has a big bathtub."
Infinity looked very worried. "Damn, if people didn't pay attention . .
."
Infinity let his eyelids flicker, going into a communications fugue with Arachne. Zev felt a warm spot at the back of his mind that meant an emergency message. He grabbed at it, hoping it was from J.D. He glanced at the exterior planetoid image, which had followed him obediently into the lilacs.
The emergency message was not from J.D.; it was the message Infinity had just sent to everyone on board, warning them again not to stay out too long.
Chandra had apparently read the message, too.
"You just told me that," she said querulously, as Infinity led her across the field. Zev followed, pulling Satoshi along.
With Zev helping Satoshi and Infinity helping Chandra, the cold little group reached the partnership's house. Inside, the warmth of the air closed in around Zev but barely touched him. He wished he were bathing in the hotsprings where the divers lounged and played.
Stephen Thomas sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in a red kimono, drinking hot tea. His wet clothes lay in a pile near the door, soaking one of Satoshi's floormats.
"I was about to come looking for you guys," Stephen Thomas said mildly to Satoshi. Then Infinity came in
with Chandra. "Christ on a toboggan, what happened to her?"
"Is there more tea?" Infinity said.
Stephen Thomas had already jumped up to get more mugs.
Satoshi stared at the water dripping from his clothes and hair onto one of the floor mats he had made. He moved off the mat, but stumbled. Stephen Thomas steadied him, wrapped Satoshi's hands around a warm mug, and held them there. With his help, Satoshi sipped the tea.
Zev hurried down the hall to the bathroom, shedding his wet, cold clothing. By the time he reached the blue glass tub, the household controller had already responded to Stephen Thomas's orders. Hot water gushed into the tub, and the rock-foam floor heated itself. He felt much better naked, with warm air folding itself around him, warm stone beneath his feet.
Infinity and Stephen Thomas followed him into the big bathroom, bringing Chandra and Satoshi.
"I got some good stuff." Chandra sounded drowsy. Zev had heard her say the same thing before-when she nearly drowned in the divers' wilderness, before he got her to the artificial lung.
"Don't go to sleep!" Infinity chafed Chandra's hands. "What you almost got is frostbite," he said. "Not quite, but close."
Stephen Thomas helped Satoshi into the big tub. Infinity turned Chandra toward it, too, but she held back.
"I don't like water," she said.
Zev jumped into the tub. The hot water stung his chilled feet.
"It's okay, Chandra," he said. "Remember? You were okay when you swam with me."
He took her cold hand and drew her forward. She resisted, then relaxed and came to him and stepped delicately over the rim and into the water.
The tub was more than big enough for three people. Maybe land people liked bathtubs they could nearly swim in. That seemed strange to Zev, to want to be in a
place not quite big enough for swimming. He gave up trying to figure it out, and let himself sink into the tub beside Chandra. She had stopped shivering. She held her teacup close to her face, breathing the fragrant steam.
Lying between Zev and Chandra, but with his feet pointed the other direction, Satoshi was coming back to himself. Stephen Thomas sat on the edge of the tub, mostly covered by the kimono. Zev wondered how his changes were progressing. Claws had begun to form in the clefts where Stephen Thomas used to have toenails.
"I don't believe I said that stuff," Satoshi said. "Sad for the little trees? God."
"You get confused when you get hypothermia," Infinity said. He was the only one of them still fully clothed; he was also the only one of them who had spent time outdoors without getting soaked to the skin. He shrugged inside his heavy jacket.
"Are you okay?" Stephen Thomas asked.
"Yes," Infinity said quickly. "Sure, why?"
"You look uncomfortable."
"It's too hot in here." He let his eyelids flicker. "Esther and Kolya and Griffith are checking on people," he said when he opened his eyes. "I better go help. Will you folks be all right?"
"I think you got to us in time," Satoshi said. "We'll keep an eye on Chandra, though. Thanks."
Infinity left. It seemed to Zev that as well as being uncomfortable he was upset, but no one said anything about that. Stephen Thomas stroked Satoshi's shoulder; Satoshi Jay up to his neck in the hot water and stared into the steam; Chandra . . . who could tell, by looking at her, what Chandra thought or felt?
Satoshi had not even noticed when Zev tried to tell him he was getting too cold, and that made Zev feel hurt. He let himself relax, took a deep breath, and submerged completely in the comforting hot water. His breathing automatically ceased.
He was suddenly surrounded by splashes and shouts. He sat up again, spilling water over the side of the tub.
")What's the matter?"
"I was afraid you'd passed out!" Satoshi said. "I thought you were going to drown!"
"I won't drown," Zev said. "It's warmer, okay?"
"Okay," Satoshi said doubtfully.
Zev took Satoshi's hand, and submerged again, keeping hold so Satoshi would know he had not died.
J.D. gazed through the Chi's transparent wall. Nemo's planetoid had expanded from an obscure point of light to a perceptible disk. The stars spread out beyond it, a field of colorful, dimensionless points. The starship was a shape of variegated light and darkness, approaching fast. It looked different from when she had left.
J.D. glanced toward its image; she asked the Chi for magnification. "Omigosh!"
The surface of each silvered crater no longer lay concave within the rock, but had swelled into a hemispherical bulge. Only the one J.D. had entered remained in its original shape.
Messages flew back and forth and around Starfarer, within Arachne, an excited whisper in the background of J.D.'s mind, as her colleagues discussed the planetoid's changes, noticed new ones, and speculated.
"Nemo!" She sent the communication direct, without thinking or worrying about it, without the usual hesitation of direct contact with another being.
"I am here, J.D."
"Your ship--your body . . . it's changing."
"My body is changing," Nemo agreed.
"I'll be there soon."
"I am anxious to see you."
The Chi closed in on the worldlet, spurred by JDA anxiety, edging close to the safety limit of its fuel supply.
THE C111 LANDED NEAR NEMO'S CRATER. The tunnel extension remained, lying relaxed on the ground. It rose like a snake and fastened itself around the airlock. J.D. waited impatiently for the lock to cycle. As soon as it opened, she hurried into Nerno's warm, caustic air, plunged down the slope, and followed the intricate path by memory and scraps of the lifeline.
Eagerly, she anticipated the touch of Nerno's speech through her new link. She could almost, but not quite, recreate the multidimensional spaces Nemo had shown her. She reached for them, tantalized; they remained just beyond her grasp.
"Nemo, I'm coming."
"I am anxious to see you," Nemo said again.
She burst into Nerno's chamber, into warm bright light. Her throat burned. Everything was silent, motionless. The silken sacs bulged, waiting. J.D.'s LTMs perched halfway up the surrounding curtains, watching, recording, electronically probing the plump and iridescent chrysalis.