J.D. moved cautiously toward Nerno's shell. The single free tentacle twitched, its fur standing out, ruffling, smoothing itself.
"I'm here," J.D. said. Her comment spun off into a sleek new surface. Instead of words in Nerno's reply, she discerned a feeling of welcome and gratitude. She sank down next to the chrysalis.
She waited.
The chrysalis began to shift and churn. At first random, the motion evolved into a regular wave of contraction from back to front. A second wave began, opposing the first. The waves canceled each other, separated.
The chrysalis alternated between stillness and slow rippling, like the tides, like birth contractions.
The welcoming surface in J.D.'s mind quivered and fragmented, leaving emptiness.
"Nemo?"
Silence.
One of the mother of pearl circles along Nerno's flank dissolved.
Iridescent liquid splashed out like blood. Tiny fringed appendages probed through the new hole. A small new creature pulled itself free. One after another, the pearl disks melted and dripped away. The creatures dragged their amorphous bodies from Nerno's chrysalis, fell into the mother of pearl puddles, and writhed, splashing and squeaking.
J.D. watched, amazed, frightened, wishing she could do something to help, wishing she knew the normal progress of the change so she could be sure that what was happening was right. Were the new creatures attendants, or were they parasites, feeding on Nemo's flesh?
The new creatures washed themselves in the liquid pearl; their bodies condensed and hardened like organic precious stones. They pulled themselves beneath Nemo's twisting chrysalis.
J.D. reached out spontaneously to grasp Nemo's uncovered tentacle, but stopped with her hand just short of it, taking in its warmth. She was reluctant to cross the last millimeter, afraid her touch might disrupt the change.
The opposing waves of contraction strengthened and met, meshed and augmented. Nerno's chrysalis writhed violently.
The shell burst with the high, tense scream of ripping silk. J.D. held herself motionless by force of will. Her heart pounded.
The edges of the shell pulled apart, shredding and tearing, falling to the floor in ribbons of color. The opening exposed a dark, crumpled, angular mass.
The single tentacle writhed and convulsed and lashed around J.D.'s wrist. It was as hot as an electrical wire with too much current flowing through it. J.D. gripped the tentacle and held it. She thought of comfort, reassurance. She had never borne a child herself, or attended a human childbirth, but she had witnessed an orca bearing her young one. The divers and the orcas had given her the privilege of sharing their joy.
She hoped Ncmo was doing the same.
The angular mass moved. A bundle of sticks rose from the destruction of the chrysalis, drawing with them a fine film like a veined soap bubble, like the swimming webs of a diver's hands. The sticks resolved into fanshaped frameworks, several pairs emerging from the length of the broken chrysalis. The veins engorged; the skin lost its transparency, but its iridescence increased. Delicate scales of color formed a pattern as complex and seductive as the alien maze. The new wings were as thin as gauze, yet J.D. could stare into their depths forever.
She broke her gaze and squeezed her eyes shut, disoriented.
She was scared.
If my instincts about NemO were wrong, she thought, it's too late now.
She shivered, and repeated to herself: It's my job.
It was her job, and she could not change the way she approached it. Maybe eventually-maybe inevitablyshe would regret leaving herself open. But for now she would expose herself to whatever Nemo chose to offer.
The head of the new being emerged last, rising from the tangle of shredded skin. Iridescent facets of chitin interlocked to form its surface, glistening like the carapace of a beetle.
But the eyes were Nemo's, a ring of compound lenses protected by a mobile lid that opened, blinked, and closed halfway, languorous.
Nemo's wings stretched high above her, ten meters, fifteen, reaching to the roof of the chamber, brushing it with their tips. Five sets of wings, and at least one more trapped closed where Nerno's body disappeared into the floor of the chamber.
The wings fluttered. Dry now, they rustled like moths, and J.D. understood the name of Nemo's species. Europa had thought the name an insult, but she had never known its meaning. Embraced and dazzled by the fluttering wings, J.D. felt sorry for the alien humans. They had accepted the judgment of Civilization. They had never given Nerno's people a second thought.
The knowledge both depressed and encouraged her. She had come into space hoping, perhaps, to find a utopian system that would magically rescue Earth from all its problems. At the same time, she feared perfection. She distrusted easy answers.
There are no easy answers, J.D. said to herself. And Civilization isn't the perfect organism Europa represented it to be. They may have the right to judge us. But they don't have the right to judge us without appeal! "Nemo?"
"I am here, J.D."
"I'm glad to have you back," J.D. said.
"I'm glad to be done with the change."
J.D. did not know what to say, because the change meant Nemo soon would
die.
The pearl creatures crawled out from beneath Nerno's body, pulling with them shreds of Nerno's shell. One snatched up a bit of the shredded chrysalis and shoved it into its mouth. The iridescent fragment crinkled like paper and disappeared.
Like a horde of fuzzy ants, the tiniest animals swarmed up Nerno's wings and groomed them.
"I thought you were beautiful before your metamorphosis," J.D. said. "And I think you're beautiful now."
Nerno's wings swept down, brushing JDA face, and up again. They quivered, and the quaking sound filled the chamber with the sound of leaves in the wind. The wings were much more mobile than the wings of moths or butterflies; the articulated framework moved the surfaces like bird wings.
The tentacle around J.D.'s wrist relaxed and drew away. She had almost forgotten it; she flexed her fingers and shook her hand to get the blood flowing again. Nemo brushed her cheek, her shoulder, with the tip of the tentacle.
Creatures crept from folds in the floor, from pores in the curtains, creatures different from the attendants of Nerno's previous form.
A whole group of larger attendants, nearly the size of housecats, bumbled out. They looked like giant sowbugs with a mass of small, slender hind legs and a cluster of thick, pudgy-toed front legs. Each time one bumped into another they slowed, till they all coalesced into a pile.
J.D. turned some of the LTMs toward the new attendants. She let her eyelids flutter, tapping into the transmission, hoping for more information than her own senses could supply.
Her connection to the LTM link exploded, leaving her stunned and confused and frightened.
The attendants scuttled around, multiple feet scrabbling and scratching on the floor in frenzied motion.
They scrambled toward the LTMs and engulfed them, climbing over them, tumbling recklessly.
Nerno's pleading voice penetrated her disturbed link. "J.D., stop, stop." All J.D. could think of to do was shut down the LTMs. They folded beneath the attendants, and cut off their sensors.
The attendants fell away from the LTMs. From giant sowbugs to tentacled shrimp, they withdrew and returned to Nemo's side.
"Nemo, what happened?" J.D. was shaking. The dissolution of the link was too much like what had happened to Feral. "That's how I watched your metamorphosis-I thought it would be safe for you!"
"But, J.D., I am different now," Nemo said, "and my attendants are different."
"I'm so sorry."
She did not know what else to say. She locked all the LTMs-her attendants--on passive systems only, and set them to record.