"We picked up something kind of strange, in transition," he said.
There was a long silence.
"It wasn't there before," Infinity said.
"Are you sure?" Victoria asked.
"You can look at the scans if you don't believe me!" he snapped.
Esther glanced at him, startled. Infinity looked away, embarrassed by his own outburst.
"I didn't mean Victoria said. "I'm just sur
prised."
"Yeah. Join the club."
"Maybe it's interstellar trash," Esther said. "You know . . . Civilization's landfill?"
It was Infinity's turn to give Esther a skeptical glance. She shrugged and grinned.
"Just-a suggestion," she said.
She stretched up and laid her gloved hand on the bulging surface.
"Be careful!" Infinity said.
"It's kind of hot," Esther said. "And it's moving."
"It's one of Nerno's egg cases!" Zev's voice appeared out of nowhere, followed by his image.
"Oh, nonsense," Victoria said.
441t is.,,
"How could it be, Zev? It resembles one, but Nerno's egg cases are back in the Sirius system."
Griffith's image appeared. He and Kolya perched precariously on the inspection web of Starfarer's campus cylinder.
"I think we should get rid of it," Griffith said. "I'll go over and pry it loose-"
"No!" Victoria said. "Don't do anything. Do you hear me? Kolya, tell hirn-!"
"It might destroy the ship!" Griffith exclaimed. "It's a risk I-" "Petrovich, Victoria's right." "if it's one of the egg cases," Zev said, "J.D. will hate us if we kill it."
"We aren't killing anything," Victoria said. "Whatever it is, I think we should watch it for a while before we decide what to do. I wish J.D. .
. ~ " She stopped speaking for a moment. "Infinity, would you set Arachne to watch it? To keep an eye on it? Please don't you and Esther put yourselves in danger!"
"We'll be careful," Infinity said.
Starfarer disappeared from J.D.'s perception.
She gasped, first frightened, then hopeful. Starfarer must already have reached normal space on the other side of its flight path.
She waited impatiently to follow it across the border at the edge of transition.
Instead of fleeing, the alien starship decelerated. Soon Starfarer was gaining on it. The details of its surface grew clearer. Arachne displayed the pattern of its islands and lakes, confirming Victoria's judgment of its identity.
Unless, Victoria thought dryly, the interstellar community only makes its starships in a few models. . . .
Arachne's warm touch notified her of an emergency message. She accepted it.
The maze of the alien humans formed itself, twisting and complex, as fascinating and beautiful as ever. And as uncommunicative.
I hate that maze, Victoria thought, startling herself with her vehemence. The maze faded; Europa's image appeared in its place. The Minoan was exquisitely beautiful, her cinnamon-colored skin clear and perfect despite her age, the brightness and blackness of her eyes enhanced by narrow lines stroked onto her eyelids, her graying hair in perfect ringlets, dressed with strands of silver so artfully crafted that they moved like living things.
"It's beginning to look a little crowded in here," Jenny said.
The alien human, survivor of the Minoan civilization, smoothed her homespun skirt and smiled at Victoria as if she were a beloved, errant child.
"Hello, Victoria," Europa said. "I'm very glad to see you.
"Hello, Europa," Victoria said, astonished. "I didn't expect such a warm welcome."
"We have things to talk about."
Androgeos appeared beside her. He was as beautiful as Europa, though he maintained himself at a much younger apparent age. They were both small, about Victoria's height, narrow-waisted, and muscular, especially in the thighs. Victoria always wondered if they practiced bull-leaping.
"Is Alzena all right?" Victoria asked.
"Alzena is no concern of yours anymore," Androgeos said. His tone was nowhere near as friendly as Europa's. "Alzena is gone to you."
"Is she all right?"
"She wants her privacy," Androgeos said. "Can't you understand that?" "Certainly I can. Thank you for answering my question."
"Now answer mine," Androgeos said. "Do you intend to turn the Four Worlds into an empty system, the same as you've done to Sirius? There are people here, not just squidmoths."
Zev arrowed into the sailhouse, missed Jenny by a handsbreadth, passed rudely through the holographic images of the alien humans, touched off from the transparent wall, and came to a graceful, perfect stop beside Victoria. "What about-" Zev exclaimed.
"Shh!" Victoria said.
Zev grabbed her hand, panicked. Maintaining a calm expression took all Victoria's strength. She squeezed his fingers, trying to comfort him, but she was worried about J.D., too. If what Androgeos said was
true, if J.D. had not entered transition before the final withdrawal of the cosmic string, then she was stranded. Without the support of a living ecosystem, without supplies . . . she would die.
"If you're so worried about the Four Worlds," Satoshi asked, "why'd you lead us to them?"
"I'll explain that when I see you," Europa said. "May I visit? I'd like to talk to you face to face."
The terraformed, anomalously massive asteroid approached, changing its course without apparent effort, moving to draw Starfarer into orbit around it. Jenny turned the sail edge-on to the star, so the light pressure would not interfere with the gravitational attraction.
"A few days ago you couldn't wait to see the last of us. Why do you want to visit us now?"
"If you plan to chase Andro and me to the end of the universe, we have to come to some arrangement."
"Does anyone have any objections?" Victoria asked. Almost everyone on board would be listening to and watching the conversation.
The silence stretched out.
"I believe," Gerald Hemminge said, "that another conversation would be . . . an excellent idea."
"All right, then." Victoria did not, however, intend to let Gerald take over this encounter the way he had the last one. "Europa, you may bring your boat to Starfarer. "
Stephen Thomas struggled from his communications fugue. His brain felt bruised. He withdrew from Feral's temporary guest account, into the safety of his own permanent neural node.
Now he knew for certain that Feral's murder had been deliberate.
He was not certain he could prove it, not without subjecting someone else to the experience he had just been through. But he was certain it had happened.
Stephen Thomas was lucky. If he had matched Feral's profile better, if Arachne's unconscious memory of the search and destroy routine had echoed stronger, he would be dead. Expecting pain, constriction, nausea, Stephen Thomas took a deep breath, hesitated, and pushed himself to his feet.
His body responded. The aches had faded. His new claws itched with potential. The sharp stab to his pelvis had subsided and the awkward, embarrassing constrictions eased. He felt reborn: comfortable, powerful, exuberant.
Gingerly, apprehensively, he unfastened his pants and let them slide down his hips.
He no longer looked like an ordinary man. Nor did he look like a woman. His body had formed a neat pouch enclosing his genitals. He looked like he was wearing string bathing trunks, without the string. The line of dark gold hair below his navel widened into a sleek patch of thicker fur that tapered between his legs.
The new muscles responded to his thought. His penis, pink-gold and sensitive, probed beyond the opening and slipped through the soft fur.
The pain, even the threat of pain, evaporated.
He was tempted-but he let the extending muscles relax. When he tightened the retracting muscles, his penis slid back inside the pouch through the tantalizing texture of his fur.
Stephen Thomas fastened his pants and glanced at Arachne's display. Astonished by too much information to take in all at once, he forgot his own changes. A new star system. Four inhabited planets. Technological civilizations. And . . . Europa's boat approaching Starfarer, about to dock. The alien humans had returned, and half the alien contact department was not even there to meet them. J.D. had an excuse-he checked quickly; she had not caught up to Starfarer. Nemo's ship was nowhere to be seen.