Stephen Thomas hurried from his office.
Victoria's going to kill me for being late, he thought.
And if I tell her I was late because I was in the web pretending to be Feral . . . she'll kill me twice.
Out of habit, he glanced at the DNA sequencer as he headed out of the lab. It had finished working. He expected these results to be as confusing as all the others.
He stopped short.
All the conflicting results between the bacteria from alien, human, and alien human environments suddenly came clear to him.
The test samples were normal.
But the recent samples from Starfarer, the bacteria Stephen Thomas had used as a control, had changed. They had been contaminated.
Stephen Thomas flung his presence through Arachne and into the waiting room of the boat dock. Arachne created an image of the waiting room around him. He was standing, but everyone else was floating in zero g. Vertigo spun the image before him for a moment: it spun, but it did not move. He felt drunk.
The pressure equalized between Starfarer and Europa's boat; the hatch opened.
"Don't let them in!" Stephen Thomas exclaimed.
Europa floated into Starfarer. Androgeos followed, his pleated red kilt flowing around his legs. Gerald Hernminge shook their hands in greeting. Europa's meerkats bounced in after her.
"Oh, shit!" Stephen Thomas said.
"What a charming welcome, Stephen Thomas," Europa said. "How nice to see you again, too, and when did you get so tan?"
"You contaminated us!" Stephen Thomas said.
Everyone stared at him.
"Contaminated-7 Victoria said. "But we tested-"
Stephen Thomas ran his hands through his hair, pushing it out of his face; it had come loose again. The swimming webs smoothed the strands behind his ears.
"Are you an ichthyocentaur, too?" Europa asked, surprised. "Why didn't
I notice before?"
"T'he Chi came back clean," Stephen Thomas said. "But . . . I'm coming up there." Stephen Thomas withdrew his image from the waiting room.
Splashing through the muddy spots, wading across a bridge inundated by an overflowing creek, he strode down the path that led to Starfarer's end. He started to run, letting his anger at Europa-and his pleasure in his body-fuel his speed.
By the time Stephen Thomas reached the waiting room, floating in to join the visual cacophony of people, real and virtual, the atmosphere quivered with tension. The meerkats hovered together, each in sentry position.
"Explain yourself, Stephen Thomas," Professor Thanthavong said. He had never seen her so distraught.
"The bacteria have changed," Stephen Thomas said. "The free-living, garden variety soil bacteria. Sometime between now and the last time we took samples-"
"After the missile attack," Professor Thanthavong said. "As a precaution. What do you mean, 'changed'?"
"Their DNA fingerprints are the same. That's what confused me for so long." Everyone except Professor Thanthavong and Europa looked confused.
"When DNA mutates, the print changes. It's almost impossible to put in an alteration that doesn't change the print." He glanced at Europa with grudging admiration. "Quite an accomplishment-to make so many changes without changing the print. Clever. Subtle. Deliberate. Nothing showed up till I did a complete sequence."
"You shouldn't be angry," Europa said mildly. "I gave you the traditional gift for new members of the community."
"Some gift!" Stephen Thomas said.
"It protects your ecosystem!"
"It is unforgivable," Miensaem Thanthavong said.
"I would appreciate it," Victoria said, her voice soft
and tight, "if one of you would explain what you're talking about."
"They supercharged our bacteria," Stephen Thomas said.
Everybody looked at him like they thought he was crazy. We have too damn many specialists, he thought. I'll bet J.D. would know what I was talking about.
"So alien bacteria won't survive," he said.
"You should be grateful," Europa said. "You should pour wine to the gods for such a gift. We've solved a serious problem for you."
"You should have told us!" Professor Thanthavong said. "Asked us! How dare you introduce biological contaminants-!"
"The changed bacteria won't hurt you! They aren't any different from what you're used to, except that they're stronger. As long as they're in their own environment, alien autotrophs won't grow in their presence."
"Can we stop them?" Thanthavong asked.
"Of course not. That's the point."
"Your anger's normal," Androgeos said. He sounded disappointed in them all. "So ordinary. Can't you appreciate what we've done for you?"
"You've fixed it so we can't join the community-"
"You did that yourselves!"
11
-and maybe we can't go home, either."
"Wait a minute." Infinity's image appeared, its background stars and the inspection web. "Andro's fight. I wish Europeans had thought about the problem! Their diseases killed ninety percent of the people in the new world. . . . Europa and Androgeos didn't bring diseases. They brought prevention. Protection."
"I'm glad someone is sensible here," Androgeos said.
"We aren't monsters," Europa said. "We exist to help you join the community. Can't you give us a little help?"
"You should have told us," Thanthavong said stiffly. "Infinity may be right. You may be right. But you should have let us make the choice."
"I'm sorry." Europa sounded sincere.
"J.D.'s going to be really pissed off at you," Stephen Thomas said.
"I think you're all crazy!" Androgeos could restrain himself no longer. "You're objecting to bacteria, when your ship is infested with parasites!
I told you to avoid the squidmoths."
"Parasites?" Stephen Thomas said. "What parasites?"
"The squidmoth egg," Androgeos said.
Victoria nudged Stephen Thomas and gestured toward the small exterior display.
"Christ in a clutch," Stephen Thomas muttered. The thing bulged, moved, nestled deeper into its rocky cradle.
,,The squidmoths don't even bother to raise their children," Europa said. "You'll have a job prying it loose."
"Maybe you'll be lucky," Androgeos said, "and it'll die."
"I don't think so," Infinity said. "It's already changing. It's growing, and it's, I don't know, putting feelers down into the rock."
"Oh, great."
"We are * n't in any danger yet," Infinity said quickly.
"It's only half a meter down, and there's nothing vital anywhere near."
"You should destroy it," Androgeos said confidently.
"No," Victoria said. "Zev was right. J.D. will never forgive us if we destroy it." At least part of her urge to protect it was because Androgeos wanted to be rid of it. "What will happen if we leave it?"
"As you see Andro gestured toward-the im
age.
In the cross-section, mycelia from the egg case extended another handsbreadth into the substance of the wild side's shell.
"Ultimately, I mean. How big will it get?"
Andro shrugged. "Who knows? We have other things to do than follow the life cycle of a squidmoth."
"I want to talk about this," Europa said.
She reached into a deep pocket in her skirt, and drew out an age-mottled jawbone with unsettling proportions. It had lost all its teeth, except a single sharp fang.
"The art project," Gerald Hernminge said.
Europa gazed at Gerald fondly. "Your intelligence gives me hope for our species. Until I inspected the fossil myself, I was inclined to believe in the art project. Clever of you to disguise it so openly." She smiled at Stephen Thomas. "Rather like the bacteria. But this bone is real, it's very old, and it's of critical importance to Civilization. I must see where it came from."