"I don't know ... I'd hate to invade his privacy."
"He didn't leave anything behind to invade. He's not coming back. He quit."
"For good? Are you sure? Why did he quit?"
"I'm not sure I can tell you."
"Is it a secret?"
"No. It's just that it's hard to explain why someone quits when they're brought up to be infinitely polite and never mention when something is wrong or tell you what it is. I don't even know that anything was wrong. Except it must have been, or why would he have quit? He wasn't recalled. Maybe he decided we don't have a chance to get out of orbit. He might have decided to cut his losses."
"Maybe he read the article about the selection process.
Maybe he felt humiliated."
"That article was all speculation," Victoria said.
"Was it?"
Victoria hesitated. The article had claimed that the selection of Starfarer's personnel depended more on political considerations than academic qualifications.
"I don't like to think so," Victoria said. "I like to think my family's application blew all the other possibilities out of contention. But I'll never know if a bunch of politicians got together and looked at the candidates and said, Say, we need more Canadians to make Ottawa happy, and never mind the qualifications. I decided to stop worrying about it."
J.D. followed Victoria uncertainly to another office.
It, too, refused to open.
"This is embarrassing," Victoria said. "I am angry."
"Victoria, please don't go to any trouble for me- I have more than enough room in my house, and that's where all my
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books are. I'll see you later, okay? What should I wear to the party?"
"The party? Oh, anything you like. It's informal, and you dress better than most of us."
J.D. smiled. "It will take a white before I fit in with the Starfarer look," she said. "Most everything I brought with me is new." She shrugged. "Oh well. I never was in the height of fashion."
"Don't worry. I usually don't dress up, but I might tonight because I haven't had a chance to wear my new clothes. Stephen Thomas always dresses up, and Satoshi never dresses up."
"You have an interesting family."
"That's sure true," Victoria said. "What's your family like? Do you have any sisters and brothers?"
J.D. giggled.
"Wrong question?"
"No, not at all," J.D. said. "But it's complicated."
"Tell me." Victoria said, intrigued.
"Okay, you asked for it. My mom was fifty, past childbearing, when she and my dad got together. I have a halfbrother and a half-sister from her previous biological family. Her partner in an intermediate relational family brought along his daughter. He and Mom didn't have any children with each other, but his daughter is also my half-sister."
"You lost me there," Victoria said.
J.D. grinned. "That's where I lose everybody. What happened was, my dad didn't want to father children. Chemical toxin exposure. He worried about gene defects."
"Couldn't he get them fixed?"
"That was expensive and chancy. It was another few years before the technology was perfected. Anyway, when my folks decided they did want to raise a kid together, my dad's full sister donated an ovum and my mom's previous partner donated the sperm."
"So your dad is your half-father and your mother isn't genetically related to you."
"No, it's more complicated than that. My mom is my nuclear mother—induced meiosis and nuclear body transplant into my aunt's ovum,"
14 0 vonda N. Mdntyre
"And you're related to your father through mitochondrial inheritance."
"Right, even though I got the mitochondrial DNA from
his sister. But those are maternally inherited, so Dad's and
his sister's are identical."
Victoria whistled. "That's as complicated a personal pedigree as I ever heard. You have four biological parents?"
"Five, since they needed a surrogate."
"Truly impressive. Family reunions must be interesting."
"We've never had one," J.D. said. "We get along all right, but we aren't particularly close. Cool but cordial."
"What did they say when you joined the expedition?"
" 'Congratulations, dear. Have a good time.' "
"Hm." Victoria contrasted that reaction with the reactions she and her partners had received. Grangrana was quietly and fiercely proud, Stephen Thomas's father disbelieving, and Satoshi's folks ecstatic for him and for them all. Practically the whole range, Victoria thought.
After J.D. left, Victoria hurried back to her own office, sat at her desk, and composed herself outwardly. She cooled her anger, persuading herself that the mix-up about J.D.'s office must be just that, a mix-up. Reacting uncivilly would not help. It might even slow up a correction.
The research display kept catching at the comer of her vision. All she really wanted to do right now was work on her new approach. Instead, she put in a call to the chancellor's office.
J.D.'s remarkably calm about this, Victoria thought. She hasn't spent enough time in the academic worid.
The office was only part of the problem. Until all J.D.'s paperwork went through processing, the bursar would not activate her salary. Victoria had been handling the partnership's accounts since Merry's death. She suspected life could quickly become difficult in the face of a financial setback.
Chancellor Blades had arrived on the transport incoming that Victoria had taken, outgoing, back to earth. She had never spoken to him or met him and she knew very little about him. She wanted to be fair to him. But he was from the U.S., so she found it hard not to suspect that he was
purely a political appointment.
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She supposed he would be at the welcome party tonight.
The rest of the faculty and staff would use the opportunity to welcome him, since he had pled the press of work and declined to have a party of his own. Perhaps it would have been better to wait till then to talk to him . . .
"Chancellor Blades's office." Chancellor Blades's AI answered the call. It possessed a deliberate, soothing voice, a display pattern of pastel colors.
"Victoria Fraser MacKenzie. Director Blades, please."
"The director cannot speak in person at this time," the AI said. "Would you leave a message, please?"
"Yes. Chancellor, there's been an unfortunate oversight.
J.D. Sauvage's appointment hasn't been formally accepted.
Her office is locked. This is awkward. And I'm concerned that her salary not be delayed."
"The message has been placed on his register," the AI said. "Thank you."
The voice and the pattern faded.
Victoria swore softly.
Trying to think of some other way of solving J.D.'s problem, Victoria glanced at the research display. Its moving background figures took her in. Soon another display formed before her. Her thoughts began to manipulate its space. She forgot everything else.
Victoria hurried through the courtyard and into the house.
"I'm late," she said to Satoshi. "I know it, sorry, but I had to get that new manipulation up and running. I think it's a real breakthrough! I'll be dressed in a minute—damn!"
"Victoria, relax. What's wrong?"
"I want to take Ms. Brown some carnations. It won*t take long to dig them—" She opened the storage cupboard and rummaged around for the rock-foam pot she knew was in there somewhere.
Satoshi came up behind her and put his arms around her.
"I'm all ready. I'll dig them for you." He was wearing his usual cargo pants and tank top.
"Would you? That would be great."
"You've got plenty of time. Stephen Thomas just got home, too."
Victoria took a quick shower and stood in front of her 142 vonda N. Mcintyre
closet for a minute, deciding what to wear. Finally she chose her suede pants and the new lace shirt. She liked the way the lace felt, softly scratchy against her skin.