An hour before, Infinity had watched a cloud form diagonally far-overhead, close to the spiral path that would bring
146 Vonda N. Mcintyre
it over the hill garden just as the party was about to start. Rain had not been predicted anywhere on campus till later tonight, but even inside a starship, weather remained wild and free. Inside a starship it was only gently wild, but a drizzle would dampen a party as badly as a downpour.
The cloud drifted by. shadowing the garden. Infinity stood outside, watching it and talking to it in an undertone. Perhaps it listened. As its edge trailed past, it sprinkled a few drops onto the hill, leaving the air fresh and the flowers sparkling and the grass barely damp. Infinity thanked the cloud.
Arachne had arranged to leave bright one section of the sun tubes. A great shaft of sunlight washed down over the hill, keeping the garden full day while the rest of the campus lay dark, spangled here and there with light. Infinity would have preferred lanterns, strung light bulbs, even darkness and fireflies, but the attention, the trouble someone had gone to-even if the someone was a computer—clearly thrilled FIorrie.
Infinity took a glass of fruit juice and wandered out into the garden. The area around the hill lay in bright sunshine. Sunshine on campus was always noon in direction; only its intensity varied as the day progressed. Darkness encircled the pool of light.
Most everybody stood in clusters more or less on the paths, either because of the dampness or because they understood that the grass needed a few more weeks of growth in which to become established. Wildflowers glowed with jeweled colors. They had bloomed just in time, and Infinity felt pleased.
As far as Infinity could tell from the conversations he overheard, the guests had made a tacit agreement, just for tonight, not to discuss the troubles facing the expedition. They sounded more cheerful and relaxed than almost everyone had been for a long time.
He had worried that the guests might be bored with nothing but snacks and fruit juice, but no one appeared to mind the lack of mood-altering refreshments. The campus kitchen would supply food and drink for any reasonable gathering, but did not consider beer or wine to be nutritional necessities.
Infinity found alcohol uninteresting as a recreational drug, so he had never bothered to leam to make either beer or wine, nor had he gone out of his way to make friends with anyone who did. As for importing anything stronger from the
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O'NeiIls, that was out of the question on his salary even if he had had time to arrange it. The expedition paid him better than any job he could get on earth, but nothing like what it cost to import luxuries.
He sipped his fruit juice and sidled through the flower garden till he stood among the cactuses, in the penumbra between light and dark. He hoped people could see well enough out here; pulling cactus spines out of somebody's hand, or their butt, was no picnic.
Voices approached, disembodied by the darkness. A group of four people appeared out of the shadows. The alien contact team stood at the edge of the garden, still chatting with each other as they blinked and squinted and waited for their eyes to accustom themselves to the illumination. Infinity knew Stephen Thomas slightly; the geneticist had asked him for advice on planting grapevines. J.D. Sauvage was an unknown, and Satoshi and Victoria he had barely met. The personnel of the expedition liked to believe they avoided dividing themselves along class lines, but gardeners and scientists had very little to do with one another.
The team members strolled through the garden toward Florrie's house. Victoria carried a carnation plant, Satoshi a reed mat, Stephen Thomas a paper scroll.
Infinity took note of the alien contact specialist. She was plain and heavyset, pleasant enough but unmemorable. He wondered what alien contact specialists did.
The three old hands took J.D. through the garden, introducing her to everyone they passed. People greeted her and welcomed her and gave her small gifts.
"Victoria!" Someone Infinity did not know loped across the yard toward the team.
"Hi, Feral. Enjoy your first day on StarfarerT'
"It's fantastic—!'*
Kolya Cherenkov's voice spun toward Infinity out of the darkness, that odd, low, powerful voice. Kolya, too, paused at the edge of the light to let his eyes adjust. He continued talking, though he stared straight ahead and never glanced toward his companion.
Griffith stepped into the light and stopped beside Cheren-kov.
Griffith gave Infinity the weirdest feeling. An easygoing 148 Vonda N. Mcfntyre
man, Infinity seldom took an immediate dislike to anyone. In Griffith's case, he was willing to make an exception. He disliked his pushiness, he disliked his rudeness and his disrespect toward Florrie. Infinity admired Cherenkov, too, but Griffith's reaction bordered on worship. Such intensity in any area of life struck Infinity as dangerous.
Infinity had been on campus since before there was a campus, and had never met Cherenkov before today; Griffith, having just arrived, had spent the whole day with the cosmonaut. Disgusted with himself for feeling jealous. Infinity turned away from the pair and headed for the house to make sure everything was going smoothly.
Florrie sat in the window seat with her guests arrayed in concentric circles around her. She wore black pants, and red ankle boots over them, a long fringed black tunic, and black eye makeup.
The alien contact team approached her. J.D. turned aside to put the awkward handful of presents people had given her in a neat stack in the corner.
Victoria handed Florrie the carnations.
"I hope you're getting settled in," she said. "I hope you like Starfarer."
"Yes . . ." Florrie said. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name—?"
"Victoria—from the transport?"
"Oh ... of course." Florrie bent down to sniff the carnations.
Looking puzzled, Victoria stepped back.
Satoshi handed her the mat.
"It's not the same as having a rug," he said apologetically. "The mats last for quite a while, though."
"Thank you. You made this yourself?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Stephen Thomas knelt formally at her feet. Bowing slightly, he offered her a scroll that he held in both hands.
She untied the ribbon, unrolled the paper, and read it. Perplexed, she looked up at him. "A tea ceremony? I don't think
I ..."
"I'm trying to add the cultural roots of my family to my own personal landscape," he said- "Tea ceremony is an an-
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cient Japanese custom. I'm learning it, and I'd like to do it for you sometime."
"Are you . . . Japanese?"
"No, but that's part of Satoshi's background. I keep trying to get him to study it, too, but he doesn't want to."
"My family is pretty well Americanized," Satoshi said.
"And I'm trying to trace Victoria's family so I know what to study from Africa."
"Dream on," Victoria said, in a tone that sounded to Infinity just a shade bitter. "It would make more sense to study some Canadian customs, eh?"
"I would," Stephen Thomas said, "but I don't like beer." Victoria and Satoshi laughed.
"You are all three in the same family?" Florrie asked.
"Right, a family partnership."
Infinity thought the family partnership was a fairiy weird arrangement. No necessity existed anymore to promise sexual fidelity to one person or to a group. He wondered if J.D. Sauvage had to join the partnership in order to become a member of the alien contact team.
Florrie smiled, accepting the old-fashioned system.
"Goodness," she said, "I had no idea young people did that anymore. I was born in a commune. Sit here near me.
I'm sorry I don't have any chairs."
Stephen Thomas continued to kneel at her feet, like the hero of a martial-arts interactive, attending the dowager empress of Japan. Stephen Thomas looked pretty good, sitting seiw. Infinity thought, though he ducked his head loo far when he bowed.