J.D."
She laughed, though Zev's was a perfectly serious comment.
"My family—" She started to describe her family, halfsiblings, half-parents, step-siblings, step-parents, dispersed and recombined. It was an unusual family even in these modern times.
"My family never swims together," she said, and left it at that. "This is a decision I'll have to make by myself. May I have some time?"
"My mother will talk to you tomorrow," Zev said. "That
will be the real invitation. But I think . . . you will have to
decide quickly."
That was the last thing she had expected Zev to say. She had never known the divers to make an important decision in haste.
"Why?"
"I cannot tell you," Zev said. He scooped up the melted
ice cream on the bottom of the bowl with his finger and licked
STARFARERS 13
the chocolate from his knuckle and from the swimming web.
He stood up. "Thank you for the ice cream."
"You're welcome."
He crossed to her and hugged her, holding her close. He was shorter than she. He laid his head on her shoulder, and the curis of his pale hair tickled her skin just below the hollow of her throat. J.D. put her arms around Zev, giving him a big-sisteriy pat on the shoulder. On land the heat of his body was even more noticeable than in the water.
He sighed deeply and stroked her breast. Startled, she put her hand on his, moved his fingers, and drew away.
"What is wrong?"
"You shouldn't do that."
"But why? We touch each other when we're swimming."
"It's different on land, Zev. In the sea it's just playing. On
land, touching is more serious."
"Oh," he said. "You see? We need you, to tell us these things we have forgotten, so we will not forget everything about living on land."
His semi-retractile claws clicked on the linoleum, then his feet scrunched in the gravel of the beach. He moved with a languorous grace, as if he were already in the water. He waded through the gentle surf. The water rose around his legs. When it reached his hips he breaststroked forward and vanished. The waves obliterated the ripple he left behind.
Each wave reached a handsbreadth higher on the beach.
J.D. watched the tide come in. Her tea grew cold.
The invitation gave her more than one decision to make.
Accepting it would completely change her life. She would be able to resurrect her career, though she would have to restrict its focus to a single blended society. The story of the integration of the divers with the orcas deserved to be told. If she accepted, she would be in a position to tell it.
I should have accepted on the spot, J.D. thought.
She could not come up with a single good reason to re-fuse—aside, of course, from the fact that she could be put in jail for becoming a changeling. This frightened her more than she cared to admit. She had been raised to obey authority, not defy it.
This is the best chance you're ever going to have to practice your profession, she told herself. If your application to Star-
14 Vonda N. Mcintyre
farer hadn't been rejected, things might be different. But you were turned down. And, anyway, why should human contact with aliens off the earth be more important than human contact with the beings that live on the same world, and still are alien to us?
The change in her life would include her form. She would become not only a chronicler of the divers, but a diver herself. Somewhere, somehow, the divers would obtain the sensitizing virus, and the changing viruses; they would inoculate her with the one, then with the others. As the changing viruses spread through her body and integrated themselves into her genes, she would begin to change.
She imagined her lungs enlarging, altering, the tissue- of one lobe of each transmuting into a substance like the artificial lung. In that respect the divers differed from other marine mammals: they could breathe underwater, absorbing oxygen directly from the sea.
She would dispense with the metabolic enhancer, because her body would gain the ability to accelerate into a more efficient state. Spreading her strong square hands, she imagined swimming webs between her fingers. She imagined her light complexion darkening to protect her from exposure to the sun, and wondered if her brown hair would pale to gold or red.
She curled her toes to feel phantom claws extending, scratching the floor. Her breasts were heavier and her hips wider than any diver's, and her imagination failed when she tried to think of her body changing to resemble their sleek shape. She wondered if her breasts would shrink and flatten, if her hips would narrow, if the changing virus could alter even a person's bone structure.
The idea of the change both frightened and intrigued her.
She wondered what her family would say. They would not object. Her dad might make one of his offhand remarks, so dry that J.D. often found herself laughing before she realized what was funny, so offbeat she could not imagine what it would be.
The shadows of the Douglas firs lengthened across the beach and pierced the water with their tips. The breeze freshened. J.D. felt cold again, as if she had never really been warm.
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She had to give herself time before deciding. So many factors came into the mix. The opportunity of joining a group of beings that she loved, of telling their story, had to be balanced against the possibility—indeed the probability—that academic colleagues would no longer take seriously the work of a researcher who had, in the old-fashioned phrase, gone native.
And she had to face the legal question of making the change.
Perhaps a few years ago it would not have mattered. It was possible that even now, no one would notice. But if they did, the current fashion of despising science and technology would cause her a great deal of trouble. And that did worry her.
So did Zev's uncharacteristic reluctance to tell her why she would have to make her choice so quickly.
The sun set. Darkness crept into the cabin.
Needing the familiarity of simple actions, J.D. put her teacup in the sink, puttered around straightening up the cabin, and, for the first time all day, asked her web link for mail and messages and the day's report.
It reported.
Victoria's invitation to join the alien contact team suddenly made her life even more complicated.
Victoria watched J.D. as she gazed back at earth. She was glad the contact specialist had agreed to join the expedition on such short notice, after Nakamura quit.
It must have been hard on her, Victoria thought, to be turned down and then invited again. It takes a lot of guts to put aside hurt feelings.
Nevertheless, she wished she knew all the reasons J.D. had changed her mind about staying with the divers. Victoria felt certain that she did not yet have the whole story.
"J.D. ?"
J.D. continued to stare out the window for a moment.
When she turned to Victoria, her expression was wistful,
lonely.
"Time to board the transport."
In low earth orbit, the spaceplane docked with the EarthSpace transport, an ungainly-looking but efficient craft, one of the trucks that ferried cargo and passengers from low
16 Vonda N. Mcintyre
earth orbit to the O'Neil! colonies and the labs, to lunar orbit, and to Starfarer.
As Victoria helped J.D. negotiate the zero-g path from the plane to the transport, she glanced over the passengers sharing the journey. The spaceplane, which should have been full with a waiting list, was half-empty. These days, too few people traveled out to Starfarer. Far too many traveled away, recalled by their governments, or, like Nakamura, giving up in despair.
While the plane resembled a regular jetliner, with well-maintained upholstery and paint, the transport looked more like a tramp freighter. Its workings hung out in plain sight, exposed, growing shabby with age and use.