"Ouch, shit, that hurt!"
STARFARERS 161
Victoria leaned down and kissed his ear. "Better?"
"Give it here, I'll put it in." He took the earring from her and put it on. Victoria lay down beside him and put one hand on his hip.
"I'm glad to know you can still talk," Satoshi said.
"You've been awfully quiet since we left the party."
"You remember that conversation we had with Florrie?"
Stephen Thomas asked.
Victoria said nothing, wishing Stephen Thomas had not reminded her about talking with Ms. Brown.
"You hit it off pretty well with her, didn't you?" Satoshi said.
"Yeah, I did. I like her. I thought she'd be reactionary, but she's more open-minded than half the people up here."
"You just like her because she approves of our sleeping arrangements," Victoria said.
"That doesn't hurt. And you don't have to be careful of every word you say to her. But she goes off at a different angle, sometimes."
"What do you mean?" Satoshi said.
"What she said about Griffith."
"He was on the transport," Victoria said. "But I hardly ever saw him. I almost forgot about him."
"He's weird. When Florrie said he was a narc—after she told me what a narc was—I tried to shrug it off." Stephen Thomas shifted uneasily. "But I think we ought to pay attention to her intuition."
"Oh, no, not another aura reader!" Victoria flopped forward and hid her face in Stephen Thomas's pillow.
"I don't know whether she is or not, but / looked at him. Dammit, that guy doesn't have an aura."
"Wouldn't that mean he's dead?" Satoshi asked.
"I don't know what it means," Stephen Thomas said.
"Since he obviously isn't dead."
Victoria raised herself from the pillows and propped her chin on her fists. "Maybe they've been improving robot technology in secret—"
"Laugh if you want. He said he's with the GAO—that may be worse than being a narc. I think he's trouble. Even if he's just an ordinary government accountant."
162 vonda N. Mclntyre
"There's not much we can do about him that I can see."
"There's got to be something." Stephen Thomas lay back and stared at the ceiling with his arms crossed over his chest, as if he intended to try to think of something right now, and stay where he was until he succeeded.
The solar sail drew Starfarer beyond the orbit of the moon.
During its construction, the starship held steady in the li-bration point leading the moon. With the sail deployed, Star-
farer accelerated out of its placid orbit. Each imperceptible increment of velocity widened and altered its path.
•y Because the starship took longer to circle the earth in its
wider orbit, the moon began to catch up to it. Soon it would
II I
pass beneath Starfarer, and the ship would use the lunar passage to tilt its course into a new plane.
•i- As the orbit increased in complexity, the logistics of trans
* '" port to Starfarer would become more difficult and more expensive.
In the middle of Starfarer's night, Iphigenie DuPre set in
motion the interactions of gravity and magnetic field and so-
11 lar wind to tilt the starship out of the plane of the lunar orbit. *'\ The angle would grow steeper and the spiral wider: the sail
*' plus the effect of traveling past the earth and the moon would
* soon drive the ship toward a mysterious remnant of the cre-
* - alion of the universe, a strand of cosmic string that would
* provide Starfarer with superluminal transition energy.
Starfarer prepared for lunar passage. Afterward, it would
be well and truly on its way. i /•
* Grangrana was making breakfast. Victoria could smell bis-y cuits, eggs, a rice curry. Coffee.
ll. Coffee? In Grangrana's house?
•Jk Victoria woke from the dream. She was on board Starfarer,
M, 163
164 Vonda N. Mcintyre
Grangrana remained on earth. The straight up-and-down sunlight of morning, noon, and evening reflected from the porch. Nevertheless, she smelled breakfast.
Satoshi, beside her, half opened his eyes.
"Is that coffee?"
"Uh-huh."
"Your friend Feral can stay if he wants," Satoshi said, and went back to sleep.
Victoria smiled, kissed the curve of his shoulder, tucked the blanket around him, and slid out of his bed.
In cutoffs and one of Satoshi's sleeveless shirts, Victoria went out to the main room. Stephen Thomas was up and dressed, in flowered cotton Bermuda shorts and a purple silk shirt. Victoria remembered rising partway out of sleep in the middle of the night when he left Satoshi's room and returned to his own.
Victoria dodged around Stephen Thomas's still.
"Good morning."
"Hi." The circles beneath his eyes had faded. He looked better this morning, not as shaken as after the party. But if he had thought of what to do about Griffith, he made no mention of his plans.
"Morning." Feral set a pot of tea in front of Victoria as she sat down.
"This is a real treat for us, Feral," Victoria said. "But you don't have to make breakfast every morning." The pleasure of having breakfast cooked and waiting gave her mixed emotions- She missed having a family manager, but it seemed disloyal to enjoy it when someone else did the tasks Merit had always smoothly, almost invisibly, taken care of.
"I know. I like to cook." He grinned. He had mobile, expressive lips that exposed his even white teeth when he smiled. "And everything I made this morning will reheat. Satoshi can sleep in if he wants to."
"Speak of the devil," Stephen Thomas said.
Satoshi arrived wrapped in his threadbare bathrobe, his wet hair dripping down his neck.
"Stephen Thomas, there's no clean laundry," he said in a neutral tone. "And you used the last towel."
"Uh-oh," Stephen Thomas said.
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"You might at least have hung it up so I could use it."
"It was wet," Stephen Thomas said.
"Yeah, welt, so am I." Satoshi accepted a cup of coffee. "Thanks, Feral."
Victoria sometimes wished Satoshi would simply blow his stack. He hardly ever did.
Stephen Thomas sighed. "I'll do some laundry. Today. A little later. Okay?"
Satoshi did not answer him.
"Want some curry?" Feral said.
"Sure." Satoshi wiped the sides of his face and his neck where water had dripped from his hair. His elbow stuck through a hole in the blue terry cloth. He had gotten away with bringing the robe to Starfarer by using it as packing material when they first moved here. He needed a new one, but terry cloth was far too heavy and bulky for an ordinary allowance.
Satoshi dug around in the cupboard among his collection of condiments. There was a hole in the back of the robe, too, just below his left hip. His tawny skin showed through it. Victoria was glad he hated sewing and would probably never darn the battered fabric.
Feral brought breakfast to the table. Satoshi opened the new hot chili paste.
"I'm looking forward to trying this stuff."
Feral laughed. "Don't tell me they import that here."
"Victoria brought it up in her allowance. What's life without red chili paste?"
"Quieter," Victoria said, and Satoshi smiled.
"This is pretty hot already." Feral offered Satoshi the curry.
"Good."
Feral passed the food around and sat across from Satoshi.
As she watched Satoshi put chili sauce on his curry and on his eggs, Victoria hoped he and Feral would not get into a competition of who could eat the hottest food- Despite long acquaintance with Satoshi, Victoria had never understood the lure of the more violent forms of Cajun, Chinese, or Mexican cooking. Even from a distance, the volatile oils were enough to make her eyes water.