"What?"
"Nothing. Nothing that hasn't happened before. But never on this scale."
"What?"
"My communication budget is running low."
"You can use my credit. Come on."
"You're going to try to find this guy from way out here?" Stephen Thomas said.
"From way down there, if necessary."
J.D. left the office.
Stephen Thomas followed. "J.D. ! If you go to earth now, you might not be able to get back!"
"I know it. I can't help it."
"But—"
She swung angrily around. He stopped short.
"If he's in trouble, it's my fault! If he's in trouble and Lykos finds out where he is before I do, she and the other divers will leave whatever haven they've found to go and get him."
"Why?" His voice was full of skepticism and amazed disbelief.
"Because he's part of their family. Because that's how divers are."
198 vonda N. Mdntyre
The derision vanished from his expression. "I wish—" he said. "Never mind. But if there's any way I can help you, I will."
"Thank you," she said, startled into curtness.
"Iphigenie!"
The sailmaster turned and waited for Victoria.
"Are you going back out?"
"Mm-hmm. I feel more comfortable watching the sail."
"Would you take a look at this?" Victoria handed Iphigenie the module that held her new string calculations.
"What is it?"
"Results out of a new symbolic manipulation. Usable results."
"Why do you want me to look at them?" she said. "I'm in charge of intrasystem navigation. Not transition."
' 'I ran some other numbers. If you use the sail during lunar passage, we could take this approach ... "
Iphigenie looked at Victoria, looked at the module, and gave it back.
"I don't think so," she said.
"But it's faster, more efficient, and . . . sooner." The module lay cool in Victoria's hand. "Just take a look. Please."
"But transition's already planned! And I'm not finished testing the sails." Iphigenie did not take the module. "It's too risky!"
Victoria laughed. "Riskier than what we're already planning?"
"I suppose not," Iphigenie said, nonplussed. "But why do you want to change things?"
"Have you figured out whether Starfarer can outrun a transport if it has to?"
"No."
"It can't," Victoria said. "And we won't be out of range for weeks."
"Of course not. We planned it that way. We have a lot of supplies still to take on."
"So if... what Professor Thanthavong said, happens, we'd have no way to stop it, eh?"
STARFARERS 199
Iphigenie pushed her hands across the tight braids of her black hair.
"It won't come to that. It can 'r."
"Don't be naive."
"Victoria, if we're called back, I'm the one who has to take the order. I'm the one who has to reverse the sail and decelerate ... I don't want to do that."
"I know you don't. But everything that's happened makes me think that's what's next. No matter what we do."
Iphigenie pointed with her chin toward Victoria's hand, toward the module carrying the new calculations.
"Sooner, you said?"
"Much sooner. The string section we're aiming for now is way to hell and gone out by the orbit of Mars. If you change the sails as we go around the moon, if we use the new solution . . . we'd only need one pass around the moon."
"One!"
"Yes. We'd be aiming for the nearest point on the string."
Iphigenie frowned. Victoria could imagine her setting up the problem in her mind, solving it. The sailmaster rocked back on her heels, astonished.
"Tomorrow! We'd encounter the string late tomorrow! But we're not ready. We're not supplied, half our people are gone."
"We're being set up to be stopped!"
"What about the people who are planning to stay behind?
What about the rest of us? Everyone has agreed to a certain plan. If we do this secretly, the expedition members will be people who have been lied to and abducted. They'd rebel, and I couldn't blame them."
"I don't intend to do this in secret. A transport docks tomorrow, just before lunar passage." Victoria discussed outrageous possibility with deliberate calm. "After passage it can leave again, right on schedule. Anybody who wants to can go."
Iphigenie gazed blankly through her.
"The alternative," Victoria said, "is getting slapped down to low earth orbit."
"Are you sure of your solution?"
"Yes."
2 00 vonda N. Mdntyre
Victoria held out her hand and opened her fingers. As if in stow motion, Iphigenie reached out and took the module.
"That is," Victoria said, "I'm as sure of those numbers as I was of the others."
Iphigenie snorted. She, like everyone on board, was aware of the inherent uncertainty in cosmic string solutions. The uncertainty was small . . . but it existed.
"I'll look at it," Iphigenie said.
"Thank you."
Iphigenie started away. A few paces on, she turned back.
"You know, Victoria, if I agree to this, we'll be at Tau Ceti without a complete test of the sails. Navigating will depend on a propulsion system that's nearly experimental."
"But you built them. You're the best."
"Yes. Except once you get beyond a certain size, solar sails are all different. You cannot know for sure how they'll behave." She tossed the module in the air and caught it.
"That's the only copy of those numbers," Victoria said.
Iphigenie caught the module and lowered it carefully. The modules were abuse-resistant, but they had limits.
"I didn't have to Join this expedition, you know," she said grumpily. "I could have stayed home and spent my money."
"I know. Why did you join?"
"Because just building the sails wasn't enough. Nor was spending money." She put the module in her pocket and patted it. "I make no promises."
J.D. gave Feral access to her credit account so he could get in touch with his mysterious sources. J.D. herself made a call she wished she could put off.
She expected to have to leave a message for Lykos through
the web. Instead, she reached the diver quickly, voice and
screen both. Lykos looked strange with her pale hair dry,
standing out in loose ringlets instead of soaked with seawater,
slicked against her skull.
"You haven't heard from him, have you?"
J.D. waited through the annoying, awkward pause.
"No," Lykos said. "I would have let you know. I have
been searching."
"Lykos, I think it's possible that he's been kidnapped."
STARFARERS 2 01
When J.D.'s message reached Lykos, the expression on the diver's narrow, wild face changed from distraught to confused to angry.
"Only one entity would do such a thing, and 'kidnapped' is not the proper word for it. Let us speak plainly, J.D. Because of his family's actions, he has been taken into custody, arrested—he is under restraint."
"It's possible—but if they offer to trade his freedom for your return, you've got to say no and you've got to make it public. You've got to make everything public."
"At the risk of Zev's life?"
"The one thing they can't afford is to hurt him! If we can get any proof—even any evidence—that he's under arrest, they'll have to let him go. He hasn't done anything!"
"He has refused to spy for them."
"He's got no obligation to spy for them, and they have no authority to make him. Oh, Lykos, don't let them use your loyalties against you."
The diver spread her fingers and smoothed her springy hair with the translucent swimming webs. J.D. had seen divers on their return from weeks-long trips with the whales, and she had never seen anyone as drained with exhaustion as Lykos.
"We cannot abandon him, J.D."
"I know it. I do know it. I can't either. I promise you—"