"That's it," Iphigenie said. "That's as good as it gets. You did well, Victoria. Thank you."
Returning, exhausted, from the sailhouse, Victoria realized that it lacked only a few minutes till the transport's departure. She had vowed not to go to the waiting room, not to bid goodbye to anyone who chose to leave the expedition.
But when she reached the corridor that led to the transport access, she realized her vow was a cruel and petty one.
She pushed off toward the waiting room.
Ten meters ahead, someone wearing long black garments pulled herself doggedly forward, trying to maneuver with one hand while using the other to hold the excess fabric of her long, drifting skirt. Each time she let it go, the skirt crept up around her knees.
Such heavy clothing was rare on board the starship, and Victoria could not think who might be wearing it. She caught up and glanced curiously sideways.
"Alzena!"
The chief ecologist continued without pausing. Her chador covered everything except her hands and her face.
"Where are you going? Why are you dressed like that?"
"I'm going back to earth. I can take only one set of clothes."
"But you can't leave'"
"I must. If I remain, illegally, my family will be shamed."
"What about your work? The ecosystem depends on your knowledge. The whole expedition could succeed or fail—"
"You don't understand, Victoria. You can't. All the branches of your family are Western. My family is different.
I have obligations that have nothing to do with my work."
"So you're going to wrap yourself up in mourning—"
"It is not mourning, and you know it. It is traditional, and I must be wearing it when I reach earth. It's one thing to adopt Western dress up here, in private, quite another to appear in public—there will be cameras . . . My family will see me. I cannot embarrass them."
242 Vonda N. Mclntyre
Victoria looked away. This was a facet of Alzena she had never known about. She would rather not have met the Al-zena who would abandon a position of respect, authority, accomplishment, and freedom, in order to return to a circumscribed existence and submit herself to rule by accident of birth.
The ecologist was correct. Victoria did not understand. She could not understand actions that seemed to her more alien than anything she could imagine encountering in a distant star system.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry for your decision. I'm sorry things worked out this way."
"So am I," Alzena said.
Distressed, Victoria hurried on. leaving the ecologist behind.
J.D. let herself hover by the wall of the transport waiting room. She felt limp and distressed; if there had been any gravity at all here she would have been sitting slumped in a chair. Other soon-to-be-ex-expedition members filled the room. The noise level was high and harsh, but the talk and argument and recriminations and last-minute goodbyes often fell into the middle of strange abrupt silences.
As the transport approached, the public address speaker broadcast the conversation between its pilot and Starfarer's traffic controller. They had a direct radio link, independent of communications satellites. They exchanged information in a sort of technological ritual, just the same as always, as if
nothing had happened.
J.D. knew about the attempted sabotage of Starfarer by the disruption of the web. The web had safeguards, to protect people hooked in during crashes. Someone had deliberately overridden them. J.D. could not understand the mind of someone who would hurt people on purpose. Worst of all, it had to be someone on board Starfarer.
The sabotage had angered a number of people to the point of changing their minds about leaving. J.D. would have been among them if she had been departing for any reason but the divers.
She shivered, closed her eyes, and extended a tentative tendril toward Arachne. If the web was re-formed, if the con-
STARFARERS 24 3
nection to the satellite had been restored, she could ask once more if Zev had been found.
No reply.
She was about to go looking for a hard-link to the computer when Victoria entered the wailing room. She paused in the hatchway and looked around. J.D. averted her gaze, wishing Victoria were seeking someone else, but knowing why she must be here.
The transport docked with a faint low-frequency thud, a faint vibration of the walls.
Even without looking, J.D. knew it when Victoria touched the wall nearby and brought herseif to a halt at J.D.'s side.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Victoria took J.D.'s hand. J.D. flinched, startled by her touch.
"Please," she said. "Victoria, I'm sorry. I have to leave.
I can't—" Her throat tightened. If she kept speaking she would break down.
"I know," Victoria said. "I know it. That's why I came.
To tell you that I do understand. I'm furious, but not at you. I think you're an admirable person. I wouldn't have the courage to do what you're doing."
"Thank you for trying to make me feel better ... " Her smile felt shaky. "It isn't working."
The hatch door opened and people came out. A crowd had already formed around the hatchway. The last transport would be packed. Half its incoming passengers were refusing to disembark. J.D. could not blame them, and besides, as Sa-toshi said, anyone who could be talked out of being on the expedition for any reason probably should not have joined it in the first place.
Though J.D. was one of the passengers who actually held a confirmed reservation, she did not expect to claim her couch. The transport could accommodate all its passengers only because freefall gave them three dimensions rather than two in which to place themselves.
"I hope you find your friend," Victoria said.
"Thank you."
The last few people straggled out of the hatchway. Hardly noticing them, J.D. hugged Victoria, who embraced her
244 Vonda N. Mclntyre
tightly. Finally they drifted away from each other, still holding hands.
"I guess ... "
J.D. noticed a pair of youths, strangely familiar, moving through the waiting room, among the other new people. She lost sight of them.
"I guess I'd better go." Everyone else had already crowded into the transport.
Victoria put one hand on either side of J.D.'s face, leaned forward, and kissed her lips. J.D. felt herself blushing, but did not pull away.
Victoria let her hands slip away from J.D.'s face. Reluctantly, J.D. pushed off from the wall, moving backward through the hatchway.
"Goodbye."
The doors began to close.
"Goodbye."
Beyond Victoria, the strange youths headed for the exterior hatch. One, awkward in weightlessness, pushed off too hard.
She tumbled toward a group of equally inexperienced people.
The other youth, of indeterminate gender, wearing an incongruous baggy business suit and an even more incongruous hat, swam after her, caught her, and steadied her. This youth was an old hand up here, swimming in the air like water-Even as J.D. thought, It couldn't be! she lurched forward through the last crack between the closing doors. They slammed open, then shut again as she barreled back into the waiting room.
"Zev!"
The youth in the business suit spun toward her—and continued turning. He pulled off his hat, freeing his astonishing pale hair, and flung the hat hard in the opposite direction of the spin. His rotation slowed. He touched the wall and launched himself toward J.D.
"J.D. ! I did not see you—how did you know I was coming? We thought we kept it a secret. I have a different name
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarers.txt now. And I am Chandra's assistant."
J.D. looked at him, baffled. He dodged around her, skimming past her, very close, never touching her.