"Strosvuitye."
Griffith turned, disbelieving. From the doorway, Cheren-kov regarded him with an expression as matter-of-fact as his voice.
"My faith in human nature is obviously at a low ebb,"
STARFARERS 24 9
Cherenkov said. "Otherwise I might have expected to see you here. You did understand what I said to you, didn't you?"
Griffith could not trust himself to answer the question. "I didn't expect to see you," he said. "This is the last place I expected to see you. What are you doing down here?"
"The same as you. Trying to save the expedition. Acting an old part, the part of an unregenerate hero." He spoke drily, self-deprecatingly.
"You can go back up, then," Griffith said. "There's no need for you to leave the expedition."
"You said you wanted to be like me, and I said you were a fool for it. You're still a fool."
"Thanks a lot," Griffith said. "What do I have to do, to make you—" He stopped.
"If you jump out into space and call for the carrier to rescue you, it won't turn aside from its prey. Its masters will not permit it."
"I think I know them better then you do, and you're wrong."
"I will not let you enter the airiock, Marion," Cherenkov said.
"How are you going to stop me?"
"I may be out of practice, but one does not forget certain survival techniques." He smiled. "Especially when one performs them against an opponent handicapped by spacesuit legs halfway down around his ankles."
"Don't laugh at me!" Griffith jerked the bottom of the spacesuit straight so he was no longer hobbled by the legs.
The back hung down behind him like an enormous tail. Che-renkov was right about his being handicapped, less by the suit than by his desperate wish not to fight with the cosmonaut.
"You can't seriously think I'd let you jump out instead!"
"That would be the more rational course," Cherenkov said.
"Because you're sure they will turn around to go get you?
That's fucking egotistical."
"I'm not sure. But I am sure that I have the better chance of slowing them long enough for Starfarer to reach transition."
"Maybe we ought to both jump out," Griffith said sarcastically.
250 vonda N. Mcintyre
"All right," Cherenkov said. "That would be an acceptable compromise."
Griffith hesitated.
"No," he said. "I can't allow it."
Curious, Cherenkov cocked his head. "But why? I'm sorry if I hurt your pride, believing your superiors will not stop to rescue you. Is that any reason to abandon a version of the plan that would work?"
"It's too risky," Griffith hesitated. "If they won't stop for me ... maybe they won't stop for you, either." "I see." Cherenkov let his long legs fold up; he sat on the stone floor and gazed at Griffith.
"You don't want to fight me, either," Griffith said. "I'll take that as a compliment." He managed to smile. "Checkmate."
"Not yet," Cherenkov said. "Only check."
J.D. watched Victoria soar away without a backward look.
She hesitated, tempted to follow. But surely Victoria would have asked for her help if she had wanted it. Besides, J.D. did not want to leave Zev.
"Just tell me where there's a link!" Chandra said. "God forbid I should use any of your precious time."
"I'm sorry," J.D. said. "Things are a little complicated up here right now. Come on, I'll find you a place to transfer your information."
She and Zev towed the artist out of the waiting room, past the people listening, fascinated and appalled, to the conversation between Slarfarer traffic control and the transport pilot.
"Zev, where were you all this time? Lykos has been worried, and I was just about to go back and help look for you."
"It was exciting. We almost got arrested."
" 'We'? You and the other divers? I thought—"
" 'We,' him and me," Chandra said. "I almost let them.
I've never been arrested, it would have been good stuff to collect. But they didn't look like regular police, and I was afraid it would take too long to get out."
"I suspect that's an understatement," J.D. said.
She led them down the corridor toward one of the auxiliary equipment rooms.
STARFARERS 251
"Do'both of you realize that we're headed for transition right now? That if you stay, you'll be on the starship permanently? The expedition may be longer than we planned . . . we've gotten ourselves in a lot of trouble."
Chandra laughed. "You think / was making an understatement? ''
"There's still time to get on the transport."
"J-D.," Zev said, "it would be silly to get on the transport. It is not going anywhere." He loosened his tie and pulled it off.
"I hope they change their minds about that, because Star-farer isn't about to change course."
"We can't go back," Chandra said. "By now they'll have figured out that my assistant doesn't exist, and maybe they'll have figured out who he really is. Besides, I'm in the art department, I signed on for the trip."
"Me, too," Zev said cheerfully. He pulled the shirttail out of his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt so it flapped behind him.
"All right . . . Whoa, stop."
They turned in at the equipment room.
"There's a link."
Chandra dove toward it. She would have piled headfirst into the wall if J.D. had not grabbed her as she passed. She had nothing to hold on to, to stop her, but their combined mass slowed them so they drifted to a halt before the console. Chandra did not notice. She hooked in with Arachne, fitting the direct sensors over her head.
The rhythm of her breathing changed: long deep breaths changed to quick hard gasps. Her body quivered, and the skin over the nerve clusters grew livid. She moaned. It embarrassed J.D. to watch her. She turned away and pushed off, letting herself drift toward the other side of the room.
"I'm glad you're here," she said to Zev.
"I, too." He glanced at her from beneath his arm. He hung sideways in the air in relation to J.D., with his knees pulled close to his chest so he could reach his feet. He was untying his shoes.
"Your mother must be glad you're all right."
"Did you call her already? When?"
"No, I haven't called her. Haven't you called her?"
252 vonda N. Mclntyre
"I could not. Chandra said they would know who I was if
I did that."
"She was probably right. Poor Lykos!"
"May we call her now?"
"We can try."
Leaving Chandra, J.D. led Zev to another equipment room and another hard-link.
But they could not get through to Lykos.
The transport pilot, having run out of arguments, turned recalcitrant, then surly. It was a quarter of an hour since she had replied to anyone.
Victoria took a second to check the position of the carrier.
It was only a few thousand kilometers away, a hairsbreadth in astronomical terms, and its relative speed was fast enough that as she watched, it came perceptibly nearer.
"They're close," she said. "They're really close."
"Not close enough," the traffic controller said. "They can't accelerate enough to catch us and still have time to decelerate enough not to crash."
"First good news I've heard all day."
Dr. Thanthavong arrived at traffic control.
"Can I be of any help?" she asked Victoria.
"Please," Victoria said with relief. "Surely she'll listen to you." She moved aside so the world-renowned geneticist could come within reach of the sound pickup.
"Esther, my name is Thanthavong."
There was a long silence.
"What?" the transport pilot said.
"My name is Thanthavong."
"So? Am I supposed to know you?"
Dr. Thanthavong drew her eyebrows together in surprise.
"I am Professor Thanthavong, the geneticist. I developed viral depolymerase- I want to try to persuade you not to interfere with the expedition."