Starfarer had reached transition.
Out of reach of its pursuers, the ship progressed toward an alien star system. Victoria had made its escape possible.
And right now, instead of feeling triumph, she asked herself if it was worth it.
Light, strange and watery, rose again as the starship drew energy from the magnetic claws and fed it into the tubes.
People surrounded her, some in protective suits, some carrying tanks of liquid nitrogen, some with isolation canisters-ASes and AIs also congregated around the entrance. Professor Thanthavong stood in the middle of it all, coordinating the beginnings of a salvage operation. As soon as she saw Stephen Thomas, she called a paramedic over to help him.
Stephen Thomas stumbled and opened his eyes. Their blue was startling in the mask of drying blood. He looked around groggily.
"What did you do to the light?" he said. He sank to the ground. "Why does everything look so weird?"
Victoria looked around. The campus was different, alien and frightening, in the light of transition.
"You've got blood in your eyes," Thanthavong said.
"Oh, yeah, I'm a real blue-blood . . ."
"Be quiet and sit still for a minute," the paramedic said.
Victoria knelt beside Stephen Thomas, concerned. At first she had thought she understood what he was talking about, but now she could not make sense of what he was saying.
Beside her, Satoshi rested his head on his knees, breathing deeply.
"You're going to have one hell of a black eye," the paramedic said to Stephen Thomas.
"A black eye!" Victoria exclaimed. "He was unconscious!"
"There's no serious trauma."
270 Vonda N. Mclntyre "Then why—"
Stephen Thomas laid his hand on her arm.
"I'm okay,*' he said. "I am. Honest. I fainted." He looked away, embarrassed. "I can't stand the sight of blood."
Relief made Victoria shiver, and then she started to laugh. When Stephen Thomas glared at her, she hugged him.
Thanthavong hurried over, trailed by Fox and a couple of ASes. Machines had begun to work to clear the entryway of the genetics department.
"Did you see anyone else inside?"
"There's no one," Satoshi said.
"You're sure?" Thanthavong gazed at the ruined hill, her expression unreadable.
"Yes. I passed every lab and every office, from the top down, looking for Fox. There wasn't anybody."
"Yes. All right. Good . . ." Her voice trailed off.
Dr. Thanthavong, whose surface so seldom even ruffled, suddenly cried out in anger and in pain.
Victoria jumped to her feet, startled and scared. Then she went to Thanthavong and embraced her. "I'm so sorry," she said. "All your work—"
"It isn't that," Thanthavong wailed. "It's—" She sobbed and struggled for control. "It is that. But in forty years my labs never had a serious accident. And now, my god, look what they've done!"
J.D. and Kolya strained to move the missile. J.D. could feel the metabolic enhancer pumping inside her, but it was useless. It helped her endurance. What she needed right now was brute strength. Brute strength and the will to keep her attention away from the weird effects of transition.
Suddenly the missile shifted in its crater. The squeal of metal on stone vibrated through the skin of Starfarer, through J.D.'s suit, to her ears. It was the only sound except her breathing, her pulse.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the missile slipped free.
"Hold it!" Kolya shouted. "Keep hold of it!"
J.D. almost let it go. That was what they had been struggling for—! But the desperation in Kolya's voice stopped her.
She clamped her arms around the missile. It moved like a live thing. It escaped Kolya and wriggled half a meter down-
STARFARERS 271
ward through J.D.'s grasp. Nothing but J.D.'s safety line and her feet hooked around the cables held it.
The spin had brought them into the canyon between the
two cylinders, if J.D. let the missile go, it would ricochet
against the wild cylinder.
Her feet slipped, inexorably. Kolya grabbed her and the missile. She could see the sweat on the cosmonaut's face.
Sweat poured down her own face, down her body. Her arms shook with strain. She feared the warhead might detonate at any second, but she could not let it go. The spin, which had felt so fast a few minutes before, now slowed in her perception to a crawl.
Her feet sprang free of the cables. She gasped as her safety line snapped taut. It vibrated in the bass range like a huge alien instrument. Kolya shouted as the missile slid through his grasp. J.D. held it tighter. Kolya tried to pull her back, but all he could do was keep himself twined in the cables and clutch J.D.'s ankle.
Something changed.
She emerged from the canyon. Space opened out around her.
"Now!" Kolya said.
She released the missile. Starfarer's spin Hung it away, away from the starship, toward the constellations barely skewed by the vast distance the ship had traveled.
'. Kolya dragged J.D. to safety.
J.D. tried to speak. Her mouth was too dry.
"Come on," Kolya said. "Hurry."
s As quickly as J.D. could move, they made their way to the
y hatch and into the airiock. As soon as the inner door opened, I Kolya grabbed her arm and rushed her deeper into the ship,
* through the suit room and up, without even pausing to open ; his face mask.
* "What's wrong?" J.D. said. "We got rid of it!"
Kolya finally slowed and stopped. He took off his helmet.
"We should be safe here. I wanted to be sure—"
He cut himself off. The ship trembled with a faint vibration. J.D. looked down, toward the outer surface, as if she could see the missile through the floor.
Outside, the warhead detonated, sending out a wave of debris and radiation that blasted against the starship's thick skin of lunar rock.
272 vonda N. Mcintyre
Water slicked and darkened the floor of the lowest tunnel. Infinity kept watch for the teak. He could hear no rush of water, so the sealers must be working. He hoped the attack had not breached the main flow systems and let any significant amount of water escape into space.
It hurt him to see so much damage to the structure he had helped to build. Making Starfarer whole again would take more than letting the self-sealers creep into the cracks and cement the broken bits. That would be like letting a smashed bone heal without setting it.
Infinity hurried along the upcurving corridor. It truncated abruptly in a closed baffle.
As a precaution, he fastened the helmet of his pressure suit. Getting outside might be quicker and easier through another hatch, but that would be a ten minute walk, and more than that much again to return along the outside of the ship. He felt a certain urgency. He kept expecting to encounter other members of damage control, but so far he had seen no one.
He read the display on the baffle. It showed normal air pressure on the far side. He cautiously opened the door with the manual controls, stepped through into the next compartment, and closed the baffle behind him.
Soon he faced another airtight baffle. This display showed very low air pressure on the far side, a few millimeters of mercury, nowhere near enough to breathe.
Infinity paused, listening carefully. The rhythmic, muffled pounding was real, not his imagination. It came from beyond the closed door.
The pounding stopped. Infinity hit the baffle with the side of his fist. Nothing happened- Perhaps the pounding was nothing but a mechanical malfunction, or perhaps whoever was on the other side of the baffle could not hear or feel the vibrations of his fist. He stamped his foot.
One loud "thud!" answered him.
Infinity stamped again. Another "thud!" replied.
He emptied the air from the compartment he was in. When the pressure equalized, the baffle allowed itself to be unlocked, but Infinity had to force it open.