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keep around.
"I haven't been everywhere," Nemo said.
"So there might be some you don't know about." J.D. smiled sadly, but she
felt hopeful again.
"I don't think so."
"We've got to keep looking. Maybe I'm too arrogant, but I think our people
would be an asset to Civilization. And maybe I'm not arrogant enough, but
I don't think our nuclear missiles are a threat to any of you. Even our
military thinks interstellar war would be stupid and unwageable."
"Stupid isn't equivalent to lacking destructive power," Nemo said.
62 VONDA N. McINTYRE
J.D. slumped, her hands lying limp on her knees. It was essential to her,
even if selfish and simple-minded, to return to Earth with a successful
expedition. She was terrified at what would happen-not only to her and her
renegade colleagues, but to their whole planet-if they returned a failure.
The rush of Nerno's insubstantial food had vanished, leaving her drained
and shaky. She was too tired to think, too tired to talk. She could not
remember the last time she had rested. She goosed her metabolic enhancer,
but it too had exhausted itself.
"Where do you come from?" Zev asked.
Nemo did not reply.
"Bad question?" Zev asked.
Nerno's long tentacles writhed and coiled slowly around the half-formed
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bag; their sound was of waves caressing dry sand.
"No question is bad," Nemo replied.
"But you didn't answer."
"I come from here," Nemo said.
"From Sirius, you mean?"
"Yes."
"It's lonely here," Zev said. "No other people. No life on the planets."
"My people didn't evolve here," Nemo said.
"Then where?"
Nerno's tentacles twined, quivered, relaxed.
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"I don't know how."
J.D. saw in her mind the glimmer of a star map. Zev brought it from the
Chi's onboard computer and sent it through his link. The sun was a point
of light in the center; its near neighbors spread out around it. J.D.
closed her eyes and looked at the map in her mind.
"Can you see this all right?" Zev asked.
"Make it bigger."
The scale changed. The dark space containing a few sparks changed into a
crowded field of stars.
"How's that?"
METAPHASE 63
"Make it bigger."
Zev scaled it all the way up to the Milky Way and its neighboring
galaxies, bright multicolored spirals and ellipses, dark dusty clouds.
"Big enough?"
"Not that big," Nemo said.
"Can you travel between galaxies?" J.D. asked.
"We are not so advanced."
Zev showed Nemo a representation of the Milky Way.
"On the other side," Nemo said.
The galaxy rotated. But its other side was dark and empty, for no human
being knew what lay beyond the crowded stars and dust clouds of the
galaxy's center.
"We don't have that information," J.D. said.
"I could show you. . . " Nemo said, then, "No, I cannot, because of your
link."
Zev let the map fade. J.D. sighed, and opened her eyes, more determined
to enhance her link as soon as she could.
"You've come a long way," Zev said.
"My people have."
A lifeliner scuttled into the chamber, trailing silk. Right behind it,
Victoria swung around the edge of the curtain. Ecstatic, she strode
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toward Nemo.
"Nemo, your center-I want to know all about it! Is it neutronium? How did
you build it? How does it make you move?" She switched from using her
link to speaking aloud. "J.D., are you okay?" She dropped to her knees
next to J.D. and put her arm around J.D.'s shoulders. J.D. leaned against
her gratefully.
"Just tired," she said.
"My center's difficult to explain," Nemo said.
"Try me.11
J.D. could hear the dryness in Victoria's tone; she wondered if Nemo
could.
"I mean difficult physically."
"How so?"
"Your link is like J.D.'s," Nemo said.
64 VONDA N. McINTYRE
"It's too narrow," J.D. said. "None of us can take in everything Nemo could
show us."
"Arachne and I could exchange information," Nemo said, "about my center,
about the galaxy."
J.D. glanced at Nemo, then quickly at Victoria.
"No," Victoria said. "No, I'm sorry, I don't think that's possible."
"Talking is enjoyable, but slow, and imprecise, and insufficient," Nemo
said.
"Maybe . . . limited access to Arachne?" J.D. said softly.
Victoria twitc~,~d her head sideways, a quick, definite negative. Full
access to Arachne meant access to Victoria's algorithm. Limited access .
. . who could tell how deeply Nemo might delve? The algorithm was the only
thing Starfarer had, the only thing Earth had, that Civilization had shown
the least interest in. Once Civilization possessed it, human beings had
nothing left to bargain with.
"I'm sorry, Nemo," Victoria said. "That isn't a decision I can make myself.
I'll have to discuss it with my colleagues. Do you understancl?"
"No," Nerno said.
How could Nemo underst~ind' J.D. thought. All alone here, with the power
to go anywhere, and do anything . . .
"Human beings and divers talk about what they do," Zev said. "And about
what they did and about what they plan. Sometimes it's boring, but it's
very serious."
Nemo touched Zev's forehead, then J.D.'s cheek, with one soft tentacle. The
other two tentacles continued to guide the spinners around and around and
around the edge of another pouch.
"I must think, and you must all talk together."
"Yes," J.D. said. "As soon as Satoshi and Stephen Thomas get back-"
"They'll meet you at the airlock."
It was the first time Nemo had interrupted her. J.D.'s gaze met Victoria's.
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Victoria looked thoughtful. J.D. felt stricken. She had been dismissed.
CHAPTER 4
THE OBSERVERS' CHAMBER WAS A TRANSparent, flattened bubble attached to the
side of the explorer spacecraft, with a clear view in every direction
except immediately back toward the Chi. It was J.D.'s favorite place in
the explorer. She sometimes sat out here all alone when they were
traveling, just to watch the stars.
She took her place in the circle of couches. Her couch faced outward, di-
rectly toward Nerno's crater. Several hundred meters distant, above the
crater rim, the variegated silken surface caught the brilliant light of
Sirius and flung it outward.
66 VONDA N. McINTYRE
J.D. felt too tired to talk, too tired even to think. But her colleagues
back on Starfarer had been waiting for hours for this conference. It was
not fair to ask them to wait any longer.
Zev and Victoria were already there, waiting for her. With her hands shoved
deep in the pockets of her jeans, Victoria stood outside the circle, gazing
toward Nemo's crater.
Zev lounged in the auxiliary couch to the left of JDA seat. He grinned at
J.D.
"Nemo reminds me of home," Zev said.
J.D. stroked the young diver's arm fondly. His fur, so delicate it was
nearly invisible against his mahogany skin, felt warm and soft.
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