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Stephen Thomas had called it inside to help him carry Feral's body. Stephen
Thomas had been able to manage in the microgravity of the hub. Even coming
down the hill, where the perception of weight increased with every step,
Feral's weight had been manageable. But he had needed some help in regular
gravity.
The lithoclast rippled uncomfortably, impatiently, waiting for him to tell it
what to do.
Stephen Thomas did not need it any longer. He dismissed it and watched it
crawl away. He only wished he
136 VONDA N. McINTYRE
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could as easily command the slugs guarding Blades's house.
How could I have been so wrong about that guy? he wondered.
The heat enervated him. He asked Arachne the reason for producing such an
intense Indian summer here in the wild cylinder. Both cylinders ordinarily had
mild weather. The temperature range of winter overlapped the temperature range
of summer. It seldom froze, and seldom came within complaining distance of
body heat. People did sometimes complain that the weather bored them.
Arachne replied that steps were being taken to moderate the temperature.
Satoshi would like it over here today, Stephen Thomas thought. Being from
Hawaii, Satoshi often complained that Starfarer's weather was too cold.
Victoria, on the other hand, had spent much of her childhood in Nova
Scotia. She thought that Starfarer had no weather worth mentioning, merely
climate.
At the bottom of the hill, an access tunnel opened. The silver slug oozed
through it and disappeared, on its way back to its regular maintenance job on
the cylinder's outside skin. The tunnel closed. Its hatch, disguised by rocks
and dirt and a wilting flower, disappeared against the hillside. The sharp cry
of a bird made Stephen Thomas glance up. When he looked down the slope again,
he could barely see where the hatch had opened.
He should go home. He should go back to the lab, where the alien cells grew
and divided on nutrient plates. By now they had probably produced enough for
some analyses to begin. Stephen Thomas tried to find the excitement he should
be feeling, but it was too remote. In order to experience elation he would
have to open himself to grief as well, grief for Feral and grief for Merry.
He had not been able to fall apart when Merry died and he could not fall apart
now. The partnership could not afford it.
CHAPTER 7
STEPHEN THOMAS WOKE. A COLD AND refreshing wind cut the humid, heavy air and
rustled the gold leaves overhead. White light speared through the branches and
speckled the dry grass.
Back on Earth he would have looked for thunderheads, a thunderstorm, but
gentle rain was as extreme as weather ever got on board Starfarer.
Stephen Thomas stretched-and froze. He made himself relax until the ache
subsided. He sat up, as cautious as an old man.
"I'll be fucking glad when this is over," he said.
It was possible to change from a
138 VONDA N. McINTYRE
diver back to an ordinary human being. For a decade or so, the U.S.
government had aimed a good deal of propaganda at the divers, trying to
persuade them to convert.
No diver had ever changed back.
Stephen Thomas could change back if he wanted to, but the viral depolymerase
would make him violently ill for weeks. As he was, he could function.
Another factor kept him from the reverse metamorphosis. Arachne's crash had
destroyed his medical records and his genetic profile; the destruction of the
genetics department crushed his hard-copy backup beyond retrieval.
Without the records, there was no sure way to separate the diver genetic
material from his own genes.
A wind devil of dry leaves whirled past, paused over Feral's grave, and
dissolved. The dry leaves fluttered to the ground.
He pushed his hair behind his ears, climbed to his feet, and stood at the edge
of the fresh earth of Feral's grave.
"I'll ask Crimson about a headstone," Stephen Thomas said. "And Infinity will
know something to plant."
The crystal glowed black against the drying surface of the disturbed earth.
"Goodbye, Feral."
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Nerno's chrysalis pulsed gently for hours. It shuddered violently. J.D. sat
forward, staring intently at the LTM transmission, enlarging it. The chrysalis
hardened into a solid shell, an abalone turned inside out, swirled and knotted
with iridescent blue and green mother of pearl.
Nerno's nest grew quiet and still.
J.D. rested in the window seat of her house, watching the LTM transmission,
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