'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 understand?'
'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. Victoria looked thoughtful. J.D. felt stricken. She had been dismissed.
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, directly 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.
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.
'Nerno's not like anything back in Puget Sound,' J.D. said. 'Not anything like.'
'I know. But he reminds me anyway. He doesn't look like he's been swimming in a long time.'
'Nemo can't go swimming,' J.D. said, a little impatiently. Imagine a being the size of Nemo, the size of the planetoid, swimming anywhere.
'Not now, ' Zev said. 'But critters like Nemo don't always look the same.' Zev was right. Nemo could have gone through more than one form. Maybe that was why Europa called Nemo a squidmoth. J.D. added Zev's observation to the list of subjects she wanted to discuss with the alien being.
Through her link, J.D. reached out tentatively to Nemo.
'Nemo?' she asked. 'I'm going to talk to everybody back on board Starfarer. You can join in, if you like.'
She waited. She received no reply.
I know how Nemo feels, J.D. said to herself. I'd like to sit quietly all alone for a while and think about everything that's just happened. No.
First I'd like to get some sleep.
The image of Gerald Hemminge appeared nearby. The assistant chancellor of Starfarer also acted as the alien contact department's liaison to the starship.
'Are you ready?' he asked. 'Everyone's anxious to start.'
'In a minute, Gerald, thank you,' J.D. said. 'We're still getting ourselves together.'
'Very well.' As he turned, he faded out.
Stephen Thomas entered and crossed the transparent floor of the circle.
He had changed to a Starfarer T-shirt and a clean pair of long pants with the Starfarer logo on the thigh, unusually subdued clothes for Stephen Thomas. But he no longer looked as bedraggled as when he came out of Nerno's crater.
He stopped beside Victoria, but he did not speak and he did not touch her. He stared out the transparent side of the observers' circle, his gaze on Nerno's spiky curtains of silk. The severity of his hair, pulled tight and tied at the back of his neck, made him cold, and aloof.
J.D. wondered what he was thinking about. The alien museum, on a harsh little airless world not too different from this one, fusing and destroying itself as he watched? The collapse of the genetics department around him? The changing virus turning him into a diver? No . . . none of those, of course. He was thinking about Feral, wondering how the enthusiastic young journalist would have reacted to Nemo. He was mourning the delight Feral would never feel. Mourning Feral.
Then Victoria briefly touched her younger partner's hand, and they turned to join the circle. Stephen Thomas looked straight at J.D., completely expressionless, and she had no idea what he was thinking.
She glanced away, embarrassed to be staring at him, and blinked fast to clear her eyes of tears.
Victoria took her place in the seat across from J.D. Stephen Thomas sat at J.D.'s right.
Satoshi came in a moment later. He always moved so smoothly, so athletically: he nonchalantly carried two brimful mugs of tea. He handed one to J.D.
'Careful. It's hot.'
'Thanks,' she said. Trying not to move the cup, she leaned forward and took a sip so she would not spill it.
It was hot. She had to slurp it so she would not burn her tongue.
'You looked like you could use it,' he said. He sat in his couch one place to Zev's left.
Now the members of the alien contact department were all in their places, quartering the observers' circle like the cardinal points of a compass. Zev broke the pattern, but J.D. was glad beyond words that he had joined the expedition, and grateful that Victoria had not objected when he accompanied her on board the Chi.
Zev enfolded her hand with his long webbed fingers. In the sea, he would have touched her more closely. He was leaming land manners. J.D. was leaming that on land, land manners were not always preferable. Even when they were more appropriate.
He cared more about her than about her success with Nemo, she thought. His curiosity had brought him to the expedition-that, and missing her. Maybe missing her had been the most important factor. He participated with delight in the expedition, but the most significant part of life, for divers, was the connection among friends, family, and lovers. J.D. and Zev were all three to each other.
She squeezed his hand gratefully, sipped her tea, and collected herself for the conference. She felt like she had crashed from the high of an intense long-distance swim. Besides the physical effort, the emotional exertion had taken its toll.
In principle, she supported the idea that her colleagues should be able to accompany her vicariously. She welcomed the ability to call on their knowledge and ideas and questions. In practice, she hated every minute she spent in front of cameras and recorders.
'Did you have a chance to look at my LTM recording?' Stephen Thomas asked. 'No,' J.D. said. 'I'm sorry.' They had only been back on board the Chi for a few minutes. She had not had a chance to look at what any of her colleagues had seen on their excursions into Nemo.
'I think you should. It was weirder than shit. Hard to figure out what it meant, or what Nemo intended to tell me.'
'I'll look at it as soon as I can. And we can ask about it, as soon as Nemo starts communicating again.'
