Metaphase

'Okay.'

J.D. folded her hands around the tea mug. A comforting warmth seeped through its insulation.

'I guess I'm ready. Shall we start?'

'Okay.' Victoria's eyelids flickered and she went into a brief communications fugue to notify Gerald. 'We're on.'

All their colleagues from Starfarer could now see and hear and speak to everyone on the Chi.

'J.D.,' Victoria said suddenly, 'Nemo will probably listen to everything we say.'

'Of course,' J.D. said. 'Yes. I hope so. Listen, and maybe join the conversation.'

'We shall all bear that in mind,' Gerald Hernminge said. 'We'll start the questions with Senator Orazio. Senator?'

Victoria sat forward-about to object, J.D. thought, because the two United States senators were not members of the deep space expedition.

They were unwilling guests. They had been on a fact-finding tour of Starfarer when it plunged out of the solar system, fulfilling its charter, but disobeying the orders of EarthSpace and the U.S. military. Instead of speaking, Victoria sat stiffly back. J.D. glanced at her with a sympathetic expression.

The holographic image of Ruth Orazio, junior senator from Washington State, appeared before J.D.

'J.D., you must try again to persuade Nemo to return to Earth with us.' 'Senator . . . my question to Nemo was hypothetical. We aren't on our way back to Earth.'

Orazio had always supported the deep space expedition, and against all probability, she still did. How long her support would last was another question entirely. J.D. would not blame her when it waned; she had never

agreed to leaving her family, her profession, her home world.

'We have to go home,' Orazio said. 'You came away unprepared, undersupplied, and understaffed, with an undependable computer web. It's dangerous to go on this way.'

'And more dangerous to go back,' Stephen Thomas said.

'The expedition members have already decided that question.' Victoria did not soften her cold tone with the Canadian speech habit of raising the inflection of a sentence at the end, turning it into a question, inviting the listener to agree. 'It isn't appropriate to argue it again now.'

'Dr. MacKenzie, we all know you'll never agree to any plan that furthers the interests of the United States.' William Derjaguin, the senior senator from New Mexico, spoke out of turn. 'At least let us discuss the subject!' Derjaguin had always opposed the expedition bitterly. Being kidnapped on a hijacked starship did nothing for his temper.

'We discussed it at length,' Victoria said.

J.D. broke in. 'It wasn't fair of me to ask Nemo to go to Earth in the first place,' she said. 'The cosmic string has receded from the solar system. We can still go home. But we can't leave again until the cosmic string returns.'

'Unless it returns,' Victoria said.

'Europa said squid-Nerno's people just orbited stars and listened and watched,' Orazio said. 'And Europa said nobody even did that once we could detect them.'

The interstellar community had paid Earth very little attention at all, Europa claimed. Civilization never involved itself in the affairs of non-spacefaring worlds. Europa had found the idea of UFO reports quite amusing, which was an interesting reaction considering that she herself had been abducted by a UFO. But Civilization limited itself to the secret rescue of a few doomed individuals, including Europa and Androgeos. It saved them from natural disasters in order to train them to greet the first expedition of starfarers from their own home world.

Other than that courtesy-a courtesy J.D. thought not only questionable but condescending-the interstellar community ignored new intelligences until they proved they were interesting enough, advanced enough, to bother talking to. So far, human beings did not qualify.

,,They've had to avoid us for two generations,' Ruth said. 'What better star to orbit now than ours?'

'What better star to avoid,' Stephen Thomas said, 'than the home of warlike barbarians?'

J.D. chuckled ruefully. 'Good point.'

Ruth smiled. 'But who could resist trying to convert a bunch of barbarians? Victoria, I'm not letting you off the hook about going home. If we can persuade Nemo to go with us, then the deep space expedition will have accomplished the aim of its charter. You'll be able to prove an interstellar community exists.'

'The senator makes an incontrovertible point,' Gerald said. 'Under those circumstances, we'd have no other ethical choice than to go home. Whether we could leave again would be completely immaterial.'

Gerald Hernminge was one of the few expedition members who thought the starship should go home. He was one of the few who had argued for following EarthSpace orders, for converting the campus to an orbiting spy platform.

But what he said was true.

'Nerno's already said no,' J.D. said.

'But people sometimes change their minds,' Ruth said. 'I intend to try to persuade Nemo to go home with us, if I get the chance.'

J.D. smiled back. She had admired Senator Orazio before she ever met her; having met her, she liked her.

'When we do go home,' J.D. said, 'whenever it is, nothing would make me happier than to have Nemo come along with us.'

'I have a question,' Gerald said, in the round, highclass British tones that always managed to sound more or less disapproving, 'if I may step out of my liaison position for a moment.'

'Go ahead,' J.D. said.

'I was rather surprised . . . that you ate a live animal.'

J.D. grinned mischievously. 'It was good, Gerald. Essence of' fresh shrimp, with honey-orange sauce. Quite a rush, too. It wasn't any stranger than eating an oyster.'

'If you say so,' Gerald said. 'There is a question from the astronomy department. Awaiyar?'

The tall, elegant astronomer appeared in the circle. She gestured, her hands as graceful as a dancer's, and the image of the Milky Way also appeared. It turned, revealing the unmapped area beyond its core.

'We have a matter of policy to decide,' she said. 'Can we afford to turn down Nerno's offer to exchange information?'

'Can we afford to accept it?' Stephen Thomas said, sounding grim. J.D. wished she had had a chance to see what he had encountered in Nerno's crater. She could not spare the attention, now, to look at it, but it had spooked him badly. Her impression was that Stephen Thomas Gregory did not spook easily.

'What do you think, J.D.T' Victoria asked.

'I . . .' She took a deep breath. 'I want to say yes. I trust Nemo-'

'That fact is self-evident,' Gerald said dryly.

'But we aren't just talking about me. I think . . . I think we still have time to think about it and decide.'

'We have only a few days till we enter transition,' Avvaiyar said.

'I know.' J.D. reached out briefly through her link toward Nemo. This is your chance to persuade my colleagues, she thought.

But Nerno did not reply.

'I think it's too dangerous to give Nemo access to Arachne,' Victoria said.

'You're suggesting that we give up a great deal in order to protect your new transition algorithm,' Gerald said.

'That's right,' Victoria said.

'In other words, you feel your work may be the only thing human beings will ever have to trade that the interstellar community will want.' 'What's your point, Gerald?' Stephen Thomas carried his voice with an edge.

Gerald ignored Stephen Thomas. 'Rather arrogant, perhaps, Victoria.' 'Yes,' Victoria said.

'There's no need for personal animosity,' Professor Thanthavong said.

'I meant no animosity. I'm merely suggesting that if we gain this new knowledge, we can go home-with or without Nemo-and consider the expedition a success. If Nemo takes the transition algorithm, what of it? We'll have five hundred years to develop something equally impressive.'

'I can't believe you're so anxious to give up and go home!' Victoria said.