J.D. leaned back in her seat. This was an important discussion, and she was an important part of any conclusion. She had to pay attention to it. She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.
Satoshi woke. Victoria snuggled against him, one arm beneath her cheek, the other draped around his waist. They had dozed, waiting for Stephen Thomas. The bed felt empty without their younger partner.
When J.D. fell asleep in the observers' circle, Victoria had decided not to awaken her. No one was ready to make a decision about Nemo and Arachne, so they ended the conference. Everyone, on the Chi and back on Starfarer, was as grateful for a few hours' rest.
Everyone, apparently, except Stephen Thomas.
I wonder where he is? Satoshi thought. Sleeping alone in his cabin?
Not likely.
Stephen Thomas liked to sleep with his partners. He liked to sleep in the middle, the way Merry used to.
Not that Stephen Thomas had taken Merry's place, or even tried. No one could ever do that. But after Merry's accident, only a few months after Stephen Thomas joined the family partnership, the triad had comforted them all.
I wonder if our family would have survived after Merry died, Satoshi wondered, if not for Stephen Thomas? I don't think it would have. I fell apart pretty badly, and so did Victoria.
The old ache and the numb shock returned. He hugged Victoria fiercely, desperately. The pain had barely diminished in the time since Merry's death. It hit less frequently, but it hit just as hard.
Victoria woke. She held him, stroking his smooth short hair, murmuring comfort in his ear.
'I love you,' Satoshi whispered. 'I don't know what I'd do without you and Stephen Thomas.'
'I love you, too,' she said. 'And if I have anything to say about it, you'll never need to find out what you'd do without me. But where's Stephen Thomas?'
'Maybe he thought we were sleeping in his room tonight.'
Victoria looked at Satoshi, askance. They seldom all slept in Stephen Thomas's room. He had a lot of good qualities, but neatness was not one of them. His room back on Starfarer was bad enough. The Chi's forays into free-fall turned his cubicle into a disaster area,
'I'll go see,' Satoshi said.
He crossed Victoria's ' cabin and his own, pushing the connecting door the rest of the way open to create a single space. The door into Stephen Thomas's room stood ajar. Satoshi pushed it open. Stephen Thomas was not there. His patchwork quilt, a wedding gift from Merry's family, Jay rumpled across his bed.
He can't still be in his lab, Satoshi thought. Can he? Maybe he fell asleep there.
Satoshi pulled his own ratty bathrobe out of the storage net on the wall, put it on, and crossed to the laboratory section of the Chi.
At the doorway of Stephen Thomas's lab, Satoshi stopped. His partner tilted his chair to its limit, his hands behind his head and his feet braced against the lab table. Stephen Thomas gazed, frowning, at the magnified image of growing cells.
'Hi, Satoshi,' Stephen Thomas said without turning around. He took his feet off the table and let his chair drop forward.
Satoshi put his hands on Stephen Thomas's shoulders.
'Coming to bed?'
Stephen Thomas shrugged.
If Stephen Thomas had asked him to go away, he would have complied. Stephen Thomas could be moody, and he could say, often bluntly, what he wanted. But he had been so quiet recently that Satoshi worried. They had been through a lot. Maybe it all was catching up with Stephen Thomas. Maybe he was still in shock because of Feral's death.
Or maybe turning into a diver was not as benign a procedure as Zev thought.
It troubled Satoshi that Stephen Thomas had chosen to let the changes proceed. They had begun by accident, by mistake. Satoshi wished the accident had never happened.
You don't have any right to tell him what to do with his body, he told himself sternly.
Don't I? he replied to himself I love him. I care what happens to him.
And I think this is crazy.
'I don't understand what's going on with these cells,' Stephen Thomas said.
'Which ones are they?'
'From Europa's weed. Ordinary soil bacteria. Same as back on Earth, she said.'
'But?'
'But not quite. They'll grow on dirt from Starfarer, if I sterilize it. Not otherwise. I must have missed something.'
'It's late, you're tired. You're working too hard.'
'I'm not working hard enough.' Stephen Thomas slapped the lab table with a sharp, shocking strike. 'Or I'd be able to figure this out. Everything I've done since we left home has been crap.'
'Come to bed.'
'I wouldn't be good company.'
'Are you okay?'
'Twitchy. Achy. I'll probably thrash around. I'd keep you both awake.'
'I don't care,' Satoshi said.
Satoshi looked at Stephen Thomas for a long moment. He was as susceptible to his partner's extraordinary beauty as anyone. As everyone. He stroked Stephen Thomas's long blond hair. It had, as usual, come untied. It curled around his partner's face and tangled down over his shoulders.
'Is your hair going to change color?'
'Probably not,' Stephen Thomas said. 'No reason it should. Zev says I should cut it, to be a proper diver.'
'You never cut it to work in zero g, why should you cut it now?'
'I'm not going to. Starfarer doesn't have a proper ocean, so I can't be a proper diver no matter what.'
Most divers had dark eyes. So far, Stephen Thomas's eyes remained brilliant sapphire blue. Satoshi hoped they would not change. He started to ask. But if they were going to change, he did not want to know.
Satoshi slid his hand beneath the collar of his partner's shirt, a deliberately arousing touch. His fingers stroked the soft new fuzz of fine, transparent diver's fur.
Satoshi froze. He willed himself to leave his hand where it was. He could not tell if Stephen Thomas noticed his reaction.
Stephen Thomas put his hand on Satoshi's. The
swimming webs felt warm against Satoshi's skin. Satoshi shivered. Stephen Thomas tensed and closed his eyes.
'What's wrong?' Satoshi asked.
'I've just beat my body up pretty good the last few days,' Stephen Thomas said.
'But Zev said-'
'I had a run-in with a silver slug, all right?' Stephen Thomas said angrily.
'What? How? When?'
'When I tried to get into the chancellor's house.'
'Why?'
'Why the hell do you think? He killed Feral! I wanted . . . I don't know what I wanted. I don't know if I would've killed him. But the slugs make fucking good watchdogs. It just about squashed the crap out of me. For a while I thought it broke my pelvis.'
'Are you sure-'
'It's just bruises.'
'Good lord,' Satoshi said. The lithoclasts guarding Blades were the size of rhinoceroses. 'You could have been killed.'
'I know. I won't do it again.' He moved Satoshi's hand away, gently but firmly. 'I want to sleep alone tonight.' His voice was careful, neutral. Satoshi hesitated. 'Okay,' he said. He was upset and confused and he had no idea whether he was relieved or disappointed that Stephen Thomas would not come to bed with him. 'See you in the morning.'
