'All right,' J.D. said reluctantly.
J.D. watched the silk-weavers flow back and forth and around Nemo's body.
We could have kept Feral's body alive, she thought. We could have regenerated his burst arteries and damaged brain, but he wouldn't've been Feral anymore. He would've been a child in an adult's body, with part of his life already spent.
Trying to persuade Nemo to stop changing would have been the same as reviving Feral's body after Feral himself was gone. J.D. thought about the rhythms of life. Nerno's rhythms differed from the rhythms of a human lifespan, but they were no less demanding. For all her disappointment, J.D. respected the decision Nemo had made.
Nerno's eyelid closed completely, nearly vanishing against the shimmering peacock pattern.
'Nemo!' J.D. said, startled, afraid the squidmoth had gone to sleep without saying goodbye. 'Nerno?' She sent the message softly through her link, an electronic whisper.
The eyelid quirked open.
'I'm sorry-I was afraid you'd gone already.'
'I'm curious about sleep.' After that, Nemo said no more.
J.D. sat beside Nemo for a long time, until the spinners finished the dappled chrysalis. The LTMs watched the scene. They would record everything, even changes that happened too quickly, too slowly, too subtly for a person to notice. J.D. put them on the floor and turned them all away from herself so she had a semblance of privacy.
The silk covered Nemo, except for the bright furred tip of one tentacle. 'J.D.?'
'I'm here, Victoria.'
'Shall we go home?'
J.D. shivered. The web cooled as the light dimmed,
as if the fibers of Nemo's construction were metamorphosing along with their creator.
J.D. replied reluctantly. 'Sure. I'm coming.'
The Chi's outer hatch closed. Nemo's tunnel loosened its seal, dropped away, and withdrew. J.D. watched it, wondering if it meant Nemo was still aware of events and surroundings.
She tried to send Nemo one last message. She received no reply.
The Chi returned to Starfarer. At first the starship was a tiny dark blot against the huge silver expanse of its distant stellar sail. It resolved, gradually, into the two enormous rotating cylinders that formed the starship's body. The Chi oriented itself to the hub of the campus cylinder, then approached the dock.
Slowly, perfectly, it connected.
J.D. took a deep breath and let it out, returned the reassuring pressure when Zev squeezed her hand, and kicked off gently from the Chi's access hatch into Starfarer's waiting room. Her overnight bag bumped against her leg; she wished she had a backpack like Satoshi's. They had called for an artificial to take their gear back into Starfarer, but none answered. Victoria had a small neat shoulder bag. Stephen Thomas carried a sample case on a strap, and his quilt, folded up and tucked under his arm. He no longer looked at all awkward in zero g, as he had when she first met him. J.D. floated in amidst a crowd of people: Starfarer's faculty and staff. Professor Thanthavong. Senator Orazio, whom J.D. had expected to see, and Senator Derjaguin, whom she had not. Gerald Hemminge, trying to shush the racket so he could moderate the discussion. The sailmaster, lphigenie Dupre, who had for once come down out of the sailhouse. Awaiyar Prakesh, whose work dovetailed with Victoria's at the point where astronomy and physics intersected. Crimson Ng, the sculptor, and Chandra, the sensory recorder, both from the art department. Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov, the cosmonaut, hero of his homeland, refugee from his homeland. Griffith, who claimed to be an accountant from the General Accounting Office, even though no one believed him, as usual tagging along after Kolya. Infinity Mendez, whose actions after Feral's death had probably kept more people from dying. Esther Klein, the transport pilot. Floris Brown, the first member of Grandparents in Space. A gaggle of graduate students: J.D. recognized Lehua and Mitch and Fox. J.D. had no grad students of her own. Job prospects for alien contact specialists were rather low.
They all floated in the barely perceptible microgravity of the waiting room at the hub of the cylinder, surrounding the members of the alien contact department. The noise rose to a painful level as everyone burst out talking at once, asking more questions, making more comments.
'I'm sorry,' J.D. said. 'I can't hear you all.'
Chandra, the sensory artist, pushed herself in front of everyone else and ignored Gerald's efforts to organize. She turned her strange opaque gray eyes on J.D. She looked blind, but her vision was more acute than any ordinary person's, and she could store and recall any image she perceived. 'Weren't you scared?' Chandra asked,
'Now and then,' J.D. said. 'But Nemo seems very gentle to me.'
'Gentle! Did you see what happened to Stephen Thomas?'
'Nothing happened to Stephen Thomas,' Stephen Thomas said, drifting between Florrie Brown and Fox. 'I don't know what was happening to those critters, but nothing happened to me.'
'It could have. We don't know what Nemo wants. Maybe when it reproduces it needs a nice warm body to lay its eggs in.'
'I don't think so,' J.D. said.
'Why not?'
'Because Nerno's a civilized being.'
Chandra shrugged. 'And we're half-evolved exiles. Why should Nemo care what happens to us? Europa didn't care if she stranded us in orbit around Sirius and we never got home.'
'Nemo only eats insubstantial food,' J.D. said.
'Who said anything about eating? Besides, Nerno's metamorphosing. Lots of critters eat one thing during one stage of their lives-I don't know, leaves or grass or flower nectar-that eat other stuff, other times.'
'This is a subject worth discussing,' Victoria said, 'but let's not be morbid about it.'
'I'm not morbid.'
Stephen Thomas looked at her askance. 'Have you taken a look at your own work lately?'
'Screw you, Stephen Thomas Gregory. And how are you going to feel if J.D. comes back full of maggots?'
'That's her job,' Stephen Thomas said easily.
'Stephen Thomas!' Professor Thanthavong exclaimed.
J.D. laughed. 'I asked for that one, Professor-Stephen Thomas is quoting me. But, Chandra . . . there's a principle of astronomy that says you aren't likely to be in the right place at the right time to observe an event of cosmological significance. Considering Nerno's age, the principle applies. It'd be a tremendous coincidence if I arrived just in time to feed Nerno's offspring.'
'Unless it isn't a coincidence at all.'
'What-? Oh. I see what you mean.'
'Nemo chooses when to become an adult. So maybe squidmoths hang around waiting till there's somebody just right, and then . . .'
'I think,77 J.D. said, 'that you've been watching too many old monster movies.'
'Maybe you've written too many sentimental sci-fi novels!'
'Sentimental!' J.D. exclaimed, affronted.
'Yeah, in the end everything comes out right for everybody. ' Chandra made a noise of disgust.
J.D. almost laughed and almost cried.
I think I'm too tired to be having this conversation, she said to herself.
'Er,' Gerald said, at a loss and trying to make the best of it, 'perhaps it would be better to postpone literary discussion until a later time? Now, we shall break into smaller groups and meet separately. That way our colleagues won't be quite so overwhelmed.'
Hearing the murmurs of agreement, J.D. gave Gerald a grateful glance.
With that, the tight sphere of people broke up into smaller clusters, sorted broadly by occupation: physical sciences around Victoria, social sciences with Satoshi, biological sciences with Stephen Thomas. The group around Stephen Thomas included Florrie Brown. When she joined him, he took her frail hand and kissed it gallantly. She smiled, and J.D. realized that beneath her remarkably quaint heavy black eye make-up, beneath the pink and green and white braids drifting around her mostly shaved head, Florrie Brown was beautiful.
Professor Thanthavong joined J.D. briefly.
