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.
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
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.'
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, waiting for Nemo to call her back. The nest drew her. But when she returned, Nemo would die.
She felt so strange. Ever since inhaling the link en-
hancer, she had disconnected from her body as if she were drunk. Arachne informed her that the reaction was within the tolerable range of effects. 'Tolerable for you,' J.D. said aloud. Arachne, of course, did not reply. Starfarer's computer did not engage in rhetorical conversations.
Getting the metabolic enhancer was so easy, she thought. After a couple of days, a couple of biocontrol sessions, I could already call on more energy. I thought enhancing the link would be the same.
She shifted her position in the window seat.
Her head spun. The light felt too bright. The light was too bright, but it had not bothered her so much before.
A faint breeze drifted through the open windows. It felt good. The weather was too hot.
Zev crossed the yard, coming from the river, a fish in one hand and J.D.'s string bag in the other. He saw her, grinned, and waved the fish. J.D. waved in return.
He took the steps to the porch in one stride.
'Are you hungry?'
'I am,' she said. That was a difference from being drunk. If she were drunk, she would not be interested in food.
He came into the living room and sat down at the other side of the window seat. He offered her the fish.
'Zev . . . I'd like to cook it, if you don't mind.'
She tried to get up. She nearly ran into the LTM display.
Whoops, she thought, bad manners!
She giggled, blinked the display out of her way and reappeared it at arm's length.
Her knees shook. A wave of heat passed up her face. She began to sweat. She sat back down.
Zev watched her with alarm.
'Maybe I won't cook it,' she said.
'I'll cook it,' Zev said.
'You'll cook it?'
'Sure. We do, sometimes.'
'You never did when I was with the divers.'
'It was summer.'
'Oh.' I guess that explains it, J.D. thought, wishing her head would clear.
Zev handed her an orange from the bag.
'Eat that while I cook. There's not very much growing that's ripe yet, it's too early. But there's lots of oranges.'
'You didn't have to forage,' J.D. said. 'I'm sure the central cafeteria has plenty of supplies.'
'I guess,' Zev said doubtfully. 'But I went by, and nobody's there to ask. It was easiest to go fishing.'
He took the fish into the kitchen nook. J.D. lay back in the window seat, enjoying the unusual occasion of having someone make lunch for her.
'That smells terrific, Zev.'
She peeled the orange and ate a section. She pressed the spicules against the roof of her mouth; they burst, and the sweet, tart juice flowed over her tongue.
To her relief, her head stopped spinning. She did not much like the sensation of being drunk, of having the world whirl around while she stayed still.
She suddenly groaned.
'Did I really say that to Stephen Thomas?' she said in distress.
'Say what to Stephen Thomas?'
'That his hair was down.'
'You did say that.' Zev joined her, carrying two plates of broiled trout. 'Oh, no.'
'His hair was down, what's wrong with telling him? You ought to tell him to cut it.'
J.D. touched Zev's pale hair fondly. It was short enough to stay out of his eyes when he swam, long enough to fan out around his head when he was in the water.
'I think he likes it long,' she said.
Zev rested his head against her hand, then quickly kissed her palm.
'I think you like him,' Zev said. He handed her one of the plates. J.D. gave him part of the orange.
'Of course I like him. I like Victoria and Satoshi, too.'
