J.D. opened her eyes again. 'I left her a message.' She sighed. 'How could I just forget? I guess I'll have to do some seriously apologetic groveling when she comes on board.'
'You folks didn't exactly make it hard for your opponents to take potshots at the expedition,' Feral said. 'You're taking along artists, and grandparents, and the social structure is a pretty weird mix—'
'Should I take that comment personally?' Victoria asked.
'Only if you want to. You've got to admit that polygamy is unusual.'
'But my family isn't polygamous.'
'What, then?'
'The technical term is 'family partnership.' It isn't as rigidly denned as polygamy. A family partnership is gender-transparent. It doesn't require a particular mix, like several members of one gender and one member of the other.'
'But that's what yours has.'
Victoria forced herself to answer without hesitation. 'It does right now. But it doesn't have to.'
'Can I have an exclusive on your next engagement?'
64 vonda N. Mclntyre
'I was only speaking theoretically.' Victoria tried to smile, but the idea of bringing in another partner hurt too much. It would not be replacing Merit—no one could replace Merit-but it would feel like trying. 'Besides, the last time somebody wrote about our personal lives, we got insults from weirdos who think we're reactionary, even stranger messages
congratulating us on our traditional values, and a handful of proposals from people who thought they'd fit right in. It takes too long to answer the mail.'
'Why'd you choose the arrangement, if I'm not being too nosy? Are you ... I don't know what the parallel term for 'monogamous* would be for a family partnership, but you know what I mean. Don't you trust the Thanthavong viral depolymerase?''
Victoria found herself more amused than offended by Fer-al's unapologetic nosiness.
'I admire Professor Thanthavong tremendously. She's the head of the department where my partner Stephen Thomas has tenure, and he's eloquent about her achievements.'
'Her work made a big difference,' said J.D., who was older than either Victoria or Feral. 'It's hard to explain how scared everybody was, to anybody who's too young to remember.'
'Then why the partnership?'
'U.S. law provides for it, and it helps ease some of the problems of a multinational family arrangement,' Victoria said. 'But the real reason is ... it seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does. But it's a long story. I'll tell it to you someday. I have a couple of things to do before we dock, so I'll meet you both in the observation bubble. All right?'
Feral looked disappointed. Victoria had learned, in their short acquaintance, that Feral would talk about anything for as long as anyone else could stand it.
'I wouldn't mind the condensed version—'
'The orcas have an interesting social structure.' J.D. gave Victoria a sympathetic glance as she interrupted Feral without appearing to. 'You can draw parallels between it and a family partnership ... '
Victoria extricated herself gratefully.
She felt a bit guilty about implying that she had some kind STARFARERS 6 5
of important errand to run before the transport docked. In fact, she wanted to take a shower and change clothes.
Zero-g showers amused her. The water skimmed over her, pulled across her body by a mild suction at one side of the compartment. When she was wet, she turned off the water and lathered herself with soap, scraped off most of the suds with an implement like the sweat-scraper of an ancient Greek athlete—or a racehorse—and turned the water on again till the last of the soap washed away. It felt like standing in a warm windy rain. When she finished, she was covered all over with a thin skin of water. She scraped herself off again, got out of the shower and closed the door, and turned the vacuum on high to vent the last of the water out of the compartment and into the recycler. Her whole body felt tingly
and refreshed.
As she dressed in her favorite new fancies, the warning signal sounded softly through the ship. A few minutes later, microgravity replaced zero-g as the transport decelerated.
Victoria hurried to the observation bubble, anxious to be home.
All alone, Zev swam through the cold water toward the harbor. He had come this way by himself a hundred times, maybe a thousand, and he had never felt alone. Before, he always knew he would find J.D. in the cove or on the shore, and his family back in the open water.
The tidal outflow from the harbor, just perceptibly warmed by the sun, flowed over him. He swam between the headlands that protected the beach.
When he reached J.D.'s anchored dock, he stopped and floated beneath its shadow. He could hear the artificial lung respiring in its compartment, waiting and waiting for someone who might never return. It was full of oxygen, ready, with a willingness bred into its cells, to give up the oxygen whenever a human needed it. It had no consciousness, of course, no brain, only the bare minimum of nerve tissue necessary to make it function. Yet Zev had the urge to reach in
- and stroke it, comfort it, like a pet.
•S' Instead he dove deeper and swam toward shore along the * harbor bottom, taking the environment into his memory like
66 vonda ft/. Mclntyre
a baleen whale scooping up plankton to store up energy before its long migration. He gathered the details of scarlet and yellow and green anemones, great gooseneck barnacles kicking their feet in the water to draw in their food, long strands of kelp reaching up toward sunlight, a pretty little octopus, watching curiously, following him cephalopod-fashion, squirting water and trailing its legs.
Zev's cousins, the orcas, did not forage for plankton. They hunted; they hunted what they found wherever they found
themselves.
He had always done the same; he would continue to do the same, despite a changed environment. He kicked hard and burst through the surface, nearly leaving the water before he splashed down again.
A human stood on the beach. He did not mistake this human for J.D.. though he had met precious few other true humans in his life. J.D. was gone.
The water became too shallow to swim in. He stood up on the rocky shelf and waded forward.
The human saw him coming and hurried toward him. She
Wu. different from J.D., her eyes without pupils and all gray. She wore a wet suit and carried a mask and fins.
'Hello,' he said. 'I am Zev.'
'My name's Chandra. I don't suppose you ever heard of me, either. Do you know where J.D. Sauvage is?'
'She left for the starship.'
'Oh. great.'
He had no idea why her voice held anger, nor why she smelled of fear. Smells carried poorly in air, compared to water, and the wet suit covered all the places that would send off useful odors.
Chandra extended her hand to Zev. Zev slid his fingertips along her knobby fingers, up the back of her hand, and along the wrist- He felt her start to draw away, then relax again.
'Goodbye.' he said.
'Wait! Where are you going?'
'To represent the divers on the deep space expedition.'
'Hey, great, maybe I'll see you on board. Will I find other divers in the water?'
'Where else?' he asked, amused.
'I mean nearby.'
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