Starfarers

miss.'

'I see,' J.D. said, relieved-

'Don't worry, you'll fit right in. There's no dress code, and the environment is moderate. Too moderate, I think. We don't have weather, we have climate. I wouldn't mind some snow, or a thunderstorm. Satoshi thinks it's too cold, but he's spoiled—he grew up in Hawaii.'

Victoria leaned against her couch and fastened the straps.

'I'm ready,' she said. 'So let's get going.'

'I should tell you something,' J.D. said.

'Oh?'

The careful neutrality in Victoria's tone told J.D. that her own original decision—to turn down the invitation to join Siarfarer's alien contact department—had had an effect mat would take time to overcome.

'I resigned from the Department of State,' J.D. said.

'And turned back my grant.'

'Did you? I'm glad. I'm sorry I snapped at you about STARFARERS 5

having such close ties to your government. But these days you never know when they might slap 'classified' all over your research.' Suddenly Victoria grinned. 'Though if you were still an ambassador, that would put you higher on the protocol list than the chancellor, eh?'

'I was more on the level of special attache, and anyway the orcas don't use titles. They don't even understand them, as far as I could ever tell. It's one of those human concepts like ownership or jealousy that if you finally get through a hint of what it means, they just think it's funny. We're pretty funny to them in general. I used to wonder if they let me hang around for my entertainment value.'

'What made you decide to quit?' Victoria asked bluntly.

'I thought about what you said, about the arguments between the U.S. government and EarthSpace. I worried.'

'As do we all.'

'I didn't want divided loyalties.' J.D. felt guilty for making two true statements and implying a direct connection between them. For the moment, though, she could not explain to Victoria, to anyone, her real reasons for all her decisions of the last few days.

She stared out the window at the mountain slope, the tree-line a few hundred meters below, the peaks receding to blue in the distance.

'Don't worry,' Victoria said, mistaking her distraction.

'The acceleration isn't bad at all.'

'I'm sure I'll be fine.'

The plane jolted slightly as it released itself from the gate. J.D. gasped and clutched Victoria's hand.

Victoria smiled and let J.D. hold on as the plane slid forward.

Victoria loved riding the spaceplane. She enjoyed the landings, but she liked the takeoffs even better.

The plane accelerated, racing over its magnetic rails, its delta-vee increasing, pressing Victoria against her couch. The plane reached the bottom of the long fast slope and pulsed forward along the magnetic lines of force, driven faster and faster by a great roller coaster with a single unending rise.

The magnetic rail flung the plane off its end and into the air. The acceleration ceased abruptly: heart-fall hit.

'Wow' J.D. said, breathless.

6 vonda N. Mcintyre

'What do you think?'

'That's the first time I ever rode a roller coaster that I liked.'

Victoria felt the slight pressure of her body against the seat belts as, in weightlessness, gravity no longer held her against her couch. Beside her, J.D. peered eagerly through the roof window as the blue sky gave way to a deep indigo that gradually faded to starry black.

'It's just beautiful.'

'It is, isn't it?'

The spaceplane rotated around its long axis and thfc earth came into view through the roof window. Despite the lack of gravity, the arrangement of the couches made the window feel like 'up.' Earth appeared to loom above her. Pofher first few trips into space, Victoria had tried to cultivated attitude of nonchalance about the sight of earth spinning slowly before her. Gradually, though, she realized that even the veterans of space travel never lost their awe, never grew hardened. No matter how matter-of-fact they acted about the dangers or the hardships of the early days, they never pretended to have the same cool indifference to earth, vulnerable and without boundaries, whole in their sight, a sphere they could cup in their hands.

Victoria glanced at J.D., who stared up through the window with her mouth slightly open. Her short lank hair stood out from her head as if she were underwater.

'1 never thought . . . I've imagined this, I've seen it in pictures and on film, even on sensory recording. I thought I'd know what it felt like. But it's different, seeing it for real.'

'It is,' Victoria said. 'It's always different, seeing it for real.'

The earth fell behind. The spaceplane slid smoothly into an orbit to catch up and dock with the transport to Starfarer.

'What's it like to swim with the orcas?' Victoria said.

'It's like this,' J.D. said.

'Like space travel?'

'Uh-huh. Looking at earth from space is the nearest thing I've ever felt to being underwater and suddenly realizing that the light at the limit of your vision is the white patch on an' orca's side. Then when they come closer . . . They're magical. Until now I thought that if I could find the right words,

STARFARERS 7

I'd be able to explain it to everyone. But no one ever found the right words to explain—to me, anyway—how it feels to look at earth from space. Maybe no one can explain either.'

'Damn,' Victoria said. 'I wish we'd had this conversation a couple of days ago.'

'Why?'

'Because I'd have stolen your line, when I talked to the premier last night. And I wish I'd thought of saying that to your Mr. Distler, when I testified last year.'

'/ didn't vote for him,' J.D. said. 'Not for senator—1 don't even come from the same state—or when he ran for president. Never mind, I know what you mean.'

'That's what I should have told him—that he couldn't understand why we wanted to be here unless he came and saw it for himself.' Victoria made herself relax, balancing her body between the contour couch and the seat belts. She sighed. 'Probably even that wouldn't have helped.'

'The orcas are interested in Starfarer,' J.D. said.

'The orcas? The divers, you mean?'

'There's a diver who's interested, yes. But I mean the orcas themselves discussed applying to the expedition.'

'Outlandish,' Victoria said.

'Why do you say that?' J.D. asked mildly.

'I can't imagine a cetacean on board a starship.'

'That's the trouble,' J.D. said. 'Nobody imagined it when they designed the cylinders- The ecosystem was evolved around salt marshes, but there isn't much Jeep water.'

'Would you have proposed transporting an orca to Star-farer if there was deep water?''

'Not one—several. They're social beings,-even more so than us. They get bored and slowly go crazy and die, all alone. They don't like to be confined, either, but they pointed out that when humans used to catch them they lived in much smaller places than the largest bodies of water on Starfarer, for longer than the expedition is planned to last.'

'Then you think it's a good idea.'

'I think it would be wonderful to have two different kinds of intelligent beings along on the expedition. I love the orcas, though. I love their freedom. They would have been willing to risk it, and I think they could have survived.