'Plant a tree,' Stephen Thomas said.
J.D. looked at him curiously.
'Wood is scarce,' Victoria explained. 'The trees are still growing. What you want is some slabs of rock foam.'
Stephen Thomas picked up one of the old books, handling it gingerly, as if it would disintegrate in his hands. As it probably would.
'Why do you have all these?'
'For research. They give me ideas that I try to build on.'
'Nothing a human being is going to think of is going to match a real first contact,' Stephen Thomas said.
'No,' J.D. said. 'It's not. But the ideas are for mind-stretching, not script-writing.'
She picked a book out of an open box. The cover painting looked like a peeled eyeball.
'Here's one,' she said. 'It's got a story in it called 'The Big Pat Boom,' by Damon Knight. Aliens visit earth and decide that cowpats are great art. They want to buy them and take them back home—to alien planets. So everybody on earth tries to comer the market in cowpats. What would you do?'
Victoria laughed. 'What would I do with a cowpat? Yuck.'
'What,' Stephen Thomas asked plaintively, 'is a cow-pat?'
Satoshi explained. Stephen Thomas snorted in disbelief.
'I can't even think how I'd move a cowpat,' Victoria said.
'I haven't read the story in a long time,' J.D. admitted.
'I forget the exact details. I think they let the cowpats dry before they try to move them.'
'What did they do about the dung beetles and the maggots?' Satoshi asked.
'I don't know,' J.D. said. 'I didn't know about the dung beetles and the maggots.'
'Your science fiction writer must have used some poetic license,' Satoshi said.
'How did you get to be such an expert on cowpats?' Victoria asked.
'I'm a font of wisdom,' Satoshi said, doing a subtle imitation of Stephen Thomas in his occasional pompous mode.
He grinned. 'And I used to spend summers on Kauai herding cattle. I saw a lot of cowpats. Or steerpats, as it happens.'
'Come on,' J.D. said, 'what would you do?'
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'I'd go looking for some different aliens,' Stephen Thomas said.
'I guess I'd let them buy the cowpats,' Satoshi said.
'I think we should try to get the cow farmers—'
'Ranchers,' Satoshi said.
'Okay, ranchers—to give the aliens the cowpats as a gesture of friendship.' Victoria chuckled. 'Though I don't know how that would go over with the proponents of free trade.'
'That's a good idea,' J.D. said. 'I hadn't thought of that alternative.'
'The government would buy them and form a whole new bureaucracy to decide which aliens to give the shit to,' Stephen Thomas said.
Everybody laughed.
'I'd nominate our new chancellor to be the minister of that department,' Satoshi said.
J.D. glanced at him quickly, startled. Victoria found it interesting that the chancellor had earned Satoshi's dislike so quickly. Satoshi was notoriously slow to take offense.
'Here's one,' J.D. said. 'About some kids who smuggle a cat onto a space station.'
'Don't show that one to Alzena,' Victoria said. 'She swore she'd draw and quarter anyone who smuggled a predator on board.'
One of the makeshift shelves collapsed. J.D. tried to catch the books as they spilled out in a heap on the floor.
'Oh, this is hopeless,' J.D. said. 'But it's been so long since I had my books out. I was afraid they'd mildew at the cabin.'
Satoshi picked up some of the fallen books and put them back in the box, setting it on its base rather than trying to use it as a shelf.
'I'll walk you through requisition,' Victoria said. 'The supply department can't be busy these days. . . . You can probably get some real shelves in a day or two.'
'AH right. Thanks.'
'No problem,' Victoria said. 'Come on, let's go watch the sail test!'
Infinity led Nikolai Petrovich Cherenkov toward the guesthouse, trying to explain the problem about Floris Brown. The
114 Vonda N. Mdntyre
trouble was, he felt so intimidated about talking to the cosmonaut that he kept getting tangled in his words.
' 'I took her to the guesthouse last night. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't just leave her in the garden. I sleep there sometimes, but you can't let an old person sit out all night in the dew. Do you know what I mean?'
'I do have some experience speaking English.'
'I know that, I mean, I didn't mean—'
'I suppose you could not leave her to sit in the garden, but she might have come to her senses and moved back into her house if you had.'
'She's pretty stubborn.'
Infinity glanced sidelong at Nikolai Petrovich. This was the first time he had talked to the cosmonaut. Physically, Cherenkov was still vigorous. He had been tall for a cosmonaut, nearly two meters. The bone loss of years in space, in zero-g, had given him a pronounced stoop. His posture caused him to peer out at the world from beneath his brows. Exposure to sun and radiation had weathered his skin as severely as if he had spent his life in the desert. His dark brown hair was turning gray in discrete streaks. Gray striped his bushy eyebrows.
He turned his head and caught Infinity looking at him. His gaze locked with Infinity's.
His age was in his eyes. Infinity felt a chill, a prickle of awe.
Nikolai Petrovich smiled.
'Why do you think an old stranger like me would change
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarers.txt her mind, when you could not?'
'You can tell her it isn't a nursing home.'
'That is what she fears?'
'That's what she said.'
'She thinks Thanthavong and I are geriatric cases.'
Embarrassed, Infinity tried to think of something to say. 'She doesn't understand . . -'
Cherenkov chuckled.
'Where does she wish to live?' the cosmonaut asked.
'She wasn't quite clear on that. It sounded like she wanted to live in her own house by herself, but she also wanted her family around. I guess she couldn't have either one back on earth.'
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'So she came here. Alone.'
'Right. She said they'd put her in a nursing home, and she'd die.'
'I see. I remain here ... for similar reasons.'
'I know,' Infinity said.
It was not a nursing home that would kill Nikolai Pelrovich if he went back to earth. The executioners of the Mideast Sweep did not wait for their victims to turn themselves in.
'Why did you come to me, instead of going to the housing committee?'
That was a good question. Infinity realized that the answer was, he wanted an excuse to meet the cosmonaut face-to-face. He was embarrassed to say so.
