supposed to be self-sufficient eventually ... '
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'He's suspended the salaries of all U.S. citizens,' Thanthavong said. 'They*!! send out enough transports to pick people up, but they won't send supplies beyond what are already in preparation.'
'That isn't quite true,' Gerald said. 'We can have anything we want, as long as we pay for it ourselves.'
'Does he think he can starve us out?' Stephen Thomas said. 'How long can it take to grow, I don't know, potatoes?'
'Somehow,' Gerald said, 'I cannot see you holding out for long on a diet of potatoes. You're looking at the situation from a far too personal point of view. Our civilization is faced with problems much bigger than ours—' 'And the problems of one starship don't amount to a hill of beans,' Stephen Thomas said.
'This isn't funny, Stephen Thomas,' Thanthavong said.
'Yeah. I know.'
'Putting off the expedition for two or three years,' Gerald said, 'might make the difference between survival and destruction.'
'Starfarer cannot fill the new role the president suggests.' Thanthavong said. 'If the ship moves to a lower orbit, it will never leave the solar system. And I believe you know it.'
She left the conference room,
'The same thing could happen to Europe and Britain as happened to half of Asia and Africa,' Gerald said. 'Perhaps it can't happen in North America—note that I place emphasis on 'perhaps.' I don't expect any native-born Americans to have a conception of what that means, but surely a naturalized citizen—'
Stephen Thomas remembered some of the stories Victoria's great-grandmother told about her friends and the Mideast Sweep. He felt distressed and off balance, unable to counter Gerald's arguments.
'Gerald,' Stephen Thomas said, though it was hardly a survival characteristic for a professor to antagonize an assistant chancellor, 'shut up.' He followed Thanthavong out of the main room and went to his lab.
'Stephen Thomas!' His two grad students and his postdoc converged on him.
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'Give me a few minutes,' he said. He went into his office and shut the door.
Stephen Thomas came out of his office and into the deserted lab. He wondered where everyone had got to. He wanted to talk to them; he had spent the whole morning with Arachne, and he thought he had figured out a way to keep the lab going. At least for a while.
The president's announcement had completely disrupted everything he had planned for today. In addition, the staff and faculty had put in enough recommendations to schedule a general meeting. Even Stephen Thomas had joined in that proposal, though he hated meetings. It would eat up the evening.
Stephen Thomas left the genetics building and headed for the park. As he walked, he set up another problem for Arachne to work on. Every twenty paces or so, his stride faltered as he rejected the results, changed a variable, and started another report cycle.
He barely noticed the blossoms that had opened since his last visit to the park. A kitchen AS stood next to a round table, waiting patiently with lunch. Otherwise, the meadow was deserted. In normal times every picnic table by the stream would be in use.
Stephen Thomas waited for Victoria and Satoshi. He pillowed his head on his arms. The bento boxes breathed a warm smell, but Stephen Thomas had no appetite. He was still linked up with Arachne, juggling numbers and trying not to see the pattern they insisted on producing.
'Stephen Thomas.'
Stephen Thomas started when Satoshi touched his shoulder.
'Sorry.'
'I was thinking.'
'Yeah.'
Victoria joined them. They embraced. Victoria and Satoshi looked as somber as Stephen Thomas felt. They had probably been doing the same calculations as he had.
Satoshi set the bento boxes out on the stone table, then sat on the rock-foam bench beside his partners.
'So,' Victoria said.
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'They've really done it this time,' Stephen Thomas said.
'How many graduate students are you losing?' Satoshi said.
'No one has bailed out yet,' Stephen Thomas said, adding, to himself. As far as I know.
'All mine are Canadian,' Victoria said. 'The temps plan to stay as long as they can be sure of a transport home. But with the supply runs curtailed, my kids are scared.'
Most of the researchers on board had several graduate students and post-doctoral students: till now, at least, it was considered quite a coup to win a position helping prepare the expedition. Most of the students were temps, permitted to stay only while the starship remained in range of the transports. Some had applied for positions on the expedition itself:
the ultimate make-or-break dissertation project.
'Leaving now sounds kind of shortsighted to me,' Stephen Thomas said. 'They wouldn't lose that much— unless somebody raised grad salaries when I wasn't looking.' He tried to grin.
'What have you been doing all morning?' Victoria snapped.
'What? What arc you mad about?'
'Didn't you even read the new rules?'
'I got as far as 'Salaries and grants are suspended until further notice,' and I spent the rest of the morning figuring out how to keep the lab together.'
'The new rules are that American grad students who quit now and go home still get their trips free. If they stay and change their minds later they have to pay for it themselves.'
'Oh.'
'Oh,' Victoria said.
'Come on, Victoria, this wasn't my idea, don't take it out on me. And the money's only been impounded for a couple of hours. Distler will get overruled, or whatever they do.
Won't he?'
'I hope so, for you guys* sakes.' Victoria turned to Satoshi. 'What about your students?'
'Fox volunteered to slay on,' he said drily.
Victoria laughed despite herself.
'I'm glad to hear somebody's expecting to come out ahead in this,' Stephen Thomas said sourly. He opened his lunch,
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closed it again, and stared at the variations in the table's surface.
Satoshi rubbed his shoulder gently. Stephen Thomas looked at his partners and look Satoshi's hand. Victoria reached across the table to him, her irritation dissolving into sympathy.
'Have you talked to your father yet?*'
Stephen Thomas shook his head—and immediately regretted it. The interaction of the cylinder's rotation with his inner ear made his field of vision twist and tilt. He squeezed his eyes shut and wailed for the weird sensation to stop.
'Oh, shit!' By now he should have got over the habit of shaking his head or nodding, or adapted to the weirdness.
He opened his eyes hesitantly. The world steadied. Satoshi put a cold glass in his hand. Stephen Thomas rubbed the side of the glass against one temple, then sipped the iced tea.
'Thanks.'
'You okay?' Satoshi said.
'Yeah,' Stephen Thomas replied, without nodding. 'No,
I haven't talked to my father. Yeah, I'm going to have to. And I don't think I can get away with text only.'
