department, it was far too small to represent the cultural diversity of earth.
Her request had been turned down. An alien contact specialist did not qualify to be a professor of literature. What she did was too much like science fiction.
J.D. existed in limbo as far as the academic hierarchy of the campus was concerned. None of that bothered her. No matter how democratically the expedition tried to run itself, every department would have its office politics. She felt herself well out of them-
The chancellor had not yet accepted her credentials. J.D. wondered if that was campus politics, or something bigger;
or an oversight: nothing at all.
J.D. had to admit that she liked having a place of her own where she could go out and talk to other people if she wanted;
and right down the hallway from Victoria's lab, too.
She had no office hours because she had no graduate students, not even students of Nakamura's to take over. It had been decided, somewhere in the planning of the expedition, that it would be premature to train more alien contact specialists before anyone knew if any aliens existed to be contacted. Even the half-dozen specialists left out of the expedition, back on earth, had—like J.D. herself—begun to diversify.
Her stream of consciousness brought her, as it often did,
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to the divers. She closed her eyes and asked Arachne for an update -
The news sent her bolting awkwardly from the low, soft chair. She stood in the middle of her bare office, her eyes open, the line to the web broken, but the information still hanging before her like the afterimage of a fire.
J.D. sank into the chair, pillowed her head on her crossed arms, and demanded that Arachne make a full search on the subject of the disappearance of the Northwest divers.
She was still there, shivering, when Victoria came looking for her.
'J.D. ? A bunch of us are getting together to talk—J.D. ? What's wrong?'
'It's the divers . . . They've moved out of their reserve.'
She managed to smile. 'To Canada.'
Victoria smiled back. 'That's a fine old tradition for political exiles—but why the divers? What's political about living with a pod of porpoises?'
'Orcas,' J.D. said. 'Nothing, from their point of view . . . Oh, Victoria, I can't talk about this. Maybe Lykos will make some kind of statement, but unless she explains in public—1 promised.'
'This is why you almost didn't accept my offer to join the team, isn't it?' Victoria said suddenly.
'It was involved.' She chuckled sadly. 'It's an involved story. It's rococo. One might almost say Byzantine.'
Victoria patted her arm. 'They made it to Canada, eh?
Then they'll be all right. Don't worry about them.'
'It's hard not to. They're wonderful. Victoria. They're so completely innocent. I mean that in a good sense. They're untouched by fears that twist us up, they've learned from the orcas what it means to live without hating anyone. But when
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they come in contact with our world, the innocence turns to naivete.'
Victoria let herself rock back so she was sitting on the floor beside J.D.'s chair.
'That could get dangerous.'
*'I know it. Oh, I hope they're all right.'
'Tell me about them.'
'Most of them are shy—much shyer than the orcas. I got to know one of them well—that was Zev—and I met nearly everyone in his extended family. Zev is different from the others. He's much more extroverted. He used to visit me at my cabin. He likes ice cream. Victoria, I'm making him sound like a pet, and that isn't right at all. He's smart and^ell educated in the things that matter to the divers. He's the diver I told you about, who wants to travel into space. I miss him ... At one point we talked about his applying to the expedition.'
'But he didn't.'
'No. I advised him against it. There isn't any ocean up here. I think he would have been miserably unhappy. The divers need their freedom. They travel a long way every day.
I couldn't keep up unless they chose to let me. No ordinary human can.'
'Did you ever think what it would be like to be one of them?'
J.D. hesitated. 'Alt the time. But it's illegal.'
'In the States, it's illegal.' Victoria gazed at her quizzically.
J.D. wanted to tell her more, but held her silence instead.
'Did your friend apply to Starfarer*'
'I'm sure he would have called me if he decided to. He
must have left with his family.' She sighed. 'It's just as well.
I guess.'
'It would have been interesting to have a diver along with us,' Victoria said. 'I wish he'd thought of it earlier. And done it.'
'He wouldn't have liked it.'
'Maybe some of us won't like it. But we'll be here.'
'I hope so.'
'Do you want to come along to this meeting?'
'I guess so,' J.D. said doubtfully.
STARFARERS 18 9
She pushed herself out of the chair and followed Victoria into the hallway.
'I still can't get through to the chancellor,' Victoria said.
'It irks me not to be able to get you into your own office.'
'The one I have will do fine,' J.D. said, following Victoria's lead in making conversation. 'Except the furniture. Is it all standard, or can I get something different? Should I build it myself?'
'You can if you like. If you know how. Or call the maintenance department. They'll furnish your office for you.' She paused. 'Or they would until yesterday. Who knows what today's rule is?'
They left Physics Hill and headed down a flagstone path, side by side.
'I expected the starship to be more automated than it is,' J.D. said.
'With things like robotic furniture factories?'
'Yes.'
'Slarfarer isn't big enough. We're planning to take along quite a few spare parts, for the ASes and so on. But we won't have the capability of building them from scratch.
With an automated factory you need another whole level of maintenance, either human or machine, to fix it when it goes wrong. No matter how advanced your robotics, human beings are more flexible. A lot of people who aren't scientists wanted to be involved in the expedition. The planning took that into account.' She grinned. 'Besides, can you imagine how boring it would be if nobody was on board but scientists?''
J.D. made a noncommittal noise. It would be bad manners to point out that most of the scientists on board associated mostly with other scientists.
Victoria stopped short. 'A moment—' Her eyes went out of focus and her face relaxed into a blank expression.
Her attention returned. 'Damn!' she whispered. She looked shaken. 'Come on, let's go!' She sprinted across the grass, ignoring the path.
J.D. pounded along beside her. 'What's wrong?'
'I set Arachne to signal me if we got any more orders.
The chancellor has forbidden gatherings of more than three
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people. This is outrageous'' She stowed so J.D. could keep up.
