'I know,' Victoria said. 'I know it. That's why I came.
To tell you that I do understand. I'm furious, but not at you. I think you're an admirable person. I wouldn't have the courage to do what you're doing.'
'Thank you for trying to make me feel better ... ' Her smile felt shaky. 'It isn't working.'
The hatch door opened and people came out. A crowd had already formed around the hatchway. The last transport would be packed. Half its incoming passengers were refusing to disembark. J.D. could not blame them, and besides, as Sa-toshi said, anyone who could be talked out of being on the expedition for any reason probably should not have joined it in the first place.
Though J.D. was one of the passengers who actually held a confirmed reservation, she did not expect to claim her couch. The transport could accommodate all its passengers only because freefall gave them three dimensions rather than two in which to place themselves.
'I hope you find your friend,' Victoria said.
'Thank you.'
The last few people straggled out of the hatchway. Hardly noticing them, J.D. hugged Victoria, who embraced her
244 Vonda N. Mclntyre
tightly. Finally they drifted away from each other, still holding hands.
'I guess ... '
J.D. noticed a pair of youths, strangely familiar, moving through the waiting room, among the other new people. She lost sight of them.
'I guess I'd better go.' Everyone else had already crowded into the transport.
Victoria put one hand on either side of J.D.'s face, leaned forward, and kissed her lips. J.D. felt herself blushing, but did not pull away.
Victoria let her hands slip away from J.D.'s face. Reluctantly, J.D. pushed off from the wall, moving backward through the hatchway.
'Goodbye.'
The doors began to close.
'Goodbye.'
Beyond Victoria, the strange youths headed for the exterior hatch. One, awkward in weightlessness, pushed off too hard.
She tumbled toward a group of equally inexperienced people.
The other youth, of indeterminate gender, wearing an incongruous baggy business suit and an even more incongruous hat, swam after her, caught her, and steadied her. This youth was an old hand up here, swimming in the air like water-Even as J.D. thought, It couldn't be! she lurched forward through the last crack between the closing doors. They slammed open, then shut again as she barreled back into the waiting room.
'Zev!'
The youth in the business suit spun toward her—and continued turning. He pulled off his hat, freeing his astonishing pale hair, and flung the hat hard in the opposite direction of the spin. His rotation slowed. He touched the wall and launched himself toward J.D.
'J.D. ! I did not see you—how did you know I was coming? We thought we kept it a secret. I have a different name
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarers.txt now. And I am Chandra's assistant.'
J.D. looked at him, baffled. He dodged around her, skimming past her, very close, never touching her.
Chandra made her way to them, hand over hand along the
STARFARERS
245
transport wall. 'Thanks for leaving me hanging like that. Is that your idea of gratitude?'
'This is Chandra. Chandra, I forgot my new name.'
'It doesn't matter. You can go back to being Zev.'
'What happened?' J.D. cried. 'I don't understand any of this!'
Zev laughed and hovered above them. 'What does it matter? We're here now.'
Chandra answered her. 'It's like Zev said. He's my grad student in the art department. My agent got him a temporary new identity.'
'Your agent must be pretty extraordinary.'
Zev swooped between them, pushed off gently from the surface beyond their feet, and passed behind J.D.
'She is. She knows some amazing people. She even knows people who can make publishers pay them their royalties on time.'
'That is amazing. Zev, stop, slow down!'
'I cannot help it, this is exciting.'
She took his wrist as he passed, and drew him toward her.
She had forgotten how warm his skin always felt. In the sea, heat radiated from him, perceptible a handsbreadth away.
'Come here, let me hug you.'
'But you said, about being on land—'
'Never mind what I said. For a minute, we can be divers again.'
Zev smiled his luminous smile and pulled himself to her and hugged her tight- He hid his face against her neck. His breath whispered against her collarbone. J.D. felt as if she had been dying of starvation and thirst and loneliness without knowing it, until this moment, and now it did not matter because she was no longer dying.
Victoria hovered nearby while J.D. and Zev hugged each other, floating upside down in relation to Victoria's orientation.
The artist grabbed onto a handhold. She clung tight, her
eyes shut, the weird swellings on her face and hands dark with increased circulation.
She opened her eyes. They were a dull silver-gray. She seemed to look directly at Victoria.
246 Vonda N. Mclntyre
'I have to hook into the computer!' she said. She thrust her chin toward Victoria, arrogant, desperate. 'Otherwise I'm going to start losing stuff. Why isn't it responding?*'
'The web's been disrupted,' Victoria said. 'We're in a lot of trouble here—are you sure you want to stay?'
'Of course. How long before you've got a functional web?'
'I don't know.'
'I can't afford to wait—do you have portables? Backups?
A hard-link?'
Victoria almost snapped at her, almost said, I have better things to do than worry about art.
But the truth was that she did not have anything better to do, with Iphigenie capable of watching the course, and also being watched over to be sure she did not slip into shock. Victoria had nothing better to do than worry. She might as well worry about something.
'''•Where did you get that suit?' J.D. was asking.
'Chandra had it made for me.'
'It fit him better,' Chandra said, 'before he decided he ought to be able to swim in it.'
'She says it should fit more closely, but I like it this way.
Is it good space clothes?'
'It's unique,' J.D. said. 'And so are you.'
Victoria smiled. 'Come on,' she said to Chandra. 'I'll get you to a link.' She reached out to lead the artist, who ignored her hand and pushed off past her, dog-paddling.
'I'm not blind, you know.'
Victoria kicked off after her, nonplussed, but relieved to know that Chandra had not chosen some form of altered sight, even blindness, in pursuit of her art.
