She and Zev towed the artist out of the waiting room, past the people listening, fascinated and appalled, to the conversation between Slarfarer traffic control and the transport pilot.
'Zev, where were you all this time? Lykos has been worried, and I was just about to go back and help look for you.'
'It was exciting. We almost got arrested.'
' 'We'? You and the other divers? I thought—'
' 'We,' him and me,' Chandra said. 'I almost let them.
I've never been arrested, it would have been good stuff to collect. But they didn't look like regular police, and I was afraid it would take too long to get out.'
'I suspect that's an understatement,' J.D. said.
She led them down the corridor toward one of the auxiliary equipment rooms.
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'Do'both of you realize that we're headed for transition right now? That if you stay, you'll be on the starship permanently? The expedition may be longer than we planned . . . we've gotten ourselves in a lot of trouble.'
Chandra laughed. 'You think / was making an understatement? ''
'There's still time to get on the transport.'
'J-D.,' Zev said, 'it would be silly to get on the transport. It is not going anywhere.' He loosened his tie and pulled it off.
'I hope they change their minds about that, because Star-farer isn't about to change course.'
'We can't go back,' Chandra said. 'By now they'll have figured out that my assistant doesn't exist, and maybe they'll have figured out who he really is. Besides, I'm in the art department, I signed on for the trip.'
'Me, too,' Zev said cheerfully. He pulled the shirttail out of his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt so it flapped behind him.
'All right . . . Whoa, stop.'
They turned in at the equipment room.
'There's a link.'
Chandra dove toward it. She would have piled headfirst into the wall if J.D. had not grabbed her as she passed. She had nothing to hold on to, to stop her, but their combined mass slowed them so they drifted to a halt before the console. Chandra did not notice. She hooked in with Arachne, fitting the direct sensors over her head.
The rhythm of her breathing changed: long deep breaths changed to quick hard gasps. Her body quivered, and the skin over the nerve clusters grew livid. She moaned. It embarrassed J.D. to watch her. She turned away and pushed off, letting herself drift toward the other side of the room.
'I'm glad you're here,' she said to Zev.
'I, too.' He glanced at her from beneath his arm. He hung sideways in the air in relation to J.D., with his knees pulled close to his chest so he could reach his feet. He was untying his shoes.
'Your mother must be glad you're all right.'
'Did you call her already? When?'
'No, I haven't called her. Haven't you called her?'
252 vonda N. Mclntyre
'I could not. Chandra said they would know who I was if
I did that.'
'She was probably right. Poor Lykos!'
'May we call her now?'
'We can try.'
Leaving Chandra, J.D. led Zev to another equipment room and another hard-link.
But they could not get through to Lykos.
The transport pilot, having run out of arguments, turned recalcitrant, then surly. It was a quarter of an hour since she had replied to anyone.
Victoria took a second to check the position of the carrier.
It was only a few thousand kilometers away, a hairsbreadth in astronomical terms, and its relative speed was fast enough that as she watched, it came perceptibly nearer.
'They're close,' she said. 'They're really close.'
'Not close enough,' the traffic controller said. 'They can't accelerate enough to catch us and still have time to decelerate enough not to crash.'
'First good news I've heard all day.'
Dr. Thanthavong arrived at traffic control.
'Can I be of any help?' she asked Victoria.
'Please,' Victoria said with relief. 'Surely she'll listen to you.' She moved aside so the world-renowned geneticist could come within reach of the sound pickup.
'Esther, my name is Thanthavong.'
There was a long silence.
'What?' the transport pilot said.
'My name is Thanthavong.'
'So? Am I supposed to know you?'
Dr. Thanthavong drew her eyebrows together in surprise.
'I am Professor Thanthavong, the geneticist. I developed viral depolymerase- I want to try to persuade you not to interfere with the expedition.'
'I never heard of you and I don't want to talk to any geneticist. What happened to Victoria?'
Thanthavong spread her hands, defeated, embarrassed, and yet drily amused. 'And here I thought I was a universal historical figure.' She returned the controller's sound pickup to Victoria.
STARFARERS
253
Victoria gathered her thoughts and tried again.
'Esther, you don't want to be responsible for the first hijacking in space, do you? You've got a duty to your passengers.'
'The first hijacking'' the pilot said angrily. 'You're a good one to talk about hijacking!'*
'We've all agreed what to do. Everybody on the transport has chosen to return—and everyone who chose to return is on the transport. Starfarer isn't going to change course. There isn't much time. If you stay docked ...'
'I don't believe you'll kidnap us,' Esther said.
Victoria backed out of the pickup's range.
'I don't know what to say to her.'
'Is there anyone on board she might respond to?'
Victoria could not think of anyone. She felt as if her thoughts were doing nothing but going around in confused little circles.
'Sure!' the controller said suddenly. 'She's a pilot. Get Cherenkov.''
'Of course,' Thanthavong said.
'Where is he?'
They both glanced at the controller, as if he could divine the cosmonaut's whereabouts.
He shrugged. 'No idea.'
Victoria reached for the web, but found only the empty biankness of the blasted connections.
'Maybe we could go look . . . ?'
But there were too many places to look, and too short a time left in which to look for him.
The traffic controller groaned. 'Oh, shit. Listen.'
The voice on the speaker changed.
'Starfarer, this is the carrier Hector. Reverse your sail immediately. The starship must begin to decelerate immediately or we'll be forced to take drastic action.'
Kolya grabbed Marion Griffith and kept him from crashing to the floor. Kolya knew many ways of killing a human being, but very few ways of taking a person's consciousness without causing damage.
