'There's nothing you can do,' Professor Thanthavong said.
'No more people are going in there till the AIs and the ASes have been through it.' She spoke to all of them. 'You aren't in danger of illness—we store no pathogens. But I want blood samples. I may have to mix you a depolymerase if you were exposed to sensitizing virus. It isn't something you want permanently floating around in your system.' An AS buzzed up to her and offered her a half-dozen sampling kits. She took blood from Victoria and Satoshi and Zev and Fox, then came toward Stephen Thomas.
'You can have my shirt,' he said hopefully.
'Very funny.'
As the kit pulled ten centiliters of blood out of him, Stephen Thomas paled. Victoria was afraid he would faint again, but he averted his gaze and collected himself.
'Where is J.D. ?' Zev said.
'I don't know.' Victoria looked around. 'I thought she was right behind us.'
'She does not like to run,' Zev said. 'She likes to swim.'
Automatically, Victoria queried the web, but it was completely involved with its own reconstruction.
'I'm going to the explorer,' Victoria said. 'That's where I'm supposed to be, and that's where I'm going.' She felt near to screaming with frustration. 'J.D. knows where it is— maybe she'll meet us there.'
They crossed the fields to return to the axis and the explorer dock. Zev tagged along. Victoria walked on one side of Stephen Thomas and Satoshi on the other, just in case.
'I really am okay,' Stephen Thomas said. 'But I'm going home for a few minutes.' He turned toward Victoria, defensive, expecting her to object. 'We're all a mess—'
276 vonda N. Mclntyre
'You're right,' she said. They al! looked a wreck, particularly Stephen Thomas. Victoria grinned. 'We can4! go exploring like this. Remember what your mother always told you about clean underwear.'
Stephen Thomas said, 'No, what?'
'What is underwear?' Zev asked.
The mini-horses pounded past, running, as horses run, in response to fright, their ears back, slick with sweat. Victoria smelled their fear.
On a hillock near the path, Kolya Cherenkov raised himself out of an access tunnel and climbed to ground level. He reached down and gave a hand to Infinity Mendez, then to J.D., and finally to the accountant from the GAO.
Zev ran toward J.D. and hugged her and swung around
with her. She gathered him in and kissed his hair, his cheek,
his lips, murmuring to him, telling him what had happened.
For a few minutes it seemed as if everyone tried to talk at the same time, explaining, questioning. Only Griffith stood apart. Victoria did not quite turn her back on him—she distrusted him too much for that—but she would not look directly at him; she could neither meet his gaze nor bring herself to speak to him.
'We had a plan to stop the takeover, Griffith and I,' Kolya said. 'A very foolhardy plan ... it might have worked. But then the missile hit, and things became more complicated.
Then we entered transition.'
'You saw it? What did you see? Tell me!'
Kolya's expression sobered. 'I ... I cannot describe it. I am sorry.'
Envious and jealous and angry, Victoria looked for Griffith. She did not know what she wanted to say to him. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps she only wanted to glare.
'I didn't see it at all,' he said. He turned around and strode away.
'He has ... things to think about,' Kolya said apologetically.
'No kidding,' Victoria said.
As soon as she and her partners had cleaned up, Victoria led the way up the hill to Starfarer^s axis, where the team's explorer waited in its dock on the hub.
STARFARERS 2 77
'Victoria!' J.D. sounded breathless. 'Touch the web. The explorer—'
It took Victoria a moment to make her way through the reconnecting pathways.
Her steps faltered.
'Holy shit,' Stephen Thomas said- Satoshi looked stunned. Zev reacted with a smile.
The explorer was receiving a transmission: a strong, regular signal of precise frequency. From outside Slarfarer. From within the Tau Ceti system.
'Let's go''
Victoria broke into a run. She leaped through the gravity gradient, skimmed across the microgravity, and entered the zeio-g core.
The team members sailed weightless through the hallways.
They had to pass the transport to reach the next dock, where their explorer waited. Victoria glanced through the transparent partition into the transport's waiting room.
Though the transport passengers had disembarked, most of them remained at the starship's axis, as if they had been delayed by some minor mechanical glitch and would soon return to their places and fly home. AIzena, in her black clothes, huddled in a corner staring at the wall.
Gerald Hemminge saw Victoria. He launched himself toward the doorway, grabbed the doorframe to change his vector, and plunged down the hallway after her.
'Victoria!'
'I can't talk to you now.' She kept going.
'But we've still a chance to recover from this awful mistake.'
'Did your boss send you out to tell us that?' She was too excited to be bitter, but not too distracted for a little sarcasm. 'I didn't see him—does he have his own private waiting room?'
'The chancellor wasn't on the transport,' Gerald said.
'He accepted the leadership of this expedition, and he determined to remain.'
'Nobody cares now, Gerald,' Satoshi said. 'Leave us alone.'
Gerald saw Stephen Thomas. As the paramedic promised, he was developing a spectacular black eye.
278 Vonda N. Mclntyre
'Good god! What happened to you?'
'We nearly got squashed when your damned missile—'
'My missile! It belonged to your government—'
Stephen Thomas iunged awkwardly toward Gerald and grabbed him by the leg. Both men tumbled, bouncing from one wait to the other.
'Let go!'
Ignoring Gerald's protest, and his kicking, Stephen Thomas climbed up him until they were face to face.
'As far as I'm concerned, that fucking missile belongs to all the jerks who wanted to stop the expedition, and you're one of them!' He shouted, furious; he shoved Gerald away.
The reaction knocked Stephen Thomas against a wail. He had to scramble to get his balance. Gerald, more experienced in weightlessness, caught himself with his feet and pushed off again, still following Victoria.
'Victoria!'
'I told you I can't talk to you now. Gerald—we've got a signal. From the Tau Ceti system.'
'But—that's wonderful''
Victoria reached the explorer's hatch.
'I'm glad you understand. Now let us get to work, eh?'
'I do understand! This changes everything. If we go home now, with this evidence, we can start with a clean slate. Repairs, provisions, all our personnel—and then we can come back ... '
His voice trailed off. All four members of the alien contact team stared at him, unbelieving. Victoria felt completely unable to come up with a sufficient response to what he had
said.
When Zev followed J.D. into the explorer, Victoria neither objected nor tried to stop him. The alternative was to leave him out in the hall with Gerald.
