"When we do go home," J.D. said, "whenever it is, nothing would make me happier than to have Nemo come along with us."72 "I have a question," Gerald said, in the round, highcla.s.s British tonesthat always managed to sound more or less disapproving, "if I may step out of my liaison position for a moment."

"Go ahead," J.D. said.

"I was rather surprised . . . that you ate a live animal."

J.D. grinned mischievously. "It was good, Gerald. Essence of' fresh shrimp, with honey-orange sauce. Quite a rush, too. It wasn't any stranger than eating an oyster."

"If you say so," Gerald said. "There is a question from the astronomy department. Awaiyar?"

The tall, elegant astronomer appeared in the circle. She gestured, her hands as graceful as a dancer's, and the image of the Milky Way also appeared. It turned, revealing the unmapped area beyond its core.

"We have a matter of policy to decide," she said. "Can we afford to turn down Nerno's offer to exchange information?"

"Can we afford to accept it?" Stephen Thomas said, sounding grim. J.D.

wished she had had a chance to see what he had encountered in Nerno's crater. She could not spare the attention, now, to look at it, but it had spooked him badly. Her impression was that Stephen Thomas Gregory did not spook easily.

"What do you think, J.D.T' Victoria asked.

"I . . ." She took a deep breath. "I want to say yes. I trust Nemo-"

"That fact is self-evident," Gerald said dryly.

"But we aren't just talking about me. I think . . . I think we still have time to think about it and decide."

"We have only a few days till we enter transition," Avvaiyar said.

"I know." J.D. reached out briefly through her link toward Nemo. This is your chance to persuade my colleagues, she thought.

But Nerno did not reply. 73."I think it's too dangerous to give Nemo access to Arachne," Victoria said.

"You're suggesting that we give up a great deal in order to protect your new transition algorithm," Gerald said.

"That's right," Victoria said.

"In other words, you feel your work may be the only thing human beings will ever have to trade that the interstellar community will want."

"What's your point, Gerald?" Stephen Thomas carried his voice with an edge.

Gerald ignored Stephen Thomas. "Rather arrogant, perhaps, Victoria."

"Yes," Victoria said.

"There's no need for personal animosity," Professor Thanthavong said.

"I meant no animosity. I'm merely suggesting that if we gain this new knowledge, we can go home-with or without Nemo-and consider the expedition a success. If Nemo takes the transition algorithm, what of it?

We'll have five hundred years to develop something equally impressive."

"I can't believe you're so anxious to give up and go home!" Victoria said.

J.D. leaned back in her seat. This was an important discussion, and she was an important part of any conclusion. She had to pay attention to it.

She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.

Satoshi woke. Victoria snuggled against him, one arm beneath her cheek, the other draped around his waist. They had dozed, waiting for Stephen Thomas. The bed felt empty without their younger partner.

When J.D. fell asleep in the observers' circle, Victoria had decided not to awaken her. No one was ready to make a decision about Nemo and Arachne, so they ended the conference. Everyone, on the Chi and back on Starfarer, was as grateful for a few hours' rest.

Everyone, apparently, except Stephen Thomas.74 I wonder where he is? Satoshi thought. Sleeping alone in his cabin?

Not likely.

Stephen Thomas liked to sleep with his partners. He liked to sleep in the middle, the way Merry used to.

Not that Stephen Thomas had taken Merry's place, or even tried. No one could ever do that. But after Merry's accident, only a few months after Stephen Thomas joined the family partnership, the triad had comforted them all.

I wonder if our family would have survived after Merry died, Satoshi wondered, if not for Stephen Thomas? I don't think it would have. I fell apart pretty badly, and so did Victoria.

The old ache and the numb shock returned. He hugged Victoria fiercely, desperately. The pain had barely diminished in the time since Merry's death. It hit less frequently, but it hit just as hard.

Victoria woke. She held him, stroking his smooth short hair, murmuring comfort in his ear.

"I love you," Satoshi whispered. "I don't know what I'd do without you and Stephen Thomas."

"I love you, too," she said. "And if I have anything to say about it, you'll never need to find out what you'd do without me. But where's Stephen Thomas?"

"Maybe he thought we were sleeping in his room tonight."

Victoria looked at Satoshi, askance. They seldom all slept in Stephen Thomas's room. He had a lot of good qualities, but neatness was not one of them. His room back on Starfarer was bad enough. The Chi's forays into free-fall turned his cubicle into a disaster area, "I'll go see," Satoshi said.

He crossed Victoria's ' cabin and his own, pushing the connecting door the rest of the way open to create a single s.p.a.ce. The door into Stephen Thomas's room stood ajar. Satoshi pushed it open. Stephen Thomas was not there. His patchwork quilt, a wedding gift from Merry's family, Jay rumpled across his bed. 75.He can't still be in his lab, Satoshi thought. Can he? Maybe he fell asleep there.

Satoshi pulled his own ratty bathrobe out of the storage net on the wall, put it on, and crossed to the laboratory section of the Chi.

At the doorway of Stephen Thomas's lab, Satoshi stopped. His partner tilted his chair to its limit, his hands behind his head and his feet braced against the lab table. Stephen Thomas gazed, frowning, at the mag- nified image of growing cells.

"Hi, Satoshi," Stephen Thomas said without turning around. He took his feet off the table and let his chair drop forward.

Satoshi put his hands on Stephen Thomas's shoulders.

"Coming to bed?"

Stephen Thomas shrugged.

If Stephen Thomas had asked him to go away, he would have complied.

Stephen Thomas could be moody, and he could say, often bluntly, what he wanted. But he had been so quiet recently that Satoshi worried. They had been through a lot. Maybe it all was catching up with Stephen Thomas.

Maybe he was still in shock because of Feral's death.

Or maybe turning into a diver was not as benign a procedure as Zev thought.

It troubled Satoshi that Stephen Thomas had chosen to let the changes proceed. They had begun by accident, by mistake. Satoshi wished the accident had never happened.

You don't have any right to tell him what to do with his body, he told himself sternly.

Don't I? he replied to himself I love him. I care what happens to him.

And I think this is crazy.

"I don't understand what's going on with these cells," Stephen Thomas said.

"Which ones are they?"

"From Europa's weed. Ordinary soil bacteria. Same as back on Earth, she said."76 "But?"

"But not quite. They'll grow on dirt from Starfarer, if I sterilize it.

Not otherwise. I must have missed something."

"It's late, you're tired. You're working too hard."

"I'm not working hard enough." Stephen Thomas slapped the lab table with a sharp, shocking strike. "Or I'd be able to figure this out. Everything I've done since we left home has been c.r.a.p."

"Come to bed."

"I wouldn't be good company."

"Are you okay?"

"Twitchy. Achy. I'll probably thrash around. I'd keep you both awake."

"I don't care," Satoshi said.

Satoshi looked at Stephen Thomas for a long moment. He was as susceptible to his partner's extraordinary beauty as anyone. As everyone. He stroked Stephen Thomas's long blond hair. It had, as usual, come untied. It curled around his partner's face and tangled down over his shoulders.

"Is your hair going to change color?"

"Probably not," Stephen Thomas said. "No reason it should. Zev says I should cut it, to be a proper diver."

"You never cut it to work in zero g, why should you cut it now?"

"I'm not going to. Starfarer doesn't have a proper ocean, so I can't be a proper diver no matter what."

Most divers had dark eyes. So far, Stephen Thomas's eyes remained brilliant sapphire blue. Satoshi hoped they would not change. He started to ask. But if they were going to change, he did not want to know.

Satoshi slid his hand beneath the collar of his partner's shirt, a deliberately arousing touch. His fingers stroked the soft new fuzz of fine, transparent diver's fur.

Satoshi froze. He willed himself to leave his hand where it was. He could not tell if Stephen Thomas noticed his reaction.

Stephen Thomas put his hand on Satoshi's. The 77.swimming webs felt warm against Satoshi's skin. Satoshi shivered. Stephen Thomas tensed and closed his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Satoshi asked.

"I've just beat my body up pretty good the last few days," Stephen Thomas said.

"But Zev said-"

"I had a run-in with a silver slug, all right?" Stephen Thomas said angrily.

"What? How? When?"

"When I tried to get into the chancellor's house."

"Why?"

"Why the h.e.l.l do you think? He killed Feral! I wanted . . . I don't know what I wanted. I don't know if I would've killed him. But the slugs make f.u.c.king good watchdogs. It just about squashed the c.r.a.p out of me. For a while I thought it broke my pelvis."

"Are you sure-"

"It's just bruises."

"Good lord," Satoshi said. The lithoclasts guarding Blades were the size of rhinoceroses. "You could have been killed."

"I know. I won't do it again." He moved Satoshi's hand away, gently but firmly. "I want to sleep alone tonight." His voice was careful, neutral.

Satoshi hesitated. "Okay," he said. He was upset and confused and he had no idea whether he was relieved or disappointed that Stephen Thomas would not come to bed with him. "See you in the morning."

He started out of the lab.

He could still feel the fur against his fingers.

"Satoshi!"

"Yeah?" He turned back.

"Don't tell Victoria," Stephen Thomas said, his voice intense. "About the slug."

Satoshi frowned. "I hate it when you ask me to keep things from Victoria."

"I shouldn't have told either one of you, dammit! I knew it would just upset you both-"

"All right. All right! I won't tell her."

He left his younger partner alone.78 He returned to Victoria. She lay on the sleeping surface of her cabin, one knee drawn up, the other leg extended, her fingers laced behind her head, her eyes half closed.

"He wants to sleep by himself tonight."