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lacked the gall to wear it.
I've lost a lot of gall in the last couple of days, he thought.
Maybe now is where I get it back.
He picked a suit from its hanger and inspected it carefully, checking how the
fittings worked. It was no more compli-
cated than a radiation suit. He climbed into it.
"Strosvuitye."
Griffith turned, disbelieving. From the doorway, Cheren-
kov regarded him with an expression as matter-of-fact as his voice.
"My faith in human nature is obviously at a low ebb,"
STARFARERS 249
Cherenkov said. "Otherwise I might have expected to see you here. You did
understand what I said to you, didn't you?"
Griffith could not trust himself to answer the question. "I
didn't expect to see you," he said. "This is the last place I
expected to see you. What are you doing down here?"
"The same as you. Trying to save the expedition. Acting an old part, the part
of an unregenerate hero." He spoke drily, self-deprecatingly.
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"You can go back up, then," Griffith said. "There's no need for you to leave
the expedition."
"You said you wanted to be like me, and I said you were a fool for it. You're
still a fool."
"Thanks a lot," Griffith said. "What do I have to do, to make you " He
stopped.
"If you jump out into space and call for the carrier to rescue you, it won't
turn aside from its prey. Its masters will not permit it."
"I think I know them better then you do, and you're wrong."
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"I will not let you enter the airiock, Marion," Cherenkov said.
"How are you going to stop me?"
"I may be out of practice, but one does not forget certain survival
techniques." He smiled. "Especially when one per-
forms them against an opponent handicapped by spacesuit legs halfway down
around his ankles."
"Don't laugh at me!" Griffith jerked the bottom of the spacesuit straight so
he was no longer hobbled by the legs.
The back hung down behind him like an enormous tail. Che-
renkov was right about his being handicapped, less by the suit than by his
desperate wish not to fight with the cosmo-
naut.
"You can't seriously think I'd let you jump out instead!"
"That would be the more rational course," Cherenkov said.
"Because you're sure they will turn around to go get you?
That's fucking egotistical."
"I'm not sure. But I am sure that I have the better chance of slowing them
long enough for Starfarer to reach transi-
tion."
"Maybe we ought to both jump out," Griffith said sarcas-
tically.
250 vonda N. Mcintyre
"All right," Cherenkov said. "That would be an accept-
able compromise."
Griffith hesitated.
"No," he said. "I can't allow it."
Curious, Cherenkov cocked his head. "But why? I'm sorry if I hurt your pride,
believing your superiors will not stop to rescue you. Is that any reason to
abandon a version of the plan that would work?"
"It's too risky," Griffith hesitated. "If they won't stop for me ... maybe
they won't stop for you, either."
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"I see." Cherenkov let his long legs fold up; he sat on the stone floor and
gazed at Griffith.
"You don't want to fight me, either," Griffith said. "I'll take that as a
compliment." He managed to smile. "Check-
mate."
"Not yet," Cherenkov said. "Only check."
J.D. watched Victoria soar away without a backward look.
She hesitated, tempted to follow. But surely Victoria would have asked for her
help if she had wanted it. Besides, J.D.
did not want to leave Zev.
"Just tell me where there's a link!" Chandra said. "God forbid I should use
any of your precious time."
"I'm sorry," J.D. said. "Things are a little complicated up here right now.
Come on, I'll find you a place to transfer your information."
She and Zev towed the artist out of the waiting room, past the people
listening, fascinated and appalled, to the conver-
sation between Slarfarer traffic control and the transport pilot.
"Zev, where were you all this time? Lykos has been wor-
ried, 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
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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.
STARFARERS 251
"Do'both of you realize that we're headed for transition right now? That if
you stay, you'll be on the starship perma-
nently? The expedition may be longer than we planned . . .
we've gotten ourselves in a lot of trouble."
Chandra laughed. "You think / was making an understate-
ment? ''
"There's still time to get on the transport."
"J-D.," Zev said, "it would be silly to get on the trans-
port. 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
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s.txt 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 embar-
rassed 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
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terms, and its relative speed was fast enough that as she watched, it came
perceptibly nearer. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]