The solar sail drew Starfarer beyond the orbit of the moon.

During its construction, the starship held steady in the libration point leading the moon. With the sail deployed, Starfarer accelerated out of its placid orbit. Each imperceptible increment of velocity widened and altered its path.

Because the starship took longer to circle the Earth in its wider orbit, the moon began to catch up to it. Soon it would pass beneath Starfarer, and the ship would use the lunar passage to tilt its course into a new plane.

As the orbit increased in complexity, the logistics of transport to Starfarer would become more difficult and more expensive.

In the middle of Starfarer’s night, Iphigenie DuPre set in motion the interactions of gravity and magnetic field and solar wind to tilt the starship out of the plane of the lunar orbit.

The angle would grow steeper and the spiral wider: the sail plus the effect of traveling past the Earth and the moon would soon drive the ship toward a mysterious remnant of the creation of the universe, a strand of cosmic string that would provide Starfarer with superluminal transition energy.

Starfarer prepared for lunar passage. Afterward, it would be well and truly on its way.

o0o

Grangrana was making breakfast. Victoria could smell biscuits, eggs, a rice curry. Coffee.

Coffee? In Grangrana’s house?

Victoria woke from the dream. She was on board Starfarer; Grangrana remained on Earth. The straight up-and-down sunlight of morning, noon, and evening reflected from the porch. Nevertheless, she smelled breakfast.

Satoshi, beside her, half opened his eyes.

“Is that coffee?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your friend Feral can stay if he wants,” Satoshi said, and went back to sleep.

Victoria smiled, kissed the curve of his shoulder, tucked the blanket around him, and slid out of his bed.

In cutoffs and one of Satoshi’s sleeveless shirts, Victoria went out to the main room. Stephen Thomas was up and dressed, in flowered cotton Bermuda shorts and a purple silk shirt. Victoria remembered rising partway out of sleep in the middle of the night when he left Satoshi’s room and returned to his own.

Victoria dodged around Stephen Thomas’s still.

“Good morning.”

“Hi.” The circles beneath his eyes had faded. He looked better this morning, not as shaken as after the party. But if he had thought of what to do about Griffith, he made no mention of his plans.

“Morning.” Feral set a pot of tea in front of Victoria as she sat down.

“This is a real treat for us, Feral,” Victoria said. “But you don’t have to make breakfast every morning.” The pleasure of having breakfast cooked and waiting gave her mixed emotions. She missed having a family manager, but it seemed disloyal to enjoy it when someone else did the tasks Merit had always smoothly, almost invisibly, taken care of.

“I know. I like to cook.” He grinned. He had mobile, expressive lips that exposed his even white teeth when he smiled. “And everything I made this morning will reheat. Satoshi can sleep in if he wants to.”

“Speak of the devil,” Stephen Thomas said.

Satoshi arrived wrapped in his threadbare bathrobe, his wet hair dripping down his neck.

“Stephen Thomas, there’s no clean laundry,” he said in a neutral tone. “And you used the last towel.”

“Uh-oh,” Stephen Thomas said.

“You might at least have hung it up so I could use it.”

“It was wet,” Stephen Thomas said.

“Yeah, well, so am I.” Satoshi accepted a cup of coffee. “Thanks, Feral.”

Victoria sometimes wished Satoshi would simply blow his stack. He hardly ever did.

Stephen Thomas sighed. “I’ll do some laundry. Today. A little later. Okay?”

Satoshi did not answer him.

“Want some curry?” Feral said.

“Sure.” Satoshi wiped the sides of his face and his neck where water had dripped from his hair. His elbow stuck through a hole in the blue terrycloth. He had gotten away with bringing the robe to Starfarer by using it as packing material when they first moved here. He needed a new one, but terrycloth was far too heavy and bulky for an ordinary allowance.

Satoshi dug around in the cupboard among his collection of condiments. There was a hole in the back of the robe, too, just below his left hip. His tawny skin showed through it. Victoria was glad he hated sewing and would probably never darn the battered fabric.

Feral brought breakfast to the table. Satoshi opened the new hot chili paste.

“I’m looking forward to trying this stuff.”

Feral laughed. “Don’t tell me they import that here.”

“Victoria brought it up in her allowance. What’s life without red chili paste?”

“Quieter,” Victoria said, and Satoshi smiled.

“This is pretty hot already.” Feral offered Satoshi the curry.

“Good.”

Feral passed the food around and sat across from Satoshi. As she watched Satoshi put chili sauce on his curry and on his eggs, Victoria hoped he and Feral would not get into a competition of who could eat the hottest food. Despite long acquaintance with Satoshi, Victoria had never understood the lure of the more violent forms of Cajun, Chinese, or Mexican cooking. Even from a distance, the volatile oils of the chili sauce were enough to make her eyes water.

Feral tasted the curry. “You’re right, it isn’t hot enough. Steve, would you pass the chili sauce?”

“Please don’t call me Steve,” Stephen Thomas said.

Feral looked up, surprised by the sudden change in tone of Stephen Thomas’s voice.

“Stephen Thomas has this phobia about nicknames,” Satoshi said.

Stephen Thomas scowled at Satoshi. “Do I have to let everybody call me anything they want? Maybe I should make up a nickname for Feral? In the North American style, Ferrie. Or the Japanese style, Feral-chan. Maybe the Russian style, Ferushkababushka.”

“Dammit, Stephen Thomas!”

Feral started to laugh. “It’s okay, Satoshi,” he said. “I can do without the Russian style, but I kind of like ‘Feral-chan.’ Stephen Thomas, I apologize. I won’t try to change your name again. After all, if you’ve got three first names, it only makes sense to use at least two of them.”

Stephen Thomas scowled, unwilling to be placated. “I don’t have any first names,” he said. “They’re all last names.”

“Will you accept my apology anyway? And pass the chili sauce?”

Stephen Thomas tossed the jar across the table. Satoshi winced and grabbed for it, but Feral caught it easily.

“You’re really acting like an adolescent,” Satoshi said to Stephen Thomas. “And I wish you’d quit.”

“I thought I was performing a public service,” Stephen Thomas said. “That’s one of the problems with this campus — no kids live here.”

o0o

Victoria went straight to her office. She had some more ideas about the cosmic string problem. Four different displays, each working on a separate manipulation, hovered in the corner. She glanced at them, though it was too soon to expect results.

One had stopped.

“I’ll be damned!” Victoria said.

Her “a-hah!” equation had produced a solution. Already. The quickest one yet, by several orders of magnitude. If it was correct. She looked it over. She felt like a bottle of Stephen Thomas’s champagne, with the strange invigorated lightness that the joy of discovery always gave her. The solution felt right, as the problem had felt right when she chose it to work on.

“I’ll be damned,” she said again. And then she thought, if I hadn’t had to go back to Earth, I would have finished the algorithm a couple of weeks ago. We would have had plenty of time for Iphigenie to recalculate the orbit for the cosmic string encounter. We could have substituted this approach to the string for the first one we chose.

The approach promised a faster, more direct route to their destination. And it hinted at a safer and more usable way home from Tau Ceti, but Victoria could not yet prove that. Nevertheless, she was outrageously pleased with her success. Victoria collected the arrival coordinates and set the return calculations going. At the same time she packaged up the string solution.

As she was about to tell Arachne to send the information to EarthSpace for archiving, she thought better of it.

Then she did something that abashed her. But she did it anyway.

She made a hard copy of the solution and slipped the crystalline module into the pocket of her cutoffs and took the results out of the web altogether.

o0o

Stephen Thomas sat sipping his coffee until Feral and Victoria and Satoshi had left the house. He hated it when Satoshi got so annoyed about trivial things like laundry, and then would not even admit he was mad.

All three members of the family had begun to deal with the grief of losing their eldest partner, but that did not resolve the problem of being without a manager. The strain was showing as plainly as the holes in Satoshi’s robe. Stephen Thomas knew what needed to be done, but he did not know how to make Satoshi and Victoria admit that they needed a manager. He had even tried to figure out how to make the family finances stretch to hiring someone. It might have been possible back on Earth; it might even have been possible on Starfarer if they were not buying the house. As things stood, that solution was out of the question.

Maybe Victoria, having finally begun to accept Merit’s death, was also beginning to accept the need for other changes. She had, after all, started the connection with Feral. She made no objection when Stephen Thomas invited him to stay. Stephen Thomas found Feral attractive, and he believed Victoria did, too, though he could not be certain she had admitted it to herself. And then there was the interesting fact that for a houseguest, Feral was making himself spectacularly useful.

I probably shouldn’t have snapped at him about calling me “Steve,” Stephen Thomas thought.

He finished his coffee. In no hurry, he left his bike on the porch and walked on over to the genetics department. He enjoyed watching the changes in the landscape he passed every day. When he first arrived, the naked earth-colored hillocks sent off rivulets of eroded mud with every rain shower. Puddles on the path turned red or yellow or blue with clay or white with sand: stark pure colors unleavened by organic content. Slowly the grasses and succulents, the bushes and bamboo sprouted into pale green lace covering the new land. The erosion slowed; now it had nearly stopped, and the vegetation covered the ground as if it had always been here. In many spots the gardeners had planted sapling trees, species either naturally fast-maturing or genetically altered to grow at enhanced speed. The primary colors of the soil had begun to dull into fertile shades of brown as the plants and the bacteria and the earthworms worked them.

According to Infinity Mendez, most of the wild cylinder would be permitted to grow and change by normal processes of succession, until in a hundred or five hundred years it would contain mature climax forests of several climates. The plan presented difficulties — never mind that no one expected Starfarer’s first expedition to last more than a few years; the starship itself should be essentially immortal. But many types of forest required periodic fires to maintain their health, and that of course could not be permitted within the confines, however large, of a starship. Other methods, mechanical and bacterial and labor-intensive human work, would have to substitute. Some of them had only been tried briefly and experimentally. This both troubled Stephen Thomas and excited his appreciation of the unknown.

He strolled through the stand of smoke bamboo growing above the genetics department and walked down the outdoor ramp to the main level. As he headed for his lab, he brought his current project to the front of his perceptions and immersed himself in it.

He passed the conference room, the first door after the entrance, so engrossed in his thoughts that he was five paces past it before he noticed the yelling. He stopped and went back.

“Wretched fucking government plots — ” Anger and profanity sounded particularly odd in the beautiful faint accent Professor Thanthavong retained from her childhood in Southeast Asia.

Gerald Hemminge replied in a cool voice. “I came all the way across campus to give you this news in person. I didn’t expect to be abused for my courtesy.”

“But it’s outrageous!” Thanthavong exclaimed, unrelenting. “How did you expect me to react?”

“Oh, come now, it’s simply your congress on one of its toots. They haven’t passed their budget, or appropriations bill, or somesuch. Then all you Americans rush about pretending that the government is packing up and going home. American congressional shenanigans give the rest of us enormous entertainment.”

Stephen Thomas had never been able to tell if Gerald patronized his colleagues deliberately, or if it was just the effect of his upper-class British background and accent. Stephen Thomas ignored academic hierarchies on principle, but even he thought it was not a survival characteristic for an assistant chancellor to patronize a Nobel laureate. Beyond that, he felt an enormous respect for Dr. Thanthavong, and he felt himself fortunate to work with her. Gerald’s attitude annoyed him.

“I think I can tell the difference between a normal governmental screw-up and a conspiracy!” Thanthavong exclaimed.

“I’m always astonished when you criticize your adopted country with such severity,” Gerald said.

“It’s bad enough when other Americans expect blind loyalty, but — ”

“What’s the matter?” Stephen Thomas said, before Thanthavong could finish. Having found a topic that could ruffle Thanthavong’s usual restraint, Gerald managed to bring it into conversation whenever possible.

Stephen Thomas joined them. Thanthavong glared at Gerald for another moment, then broke away and turned toward Stephen Thomas. The tension eased just perceptibly.

“You haven’t heard.” Thanthavong blew out her breath in annoyance. “No, I suppose not. Gerald came over to be sure I got the news in person, as he’s been so kind to point out.”

“All I’ve heard this morning is that the moon’s going to pass without crashing into us.”

“Distler has impounded the United States’ share of Starfarer’s operating funds.”

“Maybe it was the only way your president could think of to get your attention,” Gerald said.

Stephen Thomas looked at him with disbelief. When the expedition first came together, Gerald had been as enthusiastic as anyone, as convinced of Starfarer’s necessity. His attitude had changed recently, with the arrival of the new chancellor. He had not quite said out loud that he agreed with the idea of sending Starfarer into lower orbit, or even dismantling the ship. Stephen Thomas had given up arguing with him, because the arguments never went anywhere. Since Gerald never acknowledged anyone else’s points, discussions began and ended in the same place. Besides, Stephen Thomas had finally realized that Gerald liked to argue, and would do it for fun. Arguing was not Stephen Thomas’s idea of a good time.

“How can you be surprised?” Thanthavong asked Stephen Thomas. “Didn’t you see it coming?”

“No. I didn’t. The idea never crossed my mind.”

“Something like this,” Thanthavong said. “It had to happen.”

“This isn’t ‘congressional shenanigans,’ Gerald,” Stephen Thomas said. “This is a serious attack.”

“Yes, in the most vulnerable American area — the pocketbook.”

Stephen Thomas let the jab fly past.

“It would be easier to prepare the expedition without any money than to continue without half our personnel,” Thanthavong said.

Stephen Thomas frowned, trying to put a hopeful spin on the news. “Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. We’re supposed to be self-sufficient eventually...”

“He’s suspended the salaries of all U.S. citizens,” Thanthavong said. “They’ll send out enough transports to pick people up, but they won’t send supplies beyond what are already in preparation.”

“That isn’t quite true,” Gerald said. “We can have anything we want, as long as we pay for it ourselves.”

“Does he think he can starve us out?” Stephen Thomas said. “How long can it take to grow, I don’t know, potatoes?”

“Somehow,” Gerald said, “I cannot see you holding out for long on a diet of potatoes. You’re looking at the situation from a far too personal point of view. Our civilization is faced with problems much bigger than ours — ”

“And the problems of one starship don’t amount to a hill of beans,” Stephen Thomas said.

“This isn’t funny, Stephen Thomas,” Thanthavong said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Putting off the expedition for two or three years,” Gerald said, “might make the difference between survival and destruction.”

“Starfarer cannot fill the new role the president suggests,” Thanthavong said. “If the ship moves to a lower orbit, it will never leave the solar system. And I believe you know it.”

She left the conference room.

“The same thing could happen to Europe and Britain as happened to half of Asia and Africa,” Gerald said. “Perhaps it can’t happen in North America — note that I place emphasis on ‘perhaps.’ I don’t expect any native-born Americans to have a conception of what that means, but surely a naturalized citizen — ”

Stephen Thomas remembered some of the stories Victoria’s great-grandmother told about her friends and the Mideast Sweep. He felt distressed and off-balance, unable to counter Gerald’s arguments.

“Gerald,” Stephen Thomas said, though it was hardly a survival characteristic for a professor to antagonize an assistant chancellor, “shut up.” He followed Thanthavong out of the main room and went to his lab.

“Stephen Thomas!” His two grad students and his post-doc converged on him.

“Give me a few minutes,” he said. He went into his office and shut the door.

o0o

Stephen Thomas came out of his office and into the deserted lab. He wondered where everyone had got to. He wanted to talk to them; he had spent the whole morning with Arachne, and he thought he had figured out a way to keep the lab going. At least for a while.

The president’s announcement had completely disrupted everything he had planned for today. In addition, the staff and faculty had put in enough recommendations to schedule a general meeting. Even Stephen Thomas had joined in that proposal, though he hated meetings. It would eat up the evening.

Stephen Thomas left the genetics building and headed for the park. As he walked, he set up another problem for Arachne to work on. Every twenty paces or so, his stride faltered as he rejected the results, changed a variable, and started another report cycle.

He barely noticed the blossoms that had opened since his last visit to the park. A kitchen AS stood next to a round table, waiting patiently with lunch. Otherwise, the meadow was deserted. In normal times every picnic table by the stream would be in use.

Stephen Thomas waited for Victoria and Satoshi. He pillowed his head on his arms. The bento boxes breathed a warm smell, but Stephen Thomas had no appetite. He was still linked up with Arachne, juggling numbers and trying not to see the pattern they insisted on producing.

“Stephen Thomas.”

Stephen Thomas started when Satoshi touched his shoulder.

“Sorry.”

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah.”

Victoria joined them. They embraced. Victoria and Satoshi looked as somber as Stephen Thomas felt. They had probably been doing the same calculations as he had.

Satoshi set the bento boxes out on the stone table, then sat on the rock foam bench beside his partners.

“So,” Victoria said.

“They’ve really done it this time,” Stephen Thomas said.

“How many graduate students are you losing?” Satoshi said.

“No one has bailed out yet,” Stephen Thomas said, adding, to himself, As far as I know.

“All mine are Canadian,” Victoria said. “The temps plan to stay as long as they can be sure of a transport home. But with the supply runs curtailed, my kids are scared.”

Most of the researchers on board had several graduate students and post-doctoral students: till now, at least, it was considered quite a coup to win a position helping prepare the expedition. Most of the students were temps, permitted to stay only while the starship remained in range of the transports. Some had applied for positions on the expedition itself: the ultimate make-or-break dissertation project.

“Leaving now sounds kind of short-sighted to me,” Stephen Thomas said. “They wouldn’t lose that much — unless somebody raised grad salaries when I wasn’t looking.” He tried to grin.

“What have you been doing all morning?” Victoria snapped.

“What? What are you mad about?”

“Didn’t you even read the new rules?”

“I got as far as ‘Salaries and grants are suspended until further notice,’ and I spent the rest of the morning figuring out how to keep the lab together.”

“The new rules are that American grad students who quit now and go home still get their trips free. If they stay and change their minds later they have to pay for it themselves.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Victoria said.

“Come on, Victoria, this wasn’t my idea, don’t take it out on me. And the money’s only been impounded for a couple of hours. Distler will get overruled, or whatever they do. Won’t he?”

“I hope so, for you guys’ sakes.” Victoria turned to Satoshi. “What about your students?”

“Fox volunteered to stay on,” he said drily.

Victoria laughed despite herself.

“I’m glad to hear somebody’s expecting to come out ahead in this,” Stephen Thomas said sourly. He opened his lunch, closed it again, and stared at the variations in the table’s surface.

Satoshi rubbed his shoulder gently. Stephen Thomas looked at his partners and took Satoshi’s hand. Victoria reached across the table to him, her irritation dissolving into sympathy.

“Have you talked to your father yet?”

Stephen Thomas shook his head — and immediately regretted it. The interaction of the cylinder’s rotation with his inner ear made his field of vision twist and tilt. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the weird sensation to stop.

“Oh, shit!” By now, he should have got over the habit of shaking his head or nodding, or adapted to the weirdness.

He opened his eyes hesitantly. The world steadied. Satoshi put a cold glass in his hand. Stephen Thomas rubbed the side of the glass against one temple, then sipped the iced tea.

“Thanks.”

“You okay?” Satoshi said.

“Yeah,” Stephen Thomas replied, without nodding. “No, I haven’t talked to my father. Yeah, I’m going to have to. And I don’t think I can get away with text only.”

“No, of course not,” Victoria said. “It’s all right, don’t worry. Go ahead and call him direct. We’ll manage.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“It beats the hell out of me,” Stephen Thomas said. He felt not only embarrassed but humiliated. The feeling would only get worse when he called his father.

“Stephen Thomas — ” Satoshi said, speaking tentatively.

“Satoshi — ” Victoria said.

“We’ve got to work out something fair.”

“I know it! But with only my salary, we’re going to be lucky if we can keep the house. If we lose it, that’s five years of work and all Merit’s planning down the drain. Grangrana will have to move back to the city...”

“I’ll work something out with Greg myself!” Stephen Thomas surprised himself with his own vehemence. “And it won’t be at the expense of Grangrana or the house. Dammit, I’ve never pulled my financial weight in the partnership, I’m not going to start being a drain on it, too!”

“Maybe Greg will reconsider moving to Canada,” Victoria said.

Stephen Thomas flinched. “I don’t think that’s within the range of possible solutions.” He tried not to sound defensive, but failed. That made him feel guilty and angry, for he knew Victoria was not leading up to a lecture on the best ways to save money. Her family had worked hard and long to pull itself into the middle class, but she seldom talked about their history. What few details Stephen Thomas knew, he knew from Satoshi. Stephen Thomas came from a family that had been middle or upper middle class since before Victoria’s ancestors escaped to Canada. It was his father’s own fault — perhaps not so much fault as bad luck — that had pushed him down to an income that did not meet subsistence without his son’s help.

Victoria, reacting to his defensive tone, withdrew from the conversation, turning aside and gazing across the park.

“If you thought my financial responsibilities were such a drawback, why did you invite me into this partnership in the first place?”

Victoria’s shoulders stiffened, but she neither spoke nor turned toward him.

Stephen Thomas stared at her, stunned.

“We invited you because we love you,” Satoshi said.

“Merry did. Maybe you do. But dammit, Victoria, sometimes I wonder — !” Stephen Thomas rose and started away.

“Stephen Thomas — ” Satoshi called after him.

Stephen Thomas flung his hand to the side, a gesture of anger and denial, warning Satoshi off.

Stephen Thomas crossed the park. He jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He felt hurt and confused by Victoria’s reaction. He could not think of a way to explain the sudden change to his father.

Back at the park table, Victoria opened her bento box and stared at her lunch. She no longer felt like eating, either.

“How could he say that to me?” she cried.

“All he wanted was a little reassurance,” Satoshi said. “He can’t face this alone, Victoria,”

“His father isn’t our only responsibility.”

“But his father is one of our responsibilities. Stephen Thomas was open with us about it.”

“He was. You’re right. He’s right.” She sighed. “It’s just that I get so tired of Stephen Thomas and Greg playing out the archetypal American father-son relationship. And I still don’t see how we’re going to be able to juggle fast enough to keep everything in the air on one salary.”

“They can’t impound the money for long — I’m sure Stephen Thomas is right about that.”

“Satoshi, love, you and our partner are brilliant scientists. You are ethical people. Stephen Thomas is charmingly neurotic and too spiritual for his own good — ”

“Be fair.”

“ — and you are both great in bed. But between you, you have the political sense of the average nudibranch. This could take months to get resolved, and it will drain the expedition’s energy the whole time. Don’t hold your breath waiting for your next pay deposit.”

Satoshi had not even opened his lunch. He looked down at his hands, flexed and spread his fingers, turned them over, and stared at his palms.

“I won’t,” he said. “And I don’t see how we’re going to keep everything in the air on one salary, either. If we help Greg out — ” He hesitated, but Victoria knew as well as he did that they had a responsibility to the elder Gregory. Stephen Thomas had already made the commitment when they invited him into the partnership. “If we help Greg out, the house...”

Victoria, scowling, rested her chin on her fists. “Let’s not talk about losing the house until we have to.”

“Maybe it was a dream all along.”

“It was — but it was working, dammit!”

Under ordinary circumstances, they would never have had a hope of buying their house. Nobody living on ordinary incomes — even three ordinary incomes — could afford to buy property. But several years on the expedition, with no living expenses, gave them the chance to put most of their income against the price while they were gone. It was Merit’s idea and Merit’s plan. Merit even, somehow, found a decent house that a real estate corporation was willing to sell.

“If one of us went back to Earth for a few days...”

“They will have to send wild horses up here on a transport to get me off Starfarer!” Victoria said. “This is exactly what they’re hoping will happen, and it’s only taken us three hours to start thinking about leaving. If they shoot down our morale, we’ll argue, we’ll abandon the expedition, we’ll go groundside and get new jobs. I wouldn’t go back even to lobby for us — they want us out of the sky, no matter what. They’re collecting excuses. They have the associates’ withdrawal to hold against us already. If the rest of us leave, they’ll just come in and claim salvage — ”

“I wasn’t talking about leaving permanently.”

“Let’s not talk about leaving at all. If we lose our house, we lose our house. If we lose the expedition...”

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course you’re right.”

“Besides,” Victoria said, trying to smile, “if we lose the expedition we can’t afford a house anyway.”

They hugged each other, then packed the bento boxes into the AS and sent it home to put the food away for dinner. Victoria wondered if anyone would be hungry then, either.

“The meeting tonight is going to be something,” she said.

o0o

His graduate students had reappeared by the time Stephen Thomas got back to the lab. He wanted to talk to them, but the tension of having to explain things to his father would emotionally distort everything he said to them. He reached his office. When he touched the door, it crashed open without his meaning to slam it. He hesitated, then turned. All three students stared at him, startled.

“Don’t anybody go anywhere,” he muttered. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

In his office, Stephen Thomas asked Arachne to connect him to Earth, and his father. The conversation would be awkward, because of the distance of Starfarer from Earth and the resulting time delay. His father was no more proficient at holding two simultaneous conversations than was Stephen Thomas.

“Steve? I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“How are you, Greg?” Stephen Thomas said. “My partners send their regards.”

“Oh. Well. You say hi to Vicky and Satoshi for me.”

Stephen Thomas could not help but smile. His father was the only person in the world who called him Steve; his father was probably the only person in the world dense enough to keep calling Victoria by a diminutive. He was sure Greg would have shortened Satoshi’s name if he could have figured out how to do it.

“Long time,” Greg said. “What’s the occasion? Have you settled the plans for your visit?”

“That’s part of why I called,” Stephen Thomas said. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get back to Earth again.”

“What? Why not? You didn’t make it over here the last time you were on Earth. You said — ”

“I thought you understood about the conference. And how hard it is to reschedule transport trips — ”

“What’s the problem now? Have you — ”

“Greg, have you heard any news today?” Stephen Thomas spoke before his father finished his question.

After the two-second delay, his father replied. “I never pay any attention to the news.”

“There’s a problem with the starship’s operating funds,” Stephen Thomas said. “Will you be all right if the next deposit is late?”

This time the delay was more than the two-second light-speed lag.

“What’s happened? You’re overextended?”

“I’m not! It hasn’t anything to do with me directly, but it makes a personal trip out of the question. The money’s held up in Washington. I don’t know when I’ll get paid next.”

Again he waited, hoping for nonchalance, reassurance.

“This is cutting pretty close to the bone, Steve,” Greg said.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have any control... I can’t...” While he was still trying to think of how to explain, the lag began and ended.

“Is it all up to you? In my day, when you got married, you didn’t just marry your wife, you married her whole family, too.”

“We’re members of each other’s families, Greg,” Stephen Thomas said. “And Satoshi’s got the same problem. Everybody up here who’s from the U.S. has had their funding impounded.”

Greg had taken a while to accept Victoria and Satoshi as individuals; accepting them as partners, and lovers, of his son was taking a good bit longer. Stephen Thomas wondered how Satoshi would react to being referred to as a wife, not to mention how Victoria would react.

“If you’d given me a little notice that you intended to cut me off — ”

“Greg, that isn’t fair!”

“ — I’d’ve tried to make some other plans.”

“That isn’t fair,” Stephen Thomas said again. Something else Stephen Thomas disliked about voice communication over this distance was that it was impossible to interrupt anyone, impossible to head them off from saying something they might regret, impossible to keep from hearing something he would regret. Stephen Thomas could not even react with anger, because he understood Greg’s fear. He had hoped for some understanding, some encouragement, even just a little slack; and he knew he should have known better. All he could do was pretend not to be hurt.

“You don’t even have any expenses up there,” Greg said. “At least that’s what you told me. Haven’t you put anything away in all the time since you got out of school?”

“The family’s finances are too complicated to explain on long-distance transmission,” Stephen Thomas said. “With the impoundment, we aren’t going to have much extra.”

“It’s none of my business, you mean,” Greg said.

“That isn’t what I said. That isn’t even close.”

“I’ll have to move,” Greg said. “It will take me a while to find a cheaper place.”

“Don’t do that!” Stephen Thomas said. “It will cost you more short-term than you can possibly save, and with any luck this will just be a short-term problem. I wouldn’t even have bothered you with it except I thought you should hear about the problem from me. I thought you’d be worried.”

“I am worried. There’s no way I can keep up the rent on this place. I never should have taken it to begin with. I wouldn’t have, if you — ”

“If you’re set on moving, move to Canada!”

Stephen Thomas stopped. He could not even afford an argument right now. Though his hands were steady, he felt as if he were trembling. The trembling began in his center and spread outward, a reaction not of anger or fear but of disappointment and hurt, guilt that he felt though he did not believe he deserved it, and a wish to make everything all right.

“Canada? Forget it. I’m not moving to the ass-end of nowhere just to make things easier on you. If that means — ”

“Greg, I’ll do what I can, but I just can’t manage as much as before. For a while. That’s the best I can do.”

“And I don’t have any choice, do I?”

The web signaled that the communications link had been broken from the other end.

Stephen Thomas hunched down in his chair. When he started getting an ulcer in grad school, he had studied a number of relaxation techniques, ways to control stress, methods of releasing anger and pain. Today none of them worked. The shaking had reached his hands. His chin quivered as he clenched his teeth and tightened his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like a forlorn child. He despised himself for his reaction. He clenched his fists and jammed them between his knees. Soundlessly he began to cry. Hot fat tears forced themselves out from beneath his eyelids. His nose began to run.

Stephen Thomas thought of himself as an emotional person, a person with open feelings. But he did not often cry. He knew it was supposed to make him feel better, to release endorphins or hormones or enzymes or some damned thing — he knew what he could make all those biochemicals do in his experiments; he did not need to know what they did inside him. But crying never did make him feel better. It made him feel sick and slack and stupid, and he hated it. Other people’s crying made him neither uncomfortable nor impatient. The partnership had seen a lot of crying over the past year. Stephen Thomas thought it was probably a good thing that after the accident, one member of the partnership grieved inwardly and alone. Victoria and Satoshi had both needed someone they did not have to comfort.

Stephen Thomas still grieved for Merry, the member of the partnership he had always been closest to, the first of the three he had met. When Merit first took him home to meet Victoria and Satoshi, the experience was disturbingly like being taken home to meet a date’s parents for the first time. Never mind that Merry was considerably older than Victoria and Satoshi, who were both older than Stephen Thomas.

It was a long time before he could think fondly of the awkwardness of that first afternoon.

“Are you done now?” he muttered. “Enough maudlin reminiscences?” The tears dried into salty tracks, stinging his skin.

Once in a while one of his students came into his office and cried. For those times, Stephen Thomas kept a couple of clean scraps of silk, remnants of a worn-out shirt. He dug around until he found one, then scrubbed at his face. He wished he could splash cold water over his head without having to see anyone first. But that was impossible.

Now that he had stopped crying he could bring the relaxation techniques into play. He practiced until he felt certain he would not break down again.

He returned to the lab. His students worked steadily, pretending he had not been upset when he arrived and disappeared, pretending not to notice his reappearance.

He crossed to the water fountain, bent down for a drink, and let the stream of water splash over his face. As he straightened, he ducked his head to wipe the droplets away on the shoulder of his shirt. The water plastered a cold patch of thin silk to his skin.

Now everybody in the lab was looking at him.

“They’ve given us some new problems from groundside,” he said, as he should have said that morning. “We’d better sit down and talk about them.”

o0o

Griffith wandered through the places aboard Starfarer where people congregated. Everyone expressed complaints and outrage; gossip not only flowered, but formed seeds and dispersed them to sprout anew. Ignored in his guise of Griffith of GAO, Griffith traveled among the members of the expedition, pleased with himself for the chaos his minor suggestion had already caused. Yet the chaos bothered him, too, a little: finally he realized he was disappointed in the reactions he saw. He had assumed everyone would react this way; he had assured his superiors they would. But somewhere he held a suspicion — or had it been a hope?—that they might not.

Without meaning to, he found himself near the hill where Brown and Cherenkov and Thanthavong lived. He walked into the garden. He could always claim to have come by to pay his respects to Ms. Brown. She had acted weird at her party. Maybe she was tired. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was senile. She must have taken health exams to be allowed to join the expedition, but maybe the stress of the trip from Earth had affected her. Or maybe the exams had made a mistake in passing her. Maybe Griffith could find a use for that.

“Did you need something?”

Griffith leaped around, startled, crouching, ready to react. Immediately he knew he had threatened his cover. He pretended to stumble, catching himself awkwardly.

“Good god, you scared me,” he said, forcing a petulant tone into his voice.

“Didn’t mean to.”

Infinity Mendez stood, brushing the dirt from his ragged knee-pads. The rose bush at his feet had laid thin red scratches across his hands and wrists. He avoided looking into Griffith’s eyes, and this made Griffith suspect that he had not fooled the gardener in the least. He scared Infinity far more than Infinity scared him, and he knew that if he decided to, he could terrorize the gardener into keeping secrets for him. Maybe even into working on his behalf. Griffith preferred to work alone, and though he would use a terrified ally, he would never trust one.

“I just thought I’d stop by and say hello to Ms. Brown.”

“There’s some folks already visiting her.”

Griffith could not tell if he was being invited in or warned away. He looked toward the hill-house, over Infinity’s shoulder, seeking even a glimpse of Cherenkov.

“And Kolya’s out,” Infinity said in a flat, neutral tone.

“Kolya? You mean General Cherenkov?” He feigned disinterest.

“What are you doing up here?”

Griffith frowned at Infinity Mendez. He was not accustomed to being questioned by gardeners. Come to think of it, he was not accustomed to going to parties to which the gardeners were invited, either. It occurred to him that the starship’s extreme democracy had probably gone too far. The word “anarchy” came to mind, and gave him another opening against the expedition.

“What business is it of yours?” Griffith said sharply.

“Sorry,” Infinity said, confused and scared. “Just a friendly question.”

Griffith thought of saying that he was interested in more important things than whether the service staff put in all their time, but decided to withhold even that much reassurance. Sending somebody all the way to lunar orbit to check on trivia was exactly the sort of thing one of EarthSpace’s associates might decide to do.

He gave Infinity a cold, wordless glance and walked away.

o0o

Victoria crossed the courtyard and headed toward the cool main room of her house. She hesitated on the threshold, narrowing her eyes with a twinge of annoyance. In the low light, the distillation equipment hunkered on the mats like a giant spider.

She found Stephen Thomas, bare to the waist, sitting crosslegged on the floor in a tumble of silk shirts, carefully picking each one out of the pile, smoothing it, and folding it. He lifted the last one, the turquoise one Victoria had just given him. He stroked his fingertips across the fabric, changing the patterns of reflected light. He folded it fast, tossed it on the stack, picked the stack up and stuffed it into a cloth bag.

All Victoria’s annoyance at him evaporated.

“Stephen Thomas.”

He jerked the ties shut and knotted them, stood up, and threw the bag in the corner.

“No point in wearing everything out before we even go,” he said. “Who knows how long it will be until I can get anymore — before we come back, I mean.”

What he meant was that he could no longer afford to buy new clothes. No one in the family could, but the restriction would hit Stephen Thomas worst. He looked upon clothing as decoration. It troubled Victoria to see him packing away his pretty shirts. She wished she had something to say to encourage him.

He had on regulation pants, gray twill with a Starfarer patch on the front of the thigh. EarthSpace maintained the tradition of its predecessors in designing a patch for each new space mission. Starfarer’s was an eight-pointed star, flaring wide at its horizontal points, with the EarthSpace logo above and the starship’s name below. Stephen Thomas picked up a gray t-shirt from his rumpled bed and dragged it on over his head. It carried the Starfarer logo across the chest.

On board the starship, a few people wore the patch, but only newcomers wore the t-shirt. She was surprised to see Stephen Thomas in it because he had been annoyed by it: the design was all right, he said, but who wanted to wear a gray t-shirt?

The real benefit of regulation clothing was that it was free.

“Stephen Thomas,” she said. “About this afternoon — ”

He interrupted her. “What I said was inexcusable.” He reached out to her; Victoria took his hand.

“I love you,” she said. “Maybe I don’t say so often enough.”

“You do,” he said. “You tell me, you show me... But sometimes I can’t hear it and I can’t see it and I can’t believe it.”

He put his arms around her and leaned his forehead on her shoulder. She spread her fingers against his back and patted him gently.

When she stepped back, she appraised him. “I must say, you look all right in mufti.”

“This isn’t mufti — ”

“It is for you,” she said. “Who’s going to recognize you, out of uniform?”

At that, he smiled.

o0o

J.D. sat in Nakamura’s office, which Victoria had somehow contrived to have opened for her. She tried to work on her novel, but mostly she worried. Too many things had happened too fast; most of them scared and depressed her. She knew too much about the perversion of technology to be confident that the expedition would fend off this assault. She wished she had half Victoria’s courage or Stephen Thomas’s outrage or Satoshi’s calm.

She leaned back and closed her notebook. Her shoulders hurt from leaning over it. The office had no desk, only mats and cushions. If she got her own office, she would ask for one with a desk.

Because of the shortage of wood and the absence of plastics, the furniture on campus looked odd to newcomers. If she got an office with a desk, the desk would be made of rock foam, a built-in extrusion of floor or wall. The fabric sculpture that served as a chair was far too soft to sit in for long. At first it was comfortable, cushiony; then her back started to hurt. She supposed she could requisition a bamboo chair like the ones in the main room of Victoria’s house. Or maybe she would have to make it herself.

She had no reason to have office furniture, because she had no reason to have an office. Her work required no lab or special equipment; she could even get along without Arachne if she had to. She was attached only to the alien contact team, unlike her teammates who also held departmental positions: Victoria in physics, Satoshi in geography, and Stephen Thomas in genetics.

J.D. had asked to be in the literature department, which could have used a few more members. Like the art department, it was far too small to represent the cultural diversity of Earth.

Her request had been turned down. An alien contact specialist did not qualify to be a professor of literature. What she did was too much like science fiction.

J.D. existed in limbo as far as the academic hierarchy of the campus was concerned. None of that bothered her. No matter how democratically the expedition tried to run itself, every department would have its office politics. She felt herself well out of them.

The chancellor had not yet accepted her credentials. J.D. wondered if that was campus politics, or something bigger; or an oversight: nothing at all.

J.D. had to admit that she liked having a place of her own where she could go out and talk to other people if she wanted; and right down the hallway from Victoria’s lab, too.

She had no office hours because she had no graduate students, not even students of Nakamura’s to take over. It had been decided, somewhere in the planning of the expedition, that it would be premature to train more alien contact specialists before anyone knew if any aliens existed to be contacted. Even the half-dozen specialists left out of the expedition, back on Earth, had — like J.D. herself — begun to diversify.

Her stream of consciousness brought her, as it often did, to the divers. She closed her eyes and asked Arachne for an update.

The news sent her bolting awkwardly from the low, soft chair. She stood in the middle of her bare office, her eyes open, the line to the web broken, but the information still hanging before her like the afterimage of a fire.