Metaphase. Part 16

She flung herself against the back of the couch.

"Chandra!" Crimson exclaimed. But at least she spared a little of her attention from the replay, and from her sculpted bone.

"She should've," Chandra said irritably. "She's seen 115.too many old sci fi movies. She thinks aliens want to have s.e.x with human beings, and she's scared."

"That's silly. Would you've taken your clothes off?"

"You bet I would."

"Wouldn't you be embarra.s.sed?"

"No. Why should P I let people experience my body from the inside out.

d.a.m.n! They should've let me go along! Or at least made her make a sensory recording."

"Now I understand," Crimson said.

"What?"

"Why you kept trying to scare J.D. into not going back."

Chandra shrugged. "It was worth a try."

"No, it wasn't. If you wanted to be in the alien contact department, why didn't you apply there instead of the art department?"

"I joined Starfarer at the last minute, it was too late," she said belligerently.

Crimson gave her a skeptical glance.

"I didn't think they'd take me-all right? But I knew I could get in the art department. Will you stop playing with that?"

"I'm not playing." Crimson did not press the point of Chandra's Starfarer affiliation, or her ambitions. "I'm figuring out what it ought to look like. I have to hold it and carry it around and change it till I get the model right. I can't fossilize it till I get it right."

But she put the strange model bone aside and knelt on the couch beside Chandra, gazing at her with concern.

"It would have made more sense for them to let me go than for them to let Zev tag along," Chandra said. "It isn't fair! He'd never've gotten up here if I hadn't smuggled him on board."

"I'd like to go on the Chi, too, you know," Crimson said. "Everybody would.

But J.D.'s the alien contact specialist."

"So she's first."

"You've done a lot of other things first. And recorded them for us."116 "I've recorded a lot of things best," Chandra said. "But not first. I don't think there's anything left on Earth to do and be, first. That's why I came out here!"

"I don't care if you're first or not."

"I'm glad you like my stuff," Chandra said. "n.o.body else on this heap pays it any attention. Maybe three whole people have accessed it in the past two weeks."

"You are in a bad mood," Crimson said, out of patience. Then she laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Chandra, who's had a chance in the last two weeks to spend any time-"

Chandra thought Crimson was about to say "to spend any time playing."

Bristling, she readied a retort.

11.-on anything but the real world?"

Chandra cut off the sharp words she had planned when she heard what Crimson really said. Finding another reply took her a moment.

"Yeah," Chandra said, reluctant to be placated. "I guess you're right."

On the crater replay, J.D. scrabbled her way up a steep silky slope. The LTMs had caught a glimpse of several of Nemo's attendants, but the recording pitched and yawed till Chandra closed her strange all-over-gray eyes.

"It's making me seasick! They'll have to edit that to death!"

"Shh, look, there's another one of those spider things. I want to watch it."

The creature left off creating a s.h.i.+mmery sheet of new white silk, rappelled to the floor, and snaked off on half a dozen ropy limbs. It looked like a cross between a brittle star, with long whiplash tentacle-legs, and a crustacean, with a shrimplike head and a ring of eyes.

Crimson stroked her model bone again. She examined it intently, turned itover, put it down, glanced at the image of Nemo's attendant.

"It's too conventional," Crimson said.

"Huh? My stuff?"

117.

"No, mine. The fossils. They're all on an ordinary vertebrate body plan."

"Oh, right. Six-legged, winged, fanged, twelve-eyed vertebrates."

"Even if I did that all at once, they'd be too much like us."

Chandra sat crosslegged on the sofa, enjoying the soft warmth of the leather, and the way the leather stuck to her skin.

"You sure p.i.s.sed Gerald off when you told Europa you're a paleontologist," she said. "I think you really got her to believe we'd found alien bones on the moon."

"Gerald just doesn't get it," Crimson said. "I am a paleontologist."

Chandra laughed. "I like the way you never go out of character."

"Seriously. My degree's in paleontology. But it got so I couldn't do field work. When the Mideast Sweep started expanding again."

Chandra sobered and looked at Crimson, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side. She was not sure if Crimson was pulling her leg or not.

"Androgeos took one of my fossils," Crimson said.

"What? Why'd you let him get away with it?"

"Because that's what they're for." Crimson laughed with delight. "I hope I get to find out what he thinks of it."

,,He probably got the twelve-eyed fanged one. He'll just think it was one of our ordinary ancestors."

Crimson laughed again, then fell silent.

Gazing into Chandra's eyes-most people did not gaze into Chandra's featureless silver-gray eyes-Crimson touched Chandra's wrist, stroking the bright blue rope of vein that throbbed just beneath her translucent tan skin. Crimson's hands were rough from sculpting, from digging in Starfarer's coa.r.s.e new ground to bury her fossils in an artificial but convincing stratigraphy. Her fingers circled gently in the sensitive hollow of Chandra's palm.

The nerve cl.u.s.ters pulsed.118 Chandra drew away.

Crimson let her hands fall into her lap. She frowned, confused and disappointed.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't do that." Chandra was tempted. But Chandra had made a career of resisting temptation.

"What do you mean? With me? With women?"

"I don't do it at all."

"Why? Why not?" Crimson asked, shocked.

"Every sensory artist in the universe does s.e.x scenes," Chandra said.

"You don't have to record it!" Crimson exclaimed. "I didn't want you to record it!"

Chandra squinted at her, trying to see her in a different way, trying to see her even more clearly. She decided Crimson was serious about not recording.

"You'd better go," Chandra said.

Crimson sat back. She picked up the model bone, clenching her fingers around the shaft. Chandra wondered if Crimson would try to hit her with it. That might be interesting.

But instead, Crimson rose slowly, turned, strode across the rich carpet, stooped down and picked up her shoes, and walked out the door without a backward glance.

When Stephen Thomas reached the entrance of the health center, he hesitated. He did not*want to go into the deserted, silent place. He wished he could go back to Blades's home, push past the silver slugs, drag the chancellor out, and force him to come here and see what he had done. Did he even care that his sabotage had killed an innocent man? I liked Blades, Stephen Thomas thought. How could I be so wrong about someone? His aura was clear and bright, transparent and guileless. I thought. I stuck up for him, to everybody, even Satos.h.i.+ and Victoria. Stephen Thomas remembered the chancellor's welcoming party- 119.It had been several weeks ago. Victoria had been back on Earth, giving a speech at the Houses of Parliament in British Columbia and meeting with the Canadian premier. Everybody thought she was lucky not to have to go to the party, because most of the faculty believed Blades had been forced on the deep s.p.a.ce expedition in order to dismantle it. No one had more evidence than campus gossip, but most people believed it anyway. Stephen Thomas believed it. Gerald Hernminge swore it was not true, which was almost enough in itself to make Stephen Thomas believe it. Satos.h.i.+ did not take much stock in campus gossip.

Stephen Thomas and Satos.h.i.+ had to go to the party. It would have been an inexcusable breach of academic etiquette not to. It would have been a direct insult.

Gerald, of course, had indulged his prerogatives as a.s.sistant chancellor and hosted the welcome party. He had even gone to the expense of importing decent wine from one of the O'Neill colonies. In a few years, Starfarer's vines might produce a drinkable vintage, but for now the homemade brew was beer.

Stephen Thomas went to the party expecting to despise Chancellor Blades.

Satos.h.i.+ went with an open mind. To his surprise, Stephen Thomas found the new chancellor pleasant and interesting and rather shy. But Satos.h.i.+ took an instant and uncharacteristic dislike to him. Satos.h.i.+ got along with everybody. Satos.h.i.+ even got along with Gerald.When they went home, late, Stephen Thomas was cheerfully drunk. Even drunk, he noticed Satos.h.i.+'s irritation. He could hardly miss the angry blue sparks.

They lay together in bed. The moonlight reflected through the open French doors of Satos.h.i.+'s room. Carnations scented the cool breeze.

"You didn't like the chancellor much," Stephen Thomas said. "And you were about the only one who didn't arrive intending to hate him."

"He's a sn.o.b," Satos.h.i.+ said. "He stood off in the corner and watched us like we were experimental animais."120 "Not when he was talking to me, he didn't."

"He didn't talk to you all evening." Satos.h.i.+ stroked Stephen Thomas's hip.

"Just most of it."

"Is that what bothered you?" Stephen Thomas asked, surprised. "That you thought he was coming on to me?"

Satos.h.i.+ smiled. "He was."

"Yeah, true, but he wasn't obnoxious about it. He can take no for an answer."

"If it bothered me every time you got involved with somebody," Satos.h.i.+ said, "I'd be bothered all the time. And if it bothered me every time somebody made a pa.s.s at you-I'd be nuts. Why would I pick Blades to get jealous oP"

"How should I know? You won't tell me why you don't like him. So I'm making wild guesses."

"I wasn't jealous," Satos.h.i.+ said. "But Gerald was."

"Of the pa.s.s?" Stephen Thomas asked, skeptical.

"Of the time he spent with you."

That made more sense. One of Gerald's duties, a duty he relished, was to squire dignitaries around. He would expect to introduce Starfarer to the new chancellor.

,,Great," Stephen Thomas said. "One more reason for Gerald to dislike me."

"Let's forget about Gerald."

Satos.h.i.+ kissed Stephen Thomas's lips, his cheek, his throat, nibbling at the thin gold chain around his neck. The crystal slid along the chain and landed against his collarbone, cool as water. Stephen Thomas pulled Satos.h.i.+ closer, and rubbed the small of his back with one hand. He loved the way Satos.h.i.+'s muscles moved beneath his fingers.

"You still didn't tell me why you don't like Blades."

"I don't know why I don't like him. I just don't. Maybe I don't like his aura."

"Very funny," Stephen Thomas said. Satos.h.i.+ did not believe in auras. "His aura was just fine."

"Hmm." Satos.h.i.+ kept his voice neutral. He knew 121.when he had teased Stephen Thomas enough. Neither Satos.h.i.+ nor Victoria would even try to look for auras.

The blue sparks of anger faded from Satos.h.i.+'s aura. A gold glow of excitement flashed around him, and scarlet contentment s.h.i.+mmered beyond the gold.

Satos.h.i.+ pushed Stephen Thomas's hair away from his forehead, caressed his face with both hands, and kissed him again, quickly, then harder. He slid his knee up Stephen Thomas's thigh. Stephen Thomas dragged his fingers down Satos.h.i.+'s belly and ruffled his dark pubic hair with his fingernails. Satos.h.i.+'s body was like a furnace, blasting out heat, when he was s.e.xually aroused.

"Blades-"

"I don't want to talk about Chancellor Blades anymore," Satos.h.i.+ said. He clenched his teeth and his back arched. He drew in a long, shuddering breath. He laid his hand over Stephen Thomas's, guiding him. Stephen Thomas forgot about everything except his partner's pleasure.

-Now, in the health center, Stephen Thomas closed his eyes and brought himself back to the present. Leaning against the doorjamb, he imagined making love to Feral.