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end up anywhere."
"Victoria, you're scaring me. I'll do my best. I promise."
"I know you will."
Victoria looked like she was about to burst into tears. The change was so
sudden and so unexpected that J.D. involuntarily reached toward her. Toward
her image. Feeling foolish, J.D. pulled back. It would not have surprised
J.D. to be having this conversation with Zev; it did surprise her to be
having it with Victoria.
Victoria wiped her eyes. Her chin stopped quivering.
"Sorry," she said, trying to smile. "I didn't mean to do that. I miss you
already. I can't imagine She stopped.
"Then don't," J.D. said, chiding her gently. "Imagine me coming home."
Infinity opened the access tunnel, expecting night, and emerged into a
white-out.
Thick sloppy clumps of snow slid through the opening onto his face. He was
so surprised that he ducked back into the tunnel and let the hatch thunk
shut over him.
Snow? It was far too late in the year for snow on Starfarer. When it did
snow, it frosted the ground with a light sugar-coating of small, dry,
sparkling flakes that sublimed at the first touch of the sun.
Infinity brushed away the clusters of heavy wet snow melting on his
shoulders. He touched Arachne, asking for a way to change the weather,
demanding an explanation.
What a mess, he thought, when he saw the reply. Arachne tried to cool
things down-but now the weather's oscillating between extremes. We're in
trou-
284 VONDA N. McINTYRE
ble. If we don't get to 61 Cygni soon, and stay there for a while . . .
we're dead.
Arachne could open the sun tubes early and pour heat into campus. The
snow would stop . . . and a monsoon would start. Rain and melting snow
would saturate the land. The result would be floods, erosion, mudslides.
He could tell Arachne to shut off all heat transfer into the ship, to
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starve the weather of energy. Then they would get a hard freeze. Probably
an ice storm. That would be disastrous for the vegetation and the
animals.
As far as Infinity could tell, letting the snow fall till the clouds
exhausted themselves would cause the least damage.
He was glad the planting had only just started, that the seeds had not
had time to germinate. Some of the crops would survive.
They'll survive if this doesn't happen again later in the spring, he
thought. Arachne's got to get a chance to stabilize the weather.
He climbed out of the hatch into the snow.
The oranges, Infinity thought. The damned oranges . . . if they freeze,
Gerald will love saying "I told you SO."
The snow fell hard and fast. Infinity was only fifty meters from his
front door, but he would have been lost without Arachne to guide him
home.
He stumbled into his house and closed the door quickly. Esther slept, her
snoring a soft buzz. The lights rose.
"Dim!" he whispered.
Esther sat up in bed, blinking in the twilight.
"Hi," she said sleepily. "What happened? You're all wet."
"It's snowing."
He started to shiver. Esther jumped up and hurried to him, pulling the
blankets with her. She took off his sodden shirt. He fumbled at the
buttons of his jeans. The cold had numbed his fingers, though he had been
outside only a few minutes. Esther pushed his hands
METAPHASE 285
away, helped him finish undressing, and wrapped the blanket around them
both.
"You're so cold!" She rubbed his back, and warmed his hands between his
body and her own. "Come to bed and get warm."
"I can't," he said. "We need to call out everybody, and call in all the
slugs-"
He paused long enough to tell Arachne to sound the alarm.
"We have to go around and knock the snow off the plants. It's too heavy,
it'll break the branches. The citrus trees . . . if we open the access
tunnels, and force warm air out around them, maybe we can keep them from
freezing."
Esther slumped against him, resting her forehead against his chest. She had
spent another whole day in the basement of the administration building.
"Open all the access tunnels," she said. "What about the sun tubes?
Spotlight the orange grove."
"I wish," he said.
He showed her Arachne's report. Esther took in the risk at one glance and
whistled softly. Warming a single spot with the sun tubes in this weather
would not start a monsoon. It would start a tornado.
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"Damn." She sighed. "I've been lying in bed for the last hour, I kept
falling asleep and waking up and thinking how cold it was and how nice it
would be when you got home and got in beside me."
His hands felt warm, now, nestled against her belly. He wrapped his arms
around her and held her close. His long hair, still wet, swung forward and
touched her cheek. A drop of icy water flicked from the end of one lock and
dripped on her face.
"When this is done, we can stay in bed all day."
Esther giggled.
"What?"
"I was griping this afternoon that I had to work inside." She quoted an
aphorism favored by transport pilots: "Be careful what you wish for, you
might get it."
A few minutes later, dressed in dry clothes-the
286 VONDA N. McINTYRE
warmest he had; Esther wearing one of his flannel shirts under her
jacket-they hurried out into the deepening snow. Arachne guided them to
the access tunnel. The snow formed a curtain, as featureless and
impenetrable as full darkness. The flakes turned sharp and hard and dry.
If they froze, it might be better to risk rain and floods.
Infinity just did not know,
As they passed through his garden, he wondered, briefly, if his cactus
would survive.
Infinity's message spread through Starfarer's night, asking people for
help and alerting them to the danger of the snow's beauty.
Stephen Thomas followed a medium-sized silver slug into a young apple
orchard. The trees bent beneath the snow. Infinity had recommended
knocking away the snow if the tree leaned over, if it looked like it
might break.
The slug burrowed through to the ground and pushed itself forward,
ploughing the heavy wet snow to either side. Stephen Thomas walked in the
cleared path, grateful that he did not have to break trail. He was
wearing his warmest clothes, but his warmest clothes did not amount to
much.
At least the snow had stopped failing.
Following the slug at a respectful distance, Stephen Thomas used its
trail to get to the saplings. If he pulled the outer branches gently, he
could knock off the snow without standing beneath an avalanche. He could
not tell if the apple blossom buds were damaged.
Being so near the silver slug made Stephen Thomas wary. He knew,
intellectually, that this one had no reason to turn on him. The one that
had pinned him down had been protecting Chancellor Blades. But if-if-the
slug did attack, Professor Thanthavong might not come along this time to
release him.
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