Vonda McIntyre: Metaphase

BY

VONDA N. MCINTYRE

TRANSITION

METAPHASE

A Bantam Spectra Book / September 1992

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed 's " are trademarks of Bantam Books

a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved Copyright (C) 1992 by Vonda N McIntyre Cover art copyright @ 1992 by Dorian Vallejo. No part qJ this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address. Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book i.~ stolen propen)v. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book. "

ISBN 0-553-29223-4

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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OPM09 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the folks in the Wallingford-Wilmot Library and the Fremont Library who let me move in on them, laptop computer and all, fleeing the marsians who decided that right next to my office was a good place to build ufo hangars.

For ten months.

MANY THANKS,

To the people who helped me get Starfarer right: Kristi N. Austin, John H. Chalmers, John Cramer, Howard L. Davidson, Jane E. Hawkins, Marilyn J. Holt, Nancy Horn, Ursula K. Le Guin, Debbie Notkin, Paul Preuss, Kate Schaefer, Carol Severance, and Jon Singer;

To Gerard K. O'Neill and the Space Studies Institute for the work on which the campus is based;

AND, OF COURSE,

To the Starfarers Fan Club.

PARTICUL\R THANKS,

To Teresa Meikle and Charles E. Griswold, whose Natural History article on Stegodyphus spawned (as it were) the squidmoths.

-VNM

METAPHASE

J.D. SAUVAGE, THE ALIEN CONTAC-r SPECIAList, picked her way across the rough surface of a rocky planetoid.

A gossamer thread, shining bluewhite in the actinic glare of the star Sirius, stretched across the stone beneath her feet. She followed it. A coarser line, her lifeline, unreeled behind her.

The planetoid was more or less

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spherical, so small that its pitted and scarred surface curved sharply away to nearby horizons. At first glance, it looked like a barren, airless asteroid, weathered by primordial meteors; after a first glance, it would be easily over-iwl,

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looked. J.D. and her colleagues in the alien contact department almost had overlooked it.

The silken strand thickened, branched, and intertwined, gradually forming a lacy gauze. Not wanting to damage the fabric, J.D. followed it without stepping on it, as if she were walking beside a stream. This stream flowed upward, climbing a steep escarpment. J.D. climbed with it, moving easily.

The low gravity was far higher than a natural rock this size would create. The least of the small world's anomalies, the gravity hinted at a complex interior, perhaps even a core of matter collapsed to neutronium.

The planetoid repaid a second glance. Great masses of webbing filled a dozen of its largest craters. J.D. was walking on an extraordinary asteroid. The worldlet was the starship of alien beings.

Iridescent fibers wove together, forming a solid ribbon that led through a cleft in the escarpment. J.D. stepped cautiously onto the fabric. It gave slightly, a springy carpet over solid rock.

The band of silk guided her to the edge of one of the web-filled craters. Somewhere within it, the alien beings waited.

The message from the squidmoths had been brief and direct.

"You will be welcomed."

J.D. scrambled up the last steep slope to the edge of the crater. Her destination lay below.

The silken pathway blended into a convoluted surface, filling the wide, deep crater. Valleys and ridges rumpled the webbing, and half a dozen trails twisted into it from where she stood. To proceed, she would have to walk off the edge of the crater and let the web alone support her weight.

She hesitated, listening and hoping for another message from the squidmoths.

"I'm here," she said softly. Her spacesuit radio transmitted her voice.

In the silence, waiting for a reply, she knelt down and slid her hand across the smooth webbing. The faint shussh of her touch transmitted itself through her glove. She wished she could feel the silk with bare fingers, but the atmosphere was far too thin for her to remove her suit.

A single filament, darker silver than the rest, crossed the surface and disappeared along one of the trails.

J.D. rose, lifting the thread, holding it carefully across her palm. Starlight spun along its length.

She slid one foot gingerly forward. The floor yielded, then tightened, bouncing gently in the low gravity. She felt like a skater crossing ice so thin it flexed beneath her. She feared her touch would rip the silk; she feared a dark tear would open beneath her, and she would fall fifty meters to the bottom.

Most of all, she feared that her presence would cause the structure to self-destruct. She had watched Tau Ceti's alien museum destroy itself rather than admit human beings. Rather than admit her.

But the squidmoths had invited her. The thread in her hand acknowledged her existence.

J.D. moved farther onto the silk, following the thread into the labyrinth. Her boots left no marks.

The path dipped into a meandering valley. J.D. descended through a cleft of delicate cascades. The fluttery fabric responded to her footsteps, trembling, vibrating. The cascades closed together overhead, and she found herself walking upon one horizontal sheet, and beneath another, past and through translucent tissue-thin layers like huge fallen parachutes that filtered harsh starlight. The membranes formed tunnels and chambers; cables and strands connected the membranes. The sheets rippled silently as she passed.

If a suspension bridge and a Gothic cathedral had interbred, this construction might be their offspring.

Without the filament, she would have no idea which way to go. If it broke, only her lifeline would lead her out.

Silvery-gray illumination surrounded her, suffusing the space with a luminous glow. The spun silk carried the light within its strands.

Deep within the crater, she paused at the top of a slope that plunged into light. Afraid she would slip, fall, and slide sprawling to-wherever the hillside led-she wrapped her fingers around a supporting strand and tested its strength. It gave, then contracted, as if to embrace her hand. Like the floor, the fiber was elastic and strong. She reached for another strand, an arm's length farther on, and ventured deeper into the web.

"No more communication yet," J.D. said, though her colleagues in the alien contact department and everyone back on board Starfarer could see and hear all that she was witness to.

Don't say things just because you're nervous, she told herself firmly. You're supposed to be the professional, bravely facing the unknown.

Some professional: you've only been certain for a week that your profession really exists.

She did not feel brave. Being watched and recorded only made it worse. J.D. concentrated on climbing down the smooth silken slope. Even in the low gravity, it was painstaking work. Her metabolic enhancer kicked in, flooding her body with extra adrenaline and inducing extra adenosine triphosphate. Not for the first time since the expedition started, she was glad she had decided to maintain the artificial gland. When she left the divers and the orcas, the long days of swimming naked in cold salt water, she had assumed she would not need to enhance her metabolism anymore.