Metaphase - Vonda N McIntyre

Metaphase - Vonda N McIntyre, ebook

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METAPHASEBYVONDA N. MCINTYREBANTAM SPECTRA BOOKS BY VONDA N. MCINTYRETRANSITIONMETAPHASEMETAPHASEA Bantam Spectra Book / September 1992SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed 's " are trademarks ofBantam Booksa division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.All rights reserved Copyright (C) 1992 by Vonda N McIntyre Cover artcopyright @ 1992 by Dorian Vallejo. No part qJ this book may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informationstorage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from thepublisher. For information address. Bantam Books.If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that thisbook i.~ stolen propen)v. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to thepublisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received anypayment for this "stripped book. "ISBN 0-553-29223-4Published simultaneously in the United States and CanadaBantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam DoubledayDell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "BantamBooks" and the portrayal ofa rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent andTrademark Office and in other countries. Marca Regiorada. Bantam Books,666 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10103.PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAOPM09 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1DEDICATIONTo the folks in the Wallingford-Wilmot Library and the Fremont Library wholet me move in on them, laptop computer and all, fleeing the marsians whodecided that right next to my office was a good place to build ufohangars.For ten months.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSMANY 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 whichthe 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 onStegodyphus spawned (as it were) the squidmoths.-VNMMETAPHASECHAPTER 1J.D. SAUVAGE, THE ALIEN CONTAC-r SPECIAList, picked her way across the roughsurface of a rocky planetoid.A gossamer thread, shining bluewhite in the actinic glare of the star Sir-ius, stretched across the stone beneath her feet. She followed it. Acoarser line, her lifeline, unreeled behind her.The planetoid was more or lessJVIspherical, so small that its pitted and scarred surface curved sharply awayto nearby horizons. At first glance, it looked like a barren, airlessasteroid, weathered by primordial meteors; aftera first glance, it would be easily over-iwl,,F2 VONDA N. McINTYRElooked. J.D. and her colleagues in the alien contact department almost hadoverlooked it.The silken strand thickened, branched, and intertwined, gradually forminga lacy gauze. Not wanting to damage the fabric, J.D. followed it withoutstepping on it, as if she were walking beside a stream. This streamflowed upward, climbing a steep escarpment. J.D. climbed with it, movingeasily.The low gravity was far higher than a natural rock this size wouldcreate. The least of the small world's anomalies, the gravity hinted ata complex interior, perhaps even a core of matter collapsed toneutronium.The planetoid repaid a second glance. Great masses of webbing filled adozen of its largest craters. J.D. was walking on an extraordinaryasteroid. The worldlet was the starship of alien beings.Iridescent fibers wove together, forming a solid ribbon that led througha cleft in the escarpment. J.D. stepped cautiously onto the fabric. Itgave 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. Herdestination lay below.The silken pathway blended into a convoluted surface, filling the wide,deep crater. Valleys and ridges rumpled the webbing, and half a dozentrails twisted into it from where she stood. To proceed, she would haveto walk off the edge of the crater and let the web alone support herweight.She hesitated, listening and hoping for another message from thesquidmoths."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 handacross the smooth webbing. The faintMETAPHASE 3shussh of her touch transmitted itself through her glove. She wished shecould feel the silk with bare fingers, but the atmosphere was far too thinfor her to remove her suit.A single filament, darker silver than the rest, crossed the surface anddisappeared 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 sothin it flexed beneath her. She feared her touch would rip the silk; shefeared a dark tear would open beneath her, and she would fall fifty metersto the bottom.Most of all, she feared that her presence would cause the structure toself-destruct. She had watched Tau Ceti's alien museum destroy itselfrather than admit human beings. Rather than admit her.But the squidmoths had invited her. The thread in her hand acknowledged herexistence.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 cleftof delicate cascades. The fluttery fabric responded to her footsteps,trembling, vibrating. The cascades closed together overhead, and she foundherself walking upon one horizontal sheet, and beneath another, past andthrough translucent tissue-thin layers like huge fallen parachutes thatfiltered harsh starlight. The membranes formed tunnels and chambers; cablesand strands connected the membranes. The sheets rippled silently as shepassed.If a suspension bridge and a Gothic cathedral had interbred, thisconstruction 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 aluminous glow. The spun silk carried the light within its strands.4 VONDA N. McINTYREDeep within the crater, she paused at the top of a slope that plungedinto light. Afraid she would slip, fall, and slide sprawling to-whereverthe hillside led-she wrapped her fingers around a supporting strand andtested its strength. It gave, then contracted, as if to embrace her hand.Like the floor, the fiber was elastic and strong. She reached for anotherstrand, an arm's length farther on, and ventured deeper into the web."No more communication yet," J.D. said, though her colleagues in thealien contact department and everyone back on board Starfarer could seeand 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 yourprofession 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 thelow gravity, it was painstaking work. Her metabolic enhancer kicked in,flooding her body with extra adrenaline and inducing extra adenosinetriphosphate. Not for the first time since the expedition started, shewas glad she had decided to maintain the artificial gland. When she leftthe divers and the orcas, the long days of swimming naked in cold saltwater, she had assumed she would not need to enhance her metabolismanymore.Thirty meters down, the slope curved to a nearly horizontal level and shecould again walk upright on its springy inner surface. Sweat beaded onher forehead. The spacesuit's systems evaporated the sweat away.Within the webbing, thick silk strands glowed brightly, filling thecorridor with a soft pink light that imitated some other star thanSirius. J.D. knew, by inference, that the squidmoths had.not evolvedbeneath this star. Other than that, she knew very little about them. Theywere intelligent beings, reticent. They drifted through the galaxy intheir small massive star-METAPHASE 5ships, ignored and apparently despised by the interstellar civilization.Maybe they're outcasts, just like us, J.D. thought.The squidmoths had, at least, invited humans to visit them. The rest ofinterstellar civilization had ordered Starfarer to return to Earth, sohuman beings could spend the next five hundred years growing up.This they had declined to do. In response, in retaliation, the cosmicstring by which Starfarer traveled had begun to withdraw. If Starfarerstayed in any one place too long, it would be stranded there forever.The passage curved ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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