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access tunnel from the Chi's hatch, to the crater, and over the edge.
The nest vanished into the crater's depths.
Nerno's shell slipped from space into transition. J.D. perceived the change, a
change in angle down the knowledge surface, from an oblique traverse to a
headlong plunge.
She had to choose now: To travel with the ancient glacier along the smooth,
long ice slope, or to plunge into the choppy, dangerous terrain of the new
algorithm.
She guided Nerno's shell into new territory.
J.D. felt like a chambered nautilus, shelled and tentacled, extending herself
far beyond her own body, exquisitely sensitive. The shell found the pathway
she sought and fitted itself to the jagged curve.
J.D. felt exhilarated, yet frightened. She believed she was following
Starfarer's path . . . but she could not be absolutely certain.
As she thought of the starship, she thought'she saw it--or heard it, or felt
it, with a sense Nemo had pos-
332 VONDA N. McINTYRE
sessed but humans lacked. An anomaly appeared in the part of the knowledge
surface that represented transition. The anomaly vanished, then appeared
again, like a train chugging down the track into a valley and out of it again.
The anomaly distracted her. She wanted to catch up to it, to be sure it was
Starfarer and to be sure she kept following it. She knew she could make
Nemo's shell catch up to the anomaly. That surprised her. Starfarer had never
tried to change its vectors from the time it achieved transition energy to the
time it re-entered normal space.
J.D. restrained herself. One experiment was enough for any trip.
She drew her attention back toward herself, back within Nemo's shell. She was
trembling with excitement. She breathed deeply of air tinged with the
hydrocarbondrenched odor of Nemo's ship. She sneezed.
I'll have to do something about the atmosphere, she thought. Nemo isn't
creating it anymore. Will I be able to terraform the shell, like Europa's
ship? Again she wondered how Europa had acquired her starship, and how she had
configured it to her liking. Surely starships were a booming business within
Civilization.
Sally's Used Starships, J.D. said to herself. Gort's Starship Redecoration.
J.D. laughed. She laughed, and then she cried for a while.
She extended her attention to the edge of Nemo's shell, and stretched beyond-
She discovered that Nemo's last two egg cases had detached and vanished,
leaping off into transition while her thoughts were elsewhere.
Frantically J.D. cast her new senses around her, but caught no glimpse of the
egg cases, no hint of them anywhere in transition's many dimensions.
The anomaly of Starfarer glimmered in the distance, but nothing else marred
the knowledge surface.
"Nemo, I'm so sorry. . . ."
She had failed. She should somehow have held on to
METAPHASE 333
the two cases until she reached the new star system and normal space, But now
they were gone.
Despite being able to look straight into transition, Victoria felt blind.
The environment flung Starfarer's radar back only a few meters from the
surface of the cylinder. They might as well have been traveling through murky
water without sonar. Starfarer had no sonar capabilities, of course, though
Victoria would have tried it if it were available.
I can just imagine what Senator Derjaguin would have said if we'd outfitted a
spaceship with sonar, she said to herself.
Starfarer was taking samples of the transitional medium, but Victoria did not
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think the samples would reveal a material medium, an ether, that would respond
to sonar.
The source of the light storm was another mystery entirely.
Jenny hovered nearby. She had returned to the sailhouse a few minutes ago,
looking refreshed, looking better than she had since Starfarer left the solar
system. A few other people had come out to the sailhouse to watch what was
happening. Victoria wished Satoshi and Stephen Thomas were with her. But
Satoshi was in the observatory waiting for a first glimpse of the new system,
and Stephen Thomas . . . Victoria had no idea where
Stephen Thomas was. That was true more often than not these days.
As abruptly as a blink, Starfarer fell out of transition.
Victoria whooped with triumph and relief. She dove into Arachne's perceptions.
Starfarer remained in danger: Europa's ship might be anywhere. Last time
through transition, it had come out immediately on
Starfarer's tail. The sail gave the starship some mobility, but no description
of Starfarer would call it agile. It was Europa's ship that had dodged,
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