Vonda N. McIntyre - Metaphase

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METAPHASE

VONDA N. MCINTYRE

BANTAM SPECTRA BOOKS 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.

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

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday

Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam

Books" and the portrayal ofa rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and

Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Regiorada. Bantam Books,

666 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OPM09 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DEDICATION

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.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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

CHAPTER 1

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 Sir-

ius, stretched across the stone beneath her feet. She followed it. A

coarser line, her lifeline, unreeled behind her.

The planetoid was more or less

JVI

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,

2 VONDA N. McINTYRE

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

METAPHASE 3

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.

4 VONDA N. McINTYRE

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.

Thirty meters down, the slope curved to a nearly horizontal level and she

could again walk upright on its springy inner surface. Sweat beaded on

her forehead. The spacesuit's systems evaporated the sweat away.

Within the webbing, thick silk strands glowed brightly, filling the

corridor with a soft pink light that imitated some other star than

Sirius. J.D. knew, by inference, that the squidmoths had.not evolved

beneath this star. Other than that, she knew very little about them. They

were intelligent beings, reticent. They drifted through the galaxy in

their small massive star-

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METAPHASEBYVONDAN.MCINTYREBANTAMSPECTRABOOKSBYVONDAN.MCINTYRETRANSITIONMETAPHASEMETAPHASEABantamSpectraBook/September1992SPECTRAandtheportrayalofaboxed's"aretrademarksofBantamBooksadivisionofBantamDoubledayDellPublishingGroup,Inc.AllrightsreservedCopyright(C)1992byVondaNMcIntyreCoverartcopyright@199...

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