the weeping Miro, and then time dried his tears, time loosened her embrace, and time, finally, ended Ela's patience.
"Let's get back to work," said Ela. "I'm not unfeeling, but our predicament is unchanged."
Quara was surprised. "But Jane's not dead. Doesn't that mean we can get back home?"
Val-Jane at once got up and moved back to her computer terminal. Every movement was easy because of the reflexes and habits the Val-brain had developed; but the Jane-mind found each movement fresh and new; she marveled at the dance of her fingers pressing the keys to control the display. "I don't know," Jane said, answering the question that Quara had voiced, but all were asking. "I'm still uncertain in this flesh. The ansibles haven't been restored. I do have a handful of allies who will relink some of my old programs to the network once it is restored -- some Samoans on Pacifica, Han Fei-tzu on Path, the Abo university on Outback. Will those programs be enough? Will the new networking software allow me to tap the resources I need to hold all the information of a starship and so many people in my mind? Will having this body interfere? Will my new link to the mothertrees be a help or a distraction?" And then the most important question: "Do we wish to be my first test flight?"
"Somebody has to," said Ela.
"I think I'll try one of the starships on Lusitania, if I can reestablish contact with them," said Jane. "With only a single hive queen worker on board. That way if it is lost, it will not be missed." Jane turned to nod to the worker who was with them. "Begging your pardon, of course."
"You don't have to apologize to the worker," said Quara. "It's really just the Hive Queen anyway."
Jane looked over at Miro and winked. Miro did not wink back, but the look of sadness in his eyes was answer enough. He knew that the workers were not quite what everyone thought. The hive queens sometimes had to tame them, because not all of them were utterly subjected to their mother's will. But the was-it-or-wasn't-it-slavery of the workers was a matter for another generation to work out.
"Languages," said Jane. "Carried by genetic molecules. What kind of grammar must they have? Are they linked to sounds, smells, sights? Let's see how smart we all are without me inside the computers helping." That struck her as so amazingly funny that she laughed aloud. Ah, how marvelous it was to have her own laughter sounding in her ears, bubbling upward from her lungs, spasming her diaphragm, bringing tears to her eyes!
Only when her laughter ended did she realize how leaden the sound of it must have been to Miro, to the others. "I'm sorry," she said, abashed, and felt a blush rising up her neck into her cheeks. Who could have believed it could burn so hot! It almost made her laugh again. "I'm not used to being alive like this. I know I'm rejoicing when the rest of you are grim, but don't you see? Even if we all die when the air runs out in a few weeks, I can't help but marvel at how it feels to me!"
"We understand," said Firequencher. "You have passed into your Second Life. It's a joyful time for us, as well."
"I spent time among your trees, you know," said Jane. "Your mothertrees made space for me. Took me in and nurtured me. Does that make us brother and sister now?"
"I hardly know what it would mean, to have a sister," said Firequencher. "But if you remember the life in the dark of the mothertree, then you remember more than I do. We have dreams sometimes, but no real memories of the First Life in darkness. Still, that makes this your Third Life after all."
"Then I'm an adult?" asked Jane, and she laughed again.
And again felt how her laugh stilled the others, hurt them.
But something odd happened as she turned, ready to apologize again. Her glance fell upon Miro, and instead of saying the words she had planned -- the Jane-words that would have come out of the jewel in his ear only the day before -- other words came to her lips, along with a memory. "If my memories live, Miro, then I'm alive. Isn't that what you told me?"
Miro shook his head. "Are you speaking from Val's memory, or from Jane's memory when she -- when you -- overheard us speaking in the Hive