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METAPHASE 207
Nothing had changed.
Satoshi joined her, watched the transmission with her for a moment, then
upended his sling full of oranges into the storage box. J.D. grabbed the
sling's bottom and tipped out the last few pieces of fruit.
"I'm glad to have something to do," J.D. said. "Something physical. To keep me
from worrying." She gestured toward the display.
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"I keep remembering what Stephen Thomas saw," Satoshi said.
"Yes . . . . I wish we had an LTM down at the pool . . . . I wonder if those
creatures are metamorphosing, too?"
"Or if they're eating each other up."
They climbed ladders on opposite sides of the same tree. The display shrank to
the size of an orange and followed. J.D. moved cautiously, but she felt much
better, much steadier, than yesterday. The link was still growing, but her
body had accommodated itself to the change.
All in all, though, she thought, I'd rather be swimming with Zev and
Victoria. . . .
Her thoughts kept returning to the morning; she found herself staring into
space thinking about the flow of Zev's hair against her hand, the taste of
Victoria's lips.
Enough woolgathering! she told herself sternly.
Leaves tickled J.D.'s face. She stood in the midst of the overpowering,
intoxicating orange smell, blossoms and fruit, ripe and overripe and
fermented.
The ladder was not designed to be used outdoors. It wobbled. Everything about
this harvesting party was makeshift, from ladders borrowed from household tool
storage to the bedsheet carrying bags.
For the first hour or so, everyone had regarded the work as an adventure, an
entertaining physical break in days-lives-Aevoted to intellectual pursuits.
After two hours, it was no fun anymore.
People used to do this for a living, J.D. thought. All day, every day.
She had never considered what that
208 VONDA N. McINTYRE
meant. If she had thought about it, she would have imagined the experience
wrong without knowing it. Now she knew she would get it wrong; she had only a
taste of the Work.
On the other side of a heavily laden branch, Satoshi worked steadily. He
picked each orange with a sharp snap of his wrist.
"How--" J.D. started to ask about Stephen Thomas, but changed her mind.
"How are you doing?"
Satoshi glanced up. His thoughts, too, had been somewhere else.
"Victoria and I decided to have our regular potluck tonight," he said.
"Try to get back to normal for a change." He laughed, quick and sharp.
"Whatever normal is, these days. We haven't had one since . . . since before
you arrived, I guess. Would you like to come? Zev too, of course."
"I'd like to," J.D. said. "What should I bring?"
Satoshi grinned.
"Oranges," he said. "What else?"
Shouting erupted from the next row of trees. J.D. turned-she grabbed a branch
to keep from overbalancing. An argument-? A fight?
Zev ran past, laughing and shouting, pursued by Chandra. In the gold and green
orchard, drenched in white light, they were like fauns. Zev slipped on a
rotting orange, caught himself as he fell, turned, scooped up the fermenting
pulp and moldy rind, and flung it at Chandra. It caught her full on the chest,
spattering her with slimy orange goo.
Chandra stopped short. J.D. had no idea what she would do: she never had any
idea what Chandra would do.
Chandra burst out laughing and barreled toward Zcv, scooping up another fallen
orange and throwing it at him point blank. He was already running;
the orange spattered across his back, staining his sleeveless shirt.
In a moment, the harvesting party had exploded into a full-fledged food fight,
fallen oranges zinging past and hitting people, trees, the ground, with a
liquid sploosh.
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METAPHASE 209
Everybody joined in, the older adults as well as the younger people, everyone
but J.D. J.D. observed it from her perch on the ladder high in the tree.
Zev definitely had the advantage, shoveling up the worst of the squashed
oranges in his webbed hands, flinging them through the air as if he were
playing jai alai.
He looked up at her, laughing.
"Come down!"
She laughed, too. "Don't hold your breath!"
He stopped, and thought about that, an idea that never would have occurred to
him back home. In the sea, most ofthe time, he did hold his breath.
"I mean-look out!"
Chandra snuck up behind him and stuffed a handful of slimy orange pulp down
the back of his shirt. He yelped and jumped away, spun around and chased after
her. She had a good head start.
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