• CHAPTER ONE

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

 

Copyright © 1992 by Bill Fawcett & Associates

 

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

book or portions thereof in any form.

 

A Baen Books Original

 

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

 

ISBN: 0-671-72109-7

 

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

 

First printing, March 1992

Fourth printing, December 1994

 

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

To ordinary human ears the slight crackle of the

speaker being activated would have been almost in-

audible. To Nancia, all her sensors fine-tuned for this

signal, it sounded like a trumpet call Newly graduated

and commissioned, ready for service — and apprehen-

sive that she would not be able to live up to her family's

high Service traditions—she'd had little to do but wait.

 

He's coming aboaifl now, she thought in the split second

of waiting for the incoming call And then, as the unmis-

takable gravelly voice of CenCom's third-shift operator

rasped across her sensors, disappointment flooded her

synapses and left her dull and heavy on the launching

pad. She'd been so sure that Daddy would find time to

visit her, even if he hadn't been able to attend the formal

graduation of her class from Laboratory Schools.

"XN-935, how soon can you be ready to lift?"

"I completed my test flight patterns yesterday,"

Nancia replied. She was careful to keep her voice level,

monitoring each output band to make sure that no

hint of her disappointment showed in the upper

frequencies. CenCom could perfectly well have com-

municated with her directly, via the electronic network

that linked Nancia's ship computers with all other

computers in this subspace — and via the surgically

installed synaptic connectors that linked Nancia's

physical body, safe behind its titanium shell, with the

ship's computer — but it was a point of etiquette

among most of the operators to address brainships just

as they would any other human being. It would have

been rude to send only electronic instructions, as if the

 

2     Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

brainships were no more human than the Al-control-

led drones carrying the bulk of Central Worlds'

regular traffic.

 

Or so the operators claimed. Nancia privately

thought that their insistence on voice-controlled traffic

was merely a way to avoid the embarrassing com-

parison between their sense-limited communication

system and a brainship's capabilities of multi-channel

communication and instantaneous response.

 

In any case, it was equally a point of pride among

shellpersons to demonstrate the control over their

"voices" and all other external comm devices that Helva

had shown to be possible, nearly two hundred years ago.

Nancia knew herself to lack the fine sense of musical

timing and emphasis that had made Helva famous

throughout the galaxy as "The Ship Who Sang," but this

much, at least, she could do; she could conceal her disap-

pointment at hearing CenCom instead of a direct

transmission from Daddy to congratulate her on her

commissioning, and she could maintain a perfectly

professional facade throughout the ensuing discussion

of supplies and loading and singularity points.

 

"Il?s a short flight," CenCom told her, and then paused

for a moment "Short for you, that is. By normal FTL drive,

Nyota ya Jaha is at the far end of the galaxy. Fortunately,

there's a singularity point a week from Central that wifl flip

you intolocal space."

 

"I do have full access to my charts of known decom-

position spaces," Nancia reminded CenCom, allowing

a tinge of impatience to color her voice.

 

"Yes, and you can read them in simulated 4-D, can't

you, you lucky stiff!" CenCom's voice showed only

cheerful resignation at the limitations of a body that

forced him to page through bulky books of graphs and

charts to verify the mapping Nancia had already

created as an internal display: a sequence of three-

dimensional spaces collapsing and contorting about

 

PARTNERSHIP 3

 

the singularity point where local subspace could be

defined as intersecting with the subspace sector of

Nyota ya Jaha. At that point Nancia would be able to

create a rapid physical decomposition and restructur-

ing of the local spaces, projecting herself and her

passengers from one subspace to the other. Decom-

position space theory allowed brainships like Nancia,

or a very few expensive AI drones equipped with

metachip processors, to condense the major part of a

long journey into the few seconds they spent in Sin-

gularity. Less fortunate ships, lacking the metachips or

dependent upon the slow responses of a human pilot

who lacked Nancia's direct synaptic connections to the

computer, still had to go through long weeks or even

months of conventional FTL travel to cover the same

distance; the massive parallel computations required

in Singularity were difficult even for a brainship and

impossible for most conventional ships.

 

"Tell me about the passengers," Nancia requested.

When they came aboard, presumably one of her pas-

sengers would have the datahedron from Central

specifying her destination and instructions, but who

knew how much longer she would have to wait before

the passengers boarded? She hadn't even been invited

to choose a brawn yet; that would surely take a day or

two. Besides, picking CenCom's brains for informa-

tion on her assignment was better than waiting in

tense expectation of her family's visit They would cer-

tainly come to see her off . . . wouldn't they? All

through her schooling she had received regular visits

from one family member or another — mostly from

her fether, who made a point of how much time he was

taking from his busy schedule to visit her. But Jinevra

and Flix, her sister and brother, had come too, now

and then; Jinevra less often, as college and her new

career in Planetary Aid administration took up more

and more of her time.

 

4     Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

None of them had attended Nantia's formal gradua-

tion, though; no one from the entire, far-flung, wealthy

House of Perez y De Gras had been there to hear the

lengthy list ofhonors and awards and prizes she'd gained

in the final, grading year ofher training as a brainship.

 

/(wasn't enough, Nancia thought. / was only third in my

class. If rd placed first, iffd won the Daleth Prize.... No

good would come of brooding over the past She knew

that Jinevra and Flix had grown up and had their own

lives to lead, that Daddy's crowded schedule of busi-

ness and diplomatic meetings didn't leave him much

time for minor matters like school events. It really

wasn't important that he hadn't come to see her

graduate. He would surely make time for a personal

visit before liftoff; that was what really counted. And

when he did come, he should find her happy and busy

and engaged in the work for which she had trained.

"About the passengers?" she reminded CenCom.

 

"Oh, you probably know more about them than I do,"

the CenCom operator said with a laugh. "Tney're more

your sort of people than mine. High Families," he

clarified. "New graduates, I gather, off to their first jobs."

 

That was nice, anyway. Nancia had been feeling just a

bit apprehensive at the thought of having to deal with

some experienced, high-ranking diplomatic or military

passengers on her first flight It would be pleasant to

carry a group of young people just like her — well, not

just like her, Nancia corrected with a trace of internal

amusement. They would be a few years older, maybe

nineteen or twenty to her sixteen; everybody knew that

softpersons suffered from so many hormonal changes

and sensory distractions that their schooling took several

years longer to complete. And they would be softpersons,

with limited sensory and processing capability. Still,

they'd all be heading off to start their careers together;

that was a significant bond.

 

She absently recorded CenCom's continuing in-

 

PARTNERSHIP 5

 

strucu'ons while she mused on the pleasant trip ahead.

"Nyota ya Jaha's a long way off by FTL," he told her

unnecessarily. "I expect somebody pulled some strings

to get them a Courier Service ship. But it happens to

be convenient for us too, being in die same subspace as

Vega, so that's all right"

 

Nancia vaguely remembered something about Vega

subspace in die news. Computer malfunctions... why

would that make the newsbeams? There must have

been something important about it, but she'd received

only the first bits of the newsbyte before a teacher can-

celed the beam, saying something severe about the

inadvisability of listening to upsetting newsbytes and

the danger of getting the younger shellpeople upset

over nothing. Oh, well, Nancia thought, now that she

was her own ship she could scan the beams for herself

and pick up whatever it had been about Vega later. For

now, she was more interested in finding out what Cen-

Com knew about her newly assigned passengers.

 

"Overton-Glaxely, del Parma y Polo, Armontillado-

Perez y Medoc, de Gras-Waldheim, Hezra-Fong,"

CenCom read off the list of illustrious High Family

names. "See what I mean?"

 

"Umm, yes," Nancia said. "We're a cadet branch of

Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and the de Gras-

Waldheims come in somewhere on my mother's side.

But you forget, CenCom, I didn't exactly grow up in

those circles myself."

 

"Yes, well, your visitor will probably be able to give

you all the latest gossip," CenCom said cheerfully.

 

"Visitor!" Of course he came to see me off. I never doubted

it for an instant.

 

"Request just came in while I was looking up the

passenger list. Sorry, I forgot to route it to you. Name

of Perez y de Gras. Being a family member, they told

him to go right on out to the field. He'll be at the

launching pad in a minute."

 

6     Arme McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

Nancia activated her outside sensors and realized

that it was almost night... not that the darkness made

any difference Co her, but her infrared sensors picked

up only the outline of a human form approaching the

ship; she couldn't see Daddy's face at all. And it would

be rude to turn on a spotlight. Oh, well, he'd be there

any minute. She opened her lower doors in silent

welcome.

 

CenCom's voice was an irritation now, not a wel-

come distraction. "XN? I asked if you can lift off within

two hours. Your provision list is more than adequate

for a short voyage, and these pampered brats are

kvetching about having to wait around on base."

 

"Two hours?" Nancia repeated. That wouldn't give

her much time for a visit — well, be realistic; it was

probably more time than Daddy could spare. But

there were other problems with leaving so soon. "Are

you out of your mind? I haven't even picked a brawn

yet!" She intended to get to know the available brawns

over the next few days before choosing a partner. "Hie

selection process was not something to be rushed

through, and she certainly didn't want to waste the

precious minutes of Daddy's visit choosing a brawn!

 

"Don't you young ships ever catch the newsbeams? I

told you Vega. Remember what happened to the CR-

899? Her brawn's stranded on his home planet —

Vega 3.3."

 

"What a dreary way to name their planets," Nancia

commented. "Can't they think of any nice names?"

 

"Vegans are ... very logical," CenCom said. "The

original group of settlers were, anyway — the ones

who went out by slowship, before FTL. I gather the

culture evolved to an extremely rigid form during the

generations born on shipboard. They don't make a lot

of allowances for human frailty, litde things like names

being easier to remember than strings of numbers."

 

"Makes no difference to me" Nancia said smugly.

 

PARTNERSHIP 7

 

Her memory banks could encode and store any form

of information she needed.

 

"You should get along just great with the Vegans,"

CenCom told her. "Anyway, this brawn is out in Vegan

subspace, no ship, nothing in the vicinity but a couple

of old FTL drones. OG Shipping ought to be able to

divert their metachip drone from Nyota, but as usual,

we can't contact the manager. So it's either waste

months of Caleb's service term by sending him home

FTL, or provide our own transport. You're it. You can

drop off your friends and relations on the planets

around Nyota ya Jaha — I'll transmit a databurst of

your orders after we get through chatting — and then

proceed to Vega 3.3 to pick up your first brawn. Very

neat organization. Psych records suggest the two of

you ought to make a great team."

 

"Oh, they do, do they?" said Nancia. She had her own

opinion of the Psych branch of Central and the intrusive

tests and questionnaires with which they bombarded

shellpersons, and she had no intention of being hustled

by Central into forgoing her right to choose a brawn just

because some shelltapper in a white coat thought they

knew how to pick a man for her—and because she was a

convenient free ride for a brawn who'd already lost one

ship. Nancia was about to turn up her beam to CenCom

and favor the operator with a few choice words on the

subject when she felt her visitor stepping aboard. Well,

there'd be time for that argument later; she could think

about it on the way out. Agreeing to transport the CR-

899's stranded brawn back to Central wouldn't commit

her to a permanent partnership, and when she returned

from this voyage she'd have plenty of time to choose her

next brawn.., and to tell Psych what they could do with

their personality profiles.

 

Meanwhile, her visitor had ignored the open lift doors

in favor of climbing the stairs to the central cabin, taking

the last steps two at a time; Daddy made a point of keep-

 

8

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

ing in shape. Nancia activated her stairway sensors and

speakers simultaneously.

 

"Daddy, how nice of you — "

 

But the visitor was Flix, not Daddy. At least, from

what Nancia could see of his face behind the enor-

mous basket of flowers and fruit, she assumed it was

her little brother: spiky red hair in an old-fashioned

punk crown, one long peacock's feather dangling

from the right earlobe, fingertips callused from hours

of synthcom play. It was her little brother, all right.

 

"Flix," She could keep her vocal registers level, to

conceal her disappointment; but she couldn't for the

life of her think of any words to add.

 

" 'S'okay," Flix said, his voice coming slightly muf-

fled from the stack of Calixtan orchids and orange

Juba apfruits that threatened to topple over him from

the insecurely stacked basket. Nancia slid out a tray

from a waist-level cabinet just in time. Flix staggered

into the tray, dropped the basket on it and sat back-

wards on the floor with a look of mild surprise. Two

glowing orange apfruits fell off the towering display

and rolled towards Nancia's command console, reveal-

ing a bottle of Sparkling Hereot in the center of the

basket. "Know you'd rather have Daddy. Or Jinevra,

Somebody worthy of the honor you do House Perez y

de Gras, You deserve 'em, too," he added after a

sprawling dive to retrieve the Juba apfruits. "Deserve

a brass marching band and a red carpet instead of this

thing." He brushed one hand across the soft nap of the

sand-colored, standard-issue synthorug with which

Nancia's internal living areas were carpeted.

 

"You — you really think I didn't disgrace the

House?" Nancia asked. She had been wondering if that

was why nobody had come to see her graduated and

commissioned. Daddy had always spoken of her

graduation with the words, "When you win the

Daleth...." And she hadn't done that.

 

PARTNERSHIP 9

 

Flix turned his head toward the titanium column

and gave Nancia the same disbelieving, slightly con-

temptuous look he'd bestowed on the beige

synthorug. "Stupid," he mourned. "Only member of

the family I can stand to talk to, our Nancia; only one

who doesn't give me hours of grief about giving up my

synthcomposing for a Real Career, and it turns out she

has worse problems than a few little malfunctioning

organs. If you hadn't been popped into your shell at

birth I'd suspect you were dropped on your head as a

baby. Of course you've done the House proud, Nancia,

what do you think? Third in academics and first in

Decom Theory and taking so many special awards

they had to restructure the graduation ceremony to

make time for your presentations — "

 

"How did you know about that?" Nancia

interrupted.

 

Flix looked away from the titanium column. Of course

she could still see his expression perfectly well from her

floor-level sensors, but it would have been rude to

remind him of that He looked embarrassed enough as it

was. "Had a copy of the program," he mumbled. "Meant

to show up, as long as I happened to be on Central

anyway, but... well, I met these two girls when I was

doing a synthcom gig in the Pleasure Palace, and they

taught me how to mix Rigellian stemjuice with Benedic-

tine to make this wonderful fizzy drink, and ... well,

anyway, I didn't wake up until the graduation ceremony

was about over."

 

He scowled at the carpet for a moment longer, then

brightened up. "Another thing I like about you, Nan-

cia, you're the only relative I've got who won't burst

into a long diatribe about how I could lower myself by

playing synthcom at the Pleasure Palace. Of course, I

don't suppose you have any idea what those places are

like. Still, neither does Great Aunt Mendocia, and that

doesn't stop her from sounding off."

 

10

 

•    Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

11

 

He got to his feet and began pulling things out of

the basket. "So ... since I was unavoidably detained at

the Pleasure Palace ... and Jinevra's off at the tail end

of nowhere investigating a Planetary Aid fraud, and

Daddy's in a meeting, I thought I'd just drop by while

you were waiting for assignment and we'd have a little

private party."

 

"What meeting?" Nancia asked before she could

stop herself. "Where?"

 

Flix looked up from the basket, surprised. "Huh?"

 

"You said our father was in a meeting."

 

"Yes, well, isn't he always? No, I don't know

where; it's just a logical deduction. You know how

full his dayplanner program is. Y'know, I often

wondered," Flix rattled on as he unpacked the bas-

ket, "just how the three of us got born. Well,

conceived, anyway. Do you suppose he sent Mother

a memo? Please come by my office this morning. Can work

you in between ten and ten-fifteen. Bring sheets and pil-

low" He reached the bottom of the basket and

pulled out two scratched and faded datahedra.

"There! I know you think I'm a selfish bastard,

bringing fruit and champagne to somebody who

doesn't eat or drink, but actually I have covered all

contingencies. These are my latest synthcomposi-

tions — here, I'll drop them in your reader.

Background music for the party, and you can play

them on the trip to entertain yourself.

 

As the jangling sounds of Flix's latest experimental

composition rang out in the cabin, he held up a third

datahedron and smiled. Unlike the first two well-worn

hedra, this was a glittering shape with a slick commer-

cial laser-cut finish that spattered rainbows of light

across the cabin. "And here — "

 

"Let me guess," Nancia interrupted. "You've finally

found somebody to make a commercial cut of your

synthcompositions."

 

Flix's smile dimmed perceptibly. "Well, no. Not ex-

actly. Although," he said, brightening, "I do know this

girl who knows a chap who used to date a girl who did

temporary office work for the second VP of Sound

Studios, so there are distinct possibilities in the offing.

But this is something quite different. This," he said,

sounding almost reverent, "is the new, improved, vast*

ly more sophisticated version of SPACED OUT, not due

for public release until the middle of next month, and

I won't tell you what I had to do to get it,"

 

Nancia waited for him to tell her what the thing was

about, but Flix paused and beamed as if he was expect-

ing some immediate reaction from her.

 

"Well?" he said after a few seconds. His spiky red

hair began to droop around the edges.

 

"I'm sorry," Nancia confessed, "but I have no idea

what you're talking about."

 

Flix shook his head mournfully. "Never heard of

SPACED OUT? What do they teach them at these

academies? No, no, don't tell me." He held up one

hand in protest. "I know. Decomposition theory and

subspace astrogation and metachip design and a lot of

other things that make my head hurt But 1 do think

they could have let you have a little time off to play

games."

 

"We did play," Nancia told him. "It was in the

schedule. Two thirty-minute periods daily of free play

to improve synapse/tool coordination and gross

propulsion skiUs. Why, I used to love playing Stall and

PowerSeek when I was in my baby shell!"

 

Flix shook his head again. "All very improving, I'm

sure. Well, this game" — he grinned—"is absolutely, one

hundred per cent guaranteed not to improve your mind.

In feet, Jinevra claims playing SPACED OUT can cause

irreversible brain damage!"

 

"It can?" Nancia slid her reader slots shut with a

click as Flix approached. "Look, Flix, I'm not sure — "

 

12

 

Arme McCaffrey £s? Margaret Ball

 

"Consider our big sister," Flix said with his sunniest

smile. "Go ahead, just call up an image from her last visit

Don't you think anything she disapproves of must be

worth a try?"

 

Nanria projected a lifesize Jinevra on the screen that

filled the center wall of the cabin. Her sister might

have been standing beside Flix. Trim and perfect as

ever, from the hem of her navy blue Planetary Techni-

cal Aid uniform to the smooth dark hair that fell

perfectly straight to just the regulation 1/4 inch dis-

tance from her starched white collar, she was the

pattern of reproach to every disorderly element in the

universe. Nancia couldn't remember just what had

caused the disapproving glint in Jinevra's eyes or the

tight, pinched look at the corners of her mouth at the

moment this image had been stored, but in this projec-

tion she seemed to be glaring right at Flix. One of the

red spikes of his retro-punk hair crown wilted under

the withering gaze of the projection.

 

Nancia felt sorry for him. Jinevra had never

bothered to conceal her opinion that their little

brother was a wastrel and a disgrace to the family.

Daddy, she suspected, felt much the same way. The

weight of the Perez y de Gras clan's disapproval would

have been crushing to her. How could she join them in

condemning Flix? She'd heard stories enough about

his wild tricks — there were times when Jinevra and

Daddy seemed to have nothing else to discuss on their

brief visits — but to her he was still the tousle-headed

toddler who'd hugged her titanium shell every time he

came for a visit, who'd waved and yelled as enthusiasti-

cally as if she were a real flesh-and-blood sister who

could cuddle him on her lap, who'd screamed with

glee when she carried him around the school track for

a quick round of PowerSeek with her classmates.

 

And what harm could it do her to try the stupid game?

 

"You'd like it, Nancia," Flix said hopefully as the

 

PARTNERSHIP 13

 

projected image of Jinevra faded into a blank screen.

 

"Really. It's the best version SpaceGamers has ever

 

• released. It's got sixty-four levels of hidden tunnels,

 

and simulated Singularity space, and holodwarfs...."

 

"Holodwarfs?"

 

'Just look." Flix dropped the glittering datahedron

into the nearest reader slit — fanny, Nancia couldn't

remember having decided to open that reader, but she

must have done so. There was a soft whirring noise as

the contents of the datahedron were read into com-

puter memory, then Flix said, "Level 6, holo!" and a

red-bearded dwarf appeared in the middle of the

cabin, brandishing a curved broadsword whose hilt

glittered with a shower of refracted colored light. Flix

dropped to one knee as the dwarf's broadsword

slashed through the space where his head had been,

rolled towards a control panel and shouted, "Space

Ten laser armor!"

 

A shape of light beams bent into impossible curved

paths around him. The dwarf bent and thrust his

sword through a gap between the rapidly weaving

lights —

 

And vanished.

 

So did the lights.

 

Flix got to his feet, aggrieved. "You cut the game offl

And I was winning!"

 

"I, umm, I don't think I'm quite ready for the holo-

dwarfs," Nancia apologized. "I have this automatic

reaction to seeing people I love attacked."

 

Flix nodded. "Sorry. I guess we'll have to bring you

up to speed slowly. Want to start at Level 1, no holos?"

 

"That sounds... better."

 

And it was better. In feet, after a few rounds, Nancia

found herself actually enjoying the silly game, al-

though she still had trouble making sense of the rules.

 

"What am I supposed to do with the Laser Staff?"

 

"It helps you walk uphill through the gravity well."

 

14

 

Anne McCaffrey £*f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

15

 

"That's dumb. Lasers don't have anything to do

with gravity."

 

"Nantia. It's agame. Now, be sure to ask the simugrif

for the answers to the Three Toroid Triples; you'll

need them after you reach the trolls' bridge...."

 

As Flix instructed her in the rudiments of the game,

Nancia discovered that the actual game program used

very little of her computing power. She was easily able

to scan CenCom's databurst about her coming pas-

sengers while they played. At the same time she

activated the ship's enhanced graphics mode to fill the

three wall-size screens in the central cabin with color

images of the game and of their play icons. Flix had

chosen to be, of all things, a brainship, careening

through imaginary asteroid belts in search of the Mys-

tic Rings of Daleen. Nancia preferred to imagine

herself as Troll Slayer, the long-limbed, bold explorer

who strode through gravity wells and over mountain

ranges with laser staff and backblasters.

 

"Nancia, you can't slay that troll yet!"

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because he's in ambush behind the rocks. I can see

him, but you can't."

 

"I can so. I can see everything in this game. It's part of

my main memory now, remember?"

 

"Well, your play icon can't. He's just a man. He

hasn't got multi-D vision. And you see that blinking

blue light? The program rules are warning you that

he's going to die of hypothermia if you don't get him

into some kind of shelter soon."

 

"Why doesn't he just increase his fuel — oh. I

remember. You softpersons certainly are limited in

your fuel allocation capabilities." Nancia went ahead

and bent her laserstaff to take out the hiding troll, as

well as three of his fellows, then sent her play icon

under the trolls' snow bridge. Behind three hidden

doors and through a labyrinth there was a nice warm

 

cave now uninhabited, where Troll Slayer could rest

and refuel.

 

"Nancia, you're cheating!" Flix accused. "How did

you find that place so quickly, without making any

mistakes?"

 

"How could I not find it? The game maps are in my

main memory too, remember? All I had to do is look."

 

"Well, couldn't you not look? To be fair?"

 

"No, I could not," Nancia said in a tone that should

have effectively closed off further discussion. Cut off

her consciousness from a part of the ship's computer

memory? The single worst experience of her entire

life had been the partial anesthesia required while ex-

perts completed her synaptic connections to the ship.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing a shellperson

hated more than losing connections! Flix ought to un-

derstand that without her telling him.

 

'Just shut down that memory node for a little while,"

Flix wheedled.

 

He never did know when to stop. And the idea of

shutting down her own nodes made Nancia so uncom-

fortable that she couldn't bear to discuss it with him.

 

"Listen, softshell, I'd have to cut off more than one

node to bring myself down to your computational level!"

 

"Oh, yeah? Come outside and say that again!"

 

"Sure, I'll come outside. I'll take you right up to the

Singularity point and let you find your own way out of

the decomposition!"

 

"Aah, relying on brute force again. It's not fair." Flix

appealed to the ceiling. "Two big sisters, and they both

pick on me all the time!"

 

"We had to do something to keep you under con-

trol — " Nancia shut down her vocal transmissions

abruptly. There was an incoming beam from Central.

 

"XN? Message relay from Rigellian subspace." Abrief

pause, then the image of Nancia's father appeared on

the central screen opposite her pillar. On the left-hand

 

16

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Batt

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

17

 

screen Flix's brainship icon flipped and rotated in an

endless, mindless loop against the glittering stars of deep

space; on the right, Troll Slayer stood frozen with one

foot lifted to step across the threshold of the hidden cave.

Between them, a tired man in a conservative green and

blue pinstripe tunic smiled at Nancia.

 

"Sorry I couldn't come to your graduation, Nancia

dear. This meeting on Rigel IV is vital to keeping

Central's economy on the planned graph for the next

sixteen quarters. I couldn't let them down. Knew

you'd understand. Hey, congratulations on all those

awards! I didn't have time to read the program in

detail yet, but I'm sure you've done House Perez y de

Gras proud, as always. And I think you'll like your first

assignment. It'll be a chance for you to get to know

some of the younger members of the High Families —

a very fitting start for our own Courier Service star.

Eh? What's that?" He turned towards his left, so that

he seemed to be speaking to the frozen Troll Slayer

icon. "The Secretary-Particular? Oh, very well, send

him in. I'll need to brief him before the next session."

 

Eyes front again. "You heard that, I suppose, Nan-

cia? Sorry, I have to go now. Good luck!"

 

" Daddy, wait—" Nancia began, but the screen went

blank for a moment. The old image of the snow bridge

and the trolls reappeared and she heard the voice of

the CenCom operator.

 

"Sorry, XN. That was a canned message beam.

There's no more. And your passengers are ready to

board now."

 

"Thank you, Central." Nancia discovered to her

horror that she had lost all control over her vocal

channels; the trembling overtones that surrounded

her speech made her emotional state all too apparent.

A Perezy de Gras does not weep. And a brainship could not

weep. And Nancia had been well trained to repress the

son of unseemly emotional displays that softpersons

 

indulged in. All the same, she very much did not want

to talk to anybody just now.

 

Flix seemed to have sensed her mood; he silently

packed up the basket of fruit and sparkling wine and

patted Nancia's titanium column as if he thought that

she could feel the warmth of his hand. For a moment

she had the illusion that she did feel it.

 

" I'd better get out of the way now," he said." Can't have a

Fterez y de Gras brainship caught partying on her maiden

voyage, can we?"

 

He paused on the stairs. "Y'know, Nancia, there's no

regulation says you have to greet your passengers the

minute they step aboard. Let 'em find their cabins and

unpack on their own. There'll be plenty of time for social

chitchat on the way out."

 

Then he was gone, a redheaded blur vanishing into

the darkness, a whistled melody lingering on the night

air outside; and moments later, the bright lights of a

spacepad transport shone in Nancia's ground-level

sensors and a party of young people tumbled out,

laughing and talking all at once and waving glasses in

the air. One of them stumbled and spilled the liquid

over Nancia's gleaming outer shell; from a fin sensor

she could see the snail-trail of something green and

viscous defacing her side. The boy swore and shouted,

"Hey, Alpha, we need a refill on the Stemerald over

 

here!"

 

"Wait till we're inside, can't you?*1 called back a tall

girl with ebony skin and features sharp and precise as

an antique cameo. Right now her handsome face was

etched with lines of anger and dissatisfaction, but as

the fair-haired boy looked back over his shoulder at

her she gave him a bright smile that wouldn't have

deceived Nancia for a minute.

 

They were all still talking — and drinking that sticky

green stuff— as they crowded into the airlock lift without

even asking permission to board. Well, she had left the

 

18

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret BaU

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

19

 

entry port open after Flix's departure; maybe they con-

sidered that an implied welcome. And Nancia had heard

that softpersons — at least those outside the Academy —.

didn't observe the formality that governed greetings and

official exchanges in the Courier Service and other

branches of Central's far-flung bureaucracy. She wasn't

one to take offense yet, not when she herself was hardly

ready for introductions to this bunch of strangers.

 

As they trooped out of the airlock and into the

central cabin, Nancia played a game of matching faces

to the names Central had given her. The short red-

haired boy with a face like a friendly gargoyle had

Flix's coloring and the flashing smile that reeled girls

in to Flix like trout on a hook; he must be one of the

two related to Nancia's family. "Blaize?" the black girl

called. "Blaize, I can't open this." She held out a plastic

pouch full of shimmering green liquid, and Nancia

winced in anticipation as the redhead tore off the

sealstrip with two short, strong fingers. But not a drop

spilled on her new, official-issue beige carpeting—not

now, anyway.

 

"Here you are, Alpha," the boy said as he handed it

back, and Nancia matched their faces with the names and

descriptions that had come in CenCom's databurst The

red-haired boy must be Blaize Armontillado-Perez y

Medoc, of a family so high that they barely deigned to

recognize the Perez y de Gras connection. And for some

puzzling reason his first posting was to a lonely Planetary

Technical Aid position on the remote planet of Angalia;

she would have expected anybody from a three-name

Family to start off somewhere near the top of whatever

Central bureaucracy he chose. As for the ebony princess,

with her sharp clever face that would have been beautiful

if not for the discontented expression, she had to be

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong. The short burst transmitted

from CenCom identified her as a native of the warm,

semi-desert world ofTakla, with high marks in her medi-

 

cal research program, and no hint as to why she'd chosen

to take a five-year sabbatical in the midst of training to

run the Summerlands Clinic on Bahati.

 

As they passed the pouch of Stemerald back and

forth, Nancia was able to identify the other three from

their casual conversation without having to introduce

herself. The slighdy pudgy boy with a halo of overlong

brown curls clustering around his red face was Darnell

Overton-Glaxely, going to Bahati to take charge of OG

Shipping from the cousin who'd been administering

the business during DarnelTs minority. The other girl,

the sleek black-haired beauty whose delicate bones

and slightly tilted eyes suggested a family connection

with the Han Parma branch of the family, would be

Fassa del Parma y Polo. The del Parma y Polo clan con-

trolled all the major space construction in this

subspace, and now it appeared they were sending this

delicate little thing out to establish the family's rights in

Vega subspace as well. The girl was probably, Nancia

reflected, stronger than she looked. At any rate she

was die only one refusing the pouch of Stemerald as it

went around the circle, and that was a good sign.

 

And the last one — Nancia let her sensors take in the

full gk>ry of Polyon de Gras-Waldheim, the cousin she'd

never met From die crown of his smoothly cropped yel-

low hair to the gleaming toes of his black regulation-issue

shoes, he was the epitome of the perfect Space Academy

graduate: standing straight but not stiff, eyes moving in

full awareness of what each ofhis companions was doing,

even in this moment of repose conveying a sense of

dangerous alertness. Like Nancia, he was newly

graduated and commissioned. And like her, he'd ranked

high in his class but not first; first in technical grades, the

databurst said, but only second overall because of an in-

explicable low mark in Officer Fitness — whatever that

might be.

 

When she'd first scanned the databurst, during Flix's

 

20

 

Arme McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

sflly computer game, Nancia had been looking forward

to meeting her cousin Polyon. He was the only one of the

group with whom she felt that she had much in common.

As two High Families members trained for a life of service

to Central, just setting out to meet their destinies, they

should have felt an instant sense of kinship. Now,

though, she felt strangely reluctant to introduce herself

to Polyon. He was so tense, so watchful, as though he

considered even this laughing group of other young

people in the light of potential enemies.

 

And, she reminded herself, he had personally con-

sumed at least two-thirds of the recently opened

pouch of Stemerald, plus Central only knew what else

before coming on board. No, it wasn't a good time to

introduce herself and tell Polyon of their family con-

nections. She would just have to wait.

 

"Hey, guys, look at the welcoming committee!"

Blaize interrupted the chatter. He was staring past

Nantia's titanium column, at the triple-screen display

of the SPACED OUT game that Nancia had absentmin-

dedly left up after Flix's abrupt departure. The

concealed visual sensors between the screens showed

Blaize's freckled, snub-nosed face alight with pure,

uncomplicated joy.

 

Blaize moved slowly across the soft carpet until he sank

into the empty pilot's chair that should have been

reserved for Nancia's brawn. "This," he said reverently,

"has got to be the biggest, best SPACED OUT I've ever

seen. Two weeks will go like nothing with this setup to

play with." The game control channels were still open,

and as Blaize identified himself and took control of the

brainship icon, Nancia let the underlying game program

alter the brainship's course to zoom in on Troll Slayer's

world. The brilliance of the graphic display drew the

other passengers to look over Blaize's shoulder, and one

by one, with half-ashamed comments, they let them-

selves be drawn into the game.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

21

 

"Well, it beats watching a bunch of painbrains dose

themselves silly in the clinic," Alpha murmured as she

took a seat beside Blaize.

 

Nancia had hardly recovered from the shock of this

callous comment when Darnell, too, joined the game.

Til have to copy the mastergraphics off this program

and have somebody install it on all OG Shipping's

drones," he said, animating Troll Slayer. "Anybody know

how to break the code protection?"

 

"I," said Polyon de Gras-Waldheim, "can break any

computer security system ever installed." He favored

Darnell with a slanting, enigmatic side glance. "If it's

worth my while..."

 

Oh, you can, can you? thought Nancia. We'll see about

that. Software game piracy wasn't exactly a major

crime, but a newly commissioned Space Academy of-

ficer ought to have a stronger ethical sense than some

commoner who hadn't had the benefit of a High

Families upbringing and an Academy training. She

felt distinctly less eager than she had been to introduce

herself to her handsome cousin.

 

Polyon turned his head and treated Fassa del Parma

y Polo, still lingering beside the door, to a brilliant

smile. "Now you, little one, could make just about any-

thing worth my while."

 

Fassa moved towards the game controls with a

sinuous, gliding motion-that riveted Blaize and

DarnelTs attention as well as Polyon's. "Forget it,

yellowtop," she said in a voice as sweet as her words

were stinging. "A second-rate Academy officer with a

prison-planet posting doesn't have enough to keep me

interested. I'm saving it for where it'll do me some

good,"

 

Nancia briefly shut down all the cabin's sensors.

How had she gotten stuck with these greedy, amoral,

spoiled brats? She had a good mind to put off intro-

ducing herself indefinitely. From the freedom of their

 

22

 

Arene McCaffrey fcf Margaret Bad

 

comments, they must be assuming she was only a

drone ship with no power to understand or act on any-

thing but a limited set of direct commands.

 

But she would still need to know what they were up

to. She opened one auditory channel and heard Blaize

leading Darnell and Polyon in a raucous chorus of,

"She never sold it, she just gave it away!" while Fassa

glowered and slithered off to her cabin.

 

Nancia had the feeling this would be one of the

longest two-week voyages any brainship had ever

endured.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

polyon

 

Nancia watched curiously as Polyon de Gras-

Waldheim sauntered into the central cabin. The other

passengers were still sleeping off their departure-

night Stemerald party, snoring and thrashing as the

last doses of the stimulant worked its way out of their

exhausted bodies. Polyon had recovered remarkably

early. Like any good Academy graduate, he'd been up

at 0600 ship's time, washed in the shower cubicle and

dressed in his neatly pressed undress grays before

presenting himself in public. Nancia had shut down

visual sensors in the cabins to allow her passengers the

privacy they would be expecting, but the auditory sen-

sors brought her enough small sounds to enable her to

follow Polyon through his early-morning routine.

 

Nancia caught her first glimpse of Polyon as he

swung down the passageway to the central cabin. This

was public space; she had no compunction about leav-

ing all sensors activated here. And Polyon de

Gras-Waldheim was certainly a treat for the sensors.

Just a shade under two meters tall, with his golden hair

ruthlessly cropped in the Academy bristle cut, he was a

happy blend of the best in the Waldheim and de Gras

family lines: Waldheim height and rugged strength, de

Gras refinement and quick awareness. Nancia felt a

moment of regret. Polyon was a Space Academy

graduate; he might have been her brawn.

 

A de Gras-Waldheim? jeered an inner voice. What are

you dreaming of, girl ? A young man who combined those

two bloodlines could look fiar higher than command of

 

24

 

Arme McCajfrey &? Margaret Baft

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

25

 

a single brainship. He should have been destined for a

staff position somewhere, being groomed for high

command.

 

The short databurst of information about her pas-

sengers and their destinations didn't explain why,

instead of joining a Fleet General staff, Polyon was

headed out to be the technical overseer for a prison

metachip plant in a remote subspace. Oh, well, there

must be some good reason for the assignment. Maybe there's

more going on in Vega subspace than I realized. Nancia

remembered that interrupted newsbyte about Vega

and her resolve to study it in depth, now that she was

her own ship, fm Courier Service now; fd better start keep-

ing up with public affairs. But just at the moment,

watching her cousin was more interesting than pulling

up files of old newsbeams.

 

Polyon glanced about die cabin and his body relaxed

imperceptibly as he scanned the area; a human observer

might not have noticed die slight change, but Nancia —

by now scanning for muscle tension and autonomic

nervous system response as well as for the usual visual

and auditory cues — was immediately aware of his

relaxation. That must be Academy training, that alert-

ness upon entering any unfamiliar territory. She should

have expected no less of one trained in the High

Families' tradition of service; just as she should not have

been surprised that Polyon wakened at a regulation

hour, no matter what he'd been indulging in the night

before. The other passengers might be soft and self-

indulgent, but this one, at least, was a credit to his

training. That's the de Gras blood in him, she thought with a

trace of smugness; Daddy had always stressed the value

of Nancia's connection, through her mother, with the

House of de Gras.

 

Polyon glanced once more around the room—if he

hadn't been a de Gras-Waldheim, Nancia would have

described his second look as furtive — and then sat

 

down, not in the pilot's chair facing the central con-

sole, but in one of the spectator seats to the side of die

room. He nodded once, sharply, as if to say, "That's all

rieht, then," and spoke in a low voice that no softper-

son could have heard.

 

"Computer, open master file, pass 47321-Aleithos-

Hex242."

 

The automatic security system that guarded the

ship's main computer acknowledged Polyon's com-

mand. Hardly believing what she observed, Nancia let

the computer act without overriding it. How had

Polyon learned the master file password? Perhaps

there was a secret side to her mission, something only

another member of the High Families could be trusted

to know and to reveal at the proper time. TTiat would

explain Polyon's near-furtive way of approaching the

cabin. It would also explain his crude behavior last

night; naturally, as an undercover agent, he'd have to

be sure to blend in with his fellow passengers.

 

Or ... there might be no such explanation

forthcoming. Now that he had master file access,

Polyon was typing, moving the touchscreen icons, and

issuing verbal commands in a rapid low stream that

rivaled even a shellperson's multi-channel capacity.

And he still hadn't acknowledged her as anything

more than a droneship. What was going on? Nancia

waited and watched, following Polyon's maneuverings

through her computer system while her external sen-

sors kept track of his bodily movements.

 

Piece of cake, Polyon thought as his fingers darted

from keyboard to touch-screen, setting up his user ac-

count with system privileges that would allow him

access to any data in the ship's computer. Easy as debug-

ging a kid's first program. Now for the tricky stuff—

persuading the security system to treat him as a

privileged user on the Net. Once linked to that sub-

 

26

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

27

 

space-wide communications system, he would be abi<

to find out anything he wanted to know abou

anybody who'd ever linked into the Net

 

Voice commands wouldn't work here; just as wejj

he didn't want to be overheard by any of those snui];

time snoops he was stuck with on this voyage. H;;

fingers flashed over the keys, rattling out commands a:

fast as his excellent brain could analyze the result,

Hmm, security block here . . . but having alrea^

granted himself user privileges on the ship's system

he could take a look at the object code in the blockin;

program itself. He could even "fix" it. "Here a patdi

there a patch," Polyon hummed as he entered a sligl i

ly revised version of the object code, "everywhen -.

trapdoor, dum-de-dum-de-dum." As the system ;>

cepted and ran the revised program, Polyo;

humming switched to a triumphant version of, "1;

the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo!"

 

Not quite accurate, of course; he intended to win fo

far more than the proceeds of a single night's ol=

Earth-style gambling. He would show them — all

them. Starting with — but definitely not finishing wi >

— the lamebrains who'd shipped out with him. Polyo

knew why he was being posted to a second-rate assigi

ment in a third-rate solar system — his memori

skittered like frightened mice over the surface of th

ugly scene with the Dean — but there must be sorr

reasons why all these other pampered darlings oft)

High Families were going into semi-exile. He woui

start by finding those little secrets, and then... wc:l

then maybe even these rich brats could be useful in t>;

Grand Plan.

 

And after them.., the Nyota system. All of Ves.

subspace. Central. Why not? Polyon thought, dazzk

by the grandeur of his own desires. If there was on

thing he'd learned while he was growing up, it ws

that you could get away with nearly anything if you dt

 

most of it while people weren't watching and used

your charm when they did watch.

 

And where charm didn't work... there were other

means of persuasion. Polyon smiled grimly and

tapped into Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's med school files.

 

\Vhat cfftM Polyon be doing? Nantia watched and

waited as he redefined the ship's security system, reached

out to the Net, scanned his fellow-passengers' files.

Ought she to stop him? Discretion was the first thing a

Courier Service brainship learned, the first and last com-

ponent of duty. She hadn't been briefed on what to do

with a passenger who started manipulating the Net as if it

were part of his personal comsystem. He was redefining

the security parameters now... no matter, she could

change those back whenever she chose. So for he hadn't

touched her personal data areas, didn't show any signs of

knowing that her synaptic connections to the ship's com-

puter allowed her to follow everything he was doing.

 

Could it be that he really thought her a drone ship?

Maybe not. At least, he wasn't sure. Now that he was

through playing with the Net, Polyon sent out an ex-

ploratory tendril of code to report on other activities

linked into the ship's computer... a patch that would

reveal the exact location and extent of Nancia's con-

nections within the ship.

 

A Hale late to check that, my lad! Didn't the Space Academy

teach you to look for ambushes before you started maneuvers ?

Self-protection was an automatic response, more

deeply ingrained even than discretion. Nancia closed

down pathways and redefined access codes in a single,

instinctive wave of activity that left Polyon staring at a

blank screen and touching a keyboard that no longer

responded to his search commands.

 

Darnell

 

Darnell Ovetton-Glaxely moaned gently as he caught

 

28

 

Arme McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

29

 

sight of his puffy face, a distorted reflection in the

polished curve of synthalloy along the ship's central cor-

ridor. It was too early in the morning to face mirrors,

especially curving ones that made his reflection swell and

shrink and ripple like waves on the damned ocean. Dar-

nell moaned again and reminded himself that the

artificial gravity of space was practically like being on

Earth; it was only his imagination making him feel sick.

This was really nothing like being aboard one of the old-

style oceangoing vessels that had been the start of OG

Shipping, back when they were still a planetbound local

corporation. His old man had made him go on one of

those monsters once, with some crap about remember-

ing the family's roots. Darndl had taken a lot more crap

from the old man when he puked his guts out before the

ship left harbor.

 

Well, there wouldn't be any more of ihat\ Dear Papa

was history now, and so was the unexplained space-

station collapse that had killed him and left OG

Shipping in the hands of its directors until Darnell

finished school. And last night's Stemerald debauch

was also history—if only he could convince his queasy

stomach and pounding head of that!

 

It wasn't fair that he should suffer like this after what

had only been a perfectly reasonable indulgence to

celebrate the end of schooling and the start of his new

career. A pity neither of the girls had seen fit to continue

the celebration in the logical manner. Well, they had two

weeks to planetfall; they'd come around and see his at-

tractions soon enough. After all, it wasn't as if he had any

serious competition on this droneship. De Gras-

Waldheim was handsome enough, but a cold fish if

Darnell had ever seen one. Something frightening about

him, with those intense blue eyes burning like dry ice

under the stiff Academy haircut. As for the Medoc boy,

Blass or Blaze or whatever his name was, no girl was

going to waste time on a kid with a face like a friendly gar-

 

e. No> it would be old Darnell to the rescue again, the

n man on board widi the social skills to entertain two

lovely ladies all the way to their destination planets

around Nyotayajaha.

 

And he could hear sounds in the central cabin. Was

one of the girls up and about already? Darnell sucked

in his gut, threw his shoulders as far back as they

would go, and glanced at his reflection in the synth-

ailoy wall once again. His face wasn't really soft and

pufly like that, he told himself; it was a trick of the dis-

torted reflection. Made him look middle-aged and

flabby and tired. Nonsense. He was the handsome

young heir to OG shipping and he was fit to take on

anybody or anything....

 

But not, maybe, that cold fish, Polyon de Gras-

Waldheim. Darnell clutched at the doorway and tried to

stop his impulsive movement into the central cabin. His

legs kept going while his arms tried to haul him back.

 

"Oh, come on in, OG," Polyon said impatiently, his

back to the door. "Don't just cling to the doorframe

waving your tentacles like a seasick jellyfish."

 

Seasick.

 

Jellyfish.

 

Darnell gulped down a wave of nausea and

reminded himself again that space travel on a grav-

enhanced drone was not like being on an actual

moving, swaying, shifting oldstyle sea vessel.

 

"What are you doing?"

 

Polyon released the chair controls and spun slowly

round to face Darnell, long limbs relaxed as if to em-

phasize his comfort in this environment. "Just. ..

playing games," he said with a queer smile. 'Just a few

little games to pass the time."

 

"What'd you do, crash the SPACED OUT gameset so

badly you lost the screens?"

 

"Something like that," Polyon agreed. "You can

help me start it up again, if you like."

 

30

 

Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

31

 

It was the closest thing to a friendly overture Darnel!

had heard from Polyon since they met the previous

night. Maybe, he thought forgivingly, maybe the poor

guy didn't know how to make friends. Coming from a

stiff-backed upper-crust lot like the de Gras-

Waldheims, spending his life at military boarding

schools, you couldn't expect him to have the savoir

vivne and easy social manners that Darnell prided him-

self on displaying. Well, he'd help old Polyon out, be

his friend on this litde jaunt.

 

"Sure thing," he said, walking on into the room with

a careful soft step that didn't jar his aching head. He

sank into one of the cushioned passenger chairs,

"Nothing to it, I used to play this stuff all the time in

prep school. Tell you what — if I help you get into the

computer, maybe you'll help me get into something

else?" He winked laboriously at Polyon.

 

"What exactly did you have in mind?" The man

didn't have a due how to make light conversation.

 

"Two of us," Darnell explained cheerfully, tapping

away at the console keys. "Two of them. The black one

is more your size. But I need a strategy to get into the

del Parma skirt's pants. Tactics, maneuvers, advance

and retreat — Got any suggestions?" Not, Darnell

thought, that he really needed any help, but there was

nothing like a round of good, bawdy male-to-male

bonding talk to cement a friendship. And since Polyon

evidently wanted to be friends, Darnell was more than

ready to meet him halfway.

 

" I'm afraid you're on your own there," Polyon said dis-

tantly. "I've... never had occasion to study the problem."

He nicked an invisible speck of dust off his pressed sleeve

and affected to study the SPACED OUT screens as Darnell

brought them back to fill the walls of the cabin.

 

The implication was clear; he'd never needed to work

out tactics with the ladies. Well, of course not. With the

de Gras-Waldheim name and fortune behind him —

 

and that muscle-bound, oversized physique — still, he

had no call to sneer at somebody who was just trying to

he friendly. Darnell glowered at the console and

tapped the commands that would set the game at —

hmm, not Level 10, his reflexes weren't quite up to the

interactive holowaniors just yet. Level 6. That should

be high enough to scramble Polyon's moves and let

him see what it was like dealing with an expert

 

"It's a new version," Polyon said in surprise. "I don't

remember that asteroid belt.''

 

Til bet five credits there's a due to the Hidden Hor-

rors of Holmdale somewhere in the new asteroids,"

Darnell offered.

 

"No bet on that. But I'll lay you five credits that I/it's

there, I'll find it first. Choose your icon!"

 

Darnell chose one of the play icons displayed along

the bottom of the central screen. He always liked to be

Bonecrush, the cyborg monster who stalked the lower

tunnels of the labyrinth but occasionally blasted out

into space with his secretly installed jetpacks and per-

sonal force shield. Polyon, he noticed with pleasure,

was taking the icon for Thingberry the Martian Mage,

a wimp of a character if there ever was one. This game

should be over in no time.

 

"So what brings you out to the Nyota system?"

Polyon asked after a few minutes of seemingly idle

maneuvering and pointless commands.

 

Darnell scowled at the screen. How had Thingberry

managed to surround two-thirds of the asteroid belt with

a charm of impenetrability? Very well, he would let

Bonecrush turn around and use his internal jetpacks as a

weapon; that should blast through sneaky Thingberry's

magic. "Taking up the old inheritance," he replied as he

tapped in the commands that would give Bonecrush

maximum blasting power. "OG Shipping, you know.

Can't think why old Cousin Wigran moved the firm's

 

32

 

Arme McCaffrey &f Margaret BaU

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

33

 

headquarters out to Vega subspace, but I'm sure he'll ex-

plain everything when I get there."

 

"If he can," Polyon agreed. "You have that much

faith in him?"

 

Darnell stealthily maneuvered Bonecrush into range.

That idiot Polyon was looking at him, not at the screen;

he could get away with murder if he could keep Polyoris

attention away from the game for a few more seconds.

 

"What d'you mean?" he asked, not really listening

for the answer. "Why shouldn't I have faith in

Wigran?"

 

Polyon looked shocked, and for a moment Darnell

was afraid he'd noticed Bonecrush's moves on the

central game screen. "My dear chap! You mean you

haven't heard? Decom it," he cursed in a low vicious

tone. "I didn't realize — Look, Darnell, I shouldn't be

the one to tell you this. Haven't you been paying atten-

tion to the newsbytes from Vega?"

 

"Management bores me," Darnell told him. "I'll be

perfecdy happy to draw the profits from the company

and let Cousin Wigran keep running the store." His

hands were resting on the key that would activate

Bonecrush's jet packs. Any minute now he'd execute a

controlled power surge that should blast a hole right

through Thingberry's defenses. But he wanted

Polyon to be watching in the moment of defeat, not

babbling on about some boring accountant's trial in

the Vega system.

 

"Well, I suppose you'd have to know pretty soon

anyway," Polyon was saying now. "I hate like hell to be

the one to tell you, though." He was watching

Darnell's face more closely than he'd ever looked at

the game screens.

 

"Tell me what?" For the first time Darnell felt a chill

of apprehension creep over him.

 

"It's all been coming out in the trial," Polyon said.

"That accountant who was skimming his clients'

 

credits to play Lotto-Roids? OG Shipping was one of

his biggest accounts. And your cousin Wigran knew

exactly what the fellow was doing. He even helped

kim _ for a share in the cash. Together, they've

gambled away more than ninety per cent of OG

Shipping'5 assets. I'm afraid all you're going to inherit

on Bahati is one over-age AI drone and a bunch of

 

debts."

 

Darnell's sweaty fingers slipped and punched the

power key harder than he'd intended. Bonecrush's jet

packs released their maximum thrust. The blast

rebounded harmlessly off Thingberry's invisible

charm-shield and propelled Bonecrush, too depleted

of power to activate his personal force-shield, into the

blackness of deep space. His cyborg body exploded

into a million stars of synthalloy debris.

 

"Wow," Polyon said, finally glancing at the dazzling

light effects on the screen. "This is a great game! Will

you look at those graphics? What is it, a supernova?"

 

"Me," said Darnell Overton-Glaxely. A gentleman

knew when to bite the bullet. "I owe you five credits."

 

Blaize

 

Oh, no, not another one!

 

Nancia briefly shut down all her internal sensors as

Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc stirred in his

cabin. She had come to the conclusion that her pas-

sengers were most bearable when they were sleeping it

off. If only she could flood all their cabins with sleepgas

and keep them unconscious until they reached the

Nyota ya Jaha system.... Nancia caught herself in

mid-thought. She was becoming as bad as they were!

How could she even think such a thing? Hadn't she

made perfect marks in all her Integrity and Shell

Ethics classes? She should have been doubly guarded,

by family heritage and Academy training, against even

imagining such a betrayal of her ideals.

 

34    Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret BaU

 

There was nothing to stop her from leaving her in-

ternal sensors inactive until they reached Nyota ya

Jaha, though. Nancia considered this briefly before

deciding against it. True, her passengers wouldn't

notice anything, since they already assumed she was a

droneship programmed to carry them in privacy to

their destination. And it was also true that she would

rather perform the Singularity transformations that

carried them through decomposition space without

the irritating distraction of these ... brats. But she

shrank from the idea of spending days, more than a

week, in the isolation of space, with nothing to see but

the wheeling stars, no other brain to communicate

with — for if she opened a beam to Central, her cousin

Polyon, with his propensity for snooping through the

ship's computer systems, would be bound to notice the

comm activity. Brainships were as human as any

softpersons; Nancia knew that it would be unwise to

expose herself for so long to the strain of partial sen-

sory deprivation.

 

Besides, she wanted to know what her passengers

were up to.

 

When Nancia reactivated the central cabin's sen-

sors, Darnell was already stalking down the hall to his

cabin and Polyon, lips taut with rage, was about to fol-

low him. "I don't care for that name," he told Blaize.

 

Nancia hastily scanned the cabin's automatic

recording system. Blaize had been teasing his cousin

by calling him "Polly." Academy records on Polyon de

Gras-Waldheim mentioned this nickname as the basis

for several vicious fights that had occurred during

Polyon's Academy training, including one in which

Polyon's opponent was so badly injured that he had to

drop out of the officer training program. Witnesses

had attested that Polyon went on twisting the boy's

bones and listening to them splinter long after his op-

ponent was begging for mercy.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

35

 

Following that incident, Polyon's file had been

flagged with warning signals that would forever

preclude his being assigned to a responsible military

post. . • and he had been verbally notified of this

decision in an interview with retired General Mack

Erricott, Dean of the Space Academy —

 

What was sfo doing? Nancia dosed down all her infor-

mation channels momentarily. Where had all this

private information come from? She reopened her

channels and traced the dataflow. It came through the

Net, and she shouldn't have had access to any of this

material; it came from the Space Academy's private

personnel files. Somehow the Net had responded to

her momentary curiosity by opening up material that

should have been shielded under the Dean's personal

password.

 

After a moment's confusion, Nancia realized what

had happened. Polyon's meddling with the ship's

security system had extended to some very sophisti-

cated tampering in the Net itself. He had, in effect,

defined Nancia as the node of origin for a system con-

troller with unlimited powers to access and change

files and codes in any computer on the Net. Nancia's

instinctive intervention had then made the "System

Controller" identity unavailable to Polyon himself...

but had left the node definition in place, allowing her

access to all the files he had scanned, and a great deal

more besides.

 

Nancia felt as embarrassed as if she'd been caught

peeking into an anesthetized classmate's open shell

during synaptic remodeling... the invasion of privacy

was that great. / didn't realize what I was doing! She

defended herself, and hastily erased the super-user

node definition before she could be tempted into look-

ing at anybody else's private files.

 

But she couldn't forget the shocking and disturbing

things she'd just read about Polyon. And she was

 

36

 

Anne McCaffrey 67 Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

37

 

relieved that he'd left the central cabin to Blaize, stalk-

ing back to his own cabin in a pose of offended dignity

far more impressive than Darnell's pout

 

Blaize looked directly at Nancia's titanium column

and winked. "Bet you thought he was going to beat me

up, didn't you?"

 

Nancia responded without thinking to this, the first

direct address she'd received since her passengers

boarded and she lifted off from Central. "I hope you

weren't counting on me to protect you!"

 

Blaize gave a soft, satisfied chuckle. "Not at all, dear

lady. Until this moment I wasn't even sure what — or

who — you were." He lifted an imaginary cap and

mimed an extravagant bow. "Allow me to introduce

myself," he murmured as he straightened again. "Blaize

Armontillado-Perez y Medoc. And you?"

 

It was too late to retreat into the silence that had

protected her so for. Nancia gave a mental shrug — no

more than a quick flashing of connectors — and

decided that she might as well converse with the brat.

She'd been starting to get lonely, anyway; the isolation

of deep space was too great a contrast after her years of

comfortable, constant multi-channel input and output

with her classmates in Laboratory Schools. "XN-935,"

Nancia said grudgingly. And then, because the call let-

ters seemed inadequate, "Nancia Perez y de Gras."

 

"A cousin, a veritable cousin!" Blaize crowed with

unabashed delight. "So tell me, cousin, what's a nice

girl like you doing convoying a rabble of riffraff like

us?"

 

The question was uncomfortably close to Nancia's

own opinion of her passengers. "How did you know I

was a brainship?" she countered.

 

"The liftoff procedures could have been performed

by an AI drone. But somehow I didn't really think the

Medoc clan and the rest of our loving families would

have sent us off to jaunt through Singularity on auto-

 

matic. Wouldn't be fitting to the dignity of the High

Families, y'know, to have a packet of metachips

responsible for our safety instead of a human brain."

 

"You don't have much respect for your family, do

you? No wonder they're sending you off to a fringe

world. They're probably afraid you'll embarrass

 

them-"

For a moment Blaize's freckled race looked cold and

 

hard and infinitely sad. Then, so quickly that a human

eye would hardly have recognized the brief betrayal,

he grinned and flashed a salute at Nancia's column.

"Absolutely. Just one minor correction. They're not

afraid I'll embarrass them. They're bloody sure of it!"

Pulling out one of the padded chairs, he seated himself

cross-legged in the middle of the cabin, arms folded,

and beamed at Nancia's column as though he hadn't a

care in the world. She retrieved the image of his race a

moment earlier and projected it on interior space,

comparing the bleak-eyed young man of the record-

ing with the smiling boy in the cabin. What could be

hurting him so deeply? Against her will, she felt a

twinge of sympathy for this spoiled scion, this disgrace

to the High Families.

"And do you intend to?" she asked in carefully

 

neutral tones.

 

"What? Oh—disgrace them?" Blaize shrugged a lit-

tle too gracefully. Nancia began to wonder how many

of his seemingly casual gestures were rehearsed. "No,

it's too late now. Sure, I had fantasies when I was a kid.

But I'm a little old for running away now, don't you

 

think?"

 

"What—to join the circus?"

 

For another split second, the mobile face before her

matched the bleak image she'd stored. "No. The Space

Academy. Actually," Blaize said in a voice as carefully

neutral as Nancia's own, "I used to think I'd train as a

brawn — Don't laugh; it was a kid's idea. But I never

 

38

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Batt

 

could imagine anything better than working with a

brainship. To fly between the stars, saving lives and

worlds, partnered with a living ship to learn the dance

of space...." His voice cracked on the last word. "I

told you. Kids have dumb ideas."

 

"It doesn't seem like such a dumb idea to me," Nan-

tia told him. "Why did you give it up? Did somebody

tell you brawns have to be six feet tall and built like...

like Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?"

 

"Give it up!" Blaize echoed. "I didn't give it up. Iran

away three times. The first time I actually got into the

Space Academy, too. Took the open tests, forged

papers saying I was a war orphan, won a scholarship.

It was three weeks before my tutor found me." The

momentary, unguarded joy in his face as he remem-

bered those weeks wrenched at Nancia's heart. "The

second and third times they knew where I'd go; there

was a squad of House Medoc private guards waiting

for me at the Academy."

 

"Your family seems to have been rather violently

against die idea."

 

Blaize's mobile, ugly face twisted into a sneer.

"Wouldn't do for folks in our position, y'know. Not

quite the thing. My cousin Jillia is in line to be the next

Planetary Governor of Kaza-uri, and my buddy Hene-

quin — m'father's best friend's son," Blaize explained

parenthetically, "is already in charge of the Vega

branch of Planetary Technical Aid. A son who's in

brawn training doesn't quite match up with those stel-

lar accomplishments for after-dinner bragging."

 

"I wonder if my family feels that way," Nancia said.

Was that why Daddy hadn't made time for her

graduation?

 

"Shouldn't think so. They sent you to Laboratory

Schools, didn't they?"

 

"They didn't," Nancia said, "have many options. I

would not have survived a normal birth.**

 

PARTNERSHIP 39

 

"Oh. Well. Anyway," Blaize said carefully, "I don't

think your branch of the family is quite as snobbish as

ours- And neither one can beat the de Gras-Waldheims

for exclusiveness. Polly got to go to the Academy, but

he was supposed to turn into a general, not a lowly

space jockey; I can't imagine what he's doing on his

way to administer a metachip plant on Shemali. Must

have been some scandal at the Academy. I thought I

knew all the family gossip, but whatever he got into,

they hushed it up exceedingly well. You probably have

access to the files, though — or — anyway, I bet you

could find out if you wanted to."

 

"I imagine," Nancia said, "they are in need of his

technical expertise." She felt no impulse whatever to

share the details of Polyon's Academy problems with

this gossipy boy. Didn't the High Families train their

softperson children in any kind of discretion? First

Polyon, using his computer expertise to hack through

security checks and find out the other passengers'

secrets, and now Blaize, turning his charm on her to

 

the same end.

 

"You don't approve of gossip, do you?" Blaize

guessed. "All right. Have it your way. You will be a

suitably discreet Courier Service brainship and a

credit to the family, and I'll be a nice little PTA ad-

ministrator on Angalia and try not to disgrace my side

of the family, and we can all drift on in boredom

 

forever."

 

"Planetary Technical Aid isn't so bad," Nancia told

him. "My sister Jinevra is an area administrator, and

she's only twenty-nine. You could rise rapidly — "

 

"Fromy4ftgtt&a?" Blaize's eyebrows shot up like red

exclamation marks, giving his face a look of comical

astonishment. "Dear Cousin Nancia, you really don't

pry, do you? If you'd read my file you would know bet-

ter than to try and stir up my ambitions for Angalia.

The sum total of civilization there consists of one PTA

 

40

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

41

 

office, one coryrium mine, and a bunch of humanoid

natives with the collective IQ of a zucchini. Asmall zuc-

chini. It's amazing they even qualify for Planetary Aid;

somebody must have filled out the FCF wrong, and

whoever later determined that they didn't have ISS

forgot to correct the PTA data. The wheels of the

bureaucracy grind on and on.... So here I go to An-

galia, less than the dust beneath old Henequin's

chariot wheels."

 

"You should do well enough," Nancia said. "You've

certainly got the jargon of the bureaucracy down pat"

She scanned her data files for translations of the initials

Blaize had used. PTA was Planetary Technical Aid, of

course, and FCF turned out to be a First Contact

Form, and ISS — ah. Intelligent Sentient Status. Nan-

cia had learned all the regulations for dealing with

alien sentients in Basic Courier Diplomacy and

Development 101, but she wasn't used to hearing the

abbreviations tossed about so casually. Daddy, when he

visited and told her about his work, was always careful

to give each bureaucratic office its full name, each offi-

cial his full tide.

 

It was possible, Nancia thought, involuntarily con-

trasting Blaize's darting, hummingbird speech patterns

with Daddy's measured delivery — it was possible that

her father, Javier Perez y de Gras, was just a bit stuffy. No.

That was ridiculous. She was getting corrupted by her

passengers, straying into non-regulation and non-

approved ways of thinking. Heaven knew what

indiscretions Blaize would lure her into if they continued

this conversation.

 

"Do you play SPACED OUT?" She filled the three

wall-size screens with the displays that had tempted

Polyon and Darnell into the game. "It'll have to be

solitaire, I'm afraid."

 

"Why?"

 

"I can't not know the underlying structure," Nancia

 

apologized. "You see, the game's part of my memory

banks now. And I've never learned your softperson

trick of selectively turning off awareness." She wasn't

about to try, either. But she could, she told Blaize,

make the solitaire game a little more challenging by

redefining the maze of tunnels and Singularity nodes

that connected one part of the SPACED OUT galaxy

with another.

 

"Rules that change as you play?" Blaize hummed in

delight. "Great idea. Polly will hate it, too."

 

That thought seemed to increase his pleasure in the

game. And while he happily manipulated a solitary

play icon through the traps and surprises set up by the

designer, Nancia contemplated the vast loneliness of

the stars around them and the distance she must travel

before she could make private contact with another

shellperson.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

43

 

• CHAPTER THREE

 

Alpha

 

When she awoke after the graduation "party,"

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong made her way to the main

cabin and found her traveling companions engaged in

one of those silly role-playing games. Medical school

and a demanding research program had never given

her the time to waste on such frivolities. But there might

be plenty of time where she was going. Alpha pushed that

thought to the back of her mind. She would find some-

thing productive to do; she always did. She might even

find a way to continue her research.

 

For the present, her companions watched the game

screens, and Alpha watched them. They were consid-

erably more amusing than the game; especially Blaize

and Polyon, stalking one another in an ongoing verbal

battle. Blaize was obviously dying to know why some-

one Eke Polyon, destined by family and training for a

high command post, was being sent out to start his

career on a remote planet of no real military

importance.

 

Alpha rather wanted to know the answer to that lit-

tle puzzle herself. As part of the powerful and

high-ranking de Gras-Waldheim clan, Polyon would

seem like a good person to cultivate. And in some

ways, Alpha thought, it would be a pleasure to make

friends with Polyon. He was certainly the most attrac-

tive man on this ship, the only one worth her time. But

if he'd disgraced himself at the Academy and been dis-

owned by his family, she couldn't afford the risk of

getting dose to him. Some of that scandal — whatever

 

it could have been — might rub off on her. And she

couldn't afford any more blots on her record, not after

the way the medical school had overreacted to that

trivial business about her research protocols. No, she'd

wait and find out a little more about Polyou before she

moved on him. And she'd let Blaize Armontillado-

Perez y Medoc, a born gadfly if ever there was one, do

the finding out.

 

"Shemali's such an obscure spot," Blaize hinted, "for

a brilliant young man on his way up."

 

Polyon stared into the display of distant mountain

peaks for a moment before he answered. Alpha could

see a muscle twitching in his jaw. As well as all the muscles

everywhere else ... those Academy undress grays don't leave

much to the imagination! Why doesn't he just break the little

pest in half? But Polyon retained his control. "Yes, it's

nearly as godforsaken as Angalia, isn't it? My brilliant

little cousin-on-his-way-up," he added remotely.

 

"Ah, but we all know I'm the black sheep of the fami-

ly," Blaize countered, "a modern-day remittance man.

You, on the other hand, are supposed to be the pride

of the de Gras-Waldheims, the last and finest flower of

those entwined family trees, bursting with military

potential and — umm — hybrid vigor."

 

"At least the Academy taught me not to mix my

metaphors," Polyon said.

 

"It must be some super-secret military base," Blaize

decided aloud. "Nothing less would suit for a de Gras-

Waldheim's first posting. So classified even the

droneship doesn't know why you're going there.**

 

Alpha noticed that his eyes flicked towards the

central titanium column as though he expected an

answer through the ship's speakers. Well, she con-

ceded, it was as likely that the drone would take part in

the conversation as that Polyon would tell his cousin

anything he didn't want to. Likelier.

 

She yawned and fiddled with the joyball, rolling the

 

44

 

Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

45

 

SPACED OUT display from the Mountains of Momen-

tum to Asteroid Hall and back. This conversation was

boring. Polyon wasn't going to tell them anything. He

wasn't even going to smash his cousin into the wall. No

information, no amusement. Alpha was about ready to

go back to her cabin and take a nap. There was little

enough else to do on this stupid droneship.

 

"No secret military plans," Polyon said. "No secrets

at all, Blaize, sorry to disappoint you. But if it'll shut

you up, I'll try to explain what I'm going to do in terms

you'll be able to understand.... Leaving out the tech-

nical terms, let's just say that I'm going to manage the

metachip plant attached to the Shemali prison. Gover-

nor Lyautey is out of his depth. He knows how to run a

prison. He doesn't know anything about metachip

manufacturing. And the productivity record shows it

I'm going to set things straight, that's all."

 

Alpha sighed. The man's discretion was so perfect,

she almost believed him; except that Blaize was right,

it didn't compute for a de Gras-Waldheim to take a job

as a factory manager.

 

"Ann, now I understand," Blaize almost purred.

"The governor is to take lessons from you in the finer

points of chip manufacture, and you're to take lessons

from him in the finer points of... ahhh... torture and

degradation of prisoners? Or do I have it wrong?

Maybe it's the other way round."

 

Polyon smiled. "If the governor wants an expert in

nagging prisoners to death, I'll advise him to send for

you."

 

"What a pity, though," Blaize prodded. "All that

military training going to waste. Seems the family

could have arranged something a little better for you.

Unless there's something you're not telling us about

your Academy record...."

 

Polyon's perfectly shaped ears turned red and

Alpha raised her head, suddenly alert. The flush of

 

rage didn't improve Polyon's looks, but that was all

right with her; if anything, his face in repose was a little

tJo perfect And now he looked ready to kill somebody

_ or tell something. Alpha mentally applauded.

Blaize had finally hit on a nerve!

 

"And what better position might the family have ar-

ranged foryou, dear cousin?" Polyon inquired. "Save a

Utde of that pity for yourself. When your posting at

Angalia is finished — if you ever do get off that godfor-

saken planet — you'll have nothing but your savings.

Granted, they should be considerable, since there's

nothing to spend money on there, but how much can

a PTA-l7's monthly salary add up to?"

 

"About as much as a factory supervisor's, I should

imagine. Face the facts, Polyon. We've both been

screwed over by our respective families. For once

you're in the same boat I'm in, regardless of that pretty

face and stiff back. I know why I'm here. What I'd

dearly like to know is why they did it to you."

 

Alpha, too. She leaned forward, tensing slighdy in

anticipation of the answer, but Polyon chose to answer

the first part of Blaize's goading speech rather than the

second. "Oh, but I've no intention of trying to make it

on my savings, dear coz."

"What, then?"

 

"Metachips," Polyon said meditatively, "are very ex-

pensive. Not to mention that they're in short supply."

"Tell me something I don't know," Blaize invited him.

"I plan," said Polyon, "to... improve on the current

 

rationing system."

 

Unnoticed in her corner, Alpha nodded thoughtful-

ly. Polyon had a good point. Metachips were

exceedingly scarce and costly, and for good reason.

The metachip manufacturing process involved at least

three different acids so hazardous to the environment

that most planets refused to harbor the plants, despite

the unquestioned financial benefits. Shemali, in-

 

46

 

AnmMcCaffny & Margaret Baft,

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

47

 

hospitable, cursed with the perpetual biting north

wind that had given the planet its name, with its one

land mass dedicated to a maximum-security priso^

was the only major metachip inanufacturing site in ex-

istence; ShemaU, where nothing you did could make

the environment much worse, and where the workers

bought their lives one day at a time by laboring in the

metachip plant

 

Because who else could you use, in the final

analysis, but convicts already under sentence of death?

One of the acids involved, when used in the quantities

required for manufacturing, released a gas whose ef-

fects on human tissue were slow, painful, deadly...

and so far, irreversible. Alpha was an expert on those

effects; her research at Central Med had been devoted

to trying various drug therapies to reverse the effects

of Ganglicide. She might have had a major paper out

of the work if the school's Ethics Committee hadn't got

so upset about her testing methods... Alpha clamped

her lips down on the flare of anger that possessed her.

That was all in the past. The present was Polyon and

his plan, which he was explaining to Blaize with a

wealth of patronizing detail about die adverse effects

on the economy of the present rationing system.

 

"It's ridiculous to have metachips distributed by a

committee of old men and do-gooders," he declared.

"Sure, the military is entitled to Erst cut at the chips, but

after our applications have been satisfied, the remaining

chips ought to go where they'll do the most good."

 

"1 thought that was the object of the rationing sys-

tem," Blaize remarked. "Companies get Social Utility

Marks for their intended use of the metachips, and the

chips are distributed in proportion to the SUM.

What's wrong with that?"

 

"Unrealistic," Polyon said promptly. "They're using

chips for single-body operations like repairing kidneys or

replacing damaged spinal nerves, when the same chips

 

rould R° m*°> on> applications that thousands of people

could use at once. Dorg Jesen would pay millions for a

handful ofmetas and a promise of steady supply."

 

Blai/e began to laugh. "Dorg Jesen? The feelieporn

jyng? That's your idea of a SUM?"

 

"Millions," Polyon repeated himself. "And if you don't

believe I can think of a socially useful function for all that

 

cash—

"That," said Btaize, "I can believe. But just how do

 

you think you'll sneak the feelieporn application past

the advisory board?"

 

"I see no reason why the matter should ever come

before the board. QA testing for the metachips is one

of the areas Governor Lyautey asked me to supervise.

Disposal of the chips that fail QA will presumably also

fell within my duties." He looked so smug that Alpha

felt the need to puncture his self-satisfaction.

 

"I wouldn't plan on selling defective chips to Dorg

Jesen if I were you," she interrupted Polyon's gloating.

"He's been known to rearrange the features of people

who interfered with his business." Her shiver wasn't

assumed; one of her first tasks in med research had

been to diagram the facial injuries on a girl who'd

refused Jesen's offer of employment Alpha had even-

tually made a complete inventory of the damage,

together with holosims of the girl's face before the at-

tack and as she would look after plastifilm had

replaced what used to be living flesh.

 

Eventually.

 

After she rushed out of the lab theater and threw up

in front of the senior surgical advisor.

 

At the time, she'd thought it would be the most

humiliating thing that could ever happen to her in

med school.

 

Remembering, she barely heard Polyon's bland

reply that he had no intention of selling defective chips

to anybody.

 

48

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

49

 

Blaize gave a low, admiring whistle. "Of course. Fitf.

die the QA parameters one way for Governor

Lyautey's reports, the other way for sales, and who

knows what happens to the metachips in between?

You could make a fortune in 6ve years!"

 

"I intend to," said Polyon.

 

He was really much too self-satisfied, especially for a

man who'd left the Academy under some kind of a

cloud that he was afraid or ashamed to discuss. Alpha

decided that it would be doing humanity a favor to

wipe that smug smile off Lieutenant de Gras-

Waldheim's face. He really shouldn't smirk like that

Spoiled his looks.

 

"I do hope you'll still be able to enjoy your fortune

by then," she cooed sweetly at Polyon. "Better stay out

of the way of your convict laborers, though. Nasty acci-

dents are so easy to arrange in a D-class facility, aren't

they? But don't let it worry you. Even if you do get a lit-

tle spot of Ganglicide on your precious skin, I'm sure

Governor Lyautey will rush you to Bahati for medical

treatment. And you're lucky to have an expert in

Ganglicide therapy right there at the Summerlands

clinic."

 

"You." Polyon nodded stiffly. "That was to be your

thesis topic, wasn't it?"

 

Alpha suppressed a start. How had Polyon known

of her research? Oh, well, the High Families were such

an inbred group. Probably her aunt Leona had been

gossiping over the chai tables. But Polyon wouldn't

know much more than the title of her projected paper;

the symptoms of Ganglicide exposure were hardly fit

material for chai-table gossip. She relaxed and

prepared to enjoy her project of wiping that superior

smirk off Polyon's face.

 

"I had some success with chemical treatments for the

skin decay," she told him. "Halted the disintegrating

process, anyway. I'm afraid we couldn't do much to

 

verse the effects, though. The skin shreds like paper

 

d turns sort ofblue-green. And it spreads very rapidly.

 

ifvou get a drop of Ganglicide on one finger while you're

 

n Shemali, your arm will look like it's been through a

 

per snredder by the time the shuttle delivers you to

Bahati. Do try to keep it away from your pretty face."

 

Polyon's handsome features betrayed only slight

uneasiness, but there was a knowing look in his eyes.

«you—had to interrupt your research rather sudden-

ly, didn't you?"

 

Alpha silently cursed all interfering, gossiping old

relatives and friends. Never mind. "More's the pity,"

she sighed. "I was just getting into the most interesting

cases. You know, when Ganglicide goes into its gaseous

form it attacks nerves and brain synapses. Has much

the same effects on them that it has on the skin; we dis-

sected a really fascinating case, a senior assembly tech

from Shemali, as it happens. The inside of his head

looked like a wet blue sponge. Of course, by the time

the Ganglicide got that far he was too far gone to know

or care what was happening to him. A mercy, really.

Not that we'll ever really know how long he felt the

pain. Ganglicide goes straight to the pain receptors,

you know; we can't block the effects with drugs. And

towards the end he was screaming continuously. Like

an animal dying under torture." She licked her lips

and regarded Polyon. He was standing quite still, two

fingers beating a nervous tattoo on the command

panel behind him. The dance of his fingertips on the

sensitive pressure pads made the SPACED OUT screen

on the far side of the room shift back and forth jerkily,

displaying alternate images of deep space and of a

flaming labyrinth where molten lava menaced the

hapless play icons.

 

"If you're nice to me," Alpha added, "I'll promise to

kill you before the Ganglicide eats out your brains. No

human being should have to die like that"

 

50    Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

"Oh, I'll be nice to you," Polyon said. His voice ivas

still even; he thrust off from the control panel with HVQ

fingers and floated across the room. As he came closer

Alpha recognized the look in his eyes. Not frightened

Wary. Like a hunter waiting for his quarry to burst

from cover. And as he reached out to encircle her wrist

with strong, blunt fingers, the look changed to a light

of triumph. "I think we can be very nice to one another

lovely Alpha. It's so kind of you to take an interest in

my career." His voice changed on the last words,

mocking, savagely amused. "But enough about me.

Tell us about yourself, why don't you?" He gestured

towards Darnell and Fassa, floating through the open

door to join them. "We'd all like to hear about your in-

terrupted research. And why one of the school's

brightest young medical researchers chose to donate

five years of public service to an obscure clinic on

Bahati You're too modest, Alpha."

 

Alpha tossed her head and tried to pull away from

Polyon, but he was too strong for her. "There's noth-

ing to tell, really. I was tired — wanted a change of

scene. That's all."

 

"Is it?" Polyon murmured. "Funny. The way I heard

it, there were some other people who wanted to

change your scene. The newsnibblers never beamed

the story, did they? Can't have scandals about a High

Families girl going out as entertainment bytes. But I

fancy our friends on board here would find the story

very entertaining."

 

Alpha stared up at Polyon, looking for a hint of com-

passion in the sharp planes of his face and the ice-blue

eyes that had seemed so attractive a moment ago. "I

did nothing to be ashamed of," she whispered. "The

tradition of scientific experiments — "

 

"Does not include testing Ganglicide on unwitting

subjects." His voice was so low the others could not

hear it

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

51

 

Charity cases," Alpha defended herself "Streetbums.

 

ne of them were so far gone on Blissto they didn't even

ow what was happening to them. They were incurable

__ nothing but an expense to the state as long as they

Kved. I did diem a favor, making sure their lives ended for

 

some purpose."

 

"Somehow," Polyon murmured, "I don't think the

court would have seen it that way. But then, you never

did come to trial, did you? Hezra clan and Fong tribe

wouldn't let that happen. Private settlement in the

med school offices, records sealed."

 

«How — did you find out?" Alpha gasped. He was

very close to her now, his voice the subtlest vibration of

sound from lips that almost brushed her cheek. The

raw power of his will and his anger wrapped about

her. She felt weak from the spine out. His smile made

 

her shiver.

 

"That's my little secret," he told her, still smiling. His

face and gestures might have been those of a

courtship; Alpha realized that the others in the room

might imagine they were flirting. That was a relief.

Anything was preferable to having her humiliation

made public before these people who were to be her

constant companions for the next two weeks—having

them see her as the disgraced failure she was, instead

of the successful young researcher with a social con-

science she pretended to be. "You were lucky to get off

with five years of community service on Bahati,

weren't you?" Polyon commented, stroking her cheek

with his free hand. "A commoner would have been

doing time. Hard time. Who knows, gorgeous, you

might even have wound up on Shemali — getting a

chance to check out Ganglicide at first hand, so to

speak. Wouldn't our innocent litde friends love to hear

 

the story?"

 

But he was still speaking in a low voice, head partial-

ly turned away from Fassa and Blaize and Darnell,

 

52

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

who had grouped together in the far corner of the

cabin and were pretending deep interest in a round of

SPACED OUT.

 

"What—do you want?"

 

"Cooperation," Polyon said. "Only a little —.

cooperation."

 

Blindly, drowning in a sea of air that somehow gave

her nothing to breathe, Alpha turned her face up to

meet Polyon's parted lips.

 

"Not that sort of cooperation," Polyon told her,

laughing gently, "not yet," His eyes measured her with

a cold glance that made her more afraid than ever —

and, somehow, more excited too. "Maybe later, if

you're a good girl. You were too uppity before, you

know that, Alpha? Now you're the way I like my

women. Quiet. And respectful. Stay that way, and we

won't have to discuss any—ah—painful subjects with

the others. Come with me and follow my lead. That's

all I expect of you — for now."

 

Submissive, head bowed, Alpha drifted towards the

three SPACED OUT gamers in Polyon's wake. They

were still pretending to be totally involved in the game,

but she felt sure they had avidly witnessed her

humiliation.

 

She would pay them back. That was certain, she

vowed. Fassa, Darnell, Blaize — they would all learn

not to laugh at her.

 

She didn't even think of retaliating against Polyon.

 

/

 

Nancia quietly transferred the recording of the

scene she'd just witnessed to an offline storage hedron.

Having those bits in her system made her feel... dirty.

As if she were somehow implicated in Polyon's sadistic

games.

 

Perhaps she should have interfered. But how ...

and why? Alpha was just as bad as Polyon, worse even,

to judge from what he'd revealed of her unauthorized

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

medical experiments. The two of them deserved each

other. Blaize was the only one of the bunch she would

care to talk to. The litde redhead reminded her of Flix

__- and unlike the others, he didn't seem to have any-

thing wrong with him that a few years away from

family pressures wouldn't cure.

 

And what, exactly, Tvitt you say if you do interrupt? Nan-

cia couldn't answer her own question. She was a

Courier Service Ship, not a diplomat! She wasn't sup-

posed to interfere with her passengers! She should

have had a brawn on board — an experienced brawn —

to break up nasty scenes like the one she'd just wit-

nessed, to keep these spoiled young passengers happy

and away from one another's throats for the two weeks

of the trip. It's not fair! Not on my very first voyage!

 

But there was nobody to hear her plaint. They were

still five days away from Singularity and the decom-

position into Vega subspace.

 

At least I can keep evidence recordings going, Nancia

thought grimly. If one of the little brats drives another over

the edge, there'll be plenty ofdatahedra to show what hap-

pened. But at the moment, the five passengers seemed

to be getting along reasonably well. Perhaps his sadis-

tic games with Alpha had momentarily satiated

Polyon's need for command and control; he had taken

a play icon and seemed absorbed in that silly role-play-

ing game. Nancia relaxed . . . but she kept her

datacorders running.

 

•CHAPTER FOUR

 

"Why can't I get past the Wingdrake of Wisdom?"

Darnell griped. He had chosen Bonecrush again, but

his mighty-thewed play icon was backed into a corner

where a winged serpent hissed menacingly at him

every time he tried to move.

 

"You should have bought some intelligence for

Bonecrush at the Little Shop of Spiritual Enlighten-

ment," Polyon commented. His fingers flicked

carelessly at the screen as he spoke, sending Thingber-

ry the Martian Mage to spin an apparently pointless

web in the night sky above Asteroid 66.

 

"I didn't know you could buy intelligence." DarneU's

lower lip protruded in a definite pout "That wasn't in

the rule book."

 

"A lot of things aren't in the rule book," Polyon said,

"including most of what you need to survive. And in-

formation is always for sale... if you know the right

price. Anything from the secrets of Singularity to the

origins of planet names."

 

"Oh. Encyclopedias. Libraries, Anybody can buy the

Galactic Datasource on fast-hedra," Darnell whined.

"But who has time to read all that crud?"

 

"The price of some kinds of information," Polyon

said, "is more than the cost of a book and the time to

read it. I could print out the rules of Singularity math

for you, but you haven't paid the price of under-

standing it — the years of space transformation

algebra and the intelligence to move the theories into

multiple dimensions."

 

"Oh, come on," Blaize challenged him. "It's not that

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

55

 

compjjcated. Even I know Baykowski's Theorem."

 

"A continuum C is said to be locally shrinkable in M

if and only if, for each epsilon greater than zero and

each open set D containing C, there is a homeomor-

phism h of M onto M which takes C onto a set of

diameter less than epsilon and which is the identity on

M ___ D," Polyon recited rapidly. "And it's not a

theorem, it's a definition."

 

Nancia quietly followed the discussion with mild in-

terest. The mathematics of Singularity was nothing

new to her, but at least when her brat passengers were

talking mathematics they weren't trying to drive each

other crazy. And she was impressed that Polyon had

retained enough Singularity theory to be able to recite

Baykowski's Definition from memory; common gossip

among the brainships in training was that no

softperson could really understand multidimensional

decompositions.

 

"The real basis for decom theory," Polyon lectured

his audience, "is what follows that definition. Namely,

Zerlion's Lemma: that our universe can be considered

as a collection of locally shrinkable continua each con-

taining at least one non-degenerating element."

 

Fassa del Parma pouted and jabbed her play icon

across the display screen in a series of short, jerky moves.

"Very useful information, I'm sure," she said in a sarcas-

tic voice, "but do the rest of us have to pay the price of

listening to it? All this theoretical mathematics makes my

head hurt And it's not as if it were good for anything, like

stress analysis or materials testing."

 

"It's good for getting us to the Nyota system in two

weeks instead of six months, my dove," Polyon told

her. "And it's really quite simple. In layman's terms,

Singularity theory just shows us how to decompose

two widely separated subspace areas into a sequence

of compacted dimensionalities sharing one non-

degenerating element. When the subspaces become

 

56

 

Anm McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

57

 

singular they will appear to intersect at that element —.

and when we expand from the decomposition, pon|

out of Central subspace and into Vega space we go."

 

Nancia felt grateful that she'd resisted her impulse

to join in the conversation. Her Lab Schools classmates

had been right about softpersons. Polyon knew all the

right words for Singularity mathematics, but he'd got-

ten the basic theory hopelessly scrambled. And clearly

he didn't understand the computational problems un-

derlying that theory. Pure topological theory might

prove the existence of a decomposition series, but ac-

tually forcing a ship through that series required

massive linear programming optimizations, all per-

formed in realtime with no second chances for

mistakes. No wonder softpersons weren't trusted to

pilot a ship through Singularity!

 

"I agree with you," Alpha told Fassa. "Bo-ring. Even

the history of Nyota is better than studying

mathematics."

 

"You'd think so, of course," Fassa said, "seeing that it

was discovered and named by your people." The small

grin on her face told Nancia that this was a jab of some

sort at Alpha. Hastily she scanned her data notes on the

Nyota system, but nothing there explained why the

Hezra-Fong family should take a particular interest in it

 

"Swahili is a slave language," Alpha said haughtily.

"It has nothing to do with the Fong tribe. My people

come from the other side of the continent — and we

were never enslaved!"

 

"Will somebody give me a map of this conversa-

tion?" Darnell said plaintively. "I'm more lost than I

was during Polyon's math lecture."

 

"This particular information," Alpha told him, "is

free." She drew herself up to her full height, several

inches taller than Fassa, and favored the top of her

sleek, dark head with a withering glare, "The system

we're going to was discovered by a Black descendant of

 

the American slaves. In a burst of misguided en-

thusiasm, he decided to give the star and all the planets

names from an African language. Unfortunately, he

was so poorly educated that the only such language he

knew was Swahili, a trade language spread along the

east coast of Africa by Arab slavers. He called the sun

Nyota ya Jaha — Lucky Star. The planets' names are

fairly accurate descriptions, too. Bahati means For-

tune, and it's a reasonably decent place to live —

green, mild climate, lots of nice scenery that stays put.

Shemali means North Wind."

 

polyon groaned appreciatively. "I know. Unlike

some of us, I did read up on my destination. The place

is called North Wind because that's what you get for

thirteen months out of the year."

 

"Thirteen months you have in the year? Oh — I get

it! Longer rotation period, right?" Darnell beamed

with pride at his own cleverness.

 

"Shorter, as it happens," Polyon said. His voice

sounded remarkably hollow. "Shemali has a year of

three hundred days, divided into ten months for con-

venience. I was being sarcastic about the feet that there

is no good season."

 

"Never mind," Alpha told him almost kindly, "it's bet-

ter than Angalia. Actually the full name is Angalia! with

an exclamation point atthe end. Itmeans Watch out!"

"Dare I ask what that means?" Blaize inquired.

"It means," Alpha told him, "that the scenery — un-

like that of Bahati—doesn't stay put."

 

Blaize and Polyon stared at one another, briefly

 

companions in misery.

 

Polyon was the first to recover himself. "Oh, well,"

he said, turning back to the game screen, "you see the

value of information, Darnell — and the fact that it

isn't always in the Galactic Datasource. And some of

the information that isn't — ah — publicly available —

is the most valuable of all." With delicate gestures he

 

58

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

nudged the joyball while the fingers of his left hand

tapped out codes to enlarge and strengthen

Thingberry's magical net. "You need to think of ways

to trade for that kind of information. For instance

your shipping company — such as it is — could offer

discreet transport for parcels that don't get on the cargo

list, or that go by a slightly misleading name—in some

cases, disinformation or the lack of information is as

valuable as actual data."

 

"Who'd want that?" Darnell objected. "And who

cares, anyway? Can't we just play the game?"

 

Polyon favored him with a dazzling smile. "Dear

boy, this is the game — and a far more rewarding one

than SPACED OUT. Why, I can think of any number of

people who might want a — suitably discreet — cargo

carrier service. Myself, for starters."

 

"Why you?"

 

"Let's just say that not all the metachips going off

Shemali are going to be in the SUM rationing board's

records," Polyon said.

 

"So? What's it worth to me to oblige you?"

 

"I could pay you back with Net contacts. I can work the

Net like no hacker since the days of the first virus

breeders. It's an unsecured hedron to me. How soon

could you rebuild OG Shipping if you knew ahead of

time about every big contract about to be let in Vega sub-

space ... and what your opponents' sealed bids were?"

 

DarnelFs pout vanished to be replaced by a look of

stunned calculation. "I could be rich again in five years!"

 

"But not, I fancy, as rich as I could be from selling

metachips," Polyon murmured. Thingberry's web

glistened on the screen above him, strings of jeweled

fight looping and floating above the play icons on the

surface of Asteroid 66. "What would you say to a

friendly wager? The five of us to meet and compare

notes, once a year — to see how we're each doing at

making lemonade out of the lemons of assignments

 

PARTNERSHIP 59

 

our dear families have landed us with? Winner to take

a twenty-five percent share in each of the losers'

operations — business, goods, or cold credits?"

 

*     do we decide to stop and make the final

 

evaluation?" DarneU asked.

"Five years — that's the end of most of our tours of

 

duty, isn't it?"

 

"You know it is," said Alpha quickly. "Standard tour.

And," she went on under Polyon's firm gaze, " I think it's a

fliarvelous idea. I've got my own plans, you know."

 

"What?" Darnell demanded.

 

Alpha gave him a slow, lazy smile. "Wouldn't you

 

like to know?"

 

"I'm sure we would all like to know," Polyon put in.

Adeft twist of the joyball set Thingberry's jeweled web

spinning over the top half of the display screen. "Will

you enlighten them, Alpha, or shall I — er — con-

tribute my own scraps of information?" He crooked

his finger, beckoning to her, and she moved closer to

his control chair.

 

"Nothing much," Alpha said. "But . . . Summerlands is

a double clinic. One side for the paying customers —

mostly VIPs — and one side for charity cases, to improve

their SUM rating. I've got some ideas for an improve-

ment on Blissto — something we can give addicts in

controlled doses. They won't get locked into a cycle of

craving and ever-increasing hits of street drugs."

 

"Hey, / like Blissto," Darnell protested, "and I don't

get into that cycle."

 

"Good," Alpha told him. "You're not an addictive per-

sonality. Some people aren't that lucky. You've seen

Blissed-Out cases? Big enough doses, over a long

enough period of time, until their nervous systems look

like shredded wheat? My version won't do that. We'll be

able to take Blissed-Out cases out of the hospital and send

them out to do useful work as long as they stay on their

meds. And I'm the one who did all the preliminary

 

60

 

Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

61

 

design work on this drug. Actually, it was a side-effect of

my work on — well, there's no need to discuss all the

boring details of my research," she concluded with a

sidelong glance at Polyon. "What matters is that I've got

the formulas and all the lab notes on hedra."

 

"But won't Central Meds hold the patent, if you did

the work there?"

 

"When—and if— it's patented," Alpha agreed.

 

"And you can't sell it until it's passed the trials and

been patented — so it's no good to you!"

 

Alpha's eyes met Polyon's over Darnell's head.

"Quite true," she agreed gravely, "but I think I may

find a way to profit from the situation anyway."

 

"What about you, Fassa?" Polyon asked. The girl

had been very quiet since her jab about the slave

names of the Nyota system. "You going to take this

boondocks construction company Daddy handed you

lying down?" His tone invested the question with a

wealth of obscene possibilities.

 

"Double profit on every job," Fassa announced

calmly. "I've got a degree in accounting. I can fix the

books in ways an auditor will never catch."

 

Darnell whistled appreciatively. "But if you are

caught — "

 

Fassa coiled herself on the other side of Polyon's

chair in a series of languorous, sinuous movements

that drew all eyes to her. "I think," she said dreamily,

"that I can distract any auditors who may think about

checking the books. Or any building inspectors who

need to sign off on materials quality." Her slow,

dreamy smile promised a world of secret delights.

"There's a lot of money in construction ... if you go

about it the right way."

 

The four of them made a tight grouping now:

Polyon in the control chair, Darnell standing behind

him, Fassa and Alpha seated on either side of him.

Four pairs of eyes gazed expectantly at Blaize.

 

"Well," he said, swallowed, and started over again.

«*^h — PTA doesn't offer quite as much scope for

creativity as the rest of your outfits, does it now?"

 

"You're with us or against us," said Polyon. "Which

is it to be, little cousin?"

"Ah —neutrality?"

 

"Not good enough." Polyon glanced around at the

other three. "He's heard our plans. If he doesn't join

us, he could have some idea of informing...."

 

Alpha leaned forward, smiling sweetly. Her teeth

looked long and very white against her dark skin. "Oh,

you wouldn't do that, would you, Blaize dear?"

 

"I wouldn't even think about it," Darnell put in, tap-

ping one pudgy fist against his open palm.

 

Fassa licked her lips and smiled like a child anticipat-

ing a treat. "This could be interesting" she murmured

to no one in particular.

 

Blaize glanced around the circle of faces, then looked

towards Nancia's titanium column. She kept her silence.

Nothing had actually happened yet; if these brats at-

tempted violence, she could stop it in seconds with a flood

of sleepgas. And Blaize knew that as well as she did. Nan-

cia saw no reason to give up her anonymity just to

reassure him. He'd been brave enough when he was

picking on Polyon alone; why, for heaven's sake, couldn't

he stand up to the rest of them?

 

"But then, Blaize never did have the guts to do

something as decisive as telling" Polyon dismissed his

cousin with a brief nod. "We'll let him think it over...

all the way to Angalia. It'll be a long couple of weeks,

little cousin, with nobody to talk to. And a much longer

five years on Angalia. Hope you enjoy life among the

veggie-heads. 1 shouldn't think anybody else in the

Nyota system will have much to do with you." He

swiveled to face the SPACED OUT display, and the other

three turned with him.

 

"Oh — don't leap to assumptions so fast. I'm with

 

62

 

AnmeMcCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

you, definitely with," Blaize babbled. "There are pos-

sibilities — I just haven't had time to think them over

yet The coryrium mine, for instance — it hasn't been

properly developed — maybe I could get a part inter-

est in that. And PTA makes regular food drops to

Angalia, who's to say how much of the food gets dis-

tributed to the natives and how much gets

transshipped to some place that can pay for it..." He

spread his hands and shrugged jerkily. "I'll think of

something. You'll see. I'll do as well as any of you!"

 

Polyon nodded again. His fist closed over the joyball

and Thingberry's jeweled web spiraled down to

enclose Asteroidland, trapping the others' play icons

in a tissue of glittering strands. "Done, then. Five of us

together. Here, we'd better each have a record." He

drew a handful of minihedra from the pocket of his

Academy   grays   and   dropped   them   into   the

datareader. One by one, Alpha, Fassa, Darnell and

Blaize identified themselves by hand and retina print

and spoke aloud the terms and conditions of the wager

they'd agreed to. Polyon retrieved the minihedra after

the recording was over and handed one faceted black

polyhedron to each of them, keeping the last for him-

self "Better store them someplace safe," he suggested.

Fassa clipped her minihedron inside a silver wire

cage that hung from her charm bracelet among tin-

kling bells and glittering bits of carved prismawood.

She alone seemed in no particular hurry to escape

Polyon's influence; while the others jostled to reach

the exit door, Fassa fiddled with her charm bracelet

and tried out the shining black minihedron in various

places, as if her only concern was to see where it would

show to best advantage.

 

As Alpha, Darnell and Blaize left the central cabin,

Nancia wondered whether Polyon's quick actions and

mesmerizing personality had made them forget that

he alone, of the five, had not recorded his intentions

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

63

 

on the minihedra. Or were they simply afraid to chal-

 

lenge him?

 

that it mattered. She had the entire scene

 

recorded. From several angles.

 

"You'll see," Blaize repeated over his shoulder as he

left. TH do better than any of you."

 

"Small time, little man," Alpha sneered on her way

down the corridor, "small-time plans for a small per-

son. You'll be the loser, but who cares? Somebody has to

 

lose."

 

"She's wrong, you know," Polyon commented to

Fassa. "Four of you have to lose. There'll be only one

winner in this game." And he too left, twiddling his

black minihedron between two fingers and humming

quietly to himself.

 

Fassa

 

The gleaming black surfaces of the minihedron

flashed in the central cabin lights as Fassa turned her

arm this way and diat, admiring the effect of the stark

blackness against the jumble of silver and prismawood

trinkets. The hedron was as black as Fassa's own sleek

hair and tip-tilted eyes, an admirable contrast to the

whiteness of her creamed and pampered skin. In its

hard glossy perfection she saw a miniature of her-

self. . . beautiful, impenetrable . . .

 

A shell full of dangerous secrets,

 

Fassa stared at the mirror-smooth surfaces of the

minihedron and saw her face reflected and distorted in

half a dozen directions at once, a shattered self looking

out, trapped in the black mirrors that distorted her

lovely features to a mask of pain and a silent scream.

 

No! That's not me — that can't be me. She dropped her

arm; the jingling silver bells on the bracelet tinkled a

single discordant peal. Pushing off from the strange

titanium column that wasted so much cabin space, Fassa

floated into a corner between display screens and a

 

64

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret BaU

 

storage locker. "Blank screens," she ordered the ship.

 

The dazzling display of SPACED OUT graphics faded

away, to be replaced by a black emptiness like the sur-

faces of the minihedron. Fassa stared into the flat

screen, lips parted, until the reflection of her own

beauty reassured her. Yes, she was still as lovely as

she'd always believed. The distorted reflections from

the minihedron had been an illusion like the dreams

that troubled her sleep, dreams in which her lovely

face and perfect body peeled away to reveal the

shrunken, miserable creature underneath.

 

Reassured, she stroked the charm bracelet with two

fingers until she touched the sharp faceted surface of

the minihedron. I keep my secrets, avid you keep yours, little

sister. As long as she had the shield of her perfect

beauty between herself and the world, Fassa felt safe.

Nobody could see beyond that to the worthless thing

inside. Very few tried; they were all too mesmerized by

the outer facade. Men were rutting fools, and they

deserved no better than to have their own folly turned

back on them. If she could use their desire for her to

enrich herself, so much the better. Gods knew her

beauty had cost her too much in the pastl

 

Mama, mama, make him stop, wailed a child's voice

from the recesses of her mind. Fassa laughed sourly at

the memory of that folly. How old had she been then?

Eight, nine? Young enough to think her mother could

stand up to a man like Faul del Parma y Polo, could

make him give up anything he really wanted — like his

daughter. Mama had closed her eyes and turned her

head away. She didn't want to know what Faul was

doing to their lovely little girl.

 

Ugly little girl. Dirty little girl, whispered another of

the voices.

 

All the same, it had been Mama who stopped it, in a

way. Too late, but still — her spectacular and public

suicide had ended Paul's private games with his

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

65

 

daughter. Jumping from the forty-second story bal-

cony, Mama had shattered herself on the terraces of

the Regis Galactic Hotel in the middle of Faul del

Parma's annual company extravaganza, the oneatt

the gossipbyters attended. And the news and gossip

and rumor and innuendo that surrounded the suicide

of del Parma's wife had been splashed all over the

newsbeams for weeks thereafter. Why should she kill

herself? Faul del Parma could give a woman every--

thing. There was no history of mental instability. And

everyone knew Faul del Parma never so much as

looked at another woman, he only cared for his wife—

well, one didn't hear so much about the wife, did one?

A homebody type. But he went everywhere with that

lovely little daughter at his side, only thirteen but a

heartbreaker in the making....

 

It occurred to a dozen gossipbyters at once that the

daughter should be interviewed. And that had stopped

it. Faul del Parma had whisked his daughter into a

very exclusive, very private boarding school where no

gossipbyters could find her and ask inconvenient

questions.

 

Fassa twisted the minihedron on its clasp. Tkankyou,

Mama. Even now, six years later, the story of the del

Parma wife's suicide still made an occasional gossip-

byte. Even now, Faul del Parma didn't want to risk

having Fassa anywhere near him. So now that she was

graduated from the expensive, exclusive school, he'd

found a position for her with the least of his com-

panies, Polo Construction, based on a planet in Vega

subspace. And Fassa had practiced her bargaining

skills for the first time.

 

"I'll take it. But not as your subordinate. Make over

Polo Construction to me, and I'll go out to Bahati and

manage the company and never trouble you again.

Call it a graduation present."

 

Call it a bribe for going into exile, Fassa thought, twist-

 

66

 

Atme McCaffrey &f Margaret Batt

 

ing the minihedron back and forth until the sharp angles

of the facets bit into her thumb and forefinger. Because

when Paul had balked at giving her complete ownership

of the company, Fassa had leaned elegantly on his desk

and speculated aloud about her chances of getting a posi-

tion with one of the major newsbeamers. '"They're aU very

interested in me," she teased her father.

 

"Interested in picking up sleazy gossip about our

family," Faul snapped. "They've no interest in you for

your own abilities."

 

Fassa smoothed her gleaming black hair back from

her face. "Some of my abilities are very interesting," she

told him. She let her voice drop down into the husky

lower register that seemed to produce such an effect

on her male teachers. "And the del Parma y Polo family

is always news. I bet some of the major newsbeam com-

panies would just love to serialize a book by me. I could

tell them all the secrets I learned from my father...."

 

"All right. It's yours!" Faul del Parma y Polo slapped his

hand on the palmscanner beside his deskcomp, jabbed

the hardcopy pad with his free thumb and ejected the

finished minihedron with a glare for his daughter.

 

"You won't object if I scan it first?"

 

"Use a public scanner. You can't be sure of mine," Faul

pointed out "I might have programmed it to give a false

readout You'd better start thinking smarter if you want

to make a success of this business, Fassa. But don't worry

—it's all there. Ownership transfer and my palmprint to

back it up. I wouldn't cheat you. I don't want you coming

back to this office."

 

"Don't you, Daddy dear?" Fassa twisted forward over

the desk, sinuous and flowing in her formfitting

sheath of Rigellian spiderspin. She leaned dose

enough to let Faul breathe in the warmth and subde

perfume of her skin... and was rewarded by a flash of

pain and desire in his eyes.

 

"Ta-ta, Daddy dearest." She slid from the desk and

 

PARTNERSHIP 67

 

clasped the minihedron inside a coryciurn heart that

dangled from her charm bracelet "See you around...

Idon't think."

 

"I wonder," Faul said hoarsely, "how many of those

Htde charms contain men's hearts and souls."

 

"Not many — yet." Fassa paused at the door and

gave him a sparkling smile. "I'm starting the collection

with you."

 

Now, three days out from Central, she had already

added a second hedron to the collection. Fassa jingled

the charm bracelet reflectively. Each of the sparkling

bits of jewelry was a clasp or a cage or an empty locket,

waiting to receive some trinket. She'd collected the

charms over those lonely years at boarding school,

spending the lavish birthday and Christmas checks

from Faul on expensive custom-made baubles. One

for each time that Faul had come to her room at night

Only twenty-three hi all; strange, she thought, that

less than two dozen carefully chosen nights over a

period of four or five years could make you rot away

from the inside. Twenty-three shining jewels, each as

perfect and beautiful in its own way as Fassa was in

hers; each as empty inside as she was.

 

No, not any more. Two of them are filled. Fassa pushed

off from the wall with the tips of her fingers and floated

gently through the main cabin, twirling the charms

around her wrist Before she was done, she'd fill every

charm with something... appropriate.

 

Andthenwhat?

 

No answers to that, no conceivable end to the future

she'd mapped out for herself.

 

Blaize

 

The central cabin was empty; Polyon's buddies had

all slunk off to their cabins to think over their wager

and its probable consequences. Good. Blaize knew he

could perfecdy well have talked to Nancia from the

 

68

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret BaU

 

privacy ofhis own cabin, but somehow it seemed more

real to come here and speak directly to the titanium

column that contained her shell.

 

Besides, she wasn't answering him from the cabin.

He thought maybe she'd turned off the cabin sensors

to give her passengers privacy.

 

He cleared his throat tentatively. Now that he was

here, and not so confident of his welcome, it seemed

rather strange to be talking to the walls. Sort of thing

that got you shipped off for a nice rest in a place like

Summerlands Care, Inc. Blaize shivered. Not for him,

thank you. If he ever did need medical treatment, he'd

make sure to go to a clinic where that snake Alpha bint

Hezra-Fong vtasnot operating.

 

"Nancia? Can you hear me?"

 

The silence was as absolute as that of the empty,

black space outside the brainship's thin skin.

 

"I know you're listening," Blaize said desperately.

"Watching, too. You have to be. / wouldn't close my

eyes or turn my back on somebody like Cousin Polyon,

and I don't believe you'd risk letting him sneak into

your control cabin unobserved."

 

His wild gestures as he made the last statement al-

most overbalanced him in the ship's light grav field.

He grabbed at a handrail and made a dancer's turn

into the center of the cabin, recovering from the near-

stumble as gracefully as a cat correcting a mis-timed

jump. Nancia's titanium column coruscated in rain-

bow reflections of the cabin lights, sparkling and

dancing around him. And she did not reply.

 

"Look, I know what you're thinking, but it's not like

that. Really." Blaize grasped a chair back to steady

himself "I mean, what could I do? Did you expect me

to call them all criminals and wrap myself in my own

integrity? They could've spaced me before we got to

Angalia, and called it an unfortunate accident"

 

Silence.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

69

 

"All right," Blaize conceded. "They probably

wouldn't have spaced me. Especially if I told them you

were a brainship and could bear witness against

them."

 

Silence.

 

This was worse than the time he'd been locked in his

room for a month.

 

"But that would have meant telling on you," Blaize

pointed out, "and you didn't really want them to know

you've been listening, did you?"

 

Silence.

 

"Well, what did you expect me to do, anyway?

They'd all have hated me." Blaize's voice cracked.

"Isn't it bad enough I have to go out to Angalia and

spend the next five years handing out PTA boxes to

some walking veggies? Do I have to start by losing my

only friends in the whole star system?"

 

Nancia answered at last. "They are not your friends,

and you know it."

 

Blaize shrugged. "Best imitations I've got. Look,

I've spent my whole life being the family black sheep,

the one nobody bothers with, the one nobody likes

much, nobody respects. Can you blame me for want-

ing to change that? Just once in my life I want to

belong"

 

"You do," Nancia told him. "As far as I'm concerned,

you do indeed belong with the rest of this amoral brat-

pack. And as for respect,.. you can add me to the list

of people who don't respect you. I don't believe you

ran away from home three times, either. You haven't

got the gumption to cross the street without somebody

holding your hand."

 

"I did so!"

 

Silence.

 

"Once, anyway. And if I had run away again, it

would've been just like I said. They'd have been wait-

ing for me at the Academy. So what was the point? And

 

70

 

Arme McCaffrey &? Margaret BaU

 

what difference does it make? Worked out the same as

if I'd actually done it, didn't it?"

 

Silence.

 

filaize decided to go back to his cabin before some-

body drifted in here and caught him talking to the

walls.

 

"One more thing," he called as he pushed off for the

return. "I did win that scholarship. Under the name of

Blaize Docem. You can check Academy records on

that!"

 

Nancia maintained her silence. All the way to

Angalia.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

Singularity

 

The neighborhood of the brainship collapsed inward

on itself, spiraling down tornado-like to the Singularity

point where Central Worlds subspace could momentari-

ly be defined as intersecting Vega subspace. The ship's

metachip-augmented parallel processors solved and op-

timized the set of equations represented in a

thousand-square matrix of subspace points, dropped

out of that subspace into Decomposition, rode the col-

lapsing funnel of spaces with a new optimization

problem to choose and resolve every tenth of a second.

To Nancia, Singularity was how she envisioned the an-

cient Earth sport called "surfing"; balanced at the

non-degrading point where decomposing subspaces

met, she recognized and evaluated local paths so quickly

that the massive optimization problems blurred together

into a sense of skimming over a wave that was alwaysjust

about to crash beneath her.

 

The Singularity field test she'd taken at the

Academy had been simpler than this. There, she'd had

to deal with only one set of parallel equations; here,

the sequence of equations and diminishing subspaces

streamed past her in an incessant flow. It was chal-

lenge, danger, joy: it was what she had been trained

for. She swept over matrices of data and guided them

to the ship's processors, choosing and resolving the

ever-changing paths to Singularity with an athlete's

single-minded concentration.

 

The same newsbeam that showed Nancia the sport

of "surfing" had also had a section on a diving com-

 

72

 

Ante McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

\

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

73

 

petition. The dean lines of the divers' movements, the

seconds during which they hurtled through the air as

though they could give their bodies the lift and

freedom of brainships, fascinated Nancia; she'd

viewed the beam over a dozen times, marveling at

what softpersons would go through for a few seconds

of physical freedom. "Didja see how he ripped that

dive!" the newsbyter had jabbered after one athlete's

performance, then explaining that the term referred

to the clean way the diver had entered the water

without a single splash.

 

Nancia ripped a perfect dive through Singularity

and came out into Vega subspace.

 

For her passengers, with nothing to do during Sin-

gularity and no way to filter the barrage of sensory

data, the transition was markedly less pleasant. The

few seconds of decomposition and reformation

seemed like hours of wading through air gone viscous,

picking their way among shapes distorted out of all

recognition, in a place where colors hummed on the

air and light bent around corners.

 

They gasped with relief when the ship broke

through into normal space again.

 

Nancia watched them staggering and rubbing their

eyes and ears. She was rather surprised by the inten-

sity of their reactions; the trainer who'd accompanied

her through her Singularity test had not seemed to be

bothered by the few seconds of sensory distortion. Per-

haps practice made a difference to how softpersons

took Decomposition. Polyon's first words after the

return to normal space suggested this might be the

case.

 

"Well, mes enfants" said Polyon, "how did you like

your first Decomposition? It's been so long since my

first training flights that I've forgotten how it affects

newcomers."

 

"Once is enough," said Darnell with feeling. "If I

 

ever go home again, I'll take the six months of travel by

FTL. Or better yet, I'll walk."

 

Fassa nodded vigorous agreement, then winced as if

she wished she hadn't moved her head so soon.

 

"Have a Blissto," Alpha offered. "Works on hang-

overs — ought to help with Singularity headaches

too."

 

Darnell snatched the small blue pills out of her hand

and downed six of them in a single desperate gulp.

Fassa started to shake her head and then obviously

thought better of it. She waved Alpha's hand away

with a languid gesture. "Never touch drugs."

 

"More fool you," said Alpha. "I know more about

side effects than any of you, and I promise you a few

blues won't do any harm. Just wish I'd thought of it

before we entered Singularity. Blaize?"

 

"Excellent idea," Blaize said hollowly, accepting the

offered pills. Unlike Darnell, he made his way to the

far side of the cabin and found a half-empty bottle of

Stemerald to help him choke down the pills. "Almost as

good an idea as walking. Don't think I ever really ap-

preciated Earth before." His skin was pale green under

the spattering of freckles.

 

Polyon chuckled. "May have been a blessing in dis-

guise that you weren't allowed to go in for brawn

training, little one. Apparently you haven't die stomach

for it. Now when you imagine combining frequent

Decom hops with Mil Spec meals of boiled synthoprot

and anonymous vitacaps that all smell like cabbage—"

 

Fassa clapped a hand over her mouth and ran for

the door. Darnell swallowed convulsively two or three

times. "Would you mind very much not mentioning

food just now?" His last words were slurred and

relaxed; the Blissto was already taking effect.

 

"At least not till I've had my own blues," Alpha

added, pouring a handful of the shiny blue pills down

her throat.

 

74

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

Fassa didn't quite make it to the privacy of her cabin.

Silendy, Nancia extruded probes that captured and

vaporized the resulting mess. She activated the release

latch on Fassa's cabin door so that it irised open in

front of the girl.

 

"T-thank you," Fassa hiccuped into the wet doth

Nantia's second probe held out. "I mean — I know

you're just a droneship, so this is silly, but—oh, thank

you anyway." She collapsed on her bunk, a huddle of

misery. Nancia closed down the cabin sensors, trans-

mitted a shut command to the door iris, and left Fassa

to recover on her own. At least, she thought, the girl

had the strength of character to abstain from mind-

rotting drugs. And the manners to thank whoever

helped her, even a supposedly inanimate droneship.

Her stated intention of using sex to get concessions for

her company was appalling, as were her manners in

general; but maybe she was a shade less repellent than

the rest of Nantia's young passengers.

 

They had completely ignored Fassa's distress, Nan-

cia noted. Polyon was playing a solitaire round of

SPACED OUT and the other three were giggling over a

new bottle of Stemerald. Nancia wondered uneasily

what the mix of stimulants and depressants was likely

to do to a softperson's nervous system — and what else

Alpha might have smuggled aboard. Maybe it had

been a mistake to turn off the cabin sensors; these

people didn't deserve privacy.

 

But then, what business was it of hers if they wanted

to drug themselves into a stupor? They'd be much

nicer that way, after all. Nancia herself could conceive

of nothing more horrible than voluntarily scrambling

one's synapses, but softpersons did, by all reports,

have very strange tastes.

 

Besides, they were much easier to put up with now

that they were too doped to do anything but giggle

softly and spill their Stemerald. Nanria's housekeep-

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

75

 

ing probes mopped up the green puddles on the cabin

floor; her passengers ignored the probes and their

cleanup activity, and she, as far as possible, ignored the

passengers.

 

Because now, at last, there was somebody else to talk

 

to-

 

Within seconds of her emergence from Singularity,

Nancia had initiated a tightbeam contact with Vega

Base. By the time Fassa was cleaned up in her cabin

and the odier passengers busy with their own peculiar

amusements, she had gone through the recognition

sequences and the official messages and was happily

chatting with Simeon, the managing brain of Vega

Base.

 

"So how did you like your first voyage?" Simeon

inquired.

 

"Singularity was..." Nancia couldn't find words for

it; instead she transmitted a short visual burst of colors

melting and expanding like soap bubbles, iridescent

trails of light joyously spiraling around one another. "I

can't wait to jump again."

 

Simeon chuckled. "You're one of the lucky ones,

then. From all I hear, it doesn't take everyone that

way."

 

"My passengers didn't seem to enjoy it much," Nan-

cia conceded, "but who cares?"

 

"Even brainships don't always get such a kick out of

Singularity,11 Simeon told her.

 

Nancia found that hard to believe, but she remem-

bered that Simeon was a stationary brain. Embedded

in die heart of Vega Base, his only experience of travel

would have been the jump that brought him here

from Laboratory Schools — as a passenger, like any

softperson. Perhaps she shouldn't go on about the joys

of Singularity to someone who could never experience

the thrill of managing his own jumps.

 

Besides, Simeon wanted to pursue something else.

 

76

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

"You don't seem to care much for your passengers'

comfort"

 

Again words foiled Nancia. She damped the colors

of her visual burst to a muddy swirl of greenish browns

and grays. "They're not... very nice people," she

finally answered. "Some of the things I overheard

them discussing on the trip... Simeon, could I ask you

a hypothetical question? Suppose a brainship hap-

pened to learn that some people had unethical plans.

Should she report them?"

 

"You mean, like a plot to murder somebody? Or

high treason—an attempt to overthrow Central?"

 

"Oh, goodness, no, nothing like thatl" How could

Simeon sound so calm while discussing such dreadful

things? "At least, I don't think — I mean, suppose they

weren't planning to hurt anybody, but what they

meant to do was morally wrong? Even illegal?" Alpha's

plans to profit from a drug that should have been

credited to Central Meds, Polyon's idea of creating a

black market in metachips — no, Nancia assured her-

self, her passengers were nasty and corrupt as all

get-out, but at least they weren't violent

 

"Hmm. And how might this brainship have found

out about her passengers' plans?"

 

"I — they thought she was a droneship," Nancia

said, "and they discussed everything quite freely. She

has datacordings of it all, too."

 

"I see." Simeon sounded quite disapproving, and for

a moment Nancia thought he shared her shock at her

passengers' plans. "And has it occurred to you, young

XN-935, that masquerading as a droneship in order to

eavesdrop on High Families' conversations is a form of

entrapment? In fact, given that the passengers in-

volved an High Families and very close to CenCom,

the act of taking surreptitious datacordings could even

be interpreted as treason. What if they'd been discuss-

ing vital military secrets?''

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

77

 

"But they weren't — I didn't — Listen, VS-895,

they're the criminals, not me!" Nancia shouted.

 

"Ouch."

 

Simeon's reply was almost an electronic whisper.

 

"Turn down your waveforms, would you? That

nearly jolted me out of my shell."

 

"Sorry." Nancia controlled her impulses and chan-

neled a clean, tight beam at Simeon. "But I don't see

what you're accusing me of."

 

"Me? Nothing, XN, I assure you. I'm just trying to

warn you that the courts may see things rather dif-

ferently. Now, I don't know what your young

passengers have been up to, and 1 don't particularly

care to know. You haven't seen much of the world yet,

or you'd realize that most softpersons have some way

or other to get a little extra out of every situation in

which they find themselves,"

 

Nancia mulled that over. "You mean — are they all

corrupt, then?"

 

Simeon chuckled. "Not all, Nancia, just enough to

make it interesting. You have to understand the poor

things. Short lifespan, limited to five senses, single-

channel comm system. I expect they feel cheated

when they compare themselves with us. And some of

them translate that feeling into trying to get extra

goodies for themselves."

 

Nancia had to agree that what Simeon said made a

lot of sense. She tried to emulate his attitude of lofty

detachment while she went about the business of land-

ing her passengers at their assigned stations in the

Nyota ya Jaha system. Since four of them still thought

her a droneship and the fifth knew she wasn't speak-

ing to him, it was easy enough to remain aloof.

 

Nancia made each planetary landfall an exercise in

split-second timing and perfect orbit-matching. It was

good practice, it kept her concentrating on her own

business and not on that of her passengers, and if the

 

78

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Baft

 

rapid maneuvers involved gave them a bumpy ride —

well, so much the worse. She took pride in making the

actual moments of touchdown as gentle as the landing

of a feather. At least, Bahati and Shemali went that way.

When she reached Angalia, she couldn't quite restrain

her impulse to give filaize a good shaking on the way

down. He was pale and sweating by the time they came

to a bumpy halt on the mesa that served as Angalia's

spacefield.

 

"That," he said as he collected his baggage, "was not

necessary."

 

Nancia preserved an icy silence — literally. Each

moment that Blaize delayed, she lowered her internal

temperature by several degrees.

 

"You could at least send a housekeeping probe to

help me with all this stuff," he complained, gripping a

box of novelhedra with fingers that were rapidly turn-

ing blue with cold.

 

"^fou're not my mother, you know," he said while lean-

ing on the button to the lift. "Nobody asked you to pass

judgment on my moral standards. Just like nobody asked

me if I wanted to come out to this godforsaken place."

 

"I guess it would be too much to expect anybody to

have a little sympathy," he said as the lift sped downward.

 

Nancia tilted the hatchway floor so that Blaize's

carefully stacked boxes of supplies tumbled out as

soon as he stepped onto the surface of Angalia.

 

"I know what you're thinking," he shouted from the

red dust of the mesa top, "but you're wrong about me!

You're all wrong! I'll show you!"

 

Nancia was pleased that her assignment made no

mention of collecting the previous PTA administrator,

the one whom Blaize had been sent to relieve. Ap-

parently, not being a member of the High Families, he

was expected to wait for the regularly scheduled PTA

transport rather than taking advantage of a brainship

for the Courier Service. Hard on him, Nancia

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

79

 

thought, but quite appropriate. She would proceed

directly to Vega 3.3, collect this stranded brawn, and

return to Central for a real assignment—with a brawn

of her own choosing. Thank goodness she was

through being used as a substitute droneship for the

convenience of the rich and powerful!

 

She discovered her error when she was halfway

from Nyota ya Jaha to Vega 3.

 

"What do you mean, another little errand?" she

blasted poor Simeon.

 

"Turn it down," came Simeon's low-intensity

reminder. "It wasn't my idea and you don't have to

shout like that Anyway, what difference does it make?

you were going to Vega 3 anyway."

 

"I was going to 3.3, not 4.2," Nancia pointed out,

and this reminded her of another grievance. "Why

can't these people give their suns and planets real

names, anyway? This Vega numbering system makes

me feel like a machine."

 

"They're great believers in efficiency," Simeon said.

"And logic. You'll see what I mean when you pair up

with Caleb."

 

"Hmph. You mean, when I transport the man—for

that's all I've agreed to. Efficiency!" Nancia grumbled.

"That's a new word for misuse of the Courier Service.

Why, it's a whole different solar system and an extra

stop to pick up this governor Thrixtopple and his

family, not to mention having to feed them all the way

back to Central. Time and fuel and ship's stores

wasted. My fuel belongs to the Courier Service," she

said, "and so does my time."

 

"What about your soul?" inquired Simeon, return-

ing to a normal-intensity beam. "Oh, never mind. I

keep forgetting how new you are, XN. Wait till you've

been around the subspaces a few hundred years.

You'll start understanding how the rules have to be

bent to accommodate people."

 

80

 

Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret BaU

 

"You mean, to accommodate softpersons," Nancia

corrected proudly. "I've never asked for an exception

or a favor in my life, and I'm not about to start now."

 

Simeon's responding burst of discordant waves and

clashing colors was the electronic equivalent of an ex-

tremely rude word. "I can see why Psych thought you

and Caleb would be a good match," he said. Infuriat-

ingly, he shut down transmissions on that comment,

leaving Nancia to wonder all the way to Vega 3.3. Why

did Psych see fit to match her with a brawn whose

major accomplishment so far had been the loss of his

first brainship? Was there something wrong in her

profile, some instability that made it appropriate to

assign her an incompetent brawn? This Caleb soft-

person was probably going to be stuck doing

interplanetary hops and minor errands—like picking

up Governor Thrixtopple—for the rest of his Service.

And Central Psych wanted to stick her with him and his

flawed record! It wasn't/air. Nancia brooded about it

all the way to Vega 3.3.

 

Her first sight of Caleb did nothing to restore her

confidence in this assignment. Courier Service records

said that he was only twenty-eight — young for a

softperson — but he walked slowly and carefully, as if

he were already old and tired. His Service uniform

looked as if it had been designed for a larger man; the

tunic hung loosely from broad but bony shoulders, the

trousers flapped about his shins. Short, scraumy and

sour-faced, Nancia mentally catalogued as he made his

halting way up the stairs. And why couldn't he use the toft,

if he's too out of shape to walk up one/light of stairs?

 

His greeting to her was correct but lifeless. Nancia

responded in the same tone. Listlessly, they went

through the Service formulas until Nancia displayed

the orders beamed from Vega Base.

 

Caleb exploded. "Detouring to pick up that lard-

bottomed junketer and his family? That's not a Courier

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

81

 

Service job. Why can't Thrixtopple wait for the next

scheduled passenger transport Uke anyone else?"

 

Nancia sent a ripple of muddy brown rings across

the screen where their orders were displayed.

"Nobody told me anything," she responded verbally

for Caleb's benefit. "Stop here, go there, take these

kids to the Nyota system, collect a stranded brawn on

Vega 3.3, pick up the governor of 4.2 and take him

back to Central. / don't know why he rates a special

deal; he's not even High Families."

 

"No, but he's been working this subspace for a long

time," Caleb told her. "Probably has more pull than

half a dozen empty-headed aristos with their double-

barreled names."

 

"We are not all," Nancia said, "empty-headed. Per-

haps you failed to read your orders in detail?" She

flashed her full name on the screen to get his attention.

 

"Oh, well, you can't help your birth," Caleb said ab-

sent-mindedly, "and I suppose a good Lab Schools

training will make up for a lot. Are you ready for lift-

off? We can't waste time gossiping if we have to fit this

extra stop into the itinerary."

 

I give him ten minutes after we reach Central to get himself

and his bags off me and make room for a brawn with some

manners, Nancia vowed to herself as she drove her en-

gines through a harder and faster takeoff than she

would normally have imposed on a softperson pas-

senger. No, that's too generous. Five minutes.

 

She felt slighdy regretful when she peeked through

Caleb's cabin sensors and saw him struggling to sit up

after the takeoff, white and shaken. But she wasn't

sorry enough to change her basic position on brawn

assignments.

 

"There's one thing we should have settled before

liftoff," she announced without preamble.

 

"Yes?" Caleb didn't bother turning his head to look

at the cabin speaker. Of course, he was an experienced

 

82

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

— if incompetent — brawn; he would know that she

would be able to pick up his words from any direction.

Still, Nancia felt vaguely ruffled — as if she were being

ignored even as he replied to her.

 

"Transporting you back to Central Worlds is my offi-

cial assignment, and I cannot refuse it. But I do not

wish you to construe this as formal acceptance of you

as my brawn. I have no intention of waiving my rights

to free choice of my own brawn just because this match

is convenient for Central."

 

Now what ailed the man? He had just begun to

regain some color after the high-G lift-off; now his face

was drained again, still as a mask — or a corpse. Nan-

cia began to wonder if this brawn would live to see

Central. If he wasn't fit enough to make the journey, some-

body should have warned me.

 

"Of course," said Caleb in a voice so level and

drained of meaning that it could have issued from any

housekeeping drone, "no one would expect you to

waive that right. Particularly for me." He turned his

head and for the first time looked direcdy at the sensor.

"Shut down sensors to this cabin, please, XN. I wish to

rest In privacy," he emphasized. He lay down again

with one arm flung over his face. After a moment he

rolled over and lay facedown on the bunk, as if he

didn't trust Nancia not to peek at him.

 

"Simeon? Shellcrack, Simeon, I know you're pick-

ing up my beams. TALK TO ME!"

 

"You're an excessively demanding young thing,

XN-935, and you're shouting again."

 

"Sorry." Nancia was so glad to have got some

response from the Vega Base brain that she immedi-

ately lowered the intensity of her beam to match

Simeon's almost inaudible burst. "Simeon, I need to

know about this brawn they've saddled me with."

 

"So scan the newsbeam files."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

83

 

"I did. There's nothing in them. Not what I need to

know, anyway." The files had been enlightening in

their own way, with their lurid stories of a ship and a

man almost destroyed by a sudden radiation burst, the

brawn's limping, months-long journey homeward in

his crippled, brainless ship and the hero's welcome he

had received when he arrived at Vega 3.3 with the sur-

vey data he'd been sent to gather. The tale of what

Caleb had gone through, the months of solitude and

deprivation and the lingering effects of radiation

poisoning, had done much to reshape Nancia's feel-

ings towards the pallid brawn who'd boarded her on

Vega 3.3. She felt a grudging respect for the man she

saw spending hours in her exercise facility, working

out with gyroweights and spring resistors to restore

wasted niusdes.

 

The man who had accepted her initial hostile at-

titude as no more than his due, who'd shut her out of

his mind at once and had not spoken a word to her

since. They had traveled in silence through the three

days it took to move between the suns of Vega 3 and

Vega 4, while Nancia waited impatiently for Simeon to

resume communications so that she could ask what

she wanted to know. Finally she'd begun battering at

the Vega Base brain's frequencies with ever-increasing

bursts of communication that must have given him the

equivalent of a softperson's "headache."

 

Nancia condensed the newsbytes she'd read and

transmitted them in three short bursts to Simeon, just

to convince him she'd done her homework.

 

"So what else do you want to know?"

 

"How. Did. He. Lose. His. Ship?" Nancia punctuated

each word with a burst of irritated static

 

"You read the newsbytes."

 

"WE'RE SHIELDED AGAINST — sorry." She

started over at normal intensity. "We're shielded

against radiation. He shouldn't have been harmed,

 

84

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

unless he was being careless — leaving the ship

without checking radiation levels? And there's no way

his ship could have been affected. What could have got

through her column?"

 

"His column, in this case," Simeon corrected, as if

that mattered.

 

Unless Caleb used the access code to open his brninskip's shdL.

That was the nightmare, that was what she wanted reas-

surance about. No brawn was supposed to know both

the syllables and the musical tones that comprised his

brainship's access codes. One sequence was given to the

brawn on assignment, the other deeply classified in

CenCom's codes. But Polyon's casual dabbling in the Net

had left Nancia deeply suspicious of computer security

systems. Any code invented could be broken... and how

else could the CL-740 have been lost to something as

minor as a radiation burst?

 

"Nothing did get through the column," Simeon told

her. "The CL-740 was one of the first Courier Service

ships commissioned, though. Three hundred years

ago they didn't know as much as we do about shielding

the synapse connectors. The radiation burst they were

subjected to wasn't enough to harm the major ship's

systems, but it fried the connections to die shell,

leaving CL-740 in total isolation — unable to com-

municate or to receive signals, completely unable to

control the ship. Caleb brought the ship back on

manual controls, but by the time they got to Vega the

CL-740 had gone mad from sensory deprivation,"

 

"But the Helva System — " Nancia protested. It had

been a long, long time since any brainship had been

subjected to sensory deprivation; shell-internal

metachips, named for the legendary brainship who'd

survived the ordeal and suggested the modification,

should have been invulnerable to any outside

interference.

 

"The Helva modifications are not universal, though

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

85

 

God knows they should be." Simeon sounded very

tired. "It's a traumatizing procedure for those of us

who aren't lucky enough to have it built into our first

design, young'un. Some of the older brainships, those

who'd paid off and continued in the Courier Service as

free agents, had a right to refuse retrofitting. CL ...

exercised that right"

 

"Oh." It was a brain's worst nightmare, that being cut

off from the world with a thoroughness no softperson

could even imagine. Nancia dosed down all her sensors

for a moment, imagining that absolute blackness. How

long would she be able to bear it? No wonder her super-

visor at Lab Schools had canceled the first newsbyte

about the CL-740. No wonder the newsbyte files made

available to her now had been censored. No one wanted

a brainship to start thinking about the worst that could

happen. Nancia didn't want to think about it any longer.

With an internal shudder she threw open all her sensors

and comm channels at once.

 

The minor clatter of everyday life was a warm, reas-

suring tide about her, connecting her with the rest of

humanity, the rest of all sentient life. Nancia

catalogued the details with surprise and gratitude.

How strange and wonderful all this is ... to see, hear, feel,

think, know... and I have been taking it all for granted! For

a moment, the smallest input was precious to her, a gift

of life. Caleb was hanging between two spring-resis-

tors in the gym, the display screens in the central cabin

were dancing with their elegant geometric screen-

saver patterns, the stars outside burned with then-

distant fire, Vega 4 was a ruddy glow before her, some-

one was chattering between Vega 4.3 and 4.2 about

Central synthsilk fashions. Someone else was crying

into a satellite link....

 

And Simeon was still talking. "Levin." The databits

transmitted like a whisper. "His name wasn't CL-740.

His name was Levin, and he was my friend."

 

86

 

At Vega 4.2, Governor Thrixtopple and his family

spilled aboard Nanria like a pack of cruise passengers,

dropping their luggage anywhere for the patient ser-

vants who followed to pick up, commenting loudly on

any feature of Nancia's interior that caught their

attention.

 

"Hey! Look at these display screens!** The youngest

Thrixtopple, a weasel-faced brat in his early teens, lit

up on sight of the three wall-size display screens in the

central cabin. "Sis, where's my SPACED OUT hedron? I

could play all the way home — "

 

"/don't have to keep track of where you drop all

your junk," his older sister whined. "Mama, there's

only one storage bin in my cabin. My Antarxian ruffe

will get all wrinkled!"

 

"Who cares? They still won't make any difference to

your ugly face!" Thrixtopple Junior stuck out his

tongue at his sister. She hurled a globe of something

pink and slushy at him; he ducked out of the way and

Caleb caught the globe in a neat one-handed catch.

 

"Now, kiddies," Thrixtopple Senior mumbled,

"mustn't upset your mother or the servants." He held

out one skinny hand to receive the pink globe his

daughter had thrown; glance and gesture included

Caleb among those "servants." Nancia bristled. He

might not be her official brawn, she might still have

her reservations about the way Psych was trying to

throw the two of them together for the convenience of

CenCom, but Caleb was still a trained brawn and

deserving of more respect than that!

 

"Governor Thrixtopple, I'm afraid I will have to ask

all of you to enter your personal cabins and strap

down for lift-off now," Caleb said tonelessly.

 

"Already? Why, these clumsy servants haven't begun

to unpack for me yet! I'm not nearly ready to send

them away!" Trixia Thrixtopple complained without a

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

87

 

word of gratitude or fere well to the servants who had,

presumably, waited on her through the twenty years

of Governor Thrixtopple's service. It was dear where

her daughter had learned that penetrating whine.

 

"My apologies, ma'am," Caleb said, still without any

inflection that they could react to, "but I am bound by

regulations. Section 4, subsection 4.5, paragraphs ii to

iv. Courier Service ships are not permitted to dally for

any reason; a prolonged stop here could upset urgent-

ly needed communications elsewhere."

 

He personally escorted the Thrixtopple family to

their bunks and made sure each of them was secured

against the high-grav stresses of lift-off. Nancia kept

the cabin sensors open to double-check every move,

but Caleb made no mistakes.

 

Once the passengers were strapped down and their

luggage stowed, Caleb returned to the central cabin

and waved one hand towards the door. "Would you

close us off, please, XN?" He sighed with exaggerated

relief. "If only we could keep them out of here for the

entire flight. People like that are a disgrace to Vega.

Why, they didn't even have the manners to greet you!"

 

"Neither did the passengers I took on the way out,"

Nancia told him. "I was beginning to feel invisible."

 

"Not to me," Caleb told her. His eyes scanned the

entire cabin with a look of longing that surprised Nan-

cia. "Never to me.... If I don't get a new assignment,

this could be my last voyage on a brainship. And we

had to be saddled with these, these ..." He threw up

his hands as though words failed him.

 

"It is a pity," Nancia agreed, "but there's no reason

we can't be professional about doing our jobs, is

there?" While she made conversation with Caleb, she

was rapidly reviewing the volumes of Courier Service

regulations with which her data banks had been

loaded upon commissioning. There should have been

something in the third megahedron.... Ah, there it

 

88    Anne McCaffreytf Margaret BaU

 

was. Precisely what the situation called for. But she

wouldn't mention it now. Caleb was eager to escape

the surface of Vega 4.2 before the Thrixtopple family

started complaining about their restraints, and she

couldn't blame him.

 

In deference to Caleb's weakened condition, Nanria

made this lift-off as slow and gentle as she could. After

all, it wasn't his fault that Psych Central was practically

forcing their personal codes into one datastream. And

she didn't want to kill the man on the way home.

 

When they entered freefall again, Caleb unlatched

himself from the support chair and moved about the

cabin with none of the languor he'd shown after the

previous lift-off. "Being gentle with the civilians?** he

inquired. "I seem to recall that you can lift consider-

ably fester than that when you're so inclined, XN."

 

"I... um... I didn't see any need to hurry," Nancia

muttered. Damn the man! Too stiff-necked to admit

that he, too, could benefit from a slightly gentler

takeoffl

 

Caleb looked faintly amused. "No. Considering that

now there's no excuse to keep them strapped in, and

we'll probably have the brats in our laps until you

reach Singularity.... I wouldn't have wanted to hurry,

either."

 

As if on cue, the Thrixtopple boy punched through

the iris-opening of the door. Nancia winced at the

damage to her flexible membranes. She left the door

iris open so that Governor Thrixtopple, proceeding

down the corridor at a stately pace behind his son,

wouldn't inflict further violence on her.

 

"Ok, we're in space now, lemme play with the com-

puter!" the boy demanded.

 

Nancia slid her datareaders shut as the boy ap-

proached and deliberately blanked her screens. Tm

sorry, young sir. Courier Service Regulations, volume

XVIII, section 1522, subsection 6.2, paragraph

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

89

 

mcmlii, strictly prohibit allowing unauthorized pas-

sengers access to the ship's computer or free

movement within the central cabin. The prohibition is

intended as a protection against illegal interference

with Courier Service property."

 

"Hear now, you — you talking shell, that's not

meant to apply to people like us!" Governor Thrixtop-

ple blustered as he entered the cabin.

 

"The official orders which were transmitted to me

by CenCom at the beginning of this voyage make no

reference to your family, Governor Thrixtopple,**

Nancia replied. She paused slightly between words

and gave her voice a slight metallic overtone to make

the Thrixtopples feel they were talking to a machine

that could not be threatened or bribed. "I am not

myself authorized to change such orders save on direct

beam from Central Command.**

 

"But Vega Base told you to ferry us to Central!"

 

"And I am always happy to do my good friends at Vega

Base a favor," Nancia replied. "Nevertheless, it is not in

my power to change regulations. Should Central Com-

mand retroactively authorize you to access my

computers, I will—retroactively — permit you to have

done so. In the meantime, I must request that you return

to your personal cabin areas. I should be reluctant to en-

force the order, but you must know that I retain the

power to flood all life support areas with sleepgas,"

 

Governor Thrixtopple grabbed his son's collar and

dragged him out of the central cabin. The iris of the

door membrane slid together.

 

"That," said Caleb reverently, "was brilliant, XN.

Positively brilliant. Ah — I suppose there is such a

regulation?"

 

"Of course there is! You don't think I'd IwT

 

"My deepest apologies, ma'am. It was only that I

had no personal recollection of the paragraph in

question—"

 

90

 

Anne McCaffivy & Margaret Ball

 

**I understand that softperson brains are quite

limited in their storage and retrieval powers," Nancia

said loftily. Then she relented. "It took me several

minutes of scanning to find something applicable,

actually. And I never would have thought of it if you

hadn't quoted regulations to get them out of here

before lift-off."

 

"If it weren't for meals," Caleb reflected aloud, "we

wouldn't have to speak to them again all the way back

to Central...."

 

"I have the capacity to serve meals from any room in

the living quarters," Nancia informed him. Unlike the

older models ... She cut that thought offbefore voicing

it. It would be sheer cruelty to remind Caleb of what he

had lost

 

"Okay, XN, try this one." Caleb manipulated the

joyball to bring up a display of a double torus contain-

ing two simple dosed curves. Three disks labeled Al,

B, and A2 contained sections of the torus. "You're in

Al; A2 is your target space. Find the Singularity points

and compute the decompositions required."

 

"No fair," Nancia protested. "It's never even been

proved that there is a decom sequence that'll navigate

that structure. Satyajohi's Conjecture." She quoted

from her memory banks, "If h is a homeomorphism of

E3 onto itself that is fixed on E3 — T, need one of

h(Jl), h(j2) contain an arc with four points of A+B

such that no two of these points which are adjacent on

the arc belong to the same one of A and B? If so, the

decomposition space H does not yield E3, And in this

application," she reminded Caleb, "E3 is equivalent to

normal space."

 

Caleb blinked twice. "I didn't expect you to know

Satyajohi's Conjecture, actually. Still — let me point

out, XN, it's only a conjecture, not a theorem."

 

"In one hundred and twenty-five years of deep-

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

91

 

space mathematics it's never been disproved," Nancia

grumbled.

 

"So? Perhaps you'll be the first to find a counter-

example.''

 

Nancia didn't think there was much point in even

trying, but she set an automatic string-development

program to race through the display, illuminating

various possible Singularity paths as lines of brilliant

blue light, then letting them fade out as the impos-

sibility of one after the other was proved. There was

something else on which she very much wanted

Caleb's advice, and now — with the Thrixtopple fami-

ly intimidated into staying in their cabins, and Caleb in

as good a mood as she'd ever seen him after his

demonstration of Satyajohi's Conjecture — now was

the best time she could have to bring it up.

 

"I haven't been commissioned very long, you know,

Caleb," she began.

 

"No, but you're going to be one of the best," Caleb told

her. "I can see it in the way you handle little things. I

wouldn't have thought of finding a regulation to get the

Thrixtopples out of our hair. And I don't think I'd have

tested Satyajohi's Conjecture the way you're going about

it right now, either." Two possible Singularity lines

flashed bright blue and then vanished from the screen as

he spoke, while a third snaked through Al and into the B

disk around the double torus.

 

"Some things," Nancia said carefully, "get more

complicated than that. In mathematics a conjecture

either is or isn't true."

 

"The same is true of Courier Service Regulations,"

Caleb pointed out

 

"Yes, well... not everything. They don't tell you

what to do if a brainship happens to hear her pas-

sengers making illegal plans."

 

"If you've been eavesdropping on Governor Thrix-

topple in his cabin," Caleb said sternly, "that's a

 

92

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Batt

 

dishonorable action and I hereby formally request you

to stop it immediately."

 

"Oh, I haven't," Nantia assured him. "But whatif—

if a brainship had some passengers who didn't know

she was sentient, and they liked to sit in the central

cabin and play SPACED OUT, and they just happened

to discuss some possibly illegal plans while they were

doing it?"

 

"Oh — a hypothetical case?" Caleb sounded

relieved, and Nancia felt the same way. At least he

hadn't guessed immediately, as Simeon had, that she

was talking about her own previous experience.

Everything Nancia had learned or seen of Caleb—the

newsbeams of his heroic solo return to Vega, the

dedication with which he put himself through a gruel-

ing exercise program, his respect for Courier Service

regulations — made her think of him as a man of

supreme integrity, one whose word she could trust

under any circumstances. She would not have wanted

to hear him laugh at her as Simeon had done, or sug-

gest — as Simeon had done — that her own actions in

this instance had been morally culpable.

 

"Well, in such a case—if it ever arises — you should

remember that a sentient ship is morally obliged to

identify herself as such to her passengers at the first

opportunity."

 

"That's not in the regulations," Nancia defended

herself against a charge Caleb didn't know he had

made.

 

"No, but it's common sense. Anything else would be

like — like me hiding in a closet to catch Governor

Thrixtopple counting his ill-gotten gains from bribes

while in public office." Caleb said this with so much

disgust in his voice that Nancia shrank from pursuing

die subject.

 

So, evidently, did Caleb. He looked up at the central

display screen, where a network of dim gray lines

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

93

 

showed Nantia's repeated attempts to compute a path

of Singularity points through the topological con-

figuration he'd defined.

 

"Let's just take it that Satyajohi's Conjecture is

upheld in this particular case," he suggested, "and

now it's your turn to put up a problem. I don't know

why we're discussing hypothetical ethical problems

that are never likely to arise when we could both be im-

proving our Decom Math skills. Nor do I understand

why — " He bit his lip and blanked out the screen with

a swift roll of the joybalL

 

"Why what?" Nancia asked.

 

"Your turn to pose a problem," Caleb reminded her.

 

"Not until you finish that sentence."

 

"All rightl I don't understand why you're asking for

ethical guidance from a brawn whose greatest achieve-

ment to date has been the loss of his first ship!" Caleb

bit out the words with a frustrated savagery that

aroused Nancia's sympathy. She remembered

Simeon's grief for his lost friend Levin, the CL-740.

How stupid she had been.

 

"I'm sorry," she told Caleb. "1 should have realized

that discussing such issues would remind you of Levin.

Do you miss him so very much?"

 

Caleb sighed. "It's not that, XN. Levin was a good,

competent brainship, and he trained me when I was a

new brawn, and I'll always owe a debt of gratitude to

him. But we weren't — we never just talked, like this,

you know? Five years I served with him, and I don't

feel I ever really got to know him. No, I'm not in

mourning for Levin. But he had a right to look for-

ward to hundreds more years of service, and I lost him

that time. And I myself had rather hoped to spend

more than five years as a brawn."

 

"You may yet," Nancia pointed out. "Just because

you haven't got a ship assignment yet—"

 

"And what brainship is going to accept the brawn

 

94

 

Atme McCaffrey 6? Margaret BaH,

 

who let the CL-740 die?" Caleb snapped back. "You

yourself have made that little point tolerably dear, XN.

Now drop it Next problem, pleasel"

 

Nancia started transmitting to CenCom — on a

private beam — the moment she exited Singularity

and entered Central Worlds subspace. She wanted to

have everything arranged, with no possibility of argu-

ment, before Caleb was ready to leave the ship.

 

All proceeded as planned. Dahlen Rahilly, her Ser-

vice Supervisor, requested permission to enter even

before the Thrixtopple family had gathered their

numerous items of luggage and departed.

 

"Arrogant snit," Rahilly commented as they

watched the last of Governor Thrixtopple's bony

shoulders through Nancia's ground viewport. "He

could at least have credited you with a bonus for doing

him the favor of this quick transport home."

 

"I didn't expect it," Nancia replied with perfect truth.

The only bonus she expected—or wanted — was sufl in

his cabin, using the cabin comm board to enter a job ap-

plication letter that somehow kept getting wiped from his

personal file storage area. This was his third attempt, and

Nancia could tell by the emphatic way Caleb's voice

snapped out the words for the dictaboard that he was

losing patience. If she didn't get matters settled soon, he

would quit trying to use the ship's comm system and

make his application personally, at CenCom offices. And

that wouldn't suit her at all.

 

"Well... there will have to be a few changes. Paper-

work," Rahilly said. "We ... weren't expecting this,

you know, XN. In feet, VS at Vega seemed quite cer-

tain that you had formally refused the assignment"

 

"He ... may have misinterpreted my words," Nan-

cia said demurely. "How soon can it be arranged?"

Shellcrack! While she was talking to Rahilly, Caleb had

managed to dictate the complete text of his application

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

95

 

letter. He was getting ready to transmit it to CenCom.

That mustn't happen... not yet Nancia shut down all

outgoing beams at once.

 

"Oh, we can finish the paperwork in a day. If you're

sure that's what you want?"

 

"I am," Nancia said firmly. There was another party

to be consulted, but Rahilly didn't seem to think that

would be necessary.

 

Caleb stalked into the central cabin, brows drawn

together. "XN, what do you mean by shutting down

my beam to CenCom?"

 

"Your beam?" Nancia replied. "Oh, dear. All my ex-

ternal beams seem to have lost power for a moment"

 

"Well have a tech out to fix the malfunction imme-

diately," Rahilly promised.

 

"Oh... I don't think that will be necessary," Nancia

told him. "I've been investigating while we talk, and I

believe I have found the source of the problem. It

should be easy enough to correct internally." All she

needed to do was reopen the power gate....

 

"Very well, CN-935." Rahilly sketched a Service salute

in the general direction of Nancia's titanium column,

"The remaining paperwork will be completed within the

day, and then you and Brawn Caleb will be requested to

hold yourselves ready for a new assignment—there was

one pending, actually; Central wiU be happy not to have

to wait while you choose a brawn."

 

He left as soon as the last word was snapped out,

and Nancia was grateful for that. Caleb was staring

around the cabin with an expression she could not

read. If he was going to be angry with her for going be-

hind his back, she'd just as soon have it out in private.

 

"I... don't understand," he said slowly. "You aren't

waiting to choose a new brawn? You're going to go out

solo again?"

 

"Hardly that," Nancia told him. "I've had enough of

solo voyages, thank you very much; I find that I much

 

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AnmMcCaffrey & Margaret Ba&

 

prefer to travel with a partner."

 

"Then..."

 

"Didn't you hear the man? From now on I'm the

CN-935. I've decided that Psych Central was right,"

Nancia said. It was a struggle to keep her voice projec-

tions calm and even. "We make a very good team."

 

Caleb was still speechless, and Nancia felt her one

fear approaching.

 

"If... if that's all right with you?"

 

"All right, all right, all rigktl" Caleb exploded. "The

woman gives me back my life — and with the perfect

brain partner—and she wants to know if it's all right? I

— Nancia — oh, wait a minute, would you? There's

something I've got to take care of before you restore

external beam transmissions."

 

He hurried off to his cabin, presumably to erase the

job application letter that had taken so long to create,

and Nancia permitted herself a small coruscating dis-

play of stars and comets across her three wide screens.

It was going to be all right.

 

More than all right. "Nancia," she repeated to her-

self. "He finally called me Nancia."

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

Angalia, Central Date 2750:

Blaize

 

Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc stared in dis-

belief at his new home as the exit port of the XN-935

slid shut behind him. The mesa top that had served

Nancia as a landing field was the only level bit of solid

ground in sight. Behind the mesa was a wall of crumb-

ly, near-vertical rock that rose in jagged peaks to block

out the morning sun. The long black shadows of the

mountains fell across the mesa and down into a sea of

oozing glop that looked like the Quagmire of Despair

as displayed in the latest version of SPACED OUT. The

only variation in the brownish sea was that at a few

locations large, lazy bubbles rose from the glop and

burst with a sulfurous stink.

 

At the very edge of the mesa, cantilevered

precariously out over the Quagmire of Despair, was a

gray plastifilm prefab storage facility. Bulging brown

sacks stenciled with the initials of Planetary Technical

Aid hung from hooks on one side of the shack, dan-

gling right out over the sea of glop. On the side of the

shanty nearest Blaize, the plastifilm roof had been ex-

tended with some sort of woven fronds to create a

sagging awning. Beneath this awning lounged an im-

mensely fat man wearing only a pair of sweat-stained

briefs.

 

Blaize sighed and picked up the nearest two pieces

of his kit. Staggering slighdy under a gravity consider-

ably higher than ship's norm, he made his way

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

towards the obese guardian of Angalia.

 

"PTA tech-trainee Armontillado-Perez y Medoc,

sir," he introduced himself. Who is this guy? He's got to be

one of the corydum miners. They're the only humans on An-

gatia — except, of course...

 

"And the top of the morning to you, Sherry, me lad,"

- said the sweating man-mountain cordially. "Never was

so glad to see anybody in m'life. Hope you enjoy the

next five years here."

 

"Ah — PTA Grade Eleven Supervisor Harmon?"

Blaize hazarded. Except my new boss.

 

A richly alcoholic wheeze almost knocked him off his

feet. "You see anybody else around here, kid? Who

d'you think I am?"

 

"The corytium mine — "

 

"Dead. Defunct Abandoned. Kaput, all gone splash,

stinko," Grade 11 Supervisor Harmon said with relish.

"Went bust. Owner sold the mine to me for a case of

spirits before he pulled out."

 

"What went wrong?"

 

"Labor. Company couldn't keep miners here for

love nor money. Not that they offered much love —

even a corycium miner ain't desperate enough to try

and get it on with a Loosie, heh, heh, heh." Another

wave of alcohol-flavored breath washed over Blaize.

 

"Loosie?"

 

"Homosimlis Lucilla Angalii to you, m'boy. The veg-

heads Lucilla Sharif discovered, damn her soul, and

reported as possibly intelligent on the FCF, double-

damn her, and for her sins we're stuck administering

Planetary Technical Aid to a bunch of walking zuc-

chini. All the company I've had since they closed the

mine. And aHyou'U have for the next five years. Next

PTA transport comes by here is taking me off-planet."

Harmon looked enviously at the sleek length of the

XN-935, her tip now gleaming in the sun that peeked

over the jagged mountains. "Nice perks you High

 

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Families kids get, transport like that. I don't suppose

you could persuade that brainship — "

 

"I doubt it," Blaize said.

 

Harmon chortled. "No, didn't much sound like it,

way you come out yelling and screaming over your

shoulder, with it dumping your luggage after you. You

musta pissed it off real handsome. No matter. Next

PTA shipment oughta be along any day now. And

when it comes, my new assignment should be ready."

He stretched luxuriously, took a deep drink from the

bottle beside him, and sighed with anticipated content-

ment. "Reckon I've earned myself a nice long tour of

duty on Central, in a nice office tower with air con-

ditioning and servos and no need to pay any bloody

attention to bloody nature unless you happen to feel

like looking out the window. Sit down, Madeira-y-

Perez, and don't look so miserable. Do your five years

and maybe they'll post you back in civilization. You're

in luck, coming when you did."

 

"I am?" The sun was over the mountain by now, and

it was hot on the mesa. Blaize pulled his largest grip

under the shade of the awning and sat down on it

 

"Sure. Today's feeding time at the zoo. Put on a real

show for you, the Loosies will." Harmon waved again,

this time as if beckoning the cliff that towered above

them to come on down. Blaize stared in shock as crag-

gy bits of mountain broke loose and trickled down to

the mesa top, shambling like crazy puppets made of

rocks and wire. Strange costumes — no, they were

naked; that was their skin he was looking at.

 

"Yaohoo! Feeding time! Whoeel" Harmon yodeled,

simultaneously jerking the cord that ran along the side of

the PTA prefab. One of the sacks overhanging the muddy

basin opened and brownish-gray ration bricks spilled out

in a torrent, piling up in the mud below the mesa,

 

The Loosies scurried to the edge of the mesa and let

themselves down into the muddy sea, fingers and toes

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

clinging to crevices in the rocks. The first ones down

threw themselves on the ration bricks as if they were

greeting a long-lost lover; the later arrivals piled on

top of them, swinging uncoordinated limbs and wrig-

gling to burrow into the muddy heap of rations.

 

Blaize felt a rumbling vibration coming up through

the soles of his feet.

 

"Look out!" Harmon roared.

 

Blaize jumped and Harmon chuckled. "Sorry to

startle you, kid. You wouldn't want to miss the other

big show of Angalia." He pointed to the western

horizon.

 

It seemed to be moving.

 

It was a wall of water. No, mud. No — Blaize strug-

gled for the right word and could only find the one

that had first occurred to him: glop.

 

The "Loosies" had ignored Harmon's shout as if

they were deaf, but something — perhaps the rum-

bling vibration that Blaize felt — alerted those still at

the bottom of the quagmire. They swarmed up the

sides of the mesa, clutching their ration bricks in teeth

and fingers. The last one got out of the way just before

the advancing tide of glop struck the mesa.

 

The whole desperate, squirming consumption of

ration bricks had taken place in total silence. Now, less

than three minutes later, it was over and the mesa was

surrounded by a sucking, slimy tide of glop. As Blaize

watched, the tide receded, sliding back down the sides

of the mesa until the new mud melted into the same

soggy configuration of puddles and bubbles that had

greeted him on arrival.

 

"That was a small one," Harmon said with regret.

"Oh, well, there'll likely be some better ones before

you go. Bound to be, in feet."

 

In response to Blaize's questions he explained,

without much interest, that the erratic climatic pattern

of Angalia produced a constantly moving band of

 

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thundershowers in the mountains which surrounded

this central basin. Whenever the storms stayed in the

same place for a while, the rainfall built up into a flash

flood which raced across the plain, picking up mud as

it went, and sweeping away anything that might be

foolish enough to remain in its path.

 

"Terraforrning," Blaize mused. "Dams to catch the

rainfall and release it slowly..."

 

"Expensive, and who'd bother? Nothing here to

repay the investment. Besides," Harmon explained,

"it's fun. Damn sure ain't much else to watch out

here!"

 

Blaize gathered that one of Harmon's amusements

was trying to predict the times of the mud-floods so

that he could feed the natives just before one, forcing

them to scramble first for ration bricks and then to save

themselves from the tide of mud.

 

"Ain't it the damnedest thing?" he demanded as the

rock-like natives climbed back to their mountain

heights, some clutching a few ration bricks for later

consumption, some still chewing the last mouthfuls of

their haul. "You ever see anything like it?"

 

"Never," Blaize admitted. Are the — the Loosies starv-

ing'? Is that why their skin hangs loose like that? Or is that their

normal appearance ? And how does this fat creep get away tuith

putting them through sitch a degrading performance1?

 

"I know what you're thinking, Port-Wine-y-Medoc,"

the fat man said, "but wait'll you've done six months

out here, you'll forget all the PTA regs about respect-

ing the natives' dignity and all that crapola. Damned

Loosies don't have any dignity to respect, anyway.

They're a bunch of animals. Never developed agricul-

ture —or clothing—or even language."

 

"Or lies," commented Blaize.

 

"What?" For a moment Harmon looked startled,

then he chuckled and wheezed with amusement.

"Righto. No language, no lies — gotta say that for

 

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Arme McCaffrey & Margaret BaU

 

them, anyway! But they're ootpeople, young Claret-

Medoc. Waste of resources, this whole operation —

some paperpusher's mistake. Only encourages the

veg-heads to breed more little veggies. We oughta pull

outa here and let 'em starve on their own, /ask me."

 

"Maybe they could be trained to work the mine,"

Blaize suggested.

 

Harmon snorted. "Yeah, sure. I did hear about

some prisoners in olden times who amused themselves

trying to train their pet rats to run errands. You could

do that sooner'n you could teach a Loosie anything,

kid. I tell you, there's just three amusements on An-

galia: feediri time for the Loosies, drinkin' time for me,

and playing computer games. And I've mapped every

damn level of the Maze of the Minotaur so many times

I can't stand to look at it no more."

 

Blaize felt in his pocket The datahedron recording

the wager wasn't the only item he'd copied from

Nancia's computer. "Does your computer—"

 

"Yours now, Sake-ArmontUlado," Harmon inter-

rupted with a cheerful belch. "PTA issue.**

 

"Does it have enough memory and display graphics

to run SPACED OUT? Because," Blaize said, "I just hap-

pen to have a copy of the latest version here.

Pre-release — it's not even on sale at Central yet" He

winked at Harmon.

 

"Is that so!" Harmon oozed to his feet "C'mon in-

side, Burgundy-Champagne. Pass the time in a li'l

friendly game until my transport gets here.** He

scratched his bare chest, squinting at Blaize with the

rudiments of a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Have to name some stakes, of course. No fun playing

for nothing."

 

"My sentiments exactly,'' Blaize agreed. "Lead the way.*1

 

Five days later, exactly as scheduled, the PTA

transport touched down to deliver new supplies and

to pick up Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon for the

 

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103

 

months-long FTL journey to his new assignment.

Blaize remained behind with the Loosies and his

winnings: two partially depleted cases of Sapphire

Ruin, Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon's hand-woven

palm-frond sun hat, and the title to an abandoned

corycium mine.

 

Deneb Subspace, Central Date 2750:

Nancia and Caleb

 

"That," said Caleb as he and Nancia left Deneb

Spacebase, "was one of our more satisfying

assignments."

 

"Out of a grand total of two?" Nancia teased him.

But she agreed. Their first scheduled run out of

Central, delivering medical supplies to a newly settled

planet, had been worthwhile but hardly challenging.

And they had both been apprehensive about this as-

signment: transporting some semi-retired general,

another High Families representative, into the middle

of a particularly nasty conflict between Central Worlds

settlers and Capellan traders. But General Micaya

Questar-Benn had proved completely different from

the spoilt High Families children Nancia had taken

out to Vega subspace on her first assignment. Short,

competent, unassuming, the general had won Caleb's

heart at once with her in-depth knowledge of Vega's

complex history. She'd proceeded to spend much of

the short run to Deneb subspace talking shop with

Nancia; half the general's body parts and several

major organs were cyborg replacements, and she was

interested in the possibility of improving her liver

functions with one of the newer metachip implants

such as kept Nancia's physical body healthy within its

shell. Nancia had never envisioned herself discussing

something so personal with anybody, let alone a high-

ranking army officer, but something about General

Questar-Benn's unassuming manner made intimate

 

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Asms McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

talk unthreatening and easy.

 

Nanria wasn't too surprised to learn that before she

and Caleb had even prepared for the return journey,

General Questar-Benn had drawn human and Capellan

antagonists into negotiations and worked out a settle-

ment that would allow each side to feel they had "won."

 

"And here I thought we were warmongering,

delivering somebody with authority to send in the

heavy armored divisions!" Caleb went on.

 

Nancia chuckled. "The galaxy could do with a few

more 'warmongers' like Micaya Questar-Benn. Ready

for Singularity, partner? Central should have a new as-

signment for us by now."

 

Bahati, Central Date 2751:

Alpha

 

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong stared down in distaste at

the writhing body of her experimental subject. What

had gone wrong? The molecular variations of Blissto

which she'd been preparing should have rendered the

patient calm and tractable. Instead he was contorting

his limbs and moaning uncontrollably, trying to break

the restraint straps on his stretcher.

 

Alpha tightened the straps until the patient stopped

thrashing and passed a medscanner over his forehead.

She frowned at the results. Instead of generating

soothing hormones, Blissto.Rev.2 was invading and

replicating itself within the man's nervous system like a

cancer gone wild.

 

"Damn! I haven't got time for this," she muttered.

Quickly she considered her options. If she could keep

the patient alive and in isolation for a few days, per-

haps she would be able to find out what was causing

this invasive replication and find a way to stop it. But if

anybody questioned her work —

 

The man's convulsions increased. One leg broke the

reinforced restraint strap and kicked out wildly.

 

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105

 

"Too dangerous," Alpha decided. She pressed a

hypospray to the man's neck and watched his body sag

back against the stretcher. His eyes rolled upwards and

the thrashing stopped.

 

So did all other movement.

 

Alpha had papers prepared for just such an emergen-

cy. Tlie clinic director was an old fool, too lazy to check

her reports; nobody else would dare to question her.

Charity Patient B.342.iv would be listed as having died of

heart feilure brought on by a preexisting medical condi-

tion which the clinic had not had time to reverse.

 

The only trouble was, that made the third such

death in the year since Alpha had begun testing her

improved version of Blissto. Sooner or later, if she

didn't get the drug dosage right, somebody was going

to notice the string of identical sudden-death reports

and ask questions.

 

Alpha seriously considered returning to ex-

perimenting on rabbits. But rabbit cages stank, and

taking care of the beasts was a lot of work, and there

was even more probability that somebody would ques-

tion her sudden interest in raising pets.

 

She'd just have to think up a few more excuses for

sudden deaths on the charity wing. A little variation in

the paperwork would help disguise these unfortunate

accidents.

 

Procyon Subspace, Central Date 2751:

Caleb and Nancia

 

"This is boring,'1 Nancia complained as she watched

workers on Szatmar II unload die cases of vaccine she

and Caleb had transported there.

 

"It is important to see that children's vaccinations

are kept up regularly," Caleb told her.

 

"Yes, but it's hardly an emergency. At least, it

wouldn't have been one if PTA would keep its records

up to date." A horrified bureaucrat had discovered

 

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Arme McCaffrey &? Mwgore* Ball

 

that some incompetent named Harmon, working out

of PTA on Central Worlds, had forgotten to ship last

year's supplies of vaccine to any PTA client planets in

the Procyon subsystem. In consequence, Nancia and

Caleb were getting an extended tour of that subsys-

tem, delivering measles and whooping-cough vaccine

to several dozen settlements on widely scattered

planets. "I've got a good mind to speak to my sister

about this idiot Harmon," Nantia grumbled. 'Jinevra

would never tolerate such inefficiency in her own

branch of PTA; maybe she can get Central to transfer

Harmon to a spot where he can't do any harm."

 

"Nancia, you wouldn't seriously consider using

your family connections for personal interest!"

 

Caleb sounded shocked. Nancia apologized imme-

diately. She hadn't realized that trying to get an

incompetent bureaucrat ousted came under the head-

ing of "personal interests." But Caleb was doubtless

right; he always was. And she felt quite guilty as he lec-

tured her about the consequences of being flighty and

expecting glamorous assignments. He was right about

that, too. Service loyalty demanded not only that she

go where she was needed, but that she do so willingly

and cheerfully.

 

Nancia closed her loading dock and tried to lift off

for their next vaccine delivery with a willing and

cheerful heart,

 

Bahati, Central Date 2752:

 

Darnel!

 

Darnell leaned back in his upholstered stimuchair

and activated the interoffice transmitter. "You may

send Hopkirk in now, Julitta mlovely."

 

"Oh, Mr. Overton-Glaxely!" Julitta's delighted gig-

gles came clearly through the transmitter. Darnell

activated the double display screens as well and en-

joyed two views of his secretary. The top screen

 

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107

 

showed her tossing her pretty yellow curls and preen-

ing with delight at his compliment; the lower screen

displayed her shapely legs, crossing and recrossing

restlessly beneath the desk. Darnell noted with

pleasure that J ulitta's petiskirt had ridden up almost; to

her waist Such a delightful, twitchy tittle girl.

 

Darnell considered Julitta, like the second display

screen and die vibrostim units in his executive chair and

the view of Bahati from his glass-walled executive office,

to be one of the perks appropriate co a Man Who Had

Made It He let Hopkirk wait awkwardly in front of his

desk while he contemplated with equal delight his own

rapid success, his immediate plans for Julitta, die view of

her legs in the lower display screen, and the fact that

Julitta didn't know about die second screen.

 

"Hopkirk, I've got a job for you," Darnell ordered.

"Productivity in the glimware plant dropped by three

thousandths of a percent last month, I want you to get

out there and send me a full report of any contributing

factors.''

 

"Yes, Mr. Overton-Glaxely," the man called Hopkirk

murmured.

 

"It's probably cumulative worker fatigue due to the

poor design of the assembly line," Darnell continued

Ah, that was better; a flash of pain crossed Hopkirk's

features. Six months ago the man had owned,

designed, and managed Hopkirk Glimware,

producers of fine novelty prismaglasses for the luxury

trade. And managed it damn poorly, too, Darnell

thought; the place would have gone bankrupt soon

enough anyway, even without his interference. Now it

was a profitable, if small, addition to Darnell's revital-

ized OG Shipping (and other) Enterprises.

 

"Questions, Hopkirk?" Darnell snapped as the man

remained standing instead of speeding to his task.

 

"I was just wondering why you did it diis way," Hop-

kirk said.

 

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ArmeMcCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

"Did it what way?"

 

Hopkirk shrugged. "You know and I know that

Hopkirk Glimware would have done all right if you

hadn't manipulated the Net to bring my stock prices

down and cut off my credit"

 

"That's a matter of opinion," Darnell told him.

"Admit it, Hopkirk. You're an engineer, not a

manager, and you didn't know how to run the com-

pany. It would have crashed eventually in any case. All

I did was help it along."

 

"But why do it this way? Why ruin me when you

could have bought the company for a fair price and

still made your profit?"

 

Darnell was pleased that the man didn't argue the

basic point He'd been an incompetent manager and

he knew it

 

"You're a brilliant businessman," Hopkirk went on.

"Look at how you turned OG Shipping around in just

a year!"

 

With a little help from my friends... Darnell quashed that

thought Sure, Polyon's ability to hack into the Net and

get advance information had been useful. But it was also

true that Darnell had discovered within himself a true

talent for efficiency. Cut out the deadwood! Fire the in-

competent, the lazy, and those who've merely foiled to get

results! And know everything! Those were DarnelTs new

mottoes. Those who'dbeen fired talked about the Reign

ofTerror. Those who hadn't been fired yet didn't dare to

talk. And OG Shipping prospered ... leaving Darnell

free to amuse himself again.

 

There was Julitta, of course. There were an infinite

number of JuHttas. But Darnell had discovered that no

number of willing girls could give him quite the thrill

of victory that his business manipulations brought

 

He regarded Hopkirk thoughtfully. The man

seemed to intend no offense; perhaps he honestly

wanted to understand the workings of Darnell Over-

 

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109

 

ton-Glaxel/s brilliant mind. A laudable impulse; he

deserved an honest answer.

 

"Sure, I could have done it straight," he said at last

"Would have taken a little longer. No prob. But," he

winked at Hopkirk, "it wouldn't have been as much

ftm... and that way I wouldn't have had you working

for me, would I? Get on with the job, Hopkirk. I've got

another assignment for you when you get back."

 

Now that he'd as good as admitted his illegal use of

the Net to Hopkirk, Darnell thought, the man had to

go. It had been fun to keep him around for a little

while, using him as a clerk and gofer, but one couldn't

risk disgrunded victims getting together to compare

notes. Once OG Glimware was taken care of, Darnell

would "reward" Hopkirk with a free vacation at Sum-

merlands Clinic. The Net revealed, among other

things, that Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's patients on the

charity side of Summerlands had an unusually high

death rate. He'd "suggest" to Alpha that it would be

convenient for both of them if Hopkirk never came

back from Summerlands. That way nobody would talk

about Darnell's use of the Net; and in return, he'd get

Polyon to fix the Net records so that nobody would

raise inconvenient questions about the number of

charity patients Alpha had lost

 

Achernar Subspace, Central Date 2752:

Caleb and Nancia

 

"I wonder if he'll really be able to resolve anything,"

Nancia said thoughtfully as she and Caleb watched

their latest delivery being greeted at Achernar Base on

Charon. The short, spare man whom they'd brought

halfway across the galaxy wasn't doing much to take

control of his first meeting with the Charonese offi-

cials. He was just standing there on the landing field,

listening to the speeches of welcome and accepting

bouquets of flowers.

 

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Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

"None of our business," Caleb reminded her.

"Central said, take Unattached Diplomatic Agent

Forister to Charon, and do it fast. They didn't say to

evaluate his job performance. And we've got another

assignment waiting."

 

"Don't we always?" But the little group of pompous

Charonese officials that surrounded Forister was

moving off now, leaving the spacefield clear for

Nancia's liftoff

 

"It's just that I like to feel we've accomplished some-

thing," she lamented as Caleb strapped down for

liftoff, "and I do feel this Charonese situation calls for

somebody a bit more ... more forceful." Somebody

like Daddy, for instance. With his brisk, no-nonsense

manner and willingness to enforce his decisions, Javier

Perez y de Gras would have made short work of

Charon's seven feuding factions, the continual war be-

tween the Tran Phon guerrillas and all seven

provisional governments, and the consequent

destruction of Charon's vital quinobark forests. He'd

have been using Nancia's comm facilities and working

the Net every minute they weren't in Singularity,

preparing for his descent on the Charonese, arming

himself with every last detail of the conflict, softening

up the principal offenders with stern warning

messages.

 

This Forister had spent the three days of the voyage

reading ancient books — not even disks, but some ac-

count of an Old Earth war too minor to have been

transcribed to computer-readable format. And when

he wasn't reading about this place called Viet Nam, he

wasted his time in relaxed, casual conversation with

her and Caleb, chatting about their families and

upbringing, their hopes and dreams. Too soft to stop a

war, Nancia thought contemptuously. Oh, well, Caleb

was right — the results were none of their business.

They were Courier Service; they went where they

 

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111

 

were sent, quickly and efficiently. Sticking around to

report on the failure of the resulting mission was not

in the CS job description.

 

Bahati, Central Date 2753:

Fassa

 

"You can't just leave me like this!"

 

Fassa del Parma y Polo paused at the door and blew

a mocking kiss at the gray-faced, potbellied man who

was looking at her with such pain in his eyes. "Watch

me, darling. Just watch me." She touched her left

index finger to the charm bracelet on her wrist.

There'd been an empty prismawood heart there, just

the right size to hold the minihedron recording this

stupid bureaucrat's sign-off on the Nyota ya Jaha

Space Station contract. "Our business is done." All

their business, including those boring maneuvers on

the man's synthofur rug. At least it hadn't taken too

long. These old guys had dreams of grandeur, but they

really couldn't do much when they did get the chance.

You're past it, sweetheart, and the future belongs to me. Some-

thing uncomfortable writhed under the triumphant

thought, some question as to why she exulted so much

in the moral destruction of a small-time civil servant

old enough to be her father; but Fassa pushed the

question away with the ease of long practice. She had

got what she wanted. It was as simple as that

 

"But we were going to live together. You were going to

quit this messy, unfeminine job, now that you've got

enough money to pay for your sister's metachip pros-

thesis, and we were going to retire to Summerlands..."

 

Fassa laughed out loud. "What, me? Spend my last

hundred years tending to some old man in a Summer-

lands retirement cottage? You've been popping too

much Blissto, my friend." She paused to let the rejec-

tion sink in before delivering her final warning. "And

don't even think about blowing the whistle on me.

 

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Arms McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

Remember, you've got more to lose than I have." She

always set it up that way.

 

There was an unwelcome surprise waiting for her

when she reached her offices. Two, in feet. One was

minor; some kid was slumped in the corner sackback

chair in the outer office, fiddling with forms. Employment

applications were supposed to be handled in a different

office; the kid should have been sent there to begin with.

 

Before she had time to point this out, her secretary

lowered his head and apologetically informed her that

Bahati CreditLin insisted on one more palmprint

before they would release the final payment for the

space station construction into her Net account. Just a

formality, the secretary quoted the CreditLin officials.

 

Fassa's brows snapped together as the man assured

her there was nothing to worry about. "Inspection?

What inspection? Everything's been passed and

signed by Vega Base." Or rather, by the befuddled old

fool she'd just left, who hadn't even bothered to take a

transport up to the station and walk its corridors in

person, much less assign a qualified engineer to the

task of a detailed structural inspection.

 

"That's what I told them," the secretary said, "and

I'm sure this will take no time at all, since Vega's en-

gineering division has already signed off on all the

main structural elements. Just a formality," he

repeated. "It seems there's been a new law passed;

CreditLin is obliged to send one of its own inde-

pendent inspectors to verify that our construction

meets standards before they can transfer the credits."

 

A new law... Damn! I thought all the Bahati Senators had

been paid off. Do I have to do everything myself?

 

Fassa suppressed the thought with a quick frown.

She'd deal with the legislature later. For now—so there

was one more fool of a man to deal with, to wheedle and

distract and please into forgetting the obvious checks that

would reveal her substandard materials. Annoying, that

 

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113

 

was all. She didn't like surprises. But it would, after all, be

one more minihedron to fill her charm bracelet

 

Fassa caught a flicker of movement in the corner, just

enough to distract her for a moment The kid in the sack-

back was stretching, rising out of the enveloping chair.

Notnow. Go away. I ^w other things to thJnkaboiU.

 

"Miss del Parma y Polo?"

 

Not such a kid; a man grown, older than she was

herself— but not by so very much. Fassa took in his

appearance with growing appreciation. Broad

shoulders, legs long enough to carry off his out-

rageously psychepainted Capellan stretchpants, black

hair and eyes whose blue was set offby slashing streaks

of ochre face paint. A pretty peacock of a man. Maybe I'll

hire him after all, even if he did bypass the employment office.

Who cares whether he can do anything? Keep him around just

to look at.

 

"I should introduce myself now, I guess." He smiled

down at her and enveloped her hand in his. "Sev

Bryley, chief inspector for Bahati CreditLin. I reckon

it'll be a pleasure working with you, Miss del Parma."

 

Cor Caroli Subspace, Central Date 2753:

Caleb and Nancia

 

Caleb slammed one fist into the opposite palm and

paced the width of the central cabin, growling deep in

his throat. He paused opposite a purple metalloy

bulkhead with silver-gilt stenciled borders and raised

his fist again.

 

"Don't even think about it," Nancia warned him.

"You'll only hurt your hand and damage my nice new

paint job."

 

Caleb lowered his fist. A reluctant smile twitched at

the corners of his lips. "Don't tell me you like the paint

job?"

 

"No. But it seemed suitable for our role. And I don't

wish to return to Central looking as if I'd been through

 

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Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

a clawing match with some of Dorg Jesen's popsies,

thank you very much."

 

They had been undercover for this mission, Caleb

posing as a debauched young High Families scion who

wanted a cut of Dorg Jesen's secret metachip supply. In

return, he was to have offered the feelieporn king secret

information on certain of his High Families customers.

 

"Could be dangerous," Rahilly had warned them,

back on Central Base. '[Jesen doesn't like awkward

questions. Try to keep the meetings on shipboard.

Nancia, you'll have to protect yourself and Caleb if

Jesen tries anything."

 

But they hadn't even lured Jesen into one ship-

board meeting. He'd taken one look at Caleb's vidcom

image, listened to Caleb's stiff delivery of the speech

he'd been assigned to make, and burst out laughing.

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on," he taunted Caleb.

"And next time Central decides to send someone to in-

vestigate me, tell them not to make it an Academy boy

with a Vega accent you could cut with a knife, in a

brainship with a tarted-up central cabin. If you're

High Families, I'll eat my..."

 

Nancia cut the sound transmission at that point.

 

"Perhaps," she said now, "undercover work is not

our metier"

 

"I hate lies and spying," Caleb confirmed moodily.

"We should have refused this mission." He looked up

with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Unless... did you

get anything?"

 

Nancia had used the brief minutes of the vidcom link

to insert feelers into Jesen's private computer system, so

private that it didn't even have a Net connection. Central

had surmised he might have such a system in addition to

the open accounts he maintained via Net, but nothing

could be checked until they arrived planetside.

 

"Nothing," she told him. "I did get into his supply

acquisition database, but all the metachips in the

 

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115

 

records there show perfectly legitimate Shemali Base

control numbers."

 

Caleb made a fist again. "Then you didn't get into

the right records. Somebody's counterfeiting

metachips, and Jesen could lead us to the source ...

could have led us. He must be keeping three sets of

books. Do you think if I got him on vidcom again..."

 

An incoming transmission reached Nancia, and she

activated her central display screen. Dorg Jesen's nar-

row face appeared. "Been doing a litde research of my

own," he announced, almost pleasantly. "Got your

Central ID now to add in to my report. CN-935, lift

your Courier Service tail fins offplanet in fifteen

minutes and we'll forget this episode ever happened.

Otherwise I'll file a formal complaint with CS, charg-

ing you and your brawn with entrapment.''

 

"You can't win them all," Nancia tried to soothe

Caleb when they were offplanet and on their way back

to Central. "We do many things well. Lying doesn't

happen to be among them, that's all." But fm lying,

right now, by saying nothing. Nancia made an internal

playback of the datacordings she'd made four years

earlier, on her maiden voyage. There was Polyon,

cheerfully announcing his plan to slip metachips past

the SUM board and sell them to unauthorized opera-

tions like Dorg Jesen's feelieporn empire. If only Caleb

knew what she knew, he could make a report to

Central that would send them straight to Shemali.

 

Except... he wouldn't do it In the four years of then-

partnership, Caleb had never once wavered or com-

promised his moral principles. He would never stoop to

using a datacording made without the knowledge or con-

sentofthe passengers. And he would neverrespectNancia

again,oncehe knew whatshe'd doneon thatfirstvoyage.

 

Sadly, Nancia ended the replay and slapped five

more levels of security classifications on the datacord-

ing. Caleb must never know. But there must be some

 

116

 

way to point Central's investigations towards Shemali,

to stop them thinking in terms of counterfeit

metachips and start them thinking about the prison

factory.

 

Shemali, Central Date 2754:

Polyon

 

Polyon slapped the palmboard built into his

armchair and activated a vidcom link with Bahati.

 

"Summerlands Clinic, Alpha bint Hezra-Fong,

private transmission, code CX22." That would

scramble his message so that only someone with the

CX22 decoding hedron would be able to see and hear

anything but gibberish. "Alpha, my sweet, you were

just a tad premature in announcing that you'd

finished your Seductron research. The free sample

you sent up has one of my key techs too blissed-out to

do any useful work. I've no idea when he'll stop con-

templating his toenails, so you'd better find out—and

fast Unless you want to be the next test subject." He

smiled sweetly into the vidcom unit. "I can arrange it,

you know."

 

The next message went to Darnell, using a similar

scrambling technique. In a few words Polyon in-

formed Darnell that IntraManager, the small

commlink manufacturing company Darnell was

presently trying to take over, was not to be touched.

"It's one of mine," he said pleasantly. "I'm sure you

wouldn't have made a takeover move if you'd known

that, would you now? By the way—did I show you the

latest vids of the metachip line?" A tap of his fingers on

the palmboard called up a datacording from the lowest

circles of Hell: suited and masked workers toiling amid

clouds of poisonous green steam. This was the last and

most dangerous phase of metachip assembly, when

the blocks between the polyprinted connection pat-

terns were burned off with a quick dip into vats of acid.

 

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117

 

The burn-off process released a gaseous form of

Ganglicide into the atmosphere. Before Polyon's time,

this phase had been handled — rather badly — by

automated servos that misjudged the depth and

timing of the burnoff phase, dropped metachip

boards, and quickly self-destructed in the poisonous

atmosphere. Expensive and wasteful. By contrast,

prison workers in protective suits could process more

than three times as many metachips in a session, and

only a few of them were lost each year to leaks in the

suit sealing.

 

"See the third man from the left, Darnell?" Polyon

spoke into the vidcom while the images unreeled. "He

used to be High Families. Now he's a Shemali assem-

bly worker. How are the mighty fallen, eh?"

 

He cut the connection on that — an implied threat

was ever so much more effective than a specific one.

Actually, Polyon had no idea who the masked workers

on the line might be. They were the scum of the prison

system, the expendables who had neither tech train-

ing nor business sense to justify keeping them in the

safer areas of design and preprocessing. And while

there was indeed a High Families convict on Shemali,

the man had been sent there for a particularly revolt-

ing series of crimes involving the torture of small

children. Polyon didn't really think he could frame

Darnell for something like that and make it stick;

anybody would see the rich boy didn't have the guts to

torture anybody.

 

But I won't need to, will I? The threat witt be enough to

keep old Darnell in line.

 

The last call was to Fassa. He was lucky enough to

catch her in person. Polyon enjoyed the sight of Fassa's

eyes widening while he explained in detail just how

unhappy he felt about the collapse of his new

metachip assembly building, how personally hurt he

was to discover that Polo Construction had supplied

 

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Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

 

the substandard materials used in the building, and

exactly what he might do to assuage his sense of loss

and betrayal. The only trouble with the live connec-

tion, Polyon thought, was that he didn't get to finish

outlining the list of things he could do to Polo Con-

struction as a company and to Fassa personally. Before

he was half through, she was stammering apologies

and practically begging to be allowed to rebuild the as-

sembly facility. Free of charge, naturally.

 

Polyon graciously accepted the offer.

 

Just one more item ofbusiness to clear up. "Send in

4987832," he commanded.

 

A few minutes later, a pale-faced man in the prison

uniform of green coveralls came into the office. He

gave Polyon a confident smile. "Thought it over, have

you?"

 

"I most certainly have," Polyon agreed. He smiled

and shrugged with palms outspread. "Can't say I'm al-

together happy about the idea — but I see you leave

me no choice. You're a clever fellow, 4987832- Who

were you, before?"

 

^ames Masson," the prisoner said. "Head of re-

search for Zectronics — you've heard of them? No?

Well, it's a large galaxy. But it so happens I personally

directed the metachip design effort there. That's how I

happened to recognize the changes you've introduced

in the chips."

 

"My hyperchips will be fester and more powerful

than die old metachips by at least two orders of mag-

nitude," Polyon said. "They'll revolutionize the

industry. It didn't take any genius to recognize that.

The genius was in figuring out how to do it."

 

"And that's not all the hyperchips will do, is it, de

Gras-Waldheim? Industry isn't the only thing about to

suffer a... revolution."

 

Polyon inclined his head slighdy. "YouTI have a glass

of Stemerald with me, to celebrate our arrangement?"

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

119

 

Masson's eyes widened and he licked his lips. "Why,

I haven't tasted Stemerald in — in — well, it must be

ten years! Not since I came here! I must say, de Gras-

Waldheim, I didn't think you'd take our little

arrangement so well."

 

Polyon's back was to Masson as he poured out the

Stemerald into two sparkling globes from OG GUmware.

 

"A lot of men would be petty about cutting me in on

the profits," Masson babbled on, accepting his globe

and draining it between words, "but that's you High

Families type, you know how to accept defeat gra-

ciously. And after all, giving me a small cut isn't much

when you think of what it would do to your plans if I

told Governor Lyautey about all the hyperchips'

programming." He swallowed the last drops of

Stemerald, ran his tongue round his lips once more to

savor the taste, then sat back with the slightly dazed ex-

pression of a man who'd just had his first strong drink

in ten years.

 

"As I said," Polyon repeated, "you leave me no

choice in the matter." He frowned quickly. "You have

honored your end of the agreement, haven't you,

Masson? No word to anyone else?"

 

"No word," Masson agreed. He spoke more slowly

now. "I wouldn't... want... anyone else .., cutting

in ..." His eyes glazed over and he sat staring into

space with a blissful smile on his face.

 

"Very good. Now, Masson, I have a special task for

you." Polyon leaned forward. "Hear and repeat! You

will go to the dip chambers."

 

"I... will... go... to... the... dip ... chambers,"*

Masson droned.

 

"I want you to make a surprise inspection. You will

not announce yourself."

 

"... not... announce... 'self."

 

"You do not need a protective suit."

 

Masson nodded and smiled. All the intelligence had

 

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Anne McCaffrey &? Mwgorrf Ban

 

left his face now. Polyon felt a twinge of regret. The

man had been brilliant; would be again, if the

Seductron wore off. He could have been a useful sub-

ordinate if he hadn't made the mistake of trying to

blackmail Polyon. But as it was ... well, there was no

point in waiting, was there? Damn Alpha. If she'd only

developed the controlled Seductron she kept promis-

ing, with doses ranging from ten-minute zaps to a state

of mindless, permanent bliss, there would be no need

for this last distasteful step.

 

Polyon finished his orders to Masson and snapped a

dismissal. "Go. Now!"

 

Masson stood unsteadily and left Polyon's inner of-

fice. Polyon sat back and began sketching a metachip

linkage plan with one forefinger, tracing glowing

paths across the design screen.

 

Five minutes later, his vidcomm lit up to show the

face of the afternoon shift supervisor. "Lieutenant de

Gras-Waldheim? Sir? There's been a terrible accident.

One of your designers just... the man must have

gone mad, he walked right into the dip room without a

suit... if only he'd knocked they could have kept him

waiting in the outer lock until the gases were cleared

out... they didn't even know he was there.... The

room was filled with Ganglicide in gaseous form, he

didn't have a chance...." Screams sounded in the

background. "Oh, sir, it's terrible!"

 

"A most distressing accident," Polyon agreed.

"Begin the paperwork, 567934. And don't blame

yourself. Sometimes it just takes them like that, you

know, the lifers. Better any death than a lifetime on

Shemali, they think, and who knows? Perhaps they're

right. Oh, sorry, 1 forgot — you're a lifer too, aren't

you?"

 

He didn't start laughing until the connection was

broken.

 

• CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Spica Base, Central Date 2754:

Caleb and Nancia

 

Nancia limped into Spica Base on half power, depend-

ent on Caleb for reports on the lower deck damage

where her sensors had self-destructed to preserve her

from shock when the asteroid struck them.

 

"Freak accident," commented the Tech Grade 7

who came out to survey the damage in person.

 

Nancia mourned the sleek gloss of her exterior finish,

now pitted and gouged around the torn metal shreds of

the entrance hole. "Ishould have takena different route."

 

"Freak ship." The tech snapped his IR-Sensor gog-

gles down, hiding his eyes behind a band of black

plastifilm. "Ain't natural. Ship talks, pilot don't."

 

"The correct terms, as I'm sure you are aware, are

'brainship* and 'brawn,' " Nancia said frostily. "Caleb

is... it's none of your business. Just leave him alone,

okay?" She'd seen him plunged into these unreason-

ing depressions before, whenever one of their

missions was less than one hundred percent success-

ful. He'd retreated into himself without speaking for a

week after the disastrous undercover assignment with

Dorg Jesen, while Nancia tried to tempt his appetite

with fancy dishes from the galley and interesting tid-

bits of news picked up from the gossipbeams.

 

"I'll need somebody at the other end to help me link

the hyperchips into the ship's system," the tech

protested. "Somebody who knows the ship. My guys

are good, but this is a small base. They ain't never

 

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Anne McCaffrey £*f Margaret Ball

 

worked on a talking ship before. And nobody's got that

much experience with hyperchips. They might not in-

terface with these sensor setups just like the old

metachips did."

 

"Then," said Nancia, "perhaps you should explain to

them that a talking ship can, in fact, talk. There's no need to

trouble my brawn for information; 111 manage the installa-

tion myself" She didn't feel nearly so cheerful and carefree

as she tried to sound; the thought of some dolt like this tech

fooling around with her synaptic connectors made her feel

sick and weak. But she did not want him bothering Caleb.

One thing she'd learned in the last four years of partner-

ship was that Caleb only stayed depressed longer ifhe was

forced to talk to people before he was ready to.

 

The tech grunted acquiescence and twiddled some-

thing she couldn't see, "Sensor connection to

OP-N1.15, testing."

 

"If you mean can I see what you're doing," Nantia

responded, "the answer is no."

 

The tech gaped but recovered himself quickly.

"Hah! OP-N1 series . . . optic nerve connections?

Sorry, lady — ship — whatever you are. What I'm

looking at, see, it's just schematics. 1 didn't think ..."

His voice trailed off for a moment. "Awesome, really,

when you think about it that way. That there's zperson

somewhere inside this steel and titanium."

 

"Correction," Nancia said. She was becoming used

to this tendency among softpersons; they insisted on

equating her with the body curled inside the titanium

column, as if that was all there was to her. "I am a per-

son. That's my lower deck vision you're twiddling with

now, and I'd very much like to have it — Thank you!"

A partial visual field opened as she spoke. Now she

could see the tech again, and one gloved hand reach-

ing up into the tangle of fused metal and wires that

had been her lower deck sensory system.

 

"OP-N 1.15 restored," the tech noted. "Now if— say,

 

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123

 

this is going to be easy. Don't need this stuff" He clipped

a test meter to his belt and used both hands to rejoin

severed wires. "OP-N1.16 functioning now? Good. 17?"

He worked through the full series rapidly, while Nancia

kept him informed of the status of each repair.

 

"Thank you," she said again when he'd restored her

full optic series for the lower deck. "It's... most trou-

bling, being unable to look at a part of myself"

 

"Imagine it would be," the tech agreed. "Glad to

help a lady, any time."

 

Nancia noted that in the course of one short repair

session she had advanced from "unnatural talking

ship," to "person" to, apparently, "lady in distress." By

the time the repairs are finished, he'll be wanting to sign up for

brawn framing... and most distressed to learn he's over age.

 

"And this is just the beginning," the tech promised.

"We'll have you fixed up good as new in a day or so.

Better than new, really. You had any hyperchips in-

stalled before? Thought not. They're — I dunno —

about a thousand times better than the old line

metachips. You're gonna like this, ma'am." His fingers

twisted, seating one of the new chips. It felt strange to

see the movements without feeling the slight pressure

and hearing the dick as the chip slid into place.

 

"Can you feel anything when I do this?"

 

"No—yes. Oh!"

 

"Hurt you?"

 

"No. Just — surprised." Nancia felt as if her sensors

had been turned up to full volume, without sacrificing

the slightest accuracy. Every movement was dear; the

world sparkled like crystal around her. "How many

more of those do you have? Can you replace my upper

deck sensor chips too?"

 

The tech shook his head regretfully. "Sorry, ma'am.

It's a new design out of Shemali. There's not enough

hyperchips out yet to go around to all the folks who

need them for repairs, let alone bringing in functional

 

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Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

equipment and retrofitting it. Shemali Plant estimates

it'll be a good three-four years before they can

produce enough to retrofit all the Fleet ships."

 

"Oh. Of course." Nancia remembered the plan

Polyon had described on her maiden voyage. "I sup-

pose," she said, feeling very crafty, "I suppose a lot of

the chips are failing QA tests? It being a new design,

and all," she added hastily.

 

The tech shook his head. "No, ma'am. Actually,

these new chips don't fail in testing near as often as the

old design. Pretty near the full production run is being

cleared for distribution, most times. It's just that even a

year's full production runs out of Shemali don't

amount to that much when you consider all the places

the chips have to go these days. It's not just the Fleet,

y'know. Hospitals, Base brains, cyborg replacements,

defense systems — seems like we just about couldn't

run the galaxy without "em!"

 

Nancia felt first disappointed, then relieved. She had

expected Co hear that the new design somehow caused a

great many metachips to foil in the QA phase and that

nobody knew what became of the substandard chips

rejected by the SUM ration board. That would have been

evidence she could mention to Caleb, something to steer

his mind in the direction of Polyon's illicit activities

without revealing that she already knew about the plan.

 

Instead, it seemed that Polyon had given up his plan

altogether. He was brilliant. Perhaps the hyperchip

design was his idea; and perhaps, Nancia thought op-

timistically, he had forgotten his original notion of

stealing metachips in favor of the honest pleasure of

seeing his design accepted and used galaxy-wide.

 

Angalia, Central Date 2754

 

The third annual progress meeting of the Nyota

Five was held on Angalia, an arrangement which

pleased no one — least of all the host

 

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125

 

"It was your idea to rotate the annual meetings,"

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong pointed out, somewhat snap-

pishly, when Blaize apologized for the primitive

accommodations. "We could have been comfortably

settled in a Summerlands conference room, but nooo,

you and Polyon had to fuss that it wouldn't be fair if

you two had to travel to Bahati every time just to suit

the three of us who had the good luck to be stationed

there. So we have to rotate. Two nice meetings on

Bahati, now this godforsaken dump, and next time,

stars help us, Shemali. You and your bright ideas!

Send someone to unpack for me — you must have

some help around the place, surely?"

 

" 'Fraid not," Blaize said with a sunny smile. He was

beginning to enjoy the prospect of Alpha's discomfort

on Angalia. Rotating the meeting sites had really been

Polyon's idea, not his, but Alpha was obviously afraid

to take out her bad temper on Lieutenant de Gras-

Waldheim. Blaize glanced sidelong at Polyon, very

straight and correct in his Academy dress blacks, and

admitted to himself that he didn't blame Alpha. Given

a choice of tongue-lashing the enigmatic technical

manager of Shemali MetaPlant, or the little red-haired

runt from PTA, who wouldn't choose to lash out at the

PTAwimp?

 

But this understanding didn't make him love Alpha

— or the rest of the Nyota Five, including himself—

any better.

 

"Welcome," Blaize said with a sweeping bow that in-

cluded all four of his guests, "to the Angalia Tourist

Center. A modest facility, as you can see — "

 

Darnell's snort of laughter testified to the truth of

that statement

 

" — but vastly improved from its humble begin-

nings," Blaize finished. "If the winner were to be

chosen on the basis of progress rather than of absolute

wealth, I'd have no doubt of succeeding next year."

 

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Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Ball

 

And that, by God, was the absolute and unvarnished

truth! The rest of them might sneer at Blaize's long,

low bungalow with its thatched roof and thatch-

shaded balcony, the garden of native ferns and grasses

and the paved path leading from there to the

corycium mine. Never mind. He knew what it had

taken to create these amenities from the mud-hole that

Supervisor Harmon had left him with.

 

"All done with native labor?" Fassa interrupted his

explanation. "But everybody knows the Loosies are

too stupid to do anything useful."

 

Blaize put one finger to the side of his nose and

winked, a gesture borrowed from an old tri-D show

called Fagm and His Gang. "Amazing what even a veg-

head can do with the proper... incentive," he drawled.

 

"Where d'you store the whips and spiked sticks?"

That was pudgy Darnell, bright-eyed as if he actually

expected Blaize to produce a panoply of torture in-

struments and demonstrate their use.

 

"You've no subtlety, Overton-Glaxely," Blaize

reproved the man. "Think. The — er — Loosies were

starving when I came here, kept alive only by PTA ra-

tion bricks. The task of distributing the ration bricks,

naturally, belonged to the PTA representative on An-

galia. Me."

 

"So?" Darnell really was amazingly slow. Not for the

first time, Blaize wondered how he'd made such a suc-

cess out of OG Shipping and the smaller corporations

that OG Enterprises had swallowed up over die years.

 

"So,** Blaize drawled, "I saw no reason togrw away

PTA ration supplements when they could perfectly

well be used to train the natives. We have a simple rule

of life now on Angalia, my friends — no work, no eat"

He pointed towards the entrance to the corycium

mine. "And it's not just applied to building the master's

bungalow. I hold the title to that mine. United

Spacetec abandoned it because they couldn't keep

 

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127

 

human miners on Angalia. / use the native resources

to mine the native resources, so to speak — you'll see

the day shift coming out in a few minutes."

 

"And you pay them with ration bricks, which come

free via PTA?" Alpha gave Blaize an approving smile

that chilled him to the bone. "I must admit, Blaize,

you're not as stupid as you look. Anything you make

from the corycium mine is profit, free and dear."

 

Blaize opened his mouth wide in simulated shock.

"Dr. Hezra-Fong! Please! I am deeply shocked and dis-

illusioned that you should think such a thing of me.

Any profits accruing from the corycium mine natural-

ly belong to the natives of Angalia." He waited a beat

before continuing. "Of course, since the natives of An-

galia do not have Intelligent Sentient Status, they can't

have bank accounts — so the credits do, perforce, go

into a Net account in my name. But held in trust for

the Loosies—you understand?"

 

The others chuckled knowingly and all agreed that

they did indeed understand, and that Blaize was a

clever lad to have found such a good way of covering

his tail in the event of a PTA inspection. All but Polyon

de Gras-Waldheim, who was tapping one finger

against the seam of his black trousers and staring at the

thunderclouds on the horizon.

 

"You've done pretty well, considering," Darnell ad-

mitted, "but with creatures as dumb as these, surely

you have — er — discipline problems?" He was get-

ting that whips-and-chains expression again.

 

"If he does, maybe regulated doses of Seductron

would be the answer," cooed Alpha. "I've just about

got the bugs worked out of the dosage schedule now,

and it might be interesting to test it on non-humans."

 

Blaize forced himself to smile. Time for his

demonstration. He'd planned it beforehand, in case

there was need to make an additional impression on

the others, but had hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

Messy, it would be. And wasteful. But apparently they

still weren't convinced of his firm control over the

Loosies.

 

"Thanks, Alpha, but Seductron wouldn't quite do

the trick; the Loosies are passive and malleable

enough already. What they need is occasional stimula-

tion, and that," he said with a low laugh, "that I can

arrange for myself." He raised one hand in the air and

brought it down with a swift chopping motion.

 

Two of the tall rock pillars beside the garden wall

moved forward in the shambling, awkward gait char-

acteristic of the Loosies. With movement, their

features and humanoid shapes could be clearly seen,

although until a moment earlier they had blended in

with the real stones making up the rest of the wall. Be-

tween them they hauled a third "rock," a native whose

double-jointed legs sagged under him and whose flap-

ping liplike folds of skin opened and closed with a

mimed display of silent terror.

 

"They may not talk," said Blaize, "but they've

learned to understand simple sign commands quite

well. Most of them have, anyway. This fellow in the

middle dropped a serving dish when he was waiting

on me at dinner yesterday. I've been saving him to

make an example of in front of the miners, but since

there's an audience here already" — he allowed his

eyes to roam lazily over his four co-conspirators —

"why wait any longer for the pleasure?"

 

He pointed over the side of the mesa with a

deliberate downward motion, three times repeated.

The two Loosie guards bobbed their square heads and

half carried, half dragged their prisoner over the edge.

 

"You make 'em throw themselves over the cliff?"

 

"Not at all," Blaize cackled. "Too fast, that'd be.

Come and watch!"

 

By the time everybody had crowded around the low

wall at the mesa's edge, the three Loosies were already

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

129

 

down on the mud flats, approaching one of the areas

where bubbles rose and burst in the glop with a stench

of sulfur. The two guards hauled the prisoner to the

edge of this bubbling area and thrust him into the soft

mud. As he writhed and struggled to escape, they

picked up the long sticks that had marked the site of

the bubbles and used them to thrust him back into the

steaming mud.

 

"Natural hot springs under there," Blaize ex-

plained. "Very hot. Takes a couple of hours to cook

'em through. Fortunately, the Loosies are real patient

Those two I use as guards will keep pushing him down

until he quits trying to get out, even if it takes most of

the evening."

 

He turned away from the spectacle of torture and

bowed once again to his guests. "Well, ladies and

gendemen," he inquired with a benign smile, "shall we

begin the business meeting?"

 

Even Polyon, Blaize noted, was pale against the

dead black of his uniform; while the other three were

shocked into silence. So much the better. It would be a

while, he thought, before any of them underestimated

little Blaize again.

 

After the shocking scene Blaize had just provided,

the third annual progress meeting began more quietly

than the previous meetings had gone. The underlying

tensions in the group were still present, however, and

all the sharper for another year's fermenting.

 

As host, Blaize claimed the honor of giving the initial

report While Polyon gazed over his head in unfeigned

boredom and the two girls sat pale and silent, he began

reciting facts and figures to back up his earlier assertions.

In earlier years he'd had little to report This year he was

at last coming into his own. He fancied a glimmer of

respect in Polyon's eyes as Blaize explained how he was

using the first profits from the corycium mine to finance

 

130

 

Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret BaU

 

the purchase of heavy mining equipment that would

open up even more of the planet for exploitation. Dar-

nell twitched and muttered to himself during this pan of

the report, but he didn't explode until Polyon pointedly

inquired as to how Blaize had financed the initial startup

costs of the mine.

 

"Reselling surplus PTA shipments," Blaize replied

prompdy.

 

"Dear me," commented Polyon, "I thought the —

ah — 'Loosies' were starving. Didn't this move reduce

your potential worker population somewhat?"

 

"Waste not, want not," Blaize waved his hand in

vague circles. "There's a lot of surplus in any

bureaucracy. I just — as you might say — cut the fat

out"

 

It was perhaps unfortunate that his eyes met

DarnelTs at this moment, and that the airy circles his

hand was sketching could have been taken for an in-

dication of DarnelTs growing paunch.

 

"The hell you did!" Darnell exploded, surging to his

feet on a wave of red-faced fury. "Cut it right out of my

hide, you mean!" He turned to the others as if appeal-

ing for their sympathy. "Little bastard blackmailed me

to ship extra food here —free — while he was selling

the supplies that ought to've gone to the natives!"

 

This accusation did not have quite the effect he

might have been hoping for.

 

"Really, Darnell?" asked Polyon with bright-eyed in-

terest. "And what were you doing that he could

blackmail you for, I wonder?"

 

Darnell puffed and stammered and Alpha inter-

rupted him. "Who cares? I'm delighted somebody finally

nailed you. Ever since you took over Pair-a-Dice I've

wanted to pay you back!"

 

"What do you care whether I buy out a crummy

casino?"

 

"That 'crummy casino,' " Alpha informed him, "just

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

131

 

happened to be my primary outlet for Seductron at

street prices. The gambling was only a front — once

you pay the Bahati cops off for a gambling operation,

they're too dumb to check and see if that's really where

all the money is coming from. Pair-a-Dice — Paradise

__ get it, stupid? That's the street name for

Seductron."

 

"I thought you didn't have the dosage schedules

worked out yet!" Fassa sounded appalled.

 

Alpha shrugged thin, elegant shoulders. Her face

was sharp as a knife under the elaborate Nueva Estrel-

la style of tight braids piled high in a prismawood

spiral frame. "So a few Blissto addicts go out happy.

Who cares? I've got to start making something off

Seductron before next year. Even if I work around all

the side effects, it's too late to patent it now. So it's street

deals or nothing." This reminded her of her

grievance. "And since you took over my best outlet,

Pudge-face, it's been nothing. You owe me!"

 

"So do you," Fassa told Blaize, "Del Parma was low

bidder on the corycium processing plant. By govern-

ment regulations you ought to've given us the job.

How much did the winning contractor slip you under

the table?"

 

"That," Blaize replied stiffly, "is between the two of

us, and nothing to do with you, Fassa! Besides, know-

ing what I do about del Parma's construction methods,

what made you think I'd be fool enough to let you

build a latrine trench on Angalia?"

 

"Huh! Angalia already is a latrine trench! Ha-ha-

ha!"

 

Nobody except Fassa paid the least attention to

Darnell's lame jest. She whirled and stabbed a long

iridescent corycium-sheathed fingernail at his chest.

"And you! Remember the Procyon run? That's the last

time OG Shipping gets any del Parma business!'*

 

Darnell smoothed down his green synthofur jacket

 

132

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

and smirked. "Can't see what you're complaining

about," he replied. "Switching good construction

materials for substandard ones is standard practice for

del Parma."

 

"Only," Fassa said, "when / keep the profit. I'm not

running a charitable association for the benefit of OG

Shipping."

 

"Can't see why not," Darnell leered. "The word is

you've been charitable to enough of Bahati's male

population already."

 

Fassa sat down abruptly, holding her head in her

hands. "Don't remind me," she wailed, "as if you and

everybody else cheating me weren't enough, can't I at

least forget about that inspector from CreditLin for a

little while? I gave him what he wanted, the space

station's paid for, I can't understand why he won't go

away."

 

"I can," suggested Blaize helpfully. "Fraudulent QA

records, shoddy materials, slipshod building practices,

non-union workers..."

 

"Cheat!"

 

"Bloodsucker!"

 

"Shark!"

 

The meeting dissolved into the usual chaos while

Polyon sat back, arms crossed, and murmured,

"Naughty children."

 

• CHAPTER EIGHT

 

Kailas, Procyon Subspace, Central Date 2754

 

The Central Diplomatic Services office tower was a

lacework of steel and titanium needles, wrapped in

translucent green synthofilm that trapped and

redistributed natural light in a soft, unchanging glow.

Midnight or noon, the CDS offices on Kailas were lit by

a gentle, slightly green-tinged light that was energy-

efficient, situation-appropriate, and psychologically

proven to be simultaneously soothing and

inspirational.

 

It made Sev Bryley feel as if he was about to suffer a

recurrence of the jungle rot that had attacked his skin

on Capella Four. He tried not to think about the light

It was a minor matter, not worth wasting the precious

minutes this important man had granted him.

 

"Youhate this, too, don'tyou?" the important man said.

 

"Sir?"

 

An impatient grunt "The blasted light Something

Psych and EcoTech dreamed up between them. Makes

me feel as if I were back on Capella Six."

 

"For me it was Four," Sev confessed.

 

Another grunt. "Different war, same jungle. I'd

open a window if this place had windows. Can't peel

plastifilm open, more's the pity."

 

"It's very good of you to make time to see me at all,

sir," Sev said cautiously. So they had a common back-

ground — service in the Capellan Wars? Was that why

this highly placed diplomat had given a mere private

investigator ten minutes out of his crowded schedule?

 

"Not at all. Do the same for any friend of the family

 

134

 

Arme McCaffrey 6f Margaret Baft

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

135

 

who needed help. So. What's your problem, d'Aquino?"

 

Sev stiffened. "I didn't intend to call on family con-

nections, sir— "

 

"Then you're a damned young fool," said the gray-

haired man in the conservative blue tunic. "I've been

checking your Net records. Your full name is Sevareid

Bryley-Sorensen d'Aquino—why didn't you use it when

you requested this appointment? You could have gotten

in to see me three days sooner. And why me, if you didn't

mean to call on High Families connections?"

 

"I was not aware that there was a relationship be-

tween our families. Sir," Sev said stiffly. "I came to

Kailas because it was the nearest world with any CDS

representatives high-ranking enough to deal with my

problem. And I approached you because you have the

reputation of being one of the two Central Worlds offi-

cials on this planet who cannot be bribed, threatened,

or suborned."

 

"So you found two honest men, my Diogenes? I'm

flattered."

 

"Sir. My name is Bryley, not Dio — whatever."

 

"A classical reference. No matter. What do they teach

them in University these days? But then, you didn't

finish your schooling. Why didn't you cash in your

veteran's benefits after Capella IV to complete your

education at Central's expense?"

 

Sev tried without success to conceal his surprise.

 

"The Net can supply — um—rather a lot of detail,"

his interlocutor explained gently. "Even about a

rather obscure private investigator who's recently lost

his position with Bahati CreditLin — yes, I found out

about that too. Something about a gambling scandal at

the Pair-a-Dice, wasn't it?"

 

"It was a lie!" Sev leaned forward, burning with in-

dignation at the memory. "My supervisor — he had

anonymous letters about me. I know who sent them,

but I can't prove it,"

 

"And who might that be?"

 

The same man who transferred credits into my Net

account and played under my name at Pair-a-Dice —

or maybe he sent one of his flunkies to play the part.

When I went to the casino, they wouldn't tell me any-

thing about the man who used my name."

 

"No. They beat you — rather badly—and threw you

out into the ecocycler in the back alley." The gray-eyed

man surveyed Sev with eyes that took in every feint mark

of healing bruises and scraped skin. "Lucky you didn't

wind up being recycled into somebody's rose garden; we

suspect that's what has happened to a few other people

who annoyed the proprietor of that particular estab-

lishment So. \bu came to your senses, crawled out of the

ecocycler before it began its chop sequence, got treat-

ment for your more obvious wounds from some shady

blacklisted ex-doctor among your underworld friends,

and... came halfway across the galaxy to wait three days

for an interview with me. Want me to get you reinstated

with Bahati CreditLin, is that it? Favor for a friend? Teach

them not to act on anonymous accusations against a

High Families lad — even one who's rebelled against his

background and is working incognito?"

 

"Sir!"

 

"It can be arranged, you know," said the gray-eyed

man, watching Sev closely. "A word from this office,

and Bahati CreditLin will reinstate you, full back pay,

no questions asked. If that's what you want..."

 

"No, sir."

 

The gray-eyed man nodded briskly. "Good. I didn't

think so, but one has to be sure. You want to track

down the people who framed you, then."

 

"More than that." Sev dropped his eyes. "I think I

know who framed me. And why. But it's a long story,

and there are High Families involved. That's why I

came to you, sir. Somebody without that background

might be tempted to shove everything under the car-

 

136

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

137

 

pet for fear of offending someone powerful. And of

those in Central Administration who are High

Families — well — " He spread his hands helplessly." I

don't know the lineages and their reputations. The

only two people whose integrity everyone is absolutely

sure of are you and General Questar-Benn — and

she's on some kind of secret assignment, nobody

would tell me where."

 

"How flattering," purred the gray-eyed man.

 

Belatedly, Sev realized the implications of his words.

"Sir. I didn't mean — 1 am most grateful that you

agreed to see me, truly I am."

 

"Take that as read. Now why don't you tell me

what's going on?"

 

Sev's cheekbones reddened. His tongue felt like a

wad of cotton in his mouth. Where could he begin? In

this cool green-lit office, the madness that had seized

him on Bahati seemed like a dream.

 

"There was — a girl."

 

"Ann. You know, there quite often is, in such cases.

And you — made a fool of yourself?" He looked at Sev

sympathetically. "You know, I can remember the urge

to make a fool of oneself over a young lady. I'm not so

old and dried-up as all that. But if this story is going to

be personal, perhaps you'd feel easier continuing it in

a less formal environment? Sometimes I go across

town for lunch — there's a cafe in Darkside. Nothing

fancy. But at least it gets one out of this damned jungle

light-

Fifteen minutes later, feeling somewhat as if he'd ac-

tually been through the ecocycler's processing

sequence, Sev and the man he'd come to see were

seated at a table in the back of a cavernous, dimly lit

cafe. The one window that might have admitted a little

sunlight was curtained by dusty streamers of glitzrib^

bon and prismawood light-dangles. In one corner of

the room, a weedy boy with long red hair tied in z\

 

black velvet bow tinkered with his synthocom set,

producing occasional bursts of strident sound that

grated on Sev's eardrums.

 

Even his sleazy story seemed no more than normal,

here. He wondered if that was why they'd come to this

dingy place. It seemed an odd setting for a man who

spent his working life meeting with presidents and

kings and generals.

 

"It's quiet here," said the only honest man on Kailas,

"and more to the point, I know there won't be any un-

authorized datacordings made of our conversation;

I'm acquainted with the proprietor of this place. She

has quite a number of visitors who don't want their dis-

cussions overheard or recorded."

 

"I can believe it," said Sev with feeling.

 

"So. If that answers your curiosity about why we

came here — why don't you tell me about this girl?

 

"She was — " Sev stopped, swallowed, searched again

for a place to begin. "She is head of a construction com-

pany based on Bahati. Their most recent contract was for

a space station to catch Net signals and route small-pack-

age traffic between Vega subspace and Central. As pan of

my routine duties for Bahati Creditlin, I was asked to do

a final walk-through inspection of the station. It was—it

should have been just a formality; the head of Contracts

Administration had already signed off on the work."

 

"I take it," murmured the gray-eyed man, "there

were, in fact, some deficiencies in the construction

methods?"

 

"It was a. joke" Sev's hands moved freely and he for-

got his nervousness as he sketched the discoveries he'd

made. "Oh, everything looked good enough on the

outside. Fresh new permalloy surface skin. Interior

corridors painted and glowlit, shiny new sensor

screens to scan the exteriors. But once I opened up a

few panels and started looking at what was behind the

fresh paint—" He shook his head, remembering. "She

 

138

 

Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

139

 

tried to distract me. No. That's not fair. She... did dis-

tract me. For a while." Three days and nights in Fassa

del Parma's private cubicle on her personal transport

ship, wheeling around the space station, watching the

blazing dance of the stars through the clear walls

above and below and around their own dance...

 

Sev felt himself on fire again, remembering. And

regretting. Even now, some part of him wanted noth-

ing better than to be back on the Xanadu with Fassa del

Parma y Polo. Whatever the cost.

 

"She was... annoyed," he said slowly, "when I told her

I'd have to complete the inspection according to form."

He looked up at the man seated across the table, search-

ing for a hint of condemnation in the level gray eyes. "I

should have done the inspection immediately. I'd given

her three days." No, shegave them to me. Three days FU never

forget. "She'd had her people working overtime to con-

ceal their cheap work. Panels behind panels. Fake safety

numbers stenciled on the recycled supporting beams.

Warning signs about chemical danger areas in front of

the rats' nests they called an electronic system — as

though that would've stopped me!" Sev snorted.

 

"If 7 had put up signs warning of chemical dangers,"

the other man commented, "I would have made sure

that you did indeed run into such dangers the first time

you removed a panel. Nothing fetal, of course. Certainly

nothing really nasty, like gaseous Ganglicide. Maybe a lit-

tle sinoidal stimulant Or Capellan fungus spores."

 

"She thought of that," said Sev grimly. "So, unfor-

tunately for her, did I... I wore a chem-pro suit and

gas mask while I checked out the electronics."

 

"And?"

 

"The place never should have passed the most cursory

inspection," Sev said tonelessly. "ltdidn't pass mine. I

transmitted a full report via the Net — enough to stop

payment on the space station and put Polo Construction

under investigation. The lady was, ummm — not

 

auo>-"———      i

 

right ear. Nothing more than the feint memory ol scars

now, but the lines still tingled whenever he thought of

Fassa. Being clawed by Fassa del Parma wasn't nearly as

much fun as the things they'd done on the Xanadu, but it

vras still a remarkably stimulating experience. Even now,

Sev reckoned he would rather have a fight with Fassa

than party with any six other girls ofhis acquaintance.

Not that the opportunity was likely to come his way

 

again....

 

"You said your report should have shut down the

space station," his companion prompted gently. "In-

stead...?"

 

"Damned if I know." Sev spread his hands. "When I got

i i^__^jrt "-"™*rvM-f wa* crone. All mv fifes had been

 

erased by some treaic computer HIUUUIA.UUU, ««.«* *___,

had bothered to copy it to a datahedron first... or so they

said. And I was up on charges of sexual harassment.

Specifically, faUingtocompletea schedukdinspection, and

.i_—„—;—„ Vr>*& Hf>l Parma v Polo with a bad inspection

 

jportifshe didn't comply witnmy pci vci itw^v-suv—

"She got there first," the other man murmured.

"She's fast," Sev admitted grudgingly. "And smart.

And ... well, it doesn't matter. Not now." FU never get

back on the Xanadu now. And if I did, she'd nail me to a wall

 

and flay me. Slowly.

 

"It was her word against mine, no evidence on either

side. Or so my supervisor told me. Asecond inspection, a

second honest inspection, would have found the same

flaws I detailed in my report. But they weren't going to

send me, not after her complaints. And while they were

waffling around looking for somebody else with the tech-

nical background to do the inspection, Senator Cenevix

pushed a special bill through his committee. He's in

charge of the Ethics Committee," Sev explained. "This

 

140

 

Arme McCaffrey G? Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

141

 

bill made second inspections in the same class as trying a

man twice for the same crime — placed a construction

company under the protection of the old double jeopar-

dy rule. So we weren't allowed to go back and collect the

evidence. Then the letters started coming — about me

gambling at the Pair-a-Dice — and, well, you know the

rest of it."

 

"What I don't know, though, is what you expect me

to do about it You've said you don't want me to get you

reinstated at Bahati CreditLin — and I think that's a

good idea; if you went back to the Nyota ya Jaha sys-

tem, I don't think your life would be worth much. And

you must know Central doesn't interfere with other

worlds' internal legislative affairs. If this young lady

has bribed a senator, that's most deplorable, but we

must wait for the people of Bahati to recognize the feet

and remove him by due electoral process."

 

"Not," said Sev grimly, "if I can get incontrovertible

evidence of what she's been up to."

 

"My dear boy, you'll never get close to a Polo Con-

struction job again. From what you've told me, I'm

quite sure she's too bright to let you anywhere near

her operations."

 

"True," Sev agreed."/ haven't a chance of catching her

now. And there aren't many investigators — male or

female — whom I'd guarantee to be immune to Fassa's,

umm, methods of distraction." He paused for a moment

of brief; intense, almost painful memory. "Maybe none,"

he concluded, opening his eyes again. "But a brainship

would be safe enough, don't you think?"

 

"Tell me," said the gray-eyed man, "exactly what

you have in mind." He hadn't moved by so much as

the flicker of an eyelash, but Sev could sense the sud-

denly heightened interest. He outlined his plan,

accepted several corrections and emendations to the

basic strategy, and all but held his breath with hope

and excitement. It had been a long shot, coming to this

 

man, and one he hadn't really expected to pay off.

 

"I thinkitcanbedone," was the final verdict "I think it

should be done. And I do believe I can arrange it."

 

"Then it only remains to find a brainship capable of

carrying out the plan."

 

"Any Courier Service ship would be capable" There

was a hint of reproof in the level, passionless voice.

"But we can do better than that. You want integrity,

brains, diplomatic skills, and the ability to pass as a

droneship. There's one ship fairly recently commis-

sioned — about five years — that should suit your

purposes. I can guarantee her personal integrity, you

see, and that's what is most important in this opera-

tion. For the rest — "a brief, ironic smile that puzzled

Sev — "well, let's just say I've been following this par-

ticular ship's career with some interest."

 

He stood, and Sev followed suit. As they passed the

music platform, the synthocommer broke into a

raucous burst of primitive melody—annoying, Jar too

loud, but with a compelling rhythm behind the raw

sounds. Sev rather liked it, but his companion dosed

his eyes and shuddered faintly.

 

"I apologize," he said as the door closed behind them,

"for the music. It's not one of the cafe's attractions, in my

opinion. Still, it is the other reason why I come here."

Sev frowned in puzzlement.

 

"You'd think a young man of High Families stock,

with a good education and a family eager to help him

get started in a worthwhile profession, could find some

better career than playing synthocom in a dusty bar on

the wrong side of town, wouldn't you?"

 

It was dearly a rhetorical question. Sev nodded his

head in agreement.

 

"So," said the only honest man on Railas, "so would

I. But evidently my son is of a different opinion."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

143

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

Rahilly, Nancia's CS supervisor, ordered her to take it

easy while she was getting used to the hyperchip im-

plants. "Cruise back to Central and take your time about

it," he ordered her. "You'll have several assignments to

pick from when you get here, but there's nothing urgent

and no reason for you to strain yourself with too many

Singularity transitions while you're getting up to speed

with your new capabilities." So Nancia chose a lengthy

return route that required only one very small transition

through Singularity, while she reveled in the enhanced

clarity and speed of thought she enjoyed wherever the

hyperchips had been installed.

 

After the jump she was inclined to grumble at the.

caution displayed by the Courier Service.

 

"That was the best jump I've ever made," she told

Caleb. "Did you feel how cleanly I ripped that dive into

Central subspace?"

 

"Ripped a dive?" Caleb inquired.

 

Nancia realized that in all their time together, she'd

never discussed how she felt about Singularity, or

mentioned the Old Earth-style athletic metaphors that

came to her when she was diving through decompos-

ing three-space. "It's ... a term athletes use," she

explained. "There were some newsbytes of the Earth

Olympics once . . . anyway. I just meant it was a per-

fecdy wonderful jump. Don't you think so?"

 

"It was over faster than most," Caleb allowed. "Let's

see what our next assignment is."

 

They had a choice of three, but as soon as Nancia

scanned the beam she knew there was only one she

 

wanted to take. Abrainship was needed for an under-

cover assignment investigating the methods of BLEEP

Construction Company on planet in the star system

CENSORED. The matter must be handled with ex-

treme discretion; details would be available only to the

brainship accepting the assignment.

 

"Two weeks travel. One major Singularity point. I

bet I know where it is," Nancia said.

 

"That could describe any number of routes," Caleb

 

pointed out.

 

"Yes, but..." Nancia created a pattern of dancing

lightstrings on her central panel. She would have been

willing to bet her four years' accumulated pay and

bonuses that at least one of the spoiled brats she'd

carried out to the Nyota ya Jaha system was im-

plementing the plans she'd discussed. Fassa del Parma

y Polo. Polo Construction. Bahati. Hadn't there been

something on the newsbytes about a delay in financing

the new space station off Bahati, some question about

the inspection? ... It had to be Fassa's company. And

here, at last, was Nancia's chance to stop one of the un-

ethical litue beasts. "Caleb, let's take this one. I like it"

Caleb sniffed disapprovingly. "Well, I don't Under-

cover —that's next door to espionage. Vega Ethical Code

considers it the same thing, in feet. I didn't sign on to

Courier Service to become a dirty, sneaking spy." He

made the word sound obscene. "And look at this.'' He

overrode Nancia's pattern of dancing lights to display a

copy of the assignment description on the central screen.

A laser pointer highlighted the wait-code inconspicuous-

ly marked on the top left corner of the message header.

"See that? Somebody specifically routed this assignment

to us, even if it meant waiting three weeks for us to come

back from Spica subspace by the longest route. With a lit-

tle checking the Net we could probably find out who —

no, that would be unethical," Caleb conceded with a

small sigh. "But I don't like it, Nancia. Smells of High

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

145

 

Families meddling and pulling strings. I think we ought

to take one of the other two assignments. Something

that's presented in a straightforward manner, something

we can do without compromising our integrity."

 

But even Caleb couldn't work up much enthusiasm

for their other two choices.

 

The first, they were warned, might be a relatively

long-term assignment. A ship was required to

transport the Planetary Technical Aid inspection com-

mittee on its five-yearly rounds, remaining at each

planet while the committee inspected the situation and

prepared a report.

 

"I guess there are worse chores," he said. "And maybe

it wouldn't take so long. If they do this trip every five

years, the last inspection ship should have been coming

back just before you were commissioned. Want to check

the records and find out how long the round trip took?"

 

Nancia began checking the Courier Service's open

records while Caleb studied the third assignment

choice. "Taking a bull to Cor Caroli subspace? This is a

Courier Service assignment?"

 

"Improving agriculture," Nancia suggested, and

then, "but they can't be serious. Surely all we'd have to

take out is a sperm sample."

 

But it turned out, when they checked, that nobody

had ever successfully taken a sperm sample from

Thunderbolt III, the prize bull bufialo of die Central

Worlds Zoo. And since die only surviving cow bufialo

was on Cor Caroli VI, and since the zoo keeper diere

claimed Shaddupa suffered from terrible Singularity

stress and couldn't possibly handle spaceflight, the

preservation of the species required that Thunderbolt

III be transported to Cor Caroli VI.

 

" I think even a PTA committee would be better com-

pany than Thunderbolt Three," Caleb commented.

"Nancia, isn't there any CS record of how long the pre-

vious inspection tour lasted?"

 

"I just found it," Nancia told him. She'd had to check

through more years of records than she anticipated.

 

"And?"

 

"And they should be returning some time next year.

They're still out in Deneb subspace. I've been reading

the interim reports. It seems the PTAbylaws prohibit die

inspection committee from leaving any planet until diey

have all agreed to and signed the report for that planet**

 

'And?'

 

This time Nancia did sigh. "Caleb, it's a committee."

Three hours later Sevareid  Bryley-Sorensen

d'Aquino came aboard to explain his plan in detail.

 

"1 don't like the paint job," Nancia complained

when the retrofitting was done.

 

Caleb glared at her control panel. She wished he

would turn around and look at her central column,

now hidden behind fake bulkheads. "It was your idea

to travel under false colors. Don't complain now."

 

"It's not being disguised as an OG Shipping

droneship I mind," Nancia said. "It's Darnell's choice

of colors. Puce and mauve, ugh!"

 

That wasn't quite true. She did mind the OG Ship-

 

-*----*. —.-..-, Lm*. ., j~wf*Ar\v

 

feeling to Know mat suangwio .»v,^«.—— — __

see pan of Darnell Overton-Glaxely*s rapidly growing

empire. But she wasn't about to admit that to Caleb,

not after arguing so hard to convince him that they

should take the assignment.

 

Sev Bryley's plan had been simplicity itself. Fassa del

Parma seduced men when she needed to, but she was

economical with herself as with all Polo Construction's

resources: very few strangers were allowed dose enough

to the construction company's operations to become any

sort of a threat. Herworkers were fanatically loyal to her—

 

"Let's not discuss that part," Caleb had interrupted

Sev at this point. "It's not fit for Nancia to hear."

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

147

 

"I believe," Sev said carefully, "that their loyalty is pur-

chased by stock options and high financial bonuses. Not

to mention the feet that a number of them are rumored

to be wanted by Central under other IDs; somebody

seems to be doing a fine business in supplying Fassa with

lake Net identities for her workers."

 

Polyon. Nancia remembered the ease and dexterity

with which he'd hacked into the Net accounts via her

own computer. And that had been five years before. He

was probably much, much better at it now. She could tell

Sev Bryley where to look for the Net forger... or just

drop him a hint. A hint might be enough for this deter-

mined young man; look how quickly he'd dredged up

the connection between Polo Construction and OG

Shipping, the very basis for their hastily executed plan.

 

Fassa's business required heavy transport facilities.

For the most part Polo Construction ran their own

ships, but when she had too many contracts Fassa

rented droneships from OG Shipping. The drones

were the safest way for her to transport illicitly ac-

quired materials; there would be no witnesses except

her own men, loading materials at one end, and the

customer's men unloading at the other end of the run.

Neither would be inclined to bear witness against a sys-

tem that brought them so much profit

 

Sev had worked out all this from a combination of

studying partial Net records, interviewing anybody

with even casual interest in Polo Construction, and

putting the bits together with his own flashes of bril-

liant insight. He lacked just one thing: the testimony of

an unimpeachable eyewitness to confirm his deduc-

tions. Somebody needed to see the substitution of

materials going on... somebody whose integrity could

not be questioned... somebody who could get close to

operations without warning Fassa.

 

The integrity of Courier Service brainships was beyond

question. And Fassa, accustomed to the services of the

 

suspect thatbehind painted ovuiuieausiiiju ciupvy r^o^u^

docks there resided a human brain with the sensor

capacity to hear and see all that went on aboard the ship ...

and the intelligence to testify about it later.

"It's a brilliant plan," Nancia declared when Sev first

 

explained it.

 

"1 don't like it," Caleb glowered. "Sending Nancia

out alone — without me to tell her how to do things?

What if she panics?"

 

"I won't panic." Nancia made her voice as calm and

 

soothing as possible.

 

"And I'll be with her," Sev pointed out. "1 won't risk

coming out where they can see me, but I'll track every-

thing via Nancia's sensor screens and send her cues if

she needs help."

 

Caleb folded his arms. "That," he said grimly, "is not

a satisfactory solution. Why can't I go too? I'm her

brawn. I should be wherever she is."

 

"Minimizing the risks," Sev said briefly. Actually, his

original plan had called for the brainship to go complete-

ly unattended, just like a drone. But he was damned if he

would miss out on the culmination of his careful plans.

He trusted himself to have the self-control to stay out of

sight until Fassa had completely incriminated herself; he

didn't trust Caleb to display the same good sense. But ex-

plaining all that would hardly mollify the brawn.

 

Caleb appealed directly to Nancia. "You're too

young," he said. "You're too innocent. You won't

recognize their dirty tricks until too late. You — "

 

"Caleb" Sev Bryley*s voice cracked like a gunshot The

brawn stopped his rompulsive pacing around the narrow

perimeter of the remodeled cabin. "You aren't helping

Nanria," Sev said once he had Caleb's attention. "Don't

make her nervous. Why don't you go to the spaceport bar

and have a drink? I'll join you as soon as Nancia arid I have

run through her final checklist ofinstrucdons."

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

149

 

Caleb opened his mouth for an angry retort and

then shut it again. Nantia wished she had a sensor that

could report on the rapid ticking of his brain. He was

thinking something behind that quiet, tight-Upped ex-

terior —but what?

 

"Consumption of intoxicating beverages is against

the Vega Ethical Code," Caleb said at last, and Nancia

relaxed connections that she hadn't realized were so

tight. Whatever Caleb's thoughts, they weren't leading

him into a fight with Sev that would very likely abort

the mission at this late date. "I'll, I'll, I could have a

vegosqueeze, though."

 

"You do that, then," Sev agreed. "See you in a few

minutes."

 

He leaned against a fake bulkhead, arms folded.

The temporary wall squeaked in protest and Sev

straightened up quickly. "Crummy construction job

they did on your interior," he remarked as Caleb's

footsteps echoed down the central stairs.

 

"Then it should m-match the rest of the work around

P-Polo Construction." Where had that stammer come

from? Nancia ordered her vocal circuits to relax. They

only tightened up farther, making the next sentence

come out in a squeak. "What final checklist?"

 

"What? Hmm? Oh, there isn't one. I just wanted to

get Caleb out of the way. He was making you nervous,

wasn't he?"

 

"I'm fine," Nancia said, this time more gruffly than

she had intended.

 

"You'll need to get better control over your vocal ]

registers if you want to sound like a dronetalker," Sev '\

warned. "Drones' synthesized voices don't wobble." '

 

He sank to the cabin floor, long legs folding under him

with no apparent strain, and gazed at the fake wafl con-

cealing Nancia's titanium column. "Undercover work is

always a strain,'' heconfided. "I used to do half an hour of

yoga meditation before taking on a false identity."

 

Nancia rapidly scanned her data banks. Apparently

yoga was an old-style Earth exercise designed to induce

tranquility and spiritual enlightenment.

 

"Too bad you can't do the same thing," Sev

commented.

 

"A brainship can do anything you softpersons can,"

Nancia snapped, "only better! Tell me about thisyoga."

 

Sev grinned. "Well. Maybe you can. It just requires a

little translation. Let's see, start with regular breathing...

Not heavy," he said reprovingly as Nancia flushed dean

air in and out through her ventilation ports, "just

regular. Even. Smooth. That's the idea. Now dose

your... umm, deactivate your visual sensors."

 

Usually Nancia hated the blackness that accom-

panied temporary loss of visual sensor connections.

But this time it was voluntary. And Sev's voice con-

tinued, low and soothing... and it was restful not to be

scanning her remodeled interior.

 

Caleb must be exiting her lower entry port now; if she

opened an external sensor she'd be able to see him walk-

 

'•>•(•     l_l^-_ ___J__ ».!_„ *~*n.^cmn-r+ rvanli—il

 

the exercise now; Sev's patient instructions were work-

ing. She felt perceptibly less nervous as she followed his

suggestions to feel the energy in her lower engines and

let it flow through her propulsion units without actually

releasing it A warm glowing sensation bathed her fins

and exterior shell. Caleb's near-quarrel widi Sev, the ap-

proaching confrontation off Bahati, even the exciting

suspicion that Daddy had personally recommended her

for this assignment... all these doubts and fears and

hopes seemed very small and far away. Nancia con-

templated herself, a tiny speck in the universe; as was the

planet on which she sat, the sun that lit the sky around

them. All little floating dots in an infinite pattern; dots

winked out or came into existence, but the pattern

swirled on and on forever....

 

150   Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Ball

 

"Restore full sensor connections." Sev's calm order

was like a gentle wake-up call. Nancia opened her sen-

sors one by one, feeling anew the wonder of existence.

The gritty spaceport floor beneath her landing gear,

the smell of engine oil in the air outside, the sights and

sounds of an ordinary working spaceport were all

bright and trembling with new meaning.

 

"I think you'll do now," Sev said with satisfaction.

 

"I think so, too," Nancia agreed.

 

Out of habit, Nancia lifted offas gently as if she were

carrying a full committee of Central Worlds diplomats.

Just because she was decked out in the revolting colors

of OG Shipping didn't mean she had to slam on-and

off-world like a mindless drone. Besides, rapid move-

ment would destroy the trance of peace in which she

was still floating. And, she thought guiltily, it would

also bounce Sev around. If Caleb had been aboard, his

comfort would have been her first thought; Sev

deserved the same consideration.

 

The work of outfitting her as an OG drone had been

done at Razmak Base in Bellatrix subspace. Razmak

possessed the very useful quality of being located just

one hour's spaceflight away from a Singularity zone

opening directly onto Vega subspace near Nyota ya

Jaha; Nancia would not have to risk a long flight

during which some authentic OG Shipping employee

might notice and report her presence. She arced

through the sky like a silver rainbow and made one

sleek rolling dive into Singularity.

 

The disadvantage of this particular transition, from a

softperson's point of view, was that the transition

through Singularity was subjectively longer than usual.

Sev had considered this a reasonable tradeoff for the ad-

vantages of Razmak Base; Nancia hoped he would feel

the same way when they exited into Vega subspace.

 

For herself, Nancia had been looking forward to the

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

151

 

jump- She skimmed the rolling waves of collapsing sub-

space, dove and surfaced and spiraled through the

spaces until the decomposition funnel drew her whirling

into its shrinking space. Systems of linear equations fol-

lowed their orderly dance; space shrank and expanded

about Nancia, colors sang to her and the inexorable

regularity of the mathematical transformations unfolded

with the beauty of a Bach fugue. She came out into Vega

subspace with an exuberant shout of joy, the golden

notes of a Purcell trumpet voluntary echoing through

concealed passages and empty loading bays,

"CUT THAT OUT!"

 

The outraged shout, echoing where no human

voice should have sounded, was like a spattering of

high-frequency power along Nancia's synaptic

connectors.

 

She opened all sensor connections at once. The world

was a faceted diamond of images: painted bulkheads,

pseudosteel corridors, Sev still strapped to his bunk for

the Singularity transition, the central cabin viewed from

three angles at once: all framed by the external sensor

views ofblackness spattered by the fire of distant suns.

 

And Caleb, coming from one of the angles where

temporary walls blocked Nancia's sensor view of her

own interior, resplendent in his Courier Service full-

dress uniform and still green in the face from the

extended period in Singularity. Nancia dosed down all

the other sensors and expanded the image of Caleb.

Her brawn wasn't usually inclined to Service frip-

peries; she had forgotten just how fine a man could

look in the uncomfortable full-dress black and silver of

the Courier Service, with the stiff collar forcing his jaw

up and the silver-and-corycium braid winking in rain-

bow lightfires every time he drew a deep breath.

 

"You've developed a distaste for classical musk?" It

was the only thing she could think of to say — the only

thing that was even remotely safe to say.

 

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153

 

"You were half a tone flat on the high notes," Caleb

informed her, using the same carefully remote voice

that Nancia had employed. "And much too loud."

 

"I suppose I should apologize for the unintended

assault on your delicate sensors," Nancia said. "I had

turned off the cabin speakers, and I wasn't aware that

there was another softshell aboard."

 

"Awhat?"

 

Had Caleb really spent four and a half years as her

brawn without ever once hearing the slang term that

sheUpersons used for mobile humans? Nancia rapidly

reviewed a selection of their communications. It was

indeed possible. She had never realized how much of

her communication she censored for Caleb's benefit,

how careful she'd been to avoid offending against his

standards of speech and action.

 

Maybe she'd been too careful, if he thought he

could get away with a stunt like this.

 

"I think you can figure out what the term means,"

Nancia told him. Then, as she absorbed the emotional

impact of what Caleb's action meant, her hard-won

control cracked like a faulty shell. "Caleb, you idiot,

you could have been killedl What if I'd lifted off at full

speed? Hiding in that corner, you'd have been

bounced around like three dice in a cup!"

 

"You never do bruising takeofls or landings," Caleb

pointed out. "Too fond of showing off your land-on-

an-eggshell, turn-on-a-dime navigational skills."

 

Nancia was momentarily distracted. "What's a

dime?"

 

"I'm not sure," Caleb admitted. "It's an Old Earth

phrase. I think it refers to some kind of small insect.

Want to check your thesaurus? We could call up the

Old English language files via the Net, too. Something

to pass die time."

 

"Stop trying to change the subject! Why didn't you

tell me you were going to be aboard?"

 

"Would you have let me come?"

 

"Well. •. no," Nancia admitted. "I'd have had to tell

Brytey. Your presence could compromise the mission,

Caleb, don't you realize that? I'm supposed to be an

unmanned droneship, remember?"

 

"I know," Caleb said. "Don't worry. I won't com-

promise the bloody mission. But I couldn't let you face

this gang of diieves alone, Nancia. Don't you see that?"

 

She wasn't alone; she had Sev, who knew all about

investigative work and undercover missions. But she

couldn't very well berate Caleb for wanting to protect

 

her, could she?

 

"Just keep out of sight," Nancia said finally. "Please,

Caleb?" Oh-oh. Sen is using his cabin. He isn't going to Uke

that. "Work it out with Sev. If one of you can hide, I

guess two of you can. But—he's in charge for this mis-

sion. I agreed to that, and you'll have to do the same."

She took the set of his jaw and the brief upward jerk

of his head for all the assent she was going to get

"Oh. One other thing."

"Yes?"

 

"Why," Nancia inquired, "did you choose to wear

full Service uniform for this little jaunt? Not that it isn't

becoming, but I'd have thought something a little less

conspicuous...."

 

Caleb explained, patiently and at length, about tradi-

tions of honor on Vega. There seemed to be some

connection in his mind between wearing uniform and

being taken for a spy. Or not taken for a spy. Nancia

couldn't quite follow the argument, and when he went

from Vega history to Old Earth stories about somebody

called Major Andr£, she quit trying. Caleb was Caleb. His

sense of honor wouldn't let him send his brainship

without him into what he considered a dangerous and

morally ambiguous situation. Apparently his sense of

honor also wouldn't let him dress sensibly for the oc-

casion. His sense of honor was a royal pain in the

 

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155

 

synapses at times, but it was part of Caleb. Part of what

she respected in him.

 

While Caleb discussed the laws of war, the concept of

a just war, the Truce of God, and the Geneva Conven-

tions, Nantia found and activated her files of baroque

brass music. With all speakers off, she ran the Purcell

trumpet voluntary through her comm channels three

times and was going on for a fourth before Caleb final-

ly ran out of things to say.

 

Fassa del Parma paced the loading dock of Bahati

SpaceBase II, biting her lip. Ever since that near-

debacle over SpaceBase I, she had been unwilling to

delegate the ambiguous details of her business. That

had been a near thing. Who'd have thought Sev

Bryley would be so persistent? She'd taken him aboard

the Xanadu and given him what he wanted, hadn't

she? And when that hadn't proved sufficient to shut

the man up — Fassa stopped pacing and bit her lip. All

she'd wanted from Darnell was to fake a minor gam-

bling and embezzling record that would discredit Sev

with his employers. There'd been no need to go as far

as he had, even if Sev had come sniffing around the

Pair-a-Dice to find out who was framing him. There

were other ways to discourage people besides dump-

ing their unconscious bodies in a recycling bin. She

should have recognized DarnelTs sadistic tendencies,

she should have remembered the whispers about

mysterious disappearances from the Pair-a-Dice.

 

Oblivious to the soft thump and the vibration

through the base walls that announced the docking of

DarnelTs OG Shipping drone, Fassa leaned her head

against the wall for a moment. It gave slightly where

her forehead pressed against it; that was what hap-

pened when you replaced the contracted synthosteel

with steel-painted plastiflim. Not that she cared. Not

that anybody cared about anything. That was how the

 

world was, and nobody bothered to stop any of the

corruption. Why should she trouble herself about one

man caught up in the general unfeeling way of the

world? Nobody had ever cared about her> had they?

 

Certainly not Sev Bryley. All he'd been after was a

scandalous case that would build up his career. He'd

taken what she offered and then attacked her again as

if none of it meant anything. Well, it didn't.

 

Did it?

 

Fassa blinked rapidly and activated the series of locks

that would automatically check on the seal between an

attached ship and the spacebase itself, equalize pressures

and open the spacebase for loading and unloading. She

hadn't economized on that part of the work. She was

dever enough to keep well above standards on any part

of a contract that might jeopardize her personal safety.

Clever enough, she thought as the spacebase doors irised

open, to handle any problem that came up ... except,

maybe, her own memories.

Which were no problem!

 

She was about to call the loading crew to shift the

permasteel beams and other expensive materials onto

Darnell's drone when a thought stopped her. You

couldn't be too careful these days. She walked through

the spaceport iris, through the extruded pressure

chambers and into the empty loading bays of the OG

Shipping droneship.

 

Everything seemed to be as it should. The loading

layout was rather strange, but Darnell had a habit of

taking ships from the other companies he acquired

and retrofitting them to suit his own needs. Certainly

there was plenty of space. And everywhere she looked,

on columns and walls and internal panels, Fassa saw

the puce-and-mauve logo of OG Shipping stenciled.

Rather sloppily stenciled, in some cases: lines wobbled

and droplets of paint spattered the borders of the sten-

cils. Looked like a rush job. Darnell didn't take the

 

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157

 

trouble to oversee his people personally as she did

hers, she thought, and the difference showed.

 

"Droneship, are you prepared to accept cargo?" she

queried the air.

 

"Prepared. To accept. Cargo. Begin. Transfer." The

answer came back from a speaker somewhere behind

her, metallic and uninflected like all AI speech. Fassa

remembered reading that AI linguists were perfectly

capable of designing a more human-sounding speech

system, especially with the help of the sophisticated

metachips of Shemali design, but that marketing for-

ces wouldn't let them release it. Drones and other AI

devices weren't supposed to sound too human; it

made people nervous.

 

"Credit transfer, please," Fassa requested briskly.

Darnell had stiffed her on one load of supplies, resell-

ing it and pocketing the profit himself and blandly

denying that any of his drones had been anywhere

near SpaceBase I. And her own excessive caution, her

own refusal to leave any records behind, had given her

no way to fight him. Now she demanded payment in

advance before a single roll of synthosteel made it onto

one of the bastard's drones.

 

"Your credit transfer will be. Approved. As soon as

the. Loading is complete."

 

Fassa grinned to herself. That speech had sounded

considerably more like human inflections than most

dronetalk did. She wouldn't put it past Darnell to have

diverted some of the new metachips for frivolous ap-

plications like improving dronetalk. He hadn't got it

quite right, though. She could still tell she was talking

to a machine.

 

And she wasn't about to let a damned droneship

cheat her out of the rights to this expensive shipment!

 

"Credit transfer to be produced when loading is

twenty-five percent complete," she said, "as by usual

agreement. Or I stop loading there and you don't

 

leave SpaceBase until the credit slip is approved."

 

"Agreed." The last word from the droneship had a

very human sound of resignation to it. Darnell had

been fooling with the Shemali metachips in his ships;

Fassa was now willing to bet on it

 

She still felt a vague unease about the operation, but

brushed it off. She was just brooding over the Sev

Bryley fiasco, that was all. No reason to suppose any-

thing like that would happen again — not with the

number of senators and bankers and inspectors Fassa

now had personally dedicated to her welfare. Fassa ac-

tivated the spacebase's comm link and called her

hand-picked loading crew to complete the transfer.

 

With drone-powered lifters and other automated

devices, loading the construction materials was a quick

job, calling for no more than three men, all of them

bound to Fassa by personal loyalty — and by the stock

which they had vested in Polo Construction, Those stock

options were an expense Fassa regretted, but it was

necessary to ensure the absolute silence ofher assistants.

Once again, while the men went about their business,

she cursed the underlying chauvinism of contractors

who insisted on building their lifters to the specifications

of a six-foot, muscular male body. There was no reason

the lifters couldn't be designed so that their controls were

within the reach and strength of a smallish woman; the

real muscle involved here came from the machines, not

from the men. But Fassa was too small to operate the

machines. When she calculated what this one feet was

costing her in stocks and bonuses to keep her loading

crews silent, she was tempted to start her own heavy

machinery factory, with lifters and forks and cranes all

built so that anybody could operate them at the touch of a

button.

 

Someday, she promised herself. When I have enough

money. When I feel strong enough... and secure enough...

when I am enough.

 

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159

 

Somehow she felt that such a day would never arrive.

 

But the twenty-five percent mark on transfer had ar-

rived ... and it was time to claim her credit slip. Fassa

motioned to die loading crew to stop. While they waited

in position, lifters frozen in mid-arc, she walked back into

the partially filled cargo bays of the droneship.

 

"Credit transfer," she rapped out "Now!"

 

"Regret that I do not have facilities to issue credit

slips in loading bay area," the droneship replied. "Re-

quest that del Parma unit transfer self to cabin area to

receive payment."

 

The inflections were almost human, but the

awkward wording was pure dronespeak. Smiling as

she waved her hand before the lift-door sensors, Fassa

reflected that she would have to recommend some bet-

ter linguists to Darnell.

 

The lift-door irised open and Fassa, wrapped in her

satisfied thoughts, took one step forward before she

took in the glitter of silver and corycium braid against

the deep-space black of a Courier Service uniform.

 

Startled, she flung herself backwards, but the

uniformed man grabbed her sleeve just before she was

out of reach. Fassa fell back onto the loading dock

floor, dragging her assailant with her. He landed

heavily on her midsection, knocking the breath out of

her. Where were the damned loading crew? Couldn't

they see something had gone wrong?

 

"Fassa del Parma — I arrest you — in the name of

Central Worlds — for embezzlement of SpaceBase —

construction and supplies," the bastard wheezed. Both

his hands were around her wrists now, pinning her to

the floor. Fassa gasped for breath, brought up a knee

into the brute's crotch, and wriggled free in one move-

ment. Her brain had never stopped working. So there

was a witness! Darnell had double-crossed her? All

right; dispose of the witness, that was the new prob-

lem, then she would deal with the rest

 

"Kill that man!" she screamed at the dumbstruck

idiots on her loading crew. She raced towards the

safety of the spacebase.

 

The droneship's loading doors slammed shut. How

had the bastard managed to transmit the command?

He should still be writhing in agony.

 

He was. But as Fassa looked, he rose to his knees.

"Under—arrest,** he panted.

 

"That's what you think," Fassa said with her

sweetest smile. What did this fool think, that she was

too weak and sentimental to kill a man face to face? He

was still on his knees, and she was standing, and the

needier in her left sleeve slid into the palm of her hand

with the cool solid feel of revenge. Time slowed and

the air shimmered about her. The Courier Service

brawn was lunging forward now, but he'd never reach

her in time. Fassa aimed the needier until she saw a

face neatly framed in the viewfinder. Who was he? It

didn't matter. He was a total stranger, he was Sev, he

was Senator Cenevix, he was Paul del Parma. All turn-

ing green around her, and her fingers almost too weak

to squeeze the needier; what was happening? Fassa

swayed on her feet, squeezed the needier handle and

saw an arc of darts ripping wildly through the thick

green clouds that surrounded them now. So dizzy ...

her eyes wouldn't stay open to track the darts to their

target... but she'd been too dose to miss. So close.,.

 

Fassa collapsed in the cloud of sleepgas with which

Nancia had, just too late, flooded the closed loading

bays. So did Caleb, going down just in front of Fassa

with his black and silver uniform all spoiled by blood.

 

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• CHAPTER TEN

 

"Don't gas the lift! Don't gas the lift!"

 

The shouted commands, coming from a dosed-off

area behind the fake walls, startled Nancia. She shifted

views rapidly, cursing the quick and dirty remodeling

job that had left large areas of her own interior cut off

from her visual sensors.

 

Sev Bryley, white-faced, appeared from behind one

of the puce-and-mauve pseudoboard walls. "I'll get

him out of the loading bay," he snapped without so

much as a glance towards Nancia's sensor unit. "You

can keep the sleepgas confined to that area?"

 

"Yes, but—"

 

"Don't have time for a mask." Bryley was in the lift

now, and Nancia could watch him on die agonizingly

slow passage down to the loading dock. His chest rose

and fell rapidly as he took the deep, rapid breaths of

clean air that would keep him going in the loading bay.

 

Nancia kept the lift door on three-quarter pressure,

just enough to let Bryley squeeze through the flexible

opening that shut behind him. At the same time she

flushed the loading bay with the ventilation system on

high power, replacing as much sleepgas as she could

with dean air.

 

Sev's back and shoulders bulged awkwardly half

through the lift door. Nancia released the flexible

membrane just long enough to let him drag Caleb

through into the lift. She kept the ventilation system

on high for the long seconds of the ride back. By the

time the lift was at cabin level, she could find no

measurable trace of sleepgas in the air. But Sev had

 

inhaled enough to make him slump against the wall,

too woozy to carry himself and Caleb farther.

 

"Antidote... ?"

 

"In the corridor," Nancia told him. "In the c&rridorF

She had no housekeeping servos within the lift itself.

Sev had to stagger forward, out of the lift, fetching up

against the freshly painted corridor wall with a thump.

At least it was one of Nancia's true walls; only a few

steps away from Sev was an opening from which the

servos could dispense stimulants and medical aids. Sev

took two gasping breaths of the dean air, reached into

the shallow dish presented by the opening in the wall,

grabbed a handful of ampules and crushed them

under his nose.

 

"More," he commanded.

 

"You've already exceeded  the recommended

 

dosage."

 

"1 need a dear head now" Sev growled.

 

Was there more blood on Caleb's uniform? Impossible

to tell what he'd been hit with, or how bad the damage

was. Nancia sent another set of stim ampules to the servo

tray. Sev broke these more cautiously, one at a time. After

the third deep breath of pungent stimulant, he dropped

the rest back in the tray. "Medical supplies!"

 

"What?"

 

"I'll tell you when I know." He was on his knees,

blocking Nancia's view as he peeled back the front of

Caleb's spoiled uniform. "Something to stop bleed-

ing ... there shouldn't be so much from a needier ...

ahh. The ..." he used a Vega slang term that was not

in any of Nancia's vocabulary hedra. "She loaded it

with anticoagulant. And . . . other things, I think.

Analyze?" He dropped a torn and bloody strip of doth

into the servo tray. Nancia transferred it to the medical

lab and replaced it with ampules of HyperClot which

Sev injected directly into Caleb's veins.

 

"That*s stopped the bleeding," he said finally, rising

 

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to his feet. "But I'm not happy about his color. Does

that look like normal sleepgas pallor to you?"

 

"No." The one word was all Nancia could manage.

 

"Me neither. Can you analyze what else was in the

needier?"

 

"No. Organics of some sort, but it's too complex for

me." Concentrating on the technical problem helped

to steady her voice. "I haven't the facilities here. I am

contacting Murasaki Base for Net access to medtechs."

 

But Murasaki Base could suggest only that she

transport Caleb to the nearest planet-based clinic as

quickly as possible. If Fassa's needier had been loaded

with Ganglicide —

 

"It wasn't Ganglicide," Nancia said quickly. "He'd be

dead by now. Besides, no one would do such a thing."

 

"You might be surprised," said the infuriatingly

calm managing brain of Murasaki Base. "But I agree,

probably not Ganglicide. There are, however, slower-

acting nerve poisons which, untreated, can be just as

fetal. From what you report of his convulsive reaction,

I would suggest immediate medical treatment by

someone experienced with nerve poisons and their

antidotes."

 

"Thanks very much," Nancia snapped. Sev had

wrapped Caleb in all the blankets he could collect, but

nothing stopped Caleb's incessant nervous shivering.

And every once in a while his spine arched backward

while he cried out in delirium. "We came from Raz-

mak Base in Bellatrix subspace. You're not seriously

suggesting I take a man in this condition through Sin-

gularity, are you?"

 

"There happens to be an excellent clinic on Bahati,1*

the Murasaki Base brain replied. "If you were calm

enough to check the Net records I'm transmitting,

CN, you'd see that the assistant director there has a

strong background in nerve poison research. With

your permission, I will alert the Summerlands clinic to

 

receive an emergency patient for the direct care of Dr.

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong."

 

Time stopped. Snatches of conversation forgotten

for nearly four years echoed in Nancia's memory. An

 

gxbert in Gangliade therapy right there at the Summerlands

dime.. • testing Ganglicide on unwitting sitbjects ... so far

vane on BUssto they didn't even know what was happening to

 

them..-

 

She had the full conversations recorded and safely

stored away. She didn't need them. Her own human

memory was mercilessly replaying words she'd tried to

 

forget

Did she dare put Caleb in Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's

 

hands?

 

Did she dare not take him to the clinic?

 

There was really no choice.

 

They were only a few minutes from Bahati, but the

time seemed like hours to Nancia. She blessed the

multiprocessing capability that allowed her to perform

multiple tasks at once. While one bank of processors

controlled the landing computations, Nancia assigned

two more to maintaining the comm link with Murasaki

and opening a new link with Bahati. She reached the

director of Summerlands and explained her require-

ments while simultaneously assimilating Murasaki

Base's calm instructions.

 

The combination of Fassa's arrest and Caleb's

wounds presented a complex political problem. Nan-

cia was almost grateful for the complications; they

gave her something to think about during the endless

minutes before touchdown.

 

Courier Service policy strictly prohibited the

transport of prisoners on a brainship with no brawn.

Nancia thought it was a silly policy, born of fears that

were decades out of date. Earlier, less cleverly designed

brainships might have been vulnerable to passenger

takeover, but she was well protected against any little

 

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165

 

tricks that Fassa might come up with. The auxiliary

synaptic circuits known as the Helva Modification

would prevent any attempt to dose off her sensory

contact with her own ship-body.

 

All the same, Murasaki Base informed Nancia, the

regulations existed for good reason and it was not up

to a brainship to pick and choose which Service regs

she would obey.

 

"All right, all right." Had Caleb twitched again? Sum-

merlands Clinic personnel were standing by to collect

him as soon as they landed. Bahati Spaceport was issu-

ing final landing instructions. "Ill hand Fassa del

Parma over to Bahati authorities."

 

"That you will not," the Murasaki Base brain in-

formed her. "I've been in contact with CenDip while

' you were fussing over your brawn. The young lady is a

political hot potato."

 

"Awhat?"

 

"Sorry. Old Earth slang. Never thought about the

literal meaning ... let's see, I think a potato is some

kind of tuber, but why anybody would try to ignite

one... oh, well." Murasaki Base dismissed the intrigu-

ing linguistic question for later consideration. "What it

means is that nobody really wants to handle her trial.

Well, you can see for yourself, can't you, Nancia? If

you're going to try a High Families brat and send her

to prison, you don't do it out on some nowhere world

at the edge of the galaxy. You bring her back to Central

and you are very, very careful that all procedures are

followed. To the letter. CenDip has strict instructions

that nothing is to go wrong with this case; there's a cer-

tain highly placed authority who has taken a personal

interest in stopping High Families corruption."

 

"You can tell your highly placed authority to — "

Nancia transmitted a burst of muddy tones and discor-

dant high-pitched sounds.

 

"Can't,"  said  Murasaki  Base  rather smugly.

 

"Softshells can't receive that kind of input Fortunately

for them, I might add. Where did a nice brainship like

you pick up that kind of language?"

 

Nancia landed at Bahati Spacefield as gently as a

feather floating in the breeze. She opened her upper-

level cabin doors and waited for the spaceport workers

to bring a floatube. They'd already been informed of

the reason why she didn't want to open the lower

doors; the equipment should have been ready and

waiting—ah! There it was now.

 

"Well, then, just inform your 'highly placed

authority,' that a few little things have already gone

wrong with this operation," Nancia told Murasaki

Base. "And if I can't transport del Parma without a

brawn, and I can't hand her over to Bahati, what am I

supposed to do with her?"

"Wait for your new brawn, of course," Murasaki

 

Base informed her.

 

"And just how long will thai take?" They were load-

ing Caleb onto a stretcher now.

 

"About half an hour, if he can pack as quickly as he

 

should."

 

"What?"

 

In answer, Murasaki Base transmitted the CenDip in-

struction bytes directly. "Senior Central Diplomatic

service person ArmontiUado-y-Medoc, Forister, current-

ly R&R at Summerlands Clinic, previous brawn status

inactivated upon joining CenDip Central Date 2732,

reactivated 2754 for single duty tour returning prisoner

del Parma y Polo, Fassa, to Central Worlds jurisdiction,"

 

Before taking Caleb away, the Summerlands med-

techs were running tests and dosing him with

all-purpose antidotes. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong had

come personally to oversee the operation. Nantia's

sensors caught her dark, sharp-featured face from

several angles while she leaned over Caleb. Her ex-

pression showed nothing but keen professional

 

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interest: no hint of any evil plans to use Caleb as an un-

witting experimental subject

 

And no compassion.

 

And now he was going into the floatube, beyond

Nanria's sensor range.. .beyond her help. WhenwasSev?

Nancia scanned the sensor banks until she located him in

one of the passenger cabins that had been concealed be-

hind her fake paneling. He was guarding a groggy Fassa

who had just begun to comeoutofthesleepgas.

 

"Sev, I need you to go with Caleb," Nancia

announced.

 

"CN-935, please acknowledge receipt of formal or-

ders," Murasaki Base input on another channel.

 

"Can't," Sev answered without looking round.

"Have to guard the prisoner. Check regulations."

 

Nancia knew he was right The same stupid CS regs

that forbade her to transport Fassa without a brawn

would also forbid her to take sole charge of a prisoner.

"Are regulations more important than Caleb's life?"

 

"Nancia, he's getting the best possible medical care.

What are you worried about?"

 

"CN-935 RESPOND!" Murasaki Base shouted.

 

The floatube was a speck on the horizon. They weren't

stopping at the spaceport; they were taking Caleb direct-

ly to Summerlands. Where Alpha bint Hezra-Fong could

do anything, anything at all, to him, and Nancia wouldn't

even know until it was too late....

 

"Instructions received and accepted," she trans-

mitted to Murasaki Base in one short burst. "Now

GETTHAT BRAWN ON BOARD!" Forister Armon-

tillado-y-Medoc? Nancia remembered the short, quiet

man she'd transported somewhere, years earlier, to

solve some crisis. The one who'd spent all his time on

board reading. No matter what his records said, he

wasn't her idea of a brawn. But who cared? The sooner

he was here, the sooner Sev could be released from

guard duty to go watch over Caleb.

 

Fassa was choking on the bottom of a lake. Weeds

twined around her ankles, and the dear air was impos-

sibly far away, miles above the green water that

pressed her down and pushed at her mouth and ears

and nose widi gentle, implacable persistence. She tried

to kick free of the weeds; they clung tighter, reaching

up past ankle and calf and knee with green slimy

fingers that pressed dose against her thighs. When she

looked down, the weeds shaped themselves into pale

green faces with open mouths and dosed eyes. All the

men who'd given her their hearts and their integrity

and pieces of their souls were there on the bottom of

the lake, and they wanted to keep her there with them.

Her chest was bursting with the need to breathe. If she

gave back their souls, would they let her go?

 

She tried to strip off the charm bracelet on her left

wrist, but the catch was stuck; tried to break the chain,

but it was too strong. Green lake water seeped into her

mouth with a bitter taste, and black spots danced

before her eyes. She tugged the chain over her hand,

scraping a knuckle raw, and flung it at the hungry

ghosts. The sparkling charms of corydum and iridium

floated lazily down among the muddy weeds, and

Fassa was released to rise through rings of ever-

lightening water until she broke the surface and

breathed in the air that hurt like fire in her lungs.

 

She was lying on a bunk in a spaceship cabin. Sev

Bryley was seated cross-legged on the opposite bunk,

watching her with unsmiling attention. And the burn-

ing in her lungs was real, as was the throbbing pain in

her head; sleepgas hangover. Now she remembered:

surprise and violence and a fool who'd been where he

had no business, and the gas flooding the cargo bay

while she tried to hold her breath.

 

It all added up to a failure so crushing she could not

bear to think about it yet. And Sev, the man who'd

 

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ArmeMcCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

never given her a piece of his soul to keep in her

charm bracelet — was he the one who'd engineered

this disaster?

 

"What are you doing here?" she croaked.

 

"Making sure you came out of the sleepgas without

complications," Sev said. His voice sounded thin and

strained, as if he were trying to reach her from a great

distance. "Some people have a convulsive reaction. It

looked for a while like you were going to be one of

them."

 

And that had worried him? Perhaps he still cared for

her a little, then. Perhaps her experiment of taking

him aboard the Xanadu hadn't been a total failure,

after all. Fassa stretched, experimentally, and saw the

way his eyes followed her movements. Perhaps some-

thing could yet be salvaged from this catastrophe.

After all, they were alone on the droneship...

 

"Not convulsions," she said, languorously wriggling

her toes and proceeding upward, muscle by muscle, to

make certain that every inch of her own amazing body.

was back under her command again. *Just bad dreams."

"What sort of dreams?" Sev inquired.

Fassa sat up, rather more quickly than she had in-

tended, and fell back against the cabin wall. "The sort

that make you afraid to die."

 

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," Sev

agreed with no change of tone, and Fassa felt a stab of

regret. She could have liked this man who so quickly

picked up on her thoughts, capping her unvoiced

quotations. If only he weren't so obstinately on the

wrong side! Ah, well, perhaps that could be changed.

It would damn well have to be changed if she hoped to

get out of this, she reminded herself

 

"Speak for yourself," she told him. "My conscience

isn't all that troubled; I've done nothing more than

what everybody does, just trying to get ahead by my

own efforts." Wrong tone, wrong tone. She didn't want

 

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to argue with Bryley; she wanted to seduce him. No.

Reeded to seduce him. That was all.

 

And she wasn't going to get anywhere in her present

condition. Fassa pushed sweaty, matted dark hair away

from her forehead with a genuine moan of pain.

"God, I must look like hell," she said. "Would you

mind very much getting out of here so I can clean up?"

 

"Yes," said Sev, "I would. You're not to be left un-

guarded until we return to Central. Orders from

 

CenDip."

Fassa moaned again. If CenDip was interesting itself

 

in her case, she was worse off than she'd thought.

Never mind. Central was a long way off. For the

present she was alone on a droneship with this gor-

geous hunk, and with any luck at all she'd make him

change his allegiances before the official transports ar-

rived to carry her to trial.

 

After only a little pouting and posing she managed

to persuade Sev that propping himself against the wall

outside her cabin would be adequate to fulfill his

guard duty. It was, Fassa thought with satisfaction, a

beginning. Now he would feel that this cabin was her

territory. When he came in again, it would be at her in-

vitation ... and invitations could lead to all sorts of

interesting things. She washed from head to foot, kick-

ed her stained and crumpled clothes in a corner under

the bunk, splashed a little extra cool water over her

face, and wrapped a sheet around herself in lieu of

fresh clothes. This would be a real test of her abilities.

No cosmetics, hair combed straight with no styling, a

scratchy Service-issue sheet instead of a clinging gown,

and this bare cabin for a romantic setting!

 

"fossa baby, you're so sweet, I just can't resist you," Paul

del Parma used to moan when he came into her room

and buried himself in her. And she'd been aji

awkward, sullen Uttle girl then, with her black hair in

thin tight braids. She'd worn the ugliest, plainest

 

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clothes she could find, but that didn't put Faul off.

 

For the first time Fassa deliberately summoned up

the memories she'd tried for so long to bury, seeking

the confidence she needed to go on. She really was ir-

resistible to men. Faul del Parma had proved that,

hadn't he? Even knowing it was wrong, even knowing

she hated it, he'd still refused to let her alone.

 

"It'severytkfngaboutyou, the way you walk, the way you smile

up atme with those bigsooty lashes hatfcoveringyour eyes"

 

Instead of giving her confidence, die memories

made Fassa feel grimy. She must have invited him, not

with words, but with something about the way she

walked and looked at him. Somehow she'd made

Daddy want her without even knowing it. She was a

bad little girl and if Mama ever found out...

 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mama screamed

and fell endlessly through the glittering interior atrium

of the hotel, tumbling in a cloud of gauzy draperies. And

it was all her fault. Fassa cried out once and threw some-

thing across the cabin with all her might, and Sev Bryley

burst through the unlatched door.

 

"What's the matter? What happened?"

 

His arms went around her and Fassa rested against

the fresh starched fabric of his shirt, feeling the strong

beat of his heart beneath her face. For some reason she

was crying; she couldn't stop crying for long minutes

while Sev just held her. Not easing her backwards

towards the bunk, not letting his hands slide artfully

downward in a disguised caress. Just holding her.

 

"Well," Fassa said finally, gulping down the last of

her sobs, "I told you; 1 have bad dreams."

 

"You seemed wide awake when I left you."

 

Fassa drew a shaky deep breath. "I — I'm afraid to

be alone just now," she said. It happened to be true.

"Could you stay with me?"

 

"As it happens," Sev told her, "I was going to

anyway." He released her, as if sensing that she was

 

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recovered for the moment, and moved a step back-

ward. Fassa sighed again, with a little more

forethought this time, and watched his eyes. Yes, he

was aware of what those deep breaths were doing to

the sliding knot that held the sheet together between

her breasts, and he couldn't take his eyes off the

creamy skin that contrasted with the stark white of the

sheet. Good. She had a job to do, here; she had best

think about that and nothing else, or she'd never win

this man to her side before she was taken away for trial.

 

"Oh, that's right," she said, allowing a tear to creep

into the corner of one eye; not difficult, in her present

shaky mood. "I forgot; you're my jailer, aren't you?"

 

Sev looked uncomfortable at this assessment, as

she'd wanted him to. "I wouldn't put it quite like that

But someone does have to stay widi you until..."

 

"Until the end," Fassa finished for him. "What sort

of sentences are in favor these days? Will it be hard

labor, do you think?" She tossed her head and gave

him her Christian-facing-the-lions look, all nobility

and virgin defiance. At the same time she moved

slightly so that the sheet molded over one thigh, giving

him (she hoped) visions of what sort of hard labor she

might be good for.

 

"You'll have a fair trial," Sev told her, "and a chance

to speak in your own defense."

 

"Will I?" Fassa challenged him. "Look at me. Don't

you think there'll be some old judge who'd just love to

see me mindwiped? They'll be thinking what a pity it is

to waste such a beautiful body, keep the body, just wipe

out the personality and start over."

 

"Oh, I'm sure they won't do that," Sev said, but he

sounded less righteously certain than he'd been a mo-

ment before. Fassa mentally applauded her own

cleverness. There wasn't much point in trying to con-

vince Sev that she was innocent of the charges against

her, not when he was Central's prime witness. Much

 

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Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret Bail

 

better to switch the topic to the corruption at all levels

of government. Sev knew something about that. Let

him stew over the assertion that she couldn't possibly

get a fair trial, let him think — as he must be thinking

now — about the danger that she'd end up as the

mindwiped toy of some corrupt official.

 

"You know it happens," Fassa said in a low voice.

"You know how much cheating there is in the govern-

ment. Everybody wants something for himself. One of

them will want me, and then — " She blew a kiss into

the air with a mocking smile. "Bye-bye, Fassa del

Parma!" Time to let the sheet fell to the ground, giving

Sev a good look about what some dirty old man would

get if he didn't get there first. She moved towards him,

inch by inch, watching the color rise in his sharp fea-

tures, watching the blue eyes darken with desire. "You

could at least say good-bye properly, Sev, my love," she

whispered.

 

She paused, eyes closed, awaiting the warmth of his

arms about her and his mouth on hers.

 

"I think not," said Sev Bryley, and while Fassa's eyes

flew open in shocked disbelief he took the two steps

that brought him to the cabin door.

 

Once outside the cabin, Sev reactivated the

guardlock mechanism that would prevent Fassa from

leaving. He leaned against the wall and wiped his

forehead with the back of one hand. It wasn't much

help; he still felt as hot as if he'd just done a ten-mile

run in the Capellan jungle. He needed a cold shower.

And that ten-mile run might not be a bad idea, either,

except he couldn't leave Nancia alone to guard Fassa.

 

He could get some extra help, though — and some

insurance against temptation. "Nancia?" he said in a

low voice, looking upward at the angle between ceiling

and roof where her auditory sensors were installed.

"Nancia, I think you'd better activate full sensors

 

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within Fassa's cabin. I know it's a breach of the

prisoner's privacy, but this is a very dangerous woman.

And, Nancia? You'd better keep the sensors on at all

times. Even when I'm with Ms. del Parma."

 

Sev thought that over and decided he hadn't

worded that last request strongly enough. "Especially

when I'm with Fassa," he rephrased.

 

"I'd already done that, Sev," Nancia responded

from the wall speaker. "Don't worry. Everything has

been observed and recorded."

 

"Excellent," said Sev between his teeth. "I'm sure that

little scene will be vasdy amusing to somebody who's not

troubled by hormonal urges. Now, if you don't mind,just

keep watching Fassa and let me know if she tries any-

thing. I'll be in the ship's exercise room."

 

"What for?"

 

"Taking care of my hormones," Sev said. He

stamped off to improve his weight-lifting record.

 

"FN-935, Forister Armontillado-y-Medoc requests

permission to come aboard."

 

"Permission granted."

 

Even to her own ears, Nancia sounded brusque. After

a grudging nanosecond's thought she added formally,

"Welcome aboard, Forister Armontilladoy-Medoc."

 

The short, spare man whom she'd last seen heading

into the tangled planetary conflicts of the Tran Phon

guerrillas on Charon dropped three heavy pieces ofbag-

gage onto the lift with a grunt of relief. Pm getting an old

man who can't even carry his own luggage without getting out of

breath. But as if to contradict die unspoken criticism,

Forister waved the lift upwards with his luggage and took

the circular stairs. Nancia watched his progress from sen-

sor to sensor. He moved with quick, neat steps,

economical of his motions. You couldn't say he was

bounding up the stairs, but he did get to the top more

quickly dian she'd expected; and there wasn't a gray hair

 

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out of place or a drop of sweat on his forehead when he

entered the central cabin.

 

"Greetings, Nancia," Forister said. Unlike Caleb, he

looked directly at the titanium bulkhead that housed

Nancia's human body and brain. His direct gaze was

rather disconcerting to Nancia, who'd been used to Caleb

wandering round the ship and addressing her without

turning his head, counting on her efficient sensor system

to pick up his words wherever he might be. She took a mo-

ment to look over this strange elderly brawn and prepare

her response. Light eyes in a tanned fece, with a network

of crinkles around the eyes as if he were accustomed to

looking deeply at whatever he saw; hints of red and ginger

in the graying hair; a light, erect, relaxed stance, as if he

were prepared to move in any direction at a moment's

notice. He may do. But he's not Caleb!

 

"You seem remarkably fit for someone who's just been

recuperating at Summerlands," Nancia said at last

 

Forister grimaced. "Oh, I'm fit enough, if that's

what's been worrying you, FN. The stay at Summer-

lands was not for any medical reasons."

 

"Then what? The orders I received said you were

there for R&R."

 

"Um. Yes. Well, they would, wouldn't they?" Forister

said, maddeningly, while Nancia wondered if the man

ever gave a straight answer to anything. Maybe that was

trained out of you in the diplomatic service.

 

At last he vouchsafed one more sentence that could

be considered an explanation. "My last posting for

CenDip was... shall we say, stressful, and things didn't

work out as well as I'd hoped."

 

"Charon?" Nancia asked.

 

The brawn blinked once, surprised. "Why, no. Why

— oh, I remember. I had the honor of being

transported to Charon by you, didn't I? Some years

ago — you were the CN-935 then, as I recall. My con-

dolences on the loss of your partner."

 

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175

 

"It's only temporary," Nancia said. "Which reminds

me. I wouldn't wish to hurry your unpacking, but as

soon as you're ready, I'd like you to take over guarding

the prisoner. Sev Bryley is needed at Summerlands to

look after my brawn."

 

"As you wish." Forister did not quite dick his heels

together as he executed a perfect bow in the direction

of the titanium column. He wheeled, collected his bags

from the open lift and marched down the hall to the

brawn's cabin — Caleb's cabin — leaving Nancia with

the feeling that she had been unpleasantly brusque.

She opened a speaker in the cabin.

 

"If you don't object, we could continue our conver-

sation while you unpack."

 

"No objection," said Forister. He was slighdy out of

breath now, after lifting the heavy bags to his bunk.

What on Earth did the man travel with? A fortune in

Corycium bars buried beneath his underwear? The

first things he drew out of the bags were commonplace

enough: CenDip formal dress and spare shirts,

toiletries and a handful of laser-printed datahedra.

 

He might not object, but he wasn't being very help-

ful either. Well, she hadn't been as friendly as she

might; it was up to her to make the first move. "What

was your last posting, then, if it wasn't Charon? And

why did you pick Summerlands?"

 

"Summerlands has a very good reputation as a rest

facility," Forister said. "I expect you're unduly worried

about your former brawn; the medical staff there is

top-quality."

 

"It's not their technical skills I'm worried about,"

Nancia told him. There was movement in Fassa's

cabin. She had been keeping the sensors there down

to monitor level; now she activated full pick-up and

saw that Sev had gone in to talk to Fassa. The girl was

fully dressed this time, and they were sitting on op-

posite bunks; she didn't think Sev would encounter

 

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Arme McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

any real problem. All the same, she captured their

quiet conversation and listened to it with one ear while

she watched Forister and wished he would hurry up

with his unpacking. Now he had got to the hottom

layer of the first bag, and she saw what had weighed

his luggage down so: nothing but a lot of antiques.

One antique book after another, kilos and kilos of

them, and doubtless no more information in the lot of

them than could be stored in a few facets of a

datahedron! There was no accounting for tastes.

 

"Isn't Summerlands rather remote for a man of

your importance?" Nancia probed. She knew she was

being pushy, but she didn't care. If Forister was in with

Alpha and her criminal friends, she didn't dare set him

to guard Fassa — nor did she dare send him back to

the clinic to watch over Caleb. She would have to get

on the datastream to Murasaki Base at once.

 

"I've family in the Nyota system," Forister told her.

"I was hoping to make a brief visit after I left Summer-

lands. And I'd a friend at the clinic."

 

"Alpha bint Hezra-Fong," Nancia surmised. She

might as well face all the bad news at once.

 

"Good God, no!" Forister seemed genuinely

startled. "If that's what you think of the company I

keep, no wonder you've been so hostile. Somebody

else entirely, I assure you."

 

"Who?"

 

"I'm not at liberty to say just now. If all goes well — "

Forister broke off and rather fussily adjusted the port-

able folding shelf where he had stowed his books,

lightening the spring-bindings that would keep them

in place in case of any rapid ship's movements. "But

whether it comes off or not," he said, more slowly, "I

won't be here to help. And I won't have any free time

afterwards to visit in this system. I'll be on my way back

to Central with you, and once I land there, God knows

what six urgent assignments will be waiting." He

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

177

 

looked up, direcdy into Nantia's primary cabin sensor.

"So you see, dear lady, this assignment is no more to

my liking than it is to yours. I hope we can sink our dif-

ferences for the duration — "

 

"Hush" The conversation in Fassa's cabin had sud-

denly become very interesting; Nancia didn't want to

have to wait and replay it, she wanted to know what

was going on right now.

 

It appeared that Fassa was trying to plea bargain with

information on some of the other young people who'd

been involved in that vicious wager. She began by hinting

to Sev that she might be able to inform on a whole gang of

criminals in the Nyota system if doing so would get her a

reduced sentence. Sev, quite properly, told her that he

wasn't authorized to make such promises.

 

MOh, what the hell," Fassa said wearily at last." If I'm

going down, I won't go alone. You might as well know

everything. At least then you'll see that I'm not the

worst of the bunch by a long shot."

 

She began telling Sev all she knew about Darnell

Overton-Glaxely and the ways in which he'd worked his

illegal Net access, first to bring in shipping bids that were

always just a shade lower than those of his competitors,

then to destroy the credit and acquire the stock of any

small businesses he felt like adding to his empire.

 

"AU very interesting," Sev told her. "But if Overton-

Glaxely is as clever as you say at accessing private Net

datastreams, he'll have been clever enough to leave no

traces of his taps."

 

"Oh, he's not clever at all," Fassa said. "He was

taught how to tap into the datastream — "

 

"By?" Sev prompted gentiy.

 

Fassa shook her head. She had gone rather white

about the lips. "It doesn't matter. Nobody you're likely

to catch up with. Not me, if that's what you're think-

ing; I haven't got that kind of brains."

 

"I never suspected you had," Sev said, rather too

 

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Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret BaS

 

solemnly. Fassa gave him a suspicious glance. His lips

were twitching. She aimed a mock blow at him.

 

"That's right, insult my intelligence!"

 

Sev caught her wrist and held it for a long moment

while Nancia wondered if it was time to interrupt. At

last his fingers relaxed. Fassa subsided onto her bunk.

There was a white ring about her wrist where Sev had

held her; she rubbed it absently while she went on

talking. "Never mind about the Net, then. There's

other ways to prove it. One of the men Darnell ruined

found out a little too much about his methods, and

Darnell sent him to Summerlands."

 

At that point Nancia decided that Forister had better

hear this too. Whatever she thought of the man as a re-

placement for her Caleb, he was a trusted CenDip

senior civil servant. He had friends in Summerlands.

And he seemed to share her opinion of Dr. bint Hezra-

Fong. She piped the input from Fassa's cabin through

her speakers in Forister's cabin. After a moment's

stunned silence, Forister sat down amid the piles of an-

tiques on his bunk and listened carefully.

 

"Darnell thought Alpha would kill the man for him.

She'd had a bunch of accidents with the tests she ran

on her charity patients; she was getting quite good at

faking death certificates with innocent-seeming causes

of death. She used to boast about it at our annual

meetings. One more wouldn't have been any problem

for her. But she didn't kill him. She keeps him so full of

Seductron that he doesn't know who he is, and when-

ever she wants Darnell to do her a favor, she threatens

to cut the man's Seductron dosage."

 

"His name?'* Sev demanded.

 

Fassa looked down. "I'd like some assurances that

you'll see my sentence reduced."

 

"You know I can't do that," Sev told her

 

She twisted her fingers together. "You could lose the

records of this last trip, though. Without your tes-

 

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179

 

timony and the recordings, there woulan't be any

hard evidence against me." She looked up, eyes bril-

liant with unshed tears. "Please, Sev? I thought you

cared for me a little."

 

"You were wrong," said Sev in a voice as dead and

even as any droneship's artificially generated speech.

 

"Then what do I have? Why should I give you a

damned thing?" Fassa pounded on the yielding sur-

face of the bunk in frustration. Her fists sank into the

plasmaform and left momentary dents that smoothed

out as soon as she lifted her hands. "Oh, all right. Go

ahead and see me mindwiped, or sent to prison until

I'm too old to care," she said wearily. "Why should the

others get away with it when my life is ruined? The

man's name is Valden Alien Hopkirk, and he used to

own Hopkirk Glimware right here on Bahati. Is that

enough for you, or would you like his Central Citizen

Code as well?"

 

"Any little thing you can tell us would be much ap-

preciated," said Sev carefully.

 

"Well, I don't happen to know his CCC, so you're

out of luck!" Fassa snapped. "Wait — wait — there's

more."

 

"There is?"

 

"Find Hopkirk, and you'll have evidence on Alpha

and Darnell both," Fassa said rapidly. "But there's

another one you ought to get. His name's Blaize...."

 

In the brawn's cabin, Forister lowered his head to

rest on his clenched hands. "Blaize Armontillado-

Perez y Medoc," he whispered. "No. No."

 

Fve family m the Nyota system... I was going to visit after

fleft Sunrnierhnds ...

 

Nancia cut off the audio transmission to Forister's

cabin and shut down her own sensors there. She lis-

tened alone while Fassa babbled out the details of

Blaize's felonious career on Angalia; the diverting of

PTA shipments, the slave labor and torture of the na-

 

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Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Batt

 

rive population he was supposed to be guarding.

 

Some day Forister would have to know and face

those details, but not yet. She would leave him alone

until he requested the recordings of this conversation,

and then she would let him listen in privacy.

 

And so Nancia was the only witness when Fassa's

confessional came to an abrupt ending. After she

finished the tale of Blaize's misdeeds, Sev probed her.

 

"I've looked up the records of that first voyage," he

said, almost casually. "There were five of you in it

together, weren't there? You, Dr. bint Hezra-Fong,

Overton-Glaxely, Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and

one other. Polyon de Gras-Waldheim, newly commis-

sioned from the Academy. What was his part in the

wager?"

 

Fassa clamped her lips shut and slowly shook her

head. "I can't tell you any more," she whispered.

"Only — don't let them send me to Shemali. Kill me

first. I know you never cared for me, but as one

human being to another—kill me first Please."

 

"You're wrong in thinking I never cared for you,"

Sev said after a long silence.

 

"You said so yourself."

 

"You asked if I liked you a little," he corrected her.

"And I don't. You're vain and self-centered and you

may have killed a good man and you've yet to show

any interest at all in Caleb's fete. 1 don't much like you

at all."

 

"Yes, I know."

 

"Unfortunately,** he went on with no change of ex-

pression, "likeitornot—and believe me, I'm not at all

happy about the situation — I do seem to love you.

Not," he said almost gently, "that it'll do either of us

much good, under the circumstances. But I did think

you ought to know."

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

Caleb recovered with amazing speed. Two hours after

his arrival at the clinic, forty minutes after Alpha bint

Hezra-Fong had analyzed the poisons in his blood and

slapped on stimpatches of the appropriate antidotes, the

nervous convulsions had stopped. Nancia knew exactly

when that happened, because by then she had thought

to send Sev Bryley to Summerlands with a contact button

discreetly replacing the top stud in his dress tunic and a

second contact button to clip onto Caleb's hospital gown.

While Forister remained on board as a nominal guard

for Fassa, Sev lounged about the public rooms at Sum-

merlands trying to look like a worried friend-or-relative

and chatting up the recuperating VIPs. Nancia watched

the clinic from two angles: the convulsive shuddering

view of a cracked white ceiling, emanating from Caleb's

contact button, and the repetitive views of artificial potted

palms and doddering old celebrities to whom Sev talked.

On the whole, the potted palms were more valuable than

the celebrities; at least they didn't waste Sev's time with

their reminiscences of events a century past

 

"None of these people know anything about

Hopkirk," she whispered through Sev's contact button.

 

"I've noticed," he replied as the senile director

emeritus of the Bahati Musical College, aged one

hundred seventy-five Standard Central Years, tottered

away for his noon meds.

 

"Can't you do something more productive?"

 

"Give me time. We don't want to be obvious. And

stop hissing at me. They'll think I'm talking to myself

and hearing voices."

 

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Anne McCaffrvy & Margaret Ball

 

"From what I've seen of these befuddled gentry,

that'll make you fit right in."

 

"Only," said Sev grimly, "if they don't hear the voices

too."

 

Nantia hated to leave him with the last word in an

argument, but she was distracted at that moment.

Something had happened — or stopped happening.

Caleb's sensor button was no longer transmitting a jig-

gling view of the cracks on the ceiling; the image was

still and perfectly dear.

 

Not quite still. A regular, gende motion assured her

that he still breathed.

 

A moment later, two aides exchanged a flurry of

rapid, low-voiced but mainly cheerful comments over

Caleb's bed. Nancia gathered that the news was good;

his (three-syllable Greek root) was up, his (four-syl-

lable Latin derivation) was down, they were putting

him on a regular dosage of (two-word Denebian

form), and as soon as he was conscious they were to

start him on a physical therapy routine.

 

She complained to Forister about the jargon.

 

"Now you know how the rest of the world feels

about brains and brawns," he said soothingly. "You

know, there are people who think decomposition

theory is just a little hard to follow. They accuse us of

mystifying the mathematics on purpose."

 

"Huh. There's nothing mystical about mathe-

matics," Nancia grumbled. "This medical stuff is

something else again."

 

"Why don't you translate the terms and find out

what they mean?"

 

"I didn't have a classical education," Nancia told

him. "I'm going to buy one when we get back to

civilization, though. I want full datahedra of Latin,

Greek, and medical terminology. With these new hy-

perchips I should be able to access the terms almost as

fast as a native speaker."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

183

 

Somebody shouted just out of visual range of

Caleb's sensor button. The view of the hospital ceiling

swayed, blurred, and was replaced by glass windows,

green fields, and a white-clothed arm coining from the

left. "Here," said a calm, competent voice just before

Caleb bent over the permalloy bowl before him and

gave up the contents of his last meal.

 

The contact button gave Nancia a very clear, sharply

detailed close-up view of the results.

 

After that, though, he recovered his strength with

amazing speed. Throughout the day Nancia followed

his sessions with the physical therapist. At the same

rime she tracked Sev while he prowled the hallways of

Summerlands Clinic and listened for any scrap of in-

formation about a patient named Valden Alien

Hopkirk.

 

By mid-afternoon a new aide was able to assure

Caleb that there would be no permanent nerve

damage as a result of the attack.

 

"You're weak, though, and we'll need to retrain some

of the nerve pathways; the stuff your space pirate used

was a neural scrambler. Damage is reversible," the aide

said briskly, "but I'd advise a prolonged course of

therapy. You certainly won't be cleared to act as a brawn

for some time. Has your ship been notified?"

 

"She knows everything that goes on here," said

Caleb, placing one finger briefly on the edge of the

contact button.

 

Nancia got a good look at the aide's face. The man

looked thoughtful, perhaps worried. "I... see. And,

um, I suppose the button has a dead-man switch?

Some alarm if it's inactivated or removed?"

 

"Absolutely," Nancia responded through the contact

button before Caleb could tell the truth. Some such ar-

rangement would be a great safeguard for Caleb, and

she wished Central had thought of it. But failing that,

the illusion of the arrangement might give him some

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

protection. She went on through the tiny speaker, ig-

noring Caleb's attempts to interrupt her. "Please

notify all staff concerned of the arrangement. I would

be sorry to have to sound a general alarm just because

some ignorant staff member accidentally interfered

with my monitoring system."

 

"That would indeed be ... unfortunate," said the

aide thoughtfully.

 

After he left, Caleb said quietly into the contact but-

ton, "That was a lie, Nancia."

 

"Was it?" Nancia parried. "Do you think you know all

my capabilities? Who's the 'brain' of this partnership?"

 

"I see!"

 

Nancia rather hoped he didn't. At least she'd

avoided lying direcdy to Caleb. That was some-

thing ... but not enough.

 

She had never before minded her inability to move

about freely on planetary surfaces. Psych Department's

testing before she entered brainship training showed

that she valued the ability to fly between the stars for

more than the limited mobility of planet-bound crea-

tures. "I could have told them that," Nancia responded

when the test results were reported to her. "Who wants to

roll about on surface when they could have all of deep

space to play in? If I want anything planetside, they can

bring it to me at the spaceport"

 

But they couldn't bring her Caleb. And she couldn't

go to the Summer-lands clinic to watch over him.

Nancia could see and hear everything that passed

within range of those buttons. She could even send in-

structions to the wearers. But she could not art. She

was reduced to fretting over the slow progress they

were making and worrying about the medications

being inserted into Caleb's blood stream.

 

"Haven't you found anything yet?" she demanded

of Forister. Since Fassa had spent the day crying quiet-

ly in her cabin, Forister interpreted his "guard" duties

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

185

 

rather liberally. He was on board and available in case

of any escape attempt, but he told Nancia that he saw

no reason to waste his time sitting on a hard bench out-

side Fassa's cabin door. Instead, he sat before a

touchscreen in the central cabin, inserting delicate

computer linkages into Alpha's clinic records and

scanning for some hint of where she'd put the witness

they needed.

 

Forister straightened and sighed. "I have found," he

told her, "four hundred gigamegs of patient charts,

containing detailed records of all their medications,

treatments, and data readouts."

 

"Well, then, why don't you just look up Hopkirk

and find out what she's done with him?" Nancia

demanded.

 

In response, Forister tapped one finger on the

touchscreen and slapped his palm over Nancia's

analog input. The data he had retrieved was shunted

directly into Nancia's conscious memory stores. It felt

like having the contents of a medical library injected

directly into her skull. Nancia winced, shut down her

instinctive read-responses, and opened a minuscule

slit of awareness onto a tiny portion of the data.

 

It was an incomprehensible jumble of medical ter-

minology, packed without regard for paragraphing or

spacing, with peculiar symbolic codes punctuating the

strings ofjargon.

 

She opened another slit and "saw" the same tightly-

packed gibberish.

 

"It's not indexed by patient name," Forister ex-

plained. "Names are encoded — for privacy reasons, I

suppose. If the data is indexed by anything, it might be

on type of treatment. Or it might be based on a hashed

list of meds. I really can't find any organizing principle

yet. Also," he added, unnecessarily, "it's compressed."

"We know he's being kept quiet by controlled over-

doses of Seductron," Nancia said. "Why not... oh." As

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

187

 

she spoke, she had been scanning the datastream.

There was no mention of Seductron. "Illicit drug," she

groaned. "Officially, there's no such treatment. She'll

have encoded it as something else."

 

"I should have taken Latin," Forister nodded.

"Capellan seemed so much more useful for a

diplomat... Ah, well."

 

"Can you keep hacking into the records?" Nanria

asked. '"There might be a due somewhere else."

 

Forister looked mildly offended. "Please, dear lady.

'Hacking' is a criminal offense."

 

"But isn't that what you're doing?"

 

"I may be temporarily on brawn service," Forister

said, "but I am a permanent member of the Central

Diplomatic Service. Code G, if that means anything to

you. As such, I have diplomatic immunity. Hacking is

illegal; whatever I do is not illegal; hence, it's not hack-

ing." He smiled benignly and traced a spiraling path

inward from the boundaries of the touchscreen,

wiping the previous search and opening a new way

into the labyrinth of the Summerlands Clinic records.

 

"/ should have taken logic," Nancia muttered. "I

think there's something wrong with your syllogism.

Code G. That means you're a spy?" Caleb would never

forgive her for this. Consorting with spies, breaking

into private records... The feet that she was working

as much to save him as to track down criminals

wouldn't palliate her offense in his eyes.

 

"Mmm. You may call me X-39 if you like." Hum-

ming to himself, Forister smoothed out the path he

had begun and traced a new, more complex pattern

on the touchscreen.

 

"Isn't that rather pointless," Nancia inquired,

"seeing that I already know your name?"

 

"Hmm? Ah, yes — there we go!" Forister chuckled

with satisfaction as he opened his access to a new seg-

ment of Summerlands Clinic's computer system.

 

"Supremely pointless, like most espionage. Most

diplomacy, too, come to think of it. No, we don't use

code names. But I've always thought it would be

rather fiin to be known as X-39."

 

"Have you indeed, fungus-brain?" Alpha bint

Hezra-Fong muttered from the security of her inner

office. "How'd you like to be known as Seductron Test

Failure 106 Mark 7? If I'd known who you were — "

She bit off the empty threats. She knew now. And if

Forister made the mistake of coming back to Summer-

lands for any reason, she'd have her revenge.

 

Neither Forister nor Nancia had thought to check

Nancia's decks for transmitters — and even if they

had, they might not have recognized Alpha's personal

spyder, a sliver-thin enhanced metachip device that

clung to any permalloy wall and, chameleon-like,

mimicked the colors of its surroundings. In all the fuss

attendant on getting the wounded brawn into the

floatube, Alpha had found it easy enough to leave one

of the spyders attached to Nancia's central corridor.

From there it picked up any conversation in the

cabins, although the voices were distorted by distance

and interference.

 

At the time, Alpha hadn't been exactly sure what in-

stinct prompted her to plant the spyder; she had just

felt that the amount of Net communications traffic

concerning this particular brainship and brawn sug-

gested they were more important than they looked.

Infuriatingly, the datastreams coming from Central

over the Net were in a code Alpha had not yet suc-

ceeded in breaking, so the spyder was her only source

of information.

 

So £ar, though, it had proved a remarkably effective

tool. Alpha preened herself on her cleverness in drop-

ping one of the expensive spyders where it was most

needed. She drummed her fingers on the palmpad of

 

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Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret BaH

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

189

 

the workstation while she mentally reviewed what

she'd done so far and the steps she'd taken to

counteract the danger. The rhythm of her fingertips

was repeated on the screen as a jagged display of

colored lines, breaking and recombining in a hypnotic

jazzy dance.

 

First had come the surprising sound of Fassa del

Parma's voice. While admiring the dramatic range

Fassa put into pleading with her captor, Alpha hadn't

been too surprised when the girl rapidly broke down

and began spilling what she knew about her com-

petitors. She'd always felt the del Parma kid didn't

have what it took to make it in the big time. Too emo-

tional. She cried in her sleep and then she gloated over

her victims. Real success came from being like Alpha

or Polyon, cool, unmoved, above feeling triumph or

fear, concentrating always on the desired goal.

 

Fortunately, Fassa didn't know much; she'd been

too stupid to think much beyond her personal con-

cerns. Alpha was willing to bet the little snip had never

thought of compiling a dossier on each of her com-

petitors, with good hard data that could be traded in

emergency. All she had were gossip and innuendo and

stories from the annual meetings. Blaize was nasty to

the natives, Alpha had developed an illicit drug, Dar-

nell was less than totally ethical in his business

takeovers.

 

Hearsay! Without hard evidence to back up the

stories, Central would never make charges like these

stick, and they were too smart to try. Alpha grinned

and slapped her open hand down on the palmpad,

jolting the computer into a random display of medical

jargon and meaningless symbols mixed with sentences

pulled at random from patient reports. She'd

prepared that program years ago, as protection

against a computer attack like the one Forister was

trying now. And to judge from the snippets of conver-

 

sation between him and Nancia, it was working. They

would waste all their energy trying to decipher a code

that had no meaning.

 

And while they worked, Alpha would take steps to

deal with the one piece of hard evidence Fassa had

pointed out to them. Her fingers drummed fester; she

slapped the palmpad again to enter voice mode.

 

"Send Baynes and Moss to my office — no, to Test

Room Four," she said. Baynes could safely be pulled

off the task of watching that brawn for a while; Caleb

was too weak to be any danger, and anyway he was

protected by his brainship's monitor button.

 

Alpha didn't think her office was infested with

spyders; she was absolutely certain about Test Room 4,

a gleaming permalloy shell with no crack in the walls,

no furnishings but the permalloy benches and table.

Alpha had commissioned the building of this room out

of her profits from the first illicit street sales of

Seductron. The official purpose of the lab room was

for Alpha's experiments on bioactive agents; the ex-

treme simplicity of its design was to aid in complete

sterilization of the chamber after experiments were

completed.

 

It served well enough for these purposes. And the

contractor who'd installed nets of electronic impulse

chargers behind the permalloy skin, making the room

impervious to any known external monitors, had suf-

fered a fatal overdose of Blissto shortly after the

completion of the room. Alpha shook her head and

sighed with everyone else that she'd never have

guessed the man was an addict. And the secret of the

 

room was safe.

 

Baynes and Moss really were addicts. Alpha had

"cured" their Blissto addiction, found them jobs at the

clinic, and then explained to them that the Blissto ad-

diction had only been replaced by a much more

serious drug, a variant of Seductron with the unfor-

 

190

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

191

 

tunate side effect of causing complete nervous collapse

in victims who were suddenly cut off from their

regular dosage. Alpha had been experimenting with a

mildly addictive form of Seductron that would create a

captive market in anyone who ever tried the stuff;

Seductron-B4 was an overresponse to the problem.

She was afraid to release the stuff to street markets.

But it was incredibly useful in creating willing ser-

vants. It had only taken one or two delicately timed

delays in the Seductron-B4 doses to convince Baynes

and Moss that their only hope of life lay in total loyalty

to her. She had picked her tools carefully; they had

enough medical background to be genuinely useful as

aides in the clinic, but were far too stupid to replicate

her work on Seductron. If she died or were in-

capacitated, Baynes and Moss would die too:

inevitably, slowly, and painfully.

 

She felt quiet satisfaction, as always, at seeing two

men to whom her life was, literally, as valuable as then-

own. And for all thai little snip fossa vaunts her sex appeal,

no man who's rutted after her cares about her life the way these

two care about mine.

 

She gave her instructions quickly and confidently,

expecting nothing but instant obedience. The patient

carried on Summerlands' lists as Varian Alexander

was to be removed to the charity side of the clinic at

once. There was an empty bed in Ward 6, where the

recovering Blissto addicts and alcoholics were housed;

he would do very well there for the moment.

 

"Excuse me, Doctor, but are you sure — " Baynes

began.

 

"He'll stand the move," Alpha said.

* Yes, but—"

 

"It's simple enough even for your drug-logged

brain, I should think!"

 

"It's not Alexander that worries him, Doctor," said

the quicker Moss. "It's that half-cyborg freak in Ward

 

6, Qualia Benton. Been asking a lot of questions, she

has. Too many."

 

Alpha drummed her fingers on the permalloy table.

Benton. Qualia Benton, Ah, yes. An interesting case,

presented as an alcoholic veteran of the Capellan Wars

who was too shaky and brain-damaged to keep up her

own periodic maintenance on her cyboig limb and organ

replacements. All parts had appeared to be in good

working order, but Alpha had approved the series of tests

and maintenance anyway; Veterans' Aid would pay for

the work, and if Qualia Benton was too far out of it to do

her own maintenance, she'd never think to question

whether the work the clinic charged was absolutely

necessary—or whether it had even been done.

"What sort of questions?"

 

Baynes shrugged. "Anything. Everything. How do we

like our jobs. How did we get our jobs. How many rooms

are there in this wonderful big building, and what all

goes on here besides taking care of poor old freaks like

her. Supposing she wanted to get work at a nice clean

place like this, would we put in a good word for her."

"No harm in all that"

 

"Yeah, but..." Baynes shifted his weight from one

foot to the other and fell silent.

 

Moss took up the story. "Last Friday she was rolling

about in her bed, claiming she had nervous pains

something awful in her left foot, which it isn't there

any more, Doctor, and nothing wrong with the pros-

thesis connections, I checked 'em out twice. Wouldn't

go out for exercise with the rest of the winos, so I left

her while we shoved the others out for their healthful

walk around the park. Only thing is, I had to come

back early on account of old Charlie Blissed-Out col-

lapsed with chest pains and I wanted a floatube to

bring him back. And I found her on the floor outside

the staff room. She claimed she'd been trying to work

the prosthesis and it collapsed on her."

 

192

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

"Possibly true," said Alpha.

 

"Yeah. But... the staff room door was unlocked. I

swear I locked up like always, Doctor, but it was open

then."

 

Alpha considered Moss's sweating face for a long

moment He could be trying to cover up his own care-

lessness in leaving the staff room door unlocked and a

patient alone in the ward. But he hadn't had to tell her

about the incident in the first place. He would only be

risking her anger if he were afraid of something even

worse — like a threat to her position at the clinic,

something that would take her away and end his

supply of Seductron-B4.

 

"Put the two of them in a private room," Alpha

ordered.

 

"Aren't any on the charity side," Baynes objected

glumly.

 

Moss rolled his eyes. "God give me strength," he

pleaded. "Doctor knows that, Baynes. Forget about

moving Victor Alexander to the charity side. We're to

put Qualia Benton in a private room with him on the

V.I.R side, and don't worry about the feet that Veterans

Aid won't pay; I reckon she won't be there long

enough to run up much of a bill. Right, Doctor?"

 

He gave Alpha a conspiratorial smile which she did

not return.

 

"Benton's is an interesting case," Alpha said neutral-

ly. "I wish to investigate this prosthesis trouble myself.

Any charges incurred will be billed to the experimen-

tal lab. Meanwhile, I wish you to keep an eye on the

visitor Bryley. He's supposed to be here as escort to

that brawn, but he's been spending entirely too much

time talking to too many people in the pubUc rooms."

 

Bryley might not be an immediate threat, but it

wouldn't do any harm to have Baynes and Moss keep

an eye on him. As for the other two, Alpha had no in-

tention of leaving the disposal of her problems to this

 

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193

 

pair of bunglers, one stupid and the other trying to

wriggle himself into her good graces. Nor did she in-

tend to risk their being able to give direct evidence

against her, if worst came to the worst

 

Qualia Benton might be no more than an alcoholic

old fool who couldn't keep from snooping into other

people's business, or she might be considerably more

than that If the first, she would be no loss; if the

second, she had to be disposed of immediately. As for

Valden Alien Hopkirk — Alpha hated to waste a

potential tool like Hopkirk, especially after going to

the trouble of keeping him lightly drugged and avail-

able for all this time, but she prided herself on the

ability to face fects and cut her losses. There were sud-

denly too many people asking too many questions

around Summerlands.

 

Alpha dismissed Baynes and Moss and went back

into her private storage room to prepare. "If you want

a thing done well, do it yourself," she murmured as

she prepared two stimpads, each loaded with a mas-

sive overdose of Seductron-B4.

 

The woman known as Qualia Benton knew some-

thing was wrong when the two aides who were Doctor

Hezra-Fong's shadows came to transfer her from the

charity side of the clinic. She'd been ready to act then,

fingers tensed against the side of her left-leg pros-

thesis, adrenalin keeping her unnaturally aware of

every shadow and change of intonation.

 

And nothing happened. "You're moving to a private

room," the big one called Baynes said.

 

"Who'll pay?" Qualia Benton demanded in the fret-

ful, shrill tone to be expected from an old soak whose

nerves were jangling for just one more drink.

 

"Doctor's interested in your case," said the little

black-haired one, Moss. "She wants to run some spe-

cial tests. On the clinic, if Veteran's Aid won't cover it

 

194

 

Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Batt

 

You could get into the next issue of the Medical Re-

search Journal."

 

"I'm honored," said Qualia Benton politely. She let the

men transfer her to a wheelchair and rode quiedy down

the long silent corridors of Summerlands clinic, watching

the myriad reflections of herself and the aides in the

polished tiles of floor and walls and ceiling, ready for the

slightest move that would warn her it was time to act

 

It won't happen in the halls. They'll move when Tm in a

room alone, she told herself. But what if they expected

her to count on that, and took her by surprise in one of

these long empty hallways? She dared not relax.

 

Even when they wheeled her into a room with two

beds, the one nearest the window already occupied,

she was tense with expectation.

 

"Here now, you said I was getting a private room!"

she whined. Qualia Benton would whine; what's

more, she would be suspicious and distrustful like

most recovering addicts, almost paranoid. God knew,

it wasn't hard to fake that part

 

"Might as well be private," said the one called Moss.

"He won't bother you much. Will you, Varian?"

 

The patient in the other bed nodded and shook his

head alternately, smiling with a loose, open-lipped grin

that chilled her spirits. Blissto addict. Or worse... if there is

anything worse ? And they're maintaining hm in that condition,

instead of trying to break the addiction. That's criminal!

 

Qualia Benton, chronic alcoholic, too woozy to take

proper care of her own prostheses and replacement

organs, wouldn't care about somebody else's

problems. She said nothing.

 

The aides helped her into the free bed.

 

"Here you go," said the small black-haired man

cheerfully. He slapped a sum pad downwards; she

recoiled but could not quite escape the stinging con-

tact against her shoulder. 'Just a litde relaxation med

before the tests," he said.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

195

 

"Don't wanna relax," she muttered. The thickness

in her speech was natural. She was suddenly finding it

hard to think. Something was infiltrating her

bloodstream, something soft as a cloud and warm as

sunshine, floating her away to the Isles of the Blest —

bless—bliss — Blissto! That was it!

 

The man in the other bed — was he really a Blissto

addict, or had he been drugged in the same manner?

Foolish, foolish not to have anticipated this. Once the

aides had caught her out of bed and snooping where

she had no business, she should have known her time

at the clinic was limited.

 

She set her will to resisting the power of the drug.

And not only her will. One thing about being under-

estimated, being seen as an old lush without die sense

to care for her own artificial organs: Dr. Hezra-Fong

hadn't, apparently, run any serious tests on those hy-

perchip-enhanced organs. The Blissto was carrying

her away; but if she could only gain an hour or two, afi

might yet be well.

 

Did she have that hour's grace? No way to tell; she

could only watch and wait, and that not very effective-

ly. The hard hospital pillow beneath her head was soft

as a Denebian flufftuff. Her left hand still rested

against the smooth hard prosthesis, but she could

barely feel the permaskin; the Blissto was interposing

a fluffy cloud of blissful illusion between her and

reality.

 

Doctor wants to run some tests ... Was that truly all this

meant? Surely not So important a person as Dr. Hezra-

Fong, assistant director of Summer-lands, wouldn't go to

all this trouble to prove that an old lush was faking dis-

ability. There had to be more going on here.

 

By late afternoon Sev noticed that the same two

aides kept walking through the public visiting rooms.

They were both rather striking in their appearance —

 

196

 

Arme McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

one a burly, blue-chinned man with a lumbering walk,

the other neat and quick and given to slicking down

his black hair with short nervous strokes. And they

would have looked more natural at a portside bar than

in a luxury medical clinic.

 

Sev reckoned he was supposed to notice them and

to be scared off. That was annoying. The doddering

old CenDip widow he was talking to had finally men-

tioned a patient named Varian Alexander, a Blissto

addict. That could be an alias for Valden Alien Hop-

kirk; the information that Alexander had just been

moved to a semi-private room supported the theory.

He was ready to get back to Nancia and check out the

records on this Alexander, and he hated like hell to let

these two petty thugs think they'd frightened him.

 

"You will not start anything with those two," Nancia

instructed him when he muttered his complaints into

the contact button. "They're minor. You get back and

watch Caleb. I'll send Forister to take care of our friend

Hopkirk."

 

"And who," Sev inquired sweetly, "will guard Fassa?"

 

Nancia assaulted his eardrums with a burst of static

that attracted the attention of two other visitors. Glanc-

ing doubtfully at the artificial Capella fern beside Sev,

they moved to the other side of the room and seated

themselves well away from the strange, dour young

man and his talking plant.

 

"You're attracting attention," Sev said sweetly. "Bet-

ter let me handle this in my own way."

 

"Don't blame me if you end up in a recycler," Nancia

grumbled in an undertone. "And don't expect me to

send Forister to fish you out of trouble, either. After all,

as you pointed out, somebody has to guard Fassa."

 

"I don't," said Sev loudly and clearly, "need anybody

to get me out of trouble."

 

The other visitors whispered among themselves and

somebody giggled. Sev felt his face turning red. Two

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

197

 

shapes materialized at his elbows, one large and lum-

bering, one darting in quick as a hummingbird.

 

"Forgetting your meds again, sonny?" asked the

small one in a kindly, concerned voice. He turned

towards the other visitors in the room. "Sorry about

the disturbance. He hears voices. Should improve

with therapeu — ahh!"

 

Sev drove one fist into the small man's chin and

wheeled to confront the big one. A hand like a small

boulder descended on his head. The room whirled

around him. An old lady screamed. He saw something

sharp in the rock-like hand. Shoidd have guessed. The

danger is never where you're looking. The hand came down

for a second time, like an earthquake or an avalanche,

vast, implacable, and as Sev twisted away the needle slid

into flesh, quiet as a whisper, smooth as sleep.

 

When she heard the sounds of the fracas in the

public waiting rooms, Alpha slipped into the semi-

private room she'd assigned to Hopkirk and the

snoopy derelict. Damn Baynes and Moss! Couldn't

they handle a minor surveillance task without starting

a fight? There must be something about Blissto that

permanently destroyed the brain cells.

 

Oh, well, at least the disturbance in the waiting room

would draw everybody's attention; there'd be no incon-

venient witnesses to her actions here. Not that she

expected to be here long enough for any problems to

develop. Hopkirk was grinning in his usual loose-lipped,

amiable way, and the derelict Benton was limp against

her pillow in a Blissto dream. Better take care of her first;

she knew Hopkirk was too sedated to give trouble.

 

As she pushed up the old lush's sleeve to apply the

stimpad, Alpha wondered whether Qualia Benton

were really a snoop, or just a brain-damaged bag lady

who'd had the bad luck to stumble into private places

at the wrong time. Not that it made much difference.

 

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Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret BaU

 

She wouldn't be answering any questions now.

 

The stimpad slapped down on chill, firm flesh. The

array of needles clicked but did not sink in. Alpha felt a

moment's cold apprehension. Something is turong here.

Something is very wrong.

 

And Qualia Benton's dark eyes were wide open,

watching her with amusement.

 

"The right arm prosthesis is real lifelike," she said

cheerfully, "but you won't get stimpad needles

through the plastiskin. And now — oh, no, dear. 1

wouldn't do that. I really wouldn't."

 

From under the bedclothes she had produced an

ugly, snub-nosed needier. Where did thai came from? The

old bitch isn't wearing anything but a hospital gown.

 

"Whatever you had in that stimpad, die charge is

wasted now," Qualia Benton informed her in that

same cheerful tone. "There should be just enough left

for a lab on Central to analyze. Please don't try to

throw it away; I'll want to put it in an evidence bag for

the trial."

 

"Trial," Alpha croaked. "Evidence bag." She backed

up a step, frozen with horror, while her intended vic-

tim swung one real leg and one permalloy prosthesis

out of bed, fussily straightened her gown, and

produced a plastic bag from under the pillow.

 

"Just drop it in here, dear, and don't make any sud-

den moves. You wouldn't want to startle a poor

nervous old woman. This needier is set on wide spray,

and it's loaded with ParaVen. I don't really want to

paralyze you," she said thoughtfully, "but if neces-

sary ..."

 

Two more backward steps brought Alpha to the

door. She dropped and rolled into the corridor,

momentarily out of range of the needier. "Baynesl

Moss!" she shrieked. "32-A, patient out of control,

CodeZ,stat!"

 

Running feet pounded down the corridor and

 

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199

 

Alpha dosed her eyes in momentary relief. That heavy

tread had to belong to Baynes. Let this crazy snoop of a

woman waste her needier charge on the aides — then

Alpha would spirit her away to the violent ward. She

promised herself a long and entertaining series of ex-

periments on the bitch, once they got that damned

needier away from her.

 

"Stop right there," the old woman called in a voice

too clear for her apparent age. "I am a legally con-

stituted representative of Central Worlds Internal

Investigation. Any attack on my person is treason,

punishable by law. You're under arrest"

 

"The hell I am," countered a voice that most certain-

ly did not belong to the thick-witted Baynes. Alpha

looked up and saw that Bryley man, the one she'd sent

Baynes and Moss to take care of. "Fm the Central

Worlds rep here, and you're under arrest. What have

you done to my witness?"

 

"The guy in the next bed?" For the first time, the

Benton woman sounded uncertain. "He's not going to

be a lot of good to you. Too blissed-out to know his own

name. But you're welcome to him, if you want him. I

expect she was going to kill him next, after she took

care of me."

 

"Kill? You?" Now Bryley sounded equally confused.

 

From her crouching position, Alpha saw the Benton

woman bend and fumble along the side of her leg

prosthesis. A crack opened and she drew out a thin

holographic strip that shimmered with rainbow colors

in the hallway lights. So that's where she hid the needier....

 

"General Micaya Questar-Benn," the woman intro-

duced herself. She was standing straighter now,

without the hunch and the bent leg that had made her

look so small and helpless before. "Undercover assign-

ment for Central, checking out the suspiciously high

death rate on the charity side of Summerlands. My col-

league Forister Armontillado-y-Medoc should be

 

200

 

Atme McCaffrey &f Margaret Bail

 

somewhere around; he can vouch for me. And you?"

 

"Sevareid Bryley-Sorensen, on temporary assign-

ment to investigate fraud in a Bahati construction

company." He looked down at Alpha; she had a dizzy-

ing glimpse of blue eyes and an expression as if the cat

had dragged in something better left in a back alley. "I

think our cases may be connected. I was here to collect

Valden Alien Hopkirk, witness to a case of criminal Net

interference by one of the del Parma girl's friends.

Apparently this 'lady1 is another of the gang; she's

been concealing the witness and — from what you say

— keeping him too doped up to testify. You think she

was going to kill him?"

 

"We'll have to wait until that stimpad in her hand

has been analyzed for drug traces," General Questar-

Benn said mildly, "but I certainly don't think she was

dispensing routine meds. Fortunately, she slapped the

stimpad on my upper-arm prosthesis. I think I was

supposed to be too drugged to notice her; one of those

thugs she uses for aides dosed me with Blissto, or

something like it, about an hour ago."

 

Alpha slowly uncurled herself and stood up. If she

was lost, she'd go with that much dignity. She was half

a head taller than this Sev Bryley; it helped, a litde, to

look down on him.

 

"So what are you," she demanded, "a robot?

Nobody's immune to Seduc — Blissto," she caught

herself. No reason to give away information.

 

General Questar-Benn chuckled. "No, dear girl,

I'm not quite as badly off as the Tin Woodman. The

valves may be helped along by hyperchips, but I still

have a heart — something that appears to have been

left out of your makeup. But the fiver and kidneys are

replacements, and last year I had a new hyperchip-

enhanced blood filtering function installed so that I

could monitor my own internal prostheses. If you'd

shown up right after your goon drugged me, I might

 

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201

 

have been in trouble. But an hour was more than

enough time to filter the drug out of my bloodstream."

 

Alpha glowered at her and Bryley impartially. "And

what about you?" she demanded of Bryley. "You

looked like a man, but I guess you're another fucking

cyborg freak."

 

"I am a man," Bryley said mildly. "I'm also fast —

and I learned Capellan hand fighting in the war. Your

big thug tripped over his own feet — with a litde help

— and slapped himself with the stimpad he was

aiming at me. I don't know what was in it; perhaps

you'd like to tell me whether he'll survive the ex-

perience? As for the litde one, he collided with one of

those big ceramic pots you've got decorating the wait-

ing room. He'll have one hell of a headache when he

wakes up, but he'll be in perfectly good shape to testify

against you."

 

"No, he won't," Alpha snapped. "You don't know as

much as you think you do! The man's addicted to —

something you won't be able to supply. Without his

next fix, he'll die in agony before the week's out!"

 

Bryley raised one eyebrow. "Then," he said cheer-

fully, "we'd better make sure to get his testimony on

datahedron before he dies, hadn't we? Thanks for the

warning."

 

• CHAPTER-TWELVE

 

"Hospitals!" General Questar-Benn made the word

sound like an expletive. "No offense, Thalmark, but

those damn gowns are just a plot to make patients

helpless and submissive. Thanks for bringing my

uniform, Bryley."

 

"I have a feeling it would take more than that to

make you submissive, General," Galena Thalmark

said with a slight inclination of her head.

 

Sev and Micaya had met in what used to be Alpha

bint Hezra-Fong's office, now occupied by the ad-

ministrative assistant who'd first alerted Central

Worlds to the surprising death rate in Summerlands'

charity wards. This morning Galena Thalmark looked

ten years younger than the harried, overweight

woman who'd greeted Micaya and smuggled her into

the wards in the disguise of die alcoholic "Qualia Ben-

ton."

 

"I can't express my thanks to you both," she said,

pushing dark curly hair away from her round face, "so

I won't try. General Questar-Benn, you have my sin-

cerest apologies for the dangers you experienced."

 

"Part of the job," said Micaya.

 

"All the same, we should have been more alert. I

should have had staff I could trust watching you at all

times," said Galena.

 

Micaya nodded without further comment. She was

favorably impressed by Galena's quick command of

the situation, even more impressed by the feet that the

young woman had taken full responsibility for

problems which were hardly of her making. It wasn't

 

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203

 

her fault that the aging director of Summerlands had

left more and more power in the hands of Dr. Hezra-

Fong, allowing the charity side to become disastrously

understaffed and letting a deplorable lack of discipline

infect the whole clinic.

 

"Clinic's problems weren't your fault, Thalmark,"

Micaya said at last, "but they're about to be your prob-

lem. The director must have been senile to let all this

go on under his nose. High Families, of course, politi-

cally unwise to fire him, but I've had one of my aides

compose a nice letter of resignation for him. Want the

spot? Can't guarantee it, you understand," she added,

"but I've some influence at Central."

 

Galena Thalmark flushed becomingly and mur-

mured her thanks. "Meanwhile," she said, shuffling

papers until she'd recovered her composure, "I'm glad

to report that Mr. Hopkirk is responding quite well to

treatment. Dr. Hezra-Fong has supplied us with full

details of the drugs used to keep him sedated. We're

steadily lowering the dosage and watching him for

seizures, but so far there have been no complications. He

should be quite lucid and competent to make a deposi-

tion on datahedron within the next forty-eight hours."

 

"Good work!" Micaya exclaimed.

 

Galena Thalmark nodded. "Whatever her other

failings, Dr. Hezra-Fong is a brilliant biomedical re-

searcher. I feel obliged to tell you that without her full

cooperation and guidance, we would not have been

able to reverse the effects of the treatment so rapidly."

She looked up into Micaya's eyes. "She requested that

this feet be formally noted on her dossier."

 

"It will be," Micaya promised. "But I doubt that it'll

bear much weight against the rest of the record."

 

Galena bit her lip. "All those deaths," she mur-

mured. "If only I'd seen what was going on from the

first..." Micaya nodded in sympathy.

 

"Don't torture yourself," she told the younger

 

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Aims McCaffrey fcf Margaret BaU

 

woman. "You weren't even at Summerlands when she

began. You had every reason to trust your superiors;

it's to your credit that you suspected something as

soon as you did and called in the proper authorities to

put a stop to it Don't second-guess yourself!"

 

The last words were barked out in a parade-ground

intonation that made Galena's head snap up.

 

"I mean it," Micaya told her more gently. "My dear,

I've commanded soldiers in battle. I've seen brave men

and women die because of orders I gave; and some-

times those orders were wrong. You mourn the

deaths, you do the best you can, and — you go on.

Otherwise, you cannot be of service."

 

Galena Thalmark looked thoughtfully at the older

woman, standing erect and composed in her plain

green uniform. Some of her battle wounds were

visible, the permalloy arm and leg. Others were buried

in the surgical history that Galena had read: the inter-

nal replacements for kidneys and liver, the hyperchip

implant in one heart valve and the blood-filtering

function. And as a doctor, Galena could assess just how

many hours of painful surgery and retraining had

gone into reconstructing Micaya's body after she sus-

tained each of the original wounds.

 

""Vbu go on," Micaya repeated softly, "and... you serve

as best you can. I believe that you will make an excellent

director for Summerlands, Dr. Thalmark. Don't let

regrets and hindsight cripple you; we need you here and

now, not relivinga past that cannot be changed."

 

"I can see why you're a general," said Sev thought-

fully as they boarded the flyer that was to transport

them from Summerlands. "If we'd had a commanding

officer like you on Capella Four...."

 

General Questar-Benn's high cheekbones flushed a

shade darker. "Don't delude yourself. Making per-

suasive speeches is only a small part of the art of war."

 

"Oh? Seems to me I heard enough of them when I

 

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205

 

served on Capella. There may have been more going

on in the staff rooms, but I never rose high enough in

the army to see the whole picture. That's what I like

about EL work," Sev added thoughtfully, "now lam

the whole picture. Or was." He looked directly at

Micaya. Til consider myself under your command for

the rest of this operation."

 

"The rest — but my assignment's over," protested

Micaya.

 

"Is it?"

 

It has been a long time since a young man looked at

her so intently — and back then, Micaya thought with

an amusement that she did not allow her features to

reflect, the last man to look at her like that had wanted

something quite different. Ah, well. They always

wanted something, didn't they?

 

"Fassa del Parma and Alpha bint Hezra-Fong came

out to the Nyota system on the same transport," Sev

went on. "So did Darnell Overton-Glaxely. They've all

been helping each other get rich by the quickest and

dirtiest means they could arrange. There were two

others on that transport — Blaize Armontillado-Perez

y Medoc, and Polyon de Gras-Waldheim. Fassa's al-

ready implicated Blaize — the one who was posted to

Angalia. Don't you see? You're holding one thread

into this tangle; I'm holding another one."

 

"You think that together we could unravel it?"

 

Sev gave her a flashing grin that was all but wasted

on his present purpose. "Or take Alexander's solution,

and cut the Gordian knot. This corruption ought to be

cut off," he argued. "Don't tell me it's just a small part

of what 'everybody does.' I don't care. This is the part I

can see, that I can do something about. I have to see

this through!" He stopped, looking momentarily em-

barrassed by his own intensity. "And I had hoped," he

went on in a somewhat quieter voice, "I had hoped

that you would want to join us. Lead us."

 

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Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Bail

 

The flyer skated to a perfect landing just outside

Nantia's opened entry bay.

 

"Come with me?" Sev suggested.

 

"I've got a scheduled transport to Kailas. Back to my

desk job."

 

"You can change that," he said confidently, and

grinned at her as he would at a contemporary. "Come

on, Micl You don't really want to go back to shuffling

papers on Kailas, do you?"

 

Micaya rubbed the back of her neck. She felt

generations older than this intense young man: tired,

and dirty from the corruption of Summerlands, and

not very interested in anything except a long bath and

a massage. "Damnit," she said wearily. "You'renotbad

at persuasive speeches yourself, Bryley-Sorensen. I

suppose you think I can get your brainship's orders

changed so that we can go on to Angalia, instead of

transporting del Parma straight back to Central?**

 

"It makes sense, doesn't it?"

 

"Sense," said Micaya, "has never been a compelling

argument for any bureaucracy. All right. You win. ill

see what I can do towards persuading Central to reas-

sign both Nancia and me. I must admit, I'd like to see

the end of this case." Despite her weariness, she felt a

smile beginning deep inside her. "Besides, your ship's

brawn owes me a rematch at tri-chess."

 

"Caleb?"

 

"Forister," Micaya corrected him. "Nancia's been as-

signed a replacement brawn, remember? Forister

ArmontiUado-y-Medoc. We were working together on

this Summerlands business, until Central pulled him

off the case to brawn Nancia back to Central." She

stopped in the open landing bay. "Wait a minute.

What did you say the other boy was called — the one

who went to Angalia?"

 

Sev didn't have time to answer; a second flyer

pounced down on the landing strip, and a messenger

 

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207

 

in the white uniform of Summerlands came running

toward them.

 

"Tried to raise you in the air," he panted. "Your

driver's comm unit must have been defective.

Hopkirk's testified!"

 

"The devil he has! Already?"

 

"He seemed rather eager to do it. Dr. Thalmark

thought it would do more harm to restrain him than to

let him speak. His deposition's on datahedron — and

there are a few honest men left on Bahati, Mr. Bryley;

two of them are going to arrest Overton-Glaxely now.

Since he'll likely be sent back to Central for trial, they'd

like a representative of Central to accompany them

now, just to make sure everything's in order."

 

"You mean, to make sure there's somebody else to

blame if his family goes out for revenge," Sev

muttered.

 

"I'll go," Micaya said. "No one will question my

word."

 

"Til go," Sev corrected her. "I've already annoyed so

many High Families, one more makes no difference.

You go catch up on your tri-chess."

 

"I always did like subordinates with plenty of initia-

tive," Micaya said wryly. But she was tired, and

worried about the possible connection between Blaize

and Forister. Well, they'd have some privacy for a little

while, with Sev Bryley off to collect his prisoner and

Fassa del Parma locked in her cabin. She would have to

ask Forister just how close the relationship might be —

and whether he really wanted to brawn a ship headed

for Angalia to arrest one of his relatives.

 

Forister was happily unpacking a special order from

OG Glimware when Micaya Questar-Benn requested

permission to board.

 

"We've got company coming," Nancia warned him.

"And isn't there something unethical about buying

 

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Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret BaU

 

something from a firm while you work to arrest its

owner?"

 

"Can't think what," said Forister, whistling under his

breath, "but if you find anything in CS regulations, be

sure and let me know. Anyway, OG Glimware is the

only company this side of Antares that does this par-

ticular specialty work." He peeled away the last

opaque shrinkwrapping to display his purchase: a

foot-high solido of a lovely young woman, every fea-

ture sharply delineated in the fragile prismatic

carving. Her chin was lifted almost defiantly; she

greeted the world with a smile whose reflection danced

in her eyes; a short cap of curly hair, so finely carved it

seemed the separate strands might lift in any passing

breeze, crowned the uplifted head that gazed out at

worlds beyond any human vision.

 

"Ah — very nice," Nancia said slowly, as Forister

seemed to be waiting for some reaction. "Relative of

yours?" His records didn't say anything about a girlfriend,

and isn't he rather old for this one?

 

"A very distant connection, like most of the High

Families scions. But she may become more than that

— my friend, I hope. Perhaps my partner." Forister set

the solido on the ledge above the pilot's control panel

and turned to smile at Nancia's titanium column. "It's

a genetic extrapolation, actually; shows what a certain

young woman I know would have looked like if she'd

grown up normally, without the one genetic anomaly

that made her unable to survive outside a shell. Her

name is... Nancia Perez y de Gras."

 

Nancia didn't know how to respond to that revela-

tion. She couldn't respond. Caleb never wondered what I

would have looked like ... never thought of me as a person.

Even thinking that was disloyal... but what could she

say to Forister?

 

She was spared the necessity by the opening of the

airlock. General Questar-Benn's somber face startled

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

209

 

them both. "This pan of the mission's completed," she

announced. "Hezra-Fong's on her way here — under

guard — and Bryley has gone off to arrest Overton-

Glaxely. He's suggested that we should request a

change in Nancia's orders, to investigate the other two

passengers she brought to the Nyota system before

returning to Central. Thought I should consult you

first, Forister."

 

Forister's face went gray. "I will accept any orders is-

sued by Courier Service as long as I brawn this ship."

 

"Know that," Micaya told him. "But I need to know

more. Exactly what is the connection between you and

this boy on Angalia? Distant relative? How much con-

flict of interest are we looking at?"

 

"He's my nephew." Forister dropped into the pilot's

seat

 

"Can I rely on you?"

 

Nancia watched and listened without intruding into

the conversation. She had liked General Questar-

Benn on their previous meeting, but now she felt the

general was pushing Forister too hard. For the first

time since he'd come on board, he was looking his age;

the bristly graying hair lay flat, the sparkle of mischief

that had made his face so familiar to Nancia had disap-

peared. Of course, she realized with a shock of

recognition, that was why she felt as though she knew

Forister already. It wasn't just his previous trip to

Charon. It was die sparkle in his eyes as he hummed

and hacked his way into Summerlands' medical

records. That redheaded boy Blaize had just the same

expression when he was planning mischief.

 

But Forister had the integrity so disastrously missing

from Blaize's makeup. He hadn't tried to argue away

Fassa's stories implicating his nephew, and now he would

not evade the duty of confirming those stories.

 

"You don't have to come with us," Micaya told him.

"We can get another brawn assigned to this ship.

 

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Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

You're due a real R & R tour after that undercover

work at Summerlands — "

 

Forister lifted his head and gazed at her with flat

gray eyes. "You took all the risks at Summerlands," he

said in a voice so drained of feeling that it made Nancia

distinctly nervous. She increased the magnification of

her local sensors until she could see the pulse throb-

bing in Forister"s temple and hear the soft pounding of

his heart. The man was under far too much strain.

 

"I WAS USELESS," his amplified voice crashed

upon her, and Nancia hastily retreated to a normal

sensor level, nerve endings twitching from the grating

sounds. "Couldn't even find computer records to back

you up. If anyone deserves a term of rest, Mic, it's you.

And if anyone must prove my nephew's dishonor," he

finished wearily, "let it be me. We won't be able to keep

it in the family—I know that—but I need to know ex-

actly what he's done and how we can make

reparation."

 

"It's not good to be personally involved in your

cases," General Micaya Questar-Benn murmured.

"First rule of Academy."

 

Forister's spine straightened. "No. The first rule

is... to serve. That's all I ask of you. A chance to serve,

to make some reparation if any can be made. Besides,"

he added with just a trace of the old snap in his voice,

"you won't find another brawn this side of Bellatrix

subspace."

 

"Oh, come now," Micaya said. "You people with

brawn training always overrate yourself. I'll wager

there are half a dozen qualified brawns in Vega sub-

space alone."

 

Forister straightened another infinitesimal fraction

of an inch. "Not qualified for the new hyperchip-en-

hanced brainships. Our Nancia's got the

enhancements, haven't you, my dear?" As always, he

turned his head towards the titanium column when

 

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211

 

addressing her, just as if he were inviting another

softshell — so&person, Nancia corrected herself— to

join in the conversation.

 

"My lower deck sensors and port side nav controls

have the hyperchips," she told him, "and I'm using

them in some of the processing banks. I'm on a waiting

list for the rest."

 

"There you are, then," Forister told Micaya. "You

need me. And 1 — need to do this."

 

"You need this assignment like I need another pros-

thesis," Micaya muttered, but she sat down again with

the air of one who'd given up argument. "And just how

do you happen to be qualified for the new chipships,

anyway? You've been CenDip for — "

 

"More years than either of us chooses to specify,"

Forister interrupted her. "And the term is brainships,

Mic, not 'chipships.' Let's not offend our lady."

 

"It's all right," Nancia cut in. "I'm not offended. Really."

 

"But I am," said Forister. He took a deep breath and

straightened. Nancia could almost see him pushing

the pain he felt deep inside, replacing his diplomat's

mask. When he turned his head to speak directly to

her, he looked almost untroubled — if you didn't focus

your sensors on the tiny lines of strain and worry

around his eyes. "You are my lady now, Nancia, at least

for the duration of this mission. And no one speaks

casually of my brainship."

 

Micaya blew out her pursed lips with an ex-

asperated sigh. "You never answered my question.

How come you're qualified for the newest models of

brainships, when you've been out of the brawn service

for... years?"

 

"I read a lot," Forister said with an airy wave of one

hand. "Ancient guerrilla wars, new compunav sys-

tems, it's all grist to my mill. I'm a twentieth century

man at heart," he told Micaya, referring to the Age of

the First Information Explosion. "A man of many in-

 

212

 

Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

213

 

terests and unguessed-at talents. And I like to keep

current in my field—all my fields."

 

"A man of unguessed-at bullshit, anyway," Micaya

retorted. "Okay. You're in. At least I'll have someone to

beat at tri-chess on the way over to Angalia."

 

Forister snorted. "You mean someone to beat you.

Your ego has increased out of all proportion to your

skill, General. Set 'em up!"

 

Nancia watched with curiosity as General Questar-

Benn drew a palm-sized card from her pocket. Forister

grinned. "Brought your portable game board, I see."

 

The general tapped the slight indentations on the sur-

face of the card and it projected a hologram of a

partitioned cube, shimmering with rainbow light at the

edges. Another series of taps produced the translucent

images of playing pieces aligned at two opposing edges of

the cube. Nancia twiddled with her sensor magnification

and focus until she could make out the details. Yes, those

were the standard tri-chess pieces: she recognized the

age-old triple ordering. Pawns in the first and lowest

rank; above them, the King and Queen with their

Bishops and Knights and Castles. Above them the

highest rank was poised to swoop down over the

gamecube, the Brainship and Brawn with their support-

ing pieces, the Scouts and Hovercraft and Satellites. The

images were blurred and kept flickering in and out,

giving Nancia a sensation of tight bands pulled across her

sensor connections if she tried to look at them for any

length of time.

 

"Pawn to Brain's Scout 4,2,w Forister grunted a

standardized opening move.

 

Nothing happened.

 

"My portable set isn't equipped with voice recogni-

tion," Micaya apologized. "You'll have to tap in the code."

 

As she indicated the row of fingertip-sized indenta-

tions, Nancia hummed softly — her substitute for the

rasps and hawks of "throat-clearing" with which

 

softshells began an unscheduled interruption. Both

players looked up, and after a startled moment

Forister inclined his head to Nancia's titanium

column.

 

"Yes, Nancia?"

 

"If you'll give me a moment to study the configura-

tion," Nancia suggested, "I believe I can replicate your

play-holo with a somewhat clearer display. And I, of

course, can supply the voice recognition processing."

 

Even as she spoke, she assigned a virtual memory

space and a graphics co-processor to the problem.

Before the sound of her voice had died away, a new

and much clearer holographic projection shimmered

beside the original one. Forister exclaimed in delight

at the perfect detailing of the miniaturized pieces;

Micaya put out her hand as if to touch a perfectly

shaped litde Satellite with its three living and storage

globes, complete with tiny access doors and linking

spacetubes.

 

"Beautiful," Forister sighed in delight. "But won't

this take too much processing capability, Nancia?"

 

"Not when we're just sitting dirtside," Nancia told

him. "I don't even use that processor when we're

doing regular navigation. Might have to shut down

briefly when we're in Singularity, that does take some

concentration, but— "

 

Forister closed his eyes briefly. "That's perfectly all

right, Nancia. To tell you the truth, it never occurred

to me to play tri-chess in Singularity anyway."

 

"Me either," said Micaya, looking slightly green at

the very thought. "You don't want to think about spa-

tial relationships at a moment like that"

"I do," said Nancia cheerfully.

 

Less than two Central Standard Hours later, Sev in-

terrupted the first tri-chess game to deliver a subdued

Darnell Glaxely-Overton for transport to Central. "He

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

215

 

broke when I showed him the hedron of Hopkirk's

evidence," he told the others after Darnell had been

confined in a cabin. "Funny — almost as if he'd ex-

pected somebody to come after him one of these days.

Spent most of the flyer trip back telling all he knows

about the other three. Here's the recording.''

 

"Four," Nancia corrected Sev as he slid a datacard

into her reader.

 

"Three," Sev said again. "Fassa. Alpha. And . ..

Blaize." He carefully avoided looking at Forister as he

pronounced the last name.

 

"Neither of them has said anything implicating

Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?'' Nancia couldn't believe

this.

 

Sev shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe there isn't any-

thing to say. You never know, there could be one good

apple in this barrel of rotten ones."

 

Not Polyon. But Nancia refrained from voicing her

protest. After the conversations she'd heard on her

maiden voyage, she was convinced that Polyon de

Gras-Waldheim was completely amoral. But would it

be ethical to reveal those conversations? Caleb had

been so adamantly against anything that even sug-

gested spying, she'd never even thought of telling him.

 

But that had been five years ago. She had changed;

she now saw shades of gray instead of the neat black

and white of CS rules. Even Caleb might have

changed; after all, he'd consented to this undercover

mission.

 

Under protest

 

He might feel doubly betrayed if she chose to violate

his ethical code when he wasn't even here to censure

her for it.

 

Perhaps she could put off the decision for a little

longer "It might be worth going by Shemali anyway,"

Nancia suggested. "You never know. We might find

some evidence linking de Gras-Waldheim with the rest

 

I

 

of the crew." We'd have that evidence already, if they weren't

-}:    oft terrified to say a ward against him.

 

"Possibly," Sev agreed. "Meet me there, after An-

 

galia?"

 

"I thought you were coming with us!" Micaya Ques-

tar-Benn half rose from her seat, putting one hand

right through Nancia's tri-chess hologram.

 

"I was," Sev agreed. "I am. I'll meet you on Shemali.

Something's come up."

 

He was gone before any of them could question

him, taking the stairs three at a time and whistling as

he went. Nancia briefly considered slamming her

lower doors on him and holding him until he ex-

plained exacdy what he was up to.

 

She wouldn't do that, of course. It would be an un-

ethical and unconscionable abuse of her abilities, the

sort ofbullying she'd been warned against in the ethics

classes that were pan of every shellperson's training.

 

But it was a sore temptation.

 

"Something," Micaya said thoughtfully, "has made

that young man extremely happy. I wonder what it

was. Nancia, is there anything earth-shaking in that

datacard of Darnell Overton-Glaxer/s testimony?"

 

Nancia had started scanning just before Micaya

spoke. "There isn't even anything interesting," she

said, "unless a sordid record of petty bribes and cor-

ruption and bullying fascinates you."

 

"Ah. Overton-Glaxely did strike me as the cheap sort"

 

"You might want to examine his statement your-

self," Nancia suggested. "You may see something I've

overlooked."

 

Micaya nodded. "I'll do that. But I doubt I'll find

anything. Bryley said there wasn't any evidence

against de Gras-Waldheim, so whatever is taking him

to Shemali, it can't be our business. Damn that boy!

Oh, well, I suppose we'll find out when we reach

Shemali."

 

216

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

"But first," Forister said, "we have a task to complete

at Angalia." His face was gray and still again; the

momentary animation brought on by the tri-chess

game had vanished. He looks like a man with a deadly dis~

ease. Is family honor so important to him ? Nancia wondered

how she'd feel if her sister Jinevra were found to have

corrupted her branch of PTA and embezzled the

department's funds.

 

Impossible even to imagine such a thing. Well, then,

what if Flix — she couldn't think what Flix might do,

either, but what if he had got in with the wrong crowd

— like Blaize — and had done something that would

force her to hunt him down, arrest him, send him to

Central for years of prison without his beloved musk?

 

The pain of that thought shook Nancia so deeply

that for a moment the even hum of the air stabilizers

was broken and the co-processor handling the tri-

chess hologram faltered. The gamecube image

shivered, broke apart in rainbow fractures, then

solidified again as Nancia gained control of herself and

her systems.

 

If even imagining Flix in trouble hurt her so deeply,

how could Forister face the reality of Blaize's crime?

He couldn't, she decided, and it was up to her and

Micaya to distract him whenever possible.

 

"General Questar-Benn, it's your move," she said.

 

"What? Oh—Scout to Queen's Bishop 3,3," Micaya

said. The move took one of Forister's Satellites and left

a probability path to his Brains hip. Nancia calculated

the possible moves without conscious effort.

 

"You have only two moves that will not put your

Brainship in check within the next five-move se-

quence," she warned Forister.

 

"Two?" Forister's eyebrows shot up and he bent

over the gamecube. "I saw only one."

 

"Foul!" Micaya complained. "I challenged the

brawn, not the brain. **

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

217

 

"We work as a team," Nancia told her.

 

She certainly hoped that was true. For Forister's

sake — for both their sakes. He didn't need to get

through this grief alone; she was there to steady him.

 

"Ah. I see what you mean." Forister bent over the

board and surprised Nancia with a third move, one so

apparently disastrous that she had not even con-

sidered it in her initial calculations.

 

With a subdued whoop of glee, Micaya Questar-

Benn took Forister's second Satellite — and watched

dumbfounded as he proceeded to shift an uncon-

sidered knight from the second rank and place her

Brainship in check.

 

"Thank you for the hint, Nancia," Forister said.

"Until you forced me to consider the alternative move,

I hadn't even thought of using the Jigo Kanaka ad-

vance in this situation."

 

"I ... ah ... you're quite welcome," Nancia

managed to tell him between the three subsequent

moves that brought the game to its slashing con-

clusion, with Micaya's forces immobilized, her Brawn

taken and her Brainship checkmated.

 

Perhaps Forister didn't need quite so much help as

she'd anticipated.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

219

 

• CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Nancia's landing on Angalia was one of the worst

she'd ever executed. The planet took her completely

by surprise.

 

Initial navigation maneuvers went normally. It

wasn't until she was in visual range of the landing field

that she became confused. The green terraced cliffs

behind the mesa and the grassy basin surrounding it

looked nothing at all like her memories of the landing

five years ago. Could she possibly have miscalculated,

come down in some hitherto unknown section of the

planet?

 

Nancia called up her files from that first landing and

superimposed the stored images on the green

paradise below her. Yes, this had to be the Angalia

landing field. The topographical features were a per-

fect match with her internal map. And there, at the

edge of the mesa, was the plastifilm prefab hut with its

sagging awning of woven grass, looking if anything

slightly more derelict and tottering than it had ap-

peared five years ago.

 

Intent on her image comparison, Nancia drained

computing power from the navigation processor,

forgot to monitor the approach, and came embarrass-

ingly close to making a new crater on Angalia's landing

field. She corrected the descent, hopped into mid-air,

and came down more slowly the second time. Her

auditory sensors picked up a variety of crashes,

groans, and complaints from the cabins where Micaya

and the three prisoners were housed.

 

"Apologies for the rough landing," she began, but

 

Forister cut off her speakers for a moment and over-

rode her. "Local turbulence," he said. "Nancia

recovered superbly, but even a brainship can't com-

pensate for all the freak conditions on Angalia."

 

He swept his open hand over the palmpad with a

caressing gesture, restoring speaker control to Nancia,

and smiled at her benignly.

 

"I didn't need you to cover for me," Nancia trans-

mitted a vibrant whisper through the main cabin

speakers.

 

"Didn't you? I thought we were a team. If you can help

me play tri-chess, I certainly have the right to preserve

you from apologizing to those overindulged brats."

 

"I — well, thank you," Nancia conceded.

 

"Think nothing of it. By the way, what did happen

just now?"

 

"I was distracted. This place doesn't look the way it

did last time I landed." Nancia switched all her screens

to external mode. Forister gazed appreciatively at the

triple-screen display of a grassy paradise ringed by

flowering terraces.

 

"What on earth is that?" Fassa cried from her cabin.

Darnell and Alpha joined her exclamations of

surprise.

 

Nancia was gratified by this response. The screens

in the passenger cabins weren't as dramatic as her

central cabin's display walls, but at least they showed

enough of Angalia to confirm that she wasn't losing

her mind — or if she was, she wasn't alone. None of

the prisoners had been expecting Angalia to look like

the Garden of Eden.

 

"Do I take it," she asked mildly, "that the planet has

changed since your last visit?"

 

"It certainly has," Fassa said. "Are you sure it's the

same place? Only last year — oh, I see."

 

A prolonged silence followed. For once in her life

Nancia longed for a softperson's physical extrusions.

 

220

 

AttneMcCaffrey & Margaret Batt

 

It would be enormously satisfying to take Fassa by the

shoulders and shake her out of the trance in which she

had fallen. MP%y couldn't softpersons keep transmitting

datastreams while they were processing?

 

She had to content herself with blinking Fassa's

cabin lights and assaulting her with raucous bursts of

music from Flix's latest sonohedron.

 

"Do I take it," she inquired when satisfied that she

had the girl's attention, "that you recognize some

salient features?"

 

"Yes... I think so, anyway." Of course, Fassa would

have no control over the visual detail, not to mention

the accuracy, of whatever images she'd stored from

her previous visit. She would be dependent on

whatever her non-enhanced biological memory could

provide. Recognizing this, Nancia didn't count on

learning much.

 

"Those gardens on the side of the mountain," Fassa

said. "He had the terraces in place a year ago, but

nothing was planted. I thought it was something to do

with the mine."

 

Nancia switched the signals going to Fassa's display

screen to show the mine entrance. Blue-uniformed

figures moved in and out, pushing wagons on railings

that curved around the side of the mountain. A mag-

nified display showed that the figures were shambling

Angalia natives, neady dressed in blue shorts and

shirts and working together with the precision of a

choreographed dance. One native heaved a sack from

the mine entrance and tossed it over his head; another

casually moved into place just in time to catch it; by the

time he'd turned, a third native had backed his wagon

down the rail system and into place to receive the load.

 

"Amazing," Nancia commented. "I thought the An-

galians couldn't be trained."

 

"Blake," Forister said hollowly, "has certainly been a

busy little boy."

 

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221

 

"It doesn't look all that bad so far," Nancia pointed

out * Fassa, do you — or the others — recognize any-

thing else?"

 

She let the display screens sweep over a panoramic

view of the mesa and the surrounding countryside.

Suddenly Fassa gave a cry of recognition. "Oh, God,

he's left the volcano!"

 

Nancia halted the display and studied it. An evil-

looking bubble of brown and green mud heaved and

burst and formed again, roiling continuously in the

midst of the tall grass covering the rest of the basin.

 

"I don't suppose planting flowers would do much to

disguise it," she agreed.

 

"You don't understand." Fassa sounded close to

tears. "That's how he controls them — how he makes

them do things for them. If the Loosies don't please

him, he cooks them alive in that boiling mud! I saw it

done last time — I'll never forget those screams."

 

"Alpha? Darnell?" Nancia queried the other two.

 

"That's right," Darnell told her. "Revolting."

 

Alpha nodded silently, the movement barely visible

to Nancia's visual sensors.

 

She could think of no more encouraging words for

Forister.

 

Micaya persuaded Forister to let her confront Blaize

initially. "I'll wear a contact button," she promised

him. "You and Nancia can see and hear everything

that goes on."

 

"It's my duty—" Forister began.

 

"Mine too," Micaya interrupted him. "The young

man is more likely to confess if he doesn't think he can

bring family influence to bear."

 

"He can't," Forister said grimly. "I'm not here to in-

tercede for him."

 

"Yes, but he doesn't know that," Micaya pointed out-

 

Nancia kept all her external sensors trained on

 

222

 

Anne McCajfrey & Margaret Ball

 

Micaya'as the general picked her way along a path of

rounded volcanic stones to the door of the permalloy

hut. On both sides of the path, feathery grasses and

blazing tropical flowers grew in exuberant, uncon-

trolled patterning, throwing up their seed-heads and

blooms above Micaya's crisp silver-sprinkled hair.

Nancia recognized Old Earth species mixed with

Denebian starflowers and the singing grasses of

Fomalhaut II, a joyous blaze of pink and orange and

purple flowers.

 

Micaya entered the hut and Nancia's field of vision

contracted to the half-circle covered by the contact

button. In the shadowy hut, stacked high with papers

and bits of machinery, Blaize's red head glowed like a

burning ember before the computer screen that held

his attention.

 

"Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc," Micaya said

formally.

 

"Urn. PTA shipment? I'll sign for it in a minute. Just

got to finish this one thing...."

 

The contact button's resolution wasn't enough for

Nancia to read the words on the computer screen, but

she recognized the seven-tone response code that

chimed out when Blaize slapped his open hand on the

palmpad. An interplanetary transmission — no, inter-

subspace; he had just sent something to ... Nancia

rummaged through her files and identified the code. To

Central Diplomatic headquarters? What could they have to

do with Angalia, a planet where no intelligent sentients

existed? Had Blaize's net of corruption drawn in some of

her father's and Forister's own colleagues?

 

"There!" As the last notes of the code chimed out,

Blaize swung round, a seraphic smile on his freckled

face. "And what — "

 

His expression changed rapidly and almost comical-

ly at the sight of Micaya Questar-Benn in full uniform.

"You," he said slowly, "are not PTA."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

223

 

"Quite correct," said Micaya. "Your activities have

attracted some attention in other quarters."

 

Blaize's jaw thrust out and his freckles seemed to

take on a glowing life of their own. "Well, it's too late.

You can't stop me now!"

 

"Can't I?" Micaya's tone was deceptively mild.

 

"I've sent a full report to CenDip. I don't care who

your friends in PTA may be, they'll have to leave An-

galia alone now."

 

"My dear boy," said Micaya, "haven't you got it back-

wards? You're the one employed by Planetary Technical

Aid. Or rather, you were."

 

Nancia had been so caught up in the dialogue, she

never noticed when Forister slipped out of her central

cabin and made his way down the stairs. She was as

starded as Blaize when Forister appeared in the door-

way of the hut, just on the periphery of her view from

the contact button.

 

"Uncle Forister!" Blaize exclaimed. "What's going

on here? Can you help—"

 

"Don't call me uncle," Forister said between his

teeth. "I'm here with General Questar-Benn to stop

you, boy, not to help you!"

 

Blaize went green between the spattering of freck-

les. He closed his eyes for a moment and looked as if he

wanted to be sick. "Not you too?"

 

"You didn't think family feeling would extend so far

as helping you exploit and torture these innocents?"

 

"Torture? Exploit?" Blaize gasped. "I — oh, no.

Uncle Forister, have you by any chance been talking to

a girl named Fassa del Parma y Polo? Or Alpha bint

Hezra-Fong? Or Darnell — "

 

"All three of them," Forister confirmed, "and —

what the devil is so funny about that?"

 

For Blaize had all but doubled up, snorting with

repressed laughter. "My sins come back to haunt me,"

he gasped between snorts.

 

224

 

Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

225

 

"I don't see what's so funny about it." Pollster's own

face had gone white and there was a pinched look

about the corners of his mouth.

 

"You wouldn't. Not yet. But when I — Oh, Lord!

This is one complication I never — " Blaize sputtered

into hysterical laughter that ended only when Forister

slammed a fist into his belly. Blaize was still crowing

and wheezing for breath when a second blow to the

jaw knocked his head back and flung him in an undig-

nified collapse against the rickety table where his

computing equipment had been stacked. Blaize's legs

folded under him and he slid gendy to the floor. Be-

hind him, the table rocked and wobbled dangerously.

The palmpad skated to one corner of the table top and

hung on a splinter. A shower of flimsy blue hardcopies

fluttered down over Blaize in a gentle, rustling rain of

reports and accounting figures and FTA instructions.

 

Forister snatched one sheet as it drifted down and

studied the column of figures for a moment, brows

raised. When his eyes reached the bottom of the page, he

looked tired and gray and showed every year ofhis age.

 

"Proof positive," he commented as he passed the

paper to Micaya, "if any was needed."

 

Micaya held the paper where Nancia could focus on

it through the contact button. The figures wobbled

and danced in Micaya's hand; grimly Nancia compen-

sated for movement and enlarged the blurred letters

and numbers until she too could read the flimsy.

 

It was a statement of Blaize's Net account balance

for the previous month. The pattern of deposits and

withdrawals of large sums made no immediate sense to

Nancia, but one thing was clear: any single figure was

considerably larger than Blaize's PTA salary, and the

total at the bottom was damning — more than thirty

times as much credit as he could have accumulated if

he'd saved every penny ofhis legitimate pay.

 

"Uncle Forister," said Blaize from the floor, tenderly

 

massaging his aching jaw, "you have got it all wrong.

Trust me."

 

"After the evidence before my eyes," Forister spat

out, "what could you possibly say that would incline

me to trust you?"

 

Blaize grinned up at him. His lip was bleeding and one

ftont tooth wobbled alarmingly. "You'd be surprised."

 

"If you were thinking of a small bribe out of your ill-

gotten gains," Micaya told him, "you can think again."

She lowered her head to speak directly into the contact

button and Nancia hastily reduced the amplification,

Softshells never could quite understand that they

didn't need to shout at a conduct button; the speaker

might be tinny, but the input lines were as powerful as

any of a brainship's on-board sensors. "Nancia, please

enter the Net with my personal ID code. That's Q-

B76, JPJ, 450, MIC. Under that code you will be

authorized to freeze all credit accounts under the per-

sonal code o£ let me see...." She squinted at the top

of the flimsy, peering to make out a code sequence that

Nancia could read perfectly well with the vision cor-

rectors damping down movement and enhancing

blurred letters. "Oh, never mind, I guess you can read

it," Micaya recalled a moment later.

 

"Correct," Nancia sent a vocal signal over the con-

tact link.

 

"Don't do that!" Blaize scrambled to his feet, sway-

ing slightly. "You don't understand—"

 

Forister moved to one side more rapidly than Nan-

cia had ever seen him step, a blur of motion that placed

him between Blaize and Micaya with her copy of the

account balance. "I understand that you've been ex-

ploiting nonintelligent sentients to enrich yourself,"

he said. "You can make your explanation to the

authorities. Nancia, I want you to file a formal record

of the charges now, just in case anything goes wrong

here."

 

226

 

Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

227

 

"Done," Nancia replied.

 

Blaize shook his head and winced at the motion. "Ow.

No. Uncle Forister, you really have got the wrong end of

the story. And there's no way you can have me up on

charges of— what did you say? — exploiting nonintel-

ligent sentients. On the contrary. The Loosies are

entitled to Intelligent Sentient Status and I can prove it—

and nobody can stop me now; I've just sent the final

documentation to CenDip. Even if you silence me,

there'll be an independent CenDip investigation now."

 

"Silence you, silence you?" Forister looked at Micaya.

His gray eyebrows shot up. "No question of that. We

don't deal in coverups. You'll have the opportunity to

say anything you like at your trial. And so will I, God

help me," he murmured, so low that only Nancia's

contact button picked up the words. "So will I."

 

"If you people would just listen" said Blaize, ex-

asperated, "there wouldn't be any need for a trial. Didn't

you hear what I said about the Loosies being intelligent?"

 

Micaya shook her head. "You've been here too long

if you've started to cherish that illusion. Face the facts.

On the way here I downloaded the survey reports off

the Net. The native species don't exhibit any of the key

signs of intelligence — no language, no clothing, no

agriculture, no political organization."

 

"They've always had language," Blaize insisted.

"They've got clothing and agriculture now. As for a

political organization, just think about PTA for a

minute and then ask yourself if that's any proof of

intelligence."

 

Micaya laughed in spite of herself. "You have a

point. But we didn't come here to argue ISS certifica-

tion standards—"

 

"Maybe not," said Blaize, "but since you are here,

and — " He looked suspicious for a moment "You're

not working with Harmon, are you?"

 

"Who?"

 

Micaya must have looked surprised enough to con-

vince Blaize.

 

"My predecessor here — my supervisor now.

Crooked enough to hide behind a spiral staircase,"

Blaize explained briefly. "He's the reason — well, one

of the reasons — I had to do things in this way. Al-

though even an honest PTA supervisor probably

wouldn't have approved. I have bent a few regula-

tions," he admitted. "But just do me the favor of taking

a brief tour of the settlement. 1 think you'll understand

a lot better after I show you a few things."

 

Micaya looked at Forister and shrugged. "I don't see

 

any harm in it"

 

"I suppose if we don't go along, you'll apply for a

mistrial on the grounds that you weren't allowed to

show evidence in your defense?" Forister inquired.

 

Blaize's face turned almost as red as his hair. "Look.

You're in contact with your brainship via that button.

If it's inactivated, or if she sees anything she doesn't

like, the full recording can go over the Net to Central

at once. What will it cost you to listen to me for once in

your life, Uncle Forister? God knows nobody else in

our family ever bothered," he added, "but I used to

think you were different"

 

Forister sighed. "I'm listening. I'm listening."

 

"Good! Just come this way, please." Blaize pushed

between Forister and Micaya and flung the door of the

hut open. Sunlight and gaudy flowers and a thousand

shades of green danced before them, all the brighter

for the contrast with the shabby interior of the hut

Blaize started down the path, talking a mile a minute

over his shoulder as the other two followed him. Nan-

cia activated the failsafe double recording system that

would transmit every word and image direcdy to Vega

Base as well as to her own storage centers.

 

"The Loosies never developed spoken language be-

cause they're telepaths," Blaize explained. "I know, I

 

228

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

know, that's hard to prove directly, but just wait till you

watch them work together! When the CenDip team

gets here, they should bring some top Psych staff.

Open-minded ones, who'll arrange tests without as-

suming from the start that I'm lying. Mind you, it took

me a while to figure out myself," he babbled

cheerfully, turning from the main path to a secondary

one that wound through head-high reeds, "especially

at the beginning, when they all looked alike to me. I

was so damn bored, and those croaking noises they

make got on my nerves, so I started trying to teach a

couple of them ASL."

 

"What?" Micaya interrupted.

 

"It's an antique hand-speech, used for the

incurably deaf back before we learned how to direct-

install auditory synapses on metachip and hook

them into the appropriate brain centers," Forister

told her. "Blaize always did have strange hobbies.

But teaching the Loosies a few signals in sign

language doesn't prove they're intelligent, boy. A

couple of twentieth-century researchers did that

much with chimpanzees."

 

"Yeah, well, that's all I hoped to achieve in the

beginning," Blaize said. "Believe me, after a couple of

months on Angalia, a signing chimp would have

seemed like real good company! But they picked it up

like—like a brainship picks up Singularity math. That

was the first surprise. I was teaching three of them

who sort of hung around — Humdrum and Bobolin

and Gargle." He flushed briefly. "Yeah, I know they're

damn silly names, but I didn't know they were people

then. 1 was just copying some of the strangled noises

they made when I would talk to them and they'd try to

talk back, before I realized they'd never developed the

vocal equipment for true speech — that was when I

started on the sign language — sorry, I'm getting

mixed up. Where was I?"

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

229

 

"Teaching Humdrum to sign 'Where ration bar?'"

Forister told him.

 

Blaize laughed. "Not bloody likely. His first sentence

was more like, 'Why did Paunch Man throw ration

bars in mud and treat us like animals, and why do you

make stacks and hand them to us one at a time with

proper respect?'"

 

He stopped and turned to face them, his freckled

face dead serious for once. "Can you imagine how it

felt to hear a question like that coming from somebody

I'd been thinking of as — oh, like a trained spider to

while away the hours of my prison sentence? I knew

then that the Loosies weren't animals. Figuring out

what to do about it," he said, resuming his progress

through the reeds, "took a little longer."

 

"I deduced the telepathy when I noticed that a week

after Humdrum caught on to ASL, every Loosie who

showed up for rations was signing to me. Fluently. He

couldn't have taught them the rudiments that fast;

they had to have been picking the signs and the lan-

guage structure out of his mind as the lessons

progressed. In fact, they told me as much when I asked

about it. Which wasn't all that easy. ASL doesn't have a

sign for 'telepathy,' and since they don't know English,

I couldn't spell it out. B ut eventually we got our signals

straight."

 

"If they were as intelligent as you claim, and had a

system of communication, they should have advanced

beyond their primitive level without intervention,"

Micaya objected.

 

"Easy for you to say," Blaize told her. "I wonder how

well you or any of us would do if we had evolved on a

planet where the only surface fit for farming is

rearranged by violent floods once a week, where the

caves we used for shelter crumbled and were shattered

by periodic quakes? They had a hunter-gatherer cul-

ture until a few generations ago — a small population,

 

230

 

Artne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

not more than the planet could support, ranging

through the semi-stable marshlands on the far side of

this continent"

 

"Then what?"

 

"Then," Blaize said, "they were discovered. The first

survey thought they might be intelligent and re-

quested Planetary Technical Aid support By the time

the second survey team came along, this PTA station

had been handing out unlimited supplies of ration

bricks for three generations, and the culture was effec-

tively destroyed. Instead of small bands of

hunter-gatherers, you had one large colony with no

food-gathering skill. There were far too many for the

existing marshlands to support, with nothing to do

and no hope of survival except to collect the ration

bricks. The second survey, not unnaturally, decided

they weren't intelligent. After all, nobody on the sur-

vey team was stuck here long enough and lonely

enough to try signing to them. But they recom-

mended on humanitarian grounds, or kindness to

animals, or whatever, that we not discontinue PTA

shipments and starve them to death."

 

"But if they're intelligent— " Forister objected again.

 

They are. And they can build for themselves. They

just needed a—a place to start" Blaize pushed the last

of the feathery reeds aside with both arms and stepped

to one side, inviting Forister and Micaya to admire die

view of the mine. "This was the first step."

 

From this vantage point, Nancia observed, they

could see far more of die mine's operations than had

been visible from the landing field. Teams of blue-

uniformed workers were scattered across the hillside

and grouped under the roofs of the unwalled process-

ing sheds — twenty, forty, more than fifty of them,

divided into groups of four or five individuals who

worked at their chosen tasks with perfect unanimity

and wordless efficiency.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

231

 

"Could you train chimps to do that?" Blaize

demanded.

 

Forister shook his head slowly. "And I suppose the

mine is the source of your prodigious wealth?"

 

"It's certainly the source of the credits in that Net ac-

count," Blaize agreed.

 

"Exploiting intelligent sentients isn't any better dian

exploiting dumb animals."

 

Blaize ground his teeth; Nancia could pick up the

clicks and grinding sounds through the contact but-

ton. "I. Am. Not. Exploiting. Anybody," he said.

"Look, Uncle Forister. When I got here, the Loosies

didn't have ISS. They couldn't be owners of record for

the mine, they couldn't have Net accounts, they

couldn't palmprint official documents. Of course my

code is on everything! Who else could front for them?*1

 

"And your code is also," Micaya pointed out, "as-

sociated with the illegal resale of PTA ration shipments

that were supposed to be distributed to the natives."

 

Blaize nodded wearily. "Needed money to get the

mine started again. I tried to get a loan, but the banks

wanted to know what I was going to do with it When I

told them I was going to revive the Angalia mines they

told me I couldn't do that because there was no source

of labor on the planet, because the CenDip report said

Angalia had no intelligent sentients. Without credits, I

couldn't start the mine. And without the credits for the

mine, I couldn't — well, we'll get to that in a while.

Look, I falsified a few PTA reports. Said the popula-

tion had tripled. Ration bars aren't exactly a hot item

in international trade," he said dryly. "I had to have a

targe surplus to bargain with. Fortunately, I had an

outlet right at hand. That bastard Harmon was keep-

ing the Loosies at semi-starvation level so he could

trade some of their ration bars for liquor. I had to have

a little talk with the black market trader to convince

him I wanted hard credits instead of hard liquor, but

 

232

 

Arme McCaffrey 6? Margaret Ball

 

eventually he ... um ... came around to my way of

thinking."

 

"Don't tell me how you persuaded him," Forister

said quickly. "I don't want to know."

 

Blaize grinned. "Okay. Anyway, you've seen the

mine; now I want to take you on a tour of Project Two.

Well have to go up the mountain for that, I'm afraid; I

want you to get the long view."

 

The path up beside the mine was steep, but

switchbacks and steps made it easier than it looked

from a distance. As they passed the mine door, several

Loosies looked up from their work to smile at Blaize.

Their loose-skinned, grayish hands moved rapidly

back and forth in flickering gestures that Nancia cap-

tured as imageflashes for later interpretation. For now,

she was willing to accept Blaize's translation.

 

"They're asking who my mentally handicapped

friends are, and whether you'd like a ride down to the

processing sheds," he explained.

 

As he spoke, the team working at the mine's mouth

filled a wagon with chunks of ore and poised it at the

head of the rails swooping down into the valley. The

three workers perched on top of the ore, hands grip-

ping the sides of the wagon, and a member of the next

team gave them a shove that started them off on a

roller-coaster glide down the hill, swerving around

rocks and dipping into hollows.

 

"Lost a few that way, at the start," Blaize com-

mented, "before I remodeled the rail track so that the

dips wouldn't throw anybody off."

 

The vegetation thinned out above the mine, giving

them a view of the terraced gardens that replaced clifls

and rocks wherever a shovelful of soil could find a

place. Micaya sniffed appreciatively and commented

on the pungent aroma of the herbs growing in the

mini-gardens.

 

At the top of the mountain they enjoyed a

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

233

 

panoramic view of what had been the Great Angalia

Mud Basin, now a grassland in which fields of grain

shared space with brightly colored blossoms.

 

"This'll be our first year's crop," Blaize said. Td just

finished the necessary preparations for planting last

year, when those nitwits I came out with were here for

the meeting. None of them noticed anything different,

of course. But if your brainship can call up files of the

first survey — "

 

"She can do better than that," Forister told him.

"She's been here herself. Nancia, do you observe any

changes here? Apart from the growing things, that is?"

 

Blaize paled between his freckles. "Nanria?"

 

"You have some problem with my brainship?"

Forister inquired mildly.

 

"We... didn't part on the best of terms," Blaize con*

fessed in a strangled voice.

 

Nancia was feeling rather more kindly towards

Blaize now, but she wasn't quite ready to admit that to

him. "Horizon shows changes between all major

peaks," she reported in the neutral, tinny voice forced

on her by the contact button's limitations. "Magnifica-

tion of one area of variation shows new construction of

rammed earth and boulders blocking a system of gul-

lies that appears now to be under 17.35 meters of

water...."

 

"Lake Humdrum," Blaize said. "My first terraform-

ing effort. Trouble was, I had to block all the outlets,

and build up reservoir walls, before I could guarantee

the floods wouldn't crash through the mud basin.

Then we needed irrigation ditches down into the

basin. And silt collection systems, so that the soil the

floods used to carry down here would still reach the

basin and renew its topsoil. You want to come back

down now? I want to show you the grain samples and

the test results. It's not quite ripe yet, of course," he

chattered as he led the way down the path, "but it's

 

234

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

going to beaprime crop. Amaranth-19-hyper-J Rev 2,

if that means anything to you. High in protein, loaded

with natural nutrients, super yield from that rich top-

soil. We should be able to feed ourselves and have a

surplus to sell. That's why I waited until now to claim

Intelligent Sentient Status for the Loosies; I wanted to

be sure we would be self-sufficient in case PTA decided

to curtail the ration shipments. And I didn't dare start

planting until the whole flood control system had been

put in place and tested. The Loosies would never have

trusted me again if they'd put in a crop and seen it

washed away. We needed a lot of heavy-duty ter-

rafbrming equipment; sucked up all the mine's profits

for the first three years."

 

They reached the bottom of the mountain and

Blaize set off at a brisk walk towards the hut. Forister

took his arm and gently urged him away from the hut,

towards the edge of the mesa. "I'd like to get a closer

look at this grain crop of yours before we go inside," he

suggested.

 

But they didn't wind up standing in the best place to

assess the grain; they came to the edge of the mesa just

above the ugly volcanic mud hole that disfigured the

basin, with its lazy bubbles roiling and tumbling just

before the sticky surface of the mud.

 

Forister eyed Blaize warily. "You've been forcing the

natives to work in a corycium mine owned by you."

 

"Persuading," Blaize corrected.

 

"They believed your promises to use the profits for

their own good ?"

 

Blaize flushed. "I don't think they fully understood

what I had in mind at the beginning. Most of them,

anyway. Humdrum and Gargle got the idea, but they

never believed it would work."

 

"Then... ?" Forister left the question dangling.

 

"I think," Blaize said almost inaudibly, "I think they

did it because they like me a little."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

235

 

"Other reasons have been suggested," said Forister.

 

Blaize looked blank for a moment, then noticed the

direction of Forister's gaze. He was staring down at the

volcanic mud bubble.

 

"Oh. Fassa del Parma again?"

 

"And Dr. Hezra-Fong," said Micaya, "and DarneD

Overton-Glaxely. You've still to dear up their allega-

tions of torture."

 

"I — I see." With a sudden leap, Blaize jumped

away from Forister and Micaya to perch on a boulder

sticking halfway out from the side of the mesa. "You

want proof that I didn't torture Humdrum?"

 

"It won't do any good to produce some other native

and claim he was the one you tortured publicly, and

that he recovered," Micaya told him, "just in case you

were thinking of that. You've no way to prove you

didn't murder and bury the one witnesses saw you tor-

turing."

 

"Well, it was Humdrum, all right, and he'll tell you

so, but I see your point," Blaize agreed. He fumbled at

the front of his tunic; die synthofilm sides parted and

he folded the garment neatly. "My best tunic," he ex-

plained politely, "you'll understand I don't want to

ruin it"

 

"What are you doing? Come back, boy!" Forister

called, just too late; Blaize had skidded down a couple

of feet and was clinging to a rock ledge barely out of

reach.

 

iJust a minute," Blaize panted in between some

strange contortions. His synthofilm trousers collapsed

in a shining heap around his ankles; he kicked diem

upwards and they snagged on a thorn bush.

 

"Blaize, don't do this." Micaya spoke in tones of quiet

authority that seemed for a moment to weaken

Blaize's will. He paused on the ledge, his milk-white

skin almost glowing against the dull hues of the vol-

canic pool beneada him.

 

236

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

"I have to," he said calmly. "It's the only way."

 

Before either of them could argue further, he leapt

from the ledge in a spiraling, awkward dive that ended

with a resounding smack in the center of the heaving

mud. White arms and legs splayed out, red head still,

for a moment he seemed to have been stunned or

killed outright by the fell. Then he kicked and wrig-

gled vigorously, sinking deeper into the bubbling glop

with each movement.

 

"Hold still,'1 Forister called, "we'll get a rope to you

— we'll do something — "

 

Blaize turned over onto his back. A thick layer of

mud coated his body, barely preserving the decencies.

He thrashed around in what Nanria belatedly recog-

nized as an attempt at the backstroke.

 

"Come on in, Uncle Forister," he called up. "The

mud's fine today!"

 

"Are you all right?" Micaya shouted while Forister,

for once, struggled to find his voice.

 

"Couldn't be better. Mud's just at sauna heat today."

Blaize stretched and wriggled luxuriously and

grinned up at them through mud-spattered cheeks. "I

don't usually dive from that high up — knocked the

breath out of me for a minute — but I thought you

needed the demonstration. Care to join me?"

 

Micaya looked quizzically at Forister. The brawn

kicked off his shoes and rolled his trouser legs up. "Oh,

I'm going down, all right," he said between clenched

teeth. "It's the quickest way to get my hands on that

boy. And then I'm going to — to — " Words failed him.

 

"Torture him in a boiling mud hole?" Micaya

suggested.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Nancia deliberately slowed her speed for the short

hop from Angalia to Shemali. She needed time to

check her records, time to access the Net and look for

evidence of Polyon's scam. Somewhere in all the past

five years' records of metachip and hyperchip transac-

tions there must be some clue to his criminal activities

— for she could not believe he had totally given up on

the plans he'd announced during her maiden voyage.

Not Polyon de Gras-Waldheim.

 

Even Net access was not always instantaneous, par-

ticularly when one was gathering and collating all the

public records on sale, transfer or use of hyperchips in

the known galaxy. Nancia idled and hoped that her

passengers would not notice how long the voyage was

taking.

 

Fortunately, they all seemed wrapped up in their

own concerns. Fassa, Alpha and Darnell were all being

held in separate cabins, dealing with the long spells of

solitary imprisonment in their own ways. Alpha re-

quested medical and surgical journals from Net

libraries and studied the technical material Nancia

downloaded for her with intense concentration, just as

if she thought she would be permitted to practice her

chosen profession again. Not if I have anything to say

about it, Nancia vowed silently. But the truth was, she

didn't have much to say. She could record her tes-

timony and the images she'd received via contact

buttons, and those depositions would go into evidence

at Alpha's trial. But after that, all would be up to those

softpersons who controlled the high courts on Central.

 

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Most of them were High Families; half of them had

some connection, kinship or financial, with the Hezra-

Fong clan. Alpha might very well be free — not

immediately, but in five years or ten or twenty, a mere

blip in the life of a High Families girl with fewer than

thirty chronological years behind her and access to the

best rejuv technology to expand her life span dose to

two hundred years.

 

Not for me to decide, Nancia reminded herself, and

turned her attention to the other two. As a safety

precaution she kept sensors in all their cabins active at

all times, but she tried not to pay too much attention

unless the sensor receptors flashed to indicate unusual

activity.

 

DarnelTs activities were usual enough, Nancia sup-

posed, for someone enslaved to a softperson's pitifully

limited array of sense-receptors. He had requested

Stemerald, Rigellian smokefowl and an array of Dorg

Jesen's feelieporn hedra; Nancia had supplied nonal-

coholic nearbeer, synthobird slices, and the hedra

which Forister told her were the nearest things to porn

in her library. Darnell spent most of his time reclining

on his bunk, washing down synthobird and candied

brancake with the nearbeer and watching a remake of

an Old Earth novel over and over again. Nancia

couldn't understand what he saw in the datacorded

adventures of this Tom Jones, but then, it was none of

her business.

 

Blaize was confined in the cabin opposite Darnell's.

After hah0 an hour's furious argument about who

would look after "his" Loosies while he was being

shipped back to Central, he'd accepted Nancia's

promise to see that her sister Jinevra personally over-

saw whoever was sent to replace him on Angalia. "One

thing about the Perez line, they're hopelessly honest,"

he said in resignation. 'Jinevra may not be creative,

but at least she won't let that swine Harmon get his

 

hooks into them again. You do realize that if this year's

harvest foils, all my work will be wasted?"

 

"I realize, I realize," Nancia told him patiently.

"Trust Jinevra." And as she sent out a general Net call

to Jinevra and explained the situation to her sister, she

wondered guiltily just how different she was from the

rest of the High Families brats. Daddy had pulled

strings to get her sent on this assignment. Now she was

calling in favors owed her in Courier Service, and

making her sister feel guilty, so that she could interfere

in what should have been left to the normal channels

of PTA administration.

 

But "normal channels" left the Loosies without the

kind of aid they needed. Nancia sighed.

 

"Will there never be a bureaucracy that does what

it's supposed to without sinking into corruption and

inefficiency?'* she asked Forister.

"Probably not," he replied.

 

"You sound like Simeon — advising me to accept

corruption because it's everywhere!"

 

Forister shook his head. "Not in the least. I'm advis-

ing you not to waste energy being surprised and

shocked about the predictable. No system, anywhere,

is proof against human failings. If it were — "he

forced a tired smile — "we'd be computers. Your hy-

perchips may be foolproof, Nancia, but the human

pan of you makes mistakes — and so do all of us. For-

tunately," he added, "humans can also recognize and

correct mistakes—unlike computers, which just go on

until they crash. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like access

to your comm system for a while. I want to see what I

can do to prevent Blaize from crashing."

 

While Blaize's explanations had satisfied all of them

on an emotional level, he still had some legal problems

to face. No matter how excellent his motivation, the

feet remained that he had falsified PTA reports, sold

PTA shipments on the black market, and transferred

 

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the profits into his personal Net account To leave him

on Angalia while the others were shipped back for trial

would have seemed like the worst kind of favoritism.

All Forister could do was to make sure that all the facts

were on record for the trial — not just how Blaize had

obtained the money, but what he had done with it and

how he had improved the lives of the people he was

sent to aid.

 

"They are people," Forister reported to Blaize with

satisfaction.

 

"Of course they are! Couldn't you tell that?"

 

"What I thought, or what you thought, is beside the

point," Forister told him. "What counts is CenDip's

decision. And there must be at least one intelligent

man in CenDip, because your report has already been

received and acted on. The Loosies have ISS as of

yesterday. And the decision's palmprinted by no less a

person than the CenDip Secretary-Universal, Javier

Perez y de Gras."

 

Nancia heard that with great satisfaction and turned

her attention to her last prisoner. Fassa was spending

most of this voyage just as she had spent the trip from

Bahati to Angalia, crouched on her cabin floor, arms

around her knees, staring at nothing and ignoring the

food trays Nancia extruded at the dining slot. Un-

touched bowls of soup, baskets of sliced sweet bread,

tempting fruit purees and sliced synthobird in glow-

sauce went back into the recycling bins to be

synthesized into new combinations of proteins and

carbohydrates and fats. To all Nantia's gentle sugges-

tions of food or entertainment Fassa replied widi a dull

"No, thank you," or "It doesn't matter."

 

"You must eat something," Nancia told her.

 

"Must 1?" Fassa seemed obscurely amused. "No,

thank you. I've had enough of men telling me what I

must do and what I must be. Who cares if I get too

skinny to appeal to anybody?"

 

"I'm not a man," Nancia pointed out "I'm not even

a softperson. And my only interest in your body is that

I don't want you to get sick before..."

 

"Before my trial," Fassa finished calmly. "It's all

right You needn't be tactful. I'm going to prison for a

long time. Maybe forever. As long as they don't put me

on Shemali, I don't care."

 

"What's the matter with Shemali?" Nancia asked.

 

Fassa clamped her lips together and stared at the

cabin wall. Her creamy skin was a little paler than

usual, tinged with green shadows. "Nothing. I don't

know anything about Shemali. I didn't say anything

about Shemali."

 

Nancia gave up on Fassa for the moment After all,

there were other ways to find out what was up on

Shemali. Reports on hyperchip production and sales

should soon be coming in over the Net. A few in-

vigorating hours of compiling evidence against Polyon

would calm her and leave her better able to cheer up

Fassa.

 

She felt a sneaking sympathy for the girl after read-

ing her records. Growing up in the shadow of Faui del

Parma couldn't have been easy. Losing her mother at

thirteen, spending the next five years in a boarding

school with not a single visit from her father, then sent

out to Bahati to prove herself.... Nancia thought she

understood how Fassa might feel. But I didn't turn

criminal to impress my family, she argued with herselt

 

Your family, she replied, wouldn't have been impressed.

Besides, she'd had it better than Fassa. Daddy and

Jinevra and Flix had dropped in regularly during the

eighteen years Nancia spent at Laboratory Schools. It

was only after graduation that Daddy had lost interest

in her progress....

 

Softpersons could cry, and it was said that tears were

a natural release of tension. Nancia looked up the

biomed reports on the chemical components of tears,

 

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adjusted her nutrient tubes to remove those chemicals

from her system, and concentrated on the Net records

of hyperchip sales and transfer.

 

There was absolutely nothing there to incriminate

Polyon. Two years after his arrival at Shemali, his new

metachip design had been approved for production

and christened the "hyperchip" in tribute to its im-

proved speed and greater complexity. Since then,

production of hyperchips had increased rapidly in

each accounting quarter, so rapidly that Nancia

couldn't believe Polyon was siphoning off any of the

supply for his personal use. The manufactured hyper-

chips were subjected to especially stringent QA testing,

but no more than the expected ratio failed the test...

and all the failures were accounted for; they were sent

off-planet for disposal and destroyed by an inde-

pendent recycling company that had, so far as Nancia

could discover, no links whatsoever with Polyon, the

de Gras or Waldheim lines, or any other High

Families. The hyperchips that passed QA were in-

stalled as fast as they were released, and every sale

passed through the rationing board. Nancia knew

from personal experience how difficult it was to get

them; ever since her lower deck sensors and graphics

coprocessors had been enhanced with hyperchips,

she'd been pushing without success to get the hyper-

chips installed in the rest of her system. Micaya

Questar-Benn, when questioned, told Nancia that her

liver and heart-valve filter and kidneys all ran on hy-

perchips, installed when the metachip-controlled

organs began to fail. But she, too, had been unable to

get hyperchips to replace the smart chips in her exter-

nal prostheses; that wasn't an emergency situation,

and the ration board had refused to approve the

surgery or the supplies.

 

Polyon had been nominated twice for the Galactic Ser-

vice Award for the contributions his hyperchip design

 

bad made in areas as diverse as Fleet brainroom control,

molecular surgery, and information systems. Even the

Net, that ponderous, conservative communications sys-

tem that finked the galaxy with news and information

and records of everything ever done via computer —

even the managers of the Net were slowly, conservatively

augmenting key communications Sanctions with hyper-

chip managers that had significantly speeded Net

retrievals. The gossipbyters speculated openly that

Polyon would receive the coveted GSA this year, the

youngest man — and the handsomest, said Cornelia

NetUnk coyly — ever to hold one of the corycium

statuettes. Speculation also ran rampant on which distin-

guished post he would surely accept after the

presentation of the GSA. It seemed such a waste for such

a talented young man — and so handsome, Cornelia in-

evitably added — to be stuck out at the back of beyond

running a prison chip manufacturing plant Yet so far,

Polyon had refused with becoming modesty even to dis-

cuss offers of other positions.

 

"StarFleet assigned me to this post, and my honor is

in serving where I am assigned," he declared when-

ever asked.

 

Nancia resisted the temptation to imitate a softper-

son raspberry at the files. Shellpersons, with near-total

control over their auditory/speaker systems, didn't

need to sink to such childish levels....

 

"ThpSHt," she declared. There was somettmg wrong

on Shemali; she knew it, even if she couldn't prove it.

 

Perhaps their unannounced visit would give her the

data she needed.

 

Despite her slowdown to cruising speeds, Nancia

reached Shemali while she was still mulling over how

to identify herself to the spaceport crew. Arrival of a

Courier Service brainship was an unusual event on

these remote planets; she didn't want to alert Polyon,

 

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give him a chance to cover up—whatever there was to

cover up, and there must be somethingl Nancia

thought.

 

In the event, the decision was made for her.

 

"OG-48, cleared for landing from orbit," the bored

voice of a spaceport controller crackled over her comm

link while Nancia hovered and wondered how to in-

troduce herself without alarming anybody.

 

She quickly scanned her external sensor views.

There were no other ships visible in orbit around

Shemali, and any OG ship on the far side of the planet

should have been out of commlink range. They must

be speaking to her — oh, of course! Nancia chuckled

to herself. Since the sting operation offBahati, she'd

been far too busy to demand a new paint job. The

mauve-and-puce pseudowalls of an OG Shipping

drone still cluttered her interior; the OG stencil was

presumably still prominently displayed on her exter-

nal skin. Darnell Overton-Glaxely had a reputation

for picking up and retrofitting ships from any possible

source. Her sleek CS shape would be unusual for a

shipping line's vessel, but apparently not unusual

enough to rouse any suspicion in the spaceport con-

troller. As he droned on with landing instructions,

Nancia thought she recognized the calm, level,

uninflected voice. Not that voice specifically, but the

feeling of detachment from worldly cares. Since when

do Blissto addicts hold responsible spaceport positions? I knew

something was very wrong here. And we — Forister and

Micaya and I—are going tofmd out what!

 

She settled on the landing pad with a sense of exul-

tation and adventure. Then, as she took in her

surroundings, the bubbles of joyous feelings went as

flat as long-opened Stemerald.

 

"Ugh! What happened to this place?" Forister ex-

claimed as soon as Nancia cleared her display screens

to give him a view of Shemali from the spaceport.

 

The permacrete of the landing pads was cracked

and stained, and the edge of the "crete had a ragged

hole eaten into it, as though somebody had spilled a

drum of industrial biocleaners and hadn't bothered to

clean up the results before the microscopic biocleaners

ate themselves to death on permacrete and paint. The

spaceport building was a windowless permacrete

block, grim and forbidding as any maximum-security

prison—which, of course, described the whole planet.

 

Beyond the spaceport, clouds of green and purple

smoke billowed into the air. Presumably they were the

source of the greenish-black ashes which had drifted

over every surface visible to Nancia.

 

While they waited for the spaceport controller to iden-

tify himself and welcome them to Shemali, a blast of wind

shrieked across the open landing field, catching the ashes

and tossing them into whirling columnsof pollution that

collapsed as rapidly as they had arisen.

 

Nancia's external monitors recorded the wind

temperature at 5 degrees Centigrade.

 

"Shemali deserves its name," she murmured.

 

"What's that?"

 

"North Wind," Nancia said. "Alpha knows the lan-

guage from which all the Nyota system names come. She

mentioned the translations once... a long time ago."

 

"Is the rest of the planet like this?"

 

Nancia briefly replaced the view of the outside with

magnified displays of the images she'd taken in while

descending from orbit. At the time she'd been too ex-

ercised over the problem of an appropriate greeting

formula to worry much about the surface problems of

the planet. Now she and Forister gazed in horrified

silence at stagnant pools in which no living thing

stirred, valleys eroded from the brutal road cuts lead-

ing to new hyperchip plants, swirling clouds of dust

and ash blanketing woods in which the trees died and

no birds sang.

 

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"I didn't know that one factory could do so much

damage to a planet," Forister said slowly.

 

"Looks as if there are several factories operating

now," Micaya pointed out. "All running at top capacity,

I'd guess, with no concern for damage to the environ-

ment ... and Shemali's winds will have distributed the

polluting waste products planet-wide."

 

"Did nobody visit Shemali before recommending

Polyon for a GSA? Probably not," Forister answered

his own question. "Who wants to come to a prison

planet in a minor star system? And his records are

good, you said, Nancia?"

 

"The public records are excellent," Nancia replied,

"It appears that Polyon de Gras-Waldheim has truly

been making every effort to see that the maximum

quantity of hyperchips is manufactured and that they

are distributed as widely as possible." At incalculable cost

to the environment- But that's not a crime....not legally, not

here anyway. If Central cared about Shemali, they wouldn't

have located the prison metachip factory here to begin with.

 

A pounding on the lower doors reverberated

through Nanria's outer skin. She switched back to ex-

ternal auditory and visual sensors. The ones on her

landing braces gave her a narrow view of whoever was

making this commotion ... a gaunt man wrapped in

tattered rags that looked like the remnants of a prison

uniform, gray smock and loose trousers, and with

more rags draped over his head and bound about his

fists.

 

He was calling her name. "Nancia! Nancia, let me

in, quickly!"

 

On the edge of the landing field, two bulky figures

in gleaming silvercloth protective suits moved slowly

forward, awkward and menacing. The silver hoods

covered their faces like helmets, the silver suits glit-

tered around them like armor. But the weapons in

their raised hands were not knightly lances, but nerve

 

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disruptors, bulky squat shapes more menacing than

any iron lance point.

 

Nancia slid open the lower doors. The fugitive col-

lapsed against the opening doors and fell into the

cargo bay. As one of the silver-suited figures raised its

nerve disruptor, Nancia slammed the doors shut

again. The rays bounced harmlessly against her outer

shell; she absorbed the energy without conscious

thought. All her attention was on the ragged prisoner

who was now pushing himself to his knees, slowly and

painfully unwinding the rags from around his face.

 

"That may not have been a wise decision," Forister

commented mildly. "We don't wish to become

embroiled with the local authorities. Prison disputes

aren't part of our mission."

 

"This man is," Nancia replied. She switched the dis-

play screens to show what her sensors were picking up

in the cargo bay. Micaya Questar-Benn was the first to

gasp in recognition.

 

"Young Bryley-Sorensen! How did he get into

Shemali prison . . . and out again . . . and in such

condition?"

 

"That," said Nancia grimly, "I should very much like

to know."

 

Sev pulled himself upright by one of the support

struts that crisscrossed the cargo bay. "Nancia, don't let

anybody else in. There's — you don't know — terrible

things on Shemali. Terrible," he repeated. His eyes

rolled up and he slid to the floor again.

 

"Forister, Micaya, get him out of the cargo bay

before those two guards or whatever come knocking

on my doors," Nancia snapped. "No, wait. I have an

idea. Take his clothes offfirst and leave them there."

 

"Why?"

 

"Don't have time to explain. Just do it!" She set her

kitchen synthesizers to work and turned on the in-

cinerator. What she had in mind would never work if

 

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Shemali were a decendy run prison. But what she'd

seen of the ravages wreaked on the planet matched

what she remembered of young Polyon de Gras-

Waldheim's ruthless personality, and Sev's last gasped

words were all the confirmation she needed.

 

While Forister and Micaya stripped the unconscious

Sev and manhandled him into the lift, Nancia ex-

panded her sensor reception to examine him more

closely. She recorded everything for future analysis,

taking particular note of the horrible skin lesions that

disfigured both Sev's arms and one leg. Dark bruises

flowered in purple and blue and green on his ribs and

stomach, and his back was crisscrossed with swollen

weals that oozed red as the other two softpersons

moved him. His breathing was shallow and irregular

and he showed no sign of regaining consciousness

while they dragged him to the lift.

 

What had they done to him on Shemali? Nancia

knew how to treat the surface injuries; but this was a

planet of nerve gas and acids. The lesions on his arms

and legs frightened her. So did his desperate, ragged

breath pattern. This went beyond the superficial in-

juries and known diseases she was qualified to treat

What they wanted was a doctor ... and there hap-

pened to be one on board.

 

Nancia flashed her images of Sev to Alpha's cabin.

There was a cry of dismay, then a strangled sob. Fassa's

voice, not Alpha's. Nancia realized that in her hurry,

she'd transmitted the same display to all the passenger

cabins. Already Darnell was cursing about the inter-

ruption of his vid. She switched off the receptors from

his cabin and displayed images of the other three

prisoners so that she could watch their faces while she

consulted with Alpha.

 

"Dr. Hezra-Fong," Nancia said formally, "we have just

brought aboard a prisoner with the severe injuries you

see. I fear Ganglidde poisoning. Can you treat him?"

 

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"That's not Ganglicide," Alpha said confidently.

"Minor acid burns, that's all. But there may be some

lung damage. I can't be sure from these vids. And with

the location of those bruises, I'm worried about kidney

damage and internal bleeding. Transport him to the

medtech center. I'll have a look."

 

She was cool and quick and competent; Nancia ad-

mired those qualities unwillingly. But could she be

trusted with Sev's health?

 

Alpha pushed on the dosed cabin door and turned

back to the sensor port. Her fine, sharp-featured face

was pinched with annoyance. "FN-935,1 cannot diag-

nose and treat this man by remote control! If you're

interested in his health, I strongly suggest you open

this door and allow me to do my job!"

 

But what else would she do? Nancia wondered.

 

"Let me go with her," Blaize suggested.

 

"And me." Fassa's large eyes were filled with tears.

Acting, or desperation? There was scant time to

dedde.

 

Nanda instinctively trusted Blaize, but she wasn't

sure how reliable he might be. He tended to go along

with the majority. And if she let both Fassa and Blaize

out with Alpha, the prisoners would be the majority

among the softpersons.

 

And whatever Fassa's crimes, Nancia somehow

doubted that she would do anything to hurt Sev

Bryley-Sorensen. Not after the scenes she had wit-

nessed between them. Not after she'd watched Fassa

sink into a depression between Bahati and Shemali,

convinced that Sev had deserted her and that she

would never see him again.

 

"Fassa del Parma y Polo will accompany and assist

Dr. Hezra-Fong," Nancia announced with a mental

prayer that she was making the right decision.

 

While the two women raced down the corridor to meet

Forister and Micaya at the lift, Nancia slowly opened her

 

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lower cargo doors six inches. The silver-suited guard

who stood outside had his fist raised to bang on the door,

he lowered it now, but aimed his nerve cttsruptor into

what he could see of the cargo bay.

 

"And what can I do for you?" Nancia asked icily.

 

"Drone OG-48, you are harboring an escaped

prisoner," the guard said. "Return him to our custody

now, or it'll be die worse for you. Your owner won't ap-

prove this, you know."

 

Nancia managed an icy laugh that chilled her own

sensors. "This is not a drone. You'll meet us in good

time. As for that diseased bundle of rags that begged

entrance, it has been disposed of appropriately. It

looked as if it had Capellan jungle rot and Altair

plague — not to mention Old Earth lice. Did you think

we'd leave something like that cluttering up this nice

dean ship?"

 

"Don't try to lie to me," the guard warned. "This

ship has been under surveillance from the moment of

landing. The prisoner has not left the ship."

 

"Who said anything about leaving? There are its

clothes — if you can call those rags clothes," Nancia

added disparagingly. She slid the cargo doors open

another ten inches, just enough to let the guard

squeeze in edgewise. "And here's the rest of your

fugitive." She opened the disposal slot and extruded

the contents. A pitiful little heap of organic ash, par-

tially burnt protein, and charred bone fragments

spilled out onto the tray. The guard stepped back,

every line of his body expressing horror. Nancia

wished she could see his face behind the silver per-

mafilm and the finely woven breath mesh.

 

"What's the matter?" she inquired. "He was dying

anyway, you know."

 

The guard stumbled towards the doors, making

retching sounds behind his mask. "I thought de

Gras-Waldheim was a cold one," he said between

 

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gagging noises, "but you OG Shipping types are

 

worse yet."

Nantia's last and most spine-chilling laugh followed

 

him out onto the landing pad.

 

"Don't you want to take the remains back?" she

called after him.

 

She slammed the cargo doors shut before he

could answer, just in case he overcame his distaste

and came back for the "remains." It would never do

to let a lab get hold of the synthesized "bone" and

algal-protein "flesh" that she had first created, then

charred in the incinerator.

 

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• CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

"Stimpad! Drug stores!" Alpha snapped over her

shoulder. Nancia silently extruded die required

equipment from her medtech drawers. Alpha's slim

dark fingers darted among the ampules supplied and

loaded the pad with a combination of drugs. Nancia

recognized a general nervous stimulant, a breathing

regulator, and at least two kinds of anesthetic.

 

"Er — are you sure those will work all right in com-

bination?" she asked apologetically. Alpha was the

doctor. But Nancia had been rigorously trained in the

minor first aid and holding techniques she might ex-

pect to need until she could get an ailing brawn or

passenger to a clinic; and one thing her instructor had

been very, very firm about was the danger of unex-

pected side-effects from mixing two or more drugs.

 

"You wanted an expert," Alpha snapped, "you got

one. I've got to stabilize his condition before I can treat

the superficial lesions and check for internal damage.

This should keep him breathing ... if anything will.

We haven'ta lot of time to waste, you know."

 

Quietly, Fassa del Parma slid between Alpha and

Sev's unconscious body, now prone on the padded ex-

amining bench that slid out of one wall in the narrow

medtech chamber. "If the combination is harmless,"

she said, "try it on me first"

 

"Don't be silly," Alpha sneered, "you've less than

half his body mass. You'll be out of it for two days if I

give you the same dose I've prepared for Bryley!"

 

"Then just use half the stimpad," Fassa suggested.

She pulled one sleeve down over her shoulder, expos-

 

ing an expanse of creamy white skin, naked and vul-

nerable. "Here. I won't move. But I want to see a

demonstration before you stick anything into... Sev."

She gulped on his name, but otherwise her com-

posure was unbroken.

 

Nancia, who alone had the luxury of viewing the

scene from several angles, thought she saw Sev's

eyelids flutter at the sound of Fassa's voice. Neither of

the young women noticed; they were too intent on one

another. From the door, Micaya Questar-Benn

watched in concern. Behind her, Forister glanced up

at one of Nantia's hall sensors. "Time to intervene?"

he mouthed soundlessly.

 

"Wait a minute," Nancia whispered back, the merest

 

thread of sound.

 

Alpha stared at Fassa's calm face and the exposed

shoulder she was offering. Her own face worked

angrily. "1 ought to take you up on it," she said, "you

interfering dolt. Always were soft on men, weren't

you? All right, then!" She tossed the loaded stimpad in

the general direction of a disposal chute; Nancia ex-

tended the chute's wing-edges and caught the thing

before it slid down into the recycling chamber. She

wanted to have an independent lab analyze the first

mix when they got to a civilized planet

 

Alpha prepared a second stimpad loaded with nodi-

ing more than a common stimulant. "Happier with

this?" she asked the air, brows raised sarcastically.

 

"Yes, thank you," said Nancia and Fassa simul-

taneously. But Fassa still insisted that Alpha inject her

with a sample of each medication she used to treat Sev.

"You're a fool," Alpha muttered, too low for General

Questar-Benn to hear; Nancia had to amplify her audio

sensors to catch the thread of speech. Alpha bent over Sev

as she spoke, swabbing widi short vicious strokes at die acid

sores on his arms and legs. "He was in bad enough

shape... ifhe'd never waked up, there' d be that much less

 

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AsmeMcCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

evidence against you and me both. Do you fed that grate-

ful to him for doing his best to put you in prison?"

 

"I've already killed once," Fassa said. "That's

enough for me. What's that?"

 

"Antibiotic spray. Relax," Alpha told her. "We had

our chance to get rid of some evidence, you blew it, it's

too late now. Got that freak of a general and the old

fert brawn peering over our shoulders, ready to slap

me with a malpractice suit on top of everything else.

I'll do my best to patch your detective up for you —

and my best," she added with simple pride that was

quite undiminished by her criminal record, "my best,

Fassa dear, is very good indeed."

 

It was, too. Within the hour Sev was reclining on pil-

lows, sipping camtea loaded with so much sugar and

chalker that it was hardly recognizable, and explaining

to Forister and Micaya the extent of what he'd un-

covered on Shemali and why he'd been in such

desperate straits when Nancia landed.

 

"I made a few mistakes," he admitted with a

grimace. "Disguising myself as a prisoner on an in-

coming transport seemed like the only way to slip onto

Shemali unnoticed. It worked, too. But there were a

few things I hadn't counted on after that."

 

Sev had expected his faked "prison" records, show-

ing expertise in metachip mathematics and computer

network operation, to earn him a prison job some-

where in the administration, where he'd have a chance

to poke around in Polyon's records and find what he

was looking for. The position he was assigned to

looked promising — but as soon as he started his

search, everything had gone wrong.

 

"Ah — you didn't say exacdy what you were looking

for on ShemaU," Forister hinted courteously.

 

Sev took a long gulp of his scalding camtea,

coughed, gasped, and lay back looking a little weaker.

"Not important. Important thing is, more going on

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

255

 

than you can guess from outside. Don't have it all

myself... but enough...."

 

Polyon's entire computer system was laced with

coded traps and alarms; the first time Sev tried to ac-

cess secure data, Polyon and his trusties were alerted

and caught him in the act before he'd more than

downloaded a handful of innocuous records. Sev then

showed them his Central Worlds pass and explained

that he was on an investigative mission having nothing

to do with Polyon or Shemali.

 

"They didn't believe me," he sighed. "Even though

it happened to be true."

 

"Then what were you doing?" Micaya Questar-Benn

demanded.

 

"Later." Sev went on with his story. The trusties had

beaten him up, stripped him, located and disabled the

thin sliver of spyderplate which he'd meant to use as a

distress beacon to Nancia in case he got into trouble.

"Those things are supposed to start emitting an all-fre-

quencies distress signal hooking into the Net if they're

damaged," Sev complained. "So at first I wasn't too

worried. But then when you didn't come, and it got to

be two days, I thought I might be on my own."

 

"De Gras-Waldheim must know some way to disable

them," Forister nodded.

 

"Reasonable," Nancia put in from the speaker. "He

invented them. They're essentially single-purpose

hyperchips — and nobody knows more about hyper-

chips than Polyon."

 

Sev's next discovery was that Polyon had stepped up

the new plants' production of hyperchips by ignoring all

safety precautions. Sent to the hyperchip burnoff lines,

where prisoners' life expectancy amid the clouds of

nerve-destroying gas could be measured in days rather

than years, Sev had resolved to make a break for freedom

when the first ship touched down on Shemali — espe-

cially when he recognized the slim lines of Nancia's

 

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Anne McCaffrey Gf Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

257

 

Courier Service hull behind the disguising frieze of OG

Shipping logos and mauve stripes. The escape hadn't

been too difficult; all the other prisoners had been ter-

rorized out of even thinking about escape, and the

guards were lazy and careless and unwilling to spend

much time in the burnoffrooms.

 

"And besides," finished Forister with a grin, "nobody

would expect a prisoner on the run to go to an OG

Shipping drone for help. Nancia, your paint job has

served us well. I don't suppose you'd consider keeping

it after this is over?"

 

"Most certainly not!" Nancia told him. "And it

wouldn't work, anyway. When we've finished in the

Nyota system, there won't be any more OG Shipping.

But—what do we do now?"

 

SeVs story had demonstrated enough irregularities to

justify arresting Polyon twice over. But he was just one

man, with no datacordings or comp uter records to exhibit

in proofofhis story. If they took Polyon away now without

making sure of their evidence, Sev predicted that Shemali

would be cleaned up by the time they got back.

 

"Impossible," said Forister with feeling.

 

Sev nodded weakly. "Not the planet's surface, I

grant you. But you can be sure there'll be nothing in-

side the factories for an investigative committee to

quarrel with. It'll all be clean assembly lines, strict

safety features."

 

"And the prisoners who've already been damaged

by exposure to acids and gases?"

 

"I don't think," said Sev somberly, "that any of them

will be able to testify by that time."

 

"Then we'll have to go down now and get the

evidence," Forister said.

 

Sev shook his head. "Won't work. He's clever —

there's a VIP tour arranged — the disfigured

prisoners and the dangerous work lines are all kept

well out of sight. Mostly at the secondary plants hidden

 

backplanet I know how to find one of the worst plants.

I was there. But without me, he'll whisk you from one

end of the central prison factory to the other, and you

won't see anything, and every time you try to turn

around there'll be six guards in your way. I'll have to

go with you." He tried to raise himself from the pil-

\ows, started coughing and fell back again.

 

"You can't!" Fassa exclaimed.

 

"May have to," said Micaya Questar-Benn. "Duty."

She and Sev nodded at one another. "You two,** she

jerked her head at Fassa and Alpha — back to your

cabins now. Nothing to do with you — shouldn't have

let you hear this much."

 

"Wait!" Fassa cried as Forister took her by the arm.

"There has to be another way. It won't work, taking

Sev with you, can't you see that? Even if he were

stronger, the sight of his face will warn Polyon at once

that there's something wrong. None of you—none of

us will get away alive."

 

"Oh, come now," said Forister gendy. "Your friend

can't be that dangerous."

 

Fassa's face hardened. "If you don't believe me, ask

the others. Alpha?"

 

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong nodded once, reluctandy.

 

Fassa looked up at the room sensor. "Nancia, can

you connect us with Blaize and Darnell? Just for a

moment?"

 

Both men agreed with Fassa's assessment of the

situation.

 

"Then whatom we do?" Forister demanded. "Damn

it, I'm not going to turn tail and run off-planet for fear

of some spoiled High Families brat who's got hold of

some dangerous toys!"

 

"I think," Fassa said slowly, "that you're going to use

me." She was very pale. "Take Alpha back to her cabin,

and I'll explain what I think we can do." She looked

apologetically at Alpha.

 

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Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

259

 

"Traitor! When Polyon finds out—"

 

Fassa's lips were pinched. She was not pretty at all

now. But she was almost beautiful, in a cold remote

way. "I'll have to take that chance, won't I?"

 

"Better you than me," Alpha said. She turned to go.

"All right. Lock me up. I don't even want to hear this

plan. Maybe he won't hold it against me, if I'm not

even here when you discuss it." She didn't sound too

hopeful of that.

 

When Fassa explained her plan, there was a brief silence

while Forister,NanciaandMicaya all thoughtit over.

 

"You think he'll fell for it?" Forister queried.

 

"He thinks Nancia is an OG drone," Fassa pointed

out "He believes her passengers cremated Sev for

being a nuisance; if he hadn't swallowed that story,

believe me, we'd be hearing from him by now." She

gave them a strained smile. "Murderers in the escort of

OG shipping — what better credentials could you

have? And with me to front the introductions—"

 

"I won't let you!" Sev said hoarsely.

 

"Fassa stays on board Nancia," Micaya interrupted.

"That's understood." She looked at the girl. "No of-

fense, Fassa. But from the ship, we can monitor what

you say. And I think you'd better wear these." She bent

over briefly, fiddled with the prosthesis replacing her

left leg, and straightened with two lengths of shining,

thread-fine wire. "Hold out your wrists."

 

Fassa obeyed and Micaya encircled each wrist with a

length of the wire. Where she twisted the ends shut,

the wires seemed to collapse and seal invisibly upon

themselves.

 

"Tanglefield? Is that really necessary?"

 

Micaya nodded. "Security measure, no more. Field

won't be activated unless we run into trouble on

Shemali. Clear, Nancia?"

 

"Affirmed."

 

Micaya touched her synthetic arm. "I've got a port-

 

able tanglefield generator built in here," she told

Forister. "Might come in handy on Shemali. Want

some wires?"

 

Forister took a handful of the gleaming wires and

regarded them dubiously. "I prefer to solve my

problems more elegandy than this."

 

"Me, too." Micaya tugged her dark green pants leg

down over the prosthesis. "Isn't always possible,

though. Everybody tells me there'll be terrible political

complications if we harm a hair on the head of this

High Families brat. So ..." She patted her prosthetic

leg again and straightened. "I've stashed the needier.

Agree with you, taking him out straightaway would be

simpler, but you insisted on doing this by the book."

 

"That wasn't," Forister said, "quite what I meant by

an elegant solution."

 

Micaya regarded him with a hint of amusement on

her solemn, dark face. "Know it. Usually is the most

'elegant' way, though. Leave little tyrants to run loose,

they grow up into big tyrants. Then you get the Capel-

lan mess, or something like. Wars," she pointed out,

"aren't elegant." She nodded once to Fassa, by way of

apology. "Understand, not accusing you of treachery,

just not taking chances. Want you to be warned — "

 

"That a secret signal to Polyon will do me more

harm than good," Fassa finished calmly. "You don't

trust me. That's all right. / wouldn't trust me, either."

 

She was white to the lips now, and her hands were

shaking, but she led the way from the medtech room

without pausing.

 

Nancia could see that Sev was fretting enough to

damage himself by trying to go after them, so she

switched displays to give him visual and auditory sen-

sor taps to the main cabin.

 

Fassa was still pale when Nancia initiated the signal se-

quence that would open a comm link with planetside

authorities, but she managed the promised introduc-

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

tions with perfect composure. For Polyon's benefit

Forister and Micaya became Forrest Perez and Qualia

Benton, a pair of potential hyperchip customers with

cash to invest in the operation. She hinted delicately that

"Qualia Benton" was really a high-ranking general from

Central, and Micaya started forward to stop her. Forister

laid one hand on Micaya's arm. "Trust the young lady,

Mic," he murmured. "She has — er — more experience

in this sort of thing than you or I."

 

So it proved. Far from being alarmed by Micaya's

military standing, Polyon accepted her presence with

Fassa, on an OG ship, as proof that she was as corrupt

as his friends. And he was clearly delighted to have

made the contact. Within minutes he was arranging to

meet Fassa's "friends" and give them a tour of the

newest hyperchip plant

 

"I don't know why, but Polyon's always been eager to

get more hyperchips sold to the military," Fassa told the

others after she cut the contact. "It's not the money,

either; he offered Space Academy a cut rate once, but the

Ration Board stopped him. 1 knew your rank would be

the thing to draw him in, Micaya. A back door into the

military supply system is Polyon's dream."

 

"I suppose he wants to impress his old teachers and

classmates by making sure they all use his inventions,"

Forister surmised.

 

Nancia was confused. "But surely he doesn't

imagine that selling hyperchips on the black market is

the way to high standing in the Academy?"

 

AU three softpersons laughed tolerandy, and Nancia

heard a weak chuckle from the sensor link to the med-

tech cabin where Sev rested. "Investigate the sources of a

few High Families fortunes some time, Nancia," Sev

recommended to her. "Money washes dean of most any

taint—and more rapidly than you'd believe possible."

 

"Not," Nancia said, "in the Academy. And not in

House Perez y de Gras, either."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

261

 

Nancia fussed over Forister and Micaya until the last

minute, fitting them out with contact buttons,

spyderplates, and every other remote protection device

she could think of. "I don't know what good you think

this will do," Forister complained. "De Gras-Waldheim

disabled Sev's spyderplate without alerting anybody,

didn'the?"

 

"Sev didn't have me monitoring him," Nancia

pointed out.

 

She should have confined Fassa to her cabin before

the other two left, but she didn't have the heart to.

"Somebody should stay with Sev," Fassa pleaded.

 

"Oh, let the child stay with him," Forister put in unex-

pectedly. "She's not worth much as a hostage anyway. If

even half of what Sev told us about the hyperchip factory

conditions is true, Polyon de Gras-Waldheim is a mur-

derer a dozen times over who'd think nothing of

sacrificing a ship full ofhis former friends."

 

Fassa nodded. "Yes, that's about right. Except — I

wouldn't say he'd 'think nothing of it.' He'd probably

enjoy it."

 

"Why didn't any of you tell us about Polyon before

this?" Nancia demanded. "You were all babbling your

stupid heads off, pointing the finger at one another to

get some credit for your own plea bargains, and you

never warned us about Polyon."

 

"Afraid to," Fassa said sadly.

 

"So afraid that you let Sev go off to Shemali without

a word of warning? I'd never have let him go un-

monitored if I'd guessed."

 

"I didn't know Sev had gone to Shemali," Fassa

defended herself. "Nobody told me anything. I didn't

even know he wasn't on board when we left Bahati. All

I knew was that he didn't come to see me again, and I

thought, I thought... and quite right, too; why should

he bother with someone like me?" Tears filled her

eyes; Nancia thought that for once they were genuine.

 

262

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

"Fassa del Parma, you are a prime idiot!" Sev's

weary, hoarse whisper startled all of them; Nancia had

forgotten that she'd left the connections between the

main cabin and the medtech room wide open. "Get in

here and hold my hand and smooth my fevered brow.

I'm an injured man. I need attention."

 

"Call Alpha. She's a doctor," Fassa gulped.

 

"I wantyou. Now are you coming, or do I have to get

up and get you?"

 

Fassa fled. And Nancia watched, satisfied, and feel-

ing only a little bit like an eavesdropper, as she burst

through the door of the medtech room. Hadn't Sev

given her explicit instructions to keep full sensors

open whenever he was with Fassa del Parma?

 

Those two were too wrapped up in each other for

Fassa to pose any danger to anybody. All the same, Nan-

cia kept those sensors open while she concentrated most

of her attention on the images and sounds coming in

from Pollster's and Micaya's contact buttons. Polyon was

losing no time; he'd met them on the landing field in a

flyer that swooped directly to the newest hyperchip

production facility, a squat featureless building set in a

valley that might have been beautiful before Polyon's

construction teams sliced through the earth and the

waste products from his factory killed off the trees. Now

the building stood alone at the top of a sloping hill ringed

round by stagnant, poisonous-looking waters and the

broken stumps of dead trees. Nancia felt her sensors con-

tracting in repulsion at the image.

 

"General, can you handle this flyer?" she mur-

mured through Micaya's contact button.

 

"I'm glad to see you have such up-to-date equip-

ment, de Gras," Micaya said loudly for Nancia's

benefit. "I tested the prototype versions of this flyer

recently, but I had no idea the model was in general

distribution already."

 

Good. Micaya would be able to bring the three of

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

263

 

them back. Nancia listened in on Sev's and Fassa's con-

versation while Polyon landed the flyer and took

Forister and Micaya into the factory.

 

"You think too much," Sev was saying firmly to

Fassa." I meant what I told you before, and I still mean

it. You idiot, I went to Sheniali on your account!"

 

"On my account?" Fassa echoed, sounding as if she

was unable to think at all.

 

Sev nodded." Here I'd been pacing Nancia's corridors

every night, trying to think out a way to save you, and

then Darnell gave me a due. He said you'd contracted to

build a hyperchip factory for Polyon, and that when the

original building collapsed you replaced it free of charge.

I thought if I could prove that, your lawyer might argue

that you never intended to do substandard work—that

any problems with your buildings were the result of in-

competence, of sending a young girl to manage a

business she was unfamiliar with — and that he could

prove it by demonstrating how willingly you'd made res-

titution when a problem was brought to your attention.'*

Fassa smiled through her tears. "If s a lovely, lovely ar-

gument, Sev. Unfortunately, not a word of that is true, I

am," said Fassa, "or rather, I was an extremely competent

contractor." She sniffed. "Damn Daddy. He accidentally

sent me into a business I had a real talent for."

 

"That being the case," said Sev softly, "why the hell

couldn't you just be a contractor, instead of slinking

around in those dresses that kept falling off your

shoulders and driving middle-aged men crazy?"

 

Fassa's face hardened. "Ask Daddy." She tried to

turn away, but Sev had hold of both her hands.

 

"I guessed some time ago," he said. "And ... I've

been checking old gossipbytes. Was that why your

mother killed herself?"

 

Fassa nodded. Tears were streaming down her face

unchecked. "Well, then. You won't want to have any-

thing more to do with me. I understand. I'm not, I'm

 

264

 

Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Batt

 

not... it's not just Daddy, you know. There've been all

those other men...." She gulped down a sob.

 

For a man who'd been on the verge of collapse a few

hours earlier, Sev demonstrated remarkable powers of

recovery. Nancia was impressed by the strength with

which he drew Fassa into his arms against her resis-

tance. "You," he said deliberately, "are the woman I

love, and nothing that happened before today matters

in the slightest to me." He paused for a moment and

Nancia blacked out her visual sensors. She didn't real-

ly think that the requirements of surveillance on Fassa

included watching Sev Bryley-Sorenson kiss her as

desperately as a man in vacuum gasping for oxygen.

 

On Shemali, Micaya Questar-Benn had finally per-

suaded Polyon to drop die sanitized V.I.E tour of his

factory. She didn't believe he could produce enough hy-

perchips to satisfy her requirements, she told him, and

what was more, she didn't believe he would be able to ex-

tend the factory's production fast enough for her. The

safety requirements mandated by the Trade Commission

simply took too long to set up and maintain.

 

Polyon suggested that the Trade Commission could,

collectively, do something anatomically impossible for

the individual members. And if the General wanted to

see just how fast he could turn out hyperchips, he

added, she and her friend could just follow him.

They'd have to wear protective gear, though, he said,

struggling into a silverdoth suit himself as he spoke.

 

While Micaya and Forister put on the suits provided

for guests, Micaya commented innocently that the cost of

suiting up an entire production line of prisoners must be

prohibitive, and that she didn't see how they maintained

the dexterity necessary for the assembly process while

working from inside the bulky silvercloth gloves.

 

Polyon chuckled and agreed that the difficulties

posed were enormous.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

265

 

On board, Sev and Fassa were talking again; Nancia

discreetly tuned in to their conversation, but there

wasn't much in it to require her attention. Fassa was

gloomy about the prospect of years in prison. Sev

wasn't any too cheerful about it himself, but he as-

sured Fassa that he'd wait for her.

 

"I don't think they let murderers out," Fassa said.

"Unless they decide to mindwipe me."

 

"Fassa, you are not a murderer. Caleb isn't dead."

 

Fassa's slender body became quite still. "He isn't?"

 

"You were right," Sev said. "Nobody tells you any-

thing. He isn't dead. He isn't even seriously iU; he was

in therapy for nerve damage when I left Bahati."

 

"Latest bulletins from Summer-lands say that he

should recover full function quite soon and will

probably be restored to active brawn status within the

next few weeks," Nancia confirmed.

 

Sev and Fassa broke apart and looked up at the

overhead speaker.

 

"Nancia!" Sev exclaimed. "I didn't know you were

listening."

 

"You gave me the orders yourself," Nancia

reminded him.

 

"Oh. Well." Sev thought. "Can I cancel the orders?

Will you obey me if I do?"

 

"I really shouldn't."

 

"Lock the door on us both," Sev suggested. "I don't

mind. But please, could we have some privacy now?

This voyage back to Central is likely to be my last

chance to be alone with my girl for a long, long time."

 

Fassa looked ridiculously happy for someone feeing

trial and a stiff prison sentence. Nancia left them to it.

 

She didn't have much to occupy her on Shemali,

either. Micaya and Forister hadn't waited to take the

full tour of the hyperchip assembly line; a few images

 

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

of prisoners working unshielded with skin-destroying

acids, in rooms that leaked poisonous gas, were all the

evidence they needed to bolster Sev's detailed

eyewitness testimony. The datacordings were par-

ticularly damning when accompanied, as they were,

by Polyon's pleasant, cultured voice explaining just

how he had cut costs and speeded up production by

condemning the prisoners in his care to lingering,

painful deaths by industrial poisoning. By the time

Nancia had scanned those images, Micaya had already

slapped tanglewires around Polyon's wrists, ankles,

and even his neck. With die ankle field activated, she

read him the formal statement of arrest

 

"You can't do this!" Polyon protested. "Do you know

who I am? I'm a de Gras-Waldheim. And I have Gover-

nor Lyautey's approval for everything I've done here!"

 

"My brainship has already transmitted a request for

drug testing on Lyautey and all other civilian personnel,''

Forister told him. "I suspected Blissto when I heard your

spaceport controller talking. What did you do, make ad-

dicts of anybody who could blow the whistle on you?"

 

""You can't arrest me" Polyon repeated as though he

hadn't understood a word.

 

Micaya Questar-Benn had a smile that would have

chilled steel to the snapping point. "Want to bet, son?

Walk in front of me. Slowly, now. Wouldn't want the

tanglefield to think you're trying to escape and cut off

your feet; it's too quick and easy a death for your sort"

And when Polyon opened his mouth again, she activated

the extended tanglefield from the neck wire to keep him

from flapping his tongue about any more.

 

As they left the assembly lines, a ragged cheer went

up from the prisoners behind them.

 

• CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

To Polyon's shock and amazement, the cyborg freak

and her partner actually managed to convince Gover-

nor Lyautey that they were entitled to arrest a de

Gras-Waldheim and take him away. "Convince" was

probably too strong a word. Polyon recognized with

rueful amusement that he'd been caught in his own

trap. The governor, like all the civilians left on

Shemali, was constantly dosed with Alpha bint Hezra-

Fong*s Seductron. Since Lyautey was in a nonessential

job, Polyon kept his maintenance level of Seductron so

high that the governor did little but nod amiably and

agree with whoever spoke to him last

 

Somebody must have figured that out and thought

of this way to use it against him. With his mouth

covered by tanglefield, Polyon could do nothing but

listen while this Micaya Questar-Benn and her partner

rattled off official-sounding words, flourished their

forged credentials — they had to be forged—and took

him away in the very flyer he himself had sent to pick

them up at the spaceport

 

They considerately removed the tanglefield from

his mouth as soon as the flyer took off. Polyon main-

tained a dignified silence during the short flyer hop

back to the spaceport, but his brain was working

furiously. He refused to believe that this "arrest*' was

real Real Central agents had their own transport, they

didn't hitch a ride on an OG cruiser or get a conniving

little whore like Fassa del Parma to front for them. This

had to be some trick cooked up by Darnell and Fassa to

get control of the hyperchips. He had no intention of

 

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Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

giving them or their friends the amusement of seeing

him struggle and protest. Later, when he'd figured out

their game, he would turn the tables and make them

squirm. Darnell would be easy to break, but Fassa...

he smiled unpleasantly at the thought of exacdy how

he'd take the pride out of her. He'd never yet

threatened Fassa physically. Maybe it was time to start

 

Then, as the flyer came gently down on the landing

pad, he blinked and saw the ship for a moment sil-

houetted against the bright sky, only sleek lines and

smooth design, without the contusing detail of the OG

colors and logo, and he knew where he'd seen a ship

like that before.

 

"Courier Service," he groaned, and for the first time

he began to believe that he was really under arrest

 

"Got it in one," said the spare, quiet man who'd

accompanied General Questar-Benn, offering Polyon

his hand to help him to the ground. "Time I intro-

duced myself. Forister Armonttllado y Medoc, brawn

totheFN-935.M

 

"Kftt a brawn, old man?" Polyon sneered. TU believe

that when I see it!" He refused the offer of the steadying

hand and swung himself out of the flyer, feet together,

hands in front of him, still with athletic grace. Even widi

his hands and feet constrained in tanglefields, he still had

his strength and his natural balance.

 

"You'll not have to wait long," Forister replied mild-

ly. "I'll introduce you to my Brainship as soon as we're

aboard."

 

Polyon maintained a grim silence while these two

escorted him to the ship's lift, up to the passenger level

and down a depressing mauve-painted corridor to the

cabin where he was to be confined. Once there, he

leaned against the wall and waited. The brawn Forister

and the cyborg Micaya withdrew, leaving him still con-

fined in the double tanglefield about wrists and ankles.

"Wait!" he cried out "Aren't you going to — "

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

269

 

The door irised shut behind them with a series of

dicks along the concentric rings, and a moment later a

sweet female voice spoke from the overhead speaker.

 

"Welcome aboard the FN-935," she — it — said. "I

am Nancia, the brainship of this partnering. Your ar-

rest is legal under Central Code — " and she reeled off

paragraphs and statute references that meant nothing

to Polyon. "As a prisoner awaiting trial on capital

crimes, you may legally be confined by tanglefield for

the duration of the voyage, which will be

approximately two weeks. General Questar-Benn has

transferred the tanglefield control function to my

computer; if you will give me your word not to attempt

damage to me or to your fellow passengers, I will

release the tanglefield now and allow you the freedom

of your cabin."

 

Polyon glanced over the narrow space and laughed

sardonically. "You have my word," he said. Words

were cheap enough.

 

As soon as he spoke the electronic field ceased

vibrating. His wrists and ankles prickled with return-

ing life; an uncomfortable sensation, but far, fer better

than being electronically bound hand and foot for the

next two weeks.

 

The brainship blathered on with threats about

sleepgas and other restraints that could be applied if

he gave it any trouble; Polyon didn't bother to listen.

He had too much to think about Besides, he didn't in-

tend to do anything the brainship could see. He wasn't

 

that stupid.

 

Unobtrusively, under cover of flexing his wrists to

restore full movement, he patted his breast pocket and

felt the reassuring lump right where it should be,

where he always carried a minihedron with the latest

test version of his master program. He was clever,

Polyon thought. Too clever by half for this pair to

master for long.

 

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Anne McCaffrey 6f Margaret Batt

 

Oh, he'd make some trouble for this interfering

brainship and its doddering brawn, all right, just as

soon as he got the chance. But it wasn't trouble that

they would be able to see or hear coming, and there

wouldn't be a damned thing they could do about it

once he'd started. Damn them! He wasn't ready for

this; he was still two to three years short of having

everything in place. How much would it cost him to

make his planned move ahead of schedule?

 

Impossible to calculate; he'd just have to go ahead

and find out later. Whatever the cost, it couldn't be as

great as that of going tamely back to Central for trial

and imprisonment. It had always been a gamble,

Polyon comforted himself. He'd always known that

one day somebody might figure out about the hyper-

chips, and that he'd have to move fast if that occurred,

 

At least now, even if the move was being forced on

him, it was forced by some ignoramuses who didn't

even guess how he might retaliate. He would have the

advantage of surprise on his side.

 

If only he'd had time to implement Final Phase!

Then he could have started everything right now, with

a spoken word of command. As it was, he'd have to get

this minihedron into a reader slot before he could

make his move.

 

There weren't any reader slots in this cabin; and he

was supposed to be confined here until they reached

Central; and if he tried to break out of the cabin, the

damned brainship would drop him with sleepgas or a

tanglefield before he got to any place with reader slots.

 

Polyon bared his teeth briefly. He did love a chal-

lenge. He still had his voice, and his wits, and his

charm, and sensor contact with the brainship and her

brawn. He set to work with those tools to dig himself

an impalpable tunnel to freedom, placing each word

and each request as carefully as a miner shoring up

the loose earth in the tunnel roof.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

271

 

In die long dragging hours until they reached the Sin-

gularity point for transition into Central subspaoe, there

wasn't much to do but play games or read. Forister and

Micaya began another tri-chess contest; Nancia obliging-

ly created the holocube for them and maintained a

record of the moves, but warned them that some of the

game data might be lost if she needed to call on that par-

ticular set of coprocessors during Singularity.

 

"That's all right," Forister said absently. "Mic and I

have been interrupted by all sorts of things in our

time. Aren't you partnering me, then?"

 

"I don't think I'd better," Nancia replied with real

regret. "I think I should monitor our passengers.

They've been allowed a great deal of freedom, you

know."

 

Micaya snorted. "Freedom! They're free to move

within their cabins, that's all. Granted, I wouldn't cut

'em that much slack, but—

 

"That," said Forister, "is why you keep having politi-

cal problems. You never cut the High Families any

slack, and they resent it."

 

"Shouldn't," said Micaya. "I'm one of them."

 

"That doesn't help," Forister said, almost sadly.

"Anyway, Mic, you're not seriously worried about a

ship's mutiny?"

 

"From those spoiled brats?" Micaya snorted. "Ha!

Even that de Gras boy, for all the others were so scared

of him, trotted aboard like a little lamb. No, there's not

a one of them has the brains — saving your Blaize,

maybe — or the guts to try anything, now that we've

cut off their special deals."

 

"Blaize wouldn't try anything," Forister said sharply.

"He's a good boy."

 

Micaya patted Forister's arm. "I know, I know. Con-

vinced me. But he did rip off PTA, And what's worse to

my mind — he didn't speak up about the others. Have

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

273

 

to answer for that, though it's less, all told, than the rest

of this precious crew have to stand trial for."

 

"I understand," Forister said glumly.

 

Sev Bryley-Sorenson stretched out his long legs.

"Think I'll work out for a while," he announced to no

one in particular.

 

*Tfou*d think it was him going back for trial, to look at

the long face on the boy," Micaya commented as Sev

whisked himself down the corridor to the exercise room.

 

"Can't be much fun," Forister said gently, "being in

love with a girl who's likely to be unavailable for the

next fifty Standard Years. And he doesn't have much

to take his mind off it. He's not the type for tri-chess."

 

"Not bright enough, you mean. True," said Micaya

with a trace of complacency. "And too bright for that

silly game the prisoners are playing. Doesn't leave him

much, you're right."

 

"Do you really have to monitor the prisoners all the

time, Nancia?" Forister looked at her column with the

smile that always melted her best resolutions. "Surely

they'll do no damage while they're all wrapped up in

that idiotic game. And if you think it's unfair to Micaya

for you to partner me ... we could play three-

handed?"

 

Nancia had to concentrate a litde harder for this dis-

play, but after a moment of intense processing the

holocube shimmered, twisted, danced around its central

core and reformed as a holohex, with three separate

triple rows of pieces formed at opposing edges.

 

And in his cabin, Polyon de Gras-Waldheim stopped

listening to the conversation in the central cabin and

rejoined the SPACED OUT game that was currently

helping his fellow prisoners to forget their troubles.

Persuading Nancia to open the comm system so that

the five of diem could play from their cabins had been

his first move. Now, at least, he could talk to the otbers.

But he hadn't dared say anything beyond standard

 

game moves while Nancia was conscientiously

monitoring them.

 

The display screen showed that three of the game

characters had managed to lose themselves in the Troll

Tunnels. Polyon's own game icon was still at the mouth

of the tunnels, awaiting a command from him." I know

how we can get out of the tunnels," he said.

 

"How? I've tried every exit the system shows.

They're all blocked," Alpha complained.

 

"There's a secret key," Polyon told her. "I have it

But I can't get to the door it unlocks from here."

 

"I never heard anything about a secret key," Darnell

announced. "I think you're bluffing." His game icon

bounced angrily back along one of the Troll Tunnels,

spitting sparks as it went.

 

"You wouldn't," Polyon said smoothly. "I'm the

game master. This secret key can even override your

character, Fassa."

 

Fassa had taken the Brainship icon for this game.

"I don't see how," Fassa responded. "Show me?"

"I told you. I can't get to where I can use it. If any of

you can get me out of this blind alley, though — "

 

"You're not in a blind alley!" Darnell interrupted.

"You're standing right at the entrance to the Troll Tun-

nels! Why don't you move your icon on into the

tunnels?"

 

"And get lost like the rest of you? No, thanks."

Polyon waved his hand over the palmpad and shut off

the bickering voices of the gamesters. He brooded in

silence for a while. Why had he ever bothered with

such an inept bunch of conspirators? They were too

stupid to pick up on his veiled hints. They thought he

was interested in playing a game \

 

Blaize, now; Blaize was brighter than the others,

and he'd taken no pan in the brief exchange. Polyon

tapped out a series of commands that would give him a

private comm link to Blaize's cabin. At least he could

 

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Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

hack into Nancia's system to that extent from the key.

board; though it was nothing to the power that would

be his once he'd made his way to a reader slot with his

minihedron.

 

While he thought out his approach to Blaize, he was

startled by a crackle of sound. The idiot thought he'd

achieved a private channel to the lounge! And what

was he planning to do with it? Polyon scowled, then

began to listen attentively. It seemed that Blaize was

too bright to make a good tool.

 

But he might still be an excellent pawn, in a game

whose moves he'd never see....

 

"Uncle Forister?" Blaize switched comm channels to

the lounge. "I need to talk to you."

 

"Talk," Forister grunted. He was just putting the

final touches to a truly beautiful strategy, designed to

pit Micaya's and Nancia's Brainship pieces against one

another while he moved unopposed to control all ver-

tices of the holohex.

 

"Privately."

 

"Oh, all right." Forister got up and stretched. "Nan-

cia, can you store the holohex until I get back? I

wouldn't want to tire you by asking you to maintain

the display while we're not actually playing."

 

Nancia chuckled. "You mean you don't want to

leave the holohex set up where we can study the posi-

tions and figure out what nasty trap you're getting

ready to spring on us this time."

 

"Well..."

 

The holohex folded in upon itself and became a sheet,

a line, a point of dazzling blue light that then winked out

of existence. "All right. We're approaching the Sin-

gularity point, anyway; I really shouldn't be playing

games now. Need to check my math," Nancia said cheer-

fully. "Be sure and get back in time to strap yourself in.

You softpersons get so disoriented in Singularity."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

275

 

"And you shellpersons get so uppity about it,"

Forister retorted. "All right. You'll warn us in plenty of

time, I assume?"

 

"And monitor you while you're in die cabin," Nancia

said. "Don't look like that; it's for Blaize's protection as

well as yours. If you're left alone with him, the

prosecution might try to discredit your testimony, say

you'd been bribed or suborned."

 

"They won't have much respect for his uncle's good

word anyway," said Forister gloomily, going on down

the passageway to find out what Blaize had in mind.

Nancia triggered the release mechanism on the door

just long enough for him to slide dirough.

 

"I think Polyon's planning something," Blaize said

as soon as Forister entered the cabin. He sat at the

cabin console, one hand quivering over the palmpad

without actually starting a program., all red-headed

intensity like a fox at a rabbit hole.

"What?*1

 

"I don't know. He wants to get out of his cabin. He

keeps telling us that he can fix everything if only he could

get out for a few minutes. Listen!" Blaize ran the heel of

his hand over the palmpad and brought up a datacord-

ing of the last few transmissions between the SPACED

OUT gamesters. From the cabin console he couldn't ac-

cess enough memory to store images as well as voices; the

players' words crackled out through the speaker, disem-

bodied and robbed of half their meaning. Forister

listened to the recorded exchange and shook his head.

 

^Just sounds like a few more moves in that dumb

game of yours to me, Blaize."

 

"It's a move in a game, all right," Blaize said grimly,

"but he's not playing the same game as the rest of us.

Damn! I wish I'd been able to capture the images and

the icon moves too. Then you'd see,"

"See what?"

"That what Polyon was saying made absolutely no

 

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Anne McCaffrey fef Margaret, Ball

 

sense in the context of the actual game moves." Blaize

dropped his hands in his lap and looked up at Forister.

"Can Nancia keep Polyon under sleepgas until we

reach Central?"

 

"She can," Forister replied, "but I've yet to see any

reason why she should. This case is going to have all the

High Families buzzing like uprooted stingherbs as it is;

it'll only be worse if we give them some excuse to allege

mistreatment of prisoners."

 

"But you heard him!"

 

"Didn't make any sense to me," Forister allowed,

"but nothing about that silly game makes sense, in my

humble opinion. Come on, Blaize. Can you seriously

see me explaining to some High Court judge that I

kept a prisoner stunned and unconscious for two solid

weeks because something he said in the course of a

children's game made me nervous?"

 

"I suppose not," Blaize agreed. "But — you'll be

careful?"

 

"I am always careful," Forister told him.

 

"And — I don't think you should talk to him. The

man's dangerous."

 

"1 know you four are scared of him," Forister agreed,

"but I think that's because you've been away from

Central too long. He's nothing but an arrogant brat who

was given more power than was good for hun. Like some

other people I could name. Now if you'll excuse me, it's

nearly time to strap down for Singularity."

 

He nodded at the wall sensors and Nancia silently

slid the door open for him.

 

Once he was in the passageway again, she spoke in a

low voice.

 

"Polyon de Gras-Waldheim requests the favor of a

private interview."

 

"He does, does he! And I suppose you think I ought

to take Blaize's warning seriously, and insist on having

Micaya as a bodyguard before I talk to him?"

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

277

 

"I think you're reasonably able to look after your-

self" Nancia said, "especially with me listening in. It's

not as if you were piloting a dumbship. But there's not

much time; I'll be entering the first decomposition se-

quence in a few minutes.'1

 

"All the better," said Forister. "I won't have to spend

too long with him. I'll talk with him until you sound

the Singularity warning bell, if that's all right. Can't do

much less. Visited Blaize — have to visit any of the

others who request it."

 

When Forister entered, Polyon was lying on his

bunk, arms folded behind his head. He turned at the

soft sound of the sliding door, jumped to his feet and

brought his heels together with a military precision

that Forister found almost annoying.

 

"Sir!"

 

"I'm not," Forister said mildly, "your superior of-

ficer. You needn't click your heels and salute. You

wanted to tell me something?"

 

"I — yes — no — I think not," Polyon said. His blue

eyes looked haunted; he pushed a wayward strand of

golden hair back from his forehead. "I thought — but

he was my friend; I can't do it. Even to shorten my own

sentence — no, it's impossible. I'm sorry to have dis-

turbed you for nothing, sir."

 

"I think," Forister said gendy, "you'd better tell me all

about it, my boy." It was hard to reconcile the haunted

creature before him with the monster who'd made

Shemali prison into a living hell. Perhaps Polyon had

some explanation he wished to proffer, some story about

others who'd conceived the vicious factory system?

 

It took him a good five minutes of gentling Polyon's

overactive sense of honor, all the time listening

anxiously for the Singularity warning bell, before he

coaxed the boy into letting out a name.

 

"It's Blaize," Polyon said miserably at last. "Your

nephew. I'm so sorry, sir. But — well, while we were

 

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AmneMcCaffrey & Margate Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

279

 

playing SPACED OUT he was boasting to me of how

he'd pulled the wool over your eyes, convinced you he

was innocent of any wrongdoing — "

 

"Not quite," said Forister. He spoke very evenly to con-

trol the twist of pain that squeezed his chest "He did sdl

PTA shipments on the black market That's wrongdoing,

in my book, and hell be tried for it on Central"

 

Polyon nodded. His look of suffering had not abated.

"Yes, he said that was the story he'd given you. Then I

thought—if you didn't know — perhaps I could trade

the information for a reduction in my own sentence."

 

"What information?*" Forister asked sharply.

 

Polyon shook his head. "Never mind. It doesn't mat-

ter. I've enough on my conscience already," he said,

raising his head and staring at the wall with a look of

noble resignation that Forister found intensely irritat-

ing. "I won't compound my crimes by informing on a

friend. It's all on this minihedron—well, never mind."

 

"What," asked Forister with the last vestiges of his

patience, "what exactly is supposed to be on the mini-

hedron?'' He stared at the faceted black shape Polyon

held in his hand, dark and baleful like the eye of an

alien god.

 

"The true records of how Blaize made his fortune,"

Polyon said. "It's all there — he thought he'd con-

cealed his tracks, but there were enough Net links for

me to find the records. I'm very good with computers,

you know," he said with a boy's naive pride. "But when

I begged him to tell you the truth, he laughed at me.

Said he had you convinced of his innocence and he

saw no reason to change the situation. That was when

I thought — but no," Polyon said, averting his face as

he thrust out the minihedron towards Forister, "I don't

want any favors."

 

Forister felt as queasy as though they had already

entered Singularity. Was this why Blaize had tried so

hard to keep him from talking to Polyon? He'd wanted

 

to keep Polyon drugged and unconscious until they

reached Central; he'd had that silly story about Polyon

using the SPACED OUT game as a cover for some land

of plot But what good would it do to keep Polyon from

talking for two weeks, when his evidence — whatever

it might be—would come out anyway at the trial?

 

*Just—you take this. Read it once. Then keep it safe

— or wipe it if you want to," Polyon said,"/ don't care.

I just wanted to hand it over to — to somebody

honorable." His voice broke slighdy on the last word,

and Forister thought there was a gleam of moisture in

the corners of his eyes. "God knows, I can scarcely

claim that for myself. You take it. You'll know what to

do with the information."

"What is it?"

 

Polyon shook his head again. "I don't — I can't tell

you. Go and read it in privacy. Just drop it into any of

the ship's reader slots and have a look at the informa-

tion. Then I'll leave it up to you to decide what should

be done. And I don't," he said, almost savagely, "I don't

want to profit from it, do you understand? Say you got

it from somebody else. Or don't say where you got it

Or destroy it. Do what you want — it's off my con-

science now, at any rate!"

 

He dropped back onto the bunk and buried his

head in his arms. Overhead, the silvery chime of the

first warning bell sounded. "Five minutes to Sin-

gularity," Nancia announced. "All passengers, please

fie down or seat yourselves and secure free-fall straps.

Tablets for Singularity sickness are available in all

cabins; if you think you may be adversely affected by

the transition, please medicate yourself now. Five

minutes to Singularity."

 

Polyon fumbled without looking up, caught his

free-fall strap and buckled it around himself. "Sin-

gularity," he said bitterly, "doesn't make me sick. But

what's on that minihedron does."

 

280   Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

Forister left the cabin with a sparkling black mini-

hedron clutched in his hand, the facets cutting into his

palms, his head awhirl with doubts.

 

"What a magnificent acting job!" Nancia com-

mented with a low laugh.

 

"You think Polyon was lying?"

 

"I'm certain of it," she told him. "You know Polyon.

You know Blaize. Is it credible for an instant that Blake

could have committed crimes that would turn Polyon's

stomach?"

 

"I — don't know," Forister groaned. He dropped

into the pilot's chair and stared unseeing at the console

before him. Micaya Questar-Benn tactfully pretended

to polish the gleaming buckle on her uniform belt.

"Up to now, I'd have said — but I'm biased, you

know."

 

"Well, I'm not," Nancia said decisively. "I don't know

what Polyon's going on about, but whatever it is, I

don't believe a word of it"

 

Forister laughed weakly. "You're biased too, dear

Nancia." He stared at the sparkling surface of the

minihedron, the polished opaque facets that gave

nothing away, and sighed deeply. "I suppose I had bet-

ter find out what this is."

 

"Can't it wait until after Singularity?" Nancia said,

but too late. Forister had already dropped the

datahedron into the reader slot. Automatically, her

mind already on the vortex of mathematical transfor-

mations ahead, Nancia absorbed the contents of the

minihedron into memory. Something strange there,

not like ordinary words, more like a tickle at the back

of her head or an improperly positioned synaptic

connector —

 

She rode the whirlwind down into Singularity, balanc-

ing and coasting along constantly changing equations

that defined the collapsing walls of the vortex.

 

Something was wrong; she sensed it even before she

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

281

 

lost her grasp on the mathematical transformations.

She had never experienced a transition like this one.

What was happening? Sounds as slimy as decaying

weed whispered and snickered in her ears; colors

beyond the edges of human perception rasped at her

like fingernails being drawn over a blackboard. The

balance of salts and fluids surrounding her shrunken

human body swirled crazily, and a dozen alarm sys-

tems went off at once: Overload! Overload! Overload!

 

She couldn't optimize the path; spaces decomposed

around her and shot off in an infinity of different

recompositions, expanding in every path to lights and

chaos that could tear her apart. The hyperchip-

enhanced mathematics coprocessors returned

gibberish. Her brain waves were strung out on the

grid of a multi-dimensional matrix. Something was

trying to invert the matrix. No computations matched

previous results, and all directions held danger.

 

Nancia shut down all processing at once. The grat-

ing colors and stinking noises receded. She hung in

blackness, refusing her own sensory inputs, balanced

on the point of Singularity where decomposing sub-

spaces intersected, with no way forward and no way

back.

 

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283

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Polyon was pacing the narrow space of his cabin, too

impatient to strap himself in for Singularity, waiting

for some sign that Forister had taken the bait, when

the air shimmered and thickened around him.

 

He opened his mouth to curse his luck. The ship

had entered Singularity before that thick-headed

brawn ambled to a reader slot

 

The air distorted into glassy waves, then became al-

most too thin to breathe. The cabin walls and

furnishings receded to specks in the distance, then

swam around him, huge menacing free-flowing

shapes. Polyon's curses became a comical growl en-

ding in a squeak.

 

Damn Singularity! There was no chance that

Forister would drop the datahedron into a reader now,

he'd be safely strapped into his pilot's chair like a good

little brawn. By now, too, the ship's reader slots would

probably be shut down for Singularity — and even if

by some miracle he could persuade Nantia to accept

the hedron, he still would not be able to enter the Net

until the transformations were over and they had

returned to normal space. No, he would have to wait

until after the subspace transformation to implement

Final Phase — and this transformation would bring

the brainship into Central subspace, close to all the aid

that Central Worlds and their innumerable fleets

could give.

 

He reminded himself that this made no difference

whatsoever. The basic nature of the gamble remained

the same. Either his plan had advanced far enough to

 

succeed despite the way they were forcing his hand, or

jt hadn't. If it had, then the fleets of Central would be

obedient to him and not to their former masters. If it

hadn't — well, then, annihilation would be a little

quicker than if he'd moved from the remote spaces

around Nyota, that was all.

 

He had only to sit and wait. And waiting out a single

transformation through Singularity should be noth-

ing to him. He had already spent patient years waiting

on Shemali, planting his seeds, watching them grow,

seeding the universe, ever since he had the flash of

brilliance which at once conceived the hyperchip

design and saw how it could be twisted to his own ends.

 

But this waiting was harder than all those years in

which he had at least been doing something to further

those ends; and it seemed longer; and there was some-

thing disturbing about this particular ship's

decomposition. Singularity wasn't supposed to be this

bad. Polyon breathed and gagged on a sickly swirl of

colors and smells and textures, looked down at the

wavering distortions of his own limbs and closed his

eyes momentarily. That was a mistake; Singularity

sickness heaved through his guts. What was the mat-

ter? He'd been through plenty of decompositions

during his Academy training, not to mention passing

through this very same Singularity point on die way

out to Vega subspace. Had he so completely lost con-

ditioning in the five years on Shemali, to be gagging

and puking like any new recruit now?

 

No. Something else was wrong. This decomposition

was lasting too long. And some of the visual distortions

looked oddly familiar. Polyon fixed his eyes on one small

sector of the cabin, where braces supporting an extruded

shelf formed a simple dosed curve of permalloy and plas-

Ofilm. As he watched, the triangle ofbrace, waU and shelf

elongated to a needle-shape with one thin eye, stretched

out into an open eye as big as the wall, squeezed into a

 

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285

 

rotating pinpoint of light with absolute blackness at its

center, and opened again into the original triangle.

Needle, eye, pinpoint, triangle; needle, eye, pinpoint, tri-

angle. They were caught in a subspace loop, perpetually

decomposing and reforming in a sequence which

preserved topological properties but which made no

progress towards the escape sequence leading to Central

subspace.

 

A loop like that couldn't have happened, shouldn't

have happened, unless the ship's processors had shut

down. Or — a wild hope tantalized him — unless the

ship's processors were too busy with some other prob-

lem to navigate them out of Singularity.

 

A problem like assimilating a worm program which

would turn over all control to a single user, effectively

cutting the brain off from her own body and its

processing.

 

Polyon swallowed his unspoken curses and plunged

across the cabin. He had some trouble locating the

palmpad and holding his hand steady over it, but even-

tually he managed to match his shrinking and bending

arm with the erratic loop of the ballooning palmpad. He

slapped the surface twice. "Voice control mode!"

 

His own voice boomed oddly in his ears, the

soundwaves distorted by the perpetual twisting of space

around him, but evidently there was something un-

changing in the voice patterns which his worm program

still recognized. "Voice control acknowledged," an un-

dulant voice boomed and twittered from the speakers.

 

"Unlock this cabin door." The first time the words

came out as an unrecognizable squeak; the next,

something close to his normal speaking voice emerged

and the computer acknowledged the command. But

nothing happened. A moment later the quavering

vocal signal of the program responded with a shrill

squeak that gradually became a groaning boom.

 

"Unable to identify designated entity."

 

Polyon was beginning to catch on to the rhythm of

the subspace loop. If he kept his eyes fixed on any

known point, like the triangle of shelf and wall and

brace, he could recognize when they were passing

through the decomposition closest to normal space. If

he spoke then, residual subspace transformations still

distorted his voice, but at least the computer could

recognize and accept his orders.

 

He waited and spoke when the moment was right

 

"Identify this cabin."

 

Lights flashed on the cabin control panel, rose and

fluttered like fireflies trailing the liquid surface of the

panel, swam into elongated hieroglyphics of an un-

known language, and sank back into the panel's

surface to become a pattern signaling failure.

 

"No such routine found."

 

Polyon cursed under his breath, and the subspace

transformation loop twisted his words into a grating

snarl. Something was wrong with his worm program.

Somehow it had foiled to complete its takeover of the

ship's computer functions.

 

"General unlock," he snapped on the next loop

through normal space.

 

His cabin door irised halfway open, then screeched

and wobbled back and forth as die smooth internal

glides had jammed on something. Polyon dove

through, misjudged distances and clearance in the

perpetual liquid shifting of the transformations, crack-

ed a solid elbow on the very solid edge of the half-open

door, landed on a bed of shifting sand, rolled, and

found his feet in what was again, briefly, the solid pas-

sageway outside the cabin.

 

"Out! Everybody out!" The loop stretched his last

word into a howl. At least it got their atterUwn. A green slug

oozed through one of the other doors and became Dar-

nell, vomiting. Farther away, Blaize's red head blazed

under lights that kept changing from electric blue to ar-

 

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287

 

ificial sun to deepest shadow. Fassa was a china dol]

vhite and neat and compact and perfect, but as the loop

>rogressed she grew to her normal stature.

 

"What's happening?" The loop snatched away her

vords, but Polyon read her lips before the next phase

itretched them into rubber. He waited for the next

lormal-space pass.

 

"Get Alpha. Don't want to have to explain twice."

 

Fassa nodded — Polyon thought it was a nod — and

lucked into the cabin nearest hers. Darnell quivered

md resumed his form as a giant green slug. The pas

lageway elongated into a tunnel with Blaize at the far

;nd, somehow aloof from the group.

 

Fassa reappeared, shaking her head. "She won't move.

[ — " She was bright, Fassa del Parma was; in rnid-sen-

:ence, as space shifted around her, she waited until the

lext normspace pass to complete her sentence."— think

ihe'stoo frightened, rmscared too. What's—"

 

Polyon didn't have time to waste listening to obvious

questions. When the next normspace passed through

Iiem, he was ready to seize the moment. "I'm taking

>ver the ship, is what's happening," he said over the

ail-end of Fassa's question. "Any function on this ship

iiat uses my hyperchips is under my command now.

Fhe reason—"

 

Shift, stretch, contract, waver, back to normal for a

few seconds.

 

" — for this long transition is that the ship's brain is

nonfunctional, can't get us out of Singularity."

 

Darnell wailed and vomited more loudly than

sefore, drowning out Polyon's next words and wasting

rtie rest of that normspace pass. Polyon waited, one

rooted foot contracting as he tapped it, stretching and

looping over itself like a snake, then deflating again

into the normal form of a regulation Academy boot.

 

"I can pilot us out of Singularity," he announced.

'But I need to be at the control console. May have

 

some trouble there. You'll have to help me take out the

brawn and the cyborg.M

 

"Why should we?" Blaize demanded.

 

Polyon smiled. "Afterwards," he said gently, "I won't

forget who my friends are."

 

"What good — " Darnell, predictably, wanted to

know, but the transformation loop washed away his

question. And when normspace came round again,

Blaize was closer to the rest of them; close enough to

answer for Polyon.

 

"What good will his favor do? Quite a lot, I should

imagine. It's not just the hyperchips on this ship, is it,

Polyon? All the hyperchips Shemali has been turning

out so fast have the same basic flaw, donft they?"

 

"I wouldn't," said Polyon, "necessarily define it as a

flaw. But you're right. Once we're out of Singularity

and ready to access the Net again, this ship's computer

will broadcast Final Phase to every hyperchip ever in-

stalled. Ill have — "

 

They'd all caught on to the rhythm of the transfor-

mation loop by now; the wait through three distorted

subspaces was becoming part of normal conversation-

al style.

 

" — control of the universe," he finished on the

next pass through normspace. Blaize had come

closer yet; stupid little runt, trying to move during

transformations.

 

"And we'll be your loyal lieutenants?" Blaize asked.

"I know how to reward service," Polyon said non-

committally. Into a GangUdde vat with you, troublemaker,

as soon as I have the power.

 

"Not if I know it," Blaize mouthed as normspace slid

away into the first distortion. He swung a fist at Polyon,

but before it landed his hand had shrunk to the size of

a walnut, and on the next dip through normspace

Polyon was ready for him with a return blow that sent

Blaize to the deck. By the time he landed, it was soft as

 

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289

 

quicksand, a pool in which Blaize swirled, too dizzy to

rise immediately.

 

"Stop me," Polyon said to the other two as

normspace passed through, "and you die here, in Sin-

gularity, because nobody else can get us out of it. Try to

stop me and fail," and he smiled again, very sweetly,

"and you'll wish you had died here. Are you with me?"

 

Before they could answer, a new element entered

the game; a hissing cloud of gas, invisible in

normspace, clearly delineated as a pink-rimmed flood

of rosy light in the first transformational space. It en-

gulfed Blaize and he stopped twitching, lay like one

dead in the yielding transformations of the deck.

 

Sleepgas. And he couldn't shout through the loop to

warn them. Polyon clapped both hands over his

mouth and nose, saw that Fassa did the same, jerked

his head towards the central cabin. That door too was

half open. He made for it, staggering through mud

and quicksand, swimming through air gone thick as

water, lungs aching and burning for a breath. Fell

through, someone pushing behind him, Fassa, and

Darnell after her. Forget Blaize, the traitor, and Alpha,

by now sleepgassed in her cabin. Polyon gasped and

with his first burning breath called, "General lock!"

 

The control cabin door irised shut with a strange jerky

motion, as if it were fighting its own mechanism, and

Polyon found his feet and surveyed his new territory.

 

Not bad. The only passenger he'd been seriously

worried about was Sev Bryley-Sorensen. But Bryley

wasn't here. Good. He was locked out, then, with

Alpha and Blaize; probably sleepgassed, like them.

The other two were bent over their consoles, probably

still trying to figure out why doors were opening and

closing without their command, trying to flood the

passenger areas with sleepgas — well, they'd suc-

ceeded there, but much good it would do them nowl

Through the transitions he saw them turning in their

 

seats, open mouths stretching like taSy in the second

subspace, then shrinking to round dots in the third.

Normspace showed the cyborg freak making a move

that wasn't part of the transformation illusion, right

arm darting towards her belt. Polyon snapped out a

command and the freak's prosthetic arm and leg

danced in their sockets, twisting away from the joining

point; her flesh-and-blood torso followed the agoniz-

ing pull of the synthetic limbs and she rotated half out

of her seat. Another command, and the prostheses

dropped lifeless and heavy to the floor, dragging the

body down with them. Her head cracked against the

support pillar under the seat Polyon stepped forward

to take the needier before she recovered. Space

stretched away from him, but his arm stretched with it,

and the solid heavy feel of the needier reassured him

that his fingers, even if they momentarily resembled

tentacles, had firm hold of die weapon.

 

With the next normspace pass he was erect again,

holding the needier on Forister. "Over there." With a

jerk of his head he indicated the central column. Some-

where behind there the brain of the ship floated widiin a

titanium shell, a shrunken malformed body kept alive by

tubes and wires and nutrient systems, Polyon shuddered

at the thought; he'd never understood why Central in-

sisted on keeping these monsters alive, even giving them

responsible positions diat could have been filled by real

people like himself. Well, the brain would be mad by now,

between sense deprivation and the stimuli he'd ordered

its own hyperchips to throw at it; killing it would be a

merciful release. And it would be appropriate to kill the

brawn at die foot of the column.

 

But not yet. Polyon was all too aware that he didn't

know everything there was to know about navigating a

brainship. He would need full support from both

computers and brawn if he was to get them out of this

transition loop alive.

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

291

 

He studied the needier controls, spun the wheel

with his thumb, glanced at Darnell and Fassa. Which

of them dared he trust? Neither, for choice; well, then.

which was more afraid of him? Fassa had been show

ing an uppity streak, asking him questions when sht

should have been listening. Darnell was still green-

faced but appeared to be through vomiting. Polyoi.

tossed him the needier; it floated through normspact

and Darnell caught it reflexively just before the transi

tion shrunk it to a gleaming line of permalloy.

 

"If either of them makes a move," Polyon said

pleasantly, "needle them. I've set it to kill... slowly.'

In fact he'd left the needier as Micaya had it, set &

deliver  a   paralyzing  but  not  lethal  dose  of

paravenin; but there was no need to reassure his

captives overmuch. "Now ..." He removed hi*

uniform jacket, draped it neatly over the swivelsesi

where Micaya had been sitting, and sat down i:,

Forister's chair before the command console. Trans;

tions exaggerated the slight flourish of his wrist -

into a great ballooning gesture, spun out his sleeve

into white clouds of fabric that floated over an ;

dwarfed the other occupants of the cabin.

 

"What do you think you're doing?" Forister criec

His voice squeaked through the fourth transitio

space and fell with a thud on the last word.

 

Polyon smiled. He could see his own teeth and ha:

gleaming, white and gold, in the mirror-bright pane.

"I," he said gently, "am going to get us out of Sir

gularity. Don't you think it's time somebody did it?"

 

His reflection narrowed, gave him a squashed fee

like a bug, dulled the bright gold of his hair and turne :

his teeth to green rotting stumps. The control pan<

shrank under his hands, then swelled and heaved lit

a storm-tossed sea. As normspace approached Polyo

darted in, tapping out one set of staccato commanc

with his right hand, passing the left over the palmpa

 

to call up Nancia's mathematics coprocessors, rattling

out the verbal commands that would bring the whole

ship around, responsive to his commands and ready to

sail the subspaces out of this Singularity.

 

She was sluggish as any water-going vessel lacking a

rudder and taking in water, half the engines obeying

bis commands, the other half canceling them. The

mathematics co-processors came online and then dis-

appeared before he'd entered the necessary

calculations, shrieking gibberish and sliding away in a

jumble of meaningless symbols. The moment of

normspace passed and Polyon ground his teeth in

frustration. In the second transformation the teeth felt

like squishy, rotting vegetables inside his mouth, then

in the third they became needles that drew blood, and

by the time normspace returned he had learned not to

give way to emotion.

 

He made two more attempts at controlling the ship,

waited out three complete transition loops, before he

pushed the pilot's chair back from the control panel

 

"Your brainship is fighting me," he told Forister on

the next pass through normspace.

 

"Good for her!" Forister raised his voice slightly.

"Nancia, girl, can you hear me? Keep it up!"

 

"Don't be a fool, Forister," Polyon said tiredly. "If

your brainship were conscious and coherent, she'd

have brought us out of Singularity herself."

 

He used the remaining seconds in normspace to tap

out one more command. The singing tones of

Nancia's access code rang through the room. Forister's

face went gray. Then the transition spaces whirled

about them, monstrously transforming the cabin and

everything in it, and Polyon could not tell which of the

distorted images before him showed the opening of

Nancia's titanium column.

 

On the next pass through normal space he saw that

the column was still closed. Transition must have

 

292

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

 

garbled the last sounds in the access sequence. He

typed in the command again; again the musical tones

rang out without their accompanying syllables; again

nothing happened.

 

"You'd better tell me the rest of the code," he said to

Forister on the next normspace pass.

 

Forister smiled — briefly; something in the expres-

sion reminded Polyon of his own ironic laughter.

"What makes you think I have it, boy? The two parts

are kept separate. I didn't even know how to access the

tone sequence from Nancia's memory banks. The

syllables probably aren't encoded in her at all; they'll

be on file at Central."

 

"Brawns are supposed to know the spoken half of

the code," Polyon snapped in frustration.

 

"I asked to have it changed just before this run,"

Forister claimed. "Security reasons. With so many

prisoners on board, I feared a takeover attempt—and

with good reason, it seems."

 

"I do hope you're lying," Polyon said. He clamped

his mouth shut and waited through the transition

loop, marshaling his arguments. "Because if Central's

the only source for the rest of the code, we're all dead. I

can't tap the Net and hack into the Courier Service

database from Singularity — and I can't get us out of

Singularity without neutralizing the brain."

 

"You mean, without killing Nanria," Forister said in

a voice emptied of feeling. His eyes flickered once to

the cabin consol. Polyon followed the man's gaze and

felt a moment of fear. A delicate solido stood above the

control panels, the image of a lovely young woman

with an impish smile and clustering curls of red hair.

 

Polyon had heard of brawns who developed an

emotional fixation on their brainship, even to the

point of having a solido made from the brainship's

genotype that would show how the freakish body

might have matured without its fatal defects. He

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

293

 

hadn't guessed that Forister was the sentimental type,

or that he'd have had time to grow so attached to Nan-

da. The idiot might actually think that he'd rather die

than kill his brainship.

 

"There's no need to clutter the problem with

emotionalism," Polyon told him. How could he jolt

Forister out of his sentimental fixation? "With partial

control of the ship to me and partial control to Nanria,

neither of us can navigate out of Singularity.''

 

Damn the transition loop! Forister had caught on to

the rhythm by now; and the necessary wait while three

distorted subspaces composed and decomposed

around them gave him time to think.

 

"I've a better suggestion," the brawn said. "You say

you can navigate us out; well, we all know Nancia can.

Restore full control to her, and — "

 

"And what? You'll drop charges, let me go back to

running a prison factory? I've got a better career plan

than that now."

 

"I wasn't," said Forister mildly, "planning to make

that offer."

 

The rhythm of collapsing and composing subspaces

was becoming natural to them all; the necessary

pauses in their conversation no longer bothered

Polyon.

 

"I had something like your own offer in mind,"

Forister continued at the next opportunity. "Release

Nancia's hyperchip-enhanced computer systems, and

she'll get us out of Singularity — and you'll live.**

 

"How did you guess?"

 

Forister looked surprised. "Logical deduction. You

designed the hyperchips; you tricked me into running

a program that did something peculiar to Nancia's

computer systems; the failure reports I read just

before you came in showed precisely the areas where

she has had hyperchips installed, the lower deck sen-

sors and the navigation system; you've since exercised

 

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Anne McCaffrey SjMargxret Ball

 

voice control on Micaya's hyperchip-enhanced pros-

theses. Clearly your hyperchip design includes a back

door by which you can personally control any installa-

tion that uses your chips."

 

"Clever," Polyon said. "But not clever enough to get

you out of Singularity. I assure you I'm not going to re-

store full computing power to a brainship who is

probably mad by now."

 

"What makes you think that?"

 

Polyon raised his brows. "We all know what sensory

deprivation does to shellpersons, Forister. Need I go

into the details?"

 

"Take more than a few minutes in the dark to upset

my Nanda," Forister said levelly.

 

Polyon bared his teeth. "By now, old man, she's had

considerably more than that to deal with. The first

thing my hyperchip worm does is to strike at any intel-

ligence linked to the computers in which it finds itself

The sensory barrage would make any human break

the link at once. I'm afraid that 'your' Nancia, not

being able to escape the link that way, will have gone

quite mad by now. So — I think—if you want to live—

you'll tell me, now, the rest of the access code."

 

"I think not," Forister said calmly. "You've made a

fetal error in your calculations."

 

The transition loop stifled all talk for the endless

winding, looping moments of passage through shrink-

ing and distorting spaces. Polyon ignored the sensory

tricks of spatial transformations and thought furiously.

When normspace returned, he reached up from his

chair to grasp the solido of Nancia as a young woman.

Deliberately, watching Forister's face, he dropped the

solido on the deck and ground the fragile material to

shards under his boot-heel.

 

"That's what's left of 'your' Nancia, old man," he

said. "Are you going to let your love for a woman who

never lived kill us all?"

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

295

 

Forister's face was lined with pain, but he spoke as

evenly as always. "My — feelings — for Nancia have

nothing to do with the matter. Your error is much

more basic. You think I'd rather set you free with the

universe in your control than die here in Singularity.

This is incorrect."

 

He spoke so calmly that it took Polyon a moment to

understand the words, and in that moment die transi-

tion loop warped the room and disguised the

movements in it. When they passed through

normspace again, Fassa del Parma was standing be-

tween Forister and Darnell, as if she thought she could

shield the brawn from a direct needier spray.

 

"He's right," she said. "I didn't have time to think

before. You're a monster."

 

Polyon laughed without humor. "Fassa, dear, to

righteous souls like Forister and General Questar-

Benn we're all monsters. I should have remembered

how you sucked up to them before, helping them trick

me. Did you think that would save you? They'll use

you and throw you away like your father did."

 

Fassa went white and still as stone. "We don't all take

such a simple-minded view of the universe," Forister

said. "But, Fassa, you can't — "

 

Darnell's fingers were twitching. Polyon nodded.

Slowly, too slowly, Darnell raised the needier. He gave

Forister ample time to grasp Fassa by the shoulders

and spin her out of danger. As Forister moved, the

cabin seemed to lurch and the lights dimmed. Gravity

fell to half-normal, then to nothing, and as Fassa spun

into midair the reaction of Forister's thrust pushed

him in the opposite direction. The spray of needles

went wide, but one bright line on the for edge of the

arc stung through Forister's sleeve and bloodied his

wrist. The blood danced out across the cabin in bright

droplets that the transition loop pulled out into bloody

seas; Polyon watched a bubble the size of a small pond

 

296

 

Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret Ball

 

float inexorably toward him, settle around him with a

clammy grip, then shrink to a bright button-sized stain

on his shut front.

 

Fassa floated back to grasp Forister's flaccid body

and cry, "Why did you do that? I wanted to save you!"

 

"Wanted him — to kill me," Forister breathed. The

paravenin was fighting the contractions of his chest.

"Without me — no way to get Nancia's code. Trapped

here, all of us — better than letting him go? Forgive

me?"

 

"Death before dishonor." Polyon put a sneering

spin on the words, letting the maudlin pair hear what

he thought of such brave slogans. "And it will be death,

too. See how the ship's systems are failing? What do   i

you think will go next? Oxygen? Cabin pressure?"

 

In the absence of direct commands, gravity and

lighting should have been controlled by Nancia's •

autonomic nervous functions. Forister groaned as the \

meaning of this latest failure came through to him.

 

"She's dying anyway. With or without your help,"

Polyon drove the point home. "And you're not dead yet

I lied to you. The needier was only set to paralyze.

Now let's have the access code before Nancia stops

breathing and kills us all."

 

Forister shook his head with slow, painful twitches.

 

"Come here, Fassa, dear," Polyon ordered.

 

"No. I stay with him."

 

"You don't really mean that," Polyon said pleasantly.

"You know you're far too afraid of me. Remember

those shoddy buildings you put up on Shemali? You

replaced them free of charge, remember, and I didn't

even have to do any of the interesting things we dis-

cussed. But if I'd threaten you with flaying alive for

cheating me over a factory, Fassa, just think for a mo-

ment what I'll do to you for interfering with me now."

 

The transition loop was almost a help; the pauses it

forced gave Fassa time to consider her brave stand.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

297

 

Go on, Fassa," Forister urged when normal speech

possible again. "You can't help me now, and I've

no wish to see you hurt for my sake."

 

Thank you for the information," Polyon said with a

courteous bow. "Perhaps I'll try that next But I think

we'll begin with an older and dearer friend for quick

results. Darnell, bring the freak—no, 111 do it; you keep

the needier on Fassa, just in case she gets any silly ideas."

 

Holding onto the pilot's chair to keep himself in

place, Polyon turned and aimed a loose kick at Micaya

Questar-Benn. The cessation of ship's gravity had

freed her of the artificially weighted prostheses that

held her down, but the arm and leg were still flopping

loose, free of her control. She was as good as a cripple

— she was a cripple, disgusting sight

 

"I want Forister to get a good view of this," he told

her politely. "Lock prostheses."

 

This to the computer; a signal to the hyperchips

clamped Micaya's artificial arm and leg together.

 

"Lay a finger on Mic — " Forister threatened, strug-

gling vainly against the effects of the paravenin.

 

"I won't need to," Polyon said with a brilliant smile.

"I can do it all from here."

 

A series of brisk verbal commands and typed-in

codes caused the portion of the ship's computer that

Polyon controlled to transmit new, overriding instruc-

tions to the hyperchips controlling Micaya's internal

organ replacements. The changes had the full dura-

tion of a transition loop to take effect. When they

returned to normspace, Micaya's face was colorless

and beads of sweat dotted her forehead.

 

"It's amazing how painful a few simple organic

changes can be," Polyon commented gaily. "Little

things like fiddling with the circulation, for instance.

How's that hand, Mic, baby? Bothering you a bit?"

 

"Come a little closer," Micaya invited him, "and find

out" But now Polyon had drawn attention to her one

 

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PARTNERSHIP

 

299

 

remaining hand; they could all see ho wit had changed

color. The fingernails were almost black, the skin was

purplish and swollen.

 

"Keep it like that for a week," Polyon said, "and

she'll have a glorious case of gangrene. Of course, we

don't have a week. I could trap even more blood in the

hand and burst the veins, but that might kill her too

fast. So I'll just leave it like that while you think it over,

Forister, and maybe we'll start working on the foot as

well. Fortunately, the heart's one of her cyborg re-

placements, so we don't have to worry about it failing

under the increased demands; it'll go on working . . .

as long as I want it to. Want to hear how well it works

now?"

 

A word of command amplified the sound of

Micaya's artificial heart beating vehemently, the pulse

rate going up to support the demands Polyon was

making on the rest of her system. The desperate,

ragged double beat echoed through the cabin, droned

and drummed and shrilled through a complete transi-

tion loop, and no one spoke or moved.

 

For a heartbeat, no more, Nantia found silence and

darkness a welcome relief from the stabbing pain of

the input from her rogue sensors. Is this what Sin-

gularity is like for softpersons? But no, it was worse than

that. In the confused moments before she shut down

all conscious functions and disabled her own sensor

connections, she had been aware of something much

worse than the colorshifts and spatial distortions of

Singularity; the malevolence of another mind, in-

timately entwined with her own, striking at her with

deliberate malice.

 

He means to drive me mad. If I enable my sensors ogam, he'll

 

bleak desperation of die thought came from somewhere

iar back in her memories. When, how, had she ever felt

 

so utterly abandoned before? Nantia reached out, un-

thinking, to search her memory banks — then stopped

before die connection was complete. If sensors could be

turned into weapons to use against her, could not

memory, too, be infiltrated? Access the computer's

memory banks, and she might find herself "knowing"

whatever this other mind wanted her to believe.

 

Is it another mind ? Or a part of myself? Perhaps Fm mad

already, and this is the first symptom. The flashing, dis-

orienting lights and garbled sounds, the sickening

whirling sensations, even the conviction that she was

under attack by another mind — weren't all these

symptoms of one of those Old Earth illnesses that had

ravaged so many people before modern electrostim

and drug therapy restored the balance of their tor-

tured brains? Nancia longed to scan just one of the

encyclopedia articles in her memory banks; but that

resource was denied her for the moment. Paranoid

schizophrenia, that was it; a splitting off of the mind

from reality.

 

Let's see, now — she reasoned. IfTm mad, then it's safe to

look up the symptoms and decide that I'm mad, except that

presumably I won't accept the evidence. And ifTm not mad, I

daren't check memory to prove it. So we'd better accept the

working hypothesis that lam sane, and go on from there. The

dry humor of the syllogism did something to restore

her emotional balance. Although how long I will remain

sane, urtder these circumstances...

 

Better not to think about that. Better, too, not to

remember Caleb's first partner, who had gone into irre-

versible coma rather than face the emptiness that

surrounded him after the synaptic connections between

his shell and the outside world had been destroyed. As a

matter of sanity, as well as survival, Nancia decided, she

would make the assumption that somebody had done

this to her, and concentrate on solving the puzzle of who

had done it and how they could be stopped.

 

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Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

301

 

A natural first step would be to reopen just one sen-

sor, to examine the bursts of energy that had come so

dose to disrupting her nervous system.... I can't! the

child within her shrieked in near-panic. You can't make

me, I won't, I won't, fUstay safe in here forever.

 

That's not an option, Nancia told herself firmly. She

wanted to say it aloud, to reassure herself with the

sound of her own voice; but she was mute as well as

deaf and blind and without sensation, floating in an

absolute blackness. Somehow she had to conquer that

panic within herself.

 

Poetry sometimes helped. That Old Earth dramatist

Sev and Fassa were so fond of quoting; she had plenty of

his speeches stored in her memory banks. On such a night

as this . . . Nancia reached unthinking for memory,

stopped the impulse just in time. She didn't know that

speech; she had stored it in memory. Quite a different

thing. Try something else, then. Icouid be bounded in a nut-

shell, and count myself king of infinite space, were it not that 1

have bad dreams.... Not a good choice, under the cir-

cumstances. Maybe ... did she know anything else?

What was she, without her memory banks, her sensors,

her powerful thrusting engines? Did she even existatall?

 

That way lies madness. Of course she existed.

Deliberately Nancia filled herself with her own true

memories. Scooting around the Laboratory Schools

corridors, playing Stall and Power-Seek with her

friends. Acing the math finals, from Lobachevski

Geometry up through Decomposition Topology, play-

ing again, with all the wonderful space of numbers

and planes and points to wander in. Voice training

with Ser Vospatrian, the Lab Schools' drama teacher,

who'd taught them to modulate their speaker-

produced vocalizations through the full range of

human speech with all its emotional overtones. That

first day they'd all been shy and nervous, hating the

recorded playbacks of their own tinny artificial voices;

 

Vospatrian had made them recite limericks and non-

sense poems until they broke down in giggles and

forgot to be self-conscious. Goodness, she could still

remember those silly poems with which he'd started

off every session....

 

And quite without thinking or calling on her artifi-

cially augmented memory banks, Nancia was oft

 

jjtfc

 

!$•    The farmer's daughter had soft brown hair,

 

? ?     Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese,

' 1     And I met with a poem, I can't say where,

 

Which wholly consisted of lines like these...."

 

There was a young brainshxp of Vega.... "

 

"Fhairson swore a feud against the clan MTavish;

Marched into their land to murder and to rafish,

for he did resolve to extirpate the vipers

Withfour-and-twenty men andftue-and-thirty

thirty pipers..."

 

Nancia went through Ser Vospatrian's entire reper-

toire until she was giggling internally and floating on

the natural high of laughter-produced endorphins.

Then, floating quite calmly in her blackness, she set

about testing her sensor connections one by one.

 

She got the mental equivalent of burned fingers and

light-blinded eyes more than once during the testing

process, but it wasn't as bad as she had feared. The

lower-deck sensors were completely useless, as were

her navigation computer and the new mathematics

and graphics co-processors she'd just invested in.

Everything, in fact, that contains hyperchipsfrom Shemati...

and with that deduction, Nancia knew just who was

striking at her and why.

 

She opened the upper deck sensors one by one, first

taking in the sleeping bodies tumbled in the pas-

 

302

 

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret BaU

 

sageway and cabins. Sev, slumped over the isometric

spring set in the exercise room with his hands and feet

still in the springholders; Alpha, strapped in her cabin-

Blaize, floating just above the passageway deck, with

an angelic expression on his sleeping face and a nasty

bruise coming up on his chin.

 

Mutiny. And somebody released sleepgas. But which side}

She opened the control cabin sensors slowly, cautious-

ly. The port side sensors wavered and gave an erratic

display. Somehow Polyon's hyperchips must be work-

ing to contaminate the entire computer system. 2 don't

have much time....

 

Even less time than she'd thought, Nancia realized

as she took in the standoff in the control room.

General Questar-Benn disabled — of course, the hyper-

chips in her prostheses — and Darnell holding her

needier on a defiant Forister while Polyon sat in the

pilot's chair and played his commands on the com-

puter console. That, at least, she could do something

about. Nancia struck back, sending her own com-

mands to the computer, disabling the console section

by section, garbling Polyon's commands as they came

in. He tapped out a sequence she did not know; she

traced it to its source and with shock recognized her

own access code. The musical tones were already

sounding in the cabin. But the accompanying syllables

weren't stored in the same location.... They have to be

somewhere, though. In some part of memory not accessible to

my conscious probe. Otherwise my shell wouldn't recognvze

and open to them. Nancia felt proud of herself for figur-

ing that out, then cold and sick as she wondered how

long it would take Polyon to make the same deduction.

And if the syllables aren't where lean consciously retrieve

them, how can I block Polyon against doing so ?

 

She felt queasy from the repeated looping through

four decomposition spaces, but there was no safe way to

leave the loop until she regained full computing and

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

303

 

navigational facility, first, let's repair the damage..,. Nancia

worked furiously, permanently disabling the sections of

her computer system that had been contaminated by the

Shemali hyperchips, finding alternative routings to ac-

cess the processors that remained untouched. At the

same time the worm program unleashed by Polyon

squirmed deeper into her system, changing and mutat-

ing code as it went, erasing its own tracks so that she could

only tell where it had been by the sudden flares of dis-

orienting sense input or the garbled mathematics where

it had been. She had to find and stop that code before she

could do anything else.

 

Deep in the intricacies of her own system, Nancia

agonized as Darnell struck down Forister.

 

Don't listen. Don't think about that. She would need all

her concentration to disable Polyon's rogue code,

more concentration than she'd ever brought to bear

on the comparatively trivial problems of subspace

navigation. Nancia remembered Sev Bryley's training

in relaxation and deliberately, slowly calmed herself,

drawing energy away from her extremities and center-

ing her consciousness on the internal core of light

where she existed independent of computer and shell

and ship. With some remote part of her awareness she

sensed the failure of gravitational systems and the

dimming of lights, the shock and concern of her pas-

sengers,   but   she   could   not   afford   to   divert

consciousness to those semi-automatic functions now.

The automatic datacording routines Nancia had set

up continued to operate as Polyon began Micaya's tor-

ture. Nancia could not counter his commands without

breaking her trance; she could not even restore gravity

and lights to reassure Forister. Ignoring Micaya's pain

was the hardest thing she had ever done. For the moment,

Micaya does not exist. Nothing exists outside this place, this mo-

ment, this center. There was the rogue code; she

annihilated it in a blaze of energy, destroying deep

 

304

 

Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret BaU

 

memory in the process; like an amputation, she thought,

the shaft of pain and the nagging ache afterwards. Now

to restore lost functions... Ruthlessly she cutback on the

frills and luxuries of her programming, reducing the

power that normally fed her autonomic functions. Lights

dimmed even further in the control cabin, and the

softpersons made comments about an acrid smell in the

air. They would just have to put up with it; she needed

that processing power to restore her crippled nav

programs. Three of the four major math coprocessors

were lost; the graphics processor could double for one of

them. No time to think about the others. Naritia erased

unnecessary programs and dumped others to

datahedron, making space in what little remained of her

memory for the processes she had to have. Would that be

enough? No chance for tests, no time for second

thoughts. She struck back, once, with everything she

had; felt hyperchips shriveling to blank bits of permalloy,

felt inactive sensors and processors become dead weights

instead ofliving systems.

 

Some animals will gnaw off their own limbs to get out of a

trap....

 

No time to mourn, either. With the "death" of the hy-

perchips within Nancia's system, the transmissions that

tortured Micaya's cyborgans ceased. The sound of her

amplified heartbeat ended between one drum beat and

the next. Forister groaned. He thmks fm dead. He would

be reassured in a moment Nancia activated full artificial

gravity; Darnell fell to the deck from his wall perch, Fassa

went to her knees. Polyon staggered but remained stand-

ing. Nancia beamed commands to the tanglefield wires,

Darnell, Polyon and Fassa were frozen in place, nets of

moving lights encompassing the tanglefield keys at their

wrists and ankles and necks. Finally, Nancia spared a tittle

power to bring up the cabin lights and freshen the air.

 

"FN-935 reporting for duty," she said. "I apologize

for any temporary inconvenience...."

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

305

 

"Nanda!" Forister sounded dose to tears.

 

"General Questar-Benn, can you take the pilot's

seat?" Nancia requested, "I may need a little help to

navigate us out of Singularity."

 

"Do my best" Micaya's breathing was still ragged,

and she leaned heavily on the chair beside her, but she

limped to the pilot's seat without help, the prostheses

once again responding to her own brain's electrical

impulses. "What can I do?"

 

"I am operating with only one mathematics coproces-

sor," Nancia told her, "and my navigation units are

nonfunctional When I start the drives, we will move out

of this transition loop and into the expansion of whatever

subspace we happen to be in. I'll try to maintain a steady

path through the subspace options, but I may need you

to aid in the navigation. Since the graphics processor is

undamaged, I will throw up images of the approaching

subspaces. Rest your hand on the palmpad and give me a

direction at each branch."

 

"Do my best," Micaya said again, but Nancia noticed

 

it was the prosthetic hand she rested on the palmpad;

 

the other hand was still an ugly purple color, with

 

blackened moons on the swollen fingertips. She

 

remembered what Polyon had said about gangrene.

 

How much had his hyperchips accelerated Micaya's

 

metabolic processes? Get her to a medic., .but I can't do

 

that, unless somebody helps me surf out of Singularity... and

 

we daren't waitfor the paravenm to wear offfbrister....

 

.    Then Nancia had no more energy to spare for wor-

 

. rying about Micaya or anything else but the waves of

 

transformations that broke over her head, tossed and

 

tumbled   her  gasping  through  subspaces   that

 

j,deformed her body and everyone within, streams of

 

[calculations that escaped her processors. Lost and

 

choking, she sensed a firm hand guiding her up-

 

| wards... out... She crunched the last numbers into a

 

tractable series of equations and broke through the

 

306

 

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

 

chaos of uncountably infinite subspaces into the

blessed normalcy of RealSpace.

 

Before she had rime to thank Micaya, a tightbeam

communication assaulted her weakened comm center.

"Back so soon, FN? What's the matter? I thought you

were headed for Central."

 

It was Simeon, the Vega Base managing brain. "We

had a small virus problem," Nancia beamed back.

"Returned for... repairs."

 

The rest of the story could wait until she had ab-

solute privacy. There was no need to alert the galaxy to

the fact that an unknown number of their computer

systems were contaminated by Shemali hyperchips.

 

"Is everything under control now?"

 

"You could say that," Nancia replied dryly, turning

up her remaining sensors and looking over her inter-

nal condition. Half her processors burned out,

sleeping bodies littering the passenger quarters, three

High Families brats secured in tanglefield and mad as

hell, Forister twitching with the pins-and-needles of

paravenin recovery, and a crippled general bringing

them safe into RealSpace —

 

"Yes," she told Simeon. "Everything's under

control."

 

• CHAPTERMGHTEEN

 

In the days of repair work drat followed, Nancia began

to understand just how much Caleb must have hated

being grounded on Summerlands while she went on

with a new brawn to complete the task they had begun.

Now she, too, was "convalescent" and temporarily out of

the action. To protect herself from the insidious effects of

Polyon's hyperchips she had, in effect, crippled herself^

rendering large parts of her own system inoperable; to

keep the worm program he had implanted from contact-

ing other hyperchips once they got out of Singularity

and could make Net contact again, she had slashed

through her own memory, ruthlessly excising whole sec-

tions of memory banks and operating code.

 

"It's a miracle you made it back here in one piece,"

Simeon of Vega Base told her, "and you're not leaving

Base until you've had a very thorough overhaul and

repair. Those aren't my orders, they're a beam from

CS. So no argument!"

 

"I wasn't planning to argue," said Nancia with, for

her, unaccustomed meekness. Indeed, after the

stresses of that prolonged stay in Singularity, followed

by the limping return voyage on one-third power, she

had very litde desire to do anything but park herself in

orbit around Vega Base and watch the stars wheel by.

 

Or so she told herself She was tired and injured; she

wasn't up to the stressful task of transporting the prisoners

and witnesses back to Central for trial It was for more sen-

sible to prepare a datahedron of her own testimony,

something that could be sent back on the bright new

Courier Service ship that came to collect theothers.

 

308

 

Anne McCaffrey 6? Margaret BaU

 

Til miss you," Forister said, "but you'll be back in

action soon, Nanria. Why, at the speed Central works,

you'll probably be returning before the trial's over!

And if you don't" — he hefted the gleaming weight of

the megahedron in one hand — "this is as good, for all

legal purposes, as having you there. You've trans-

ferred datacordings of everything that happened on

board or that you perceived through your contact but-

tons, right? Should be the most complete — and most

damning—record we could ask for."

 

"It — may not be as complete as you expect," Nan-

da said. "I have some memory gaps, you know."

 

"Yes, I know. But having you there in person —

well, via contact button, I suppose — wouldn't make

any difference to that, would it? If something's been

lost from your memory banks, it won't come back

under cross-examination."

 

That was true enough, Nancia supposed; and if the

damage to her memory banks were the only cause of

gaps in the recording, there'd be no reason at all for

her to undergo cross-examination. The subject was

not one she wished to discuss in any detail. She said

good-bye to Forister, tried to control the twinge of

loneliness she felt when the new CS ship took off, and

went back to her observations of the stars of Vega sub-

space. Stars were restful; bright and calm, in

unchanging patterns as familiar to her as—as —

 

Nancia discovered that she could no longer

"remember" the names of the constellations as they

appeared in Vega subspace. She had never spent long

enough in this subspace to establish the look of the sky

in her own human memory; and the navigational

maps that she relied on had been erased. So had her

tables of Singularity points and decomposition algo-

rithms, her Capellan music recordings....

 

"Do you know, I'm sorry I used to laugh at softper-

sons," she said thoughtfully to Simeon while the techs

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

309

 

buzzed about her, removing the melted blobs that had

been hyperchips, restoring connections and sensors,

building in new blank memory banks to be loaded with

whatever information she requested. "I never realized

how crippled they are, having to rely on no more skills

and information than they can store in an organic brain."

 

"It's not nice to laugh at the handicapped," Simeon

agreed gravely. "I trust this has been a learning ex-

perience for you, young FN. Would you like me to

help you prepare a list of data requests for your new

memories?"

 

"Yes, please," Nancia said, "and" — this she did

remember, the frustration of listening to the medical

jargon of the techs at Summerlands working on Caleb

— "do you think I can afford a classical education?

Latin and Greek vocabularies and syntax?"

 

"I'll indent for the Loeb Classical Hedron," Simeon

said. "That has twenty-six Old Earth languages plus all

the major literature."

 

"And — " she didn't want to go too far into debt—"a

medical set? Pharmacology, Internals, and Surgical?"

 

"Should be standard equipment on any ship gets

into as much trouble as you do," Simeon agreed.

 

"Yes, but can I afford it? I've lost some accounting

data; I don't know how my credit stands with Courier

Service — "

 

Simeon came as near to a laugh as Nancia had ever

heard from him. "FN, trust me, the bonus for this last

job, plus the hazardous service pay, will cover any frills

you want to request and go a long way towards paying

off your debt to Lab Schools. Pull off a couple more

like this and you'll be a paid-off shell, your own

woman. In fact," he added thoughtfully, "there's no

reason why you should pay for the classical and medi-

cal hedra. I'll just slip those in as pan of the

replacement list, which is charged to Central — "

 

"No," Nancia said firmly. "That's how it starts."

 

310

 

Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Sail

 

"How what starts?**

 

"You know. Darnell. Polyon. Everything."

 

"Oh. Well, I sec what you mean, but it is a gray area,

you know..."

 

"Not," Nancia said, "for House Perez y de Gras. I'D

buy the extra skills hedra myself, out of my bonus.

From the figures you just beamed up, I'll have more

than enough to pay honestly for those 'frills' and any

other expenses I may incur during this stay."

 

But that was before she discovered the item that

would strain her budget to its limits.

 

Nancia's repairs were nearly finished when Caleb,

now walking without a stick and looking even more

muscular than before, landed at Vega Base and re-

quested permission to come aboard. Nancia exclaimed

in delight at the bronzed, fit young man she saw step-

ping out of the airlock.

 

"My goodness, Caleb, you look as if you'd never

been ill a day in your life."

 

"There wasn't much to do at Summerlands,** Caleb

said dismissively. "It's a sin to waste time; I worked out

in the physical therapy rooms most of die time while

they were fussing over final tests and declaring me fit

for duty again. What's our next assignment?**

 

"Our?"

 

"You didn't think I'd desert you? You made some er-

rors of judgment while I was away, Nancia, but

nothing that can't be repaired. In fact," Caleb added,

looking around the gleaming interior from which all

traces of OG Shipping's mauve and puce had finally

been removed, "it looks as if the repairs are just about

finished."

 

"They are, but Caleb, I — I'm partnered with

Forister now," Nancia said. She felt guilty as she said

the words; suppose Caleb felt that she was rejecting

him? But it was the simple truth. Her call sign was FN-

935 now, not CN.

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

311

 

"Temporary assignment," Caleb brushed that aside.

"Now I've been pronounced fit again, Forister can go

back into comfortable retirement. No need for him to

continue straining himself in tasks he's really not up

to. Take this last debacle. You're not to blame, Nancia,

being young and inexperienced, but you must see that

it was handled all wrong. If..."

 

While Caleb blithely explained the mistakes Forister

had made and how he, with the benefit of hindsight,

could have done so much better, Nancia attempted to

control some new and unfamiliar sensations.

 

Simeon, she tightbeamed to the managing brain, is

there a malfunction in my repaired circuits ? My sensors show a

temperature rise and high conductivity, and I'm picking up a

strange buzzing m some of the audio circuits.

 

The Vega manager's reply was a few seconds

delayed. Fascinating, he beamed back while Caleb con-

tinued his speech. Yoursynaptic connectors are picking up

direct emotional signals. What an unusual coupling — that's

not supposed to happen. You must have done something to your

connections while you were fighting the hyperchip attack.

 

What are you talking about ? Is it dangerous ? Fix it! Nan-

cia demanded.

 

Simeon transmitted a chuckle over the audio circuit,

stopping Caleb in mid-peroration.

 

"What was that? Is Central trying to contact us?"

 

"No, just a — a message from one of the repair

techs," Nancia improvised. "You were saying?"

 

"Well, try not to let it happen again," Caleb said ir-

ritably. "We've got to get our future relationship

straight, Nancia; surely that's more important than

some last-minute twiddling with your repairs? Now

listen. I don't want you to feel guilty over what's past."

 

"Why should I?" Nancia asked, startled. "Oh, be-

cause I didn't report the conversations I heard on my

 

rst voyage, and stop those young criminals before

 

ley got properly started? Well, I do feel guilty. That

 

312

 

Anne McCaffrgy Gf Margaret Ball

 

was a bad mistake." But one Caleb had encouraged

her to make.

 

"I don't mean that at all!" Caleb said. "You acted

with perfect propriety in keeping those conversations

private. I mean die way you've been rocketing around

the Nyota system, bearing false witness, pretending to

be something you're not, encouraging breaches of

PTA regulations on Angalia, getting involved in all

sorts of violence and mixing with very questionable

people indeed — "

 

Simeon, I know Tm overheating. Can't you send a tech out

to fix my circuits?

 

There's nothing to fix, Nancia, but Lab Schools will want to

study just how you achieved it. Briefly, you've created a mind-

body feedback hop between your cortex and the ship—one that

carries emotional as well as intellectual and motor impulses.

 

You mean — ?

 

You're a little more like a softperson than the rest of us, Nan-

da — or, you might say, a little more human. You're angry, my

dear, and your connections are showing it. Flushed, ears buzz-

ing, breathing faster, higher fuel consumption —yes, Td say

you're in a roaring snit. And not without cause. You've out-

grown that righteous little snip, Nancia. When are you going

to shut him up and kick him off you?

 

" — but you were misled, and I myself bear some of

the fault, having allowed you to persuade me against

my better judgment into the first false step on the

downward path of deception," Caleb finished his sen-

tence without being aware of the split-second

exchange between Nancia and Simeon. "Now that

you've seen what such things can lead to, I'm sure

you'll repent of your errors. And I want you to know

that I freely and completely forgive you. We'll never

speak of this again—**

 

"You're darned right, we won't!" Nancia interrupted.

"Go find yourself a ship to match your morals, Caleb!"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

313

 

To calm herself down, Nancia took a moment to

convert her entire Vega subspace map to Old Earth

linear measurements and back. By multiple precision

arithmetic routines. In surface-level code. She was on

the verge of hurting Caleb's feelings. And she wasn't

quite angry enough to do that. The inexperienced

young brainship who'd teamed with Caleb five years

ago would have accepted his self-righteous lecture as if

he were laying down Courier Service regulations. It

wasn't Caleb's fault, or her fault either, that she'd out-

grown his narrow black-and-white view of the world.

Forister had taught her the value of shades of gray and

die duty of perceiving them. And if now she felt more

truly partnered with that spare, sardonic, aging brawn

than with the young man who'd shared her first ad-

ventures — well, there was no reason Caleb should

suffer unnecessarily on that account.

 

Her overheating circuits cooled down and the buzz-

ing in her ears stopped as she calmed herself with

tranquil, fixed equations.

 

"It wouldn't work, Caleb," she said at last. "You may

. forgive me, but the past would always be between us.

You'd do better to find another brainship, one that has

never betrayed your high ideals." Preferably one that

^hasn't been commissioned for more than ten minutes.

 

"For myself—" Nantiasighed, "sadderbutwiser,"f/iaft

\true, anyway, "I think it is more appropriate for me to peti-

j tion Central that my temporary partnership with Forister

be made permanent, or to find another brawn if Forister

I chooses to retire now." Please, please, doritlet himdo that.

 

"Well." At least Caleb's speech-making impulses had

[been knocked out temporarily. "If you really uiink..."

 

"I do," said Nancia, "and," she added firmly, "I will pay

(the penalty fee for requesting a brawn reassignment. It's

not fair diat you should bear any part of that burden."

 

But it was a little disappointing to see how quickly

I Caleb accepted the offer....

 

314

 

Anne McCaffrey £# Margaret BaS.

 

The trial of the Nyota Five, as the gossipbyters had

dubbed Nanda's first passengers, was still in progress

when she landed at Central Base some weeks later.

 

The solitary journey back, with no brawn or pas-

sengers to distract her, had given Nantia plenty of time

to think .. . perhaps too much. She had no way of

knowing how the trial was progressing or how the

court had reacted to the testimony presented; in

deference to High Families sensibilities, newsbeamers

were not permitted in the courtroom and die gossip-

byters had nothing but speculations to report. She

didn't even know if the court would wish her cross-ex-

amined on the deposition she'd sent back on

datahedron. Well, if they did, she was available now.

And diere'd be no new assignment until Forister was

released from testifying and free to brawn her again. If

he still wanted to, once he'd heard what was on her

deposition... and what wasn't

 

Nancia didn't have much time to brood over that

possibility; she had hardly touched down at Base when

a visitor was announced.

 

"Perez y de Gras requesting permission to board," the

Central Base managing brain warned her in advance.

 

That was a welcome surprise! The last Nancia had

heard from Flix was a bitstream packet from Kailas,

mostly consisting of pictures of the seedy cafe where

he'd found a synthocomming gig. He must have quit

— or been fired.... Well, she wouldn't ask him about

diat Nancia opened her outer doors and set die wall-

sized display screens in the lounge to show the

surprise she'd been preparing for him.

 

"Flix, how lovely, I didn't know you were ..." she

began joyfully as the airlock slid open. The words died

away to a faint hiss from her port speaker as she took

in die sight of the trim, gray-haired man who stood in

the open airlock, surveying her interior with cool gray

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

315

 

res. Nancia hastily blanked out the moving displays

liner new, holo-enhanced, super-detailed SPACED

)UT and replaced them with some quiet, correct im-

!jes of still life paintings by Old Masters.

 

"As far as I know," said Javier Perez y de Gras, "he

isn't. Although doubtless, now that I've been reas-

signed to Central, your litde brother will find another

squalid position on this planet from which to annoy

me with the sight of his failure."

 

"Oh." Nancia hadn't previously compared the pat-

tern of Flix's jauntings from gig to gig with her father's

diplomatic assignments. Now she made a hasty scan of

her restored memory banks and found a surprising

number of correspondences. That was something

she'd have to ask Flix about. Just now she really didn't

feel up to discussing it with Daddy.

 

"I don't suppose," she said carefully, "that was what

you came to see me about? Flix's career, I mean?"

 

Her father sniffed. "I don't consider that a career. You

have a career, Nancia my dear, and by all accounts you've

done quite well Co date — a few errors in judgment, per-

haps, but nothing that maturity and experience won't—"

 

This time Nancia knew what caused the flush of heat

diat swamped her upper deck circuits and the red haze

that trembled in her visual sensors. For a moment she

didn't speak, fearing that she would be unable to control

her voice; she could not look at Daddy without seeing

Caleb and, shadowy in her imagination, Paul del Parmay

Polo. Just another man, seeing in her nothing but a tool

to serve his plans, coming to give her a rating on how well

or ill she'd done for him. Were all men like that?

 

"Exactly what errors of judgment were you thinking

of?" she inquired when she had her vocal circuits

under control again. Not that she hadn't made plenty

of mistakes for Daddy to pick at....

 

But what he complained of was the last thing she'd

been worried about

 

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Anne McCaffrey fcf Margaret Ball

 

"At least, fortuitously, some other ship performed

the service of transporting them back to Central,"

Daddy said. "But from what I've heard at the trial, you

were quite prepared to perform that service yoursel£

You shouldn't lower yourself that way, Nancia. A Perez

y de Gras shouldn't be used as a prison ship to

transport common criminals."

 

"In case you've forgotten, Daddy," Nancia replied,

"those 'common criminals' are the very same people I

transported to the Nyota system on my maiden

voyage... and didn't you pull a few strings to arrange

that assignment for me?"

 

Javier Perez y de Gras sat down heavily in one of the

comfortably padded cabin chairs. "I did that," he said.

"I thought it would be nice for you to have some

young company ... young people of your own class

and background ... for your first voyage. An easy as-

signment, I thought."

 

"So did I," Nancia said. Some of the sadness she felt

crept into her voice; whatever she'd done to her feed-

back loops, it seemed to work both ways. She could no

longer maintain the perfectly controlled, emotionally

uninflected vocal tones she had prided herself on

producing before the hyperchip disaster. "So did I.

But it turned out... rather more complicated than

that. And I didn't know what to do. Maybe I did make

some 'errors in judgment.' I didn't have a lot of advice,

if you recall. "Just a taped good-luck message from a man too

busy and important to come to my graduation.

 

"I recall," her father said. "Call that my error, if you

like. Once you'd made it through Lab Schools to

graduation and commissioning, you seemed to be

doing so well, and I was worried about Flix. Still am,

for that matter." He sighed. "Anyway, there you were,

off to the start of a glorious career, and my other two

children had problems aplenty."

 

"Not Jinevra!" Nancia exclaimed. "I always thought

 

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317

 

she was the perfect example of what you wanted us to

 

become."

 

"I wanted you to become yourselves," her father

said. "Apparently I didn't communicate that to you.

Jinevra's a paper-doll cutout of the ideal PTA ad-

ministrator, and I don't know how to talk to her any

more. And as for Flix — well, you know about Flix. I

thought he needed attention more than you. Thought

a few suggestions, maybe an entry-level position in

some branch of Central where he could work himself

up and someday amount to something ... of course

he'd have to give up fooling around with the

synthcom...." Javier Perez y de Gras sighed. "Flix

never has straightened out. I don't know, perhaps he

feels neglected on account of all those years when I

took every free moment to visit you at Lab Schools. I

didn't have that much time for him then. Even the day

he was born, I was at Lab Schools, watching you be

fitted for your first mobile shell. Seemed he needed me

more than you.... I thought it was time to redress the

 

balance."

 

Nancia absorbed the impact of this speech quietly.

For the first time, looking at her father's worn face, she

began to comprehend how much time and effort he

must have really given to his family over the years.

Since their mother had quietly retired to the haven of

Blissto addiction in a hush-hush, genteel clinic, he had

tried to be both father and  mother to three

obstreperous, brilliant, demanding High Families

brats. Another man might have leaned too hard on his

children for emotional comfort; another career

diplomat might have shunted the children into ex-

clusive boarding schools and forgotten about them.

But Daddy was no Faul del Parma, to use and abuse

and forget his children. He'd done the best he could

for them ... within his limitations .,. snatching mo-

ments between meetings, suffering long tiring

 

318   AnneMcCaffrey &MargaretBaU

 

rerourings between assignments to spend a day or two

on their planets, juggling a diplomat's unforgiving

schedule to work in graduations and school plays.

 

"An error of judgment, perhaps," Javier Perez y de

Gras said when the silence had lasted too long, "but

never... please believe me... an error of love. You're

my daughter. I only wanted the best for you." And

rising from his padded chair, he laid one hand briefly

on the titanium column that enclosed and protected

Nancia's shell.

 

"Requesting permission to come aboard!"

 

There was no identification this time, but Nancia

recognized Forister's voice, even though there was

something unfamiliar about the way he drew the

words out She activated her external sensors and saw

not only Forister but General Questar-Benn standing

on the landing pad.

 

"Request permission to come aboard," Forister

repeated. He was pronouncing his words very careful-

ly. And Micaya Questar-Benn was standing very

properly, stiff as if she were on a parade-ground. A

suspicion began to grow in Nancia's mind.

 

She slid open the lower doors and waited. A mo-

ment later the airlock door opened and Micaya

Questar-Benn stepped into the lounge. Very slowly

and carefully.

 

Forister followed. He was holding an open botde in

one hand.

 

"You are drunk," Nancia said severely.

 

Forister looked wounded. "Not yet. Wouldn't get

drunk before I came back to share the news with you.

Just... happy. Very happy," he expatiated. "Very,

very, very... where was 1?"

 

"Looking at the bottom of a bottle of Sparkling

Heorot, I suspect," Nancia told him.

 

Forister's wounded expression intensified. "Please!

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

319

 

Do you think I'd toast the best brainship on Central in

that cheap stuff? It's only fit for, for..."

 

"Starving musicians?" Nancia suggested. Some day

she would have to have a serious talk with Daddy about

Flix; suggest that he stop finding Flix promising career

openings and just let the boy be a synthocommer. But

this latest visit of Daddy's hadn't seemed the right time to

bring the subject up. And she couldn't beam him now;

Forister had other things on his mind. What there was

left ofhis mind, she corrected with a shade of envy.

 

"I'll have you know," Forister announced with a

flourish, "this is genuine Old Earth wine! Badacsonyi

Keknyelu, no less!"

 

Nancia's new language module included not only

Latin and Greek but a sprinkling of less well-known Old

Earth tongues. She skimmed the Hungarian dictionary.

"Blue-Tongue Lake Badacsony? Are you sure?"

 

"Believe him," Micaya Questar-Benn chimed in. Like

Forister, she was taking great care with her consonants.

"If it's as good as the red stuff, it's worth every credit he

paid for it What was the red stuff called, Forister?"

 

"Egri Bikaver."

 

"Bull's Blood from Eger," Nancia translated. "Oh,

well. You know, sometimes I don't really mind not

being able to share softshell pleasures. Er — what are

we celebrating?"

 

"End of the trial! Don't you follow the newsbytes?"

 

"Not lately. They never have much to say," Nancia

equivocated. And if there were any questions about my

deposition, I don't want to hear them.

 

"Well, they do now." Forister pulled himself erect

and stood in the center of the lounge swaying slightly.

"Sentencing was this morning. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong

and Darnell Overton-Glaxely got twenty-five years

each. They'll do community service on a newly

colonized planet—under strict guard."

 

"Alpha may be some use to the colonists," Nancia

 

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Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Batt

 

commented, "but I don't know what a bunch of poor

innocent colonists have done that they should be sad-

dled with Darnell."

 

"Farming world," Forister said cheerfully. "They

need a lot of stoop labor. As for the rest—" He sobered

briefly. "Polyon's back to Shemali."

 

"What?"

 

"Working the hyperchip burnofflines," Forister

said. "The new manager's worked out a failsafe way to

disable the virus Polyon built into his hyperchip

design. So the factories are to continue production...

under somewhat more responsible management I'm

afraid the supply of hyperchips is going to dip for a

while; you probably won't be able to replace the ones

you burned out for some time, Nanda."

 

"I can deal with that," Nancia said dryly. It would be

a long time indeed before she let any chip designed by

Polyon de Gras-Waldheim within connecting distance

of her motherboards!

 

Forister still hadn't mentioned the two people whose

fete concerned her most "And Blaize?" It couldn't be too

bad, or Forister wouldn't be celebrating like that

 

"Five years' community service," Forister told her.

"Could be worse. They've dug up a planet in Deneb sub-

space — son of like Angalia, only worse, and the only

sentient life form resembles giant spiders, and nobody's

ever been able to communicate with them. Blaize was

moaning and groaning, but I suspect he can't wait to start

teaching the spiders ASL. We'll have to drop by after the

next assignment and see how he's doing."

 

"Next assignment?"

 

"Here's the datacording." Forister dropped a

hedron into Nancia's reader slot. She scanned the in-

structions while he and Micaya broke open the bottle

of Badacsonyi Keknyelu. The three of them had been

assigned as a team to Theta Szentmari... a very, very

long way from Central, through three separate Sin-

 

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321

 

gularity points. One Singularity transition brought

them briefly into Deneb subspace.

 

"And what," she inquired, "do we do when we get

there?" Assuming they still uxxnt me as a bmmship... I suppose

they do. But tufty hasn't anybody said a word about fiissa ?

 

"Sealed orders." Forister tossed a second hedron

into the reader; Nancia found to her chagrin that she

; could not decrypt the information on this one. "Sup-

posed to be self-decrypting when we pass through the

third Singularity," Forister explained. "Apparently

^whatever's going on there is too hot to explain on

central... they're that worried about leaks. They've

»een discussing the possibility of making the three of

is a permanent investigative team for hot little scan-

' Is like whatever is wrong on Theta Szentmari."

 

"And what," Nancia asked carefully, "do the two of

you think about that? Now that the trial's over?

id... you never did tell me about Fassa."

"Ah, yes, Fassa." Forister's merry twinkle diminished

-Jightiy. "Sev's going out to Rigel IV with her, did you

[know that? He says hell try to pick up El. or security

work there, wait out her term."

"Twenty-five years?"

 

"Ten. They recommended clemency in view of her

apparent rehabilitation ... helping us trap Polyon,

and that very moving attempt to defend me when

Polyon was holding us all hostage inside Singularity.

Most of which came through brilliantly in your image

datacordings, Nancia." Forister smiled benignly.

"There were a few gaps, though."

 

Here it comes. She'd been trying not to think about

that aspect of the trial. "I did tell you I'd suffered some

memory loss," Nancia reminded him.

 

"So you did, so you did.... Anyway. The court wasn't

sure what to make of all that; she'd already been arrested,

after all, and she could just have been trying to put herself

in the best possible light for the trial. But there was one

 

322

 

Arme McCaffrey & Margaret BaU

 

thing from earlier, well before she was arrested, that con-

vinced them she wasn't quite as seltcenteredly fraudulent

as her partners in crime." Forister twinkled. "Itseemsthat

when a factory she built on Shemali collapsed, she put up

the new building free of charge. Sev Bryley brought that

into evidence. Now, it seems to me that J heard Polyon

saying he'd terrorized her into that replacement But

Polyoris trial was over before Sev brought out the story of

the Shemali buildings, so he couldn't be recalled for cross-

examination. And one of those little blips in your

datacording happened just at the moment when Polyon

was explaining that little matter to us."

 

Nancia felt a glowing heat from all her upper-deck

circuits. "I did tell you I'd suffered some memory loss,"

she repeated.

 

"Very conveniently arranged, though."

 

"All right. I canceled that part of the datacording. I

— Fassa's had problems to deal with worse than any-

thing you or I ever faced," Nancia said. "From what I

overheard, keeping watch on her and Sev — you don't

know what her father did to her."

 

"I can guess," Forister said.

 

"Well, then. It doesn't excuse what she did, I know

that. And it would kill her to have all that brought out

in court. But — she hasn't had many breaks," Nancia

said. "She never knew what it was to have a loving

family behind her." Fve been so much luckier — even if I

didn't know it for a little while. "I thought she deserved

that much of a second chance."

 

Silence followed this statement.

 

"I — it was dishonest," Nancia admitted. "And I

know that. And if you two don't want to be partnered

with me any more..."

 

"Knew about the buildings already," Micaya

pointed out "We were there too, if you recall, /didn't

see any need to stand up in court and contradict Sev's

rather touching evidence. Neither did your brawn

 

PARTNERSHIP

 

323

 

here." She threw her head back and drained her glass

of imported wine in one gulp. Forister winced.

"Then—" Nancia was confused.

Forisfcer patted her titanium column. "It was... in die

nature of a test, you might say," he told her. "Mic, here,

thought you'd been with Caleb too long, absorbed too

much of his black-and-white attitude to be as flexible as a

good investigative team needs to be. We may be feeing

some delicate assignments. Need to make some judg-

ment calls—can'trely on CS regulations to answer every

question. Now / thought you had the maturity to make

your own moral judgments—including knowing when

to keep silent After all, you didn't lie about any of Fassa's

wrongdoing; all that evidence is dear in your deposition.

\bu just—balanced—what you couldn't say about her

tragic childhood, against what you didn't have to say

about her work on Shemali."

"You don't despise me for it?"

"I did the same thing," Forister pointed out, "and

without benefit of your inside information on Fassa's

childhood."

 

"Then — it wasn't wrong?"

 

"You're an adult now, Nancia. You use your own

judgment What do you think?" Forister asked.

 

Nancia was still thinking when they reached the first

Singularity point on the run to Theta Szentmari. With

Forister and Micaya strapped down in their cabins, she

arced through the collapsing spaces in an effortless flash-

ing dive. Space and time twisted and reformed about her

as she chose their path through continually changing

matrices of transformations. For the few seconds of per-

fect, gliding, dangerous transition she danced and swam

in her own element, making her own decisions.

As she continued to do for the rest of her career.

 

— THE END —