"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 word of grat.i.tude or farewell to the servants who had, presumably, waited on her through the twenty years of Governor Thrixtopple's service. It was clear where her daughter had learned that penetrating whine. 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 word of grat.i.tude or farewell to the servants who had, presumably, waited on her through the twenty years of Governor Thrixtopple's service. It was clear 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 urgently 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 Nancia. "Never to me....If I don't get a new a.s.signment, 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 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 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. 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 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, Nancia 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 considerably faster than that when you're so inclined, XN."

"I...um...I didn't see any need to hurry," Nancia muttered. d.a.m.n the man! Too stiff-necked to admit that he, too, could benefit from a slightly gentler takeoff!

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 s.p.a.ce now, lemme play with the computer!" the boy demanded.

Nancia slid her datareaders shut as the boy approached and deliberately blanked her screens. "I'm sorry, young sir. Courier Service Regulations, volume XVIII, section 1522, subsection 6.2, paragraph mcmlii, strictly prohibit allowing unauthorized pa.s.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 sh.e.l.l, that's not meant to apply to people like us!" Governor Thrixtopple bl.u.s.tered 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 told you to ferry us to Central!" 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 Command 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 enforce 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 lie? lie?"

"My deepest apologies, ma'am. It was only that I had no personal recollection of the paragraph in question-"

"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... Unlike the older models...She cut that thought off before 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 containing two simple closed curves. Three disks labeled A1, B, and A2 contained sections of the torus. "You're in A1; A2 is your target s.p.a.ce. Find the Singularity points and compute the decompositions required."

"No fair," Nancia protested. "It's never even been proved that there is 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(J1), 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 s.p.a.ce H does not yield E3. And in this application," she reminded Caleb, "E3 is equivalent to normal s.p.a.ce." 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(J1), 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 s.p.a.ce H does not yield E3. And in this application," she reminded Caleb, "E3 is equivalent to normal s.p.a.ce."

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-s.p.a.ce mathematics it's never been disproved," Nancia grumbled.

"So? Perhaps you'll be the first to find a counterexample."

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 impossibility 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 family 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 A1 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 pa.s.sengers making illegal plans."

"If you've been eavesdropping on Governor Thrixtopple in his cabin," Caleb said sternly, "that's a dishonorable action and I hereby formally request you to stop it immediately."

"Oh, I haven't," Nancia a.s.sured him. "But what if-if a brainship had some pa.s.sengers who didn't know didn't know she was sentient, and they liked to sit in the central cabin and play s.p.a.cED OUT, and they just happened to discuss some possibly illegal plans while they were doing it?" she was sentient, and they liked to sit in the central cabin and play s.p.a.cED 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 grueling 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 circ.u.mstances. She would not have wanted to hear him laugh at her as Simeon had done, or suggest-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 pa.s.sengers 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 the subject.

So, evidently, did Caleb. He looked up at the central display screen, where a network of dim gray lines showed Nancia's repeated attempts to compute a path of Singularity points through the topological configuration 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 improving 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 right right! I don't understand why you're asking for ethical guidance from a brawn whose greatest achievement 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. "I 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 grat.i.tude 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 forward 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 a.s.signment yet-"

"And what brainship is going to accept the brawn who let the CL-740 die?" Caleb snapped back. "You yourself have made that little point tolerably clear, XN. Now drop it. Next problem, please!"

Nancia started transmitting to CenCom-on a private beam-the moment she exited Singularity and entered Central Worlds subs.p.a.ce. She wanted to have everything arranged, with no possibility of argument, before Caleb was ready to leave the ship.

All proceeded as planned. Dahlen Rahilly, her Service 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 still in his cabin, using the cabin comm board to enter a job application 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. Paperwork," Rahilly said. "We...weren't expecting this, you know, XN. In fact, VS at Vega seemed quite certain that you had formally refused the a.s.signment."

"He...may have misinterpreted my words," Nancia said demurely. "How soon can it be arranged?" Sh.e.l.lcrack! While she was talking to Rahilly, Caleb had managed to dictate the complete text of his application 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 external beams seem to have lost power for a moment." beam?" Nancia replied. "Oh, dear. All my external beams seem to have lost power for a moment."

"We'll have a tech out to fix the malfunction immediately," 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 t.i.tanium 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 a.s.signment-there was one pending, actually; Central will 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 behind 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 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, right," Nancia said. It was a struggle to keep her voice projections 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 right right, all right!" 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- 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 display of stars and comets across her three wide screens. It was going to be all right.

More than all right. "Nancia," she repeated to herself. "He finally called me Nancia."

CHAPTER SIX.

Angalia, Central Date 2750: Blaize

Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc stared in disbelief 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 crumbly, 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 glop that looked like the Quagmire of Despair as displayed in the latest version of s.p.a.cED 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. that looked like the Quagmire of Despair as displayed in the latest version of s.p.a.cED 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, dangling right out over the sea of glop. On the side of the shanty nearest Blaize, the plastifilm roof had been extended with some sort of woven fronds to create a sagging awning. Beneath this awning lounged an immensely fat man wearing only a pair of sweat-stained briefs.

Blaize sighed and picked up the nearest two pieces of his kit. Staggering slightly under a gravity considerably higher than ship's norm, he made his way 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 corycium miners. They're the only humans on Angalia-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. 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 think I am?" I am?"

"The corycium mine-"

"Dead. Defunct. Abandoned. Kaput, 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." 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?"

"h.o.m.osimilis Lucilla Angalii to you, m'boy. The veg-heads Lucilla Sharif discovered, d.a.m.n her soul, and reported as possibly intelligent on the FCF, double-d.a.m.n her, and for her sins we're stuck administering Planetary Technical Aid to a bunch of walking zucchini. All the company I've had since they closed the mine. And all to you, m'boy. The veg-heads Lucilla Sharif discovered, d.a.m.n her soul, and reported as possibly intelligent on the FCF, double-d.a.m.n her, and for her sins we're stuck administering Planetary Technical Aid to a bunch of walking zucchini. All the company I've had since they closed the mine. And all you'll you'll 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 Families kids get, transport like that. I don't suppose you could persuade that brainship-" 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 Families kids get, transport like that. I don't suppose you could persuade that brainship-"

"I doubt it," Blaize said.