"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 this yoga. yoga."

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 clean air in and out through her ventilation ports, "just regular. Even. Smooth. That's the idea. Now close your...umm, deactivate your visual sensors."

Usually Nancia hated the blackness that accompanied temporary loss of visual sensor connections. But this time it was voluntary. And Sev's voice continued, low and soothing...and it was was restful not to be scanning her remodeled interior. 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 walking across the landing field towards the s.p.a.ceport central building...no. She wouldn't break the concentration of the exercise now; Sev's patient instructions were working. 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 sh.e.l.l. Caleb's near-quarrel with Sev, the approaching confrontation off Bahati, even the exciting suspicion that Daddy had personally recommended her for this a.s.signment...all these doubts and fears and hopes seemed very small and far away. Nancia contemplated 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.... She wouldn't break the concentration of the exercise now; Sev's patient instructions were working. 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 sh.e.l.l. Caleb's near-quarrel with Sev, the approaching confrontation off Bahati, even the exciting suspicion that Daddy had personally recommended her for this a.s.signment...all these doubts and fears and hopes seemed very small and far away. Nancia contemplated 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....

"Restore full sensor connections." Sev's calm order was like a gentle wake-up call. Nancia opened her sensors one by one, feeling anew the wonder of existence. The gritty s.p.a.ceport floor beneath her landing gear, the smell of engine oil in the air outside, the sights and sounds of an ordinary working s.p.a.ceport 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 off as 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 movement would destroy the trance of peace in which she was still floating. And, 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. 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 subs.p.a.ce. Razmak possessed the very useful quality of being located just one hour's s.p.a.ceflight away from a Singularity zone opening directly onto Vega subs.p.a.ce 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 advantages of Razmak Base; Nancia hoped he would feel the same way when they exited into Vega subs.p.a.ce.

For herself, Nancia had been looking forward to the jump. She skimmed the rolling waves of collapsing subs.p.a.ce, dove and surfaced and spiraled through the s.p.a.ces until the decomposition funnel drew her whirling into its shrinking s.p.a.ce. Systems of linear equations followed their orderly dance; s.p.a.ce 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 subs.p.a.ce with an exuberant shout of joy, the golden notes of a Purcell trumpet voluntary echoing through concealed pa.s.sages 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 of blackness 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 closed down all the other sensors and expanded the image of Caleb. Her brawn wasn't usually inclined to Service fripperies; 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 rainbow lightfires every time he drew a deep breath.

"You've developed a distaste for cla.s.sical music?" It was the only thing she could think of to say-the only thing that was even remotely safe to say.

"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 much too loud." too loud."

"I suppose I should apologize for the unintended a.s.sault on your delicate sensors," Nancia said. "I had turned off the cabin speakers, and I wasn't aware that there was another softsh.e.l.l aboard."

"A what?"

Had Caleb really spent four and a half years as her brawn without ever once hearing the slang term that sh.e.l.lpersons 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 sh.e.l.l. "Caleb, you idiot, you could have been killed killed! 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 takeoffs or landings," Caleb pointed out. "Too fond of showing off your land-on-an-eggsh.e.l.l, 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 pa.s.s the time."

"Stop trying to change the subject! Why Why didn't you tell me you were going to be aboard?" 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 Bryley. 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 compromise the b.l.o.o.d.y mission. But I couldn't let you face this gang of thieves 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. Sev is using his cabin. He isn't going to like that. Oh-oh. Sev is using his cabin. He isn't going to like 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 mission. I agreed to that, and you'll have to do the same." "Work it out with Sev. If one of you can hide, I guess two of you can. But-he's in charge for this mission. 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 a.s.sent 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 traditions 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 Andre, 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 occasion. His sense of honor was a royal pain in the 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 G.o.d, and the Geneva Conventions, Nancia found and activated her files of baroque bra.s.s 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 finally ran out of things to say.

Fa.s.sa del Parma paced the loading dock of Bahati s.p.a.ceBase II, biting her lip. Ever since that near-debacle over s.p.a.ceBase 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 Xanadu and given him what he wanted, hadn't she? And when that hadn't proved sufficient to shut the man up-Fa.s.sa stopped pacing and bit her lip. All she'd wanted from Darnell was to fake a minor gambling 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 dumping their unconscious bodies in a recycling bin. She should have recognized Darnell's s.a.d.i.s.tic tendencies, she should have remembered the whispers about mysterious disappearances from the Pair-a-Dice. and given him what he wanted, hadn't she? And when that hadn't proved sufficient to shut the man up-Fa.s.sa stopped pacing and bit her lip. All she'd wanted from Darnell was to fake a minor gambling 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 dumping their unconscious bodies in a recycling bin. She should have recognized Darnell's s.a.d.i.s.tic 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 Darnell's OG Shipping drone, Fa.s.sa leaned her head against the wall for a moment. It gave slightly where her forehead pressed against it; that was what happened when you replaced the contracted synthosteel with steel-painted plastifilm. Not that she cared. Not that anybody cared about anything. That was how the world was, and n.o.body 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? n.o.body had ever cared about her, her, had they? 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?

Fa.s.sa blinked rapidly and activated the series of locks that would automatically check on the seal between an attached ship and the s.p.a.cebase itself, equalize pressures and open the s.p.a.cebase for loading and unloading. She hadn't economized on that part of the work. She was clever enough to keep well above standards on any part of a contract that might jeopardize her personal safety. Clever enough, she thought as the s.p.a.cebase 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 s.p.a.ceport 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 s.p.a.ce. And everywhere she looked, on columns and walls and internal panels, Fa.s.sa 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 stencils. Looked like a rush job. Darnell didn't take the 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. Fa.s.sa 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 forces 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," Fa.s.sa requested briskly. Darnell had stiffed her on one load of supplies, reselling it and pocketing the profit himself and blandly denying that any of his drones had been anywhere near s.p.a.ceBase 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d's drones.

"Your credit transfer will be. Approved. As soon as the. Loading is complete."

Fa.s.sa 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 applications 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 d.a.m.ned 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 s.p.a.ceBase until the credit slip is approved."

"Agreed." The last word from the droneship had a very human sound of resignation to it. Darnell had had been fooling with the Shemali metachips in his ships; Fa.s.sa was now willing to bet on it. been fooling with the Shemali metachips in his ships; Fa.s.sa 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 anything like that would happen again-not with the number of senators and bankers and inspectors Fa.s.sa now had personally dedicated to her welfare. Fa.s.sa activated the s.p.a.cebase'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 Fa.s.sa by personal loyalty-and by the stock which they had vested in Polo Construction. Those stock options were an expense Fa.s.sa regretted, but it was necessary to ensure the absolute silence of her a.s.sistants. 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 Fa.s.sa was too small to operate the machines. When she calculated what this one fact 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 b.u.t.ton.

Someday, she promised herself. When I have enough money. When I feel strong enough...and secure enough...when I am enough.

Somehow she felt that such a day would never arrive.

But the twenty-five percent mark on transfer had arrived...and it was time to claim her credit slip. Fa.s.sa motioned to the 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. "Request 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, Fa.s.sa reflected that she would have to recommend some better linguists to Darnell.

The lift-door irised open and Fa.s.sa, wrapped in her satisfied thoughts, took one step forward before she took in the glitter of silver and corycium braid against the deep-s.p.a.ce 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. Fa.s.sa fell back onto the loading dock floor, dragging her a.s.sailant with her. He landed heavily on her midsection, knocking the breath out of her. Where were the d.a.m.ned loading crew? Couldn't they see something had gone wrong?

"Fa.s.sa del Parma-I arrest you-in the name of Central Worlds-for embezzlement of s.p.a.ceBase-construction and supplies," the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wheezed. Both his hands were around her wrists now, pinning her to the floor. Fa.s.sa gasped for breath, brought up a knee into the brute's crotch, and wriggled free in one movement. 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 problem, 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 s.p.a.cebase.

The droneship's loading doors slammed shut. How had the b.a.s.t.a.r.d managed to transmit the command? He should still be writhing in agony.

He was. But as Fa.s.sa looked, he rose to his knees. "Under-arrest," he panted.

"That's what you think," Fa.s.sa 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 needler 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. Fa.s.sa aimed the needler 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 Faul del Parma. All turning green around her, and her fingers almost too weak to squeeze the needler; what was happening? Fa.s.sa swayed on her feet, squeezed the needler 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 close to miss. So close...

Fa.s.sa 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 Fa.s.sa with his black and silver uniform all spoiled by blood.

CHAPTER TEN.

"Don't gas the lift! Don't gas the lift!"

The shouted commands, coming from a closed-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 the agonizingly slow pa.s.sage 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 clean 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 corridor!" 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 clean 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."

"I need a clear head now 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 bleeding...there shouldn't be so much from a needler...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. a.n.a.lyze?" He dropped a torn and b.l.o.o.d.y strip of cloth 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 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 a.n.a.lyze what else was in the needler?"

"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 Fa.s.sa's needler 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 fatal. 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 Razmak Base in Bellatrix subs.p.a.ce. You're not seriously suggesting I take a man in this condition through Singularity, are you?"

"There happens to be an excellent clinic on Bahati," the Murasaki Base brain replied. "If you were calm enough to check the Net records I'm transmitting, CN, you'd see that the a.s.sistant 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. s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation forgotten for nearly four years echoed in Nancia's memory. An expert in Ganglicide therapy right there at the Summerlands clinic...testing Ganglicide on unwitting subjects...so far gone on Blissto they didn't even know what was happening to them....