Partnership.

Anne McCaffrey.

CHAPTER ONE

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 cla.s.s 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 subs.p.a.ce - and via the surgically installed synaptic connectors that linked Nancia's physical body, safe behind its t.i.tanium sh.e.l.l, 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 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 embarra.s.sing 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 sh.e.l.lpersons 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 s.p.a.ce."

"I do have full access to my charts of known decom- position s.p.a.ces," 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 s.p.a.ces collapsing and contorting about 3.

the singularity point where local subs.p.a.ce could be defined as intersecting with the subs.p.a.ce sector of Nyota ya Jaha. At that point Nancia would be able to create a rapid physical decomposition and restructur- ing of the local s.p.a.ces, projecting herself and her pa.s.sengers from one subs.p.a.ce to the other. Decom- position s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.sive parallel computations required in Singularity were difficult even for a brainship and impossible for most conventional ships.

"Tell me about the pa.s.sengers," 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 pa.s.sengers 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 a.s.signment 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 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 cla.s.s. 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 pa.s.sengers?" 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 pa.s.sengers 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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- 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 subs.p.a.ce as Vega, so that's all right"

Nancia vaguely remembered something about Vega subs.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.lpeople 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 a.s.signed pa.s.sengers.

"Overton-Glaxely, del Parma y Polo, Armontillado- Perez y Medoc, de Gras-Waldheim, Hezra-Fong,"

CenCom read off the list of ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.senger 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 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.

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 subs.p.a.ce, 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 sh.e.l.lpersons, and she had no intention of being hustled by Central into forgoing her right to choose a brawn just because some sh.e.l.ltapper 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 a.s.sumed it was her little brother: spiky red hair in an old-fashioned punk crown, one long peac.o.c.k'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 bra.s.s 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 n.o.body 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.

9.

Flix turned his head toward the t.i.tanium 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 sh.e.l.l 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 t.i.tanium 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 embarra.s.sed 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."

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 a.s.signment 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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 s.p.a.cED 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 s.p.a.cED 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 subs.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l!"

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 s.p.a.cED 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."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 t.i.tanium sh.e.l.l 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 cla.s.smates.

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

"You'd like it, Nancia," Flix said hopefully as the 13.

projected image of Jinevra faded into a blank screen.

"Really. It's the best version s.p.a.ceGamers has ever * released. It's got sixty-four levels of hidden tunnels, and simulated Singularity s.p.a.ce, and holodwarfs...."

"Holodwarfs?"

'Just look." Flix dropped the glittering datahedron into the nearest reader slit - f.a.n.n.y, 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 s.p.a.ce where his head had been, rolled towards a control panel and shouted, "s.p.a.ce 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?"