The Ship Who Sang

"Welcome board, Chadress Turo of Marak. It's nice to have a partner, however briefly."

Chadress caught the caustic undertone. "Hope I'm not the cause of your regrets?"

"No. You're the first happy face I've seen in the last two hours."

His eyes twinkled. "You've been put into Coventry by the brains and I had to be smuggled aboard to avoid outraged brawns. Oh, they'll all forget their pique. They always do. However, officially, you're in very good odor. Supervisor Parollan is taking personal credit for convincing you to accept. . ."

"The nerve of that pipsqueak. . ."

"I thought so," laughed Chadress. "Well, no matter. I'm not the only one who thought you'd be the only ship to do the job right and I've only rumors. . . and legends. . . to go by. But it's going to be a tricky mission with so much at stake, and so many explosive. . ."

"Personalities?"

Chadress laughed. "I've met many actors, I'm a classic buff myself, that's why I was called back. . ." he paused, his eyes seeing a middle distance, a slight frown on his face. "In fact, I leaped at the opportunity. Some of us should be allowed to die in harness. No matter. Here's the mission tape," and he dropped it in the slot. Before he touched the playback switch, he closed the lock and turned off all but the console audio. Then he eased into the pilot's chair and settled himself to listen.

Helva was amazed at how much of the tape's information she knew. The Nekkarese com man had had most of it correct.

A survey ship on a routine mission had intercepted pulsed energy emissions of tremendous power near Beta Corvi. They tracked the emissions to the sixth planet, a methane-ammonia giant, and assumed an orbit. Before they could prepare probes for exploration in such a corrosive atmosphere, they were contacted by the Corviki.

"It felt like pressure, as if a giant hand were covering my head and pressing knowledge into my brain," was the taped comment of the survey ship captain.

The unusual form of communication was nevertheless precise enough for the Corviki to grasp the nature of their unexpected visitors and to discover a commodity which they, unimaginably sophisticated scientifically, wanted.

"I guess the best analogy," the captain of the ship went on, "is that of the pure researcher who has devoted half a century to an intensive study of some esoteric subject. He masters it and finally has time to look around him and discovers that other things exist. . . like girls," the captain snickered, "and sex. He understands the theory but not the application, and he sure wants to learn."

Romeo and Juliet was a sample of the merchandise that had aroused the Corviki curiosity. If acceptable, the human company would teach understudies the full play, with movement adapted for the free-fall condition of Beta Corvi. Payment would be the Corviki process of stabilizing certain isotopes in the transuranian group whose power potential was unrealizable due to an exceedingly short half-life. Central Worlds badly needed such a process and the XH-834 was to ensure the success of this dramatic mission.

"Well, we'll give it the old home-world try," Helva said.

"You don't sound so sure."

"It sounds all too simple. For instance, this psyche transfer. How do we know it won't develop some unexpected snag and leave our people trapped down there in Corviki envelopes?"

"That's one reason we're equipping you with an override and a time control."

"Suppose the Corviki override me because they adore Colmer's Juliet?"

Chadress grinned at the notion, but threw the schematic picture of the transceiver circuitry onto the pilot's console. "Every eeg expert in the galaxy has had a go at these. There are no extraneous circuits, nothing that is not accounted for in the schematics. Furthermore, we manufactured them, not the Corviki. Now, they do specify that 7 hours is the endurance limit for our life form."

"Ahah!"

"Cool it. The transceiver has a time control, set for the maximum of seven hours, our time, so nothing could happen."

"After the maximum period, what happens to the personality if. . ."

"Don't invent problems. We've got enough. However, I did speak to the Survey Ship Captain and he was most encouraging about the transfer. In fact, he said it was perfect for a bunch of actors. You think that you want to be on the surface of the planet. And you are! No pain, no strain. Simplicity itself."

"Simplicity has a habit of expanding into catastrophe!"

Chadress called her a pessimist and went on with the briefing. She thought of half a dozen factors that could alter disastrously betwixt here and Beta Corvi, the least of which was ringing in an unknown device.

The adjustment to be attached to herself was even simpler. Even ingenious, she admitted, examining the compact device under microscopic lenses. It would link several infinitesimal strands already embedded in her cerebrum. One which extended deep in the area controlling the optic nerves, for the psyche transfer was triggered by this portion of the human brain. The other two were to link cross-over reflexes that would enable her to tune and to disconnect the psyche relay for the rest of the mobiles. All three synapse attachments were self-activitating and did not appear on the pilot's board.