The Ship Who Sang

Once back on the ship, it was easier to spot those who were psychologically twisting their orientation. They tended to express themselves in Corviki terms, as Prane and Chadress had the night before. The only one who seemed impervious was Ansra, but then, Ansra was so wrapped up in her personal grievances, she had no energy. . . there I go, moaned Helva. . . for objective experiences.

Opening night on Beta Corviki was a white-hot, frenetic triumph as far as Corviki acceptance of this form of energy loss was concerned. Beyond the stand of fronds were masses of Corviki, pulsing, throbbing as they absorbed the cast's emission, to all appearances starved for this form of energy.

Helva could feel her Corviki envelope swell to incredible dimension as the feedback resulted in a thermal reaction, giving her an unlimited mass to energize to a high excitation level. Yet she was also aware that the Corviki audience understood the conflict of the two warring energy-groups, of the desire of the two new, but not shallow, entities to combine into a new force group, of the energy-stoking of herself as the Nurse, of the brilliant light of beta particles exchanged by the two new entities, swearing neuron coalitions and, finally, forced to expend the vital energy of their cores to bring the warring groups to the realization that coexistence was possible on their energy level.

As the Prince summed up the entropy death of the two, novas of approval exploded outside the fronded area. And Helva, gross with feedback, found herself racing to emit into the nearest drained entity some ergs of that pressure, in a self-sacrifice that was ecstatic. All around her, the atmosphere crackled, popped, boomed and thundered with the resultant explosions as immeasurable positive forces recombined and all the previously expended energy was reabsorbed.

Then, indeed, did Helva bless the surgeons. Bless and curse them for hauling her inexorably back from such glorious intercourse. She dazedly recalled her scattered wits as warning lights and signals penetrated the coruscating impressions and forced her to be aware of imminent danger.

Lax figures lay, lifeless puppets with no more sign of vitality than the slight rise and fall of chests.

Scared, Helva tripped the transceivers. Lights reluctantly faded on the transceivers and still no one stirred. It seemed an eternity to Helva before Ansra moaned.

"Ansra. Ansra," Helva called in an insistent, hard voice, hoping to penetrate the woman's trancelike state. "Ansra. Ansra."

"Wha. . . what?"

"Get to the galley. Get stimulant K, in the blue i.v. spray."

It was like moving a robot. She kept droning her orders, relentlessly forcing Ansra to obey. The woman's eyes blinked, her body jerked as Helva encouraged, ordered, demanded the necessary actions. Finally she got Ansra's hands around the right i.v., and got the uncoordinated body to depress the dermospray against her arm. The stimulant took effect.

"Oh migod, oh migod," Ansra muttered hoarsely. "Oh migod."

"Ansra. Give them all injections. Move, woman, move."

The actress was still little better than an automaton, so Helva took advantage of her will-lessness to make her give Kurla and Prane the first injections. Then Chadress. It was a stunned group who returned to their former bodies.

"I don't think I can go back there," Escalus told Prane in a hoarse tremulo. He put both hands to his temples, where the transceiver had left a red band. "Never thought to see the day when I couldn't face an audience because they liked me too much. But man, that place is. . . is," his eyes widened with a terror he mastered. "I almost said, pure entropy." And he laughed. "But that's what's wrong with it all."

Prane, looking as drained and haunted as the others, managed a weak smile.

"There is no question that we have been overwhelmed by an unpredicted reaction. At this moment," and he paused to emphasize the phrase, "I would find a return engagement inconceivable. No, no discussion now. We need to convert mass, in the parlance of our hosts, into much-needed energy and to conserve our emissions. But I want to say how very, very proud I am of you all."

It was as well, Helva knew, for the cast could not have accepted, in their present enervation, the devastating truth of their captivity.

The silence of the ship was unbroken, even by Prane's nightly litany. Helva, too, found herself close to the verge of unconsciousness, too fatigued to worry about the problems of the morrow.

The next day brought no visible change. Everyone was still enervated. Kurla turned professional and roused those seeking oblivion in slumber to take high protein meals and massive therapeutic i.v. sprays.

Toward the evening of that day, Helva got Chadress alone in the galley for a conference.

"We'll have to put it off as long as we can, Helva. These people are drained dry. I know," and he shook his head slowly. "How're you doing?"

Helva temporized. "I always maintained shell-people are as human as anyone mobile. I know it now. I'll find it extremely difficult to go back to Beta Corvi myself. Only I know we have no choice."

"What do you mean, Helva?" Chadress didn't have enough energy left to be more than mildly curious.