The Ship Who Sang

Escalus was right, Helva thought. She found it all too easy to think in Corvikian terms. And Prane and Chadless seemed to have moved theatre semantics into another frame of reference entirely. She'd heard them discussing staging in terms of excitation phases, shell movements, particle emissions, subshell directionals until she wondered if they were talking theatre or nuclear physics.

She kept an eye on Prane, anyhow. Kurla was too, but playing Juliet to Prane's Romeo was overloading her circuits sufficiently to cloud her discretionary. . . Helva caught herself up sharply. The sooner they all got away from here, the better.

She watched Kurla administer an additional sedative to Ansra. The woman had been kept unconscious for 40 hours. Five more wouldn't hurt her. It had certainly improved the ship's atmosphere.

She told Kurla that she'd be down directly and then checked all circuitry on the ship. Once the Corviki removed that power block they could leave, but she wanted no last-minute delays.

Prane was offstage when she got down, dominating with his understudy. She found hers and then was swept into scene ii of the fourth act.

The Corviki had more trouble this cycle controlling their suppressed energy. It occurred to Helva that Davo need not have worried that the dramatic content would be lacking. Remove all the instructors with their frail spirits, and the Corviki would deliver every bit of excitation required by the formulae.

Helva had to expend effort now to control excitement. Prane did, too, for as he and his understudy, the two Balthasars beside them, waited to enter the churchyard for Romeo's death scene, he seemed to be leaking energy.

"The time controls are fixed?" he asked nervously. "They cannot be altered?"

He was on before Helva could answer.

The rehearsal was soon over. The Manager had to exert tremendous control over his spontaneous emissions as he complimented the actors. He announced that the information on isotope stabilization had been sent to the ship in a specially prepared container, and that the ship's power was unblocked. He kept emitting on such a broad baud that Helva felt the insidious tug of entropy and resolutely made her farewells.

Transferring back, it took her a moment, a moment of regret that seemed an eternity, to get her bearings. She detected the container neatly secured in her engine room, violently radioactive as yet, so it had better stay where it was.

Someone groaned in the dimly lit cabin. Dimly lit? But she hadn't lowered the lights!

She brought up every light in the ship, scanning the pilot's cabin for Ansra. The bed was empty. How had she thrown off the drug? Helva did a searching scan and found Ansra, crouched down by Prane's body. In her hands were the wires that led to the transceivers on Prane and Kurla.

"Ansra, that's the same as murder!" Helva roared, trying with sheer volume to stun the woman. With the determination of vengeance, Ansra ripped the helmets from their users and tried to tear the units apart.

Even as Ansra was acting, Helva triggered the return on the transceivers, desperately hoping that she'd forestall Ansra's intention. It seemed so long, with the woman's harsh panting as metronome, until transceiver lights winked out across the rim of the helmets. On one, the light remained. On Chadress.

"Davo! Davo!" Helva shouted.

The actor, shaking his head as the urgency of her voice roused him, responded dazedly. Then he saw Ansra, saw what she was doing and launched himself at her. Davo's thrust pinned her against the far wall as other members of the cast began to revive.

"Escalus, help Davo with that crazy woman," Helva ordered, for Ansra was twisting and screaming, beating at Davo with maddened strength. "Benvolio, come on, man. Snap out of it. Check Chadress. How's his pulse?"

Benvolio leaned to the limp body beside Mm. "Too slow, I think. It's so. . . so faint."

"I've got to get back to Corvi. Someone, Nia, you're awake. Find two usable transceivers in the mess Ansra made of them and put 'em on Prane and Kurla. I've got to get them back here."

"Wait, Helva." She heard Davo call as she was in the act of transferring.

The Manager was beside her. And so were the shells that were undeniably Prane, Kurla, and Chadress. Their pressure dominances were overwhelming.

"Stay with us, Helva. Stay with us. It's a new life, brand new, with all the power in the universe to control. Why go back to a sterile life in an immobile envelope? Stay with us."

Too tempted, too terrified to listen further, Helva retreated to the safety of her ship, the sanctuary of the only security she knew.

"Helva!" Davo's voice rang in all her ears.

"I'm back," she murmured.

"Thank God. I was afraid you'd stay with them."

"You knew they'd stay?"

"Even without Ansra's help," Davo admitted. Beyond him Nia nodded.

"It's the answer for Kurla and Prane, you know," Nia said. "Hell, they can combine energies now," and her laugh was mirthless.

"But Chadress?"

"Shock you, huh, that a brawn would defect?" Davo asked sympathetically. "But he wouldn't be a brawn much longer, would he, Helva?"

"And what if I had stayed?"

"Well," Davo admitted, "Chadress didn't think you could, but he did think you should."