The Ship Who Sang
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: brainship #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Ship Who Sang». Краткое содержание книги:
Her life was to be rich and rewarding . . . resplendent with daring adventures and endless excitement, beyond the wildest dreams of mere mortals.
Gifted with the voice of an angel and being virtually indestructible, Helva XH-834 anticipated a sublime immortality.
Then one day she fell in love!
"It was a case of being where I am needed, Davo. And sometimes you have to help by not doing anything, I guess," she added, more to herself. She looked then toward the four breathing but lifeless bodies. "Four." she cried aloud, stunned to identify Ansra, laid beside the others. "What did you do? How could you do it?"
"Easy," Nia replied, shrugging negligently. "A case of the punishment fitting the crime. Besides, the Corviki are better qualified to deal with unstable energies than we are, Helva. Can't we leave now?"
"Manager said the exchange had been made," Escalus said. "Have they unblocked your power?"
"Yes," Helva sighed, unwilling to act yet.
"Helva," Davo murmured gently, his hand palm down on the titanium column, "Helva, the play was the thing, wherein to catch the conscience."
As she wearily fed the return voyage tape into the computer, his words echoed in her mind like a gentle absolution.
With an exquisite sense of reprieve, Helva watched official debriefing experts disperse to their waiting vehicles that clustered in the floodlights at the base of the XH-834 like energy motes. . . Helva censored that analogy. Night-piercing lights blinked on, jabbed in crisscross webs as the groundcars turned and wheeled. All momentarily were parallel, outlining the darkened lower stories of Regulus Base tower. Not all the vehicles made for this structure, Helva noted. Some darted beyond, out of the Base complex, into the distant metropolis.
Shell-people were presumably inexhaustible, but Helva felt drained and depressed. She was not sure which experience had been the worse, coping with Beta Corvi or with the repetitive questioning of the affair by singleminded specialists. She could appreciate why Prane had made use of mindtrap to retard neuron loss. Had she no memory banks to scan, she might cheerfully have forgotten much of what had happened. Too bad she couldn't.
Helva sighed. Not, Helva, the XH-834, sleek BB ship of Central Worlds Medical Service, but Helva, the woman.
They encase us in titanium shells, place the shells in titanium bulkheads and consider us invulnerable. Physical injury is the least of the harmful accidents that this universe inflicts on its inhabitants; it is soonest mended.
Lights began to appear in the Base Tower and Helva was perversely delighted. So, others would have a sleepless night tonight. They deserve it, unsettling her fragile resolution of the Beta Corvi affair with their barrage of questions. How powerful was the Corvi community? How large were the individual entities? How long did she believe the human/Corviki shells that contained Prane, Kurla, Chadress, and Ansra would retain their previous loyalties and memories? How soon could, should a second expedition attempt to broach their atmosphere? What other mediums of exchange would Helva recommend, assuming Prane's encyclopedia of drama was bled from him? And why did she feel that the Corviki environment was so dangerous to the human mind? Could she explain the dangers? Could she recommend preventive measures to be used in preconditioning?
There was no consolation in the fact that every other member of the mission was also being closely interrogated, prodded and probed, physically as well as mentally. At least she was spared that, although the shell medics had run an acidity test and checked the intake on the nutrients that sustained her. There had been a rise in the protein flow, which was deemed consonant with the unusual activity required of her.
The Base computers were going to get a workout tonight, but she didn't want to have to think at all. Not about the Corviki, at any rate, or the four humans who had opted to remain in Corviki shells, to exchange and lose energy in the new sub-orbital. . .
"I don't want to think at all," Helva said aloud.
Restlessly she scanned outside, her glance reaching briefly the lighted windows in the brawn barracks. She felt no desire to place a call there. She hadn't the requisite flexibility to enjoy contact with new personalities, usually such a reviving and stimulating experience for her. She didn't want, either, to be alone tonight.
"This time I get a brawn before I move a centimeter from this base," she vowed.
The Service cemetery where Jennan lay buried was mercifully lost in darkness kilometers across the huge Base field, but she began to feel that distance psychologically diminishing.
Rather than dwell on that closed chapter of her life, she masochistically reviewed the last few hours. Had she really given them all the information available to her? Was she subconsciously withholding a single important fact or minor observation? Had she really analyzed the schizophrenic trauma of the human mind in the Corvi shell? Had she. . .
A groundcar braked to a rocking drop at the base and someone activated the passenger lift, which she had not withdrawn when the last of the debriefing group had left.
"Who the hell. . ."
"Parollan!" a sharp voice reassured her in the Supervisor's curt way.
As her Service Supervisor, Niall Parollan had naturally been present during debriefing. He had kept to the role of arbiter, speaking only when the experts had got excited or too insistent on points that Helva was unable to clarify. She had been grateful as well as impressed by his unexpectedly deft handling of the incidents. Evidently Parollan enjoyed considerable prestige in spite of his blunt manners. Was he returning for a private session?
He stepped into the airlock, feet spread, arms dangling at his side. He was glaring at her column with unexpected belligerence.
"Now what have I done?" Helva asked, masking a sudden apprehension.
As he broke the pose and swaggered forward, Helva wondered if he had been drinking heavily.
"I claim refuge, milady," he replied, bowing with exaggerated flourishes.
"And a cup of coffee?"
"You're out of it. Those fardling circuit-clowns drank it all up. But you're off bounds and incommunicado 'sfar as Cencom knows, my orders, m'love -so you're the safest place for me to be."
"You're not in trouble over the Beta Corvi. . ."
"Trouble?" and he sat down on the couch facing her column, suddenly collapsing limply back against the cushions. "Hell no. Not my Helva gal. Not Niall Parollan, Supervisor extraordinary. But we are," and a wild sweep of his arm suggested galactic rather than service parameters. "Well, you're not to be bothered, and I'm not to be bothered, and by morning, maybe the ol' brains'll be ready for more draining and dredging and. . ." his voice ground down to a whisper.
Helva thought he had gone to sleep, but then she saw that he was regarding her through narrowed eyes.
"Did anyone remember to tell you how far you exceeded optimimum expectation? Did the Chief remember to mention you've got two more commendations on your distinguished record? And a whopping bonus!" He pounded the couch in emphasis. "You'll Pay-off, if you keep up this rate." Then his voice softened. "Did I remember to thank you, Helva, for pulling off a lousy, fardling, stinking job you got conned into. . ."
"Not by you, Parollan. . ."
"Ha!" Niall Parollan arched his body to let out that burst of laughter before he sank again into the cushions. "Well, you did a great job, gal. I don't think another ship could have pulled it off."
"Maybe another ship would have brought all her passengers back,"
"Of all the noisome fardles, Helva," and Parollan sat straight up, "I don't need that kind of irrational thinking from you! Prane and Kurla had their own reasons for transition; so did Chadress. All three profited. As for Ansra Colmer, best place for that bitch. Outsmarted herself for once. There is true justice in the universe, and the Corviki never heard of Hammurabi!"
He lay back again, lacing his fingers behind his head.
"I like to see 'em sweat, those nardy bastards in Procedures," he chuckled.
"Over the bodies? Wouldn't decent burial be indicated by now?"