The Ship Who Sang

The Partnered Ship

Hurtling through space at speeds no unprotected human could tolerate, Helva contemplated the delightful knowledge that she had paid off her indebtedness to Central Worlds Brain-Brawn Ship Service. She was her own mistress. Free. And free to choose, at long last, a partner, a brawn, a mobile human to companion her wherever she chose to wander. She was no longer limited to those sterling souls, fresh and eager from Academy training, fully indoctrinated in Central Worlds' ethos, conditioned to a set way of thinking and acting, molded according to predetermined physical, intellectual, spiritual, psychological requisites, and not what she had in mind. She could pick anyone now. She could. . .

Well, now, come to think of it, she couldn't. Brawns, for all their shortcomings, were not ordinary technicians, cranked out by the thousands from specialists' programs on every planet. They were especially trained and educated to function in an unusual partnership. She could not pick out an agreeable personality and find him deadheading on that charm. Even on short contracts, with an industrial or planetary agency, she'd have to rely to a certain degree on a brawn with sense, integrity, and a certain breadth of education, or she'd get royally rooked, industrially and systematically. And besides, she wanted a permanent partner, not another transient. She wanted companionship, an intelligent, sympathetic friend; not a passive employee. Another factor limited her field further. Many otherwise well-adjusted citizens of a complex, civilized galaxy were revolted or superstitiously terrified at the thought of a human being entombed in a bulkhead, connected to the operational circuitry of a powerful space ship. The neurosis could even extend to personalities like Teron, who deluded themselves that a shell person was really not human, was actually a highly sophisticated computer.

Very few people she had met, Helva admitted sadly, thought of her as Helva, a person, a thinking, feeling, rational, intelligent, eminently human being.

Jennan had. Theoda, except for that one brief instance of rapport, had been too immersed in her lifelong expiation to entertain a personal reaction to Helva, the human. And, although Kira Falernova had been with her over 3 years, neither of them had let the friendship develop into a deep attachment.

In fact, the only mobile human who appeared to regard Helva as Helva was Niall Parollan. And for all Helva knew, he had merely developed an effective way of handling his BB ship subordinates by alternately praising and insulting them in that highly personal, stimulating way.

And yet, he had stayed on the tight beam for 3 days, nursing that tenuous trace of her whereabouts. He could just as easily have delegated the duty to a regular com man. That he hadn't done so absolved him of her previous grievances.

She hoped someone had discovered him asleep at the control panel. He must have been in a deuced uncomfortable position to snore that way. Helva chuckled to herself. Too bad he wasn't bigger. He'd've made a good brawn. And yet, he was passed over, while someone like that nardy idiot, Teron, tall, brawny enough to look at, not only got into training but completed the rigorous course. He must have done it. . . as Niall had acidly suggested. . . on theory credits. Perhaps Central Worlds had better reevaluate their image requirements as a result of this Borealis fiasco. What heavy-woriders like Parollan lacked in stature, they made up in mass. . . and pure cussedness.