Partnership (39 page)

"I wasn't planning to argue," said Nancia with, for her, unaccustomed meekness. Indeed, after the stresses of that prolonged stay in Singularity, followed by the limping return voyage on one-third power, she had very litde desire to do anything but park herself in orbit around Vega Base and watch the stars wheel by.

Or so she told herself She was tired and injured; she wasn't up to the stressful task of transporting the prisoners and witnesses back to Central for trial It was for more sensible to prepare a datahedron of her own testimony, something that could be sent back on the bright new Courier Service ship that came to collect theothers.

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Til miss you," Forister said, "but you'll be back in action soon, Nanria. Why, at the speed Central works, you'll probably be returning before the trial's over!

And if you don't" — he hefted the gleaming weight of the megahedron in one hand — "this is as good, for all legal purposes, as having you there. You've transferred datacordings of everything that happened on board or that you perceived through your contact buttons, right? Should be the most complete — and most damning—record we could ask for."

"It — may not be as complete as you expect," Nanda said. "I have some memory gaps, you know."

"Yes, I know. But having you there in person —

well, via contact button, I suppose — wouldn't make any difference to that, would it? If something's been lost from your memory banks, it won't come back under cross-examination."

That was true enough, Nancia supposed; and if the damage to her memory banks were the only cause of gaps in the recording, there'd be no reason at all for her to undergo cross-examination. The subject was not one she wished to discuss in any detail. She said good-bye to Forister, tried to control the twinge of loneliness she felt when the new CS ship took off, and went back to her observations of the stars of Vega subspace. Stars were restful; bright and calm, in unchanging patterns as familiar to her as—as —

Nancia discovered that she could no longer

"remember" the names of the constellations as they appeared in Vega subspace. She had never spent long enough in this subspace to establish the look of the sky in her own human memory; and the navigational maps that she relied on had been erased. So had her tables of Singularity points and decomposition algo-rithms, her Capellan music recordings....

"Do you know, I'm sorry I used to laugh at softpersons," she said thoughtfully to Simeon while the techs PARTNERSHIP

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buzzed about her, removing the melted blobs that had been hyperchips, restoring connections and sensors, building in new blank memory banks to be loaded with whatever information she requested. "I never realized how crippled they are, having to rely on no more skills and information than they can store in an organic brain."

"It's not nice to laugh at the handicapped," Simeon agreed gravely. "I trust this has been a learning experience for you, young FN. Would you like me to help you prepare a list of data requests for your new memories?"

"Yes, please," Nancia said, "and" — this she did remember, the frustration of listening to the medical jargon of the techs at Summerlands working on Caleb

— "do you think I can afford a classical education?

Latin and Greek vocabularies and syntax?"

"I'll indent for the Loeb Classical Hedron," Simeon said. "That has twenty-six Old Earth languages plus all the major literature."

"And — " she didn't want to go too far into debt—"a medical set? Pharmacology, Internals, and Surgical?"

"Should be standard equipment on any ship gets into as much trouble as you do," Simeon agreed.

"Yes, but can I afford it? I've lost some accounting data; I don't know how my credit stands with Courier Service — "

Simeon came as near to a laugh as Nancia had ever heard from him. "FN, trust me, the bonus for this last job, plus the hazardous service pay, will cover any frills you want to request and go a long way towards paying off your debt to Lab Schools. Pull off a couple more like this and you'll be a paid-off shell, your own woman. In fact," he added thoughtfully, "there's no reason why you should pay for the classical and medical hedra. I'll just slip those in as pan of the replacement list, which is charged to Central — "

"No," Nancia said firmly. "That's how it starts."

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"How what starts?**

"You know. Darnell. Polyon. Everything."

"Oh. Well, I sec what you mean, but it is a gray area, you know..."

"Not," Nancia said, "for House Perez y de Gras. I'D

buy the extra skills hedra myself, out of my bonus.

From the figures you just beamed up, I'll have more than enough to pay honestly for those 'frills' and any other expenses I may incur during this stay."

But that was before she discovered the item that would strain her budget to its limits.

Nancia's repairs were nearly finished when Caleb, now walking without a stick and looking even more muscular than before, landed at Vega Base and requested permission to come aboard. Nancia exclaimed in delight at the bronzed, fit young man she saw stepping out of the airlock.

"My goodness, Caleb, you look as if you'd never been ill a day in your life."

"There wasn't much to do at Summerlands,** Caleb said dismissively. "It's a sin to waste time; I worked out in the physical therapy rooms most of die time while they were fussing over final tests and declaring me fit for duty again. What's our next assignment?**

"Our?"

"You didn't think I'd desert you? You made some errors of judgment while I was away, Nancia, but nothing that can't be repaired. In fact," Caleb added, looking around the gleaming interior from which all traces of OG Shipping's mauve and puce had finally been removed, "it looks as if the repairs are just about finished."

"They are, but Caleb, I — I'm partnered with Forister now," Nancia said. She felt guilty as she said the words; suppose Caleb felt that she was rejecting him? But it was the simple truth. Her call sign was FN-935 now, not CN.

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"Temporary assignment," Caleb brushed that aside.

"Now I've been pronounced fit again, Forister can go back into comfortable retirement. No need for him to continue straining himself in tasks he's really not up to. Take this last debacle. You're not to blame, Nancia, being young and inexperienced, but you must see that it was handled all wrong. If..."

While Caleb blithely explained the mistakes Forister had made and how he, with the benefit of hindsight, could have done so much better, Nancia attempted to control some new and unfamiliar sensations.

Simeon, she tightbeamed to the managing brain, is there a malfunction in my repaired circuits ? My sensors show a temperature rise and high conductivity, and I'm picking up a strange buzzing m some of the audio circuits.

The Vega manager's reply was a few seconds delayed. Fascinating, he beamed back while Caleb continued his speech. Yoursynaptic connectors are picking up direct emotional signals. What an unusual coupling — that's not supposed to happen. You must have done something to your connections while you were fighting the hyperchip attack.

What are you talking about ? Is it dangerous ? Fix it! Nancia demanded.

Simeon transmitted a chuckle over the audio circuit, stopping Caleb in mid-peroration.

"What was that? Is Central trying to contact us?"

"No, just a — a message from one of the repair techs," Nancia improvised. "You were saying?"

"Well, try not to let it happen again," Caleb said ir-ritably. "We've got to get our future relationship straight, Nancia; surely that's more important than some last-minute twiddling with your repairs? Now listen. I don't want you to feel guilty over what's past."

"Why should I?" Nancia asked, startled. "Oh, because I didn't report the conversations I heard on my rst voyage, and stop those young criminals before ley got properly started? Well, I do feel guilty. That 312

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was a bad mistake." But one Caleb had encouraged her to make.

"I don't mean that at all!" Caleb said. "You acted with perfect propriety in keeping those conversations private. I mean die way you've been rocketing around the Nyota system, bearing false witness, pretending to be something you're not, encouraging breaches of PTA regulations on Angalia, getting involved in all sorts of violence and mixing with very questionable people indeed — "

Simeon, I know Tm overheating. Can't you send a tech out to fix my circuits?

There's nothing to fix, Nancia, but Lab Schools will want to study just how you achieved it. Briefly, you've created a mind-body feedback hop between your cortex and the ship—one that carries emotional as well as intellectual and motor impulses.

You mean — ?

You're a little more like a softperson than the rest of us, Nanda — or, you might say, a little more human. You're angry, my dear, and your connections are showing it. Flushed, ears buzzing, breathing faster, higher fuel consumption —yes, Td say you're in a roaring snit. And not without cause. You've out-grown that righteous little snip, Nancia. When are you going to shut him up and kick him off you?

" — but you were misled, and I myself bear some of the fault, having allowed you to persuade me against my better judgment into the first false step on the downward path of deception," Caleb finished his sentence without being aware of the split-second exchange between Nancia and Simeon. "Now that you've seen what such things can lead to, I'm sure you'll repent of your errors. And I want you to know that I freely and completely forgive you. We'll never speak of this again—**

"You're darned right, we won't!" Nancia interrupted.

"Go find yourself a ship to match your morals, Caleb!"

"What do you mean?"

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To calm herself down, Nancia took a moment to convert her entire Vega subspace map to Old Earth linear measurements and back. By multiple precision arithmetic routines. In surface-level code. She was on the verge of hurting Caleb's feelings. And she wasn't quite angry enough to do that. The inexperienced young brainship who'd teamed with Caleb five years ago would have accepted his self-righteous lecture as if he were laying down Courier Service regulations. It wasn't Caleb's fault, or her fault either, that she'd out-grown his narrow black-and-white view of the world.

Forister had taught her the value of shades of gray and die duty of perceiving them. And if now she felt more truly partnered with that spare, sardonic, aging brawn than with the young man who'd shared her first adventures — well, there was no reason Caleb should suffer unnecessarily on that account.

Her overheating circuits cooled down and the buzzing in her ears stopped as she calmed herself with tranquil, fixed equations.

"It wouldn't work, Caleb," she said at last. "You may

. forgive me, but the past would always be between us.

You'd do better to find another brainship, one that has never betrayed your high ideals." Preferably one that

^hasn't been commissioned for more than ten minutes.

"For myself—" Nantiasighed, "sadderbutwiser,"f/iaft

\true, anyway, "I think it is more appropriate for me to peti-j tion Central that my temporary partnership with Forister be made permanent, or to find another brawn if Forister I chooses to retire now." Please, please, doritlet himdo that.

"Well." At least Caleb's speech-making impulses had

[been knocked out temporarily. "If you really uiink..."

"I do," said Nancia, "and," she added firmly, "I will pay (the penalty fee for requesting a brawn reassignment. It's not fair diat you should bear any part of that burden."

But it was a little disappointing to see how quickly I Caleb accepted the offer....

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The trial of the Nyota Five, as the gossipbyters had dubbed Nanda's first passengers, was still in progress when she landed at Central Base some weeks later.

The solitary journey back, with no brawn or passengers to distract her, had given Nantia plenty of time to think .. . perhaps too much. She had no way of knowing how the trial was progressing or how the court had reacted to the testimony presented; in deference to High Families sensibilities, newsbeamers were not permitted in the courtroom and die gossipbyters had nothing but speculations to report. She didn't even know if the court would wish her cross-examined on the deposition she'd sent back on datahedron. Well, if they did, she was available now.

And diere'd be no new assignment until Forister was released from testifying and free to brawn her again. If he still wanted to, once he'd heard what was on her deposition... and what wasn't

Nancia didn't have much time to brood over that possibility; she had hardly touched down at Base when a visitor was announced.

"Perez y de Gras requesting permission to board," the Central Base managing brain warned her in advance.

That was a welcome surprise! The last Nancia had heard from Flix was a bitstream packet from Kailas, mostly consisting of pictures of the seedy cafe where he'd found a synthocomming gig. He must have quit

— or been fired.... Well, she wouldn't ask him about diat Nancia opened her outer doors and set die wall-sized display screens in the lounge to show the surprise she'd been preparing for him.

"Flix, how lovely, I didn't know you were ..." she began joyfully as the airlock slid open. The words died away to a faint hiss from her port speaker as she took in die sight of the trim, gray-haired man who stood in the open airlock, surveying her interior with cool gray PARTNERSHIP

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res. Nancia hastily blanked out the moving displays liner new, holo-enhanced, super-detailed SPACED

)UT and replaced them with some quiet, correct im-

!jes of still life paintings by Old Masters.

"As far as I know," said Javier Perez y de Gras, "he isn't. Although doubtless, now that I've been reassigned to Central, your litde brother will find another squalid position on this planet from which to annoy me with the sight of his failure."