Anne McCaffrey - Ship 2 - Partner Ship

y#" CHAPTER ONE

PARTNERSHIP

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright # 1992 by Bill Fawcett & Associates

book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-72109-7

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, March 1992

Fourth printing, December 1994

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

To ordinary human ears the slight crackle of the

speaker being activated would have been almost in-

audible. To Nancia, all her sensors fine-tuned for this

signal, it sounded like a trumpet call Newly graduated

and commissioned, ready for service # and apprehen-

sive that she would not be able to live up to her family's

high Service traditions# she'd had little to do but wait.

He's coming aboaifl now, she thought in the split second

of waiting for the incoming call And then, as the unmis-

takable gravelly voice of CenCom's third-shift operator

rasped across her sensors, disappointment flooded her

synapses and left her dull and heavy on the launching

pad. She'd been so sure that Daddy would find time to

visit her, even if he hadn't been able to attend the formal

graduation of her class from Laboratory Schools.

"XN-935, how soon can you be ready to lift?"

"I completed my test flight patterns yesterday,"

Nancia replied. She was careful to keep her voice level,

monitoring each output band to make sure that no

hint of her disappointment showed in the upper

frequencies. CenCom could perfectly well have com-

municated with her directly, via the electronic network

that linked Nancia's ship computers with all other

computers in this subspace # and via the surgically

installed synaptic connectors that linked Nancia's

physical body, safe behind its titanium shell, with the

ship's computer # but it was a point of etiquette

among most of the operators to address brainships just

as they would any other human being. It would have

been rude to send only electronic instructions, as if the

2Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

brainships were no more human than the Al-control-

led drones carrying the bulk of Central Worlds'

regular traffic.

Or so the operators claimed. Nancia privately

thought that their insistence on voice-controlled traffic

was merely a way to avoid the embarrassing com-

parison between their sense-limited communication

system and a brainship's capabilities of multi-channel

communication and instantaneous response.

In any case, it was equally a point of pride among

shellpersons to demonstrate the control over their

"voices" and all other external comm devices that Helva

had shown to be possible, nearly two hundred years ago.

Nancia knew herself to lack the fine sense of musical

timing and emphasis that had made Helva famous

throughout the galaxy as "The Ship Who Sang," but this

much, at least, she could do; she could conceal her disap-

pointment at hearing CenCom instead of a direct

transmission from Daddy to congratulate her on her

commissioning, and she could maintain a perfectly

professional facade throughout the ensuing discussion

of supplies and loading and singularity points.

"Il?s a short flight," CenCom told her, and then paused

for a moment "Short for you, that is. By normal FTL drive,

Nyota ya Jaha is at the far end of the galaxy. Fortunately,

there's a singularity point a week from Central that wifl flip

you intolocal space."

"I do have full access to my charts of known decom-

position spaces," Nancia reminded CenCom, allowing

a tinge of impatience to color her voice.

"Yes, and you can read them in simulated 4-D, can't

you, you lucky stiff!" CenCom's voice showed only

cheerful resignation at the limitations of a body that

forced him to page through bulky books of graphs and

charts to verify the mapping Nancia had already

created as an internal display: a sequence of three-

dimensional spaces collapsing and contorting about

PARTNERSHIP 3

the singularity point where local subspace could be

defined as intersecting with the subspace sector of

Nyota ya Jaha. At that point Nancia would be able to

create a rapid physical decomposition and restructur-

ing of the local spaces, projecting herself and her

passengers from one subspace to the other. Decom-

position space theory allowed brainships like Nancia,

or a very few expensive AI drones equipped with

metachip processors, to condense the major part of a

long journey into the few seconds they spent in Sin-

gularity. Less fortunate ships, lacking the metachips or

dependent upon the slow responses of a human pilot

who lacked Nancia's direct synaptic connections to the

computer, still had to go through long weeks or even

months of conventional FTL travel to cover the same

distance; the massive parallel computations required

in Singularity were difficult even for a brainship and

impossible for most conventional ships.

"Tell me about the passengers," Nancia requested.

When they came aboard, presumably one of her pas-

sengers would have the datahedron from Central

specifying her destination and instructions, but who

knew how much longer she would have to wait before

the passengers boarded? She hadn't even been invited

to choose a brawn yet; that would surely take a day or

two. Besides, picking CenCom's brains for informa-

tion on her assignment was better than waiting in

tense expectation of her family's visit They would cer-

tainly come to see her off . . . wouldn't they? All

through her schooling she had received regular visits

from one family member or another # mostly from

her fether, who made a point of how much time he was

taking from his busy schedule to visit her. But Jinevra

and Flix, her sister and brother, had come too, now

and then; Jinevra less often, as college and her new

career in Planetary Aid administration took up more

and more of her time.

4Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

None of them had attended Nantia's formal gradua-

tion, though; no one from the entire, far-flung, wealthy

House of Perez y De Gras had been there to hear the

lengthy list ofhonors and awards and prizes she'd gained

in the final, grading year ofher training as a brainship.

/(wasn't enough, Nancia thought. / was only third in my

class. If rd placed first, iffd won the Daleth Prize.... No

good would come of brooding over the past She knew

that Jinevra and Flix had grown up and had their own

lives to lead, that Daddy's crowded schedule of busi-

ness and diplomatic meetings didn't leave him much

time for minor matters like school events. It really

wasn't important that he hadn't come to see her

graduate. He would surely make time for a personal

visit before liftoff; that was what really counted. And

when he did come, he should find her happy and busy

and engaged in the work for which she had trained.

"About the passengers?" she reminded CenCom.

"Oh, you probably know more about them than I do,"

the CenCom operator said with a laugh. "Tney're more

your sort of people than mine. High Families," he

clarified. "New graduates, I gather, off to their first jobs."

That was nice, anyway. Nancia had been feeling just a

bit apprehensive at the thought of having to deal with

some experienced, high-ranking diplomatic or military

passengers on her first flight It would be pleasant to

carry a group of young people just like her # well, not

just like her, Nancia corrected with a trace of internal

amusement. They would be a few years older, maybe

nineteen or twenty to her sixteen; everybody knew that

softpersons suffered from so many hormonal changes

and sensory distractions that their schooling took several

years longer to complete. And they would be softpersons,

with limited sensory and processing capability. Still,

they'd all be heading off to start their careers together;

that was a significant bond.

She absently recorded CenCom's continuing in-

PARTNERSHIP 5

strucu'ons while she mused on the pleasant trip ahead.

"Nyota ya Jaha's a long way off by FTL," he told her

unnecessarily. "I expect somebody pulled some strings

to get them a Courier Service ship. But it happens to

be convenient for us too, being in die same subspace as

Vega, so that's all right"

Nancia vaguely remembered something about Vega

subspace in die news. Computer malfunctions... why

would that make the newsbeams? There must have

been something important about it, but she'd received

only the first bits of the newsbyte before a teacher can-

celed the beam, saying something severe about the

inadvisability of listening to upsetting newsbytes and

the danger of getting the younger shellpeople upset

over nothing. Oh, well, Nancia thought, now that she

was her own ship she could scan the beams for herself

and pick up whatever it had been about Vega later. For

now, she was more interested in finding out what Cen-

Com knew about her newly assigned passengers.

"Overton-Glaxely, del Parma y Polo, Armontillado-

Perez y Medoc, de Gras-Waldheim, Hezra-Fong,"

CenCom read off the list of illustrious High Family

names. "See what I mean?"

"Umm, yes," Nancia said. "We're a cadet branch of

Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and the de Gras-

Waldheims come in somewhere on my mother's side.

But you forget, CenCom, I didn't exactly grow up in

those circles myself."

"Yes, well, your visitor will probably be able to give

you all the latest gossip," CenCom said cheerfully.

"Visitor!" Of course he came to see me off. I never doubted

it for an instant.

"Request just came in while I was looking up the

passenger list. Sorry, I forgot to route it to you. Name

of Perez y de Gras. Being a family member, they told

him to go right on out to the field. He'll be at the

launching pad in a minute."

6Arme McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

Nancia activated her outside sensors and realized

that it was almost night... not that the darkness made

any difference Co her, but her infrared sensors picked

up only the outline of a human form approaching the

ship; she couldn't see Daddy's face at all. And it would

be rude to turn on a spotlight. Oh, well, he'd be there

any minute. She opened her lower doors in silent

welcome.

CenCom's voice was an irritation now, not a wel-

come distraction. "XN? I asked if you can lift off within

two hours. Your provision list is more than adequate

for a short voyage, and these pampered brats are

kvetching about having to wait around on base."

"Two hours?" Nancia repeated. That wouldn't give

her much time for a visit # well, be realistic; it was

probably more time than Daddy could spare. But

there were other problems with leaving so soon. "Are

you out of your mind? I haven't even picked a brawn

yet!" She intended to get to know the available brawns

over the next few days before choosing a partner. "Hie

selection process was not something to be rushed

through, and she certainly didn't want to waste the

precious minutes of Daddy's visit choosing a brawn!

"Don't you young ships ever catch the newsbeams? I

told you Vega. Remember what happened to the CR-

899? Her brawn's stranded on his home planet #

Vega 3.3."

"What a dreary way to name their planets," Nancia

commented. "Can't they think of any nice names?"

"Vegans are ... very logical," CenCom said. "The

original group of settlers were, anyway # the ones

who went out by slowship, before FTL. I gather the

culture evolved to an extremely rigid form during the

generations born on shipboard. They don't make a lot

of allowances for human frailty, litde things like names

being easier to remember than strings of numbers."

"Makes no difference to me" Nancia said smugly.

PARTNERSHIP 7

Her memory banks could encode and store any form

of information she needed.

"You should get along just great with the Vegans,"

CenCom told her. "Anyway, this brawn is out in Vegan

subspace, no ship, nothing in the vicinity but a couple

of old FTL drones. OG Shipping ought to be able to

divert their metachip drone from Nyota, but as usual,

we can't contact the manager. So it's either waste

months of Caleb's service term by sending him home

FTL, or provide our own transport. You're it. You can

drop off your friends and relations on the planets

around Nyota ya Jaha # I'll transmit a databurst of

your orders after we get through chatting # and then

proceed to Vega 3.3 to pick up your first brawn. Very

neat organization. Psych records suggest the two of

you ought to make a great team."

"Oh, they do, do they?" said Nancia. She had her own

opinion of the Psych branch of Central and the intrusive

tests and questionnaires with which they bombarded

shellpersons, and she had no intention of being hustled

by Central into forgoing her right to choose a brawn just

because some shelltapper in a white coat thought they

knew how to pick a man for her# and because she was a

convenient free ride for a brawn who'd already lost one

ship. Nancia was about to turn up her beam to CenCom

and favor the operator with a few choice words on the

subject when she felt her visitor stepping aboard. Well,

there'd be time for that argument later; she could think

about it on the way out. Agreeing to transport the CR-

899's stranded brawn back to Central wouldn't commit

her to a permanent partnership, and when she returned

from this voyage she'd have plenty of time to choose her

next brawn.., and to tell Psych what they could do with

their personality profiles.

Meanwhile, her visitor had ignored the open lift doors

in favor of climbing the stairs to the central cabin, taking

the last steps two at a time; Daddy made a point of keep-

8

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

ing in shape. Nancia activated her stairway sensors and

speakers simultaneously.

"Daddy, how nice of you # "

But the visitor was Flix, not Daddy. At least, from

what Nancia could see of his face behind the enor-

mous basket of flowers and fruit, she assumed it was

her little brother: spiky red hair in an old-fashioned

punk crown, one long peacock's feather dangling

from the right earlobe, fingertips callused from hours

of synthcom play. It was her little brother, all right.

"Flix," She could keep her vocal registers level, to

conceal her disappointment; but she couldn't for the

life of her think of any words to add.

" 'S'okay," Flix said, his voice coming slightly muf-

fled from the stack of Calixtan orchids and orange

Juba apfruits that threatened to topple over him from

the insecurely stacked basket. Nancia slid out a tray

from a waist-level cabinet just in time. Flix staggered

into the tray, dropped the basket on it and sat back-

wards on the floor with a look of mild surprise. Two

glowing orange apfruits fell off the towering display

and rolled towards Nancia's command console, reveal-

ing a bottle of Sparkling Hereot in the center of the

basket. "Know you'd rather have Daddy. Or Jinevra,

Somebody worthy of the honor you do House Perez y

de Gras, You deserve 'em, too," he added after a

sprawling dive to retrieve the Juba apfruits. "Deserve

a brass marching band and a red carpet instead of this

thing." He brushed one hand across the soft nap of the

sand-colored, standard-issue synthorug with which

Nancia's internal living areas were carpeted.

"You # you really think I didn't disgrace the

House?" Nancia asked. She had been wondering if that

was why nobody had come to see her graduated and

commissioned. Daddy had always spoken of her

graduation with the words, "When you win the

Daleth...." And she hadn't done that.

PARTNERSHIP 9

Flix turned his head toward the titanium column

and gave Nancia the same disbelieving, slightly con-

temptuous look he'd bestowed on the beige

synthorug. "Stupid," he mourned. "Only member of

the family I can stand to talk to, our Nancia; only one

who doesn't give me hours of grief about giving up my

synthcomposing for a Real Career, and it turns out she

has worse problems than a few little malfunctioning

organs. If you hadn't been popped into your shell at

birth I'd suspect you were dropped on your head as a

baby. Of course you've done the House proud, Nancia,

what do you think? Third in academics and first in

Decom Theory and taking so many special awards

they had to restructure the graduation ceremony to

make time for your presentations # "

"How did you know about that?" Nancia

interrupted.

Flix looked away from the titanium column. Of course

she could still see his expression perfectly well from her

floor-level sensors, but it would have been rude to

remind him of that He looked embarrassed enough as it

was. "Had a copy of the program," he mumbled. "Meant

to show up, as long as I happened to be on Central

anyway, but... well, I met these two girls when I was

doing a synthcom gig in the Pleasure Palace, and they

taught me how to mix Rigellian stemjuice with Benedic-

tine to make this wonderful fizzy drink, and ... well,

anyway, I didn't wake up until the graduation ceremony

was about over."

He scowled at the carpet for a moment longer, then

brightened up. "Another thing I like about you, Nan-

cia, you're the only relative I've got who won't burst

into a long diatribe about how I could lower myself by

playing synthcom at the Pleasure Palace. Of course, I

don't suppose you have any idea what those places are

like. Still, neither does Great Aunt Mendocia, and that

doesn't stop her from sounding off."

10

" Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

PARTNERSHIP

11

He got to his feet and began pulling things out of

the basket. "So ... since I was unavoidably detained at

the Pleasure Palace ... and Jinevra's off at the tail end

of nowhere investigating a Planetary Aid fraud, and

Daddy's in a meeting, I thought I'd just drop by while

you were waiting for assignment and we'd have a little

private party."

"What meeting?" Nancia asked before she could

stop herself. "Where?"

Flix looked up from the basket, surprised. "Huh?"

"You said our father was in a meeting."

"Yes, well, isn't he always? No, I don't know

where; it's just a logical deduction. You know how

full his dayplanner program is. Y'know, I often

wondered," Flix rattled on as he unpacked the bas-

ket, "just how the three of us got born. Well,

conceived, anyway. Do you suppose he sent Mother

a memo? Please come by my office this morning. Can work

you in between ten and ten-fifteen. Bring sheets and pil-

low" He reached the bottom of the basket and

pulled out two scratched and faded datahedra.

"There! I know you think I'm a selfish bastard,

bringing fruit and champagne to somebody who

doesn't eat or drink, but actually I have covered all

contingencies. These are my latest synthcomposi-

tions # here, I'll drop them in your reader.

Background music for the party, and you can play

them on the trip to entertain yourself.

As the jangling sounds of Flix's latest experimental

composition rang out in the cabin, he held up a third

datahedron and smiled. Unlike the first two well-worn

hedra, this was a glittering shape with a slick commer-

cial laser-cut finish that spattered rainbows of light

across the cabin. "And here # "

"Let me guess," Nancia interrupted. "You've finally

found somebody to make a commercial cut of your

synthcompositions."

Flix's smile dimmed perceptibly. "Well, no. Not ex-

actly. Although," he said, brightening, "I do know this

girl who knows a chap who used to date a girl who did

temporary office work for the second VP of Sound

Studios, so there are distinct possibilities in the offing.

But this is something quite different. This," he said,

sounding almost reverent, "is the new, improved, vast

ly more sophisticated version of SPACED OUT, not due

for public release until the middle of next month, and

I won't tell you what I had to do to get it,"

Nancia waited for him to tell her what the thing was

about, but Flix paused and beamed as if he was expect-

ing some immediate reaction from her.

"Well?" he said after a few seconds. His spiky red

hair began to droop around the edges.

"I'm sorry," Nancia confessed, "but I have no idea

what you're talking about."

Flix shook his head mournfully. "Never heard of

SPACED OUT? What do they teach them at these

academies? No, no, don't tell me." He held up one

hand in protest. "I know. Decomposition theory and

subspace astrogation and metachip design and a lot of

other things that make my head hurt But 1 do think

they could have let you have a little time off to play

games."

"We did play," Nancia told him. "It was in the

schedule. Two thirty-minute periods daily of free play

to improve synapse/tool coordination and gross

propulsion skiUs. Why, I used to love playing Stall and

PowerSeek when I was in my baby shell!"

Flix shook his head again. "All very improving, I'm

sure. Well, this game" # he grinned# "is absolutely, one

hundred per cent guaranteed not to improve your mind.

In feet, Jinevra claims playing SPACED OUT can cause

irreversible brain damage!"

"It can?" Nancia slid her reader slots shut with a

click as Flix approached. "Look, Flix, I'm not sure # "

12

Arme McCaffrey #s? Margaret Ball

"Consider our big sister," Flix said with his sunniest

smile. "Go ahead, just call up an image from her last visit

Don't you think anything she disapproves of must be

worth a try?"

Nanria projected a lifesize Jinevra on the screen that

filled the center wall of the cabin. Her sister might

have been standing beside Flix. Trim and perfect as

ever, from the hem of her navy blue Planetary Techni-

cal Aid uniform to the smooth dark hair that fell

perfectly straight to just the regulation 1/4 inch dis-

tance from her starched white collar, she was the

pattern of reproach to every disorderly element in the

universe. Nancia couldn't remember just what had

caused the disapproving glint in Jinevra's eyes or the

tight, pinched look at the corners of her mouth at the

moment this image had been stored, but in this projec-

tion she seemed to be glaring right at Flix. One of the

red spikes of his retro-punk hair crown wilted under

the withering gaze of the projection.

Nancia felt sorry for him. Jinevra had never

bothered to conceal her opinion that their little

brother was a wastrel and a disgrace to the family.

Daddy, she suspected, felt much the same way. The

weight of the Perez y de Gras clan's disapproval would

have been crushing to her. How could she join them in

condemning Flix? She'd heard stories enough about

his wild tricks # there were times when Jinevra and

Daddy seemed to have nothing else to discuss on their

brief visits # but to her he was still the tousle-headed

toddler who'd hugged her titanium shell every time he

came for a visit, who'd waved and yelled as enthusiasti-

cally as if she were a real flesh-and-blood sister who

could cuddle him on her lap, who'd screamed with

glee when she carried him around the school track for

a quick round of PowerSeek with her classmates.

And what harm could it do her to try the stupid game?

"You'd like it, Nancia," Flix said hopefully as the

PARTNERSHIP 13

projected image of Jinevra faded into a blank screen.

"Really. It's the best version SpaceGamers has ever

" released. It's got sixty-four levels of hidden tunnels,

and simulated Singularity space, and holodwarfs...."

"Holodwarfs?"

'Just look." Flix dropped the glittering datahedron

into the nearest reader slit # fanny, Nancia couldn't

remember having decided to open that reader, but she

must have done so. There was a soft whirring noise as

the contents of the datahedron were read into com-

puter memory, then Flix said, "Level 6, holo!" and a

red-bearded dwarf appeared in the middle of the

cabin, brandishing a curved broadsword whose hilt

glittered with a shower of refracted colored light. Flix

dropped to one knee as the dwarf's broadsword

slashed through the space where his head had been,

rolled towards a control panel and shouted, "Space

Ten laser armor!"

A shape of light beams bent into impossible curved

paths around him. The dwarf bent and thrust his

sword through a gap between the rapidly weaving

lights #

And vanished.

So did the lights.

Flix got to his feet, aggrieved. "You cut the game offl

And I was winning!"

Anne McCaffrey - Ship 2 - Partner Ship

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