Anne McCaffrey - ship x - Honeymoon

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Anne McCaffrey - Tsw 6 Honeymoon

For those of you who have consistently asked for more Helva stories, here is "Honeymoon." Only it's an

un'story. I call it that because it cannot stand without a lot of explanation which really makes the minor

incident that is the meat of the story much too top' heavy. You really ought to have read at least "The

Ship Who Sang," the story, if not the full novel, to understand what is left out.

I have often called Helva my alter ego. "The Ship Who Sang" is my favorite story; I still cannot reread it

without weeping, for I wrote it in an unconscious attempt to ease my grief over the death of my father, the

Colonel. The other yams in the novel were therapy for other personal problems, none of which actually

figure in the plots. So, although this tale should have been the starting point of a new volume about Niall

Parollan and Helva, I don't really yet know if Helva will sing again. "Honeymoon" does tie up the one

loose end which the majority of my readers have complained to me about.

well, that young Honeymoon

"MAY I COME ABOARD, HELVA?"

Helva said yes without thinking because the traffic in technicians and Base officials attending to her

refitting was constant. Then, she checked identity because while the voice was familiar, no technician

would have couched such a formal request.

Rocco, Regulus representative for Mutant Minorities, was her unexpected caller. With the easy manner

of one used to the protocol of brainbrawn ships, the Double M man saluted her behind the central

column and sauntered into the lounge, looking about him with interest at the choice artifacts Niall had

introduced, the circuit prints and cables draped about the control console, the pattern of dust and grit

leading toward her engineering and cargo compartments.

"I've stopped apologizing for the mess," Helva said, "but the galley's intact if you don't mind serving

yourself while Niall's not here..."

"I'm here because he isn't, Helva," Rocco said, refusing her hospitality with a courteous gesture and

seating himself facing her panel.

"In which capacity? Double M, or Rocco?"

"Unofficially, but Rocco is always willing." Then he hesitated, biting the comer of his lip while Helva

waited, amused that the suave, fashionably attired troubleshooter for Double M was at a loss for words.

He'd had no block a scant seven days ago when he'd been needling Chief Railly before she'd extended

her Central Worlds contract. "Let's just say that I had an interesting conversation yesterday which leads

me to beg the indulgence of a chat—an unofficial chatwith you."

"On what subject?"

"Coercion?"

"Whose?" Helva was amused.

"Yours, primarily. Parollan's.. man can take care of himself."

Helva chuckled. "Now, Mr. Rocco, you were in Chief Railly's office that day."

Rocco impatiently brushed that side. "Yes, I heard the official line. They got you to extend your original

contract with them... which was almost legal."

"Very legal, Rocco. I did some surreptitious checking myself. And I got them..."

Rocco held up his hand, peremptorily cutting her off. "Did or did not Railly deploy a detachment around

you, effectively preventing you from lifting off if you'd so desired? And did or did not Parollan have to

short out a perimeter fence to get to you?" "There was a little misunderstanding..." "Little?" Rocco's

swarthy face darkened to emphasize that single explosion. "My dear Helva, I have my sources, too.

Railly had the entire planetary security force, civilian and service, looking for Parollan."

"I had Broley on my side." Helva chuckled for the city shell person's cooperation had been involuntary.

Broley still wasn't speaking to her because she hadn't opted for independent status and taken on one of

the clients he bad lined up for her. "So you did. Do you now?" "Oh, he'll sulk a while longer, I expect."

Rocco hitched himself to the edge of the couch. "Now, look, Helva, I know what it says on paper but I

also know that Parollan's resignation from the Service is still in effect. Oh, he's brawning you to Beta

Corvi, but there isn't anything contractual after that." "So?"

"Helva, I don't mean for you to be left high and dry. Especially with an incredible extension of debt which

you must work off. And with Chief Railly overtly your enemy because of Parollan. Now that guy may

have been a brawnbrain ship supervisor for the last twelve years, and bloody good at it from what I hear,

but that doesn't mean he's going to be a good brawn. By anything left holy, Helva, it's a long way from

telling to doing."

"Do you remember my last brawn, Teron of Acthion, that welltrained, physically stalwart twithead?"

Rocco gave a long sigh that ended with a grudging grin. "Okay, so he was a dud that BB School turned

out by mistake. You can go too far in the opposite direction." Obviously Rocco felt she had with

Parollan. "Seriously, Helva, that contract extension makes my skin crawl. You're committed to repaying

almost 600,000 credits... by the latest figuring."

"You do have good sources, Rocco."

He grinned again, maliciously. "In Double M, I've got to. Look, there's a lot more to this whole affair than

the fact that in a scant ten years you paid off your original indebtedness to Central Worlds for your early

childhood care, the initial shell, education, the surgery needed to fit you into this ship, maintenance, and

so forth."

"I paid off partly due to Niall Parollan, remember?"

"Granted, granted."

"And when this cyclevariant drive we're taking back to Beta Corvi gets approved, we'll be out of debt in

next to no time."

"Not when, Helva. //. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I saw the reports on that cyclevariant

drive, Helva. I heard what happened to the manned test ship."

Helva snorted with contempt. "Hamhanded fools."

Rocco would not be diverted. "I don't mean the fact that they inadvertently cycled the power source too

high, Helva, I mean that curious discharge that is worrying the nuclear boys juiceless."

"Why do you think we're taking it back to Beta Corvi?"

"And thank the gods that you are." Rocco recrossed his neatly booted legs in a nervous fashion.

"Whatever that particular force is, it's bloody dangerous. And no one seems to know why or how."

"They'll tell me." At least, she amended privately, she thought they would. If only because the use to

which humans put their minor form of stabilized energy amused them. (And what did you do on Beta

Corvi for an encore, Helva?) She was far from happy about having to go back to Beta Corvi, but the

ends justified the means... she hoped.

To have a warp drive in her bowels! To soar when she'd been forced to plod in a plebeian fashion. And

the hell with Rocco's "if"... although the if was a valid consideration. Still, she trusted the Corviki: she'd

been a Corviki.

"Look, Rocco, that drive is worth a great deal of hassling and stress. Niall knows it. I know it."

"Why?"

"The cyclevariant is faster than light drive, it's warp. By being able to stabilize an unstable isotope at just

the moment it is releasing its tremendous quantity of energy, the cyclevariant drive captures all that energy

because the isotope doesn't dwindle downscale to a useless halflife. It remains at the constant highenergy

peak. That output is controlled in its cycle of peak energy, and the rate of thrust—the speed of the ship

powered that way—is determined by the ratio of cycles used at any given time. True, you can't lift

offplanet on cv drive, and a ship has to be structurally reinforced."

"And that odd trail of particles?" Rocco asked sardonically. "Those unknown thingies that have thrown

communications haywire, loused up astrogational equipment, not to mention the solar phenomena

recorded in the systems through which that test ship ran?"

Helva was silent. She was less certain of how the Beta Corviki could cope with those emissions. Unless

there'd been a simple perversion of the data?

"Then there's the old philosophical question: Is this trip really necessary? Is man ready for this sort of

progress?"

"Rocco! I'd thought better of you." Helva was surprised as well as scornful. " 'If man were meant to fly,

he'd've been given wings.' "

Rocco regarded Helva with great tolerance and some sadness. "Helva, in my job, I become painfully

aware that some progress costs too much in terms of human adjustment, or emotional, psychological, or

even physiological stress."

"On the pro side, look at the exploration potential for a hundred different minorities."

Rocco sighed. "I suppose we're committed to progress at any cost. Onward and upward for bigger,

better, faster, smaller, tougher. However, back to my original topic, your coercion."

"There isn't any, Rocco."

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